[duped]

I'm no lawyer but I feel like a company shouldn't have standing to contest a patent if they can't demonstrate damages, like a product losing sales because someone else is selling a competing product using technology under their patent.

And "we paid for something and want ROI" are not damages. There's no legal right to profit from an investment. You gotta use it or lose it.

[DannyBee]

Unfortunately, patent rights are quite literally the right to exclude others from doing things. That's it.

Patent owners don't even have the right to make the invention themselves (because it may infringe on other patents).

So your problem is fairly foundational.

[webstrand]

The judiciary has decided to ignore the preamble "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". If that language was respected, the way parents currently work would be clearly unconstitutional.

[mjevans]

'useful arts' in that era meant what we'd call 'trades skills' today.

'To promote the progress of science (total human knowledge) and skilled technical artisans.'

Arguably, given the pace of technical innovation, and the clear effects on independent artisans, there shouldn't be patents at all. Copyright should also be re-evaluated, and if it still exists (it's so very easy to copy anything these days), and targeted towards maximum cultural diffusion of expressions of ideas within pop-culture cycles (20 years sounds LONG for such a timescale).

Trade Marks, however, those are consumer protection and product reputation issues and call for registered (pay a fee to the government) marks that renew as long as paid.

[DannyBee]

I'm not a fan of patents, but i'm not sure this is fair.

That phrase had a fairly specific meaning back when it was written, and they seem to be hewing to it.

It does not match today's colloquial understanding for sure, but that doesn't mean they are ignoring it.

[dylan604]

In this case though, licensing their code is their use of the product. Don't let your ire of patent trolls lump everyone together. I'm not saying MPEG/Via-LA are angels, but they own rights to code that is used by millions while holding active licenses with people using that code.

[duped]

I don't have ire for patent trolls, they exist within the system they create. I have ire for the patent business because I've read and written a number of patent applications, and see the entire thing as mostly bogus.

Normally you can't win a lawsuit without proving damages. My overarching point is that buying IP with no intent to use it does not create damages when someone infringes it. And relicensing IP is not "using" the IP to me - you either use it, or lose it. Unless of course, you're the original author (and by author, I mean the humans, not businesses that paid them)

The point of IP laws is to protect creators and encourage development. When the resulting markets do the opposite you have to ask if the design of those laws is flawed, and I really believe that.

[lmm]

> relicensing IP is not "using" the IP to me - you either use it, or lose it. Unless of course, you're the original author (and by author, I mean the humans, not businesses that paid them)

If I come up with a brilliant new compression algorithm, but don't have the software development skills to make a robust production implementation, what difference does it make whether I hire someone to write that production implementation, license my algorithm to someone who writes that production implementation, or sell my patent rights to someone who writes that production implementation (or licenses my algorithm to someone else who does that)? Heck, given that software is fluffy abstract stuff rather than physical goods, would you consider selling a program to count, or is it only someone who makes a hardware device that uses the algorithm who gets to count?

[duped]

So there's three cases here worth talking about.

1) You patent something, but don't do anything with it except enforce the patent.

2) You patent something, but the only thing you do with it is license others to use it, potentially hiring someone else to manage the licenses but you retain ownership.

3) You patent something, you sell the patent to someone else to do 2)

Cases 1 and 3 have significant negative effects on both technology and society that the law should prevent. Case 2 covers your brilliant new invention but don't bring it to market yourself and is fine.

The key notion here is that you cannot sell intellectual property. It's ephemeral. You can license it and create all sorts of creative license terms, but once you're dead or the timeline of exclusive rights runs out, or you personally stop "using" it (or all companies stop using it), the patent effectively expires because you can't claim damages if you or your license holders have not seen any negative impacts.

In a perfect world, "defensive" patent strategies and rent-seeking by middlemen would be prevented by construction. This maximizes the incentive to innovate and share ideas, instead of bottling them up. If you want true, exclusive rights to something, don't share it in a patent.

[lmm]

> Cases 1 and 3 have significant negative effects on both technology and society that the law should prevent. Case 2 covers your brilliant new invention but don't bring it to market yourself and is fine.

How are 2 and 3 meaningfully different as far as anyone outside is concerned though? If I own a field and I'm not a farmer, no-one cares much whether I rent it out to someone else to farm on or sell it to (either for some proportion of their income or for a straight up flat fee). Economically it's all the same - you can rent something or you can buy it funded with a loan, and your cash flows will be more or less identical.

[kelnos]

My ire for patent trolls is distinct.

The patent "business" is just garbage. A company full of lawyers collecting rents on mathematical algorithms does not "promote the progress of science and useful arts".

I think there is still a place for patents, but most of the time they seem to just stifle innovation and increase the cost of everything.