Uninvented Patents

CNet reports RIM calls for patent reform in newspaper ad.

This is how the patent office thinks inventors work:

1. Somebody want to figure out something works.
2. They’ll trawl through the patent office’s patents looking for solutions
3. They copy the idea and sell the product denying the original inventor costs of research and development.

This is what happens in real life:

1. Inventors find an interesting idea to work on
2. They think up potential solutions
3. Then they look through the patent office’s list to see if there are any patents which they have infringed and
4. then try to work around the patent.

The Patent Office is a net nuisance to society than a benefit.

In particular, with the case of RIM, the patent was lodged but no product was launched. Technically, it’s easier to say “we’ll do it with wireless” than figuring out how to produce and market the service. The idea alone isn’t worth much especially if the people who lodged it didn’t have to do much R&D, just thinking up ideas without working out whether it’s going to work or not.

My solution? Ditch the patent system altogether but strengthen and copyright laws instead. After all, derivative designs or derivative medicines are still derived from an original body of work. As a nice side effect, one can can’t copyright genes which already in the wild, compared to the patent system, which allows discovered genes to be owned by a private company.