Topic: Examples of Intellectual Property Run Amok

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

Some quotes from the page.  More there to see.

VENICE INTRODUCED the patent concept in 1474. Infringers were fined 100 ducats.

A DAY AFTER Senator Orrin Hatch said “destroying their machines” might be the only way to stop illegal downloaders, unlicensed software was discovered on his website.

PATENT LAWSUITS have more than doubled since 1992.

RENTAMARK.COM makes money by claiming ownership of 10,000 phrases, including “chutzpah,” “casual Fridays,” “.com,” “fraud investigation,” and “big breasts.”

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’s estate charges academic authors $50 for each sentence of the “I Have a Dream” speech that they reprint.

[Brush Wolf]

"A FRENCH DIRECTOR had to pay $1,300 after a character in his film whistled the communist anthem, “The Internationale,” without permission."

Anyone else find this rather ironic?

[Nemesis]

"A FRENCH DIRECTOR had to pay $1,300 after a character in his film whistled the communist anthem, “The Internationale,” without permission."

Anyone else find this rather ironic?

I found the "I have a dream" now pay me much more ironic.  Somehow I think he intended to inspire people not charge them for spreading his words.  Imagine if this had been applied to the words of Jesus 2000 years ago.

Here is an example of what is wrong with currently copyright laws.  I could take a 19th century bible, have it copied into a Word document and I would own the copyright on the resulting digital Bible.  I could even use the original printing press and have the type reset and own the copyright on the resulting printing of the bible.  Copyright was supposed to encourage the creation of original new works or art.  How is copying an old bible a work of art or original?

[E_Look]

They are so-called "creative" because we are creatively evasive... and selfish.  There is nothing truly original about it.  But it might make someone some money and there you have it.  Unfortunate.  Even with good laws and good intent, there'll be a a way to circumvent it if somebody tries hard enough... and they have legal protection, albeit by the brute force applied by lawyers.

[Just plain old Punisher]

I copyright the alphabet. Pay me bitches!

[E_Look]

Why?  Who still reads Phonecian??!   

[Death_Merchant]

Certainly there have been some high-profile abuses...
and certainly some granted patents could have been subjected to better review...

but patent law exists to serve a vital business function:

Why would a business ever consider funding hundreds of thousands of dollars to research and develop a new product/concept, if any competitor could simply reverse engineer it, then sell cheaper since they did not have to recoup the R&D costs???

[Nemesis]

Why would a business ever consider funding hundreds of thousands of dollars to research and develop a new product/concept, if any competitor could simply reverse engineer it, then sell cheaper since they did not have to recoup the R&D costs???

Consider the Blackberry case.  Ultimately the patent was thrown out but due to an absurdity in the law Blackberry was held liable for damages (100s of millions) during the time before the patent was invalidated.  Why should they have to pay for violating an invalid patent?  If you were in jail solely for violating a law that was then found to be unconstitutional wouldn't you expect to be freed without completing your sentence?

Consider also this case where a hobbyist releases a program then a corporation applies for a patent and sues him for $203,000 in damages.  How could he be in violation of the patent when he wrote the program before they applied for the patent?

Another one to consider is Rhambus.  They were part of a group to establish memory standards for PCs.  As things were brought up in meetings they applied for patents and broadened the scope of patents already applied for.  When the rules of the group were changed to require you to reveal any relevant patents that you owned or had applied for they left the group - then sued corporations for infringing those patents when the standard was implemented.

Then there is SCO vs IBM (just ended the 3rd year of discovery) where only now is IBM getting the specifics of what exact SCO Group intellectual property they have allegedly violated.  (They have applied to have 198 out of 294 claims thrown out as too vague and too late for IBM to be able to know what SCO is talking about and build a defense case against before the actual trial begins).  Why can the SCO Group get IBM to turn over evidence for 3 years without even telling exactly what IBM is alleged to have done?!  SCOs reason is that IBM knows what they did so SCO doesn't have to tell them.  Sort of if I accuse you of committing a murder and you have to build a defense and alibi without knowing who, when, where and how you are supposed to have committed the murder.

I think that the US Patent office needs to establish a fee schedule where patents rejected cost more than patents accepted to discourage applications that should not have been made in the first place (and encourage rejections of course).   They also need to narrow them down and require a demonstration of a working prototype or at least complete blueprints.  Finally automatic sanctions against any patent lawyer who was involved in getting a patent approved that was obviously not valid.

[Just plain old Punisher]

Wait till I patent air.

Muahahaha.