[RE: American Bar Association - 1 click patents]

[LUIS VILDOSOLA]

Start at the monetary and fiscal system,
whatever you do with the patent system will fall short
to the financial jamming coming from the first two.


"Phillip H. Zakas" <pzakas at toucancapital.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> I've been away on business and only now started to read this thread, so
> sorry for the lag...
> 
> The entire patent system needs an overhaul.  I've been personally
struggling
> with the trade-offs of filing for patents (relating to network routing
> technology) vs. keeping the ideas trade secret vs. releasing a subset to
the
> public domain.  My attorneys have suggested filing "blocking patents" as a
> defensive strategy to ensure you can continue to use your technology, in
the
> event a competitor comes up with the same/similar idea.  The patents
> themselves aren't really earth-shattering, but the fact that one has to
file
> for patents just to stay in business in case a competitor files competiting
> claims in the future is extrememly frustrating, because the patent is
> essentially a blueprint for anyone to use the technology for himself.  Here
> are some observations i've made:
> 
> - Determining patent infrigement of technology patents is extremely
> difficult without obtaining the source code of a competitor's product.  How
> on earth can one determine if one is "borrowing" your routing algorithm or
> your mpls variation?  This is almost impossible...so where's the patent
> protection?
> 
> - patent protection varies across the globe.  the best strategy is to file
> in the US, Japan and EU.  but even then the levels of patent protection
vary
> in each area, and offer no defense in countries such as India (used for
many
> outsourced development projects.)
> 
> - I would have preferred it if i could keep an idea a trade secret and
> register that trade secret with the USPTO so that it would be considered
> prior art and thus block future patent claims already covered by my trade
> secret.
> 
> - Biotechnology patents are especially troubling.  On the one hand one can
> patent a gene sequence discovered to be vaguely related to, say, breast
> cancer.  On the other hand that gene sequence is usually derived from some
> volunteer's dna, but that person has no rights to the resulting value of
the
> patent!  Worse still, claims in biotech are very vague and broad simply
> because biotech is an emerging science.  I'd bet most of you haven't heard
> that proteomics seems to becoming more important than genomics over the
last
> six months...does this mean a gene sequence, including all of the proteins
> it interacts with, are covered by the original patent even though
proteomics
> was unknown even two years ago??
> 
> Anyway, this subject is very irritating.  As current venture capitalist
> (temporary until i launch my own start up) I do understand the protection
> patents afford investors and the catalyst patents are for attracting
> capital.  Without capital there would be no interesting technology or
> biotech developments at the rate at which we've enjoyed them over the last
> 50 years.  However even venture capitalists would prefer my "register trade
> secrets" model for high tech projects OVER the current patent system.  I
> still don't know what the right answer is for biotech patents.
> 
> phillip
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM
> [mailto:owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM]On Behalf Of Jim Choate
> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 1:48 PM
> To: cypherpunks at einstein.ssz.com
> Subject: American Bar Association - 1 click patents
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.abanet.org/journal/mar01/fstate.html
> --
>    The Laws of Serendipity:
> 
>    1. In order to discover anything, you must be looking
>       for something.
> 
>    2. If you wish to make an improved product, you must
>       first be engaged in making an inferior one.
> 
>    Tivoli Certification Group, OSCT
>    James Choate                           jchoate at tivoli.com
>    Senior Engineer                        512-436-1062
> 


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