The solution to patent trolls is a simple change to the law: patents should only be used to recover actual damages to an existing business from infringers, not force licensing fees.
That way patents could only be asserted against direct competitors that copied your design. Since patent trolls have no real business they'd have no actual damages.
How would you suggest companies that design systems like ARM survive under your concept?
I'd be for much stricter terms for patents, ie, they have to work with a physical device.. not a "virtualized computing environment" ex: no software patents. Or, software patents should be limited to 3-5 years.
All patents should have to be both unique, and non-obvious... no more derivative patents, or limit derivative patents to 5 years.
A patent system where there are different classes of patent, lowest being 3 years for system, process, or strictly software patents... to 20 years for hard, physical manufactured inventions.
If this were the case, anyone with manufacturing power can just monitor the USPTO for filings, create your product faster than you and release it to market months or years before your product gets there.
Comments
The solution to patent trolls is a simple change to the law: patents should only be used to recover actual damages to an existing business from infringers, not force licensing fees.
That way patents could only be asserted against direct competitors that copied your design. Since patent trolls have no real business they'd have no actual damages.
How would you suggest companies that design systems like ARM survive under your concept?
I'd be for much stricter terms for patents, ie, they have to work with a physical device.. not a "virtualized computing environment" ex: no software patents. Or, software patents should be limited to 3-5 years.
All patents should have to be both unique, and non-obvious... no more derivative patents, or limit derivative patents to 5 years.
A patent system where there are different classes of patent, lowest being 3 years for system, process, or strictly software patents... to 20 years for hard, physical manufactured inventions.
Much of ARM's business is also protected by copyright.
If this were the case, anyone with manufacturing power can just monitor the USPTO for filings, create your product faster than you and release it to market months or years before your product gets there.