“The International Trade Commission has ruled in favor of Apple in one of the company’s patent disputes with Nokia. ITC Judge E. James Gildea said on Friday that Apple did not violate any of Nokia’s five mobile device patents, though the Commission’s members must first review the decision before taking any further action.” In the vice-versa case, ITC staff sided with Nokia (i.e., Nokia does not violate Apple’s patents either).
It is pretty clear by now that patents are monopoly granted so that big companies can bully small companies or individuals.
The world has moved on, patents should die.
It’s a pity you put far more thought into the grammatical structure and spelling of your meaningless statement than you did into proving your point. What do you have for sources to back up your statement? What about at least reasoning WHY you think only big companies benefit from patents? You’ve given no logical argument, just pure emotion, albeit using proper English (at least for one dialect) grammar and spelling. However, you’ve provided nothing to back up your point.
I can only conclude you’re a troll, because surely nobody could be so stupid as to say that only big companies benefit from patents, because in so many cases, where someone or some small company invents something new or meaningfully improves something else, if they didn’t have the limited time patent protection, the larger companies could take what the small company/individual created and worked on, and since the idea has already been figured out, the research done, they could easily go and mass-produce it for cheaper than the small manufacturer/creator, and drive them out of business, even if they need to to through the trouble to take a loss on that product for awhile until the original creator is history.
Or perhaps he isn’t a troll but rather has a narrow view of the patent situation?
In fact, I’d call your post trollish or flamebait before the GP, if only because of your demeaning overtones and baiting language. That said, I tend to agree more with you than him, with my actual position being that with well-planned patent reform, it can be a great system to ensure the “little guy” gets what he deserves. Unfortunately that won’t come to my country for a long time; our president firmly sides with the corporations for all his otherwise progressive leanings.
So, unfortunately freelance inventors in the U.S. have a built in handicap to success for the foreseeable future.
Most real inventions are based upon multiple parts which can all be patented. When the inventor tries to defend his patent the big corporations use their patents to counter sue. If this doesn’t work the corporations can make sure that the product never reach big stores and distribution networks. Either way the big corporations have so much power and money that they can ignore inventors and just do their own thing.
Not to mention stupid patents on software and clickwheels.
Edited 2011-03-26 07:43 UTC
Pot may I introduce you to kettle
However I don’t think you need to be a troll to appreciate that the patent system was created to protect and encourage innovation. It has always been a problematic tool and the potential of the patent system to be exploited by large corporations or worse by cartels, to stifle innovation is worrying.
In some areas, which have been well articulated on this site – such as software patents the US patent system is manifestly broken.
Somebody hasn’t heard of Dyson have they.
Some guy made a new vaccuum cleaner in his shed … patented it and is now the head of his own company and possibly earning millions.