[clairity]

just make patent renewal fees rise geometrically on an annual basis. choose any base you want, such as e. the initial filing might be $100. the second year, it's $272. third year, $739. by the 11th year, it's $2.2M, so real money. if the patent is still worth it, then patent holders will pay. otherwise, they can relinquish for the benefit of the public at large.

do the same for trademarks and copyrights (perhaps with different starting fees and bases).

[bruce511]

You realise this suggestion would not have changed the situation under discussion? In fact it may make it worse (if a side-effect of this was to remove the 20 year limit?)

Then we have questions about juristiction - does one have to pay this patent fee everywhere, or just in the US?

And of course we'll ignore for the moment that this heavily skews the playing field in favour of large corporations with deep pockets and basically makes it impossible for small companies to enter the patent space.

Lastly it removes patent protection from small companies serving very small niche markets well.

Personally I don't like patents at all, but I see the need for them, mostly as protections for small market entrants. But your suggestion does not solve the problem being discussed, and comes with a raft of unwelcome side effects. So on the whole I would say your suggestion makes things worse not better.

[clairity]

no. if you want the patents to "expire" faster, you'd just change the base to something higher. no company will pay multiple billions to keep a patent into its 20th year. you'd use all that extra money for more plentiful enforcement against monopolistic practices like qualcomm's. that results in fairer markets overall, which benefits customers and new entrants the most.

the jurisdiction is the US, since this decision was made in a US court.

it actually helps small companies greatly. many frivolous patents by large companies (flanking defense patents, for example) would fall into the public domain within a couple years. companies would maintain patent only on the things that actually matter. small companies would enjoy many more ways to compete and many more unencumbered ideas to serve as jumping off points. what they wouldn't get is a surefire monopoly of their own.

[bruce511]

Your solution though attempts to fix the system by making it "cost more". This will always favour large corporations, with more money, while prejudicing small companies making small amounts of money.

Shortening the monopoly period simply reduces the time small companies are protected. For example, I invent widget x. I sell 100K worth of that a year. I can live on that. Patent expires, big corp copies x. I can't afford to pay for my patent, so they win. I stop inventing and go get a job at big corp to pay my bills. This is a net loss.

Equally this would not stop patent trolls - since in many cases their patent claims are bogus, BUT it would cost me more (and risk more) to fight it than just pay the license. People don't pay the license _because_ the patent has value, they pay because it's the cheapest route out.

Trying to ban "patent trolls" also fails because "troll" is subjective. If I licensed my widget x above to big corp, and I don't manufacture anything myself, am I a troll?

Your suggestion would not stop "defensive" patents either (although it would reduce their number.) But if you can stop competition with 10 patents you don't need 1000. So it'll have no net-effect.

[clairity]

sorry, all i get here is an emotional appeal, not coherent reasoning, so i'll bow out now.

happy to reengage if you can reformulate these thoughts into a rational position.