Comments on: The SHIELD Act

By: Paula M. Wells

Paula M. Wells — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 05:02:12 +0000

upto I looked at the paycheck that said $8699, I did not believe …that…mybest friend woz actually erning money part time on-line.. there sistersroommate started doing this for only twelve months and recently repayed thedept on their villa and bourt a brand new Volkswagen Golf GTI. I wenthere, jump15.comCHECK IT OUT

By: Prokofy

Prokofy — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 12:03:04 +0000

Yes, I can get behind this. It’s fair and it sounds effective. It’s a good idea, and it doesn’t collectivize property, which is of course what you really want to do — at least not yet.I’m not for monkeying with the patents system like Beth Noveck or your or others are for doing really as a strategy to undermine other people’s property and collectivize it. I don’t believe patents are really the issue you claim. The prevalence of lawsuits lets me know that they are valued.But this way, you can get rid of the “trolls” that you think plague the system — that is, you think that’s what they are and that they plague the system.The first thing you will discover — and this will be beneficial to your de-bolshevikation — is that those people you think are trolls — some of them — will not back off and will not be deterred by cost because they think they are right. This may shock you.

By: iamronen

iamronen — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:00:54 +0000

wouldn’t it be possible to use a similar tactic to battle lobbying? Requiring all “donations” to be met with equal donations (or split in half) to an “equalizing fund” that is made available (don’t know how) to alternate and unfunded voices?

By: Krishna

Krishna — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 08:07:10 +0000

In reply to Sue Purvis. Very true, Sue. My friend spent a fortune to pay patent attorneys to get his patents. Now, his patents and ideas are being shamelessly copied by a large firm that invited him for a potential M&A at one point. They figured out how small he was and did not go fwd on the M&A citing that his team was pretty small (2 people). Now, with this bill coming through, would he have any chance whatsoever of taking on these guys? Particularly, if he has to put a bond upfront? I really hope Fred Wilson thinks about that scenario too and advises the authors of the bill to leave clauses for genuine inventors. Last I heard, the foundations of our legal system are built on the notion that even if a guilty person goes free, an innocent person must never be punished. This Shield Act is not in tune with that ideology. They are just taking the small guy for granted .Truly & painfully - a shame!

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 03:31:07 +0000

In reply to JimHirshfield. But, companies frequently license out technology that they are not using -- which both makes that technology (legally and logistically) available to others who may make profitable use of it for society, and extracts the value of the invention for the inventor who has used skill/knowledge/time to make the invention. There is no requirement in the patent law (nor should there be) that you are not entitled to a patent, or that you should forfeit your patent, if you do not use it to make a product.BTW, patents are an economic concept more than a manufacturing concept. A patent gives you the "right to exclude" others from using the technology that is within the scope of your patent.

By: Jim Ritchie

Jim Ritchie — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:51:51 +0000

In reply to Glen Coates. Was not really my job, just a committee that met once a month to review our potential patent submissions. CTO, VP of Engineering, VP of Legal were also on committee. But yes, filing baloney patents simple to fill your defensive arsenal is not rewarding at all.

By: Glen Coates

Glen Coates — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:15:58 +0000

In reply to Jim Ritchie. That job sounds simply awful. I can't imagine being able to sleep particularly well knowing that I'm going to work to try and patent depth-first search algorithms or some other nonsense.Dry heave.

By: JimHirshfield

JimHirshfield — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 09:29:45 +0000

In reply to Steve. Parents were intended to protect inventors in the marketplace, not in the imagination.

By: J Nicholas Gross

J Nicholas Gross — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 09:12:43 +0000

In reply to fredwilson.

appreciate your perspective, but there are no patents on “ideas” – and there are few “software” patents in the true sense of that wordwhat people call “software” patents – particularly in this sphere – are actually patents covering machines (computers) configured to operate in a particular manner by code – so, in effect, they are programmed machinesbut to the outside world there is no perceptible or meaningful difference between a “computer” that is “pure” hardware and coded using hardware logic gates/or ROM, and a programmable machine that can be changed using “software” codethey are in effect just different machines, and you can get patents on those just as you can get patents on any other variation of a machine, or toolso the argument against software is rather weak -the argument against business methods is a bit more subtle, but, again, the patent act recognizes novel processes as worthy of protection – if one is performing a new process that is unlike and different enough from the prior art, it doesn’t matter that the process is used to operate a businessI usually hear this complaint from people who see another online business, want to copy it, and then are surprised when they get caught. The software business tho is rife with folks who are mostly used to taking what they want without accountability, so its no surprise that they protest when someone calls them to task

By: Jim Ritchie

Jim Ritchie — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 05:40:51 +0000

In reply to fredwilson. Hit the nail on the head. Patent law in US was conceived when a patent was for a tangible and physical item. Patent law has been extended to intellectual property, software, and business methods, which does not make much sense.I used to be on an internal patent review team at a large public software company. 99.9% of the patents we filed were intuitively obvious things that any undergraduate CS major learned in school. Many of these patents were granted. I ran corp dev and was personally against doing this, but was overruled by the new VP of Legal and CEO. Both came from expensive hardware biz where suing their rivals was just part of doing biz. They were eventually fired as they did not get the SW biz.