I’ve been hoping to see some let up on the “patent troll” whiney tantrums we’ve been seeing of late. Geez, even the BBC News [1], which should know better, took up the issue and re-printed old arguments that keep showing up like a bad penny.
One BBC article [2] quotes FTC commissioner Mozelle Thompson saying some companies use patents “in an anti-competitive way, sometimes to prevent other products from getting to market, to prevent people from sharing ideas and to prevent the kind of innovation that the patent system is really trying to spur on.” Note to Mozelle: “Get over it.” Companies don’t have an obligation to give things away just because you want it and don’t want to pay for it. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.
A recent Tech Dirt [3] posting by Mike [4] (NOTE: I don’t know who Mike is, I couldn’t find any info other than Tech Dirt offers some sort of corporate intelligence insert your oxymoron joke here>), took offence with the former Patent Office director, James Rogan, indicating he is off-base in saying there’s nothing wrong with companies patenting something and then refusing to do anything with it.
Tech Dirt feels that this is contrary to the original purpose of the patent system, that is, To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts [U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Section 8 [5]]. Tech Dirt believes that patenting something and “then not doing anything with it other than suing companies who actually do innovate completely goes against the purpose of the patent system.” Really?
As we’ve written before, many people who complain about patents are only concerned about the impact they may be feeling at a particular moment. It’s selfish greed, really. This always comes up whenever someone wants to make a product and the rights holder won’t give them permission or whenever a patent holder asserts some rights against another. But those are the perks given by the system, the right to exclude others. Our great Founding Fathers looked beyond the immediate gratification we hold dear today and saw that the real value of the patent system is the investment over the long run.
The key part of the Constitutional clause is the phrase “securing for limited times” of patent rights. Although 20 years may seem like a lifetime to many (including my 8-year-old daughter with an incredibly short patience threshold), the true value comes over centuries of discoveries, the many lifetimes of hard work, all published for everyone to study and research. Yes, one may be blocked from development of certain technologies for 20 years but once the term has lapsed, the benefits run for all of eternity.
That seems like a pretty good bargain for the public as well as businesses that can take this freed knowledge and leap-frog ahead in promoting the useful arts. Without it, we’d still be using slate & chalk.