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non-Anonymous Corrections thread | 158 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
non-Anonymous Corrections thread
Authored by: nsomos on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 07:55 AM EDT
Please post corrections in THIS thread.
A summary in posts title may be helpful.

My apologies for the unintended anonymous post above ....

[ Reply to This | # ]

META: Screen layout
Authored by: coats on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 08:25 AM EDT
The HTML and CSS for this page forces quite a wide layout: on my browser the first line is forced to be at least 113 characters wide. And at my default browser-width, I have to do a lot of horizontal scrolling.

It is well established in human-factors engineering that the optimum layout for reading comprehension is in the 50-65 character range. Moreover, widths in excess of 90 characters (much less the current article's format of about 115) seriously degrade readability.

As a long-time reader, I ask you: Please fix!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic threads
Authored by: bugstomper on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 08:46 AM EDT
Please stay off topic in these threads.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Not the study I want to see
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 08:56 AM EDT
Oh it's a perfectly cromulent paper, and certainly necessary, but not really
what piques my curiosity about the patent mess.

The paper I want to see an analysis of the quality of the patents that go to
litigation, what percentage of those patents are invalidated.

bkd

[ Reply to This | # ]

What a crock - These are not mutually exlcusive.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 09:49 AM EDT
"In the past, “non-practicing entities” (NPEs), popularly known as “patent
trolls,” have helped small inventors profit from their inventions. Is this true
today or, given the unprecedented levels of NPE litigation, do NPEs reduce
innovation incentives? "


NPE litigation is where NPE's get the money to help small inventors get profit
from their inventions. The two are mutually dependent, not exclusive!

If you want to end NPE litigation, then pay inventors for their patents when
they come to you and ask you nicely to buy their patent or to pay a royalty for
an invention you are using or would like to use. When you laugh in their face
because they can not afford to enforce their patent, you drive them into that
hands of the evil NPE.

[ Reply to This | # ]

LDLS - Missing Details
Authored by: sproggit on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 11:25 AM EDT
When reading this paper, I am reminded of the maxim, "There are Lies, there are Damned Lies, and there are Statistics."

There may or may not be value in the analysis performed here and the conclusions it draws: I suspect I lack the foundation or experience to offer that critique.

I am much more interested by what is missing.

For example, if the authors had surveyed their companies and asked for details of:-

1. The amount of money spent in patent litigation and/or payment of patent license costs (either as a plaintiff or a defendant).
2. The amount of revenue earned through patent licensing.
3. The company net profits in the same time period[s].
4. The company R&D budget in the same time period[s].

then I suspect we would have much more interesting data to work with. We could have computed the cost and revenue spent/made through patents with the cost of R&D. I suspect we would see a gradual increase in litigation numbers compared with conventional R&D.

We could also ask about market research done when asking clients about features seen as desirable in products. We could then correlate those features to the patents held or licensed by the company.


If we were to do that, I suspect we'd learn 2 things...

First, that companies are spending proportionally more of their budgets on patent activity, and only a small number of companies will be net beneficiaries of such activity.

Second, that [particular end user] customers rarely have an interest in what patents the company holds. In other words, patents are being used more to exclude competitors from market sectors than anything else.

With any luck there is a Darwinian fate awaiting the entire software patent marketplace...

[ Reply to This | # ]

How to correctly 'measure' the patent system
Authored by: hAckz0r on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 12:07 PM EDT
The goal of the Patent system is to help "Inventors" to continue inventing, as to better our society as a whole. My 'measurement' of the current brokenness of the current patent system is very simple.

Of all the money that exchanges hands, how much percentage wise, winds up in the original inventors pocket?

If that number is not approximating 90% or better then the current system is VERY broken. It is extremely broken by that standard.

Putting money in some lawyers, or NPE's, pocket does nothing towards the goal of the original patent system that our forefathers though was so important. Adding more layers of profiting entities to the picture does nothing to help the Inventor or benefit society. In my opinion the Inventor should be permitted to license his/her invention to competitors, but never "sell" that patent. Once it leaves the inventors hands it can no longer benefit the originator as intended, and thus works to the actual detriment of our society as a whole.

---
The Geeks IP Law: The future health of a Corporation is measured as the inverse of the number of IP lawsuits they have filed in the last 3 years.

[ Reply to This | # ]

News Picks Thread
Authored by: artp on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 12:26 PM EDT
Put your Picks (or comments thereon) right here. URLs make it
very, very nice for future readers, who don't see the same
lineup on the right that we do right now.

No Noose Picks, GNUs Picks or Snoose Picks needed.

artp, who finally remembered his password, and didn't have to
interrupt PJ to get it back

---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comes Goes Here
Authored by: artp on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 12:32 PM EDT
For postings of transcriptions of documents from the Comes v.
MS trial. They seem to continue to be relevant to today's
news.

See "Comes v. MS" Link above.

---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ?

[ Reply to This | # ]

An alternative to NPE...
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 13 2012 @ 03:28 PM EDT
BOIL - Business Obsessed with Instigating Litigation

:)

[ Reply to This | # ]

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