[hansvm]

The two normal arguments are:

1. Patent trolls don't actually produce anything. They just extract rent from other companies.

2. The patents they choose tend to be extremely bad -- overly broad, should never have been granted, had prior art, the tech never existed, .... They use the fact that they're able to sue cheaply to bully people into settling on bogus claims.

Point (1) doesn't seem bad to me. It's kind of like how truck driving is separate from truck insurance. Having specialists capable of monetizing patents allows, in theory, inventors to invent and immediately sell for estimated lifetime patent value, minus a discount associated with the troll's costs and desired profits. Without trolls, in theory, you'd have fewer inventors because they'd also need to be/hire experts in marketing, litigation, ....

Point (2) is the one that bothers me the most, and my impression is that it's a very common problem.

Oh, and to your question, most companies use patents for mutually assured destruction and as a form of signalling that important people should want to work there, not to directly monetize. Monetizing patents is less common.

[cloverich]

The argument against your argument in (1) is that if the incentive is to patent and sell to someone who will not market the patented invention either, it still isn't promoting the development of the product. It is actually _hindering_ the development of the product, because now whoever does develop the product has to pay an additional tax. Its literally antithetical to the concept of patents (I am _assuming_ they exist to spur R&D development primarily).

Another argument against your argument in (1), is to allow the scenario to exist only where the purchaser of the patent can prove they are marketing and selling it. That is still not ideal imho, but at least it eliminates outright patent trolls.

HN is I think particularly sensitive because it has a lot of programmers and product development folks, who know that a good idea or even plan on its own isn't very valuable. I'd guess most of us have more good ideas floating around than we'll ever have the time or money to develop on our own. Its the execution and delivery of good ideas that is valuable; patents in our eyes make the easy part easier and the hard part harder.

[hansvm]

Except, if it really serves just to hinder development and as an additional tax then it wasn't a valid patent to begin with and falls under point (2).

Valid patents have to work (couldn't patent transistors in 1820), be new (which, as you mention, isn't the hard part in turning ideas into value), _be non-obvious_ (this is the point that pushes your idea from (1) to (2); if somebody else were likely to spontaneously have the idea then it wasn't a valid patent to begin with, and if they weren't then the "additional tax" is a tax on a product they otherwise could never have made), and include clear instructions (from the patent, reasonable competitors ought to be able to instantiate the idea -- if they can't, it's yet again invalid).

I do like what you're getting at though; the goal is to encourage actual inventions to actually be used. The patent mechanism attempts to do so by granting temporary monopolies (even with no real value via trolls), then guaranteeing that the invention is available for use afterward. You might be able to come up with another legislative mechanism encouraging real use of the patent before its expiry, and if it actually worked that'd probably be a good thing.