[technoir]

This is a nice story, but not an accurate reflection of reality. Look at the statistics on who are issued patents, who receives royalties. It's not the noble independent inventor, it's old MegaCorp that doesn't blink at underwriting the massive expense of prosecuting a good patent.

The story you describe is a convenient myth to justify a system that benefits established interests.

[technoir]

ChuckM, I appreciate your polite tone and sincerity.

To illustrate my point, consider my story. I'm a software developer with entrepreneurial ambition and I'm developing a product I have dreams of marketing and selling. Last week I probably came up with 5 methods of doing some novel data analysis that are patent-able.

How many will I patent? Well considering it would cost about 100-150k to adequately protect that intellectual property and I have only my own boots to my name, ... I'll patent zero of them.

Clearly the system does not work for me.

This is one extreme scenario, but consider the continuum. What about a startup with 500k in seed funding? Should they spend 50% of their capital to protect their intellectual property before they've finished a product and made sales?

Meanwhile large companies spend millions on patent programs which sweep up wide swaths of IP on nebulous grounds of validity. Not only can I not afford to prosecute a patent, I can't even afford to respond to a cease and desist letter based on an invalid patent which came out of the "innovation process" of MegaCorp.

Sorry, but the system is not for the little guy or the start up.

[ChuckMcM]

Fair enough, I've got a couple of questions for you though.

First, and perhaps most importantly, how did you arrive at a cost for filing a patent? I ask because there is a lot of mis-information out there spread mostly by patent attorneys that try to make this case. The actual fees for filing a patent are not all that high, however attorney fees are astronomical by comparison. Also did you know there are people who are registered patent agents (not attorneys) who can help you file a patent at a much lower cost? I guess the real question is how deeply have you investigated patents with available online resources before deciding they were not worth pursuing?

I've got just over a dozen patents issued to me, they range from the quite simple (protecting a laptop screen from onlookers using lcd glasses) to fairly complex (protecting executable code with bi-directional authentication). I've also been the advisor to a number of startups which have filed for and received patents. The most expensive cost was probably the bi-directional authentication one because it got the department of state involved (long story) but the first one was quite inexpensive, about $15K from deposition to issuance. Part of the expense can come from trying to patent something really broad (like "breathing air") which gets a lot of 'office actions' from the patent office for prior work and restatement of claims. That burns a lot of attorney hours and that is a lot of cost. For things that are narrowly claimed and there is little to no prior art in the patent database, they are very quick to patent and thus very cheap.

Now a patent attorney will advise you to "get as broad coverage as possible" to maximize the "value" of the patent. Which is good, but somewhat self serving advice. They will start with something really broad and the repeated office actions will pare it down into something much less broad, but arguably "as broad as possible." Also "as expensive as possible."

Not a lot of people who argue for or against the patent system have been through it, I've been through it as an inventor, an acquirer (due diligence), and expert witness (defender) of various patents. That experience has helped me get to the point where I've separated my opinions about patents and patent administration into two camps. The latter is problems with how they are vetted, prosecuted and defended, the former is about the concept of protecting the person who did the work from exploitation.

Given changes in the JOBS act there was some additions more cost effective ways to file patents that made it easier for folks in your position to file them. There are also systems like provisional patents, where you put down that you're going to file them in a durable way, so that if you go talk to BigCorp and tell them what you are doing, and they "steal" your idea and implement it, you can "steal it back" by asserting your patent rights to it.

I guess my point is that it is a lot more complex than "good" or "bad" and the information that is readily available may not always come from a disinterested source.

[magoghm]

Actually, it would be much more expensive than that if you end up having to defend you patent in court http://www.cnet.com/news/how-much-is-that-patent-lawsuit-goi...

[ChuckMcM]

You could actually do some research if you wanted to and realize the truth of the statement, I'll give you the couch potato version, watch 'Shark Tank' or 'Dragon's Den' and rank all of the engagements where the question of a patent came up. Or you could do as I have done and participate in on M&A discussions for over a decade as part of the due diligence team and compare outcomes when patents exist and when they don't. Or you could approach the question using some basic reasoning, if the BigCorp is spending millions a year to develop a patent portfolio, how much of that value would carry over into the acquisition of SmallCorp with or without patents? Zero? Non-zero? How much non-zero? Can that number be deduced?

You don't have to believe some random guy commenting on Hackernews here, but you do have to actually think about it and test your assumptions.