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1 year ago
Yup, academic caution. The paper that I'm working on now, however, will not be so cautious.
Gerard Magliocca
11 months ago
This suggests that the advance must be useful not just minor variations on a know theme, and the they must also be limited in time- that is no patent should outlast the useful life of the invention. Given the advance of technical progress it is likely the current patent period is effectively infinite,and thus eclipses the power of congress to grant.
Given that patents generally require the holder to take enforcement action they are useless to most small inventors, for whom such a patent fight would be pointless (note the case of STac electronics v Microsoft ) and thus patents are not even remotely associated with protecting inventors, but rather the Corporation, likely in exchange for campaign funds. In short no challenge to patents is likely to be successful if it relies on appeals to "promoting Science and the useful arts" as it is clear to me that modern patent law has no such purpose in mind, but it may be possible to accelerate the expiration of such patents to be more constant with the pace of change technology.
Other important questions include the issue of the scope of patents over an entire class of inventions -- such patents are rarely enforced but they make great fodder for greenmail. If we do not reform our patent system inventors will be forced to take refuge overseas.