Hmm, I understand, to varying degrees, pretty much everything that happens there, at least down to the logic gate level. Once it hits the physics or quantum level I'm lost. It might be because I have an EE background, but it's not impossible to be aware of a sizable chunk of the underlying technologies that you use everyday.
What is truly mind-boggling is all the manufacturing processes and logistics that make such technologies a commodity. Maybe this is the point he wanted to make?
> Finally, last but not least, that is why our patent system is broken: technology has done such an amazing job at hiding its complexity that the people regulating and running the patent system are barely even aware of the complexity of what they're regulating and running.
Uhh... the people running the patent system all have technical backgrounds. Patent lawyers and examiners must have a technical degree (edit: at least in the US). That does not mean they are technical experts, and in practice it's far from being so, but the theory is sound. Sure, politicians step down from up high once in a while to shake things up as they're lobbied to, but they are not involved in the actual technical nuances.
>... the patent discussions about modern computing systems end up being about screen sizes and icon ordering,
No, those are only the patent discussions people in this particular bubble hear about. As an experiment, go to patentlyo.com, and browse the archives to see the wide and varied range of patent lawsuits that happen all the time: you don't need to know anything about patent law, the introductory paragraph usually gives a good, brief overview of the technologies involved.
No, I work as a software engineer, but don't let that get you down from your moral high horse.
But I have also worked for a small company that was ripped off by the big guys, almost went under, and could only fight back with patents. So yes, I think the work patent lawyers do is often useful and important.
Now let me guess: You are annoyed because I pointed out flaws in an article that was confirming your biases.
Ahh, Bessen. Interesting that he cites his own "trolls cost $29B" study [1] without mentioning that it's been "called into question" [2, 3, 4] to put it diplomatically. It's not like he's unaware of criticism of his work either, since he has responded to criticism in the past [5].
And par for the course, this article of his has several flaws as well:
1. Giving examiners the power of irreversible rejection is pretty bad, if you think about it. Valid patents are regularly rejected for the very same reasons that people argue invalid patents are allowed. Contrary to popular belief, if examiners are overworked and lack enough time, their default reaction is usually to reject the application. I have seen many a BS rejection issued because the examiner just wanted to meet his quota. And I'm not even a patent agent or lawyer!
2. (Nitpicking) Continuations are not the only way to continue examination after a rejection. You can also file for a Request for Continued Examination (RCE) and continue prosecuting the same application.
3. Continuations are a very valuable tool and not just fodder for abuse. Like TFA says, it allows applicants to claim multiple inventions off a single patent application. But that is often what happens! A single invention could have multiple facets that are inventions in their own right. As a random example, a lightbulb that uses tungsten filament and bulb with an inert gas could actually be three inventions: a) the material being used for the filament, b) the use of an inert gas in the bulb, and c) the combination of both that creates an even longer lasting bulb! What may happen is you file a patent for the combination but may realize each aspect is valuable by itself, and you may later want to claim them separately.
And sometimes, this is not in your control. A patent is allowed to only claim a single invention. An examiner may look at your claims and decide that they cover two (or more) separate inventions, and issue a "restriction", which essentially forces you to choose one invention to continue. If you still want to protect the other claims, you have to file a continuation.
And even further: Companies regularly dump hundreds of pages of technical specs (or a professor dumps a dozen papers) on to a patent lawyer and ask them to file on all the inventions covered in there. Sometimes this happens under a pretty tight deadlines (e.g. the product has already been on sale, or the papers published, for almost a year, which puts a bar on when a patent can be filed). In that case, lawyers write up one gigantic spec, slap on claims for whatever they think is the invention, and file it. Over time, they can then sit the inventors down and hash out the real invention and cover them in continuations.
4. I looked at the file wrapper for the Apple patent. "continuous" was not the only word added. Almost a third of the claim was amended to make it more precise of what they were claiming. I personally don't think this is a stellar patent, but such misinformation must be pointed out.
5. Strangely (or maybe not so strangely) enough, academics who write so much about patents have no idea how examination actually happens, or even how patents even work. To show invalidity, an examiner must show a one or more references that completely cover each and every element of the claim. If they cannot, no matter how obvious it seems to us, they have to allow it. The reason for this is that the decision must be an objective one, and all our opinions are inherently subjective. Supporting a rejection with previously published information, which is a recorded fact, is the only currently known way of doing this objectively.
6. Bessen implies other countries don't have patent litigation problems because their examiners can issue an absolute rejection. First of all, I highly doubt that is the case - there always avenues of appeal. Secondly, he ignores the legal environment in other countries, such as "loser pays" in EU, which tend to discourage lawsuits in general, not just frivolous ones. Thirdly, this makes no difference in the quality of patents - I have seen a ton of US patents and their international counterparts, and they pretty much all have the same claims. And they can all be just as each other. Nokia actually prevailed in some lawsuit in the EU over a patent that claims, without (much) exaggeration, pausing downloads when something more important is to be downloaded.
7. Rambus, as underhanded as their FRAND patent shenanigans were, was not a patent troll. By this standard, all fabless semiconductor companies would be patent trolls.
> For a group of people with highly specialized skills (who get underpaid when compared to lawyers and doctors)...
Too broad a brush stroke there. The vast majority of software development does not require highly specialized skills and is more comparable to nurses and paralegals than doctors or lawyers. (Not trying to be disparaging here, either to nurses/paralegals or developers, just running with your analogy.)
You don't think software development itself is a highly specialized skill? It's true that what we type might not be PhD research, but just learning a programming language is a rare thing.
It certainly takes less schooling than doctor or lawyer. Admittedly part of that might be that there are things we can work on of less consequence as we figure things out, so we need a little less prep for a exercising comparably specialized skill. Of course, part of the pay discrepancy is also going to be covering the difference in schooling costs = who spends longer paying off student loans, on average?
Part of that schooling involves intense preparation for tests put forth by the state before you are even legally allowed to perform the work you've been studying for.
The legal process isolated him from others because he couldn't discuss the trial with them. Even if he didn't commit suicide because of the prospect of jail time; the situation he was in (limited form of isolation) doesn't help someone with depression.
It's good legal advice not to discuss the trial with someone, as they can be called as witness against you. Even if you don't say anything incriminating to them, it could disrupt their life in a way that you don't want to happen.
> Where is the risky investment in research that patents are supposed to be making possible?
Focusing on the "risky investment" part, the investment is not just monetary: I spent a full year of my grad research barking up the wrong tree. All I got out of it was a few pages to pad my thesis with.
Just like publications, as useful as it is to future researchers, you can't make a thesis out of "we tried this, it doesn't work", and a huge chunk of research work is exactly that.
Well, are the claimants buying them a new football stadium? The Lemley paper I posted below certainly seems to indicate no great preference for plaintiffs over defendants.
You really have to read the claims to understand what the patent covers instead of trying to understand it from what is infringing. This patent has pretty easy-to-read claims. It essentially covers an encryption method where the encryption/decryption keys are updated (edit to correct my misreading) if a certain number of bytes are detected to have been exchanged. It's kind of a key-synchronization method.
US patent law counts as infringement making, selling, or using anything covered by the claims. NewEgg uses SSL with RC4 to secure their connections, the combination of which TQP contends, perform the steps covered by their claims.
What is truly mind-boggling is all the manufacturing processes and logistics that make such technologies a commodity. Maybe this is the point he wanted to make?
> Finally, last but not least, that is why our patent system is broken: technology has done such an amazing job at hiding its complexity that the people regulating and running the patent system are barely even aware of the complexity of what they're regulating and running.
Uhh... the people running the patent system all have technical backgrounds. Patent lawyers and examiners must have a technical degree (edit: at least in the US). That does not mean they are technical experts, and in practice it's far from being so, but the theory is sound. Sure, politicians step down from up high once in a while to shake things up as they're lobbied to, but they are not involved in the actual technical nuances.
>... the patent discussions about modern computing systems end up being about screen sizes and icon ordering,
No, those are only the patent discussions people in this particular bubble hear about. As an experiment, go to patentlyo.com, and browse the archives to see the wide and varied range of patent lawsuits that happen all the time: you don't need to know anything about patent law, the introductory paragraph usually gives a good, brief overview of the technologies involved.