Take off, nuke 'em from orbit: Kill patent trolls NOW, says FTC bigwig

Fix the bottom

Jail time should slow those Trolls down a little.

Bottom feeding should not be so attractive. Instead of serving up million dollar extortion payments we should be serving up juicy amounts of jail time instead.

Should lawmakers wait for the research before making a law ?

No - they should act now before the next news story pushes them off the front page.

If we were able to draft such a complex legislative framework as the banning of dangerous dogs without any subsequent embarrassing loopholes/side effects/misinterpretation why shouldn't we be able to reform such a trivial subject as Patent law with a quick knee-jerk sound byte, ?

At minimum, the US Congress should pass a law stopping the Trolls from going after the users of "infringing" products. If Company A manufactures a gizmo that you think infringes on your patent, then by all means take a shot. But if Company B uses the gizmo from Company A, *they* are not infringing on the patent and should be left out of the fray.

sorted

Simples:

You get 1 day to argue your infringement case. The defence gets 1 day to argue their case, then verdict within 1 day. Judge has power to kill any patent he sees as crap / obvious

If you win, you get your damages.

If you lose, the company you sued gets the same amount from you + fees + public apology. If the judge thinks its a frivolous case you get 3x the amount

He who sues gets no appeals. He who gets sued gets 1 appeal on same terms

You cant sue the companies customers

Tech patents expire after 2 years

Anything obvious automatically gets auto-licenced under FRAND terms

stop inappropriate PAE abuse

I agree.

PAEs should be limited to appropriate abuse only.

Simple solution

If a company buys a patent, they can license it to third parties but there is a cut-off at the date of purchase to sue others for infringement, so that if someone is using it unlicensed before that date they cannot be sued.

They would then have a 'cooling-off' period, after this date, in which time the new patent owner can inform patent users of the new licensing conditions. There is a time limit for those not meeting the license conditions to either stop using the patent, or license it. If the patent owner does not inform those infringing the paten within the cooling off period, then they have missed their chance and cannot sue. If the infringer is informed, and does not meet the licensing terms within their time limit, then they can be sued.

Such license terms should be fair and reasonable, and potentially liable to oversight by the courts to ensure they are not extortionate.

This should cover both legitimate patent ownership and transfer, and remove the fear from others of being sued by trolls.

edit - This should only cover the case where ownership of patens changes hands. Those originally registering a patent and not transferring it should continue to be protected against unauthorised use.

Not so fast

The amusing thing to me is how quick people are to pile on to stopping patent "trolls". These trolled patents often come from startups or bankrupt enterprises, and could have been added to any particular large company's pile of patent trading cards if that PLC had felt like spending the money to purchase the assets. They judged that the IP was not then worth their money. These NPEs felt differently, and put some money in the pockets of the investors of a failed startup or other company. The effect of stamping out NPEs is to say that if the Big Boys don't buy the IP of your failed startup, then it is truly worthless -- you'll never get any money, they'll use your patented inventions, with no chance of compensation.

If people want reform, the right place is in the quality of the patents themselves. What ought to be a simple description of an invention becomes obscured by layers of abstract gobbledeygook (hard enough for someone allegedly skilled in the art to understand, never mind an East Texas jury) that creates too much uncertainty in court and creates a space for opportunists to make extravagant extrapolations about what a patent really claims. More clearly written patents would also be more to the point of what the patent system is supposed to be about -- communicating the invention to other people.

The most obvious thing they could do right now is make it an offence to threaten the customers of an alleged patent infringer with lawsuits. That kind of behaviour is simply unacceptable. You should not need to factor in the risk of potentially getting sued for patent infringement into your decision whether or not to buy a god damned photocopier.

Patents that simply "Lurk"

Why is this too simple: 1) If you are not asserting the patent yourself, i.e., using it in a product, within, say, 1.5 years after being granted the patent, you can't enforce it, or 2) If you or your heirs/assignees didn't actually invent the thing, you can't enforce it--unless it's in a product you or your heirs/assignees actually sell and people actually buy.

In other words, you can't patent something and then bury it for your own benefit and you can't sell the patent for the sole purpose of screwing other people. You can patent something to make money off it yourself or sell it to someone who will. Regardless, the 1.5 year drop-dead date applies.

IBM and other tech titans have tens of thousands of patents that will never appear in products, but sit there lurking over the shoulders of anyone who actually wants to DO something in this business. How is that helpful? How does that foster innovation? The patent system should foster innovation, that's all.