For inventors, patents are an essential protection against theft. But when patent trolls abuse the system by stockpiling patents and threatening lawsuits, businesses are forced to shell out tons of money.
I honestly did not expect John Oliver to touch this subject.
Really wish we would come up with a new word for covering “deprivation of potential future revenue”.
“More of that awkward shifting of the patent debate towards small actors who are misusing patents, not large conglomerates like Apple and Microsoft which use patents to destroy competitors, crush startups, drive up prices, and so on”
I am more surprised he hasn’t touched the subject before, and that he was so gentle with it. Remember one of first his viral videos was about a year ago and about net neutrality.
Edited 2015-04-21 19:40 UTC
At 0:13 https://youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA&t=13s
That’s exactly one of the major issues. Ideas aren’t patentable. That’s actually what patent trolls and racketeers often abuse. They patent ideas and claim functions, which they should have no right to. That’s because patent office doesn’t do a good job at filtering garbage patents.
Edited 2015-04-21 19:59 UTC
Well, are you talking about
A) Ideas in a general philosophical sense, understanding you are saying that no patents should exist?
Or
B) An abstract idea, separate from and not implemented in physical form?
I understand A very clearly, its very unambiguous and easy to enforce. B is very murky, and difficult to enforce fairly. … which is why we have the situation we have now in the united states at least.
I think the OP’s point was that an idea itself cannot be patented. I agree with him. I can have a very good “idea” about how to solve a problem but, according to the original charter of patent offices everywhere, I can only patent a specific implementation of that idea.
Think of the plastic tabs used to fix 2 plastic pieces together, like what holds the sides of your cell phone in place. Have you noticed how many different implementation of that idea there exist? I’m a Mechanical and Industrial engineer, so I find those sort of things fascinating. There are so many different kinds! Each of those different implementations are individually patentable, for example, but the idea of holding 2 separate pieces together with a tab that protrudes out is not. This is just an example.
The thing is that once the supreme court allowed “business processes” and things like that to be patented, it’s pretty much all gone down hill. You can essentially patent a mathematical equation these days, as long as you can show it somehow is beneficial to your business.
Edited 2015-04-21 21:53 UTC
So for those following along at home, that would be B.
FYI, the Business Process patents were struck down by the supreme court. Those aren’t allowed anymore.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/technology/supreme-court-rules-ag…
I think most observers that don’t fall in the the A camp, would agree there is a lot of grey area in what is and is not patent-able and what infringes on what. But most would agree that the length of the patents is too long.
I’ve been watching a lot of his stuff on Youtube. The Daily Show seems to have really helped him up his game and then even more on Last Week. He wasn’t too impressive on UK telly.
As for the topic, I am really not surprised. I’ve seen him cover a wide range of real issues, not just for the US. He tackled FIFA and even the pink Labour van.
It seems to be his thing, take a boring but very important topic. Explain it a clear, but entertaining manner. Then once educated comedy can be made on the topic. I really love what he does.
Check out the Snowden passphrases peice. He made passphrases FUNNY.
It was interesting to see Oliver start the piece with the American way of saying “patent” (i.e. pat-ent), but then slip in the rest-of-the-world way of saying it (i.e. pate-ent) in the middle 🙂 I guess that’s the by-product of living in both the UK and US for a fair amount of time…
Also, it could have been interesting to compare the USPTO with other countries’/continents’ equivalents. For example, I’m fairly sure the situation is different in Europe for the software patents area he covered.