Below is my account of the Patent Troll debate at PatCon 4. As those who were in attendance know, it was a dynamic, insightful, and interesting discussion about a very complex issue.
Resolved: That hostility to patent trolls is not well justified theoretically or empirically and will likely result in bad law.
Pro: David Schwartz, John Duffy
Con: Michael Meurer, Mark Lemley
***
John: Hostility to patent trolls unfounded as a theoretical matter. Patent trolls rely on two fundamental features of the patent system, and that defines their business model.
1) Alienability of patent rights: this should not be changed. This is something that should be kept, not just because of property rights theory generally, but also because of patent rights in particular. This is because inventors are generally not people who are good at business. So you need to allow these people to transfer their patent rights to others.
Consider AT&T research labs: better to have everything integrated into a massive corporation or to have rights spread out among lots of people.
2) Litigation costs are high. We should generally not be happy about this generally. We can all agree that this is a problem. But patent trolls are more efficient at dealing with this type of litigation. They’re more capable of asserting of asserting these rights. Also, keep in mind that if you have relatively narrow patent rights, you’re going to need an efficient market for those narrow rights. This is the role that patent trolls offer. This allows for the valuation of patents.
Mike – Three observations:
1) Relatively little troll activity at the start of the 20th century
2) Small businesses have motivated Congress and the White House to pursue a variety of reforms
3) Peter Detkin thinks that there is a lot of evidence that some folks are gaming the system.
Empirical research shows that patent trolls impose a tax on innovation. This hazard increases with R&D investment. Other research supports this conclusion. Patent defense imposes a cost on companies’ Research and Development. Patent defense has a negative effect on small firm R&D persisting for up to three years. This harm was present even if the defendant won the lawsuit. This is particularly concerning since there’s evidence indicating that patent trolls frequently lose their lawsuits.
This produces a chilling effect, that is strongest among small, high-tech firms. New research by Catherine Tucker showing patent troll litigation “was associated with a loss of roughly $21.8 billion of VC investment over the course of five years.”
Dave: Theory that NPEs can be good for the system because they’re specialist. Prof. Meuer system seems to be arguing that the whole patent system doesn’t work. Dave can’t address all that; the debate here is just over whether the specific entity that holds the patent matters. And he’s not convinced.
Dave might be persuaded if the suits were mainly frivolous, then there might be a big problem. But there’s not clear evidence of this. Going to lay out some guideposts about what he thinks are the right way to think about this issue:
1) Critical issue of what a PAE is. This definitional problem needs to be overcome first. Anyone that doesn’t practice the patent? Too broad; encompasses universities, individual inventors, aggregators.
2) Need to have a baseline to compare to. If the type of entity is the problem, then it can’t just be problems endemic to the patent system that matters.
3) Need to fundamentally we as academics approach research into patent litigation. Can’t keep all this research private. Data needs to be publicly available, for many reasons. For example, the definitional issue: does this change the outcome? Very hard to have a meaningful discussion about all this when the data is proprietary and held by corporations with skin in the game.
Mark: His position is that trolls aren’t necessarily the problem with the patent system. But while trolls themselves are not the problem, trolls are a symptom of real problems with the patent system. They’re a symptom of long tendency times, unclear claims, incentives to write broad functional claims. As a result of these things, anyone can easily and cheaply stand up and make a plausible claim that I’m entitle to a portion of your company’s profits. The result is a development of the ‘bottom feeder’ model, where at least some entities are pursuing a strategy of extorting nuisance value settlements. Trolls can make use of high discovery costs and asymmetries.
Is hostility to trolls making bad law? Let’s look at developments:
1) eBay: you get an injunction when you’re entitled to one.
2) We got more sophisticated with our damages arguments
3) Eliminated the willfulness infringement letter game
4) Reduced the cost of addressing patent validity by inter partes review
5) Started to eliminate forum shopping
What is Congress/Courts doing?
1) Give district courts discretion to punish frivolous suit
2) Forcing patent holders to be more clear in their claims in Biosig v. Nautilus
3) Considering reducing the cost of discovery by addressing e-Discovery
4) Considering making patent holders sue the manufacturer, rather than the downstream users or mom and pop merely as a way of increasing the royalty base.
Mike: Rebuttal to Dave and John – There are many instances of small entities – such as biotech or pharma startups – that were able to enforce their patents without the need of intermediaries. Doesn’t see a major role for tech transfer via intermediaries in the pharma and biotech areas because there is a lot of tacit information. So very skeptical were going to facilitate much transfer of technology by facilitating PAE practices.
John:
Rebuttal to Mike’s invocation of the precautionary principle: we should welcome innovation. The rise of patent trolls is a rise of innovation in law. We should not be afraid of this; we should embrace it. Also, in every other field where there are property rights, there is a robust secondary market. Consider used car markets. It’s an oddity that we don’t have one in patent law.
Rebuttal to Mark’s point on taking advantage of asymmetries. But this is something that defendants do as well – defendants are perfectly willing to take advantage of independent inventors.
Rebuttal to Mike’s event studies data. [Had to talk real fast because he was running out of time so I didn’t get it, but the button line was that Mike’s studies have flaws[
Mark: John says we have to welcome innovation. But the kind of innovation that John wants to encourage are different from the innovation that Mark wants to encourage. The type of innovation that John wants to encourage is innovation in extracting value from the patent system; innovation in the legal models. And this imposes a tax on the innovation in the technical areas. John says that this is a property system, and any property system has a robust secondary market. But this is actually an instance that shows why patent rights are not property. Patent trolls are taking rights that are lying fallow and bringing them into the marketplace. But is this possibility really providing the primary incentive for folks to engage in technological innovation.
Also, let’s think about the change. We’ve moved from a world where 2% of all patents are being enforce to perhaps a world where we’re in 50-60-70% of all patents are being enforced. That doesn’t seem like technological transfer but something else.
Dave: Going to focus just on the bottom feeder point. He’s against suits that are frivolous. But this is where the data is weakest. And this is the linchpin of the argument. Mark suggests that there are a lot of these “bottom feeder” cases. But the main study here (Lemley, Allison & Walker, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1677785) isn’t really enough.
That study looks at the most litigated patents of all time. And it finds that 90% of the patents that go to final judgment by NPEs do not win. But the problem with this study is that is relatively limited, so it may just be outliers. Also, this study appears to involve independent inventor patents, which should be kept in mind. Third, we’re equating unsuccessful with frivolous suits. But that may not be the case. Finally, there’s the problem of selection effects. Only about 10% of cases reach final judgment. There are many reasons to think that the 90% are not like the 10%. Consider two possibilities:
1) The possibility of an injunction affects settlement negotiations. Since post-eBay, it’s extremely likely that a non-practicing entity will be able to get an injunction (unlike practicing entities)
2) Practicing entities have other things that they can offer in settlement other than just money – such as business relations, etc.
David McGowan – moderator:
For Mark & Mike: Isn’t John right to say that whatever else you do, you don’t want patent law to have effects on efficient firm size?
For John & Dave: Hypothetically, let’s suppose that the choice that a sophisticated NPE is a patent portfolio, where the transaction isn’t really about whether a patent is infringed, but the aggregate possibility that there’s something in the portfolio that is infringed.
Mark: The right way to think about nondiscrimination is to think about whether we treat like situated people differently. In other words, should we single you out for no other reason than you’re a NPE? No. But that leaves a lot of room to apply rules in other ways that depend on particular characteristics or attributes of the entity.
John: Since they sort of largely agreed with me, I’m going to declare victory on a theoretical level. No one is defending that we should treat inventors in these transactions differently depending on whether they are integrated into a large firm or not.
Dave: On the portfolio point. Serially asserting patents against companies. This is not unique to PAEs. This is a general problem having to do with aggregation. In Mark’s Forest for the Trolls argument, he can see some benefits from aggregation in solving the royalty stacking problem. There’s still potential for mischief with these portfolio structures, although there may be solutions.
John: Tremendous incentive for parties to come to an agreement on these portfolios unless all the patents are junk. And if all the patents are junk, then we have a bigger problem with the patent system. Both plaintiffs and defendants lose value when suits are filed; so both parties have a strong incentive to settle. I’m going to continue to file suit against you and lose. That’s not a very strong negotiating strategy.
Mike: One thing you should have told them, John, is that when a pharma company loses value when it files a lawsuit is because the shareholders realize that the patents are not as incontestable as they thought.
Basic economics of assertion by PAEs is, if we listen to John and Dave, is that they’re more efficient in enforcing patents. The effect of this is to shift the borderline patents that are being assert to lower quality patents. The result is that we’re going to have a marginal shift to lower quality patents.
In addition, the problem with the PAEs is that they aggravate the harms from notice failure. Greater bargaining power of PAEs makes innovation tax bigger. The size of problems with the patent system is exacerbated by PAEs.
David McGowan – moderator:
For John/Dave: Why did we see a spike in NPE suits from 2001-2009?
John: Innovation in patent monetization taking place. This is good. When people game the system, they show us new things to do. Some we might want to adjust in response to. But throw the entire innovation out? No.
David: Also, a growing view that patents can be a valuable asset, combined with a larger number of firms that were willing to take patent cases on contingency fees. But the real question is whether these are frivolous cases or cases that really are meritorious
For Mike/Mark: How are we going to get information that we can be confident in?
Mark: Going back to the study that Dave talked about. Fair to say that for various structural reasons it’s hard to know much about the confidential settlements. So what can we know?
We can look at cases that go to summary judgment and trial. Invokes weak version of Priest-Klein here to respond to the selection effect point. Also, these are a substantial chunk of the cases in the system as a whole. So when we tell you that 90% of those cases are losers for PAEs, that tells us something. Also, consider Colleen Chien survey on payouts, which indicates that most of these case are settling for the cost of litigation. Ultimately, though, we really need to have more transparent settlement data, not just for studying it, but also for creating a thick secondary patent market.
Finally, if the way that things work is that the more innovative a firm is, the more it gets sued: there’s a real problem with our patent system and a fundamental disconnect be the way that incentives are aligned.
Oskar: Consider this problem: let’s imagine two inventors who come up with a process patent that they’re never going to patent. So what we hope they’re going to do is ex ante licensing. You go around to the industry and try to get everyone to adopt it. Another road that could be adopted is to get the patent and put it in a drawer and wait until someone else comes up with the process and then go out an sue them (i.e.: engage in ex post licensing.)
In between this distinction, we can say that the inventor who actually pushes the invention out is socially better than the inventor who engages in ex post licensing.
John: Patents don’t get put in drawers these days. They get put on the internet. So not really as big a concern about ex post licensing. Also, see my recent article on the Paper Patent Doctrine in Cornell Law Review.
Mark: Oskar makes a really important point. We want technology transfer. Used to be a time when we got tech transfer through the patent system because diffusion was slow and patents made it faster. But diffusion of tech as sped up and the patent system has slowed down. The key here is a distinction between patent rights transfer and technology transfer. But in a world in which most patent lawsuits are filed against independent inventors not against copiers.
For another take, see Prof. Tom Cotter’s summary of the debate: http://comparativepatentremedies.blogspot.com/2014/04/patcon-4-patent-troll-debate.html
Nice dissembling Malcolm – pointing out your hypocrisy is hardly “keeping everybody in line.”
It is just a nice reminder though of your zero credibility position.
>But diffusion of tech as sped up and the patent system has slowed down. The >key here is a distinction between patent rights transfer and technology transfer. >But in a world in which most patent lawsuits are filed against independent >inventors not against copiers.
Saith the Mark.
You must be kidding me. You want to burn our system down based on nonsense talk like this from a person that is making his money through lawsuits? What a load of $#%!
As I pointed out, this comment is especially pernicious given that not only is Mr. Lemley a practitioner and knows the law from that angle, but he is also a teach and should recognize that his views so expressed will be taken as law to be taken as is (without a proper disclaimer that he is attempting to change the current law).
He is foisting a desired new state of law based on his personal philosophy and view of policy on the balance of technology transfer and patent coverage under the guise of what exists today.
Today there is no independent inventor defense to patent infringement.
Today the exclusive right means exactly that – the exclusive right.
Lemley has a double duty to ethically acknowledge this controlling state of law.
Lemley is off the scale in deception. His paper on functional claiming is shameful.
“Lemley has a double duty to ethically acknowledge this controlling state of law.”
Anon desires control over what lemley sayeth.
Sorry 6, but you misunderstand what I post yet again with your obsession over what others do or do not control.
Like it or not, ethics is a very real concern in law – and not one that I put in place.
You may want to ask your doctor why you feel this overwhelming obsession to post nonsense on blogs.
Did Lemley acknowledge that the sky is blue?
He’s a teacher, after all.
Clearly by failing to do so he’s hoping to foist on everyone a new reality according to his own philosophy and design whereby the sky is plaid.
Why isn’t Jason calling the Ethics Police? Did he forget the number? Pretty sure Hricik has the number on his phone, although accessing that number on a bridge and forwarding it Jason may infringe a couple patents. Perhaps Hricik was on a bridge and that’s the reason for the delay. Or maybe he meant rational basis as in strict scrutiny. Infringement is still a strict liability offense.
/typical self-righteous holier-than-thou incomprehensible nutjob rant off
Nice dissembling with a clearly off-point “blue-sky” reference Malcolm.
The problem is that you are off-point, and clearly fail to see how Lemley’s lack is directly on point to what he is advocating.
Answering a question is not the same as explaining what I say.
More sooper dooper deep stuff from everyone’s favorite path0l0gical liar. Taste the dust.
your attempt to paint me as a ‘pathological liar’
You are a path0l0gical liar. No paint is needed.
Shall we run through the evidence again?
Where shall we start?
Let’s start with “do you know what the controlling law is regarding the exceptions to the judicial doctrine of written matter?”
Then we can head over to “how does an ‘oldbox’ – without change – have a new capability that it did not have before a change introduced with an addition of a manufacture, a machine component known as software?”
Ready?
Go.
Let’s start with “do you know what the controlling law is regarding the exceptions to the judicial doctrine of written matter?”
Yes. It’s a bunch of self-serving gobbledygook waiting to be destroyed. Come and sue me with your junk patent that depends on this “exception”. Make my day.
Then we can head over to “how does an ‘oldbox’ – without change – have a new capability that it did not have before a change introduced with an addition of a manufacture, a machine component known as software?”
Is the box changed or not? First you say it’s not changed, and then you say it is. Who is the m0r0n who wrote that question? Seems like it was probably written by some non-native English speaker hoping that the question would answer itself.
Also: software is a “machine component”? That sounds like some self-serving b.s. that some lying t00l made up to please himself or some group of like-minded constituents.
Here’s Wikipedia: Computer software, or simply software, also known as computer programs, is the non-tangible component of computers. Computer software contrasts with computer hardware, which is the physical component of computers. ….[S]oftware consists of clearly-defined instructions that upon execution, instructs hardware to perform the tasks for which it is designed
So you were saying, liar?
Show me the lie Malcolm – I have not said one.
“waiting to be destroyed”
So you do admit (again) that such is the law…?
Why then did you prevaricate and dissemble so much and so often when I posted that you volunteered this admission?
You are a classic liar – heaping on lie after lie in order to attempt to cover your lies.
You.
Fool.
No.
One.
Does anybody have the March numbers for new patent infringement lawsuit filings?
They came in as only going up 100 percent compared to the innovation created of 2000 percent.
Of course Duffy is right that we should not be concerned about a secondary market.
“not concerned” is not how I would describe it.
“encourage” seems like a better word to me.
I will add too that there are clear indications that some of these people are unethical and present arguments with a political agenda and are not academics. In fact, why would we assume that any of these people are anything but shills for corporations? Why should someone like Lemley that is making big money off of patents be assumed to be anything but a shill? Why? The old model of being an academic that takes their salaries from universities and scholarly work is gone. A professor should be assumed to be working for someone for a pay day—and not be an academic.
So, Lemley’s words should carry no more weight then a commercial for Exxon on t.v.
And, how do these smart little boys account for Motorola. Without patents all their innovation would have been worthless. Instead because of patent the company survived the employees were rewarded for innovating.
Man. This. Is. Ridiculous. You cannot win when people say black is white and white is black and there are no rules.
The wasteland that serves as the font of ethics
Your psychiatrist called. He wrote the wrong prescription, apparently. Don’t take any more of the green ones.
As I said children, just move along now.
MM you really are a heinous person on this blog. You smear everything with your nonsense. I’ve asked you many times not to respond to my posts because you do not address substantive issues but push your propaganda.
NWPA,
Malcolm cannot help himself.
Clearly.
I’ve asked you many times not to respond to my posts because you do not address substantive issues
Substantive issues like …. whether Lemley is the devil incarnate? That sort of substantive issue?
Or are you including less substantive issues, as well?
Let’s settle for the substantive issues of law and fact centered around the patent eligibility of the manufacture of the machine component known as software and the patent eligibility of improvements to machines when an ‘oldbox’ is changed with the addition of the manufacture of the machine component known as software.
Real law.
Real fact.
Real simple things that go to the heart of the software patent eligibility issue.
And real things that make Malcolm run away real fast.
Just think now. I represent some start-ups. If they are copied, (I have written patents that have granted for them) I have to say to them that gee sorry guys, if you want to get this stopped you better figure on a $1 million dollars more at the PTO in PGR or IPR. We have to go back to the PTO for the big bucks now to stop these people that are taking a few hundred grand from your bottom line.
What say you? And, as Duffy is saying has some truth. The small guy needs a way to sell the patent or they will never have the resources to monetize their work.
“I have to say to them that gee sorry guys, if you want to get this stopped you better figure on a $1 million dollars more at the PTO in PGR or IPR. We have to go back to the PTO for the big bucks now to stop these people that are taking a few hundred grand from your bottom line.”
If it costs you a million dollars to do a PGR or IPR ur doing it wrong.
6, must you follow me around with your inane comments. Yes, for a single patent is can be done for less than that. But it isn’t going to be a single patent. Do you just follow me around and snipe with dopey comments to blow smoke? I think so.
The small guy needs a way to sell the patent or they will never have the resources to monetize their work.
Bullshirt.
Unless of course you’re talking about some functionally claimed computer-implemented junk that should never have been granted in the first place. In that case, who gives a crap?
But of course there aren’t any such patents, are there? I mean, there’s no evidence of such patents. Right?
>>functionally claimed c
All mechanical, electrical, and information processing patents are functionally claimed.
I just allowed an app yesterday 0 functional limitations.
Funny you one application you allowed. What percentage do you allow that do have functional claims? And, one examiner is not very meaningful. We know that one examiner with signing authority can wreck havoc with patent applications. And, a better question is what is wrong with functional claiming?
“What percentage do you allow that do have functional claims?”
Maybe 1%, probably less.
“We know that one examiner with signing authority can wreck havoc with patent applications. ”
Oh blah blah blah, a good chunk of my apps sail right through with a first action allowance. An even bigger chunk sail right on through with nothing but a typo or minor 112 here or there.
“And, a better question is what is wrong with functional claiming?”
Depends on the claim.
Check out this ridiculous pile of complete garbage:
8,688,143
1. A method of providing a location based service to create a social network, comprising:
creating a profile of a user;
creating an interest group feature based on at least one interest from the profile using a wireless terminal;
activating the interest group feature from the wireless terminal;
registering from the wireless terminal with a location based service associated with the interest group feature;
receiving one or more responses from candidates, where each of the candidates accesses the interest group feature based on a corresponding candidate profile and geographic location of each candidate;
and receiving one or more advertisements from a commercial entity associated with the interest group feature, wherein the interest group feature corresponds to an event at which the user and at least one candidate arrange to meet, the corresponding candidate profile of the at least one candidate indicating an interest in a nature of the event and the geographic location of the candidate being in proximity to an event location of the event.
“Creating”, “activating”, “registering”, “receiving”, plus a whole lot of hand-wavey garbage. “Interest-group feature”? That’s a limitation? What a frickin joke.
This is what the bottom-feeders call “technology”, folks. These people know they’re completely full of sh*t. They also know that the patent system is broken and so now is a great time to grab some “property” and start sueing people.
Technology?
Anon, now it is your turn to define technology.
Why Ned?
If Malcolm has such a problem with a patent that he disdains so, he is free not to use what that patent covers. Why the massive QQ from him? It comes down to utility Ned. Malcolm has been invited not to partake in the fruits of the innovation that he would deny protection to. He has refused. What does that tell you?
So you respond to my post by plastering us with more claims that you don’t like.
“long ago ceased to be protectable by patents.”
Cite please.
Can you respond with anything outside of your pathetic ad hominem stale script?
Repeatedly I invite you to respond with law and facts. You do not accept because you cannot accept. You have no law to pound the table of law. You have no facts to pound the table of facts. All you do is pound your table of “policy” and “opinion” and your shallow vileness is readily transparent.
Again, I invite you to find a profession in which you can believe in the work product you produce.
As I have suggested on other occasions, patent academics who also practice really should be held to a higher ethical standard than either academics who do not practice or practitioners that are not academics.
Even the appearance of impropriety should be avoided – rather than the reckless embrace that Lemley flaunts. He really should know the law better, and yet omits critical elements of the law in his advocacy to change that law and benefit his own personal interests (yes Malcolm, his personal interests are tied to Big Data, have you checked out who is on the board of Lex Machina – “Mark is the founder and a board member of Lex Machina, Inc link to law.stanford.edu ).
That he can ‘hide in plain sight’ and continue to pontificate in a manner that so clearly screams conflict of interest is rather incredible.
It is just incredible. Take for example Lemley’s (Mark’s) paper on functional claiming. That was a travesty of an academic paper. It provided no real analysis of actual embodiments that were covered and those that were not. It provided no solution to his fabricated problem. It was clearly a paper intended to proivde quotes for judges to burn our system down.
Shameful. And incredible that anyone could read that paper and not walk away feeling soiled and not recognize that it was not an academic paper but a rhetorical paper with zero ethical standards.
Night, I don’t know about Lemley’s paper, but the Supreme Court decisions are aplenty on why functional claiming is verboten.
That’s not true Ned.
Start with Morse.
LOL – Ned, you start with Morse and explain how you want to have an ‘oldbox’ that – without change – somehow contains all future innovations.
Still waiting for you to stop running.
anon, claims to programmed computers are really process claims. The computer itself is generic.
I would go so far as to say that any apparatus claim claimed as a series of steps is really a process claim and should be so construed.
“The computer itself is generic”
Now integrate reality Ned. The machine itself is changed. This is the essence of the Grand Hall experiment. This is the essence of Nazomi.
Do you still wonder why you cannot seem to understand that case? It is because you refuse to see reality.
This is strictly a “you” problem.
Malcolm being Malcolm,…
move along now, nothing here at all.
there are clear indications that some of these people are unethical
What are these “clear indications”?
I note that Jason doesn’t appear to share your belief. At least, he indicated no such belief in his write-up.
Is Jason also “clearly unethical” because he enables these people?
Let everyone know.
By your own admission you have worked for a large technology company of over 100,000 employees, therefore you’ve made big money off patents and your arguments should be ignored.
Kind of a silly argument to make, don’t you think?
“therefore you’ve made big money off patents and your arguments should be ignored.”
?? Not sure how you got to that being his argument. He is addressing the leeway being given to Lemley due to Lemley’s status as an academic.
You have parsed the statement too finely.
Another big take away: these people do not have actual experience. Only a third world country would pay any attention to a group of people like this with ridiculous studies that even ignore certainly the most objective study on these issues by the Federal Government’s budget office.
Let’s see real world experience that I have that these people don’t:
1) worked in at a large technology corporation (>100,000 employees). Evaluated tech for buy or build analysis.
2) worked with start-ups to develop IP and get them millions of dollars of funding.
Etc.
These bozos have no relevant experience in how patents actually provide incentives to innovation. Anything they say should be taken with a grain of salt.
Plus, each of them should disclose their financial interests in these matters.
Still trying to process this self-serving patent-fluffin’ nonsense from Duffy:
Innovation in patent monetization taking place. This is good. When people game the system, they show us new things to do.
Gee, using Duffy Logic I suppose “we” should do more to encourage patents directed to new methods of gaming of the patent system. And tax avoidance schemes. And methods of preventing or discouraging people from voting. New things to do! So awesome.
Seriously, though, the disconnect here should be obvious to everyone: “innovation” in methods of doing business occurs without patents. If we want innovation in business models, all “we” really need to do is encourage businesses to compete with each other for “our” money by becoming better businesses.
And that’s not to say that patents can’t play a role in promoting business. But “we” (meaning the vast majority of people not invested in the status quo) aren’t interested in promoting the business of patent litigation and patent monetization. “We” are interested in promoting progress in the useful arts: science and technology.
It’s pretty clear that the interests of Duffy and his cohorts lie elsewhere.
“occurs without patents”
Once again Malcolm, the patent system has never been solely a “but for” system.
Pay attention.
Duffy sounds like he may be for real. MM again you have no clue. Please stop posting.
Duffy: The rise of patent trolls is a rise of innovation in law. We should not be afraid of this; we should embrace it.
Who’s “we”?
All of us.
This is related to the Quid Pro Quo and the fact that more patents is in fact better for this country.
More patents means more shared Quo.
You really need to get into a line of work in which you can believe in the work product you produce.
more patents is in fact better for this country.
That’s a “fact”? LOL.
Okay, Patent Jeebus! So maybe we should get rid of the obviousness hurdle, huh? And enablement. Those rules just make it harder to get patents out there. Let’s just allow people to claim whatever processes and machines come into their minds, based on the desired results/functions. Whaddya think?
Any other sooper dooper ideas to rapidly increase the number of patents so our country can become “better” as quickly as possible?
You really need to get into a line of work in which you can believe in
You really need to get your meds adjusted.
“So maybe we should get rid of the obviousness hurdle, huh? And enablement”
Fun playing with your vapid strawmen, Malcolm?
You are really the t00l, aren’t you?
(yest that question is rhetorical)
Don’t need to qualify it Malcolm.
Patents are patents under the law and my position has always been clear that I am after valid patents, as I have on numerous occasions shared that a Approve-Approve-Approve rubber stamp is no better than a Reject-Reject -Reject rubber stamp.
You might try listening instead of jumping to your anti-patent CRPfest mode.
LOL – and you might try posting in an intellectually honest manner without the stale and trite ad hominem and limited script.
When was the last time you posted without the CRP and said something even remotely meaningful?
Do you even remember?
I have on numerous occasions shared that a Approve-Approve-Approve rubber stamp is no better than a Reject-Reject -Reject rubber stamp.
Ah, so you do wish to qualify your statement but you wish to do it in a way that doesn’t require to admit that you were mindlessly shooting your mouth off. So while you said “more patents are better for America” you didn’t really mean that. You meant “valid patents are better for America” not “more patents.” Right? It’s about quality, not quantity … right? For example, if we simply got rid of most of the junk patents that shouldn’t have been granted, there would be less patents but America (or its patent system, anyway) would be better off. Right?
Patents are patents under the law
Really deep stuff, there! Also completely non-responsive since, as we both know, the law changes all the time in response to all kinds of different factors. You complain about patent laws and rules (existing or proposed) all the time because you find them too stringent. People who favor more stringent laws are deemed “anti-patent” and, by extension, “anti-American” and (the weirdest part of all) pro-communist. Are you going to deny this?
I proposed changing the laws so that more patent laws would be granted. They would still be patents, though, because (as you so brilliantly observed) “patents are patents under the law.” Why would America not, in fact, be “better” with “more patents” of the sort I described? The novelty requirement is still there. What’s the problem, exactly?
When was the last time you
Get your meds adjusted.
“I proposed changing the laws”
LOL- See Malcolm, there you go – sloppy, eve so sloppy.
You now volunteer an admission that your usual tripe is not in accord with the law – you need to change the law to arrive at your desired end state. Me – I advocate the law as it is. Do you know what that is?
Svcks to be you.
Really really badly svcks to be you.
You now volunteer an admission
LOL. Man, you need better drugs. Ask your mom to talk to your psychiatrist.
drugs… meds… zero substance, zero credibility,…
Typical Malcolm.
zero substance, zero credibility,…
Patent Jeebus has spoken! Only he has the Magic Substance and Superior Crudability!
More patents is better for America! Patent Jeebus said so. And he doesn’t need to qualify that statement because everybody knows exactly what Patent Jeebus means — because Patent Jeebus said so.
Bow down, everyone.
I advocate the law as it is. Do you know what that is?
I know you’re a narcissistic s0ci0path. But everybody knows that.
Go ahead and tell everyone exactly what it means to “advocate the law as it is”. Write a full paragraph in English and see if you can do so without dribbling all over your bib.