Comment by ethbro | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ethbro | Hacker News Reader

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What we really need are patent co-ops.

The problem as I see it is: patents exist to allow innovators to get paid for their inventions (setting aside the USPTO not being able to do its job correctly due to under-funding and granting bad patents), patents therefore have a monetary value, however that monetary value in fact scales with the monetary resources of the company it's held by (i.e. small companies cannot legally afford to enforce patent claims against behemoths that decide to fight), therefore there is a market incentive to create patent trolls (which increase the value of all patents by pooling them and amortizing prosecution cost/risk over a larger number of patents).

It would seem like if you instead pooled patents in a co-op arrangement, retaining ownership by their original creators, but pooling them with others for efficiency / risk purposes and to obtain the necessary scale for optimal enforcement. Then work out some amiable proceed-sharing method on the backend.

Win/win, and reducing the incentive for patent troll companies by providing an alternative. (Caveat: bad patents still need to be fixed at the USPTO source via additional funding / subject matter expert examiner requirements)

Is something like this at all feasible legally? Or does something prevent the batching together of patents from various actual owners under a single legal proceeding?

> The problem as I see it is: patents exist to allow innovators to get paid for their inventions

That is not why patents exist. Patents exist for the good of mankind to convince innovators to share their trade secrets with the public. Paying those innovators is not the goal, it is the means by which the goal is achieved, making the inventions public. You've confused the carrot for the end goal.

Anyone wanting to think about how to fix patents needs to first understand what the goal is, and paying inventors is not the goal.

If there were any worldwide system of incentivization and value that was non-monetary, I'd be inclined to agree with you. As the world exists, paying inventors == convincing innovators to share their trade secrets with the public.

Unless you'd like to offer feasible alternatives?

I didn't say paying them wasn't a valid means of achieving the goal, I'm merely pointing out that making the inventions public is the goal, paying them is merely a means of achieving that goal. To lose sight of the goal leads to making bad decisions. Thinking the goal of patents is to pay inventors for example, could lead to a far more screwed up system that doesn't benefit the public. We want to progress human knowledge, not make inventors rich; the latter achieves the former currently, but it doesn't necessarily have to be so if better means are found to achieve it.

Both reasons are the goal of the patent system. And seeing how shitty patent specs are it seems like encouraging invention is probably the bigger goal.

Why not a bounty amongst the industry for whoever takes a patent troll to court and wins?

The way it works now is that most defendants want to settle because the legal costs are too high for the defendant, and the patent trolls know this. If the defendants pooled their money for anyone who took them to court and won (not even a full patent co-op, which has its own challenges) - would that change how the patent trolls did their math - and diminish their ability to sue many parties?

I was looking at it the other way: how to disincentivize selling patents to trolls by increasing value to smaller companies, but I suppose it is equally valid on the other side.

I think the biggest problem with fighting patent trolls after they've acquired the patents is that they're not really businesses. So you win... who's to say they'll pay? They have a lot of organizational options available to them that actual, functioning businesses likely do not.

Aka don't fight a battle on terrain where your opponent has greater flexibility than you

I'd be more inclined to fight the actual trolls politically. A) They don't create jobs, B) they've got relatively small financial reserves compared to a larger functioning business, and C) they probably fly flag-of-convenience corporate registration with minimal interaction with the state (not that that's probably rare)

I have an even better idea. Why not the industry just maintain a blacklist of trolls? The said troll will not get any support in the IT industry wherever he goes across the USA. From hardware to software to networking, the troll will be deprived of services. Not just that, the tech blogs in the industry can also defame the trolls, so one day that understand the consequences and think thrice before trolling.

Won't work because trolls will spin up a new company for every lawsuit - that's already what some of them do.

Sounds like an anti-trust action waiting to happen.

MPEG-LA is pretty much a patent coop.

There's an example. I suppose most standards/patent agreements are something similar.

Of course, caveat about standards being written and covering parents held by larger players.

Will membership in a patent co-op protect against a patent troll?

- A patent troll has no products, which could infringe on a co-op's patents - So they can still sue you without risk of retaliation.

- A patent troll often has a financial structure designed to protect any assets that it wins through lawsuits (For instance, maybe if they win a lawsuit they could immediately pay a dividend to shareholders). So even if you win a lawsuit against them the main assets they hold are dodgy patents.

The problem is defecting becomes valuable. If I have a great patent, then selling to a troll let's me 'cash out' without needing actual customers.

Defecting being an optimal play is something that could be addressed via co-op rules.

But that's my entire point. Currently, selling out to a patent troll (ignoring patents obtained from bankruptcies) is honestly the smartest move if you're a small company with a great patent. We should give such a company more socially-beneficial alternatives.

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