I feel this was due to my time on patent cases. In one I just happened to keep my lecture notes from the 1960s and in them I described a certain general implementation which some company thirty years after the lecture made a claim to have invented. It was common knowledge in the 60s but somehow the PTO never caught on.
But in the process it costs many entities millions each. To no avail in the end.
The NY Times has a telling piece on patents worth the read. As the Tomes aptly states:
One option is judicial activism. This year, Judge Posner, in an Illinois federal court, tossed out patent arguments made by both Apple and Motorola Mobility in a 38-page opinion that dismissed a lawsuit between the two companies. Cleaning up the patent mess, Judge Posner said in an interview, might also require reducing the duration of patents on digital technologies, which can be as long as 20 years. “That would make a big difference,” he said. “After five years, these patents are mainly traps for the unwary.”
Ideas have also come from policy experts and Silicon Valley. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently published a working paper calling for the abolition of patents, saying they do more harm than good.
Another idea is to create different classes of patents, so that some
kinds of inventions, like pharmaceuticals, would receive 20 years of
ironclad protection, while others, like software, would receive shorter
and more flexible terms.
In my view the patent is a double edged sword, on the one hand it conveys ownership and on the other it stifles creativity. What the best solution is one can but guess, however the problem is real. Anyone who develops technology recognizes the quick sands that are afoot, one cannot review all prior art, it is too massive, and ultimately one may accidentally cross a line set up by the PTO. On the other hand there are the patent collectors who set out to sue no matter what. Clearly the system is near being broken. How to fix it is the question.
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