PCWorld Forums: 'patent Trolls' Cost Tech Companies $29 Billion Last Year, Study Says - PCWorld Forums

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Nathan Myhrvold still sleeps soundly at night.

Nathan Myhrvold still sleeps soundly at night.

It's very simple. Patents were designed to give inventors and creators a chance to make a profit from their innovations. Without them, inventors would lose money every time because it is cheaper to copy something that exists than it is to create something that doesn't.

So let's return to that model. First, patents cannot be transferred. If you did not create the patent, you cannot hold the patent. Second, if you do not create a product based on it, or license it to someone who can, you lose the rights to the patent. Third, every patent must be submitted with clear instructions to recreate the item. If it's hardware, it has to include diagrams. If it's software, it has to include source code. And in order to prove that someone is infringing on your patent, you must be able to show that a substantial amount of that patent was used in the infringing product. No more of this patenting of ideas.

So if I have a patented invention I should let you use it for free? Trolling is simply making people pay for what you own--no different than renting an apartment. Apple, Microsoft, Google and others have been blatantly stealing and using others IP for years. Time to pay the piper, folks.

So if I have a patented invention I should let you use it for free? Trolling is simply making people pay for what you own--no different than renting an apartment. Apple, Microsoft, Google and others have been blatantly stealing and using others IP for years. Time to pay the piper, folks.

This is BS. America needs to stop acting like a third world country thinking they can freely steal and use intellectual property. If a system or device is created requiring another person's patent, then pay the patent holder don't justify theft.

If you have a patented invention, yes, you should be entitled to ownership of it. If you have some basic/generic patented idea just because you happened to put it on paper and spend the money to stamp it first, doesn't mean you invented anything. There is a big difference between invention and innovation. Inventions are easily understood, while innovations are improving on someone elses idea. If you improve or combine other technologies, does that give you the right to ownership of it anything that tries to innovate off of it? Somehow, some companies are getting patents which do such a thing.

Even if you wrote your own complete OS and built your own hardware for a phone, even without ever seeing one, you'll end up stumbling over basic patents which you'd never get past because everything is owned by someone now. You can't throw a stone in todays technology innovations department without hitting at least a few already owned patents because many are so basic they cover nearly every possible combination of development techniques which could be used.