Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Patent Trolls

For inventors, patents are an essential protection against theft. But when patent trolls abuse the system by stockpiling patents and threatening lawsuits, businesses are forced to shell out tons of money. -yt
siftbotsays...

This video has been flagged as having an embed that is Region Blocked to not function in certain geographical locations - declared blocked by blackfox42.

RedSkysays...

It's worth pointing out there is a flipside to this. Small companies with genuine inventions and patents on those inventions often don't have the financial wherewithal to take on large companies that infringe on their intellectual property as those large companies could drag the litigation on for years and bankrupt the patent holder.

Instead, some of these companies choose to sell of their patent (while retaining exclusive use rights) to a patent aggregator for an up front fee, who specialised in this kind of litigation and expects to make their money back at the end of court proceedings.

Paybacksays...

I don't think anyone has a problem with someone with a product being protected. Patent law needs to be reformed to specifically exclude patents from non-producing entities.

RedSkysaid:

It's worth pointing out there is a flipside to this. Small companies with genuine inventions and patents on those inventions often don't have the financial wherewithal to take on large companies that infringe on their intellectual property as those large companies could drag the litigation on for years and bankrupt the patent holder.

Instead, some of these companies choose to sell of their patent (while retaining exclusive use rights) to a patent aggregator for an up front fee, who specialised in this kind of litigation and expects to make their money back at the end of court proceedings.

RedSkysays...

I don't imagine it'll be as easy as the video makes out (although I don't know the details of the law he talks about). There are surely genuine software (or otherwise non-physical) based innovations that should be protected as well as your standard notions of a patent.

Paybacksaid:

I don't think anyone has a problem with someone with a product being protected. Patent law needs to be reformed to specifically exclude patents from non-producing entities.

ChaosEnginesays...

Actually there's an argument that software should be protected by copyright rather than patents.

While I agree that someone who comes up with a novel and interesting algorithm should have some protection, at this point, I tend to lean toward software patents doing more harm than good.

Basically, it should be a lot harder to get a software patent.

RedSkysaid:

I don't imagine it'll be as easy as the video makes out (although I don't know the details of the law he talks about). There are surely genuine software (or otherwise non-physical) based innovations that should be protected as well as your standard notions of a patent.

siftbotsays...

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