US patent laws don't make sense
Translation of the article American law is patent nonsense .
In America, elections are nearing, politicians will rant about their faith in America - and meanwhile, what is happening in California clearly shows why this belief is weakening. The decline of the main stronghold of capitalism is clearly visible.
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Namely, the US patent system, which allowed Apple to sue Samsung a billion in compensation for, as it claims, the theft of intellectual property. Ask any man in the street - and in his opinion Samsung can already be renamed SameSung, because the properties of their smartphone are suspiciously similar to those of the iPhone.
Americans worship property rights, which is not without sense, but at the same time they extend the same attitude to intellectual rights, combining competitive products such as houses or hamburgers that cannot be shared for free with intellectual products that can be shared - which is meaningless. At the same time, Americans honor innovation and progress, and assume that intellectual property rights promote progress. But this assumption is incorrect.
A striking example in the field of patenting is the pharmaceutical industry. Launching a new drug on the market is an expensive pleasure, mainly due to the need to conduct clinical tests. The monopoly rights to sell drugs for 20 years are helpful. In this case, research usually lasts for about ten years, and as a result a ten-year monopoly emerges. But, as one of the judges noted that working in one industry, is not necessarily suitable for another.
In the world of gadgets, everything is different. No clinical tests are needed, the cost of development is much lower, and the need for a monopoly is more difficult to prove. 20 years of monopoly is unreasonably much. At the same time, the work of Michel Boldrin and David Levin came out, in which they argue that for Silicon Valley it is generally necessary to revoke patenting. Innovators take advantage simply because they were the first. In the 16 months since the launch of the iPhone and before the appearance of its first competitors on Android, Apple shipped more than 5 million phones.
And if the need for incentives like a monopoly in the technology industry is questionable, the price of using them is clear. A drug patent usually covers a single product, and a technological patent often describes an elementary component of a product, such as the appearance of icons on a screen, as in the case of one of Apple’s claims against Samsung. Patenting such components, some companies prevent others from using yesterday's inventions to create tomorrow's improved devices. Instead of feeding progress, his patents are being stifled.
The problem of patents in the technical industry takes the scale of the epidemic. For example, in 2005, 41 companies filed more than 8,000 patent lawsuits related to 3G networks. Another example is the MP3 standard, surrounded by dense thickets of lawsuits. And even if a company tries to comply with all patents and license products, this does not always help - Microsoft once sued 1.5 billion for violating these patents, but then the verdict was changed.
And if the company does not patent the component, it patents a piece of territory, like a cat, which marks its plot. Last month, Apple registered a patent for a bunch of products that use touchscreens “with the possibility of use in four and five dimensions,” whatever that means. Some patent trolls do not specifically advertise patents in the hope of getting hold of them after someone launches their product - while they themselves do not expect to do anything with them.
The United States is attempting to contain this epidemic by increasing funding for the patent office and reducing the divergence between its patent system and other countries. But to a sound system is still far away. Its rules lead to the creation of much more patents than in any other country. While in countries with more mature economies like Japan or Britain, there is a decrease in the number of patents, in the US there is no end in sight. Apple’s recent case, Samsung, is clearly followed by a large number of expensive trials.
Some observers believe that the patent system should be abolished altogether. But it is not necessary to go so far as to see the problem in all its significance. Americans have the illusion that the current paradise for lawyers is an aid to innovation. It is unlikely that they can make mistakes more.
In America, elections are nearing, politicians will rant about their faith in America - and meanwhile, what is happening in California clearly shows why this belief is weakening. The decline of the main stronghold of capitalism is clearly visible.
')
Namely, the US patent system, which allowed Apple to sue Samsung a billion in compensation for, as it claims, the theft of intellectual property. Ask any man in the street - and in his opinion Samsung can already be renamed SameSung, because the properties of their smartphone are suspiciously similar to those of the iPhone.
Americans worship property rights, which is not without sense, but at the same time they extend the same attitude to intellectual rights, combining competitive products such as houses or hamburgers that cannot be shared for free with intellectual products that can be shared - which is meaningless. At the same time, Americans honor innovation and progress, and assume that intellectual property rights promote progress. But this assumption is incorrect.
A striking example in the field of patenting is the pharmaceutical industry. Launching a new drug on the market is an expensive pleasure, mainly due to the need to conduct clinical tests. The monopoly rights to sell drugs for 20 years are helpful. In this case, research usually lasts for about ten years, and as a result a ten-year monopoly emerges. But, as one of the judges noted that working in one industry, is not necessarily suitable for another.
In the world of gadgets, everything is different. No clinical tests are needed, the cost of development is much lower, and the need for a monopoly is more difficult to prove. 20 years of monopoly is unreasonably much. At the same time, the work of Michel Boldrin and David Levin came out, in which they argue that for Silicon Valley it is generally necessary to revoke patenting. Innovators take advantage simply because they were the first. In the 16 months since the launch of the iPhone and before the appearance of its first competitors on Android, Apple shipped more than 5 million phones.
And if the need for incentives like a monopoly in the technology industry is questionable, the price of using them is clear. A drug patent usually covers a single product, and a technological patent often describes an elementary component of a product, such as the appearance of icons on a screen, as in the case of one of Apple’s claims against Samsung. Patenting such components, some companies prevent others from using yesterday's inventions to create tomorrow's improved devices. Instead of feeding progress, his patents are being stifled.
The problem of patents in the technical industry takes the scale of the epidemic. For example, in 2005, 41 companies filed more than 8,000 patent lawsuits related to 3G networks. Another example is the MP3 standard, surrounded by dense thickets of lawsuits. And even if a company tries to comply with all patents and license products, this does not always help - Microsoft once sued 1.5 billion for violating these patents, but then the verdict was changed.
And if the company does not patent the component, it patents a piece of territory, like a cat, which marks its plot. Last month, Apple registered a patent for a bunch of products that use touchscreens “with the possibility of use in four and five dimensions,” whatever that means. Some patent trolls do not specifically advertise patents in the hope of getting hold of them after someone launches their product - while they themselves do not expect to do anything with them.
The United States is attempting to contain this epidemic by increasing funding for the patent office and reducing the divergence between its patent system and other countries. But to a sound system is still far away. Its rules lead to the creation of much more patents than in any other country. While in countries with more mature economies like Japan or Britain, there is a decrease in the number of patents, in the US there is no end in sight. Apple’s recent case, Samsung, is clearly followed by a large number of expensive trials.
Some observers believe that the patent system should be abolished altogether. But it is not necessary to go so far as to see the problem in all its significance. Americans have the illusion that the current paradise for lawyers is an aid to innovation. It is unlikely that they can make mistakes more.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/150477/
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