> Something like a 2 year protection would give companies significant advantage, yet still allow smaller players to use the stuff in time.
Don't they take something like 2-3 years to only review the application and grant the patent at the moment ?
Don't they take something like 2-3 years to only review the application and grant the patent at the moment ?
If the patent gets filed a year before they go to market, their market time is halved.
That, as opposed to a company sitting on their patent for 20 years, filing a continuation, and letting the market stagnate while everyone else waits for the patents to expire so we can actually make some progress.
It'd likely affect funding at every level as investors realize quickly the dramatically increased risk. Who wants to invest in a company that will be out-competed in two years?
It would likely drive a lot of players out of those markets, bigger players who naturally move more slowly with their conservative product development cycles.
Not that any of that is explicitly bad, but it's certainly a big change.
I was ignoring all the paperwork stuff before the device goes to market, so this two years is from product launch. Maybe that's a little bit short.
Another idea is to only allow patent protections for active products. Thus, if you're making and selling a widget you can use patents; but if you made and tried to sell a widget, and failed, you cannot sit on the patent for years and extract money from anyone who comes after you who is selling a different widget that happens to infringe a patent you own.
I don't know - I recognise the need to protect the hard work that people do, and to give them incentives to innovate, and to reward them for releasing those innovations to the public, but the current system is now thoroughly broken.
I also recognise there's considerable bias in the reporting. Maybe there are some small inventors who use patents for what they're meant for.