We see all sorts of ridiculous patent applications and patents, but my favorites tend to be the patents that have to do with patents themselves (such as the patent app on a method for filing a patent). However, the folks over at Patently-O have highlighted a fascinating patent application from an attorney at Halliburton, which appears to be an attempt to patent the process of patent trolling. The application covers, quite explicitly, having a company (we’ll say Company A) that does not invent something, find a company (Company B) that did invent something, but chose to use trade secret protection, rather than patents. Then, the Company A files a patent covering Company B’s technology, and then use the issued patent to get money out of Company B.
A least the courts are doing something about the insane perversion of the patent process for things like software patents. Remember the good old days when a guy in a garage or at his kitchen table could create a cool, inventive product without a prohibitively expensive army of patent lawyers to determine if something trivial in his design has been patented? Where might we be technologically if homebrew inventors weren’t discouraged from inventing?
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I bet Obama’s CTO targets this for change. Hopefully, effective change.
#1
Why don’t you get on your overpriced Apple PC and paste Palin’s face to Farrah Fawcett’s 70s pinup?
#2 – Worship, noted.
Besides, this is an interesting thread topic (for a change). Take your liberal hate somewhere else.
It would help if judges who hear patent cases actually had competence in the tech area they were judging. One click purchasing comes to mind.
The article draws the question, what exactly is a patent? I think that it is a contract between a government and an individual, to permit uncompetitive commercial exploitation of an idea in a jurisdiction for a set time period. This, in return for making the idea open to the public to see. A patent is in a way, a sort of open-source. Attorneys are wizards of obfuscation, their involvement in the patent business is unwarranted.
been there dont that…. say doesnt patenting patent application amount to a business method??? hhmm
something has to give
this patent trolling thing has gotten to be a cancer stifling innovation, and distorting the free market.
@james hill
i actually agree with you here, much as that scares me.
but just to give you something to post back about, here’s one for you: haliburton has to do something to keep the money rolling in now that cheney’s leaving office! hahahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahah
btw, i worship you because you are insane and probably gay (note that, hahahahahahah!)
heh. just kidding around, don’t get your panties in a bunch!
sincerely your liberal nemesis,
grog
I wish the patent office would consider a use-it-or-loose-it rule. A lot of companies hold patents in order to prevent the idea from going to market. I’ll give you two examples:
(1) A large oil company (Shell I think) owns the patent(s) for some advanced battery technology. This battery technology could really be used to help the development of electric cars. But, they choose to sit on it in order to help their core business, oil.
(2) Dyson Vacuum cleaners were the first to have the bagless cleaner. Mr. Dyson shopped his idea around to all the big vacuum cleaner companies at the time, such as Hoover. They all passed because they made their money selling bags. Hoover almost bought Dyson’s idea, not to make a bagless cleaner, but to suppress it. This is a decision they admit they regret making.
# 7 grog said, “something has to give
this patent trolling thing has gotten to be a cancer stifling innovation, and distorting the free market.”
Well said and, I think too true.
Sounds good. If Halliburton patents this then other scum bag patent trolls can’t use this tactic anymore. WIN!
It’s just a matter of time before Halliburton announces it needs a $100 billion bail-out package.
#3
“Take your liberal hate somewhere else.”
Nah, I don’t hug trees nor toss paint at Jennifer Lopez for wearing fur.
I am currently working on a business patent… I call it the Systematic Alteration and Lowering of Evaluation.
Or SALE for short.
Macy’s will definitely license it.
“Where might we be technologically if homebrew inventors weren’t discouraged from inventing?”
Ah, Uncle Dave, how do you know that this hasn’t happened? I’ve wondered for years now, where micro computing might be with big names like Microsoft, IBM, Intel, and yet Apple too, locking up everything in patents? The only time there’s been any real innovation, has been when someone found an unprotected niche in technology, and ran with it before the big boys could get to the patent office with some half-assed blanket patent, that their lawyers could argue that it already covered whatever the innovator had come up with. How many times has Microsoft tried that one?
The whole ideal of patents, originally, was to encourage people to expose their ideas, rather than keeping them a trade secret. The patent, in exchange, granted them exclusive right to profit from it, for a limited time. BUT NOT to keep anyone else from improving on those ideas, and submitting improvements to help further science and technology. Our government has forgotten this, and allowed the system to be corrupted into once more hidding ideas (like Operating Software code), and prevent anyone else from improving on it, for longer and longer extended times. Polaroid still controls the self-developing film technology. And by now, who the hell cares about it anymore? We’ve moved onto digital cameras. Good thing Polaroid sat on it for so long, eh? But that may be one of the rare cases where preventing innovation of a technology was eventually beneficial. It’s just possible that if there had never been a Microsoft, there never would have been an Apple iPhone. Just as there might not have been a U.S.A. without a King George to inspire its existence. But why must good things have to be born of such anarchy?
Or it could be that this guy working for Halliburton is a coincidence and the real goal of this application is to make a point about the absurdity our patent system has become.
How long until the Halliburton execs are living under a Dubai bridge?