ENCOURAGING INNOVATION
The original intent of the patent system was to provide inventors with the opportunity to protect their works of innovation. For the most part, patents have done exactly that, allowing their authors to maintain rights to their inventions for 20 years. Furthermore, patent auctions have enabled the free trade of patents, giving inventors the opportunity of liquidating their IP whenever they wish.
While there have been controversy surrounding the inefficiency of the USPTO and the malicious activity following the sale of patents at auctions, these two concepts have pushed potential inventors to continue with their work without fear of another entity stealing their hard work. Thus, the patent system provides peace of mind to the inventor and patent auctions incentivize inventors (on top of the possible sales of the product) to continue innovating.
Learning about how patents encourage innovation is extremely important, as in the competitive world in which we live, patents are essential in protecting and refining our innovations. This class has taught me the importance of filing applications early, clearly defining the invention in the application, and finding/reaching out to the right resources to speed the process along.
PREVENTING INNOVATION
Patent trolls have been around for as long as the patent system has. Since then, all malicious patent trolls (shell companies that have no operating activities other than suing actual companies) have impeded innovation. They have effectively reinstilled fear into the patenting industry by threatening companies with trumped-up lawsuits. For small companies, this could spell death as the settlement fees can consume a significant percentage of resources. For large companies, the financial impact is not as bad, but effects on reputation and resources that could otherwise go to more productive activities are not to be ignored.
Learning this in IEOR 190G is weighs very heavily on me, as the startup at which I am working is wrestling with a potential lawsuit from a patent troll. Learning the methods to combat these malicious entities was extremely enlightening and serves as a great foundation on which to build defenses against external threats.
Hi Healy, you did another amazing job on your last blog post. Once again, the presentation was fantastic – great use of subheadings and short paragraphs. This, like all of your blog posts, was extremely easy to follow and grasp. You used several key terms in this post – for example IP and the USPTO. I agree that a key learning point of this class was the significance of filing patent applications early – professor Lavian stressed this in nearly every class! Also, like president Obama says, one needs to define the patent/invention as best as possible! It was very interesting how you split the blog post up into encouraging and preventing innovation (i.e. patent troll / NPE activity) – this was a very unique perspective compared to most of our classmates. But remember sometimes innovation isn’t ALWAYS advantageous or good! A recommendation for improvement is that while I agree we learnt the power of patents – as both a driver of innovation and an impediment of innovation – there was such much more to the class as well, which I would have liked to hear your thoughts on. Although you provided specific examples throughout the blog post, it would have been even better if you explored a few more in detail seeing as this was your very last post! Nonetheless, I have learnt much from you this semester – so thank you for your hard work and diverse perspective! Well done!
ReplyDeleteHey Healy! Great job on this last blog post, I really appreciate how you have always done your postings and videos earlier in the day. They have always been of great quality and have been a joy to read and watch. Your break down of each section we learned about in class was easy to read and digest, a person not knowing anything about patents would learn a lot just from your posting today.I especially liked your 'Encouraging Innovation' section of this post. Good luck on the rest of your classes.
ReplyDeleteHi Healy, a great blog that summarizes two most important aspects of Patent Laws. I agree that having strictly enforced patent laws provide critical forces in driving innovation. However, the problem in the system, as you mentioned later in the blog, is that people abuse the system to prevent innovation by making innovation extremely costly. More fundamentally, perhaps the problem is that the people who wrote the laws did not recognize that all innovations were in fact remixing of the previous innovations. This makes it hard to recognize what kind of remixing is valuable and what are trivial. Patent troll will perhaps will exist. But the lawmakers should make targeted efforts to reduce profits for trolls, perhaps by gathering ideas from people in other sectors as suggested by one of the TedTalk speaker. One recommendation for this particular post is to include values in addition to patent knowledges. Personally, IEOR 190G also has a core value in fostering a vibrant peer-to-peer learning environment.
ReplyDeleteAgain, your post was very concise and well explained at the same time regarding the Pros and Cons of having a patent. I really hate the fact that we have this existing flaw in our current patent system, which is supposed to fully protect the inventions/ideas. It sucks that patent trolls take an advantage of this system to sue other companies, prominently startups, for the sole purpose of making money. Patents were supposed to be designed to do one good thing, which is protect. Until this is going to be the case in reality, we definitely need a better way to protect both parties of the situation.
ReplyDeleteBreaking down your post into the pros and cons really helps with its readability. The encouraging information is true to a certain extent. Without this class, I would not have fully realized the power of holding a patent. However, we have also learned about the drawbacks to the system. I would go on further to say that the pros of our patent system only are good relative to the other systems put in place around the world. We truly have a system where people come to America to innovate, but it is not without its kinks.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you talked about the advantages and disadvantages of the patent industry. Patents encouraged me to be more innovative, because it taught me how powerful it is to have a patent under your product. It is very crucial to competitive advantage and allows you to gain exclusive rights to this idea. And because people know how valuable patents can be to some companies, trolls exist to exploit this idea. I am glad I learned about them because I can be more wary of them and know that they are only looking for settlement cash. It honestly upsets me to know that the patent industry is flawed by people in these patent troll companies.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think it is intersting how you broke down patents by being a "driver of innovation" and an "impediment to innovation". I like how this post is well organized and easy to follow. I agree that patents can be used to promote innovation. I also agree that the patent system provides a "peace of mind" to inventors and incentives them to be innovative by promising protection. I also agree that NPE's, patent trolls, have hindered innovation by using patents to sue others, sometimes when there's no basis for the lawsuit. The Innovation Act introduced in Congress should help to curtail some of the impediments to innovation assoicated with patents. Really nice work!
ReplyDeleteHey Healy,
ReplyDeleteI liked how you started off your blog post with the original intention of the patent system which is to protect the inventors. Thought he protection of the inventors I like how you point out that this is essential to innovation and the encouragement of benefitting from their hard work and creativity. I like how you discuss the flip side to the benefit that patents provide, namely the Patent Trolls. While you discussed the danger of Patent Trolls, especially to small companies with little money for lawsuits, I found it most interesting how you related the class to your own startup who is fighting the trolls: "Learning this in IEOR 190G is weighs very heavily on me, as the startup at which I am working is wrestling with a potential lawsuit from a patent troll." That's pretty crazy and I am happy the material in the class has taught you a bit more on how to fight off these beasts! Great posts this semester and I wish the best for you and your startup!!
Doron
Hi there!
ReplyDeleteReally great job on giving us the pro's and con's of the patent system. It is pretty easy to see that our patent system has much to grow and update itself upon because the stifling of innovation seems so counter-intuitive considering that the system is meant to protect those inventors and allow for the GROWTH of innovation! How odd that this is happening, and it just goes to show how much we really need to alter our approach to our patent system. Interesting to hear your perspective from the startup you are working at! Amazing that even you as a student are learning first-hand how much these trolls are changing and harming the landscape!
I like how you break down how patents help and not help companies. Specifically you talk about patentors and how malicious they are. They are horrible people and I honestly don't know why people like that exist in our world. But anyways, there has to be more legislation that prevents patent trolls from doing the things they do. In fact I believe it should be illegal to be a patent troll.
ReplyDeleteHey Healy,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your post. It was very interesting to read your perspective on the power of patents and how it can lead to positive and negative impacts. Also, you structured your post quite well, which was helpful in separating the pros and cons and following along your train of thought. I found your post to be quite insightful because I understood the importance of filing patents early, but did not completely realize how it could be a driver for innovation. I agree with you that patent trolls and NPE's are an impediment towards innovation, but do you think there could be other factors such as cost or resources. Thanks for an insightful post!