abuse: (n.) Improper treatment or usage; application to a wrong or bad purpose; misuse; perversion.
In my understanding, the intended purpose of the patent system is to protect and foster innovation. Clearly, the patent system is being misused for a very different purpose, which many would call bad or wrong. As such, this perversion of the patent system qualifies as abuse to those who agree.
The patent system itself being "the problem", as you say, in no way makes this abuse of it less of a problem.
If you don't believe that this is abuse, it might be because of your second statement:
> They patented something and are suing people they think are infringing on their patents.
Lodsys did not patent this. At best, Intellectual Ventures patented it, and Lodsys "bought" the patents, probably through some more nefarious means, with the sole intent of profiting through litigation. No innovation there.
Lodsys did not patent this. At best, Intellectual Ventures patented it, and Lodsys "bought" the patents, probably through some more nefarious means, with the sole intent of profiting through litigation. No innovation there.
I see this on some level, but on some other level, it makes sense to be able to transfer property. You invented something. The government gave you exclusive rights to sue anyone who did anything remotely resembling what you invented. You decided the best way to profit from your invention was to sell this right to someone else.
Clearly, this is fine. The problem is not that you cashed out on your work. The problem is that the government shouldn't have given you the right to sue other people for doing something similar to what you do.
We can't blame Lodsys for exploiting the holes in the patent system. For that, we have to blame the system itself.
The right way to monetize innovative software-related ideas is to write innovative software, which is protected by copyright. But the law says differently -- just coming up with an idea is more valuable than coming up with a product that uses that idea to be innovative. And there's your problem.
We can't blame Lodsys for exploiting the holes in the patent system. For that, we have to blame the system itself.
Yes, we can. We can blame Lodsys, IV, et. al. for behaving legally but unethically and/or counterproductively to society, while also blaming the system itself.
Otherwise, this statement is roughly similar to saying that you can't blame bullies for beating up nerds; it's the nerds' fault for being weak, and the playground's fault for not having nerd protection.
Lodsys did not patent this. At best, Intellectual Ventures patented it, and Lodsys "bought" the patents, probably through some more nefarious means, with the sole intent of profiting through litigation. No innovation there.
Devil's advocate: Whoever first thought of the tech behind these patents (i.e the people who filed them) may have been motivated by the expectation that even if they cannot figure out a way to directly profit from their ingenuity (by licensing to developers, for example) a patent is valuable because it can be sold to companies who can better manage their use and licensing, part of which may require litigation in order to enforce the rights bestowed by the patent.
In other words, making patents more fungible makes patenting more attractive to innovators.
>"Lodsys did not patent this. At best, Intellectual Ventures patented it, and Lodsys "bought" the patents, probably through some more nefarious means, with the sole intent of profiting through litigation. No innovation there."
Apple didn't patent it either, "bought" a license, and sought to profit from that license. There is no more innovation there than with Lodsys.
Apple has a licensing arrangement with Intellectual Ventures to keep them from being sued by the patent trolls that Intellectual Ventures sells patents to. It's freakishly unlikely that anyone at Apple got the idea for in-app purchases from this patent, never mind that the patent itself is likely invalid for any number of reasons.
This isn't about who innovated what. You're watching a protection racket in action.
> The problem is the concept of software patents in general, not the various ways of "enforcing" them.
Absolutely not. The concept of patents, as applied to software or anything else, is a valuable aid to innovation. The implementation of that concept is what is flawed.
What has made it a thorn in the side of the software industry in the abuse of companies big & small, legitimate (Amazon's single click checkout) or illegitimate (Lodsys). Without abuse of the system, it's a great thing. Problem is we don't live in a perfect world and there is such a massive gray area, which makes it a very difficult problem to solve.
> They patented something....
False. They established a shell company in TX and bought 4 patents off the biggest patent troll company out there with the sole intent of suing whoever they could.
The problem is the concept of software patents in general, not the various ways of "enforcing" them.