Though it should be kept in mind there’s thousands of patents that were never actually applied, and this one was filled back in 2009.
This is genuinely a good thing, then. If you patent something and “accidentally” never use it, it prevents other companies from using it legally. Screw over advertisers and save the consumers from their terrible ideas by hoarding patents and working with a patent troll firm :)
It takes 20 years for patents to expire, and you can’t commercially use the patented invention until then. If I “invent” and patent 50 different methods to track viewer attention during video advertisements, that’s 50 fewer ways that some company would be able to achieve it.
It would be impossible to cover every possible method to achieve the same thing, but the risk of violating a patent held by a highly litigious patent troll might be a good enough deterrent to stop the whole idea from making it to market for a couple decades.
Yes, but after 20 years you’re not at square one, others have free reign to use and abuse your expired patent. Sure, you can tacticize patents in a way where you make a starting patent, then before it’s about to expire “expand” it with a new one in a way which invalidates use of the previous, but I don’t know if that “loophole” is patched and if not, how it looks in real life.
The illustration of that patent practically a meme, many on Lemmy should know it.
Though it should be kept in mind there’s thousands of patents that were never actually applied, and this one was filled back in 2009.
Do patents necessarily have to follow the law?
This is genuinely a good thing, then. If you patent something and “accidentally” never use it, it prevents other companies from using it legally. Screw over advertisers and save the consumers from their terrible ideas by hoarding patents and working with a patent troll firm :)
Not really. Patests expire and then they can just read the specs in your idea. No reverse-engineering effort required.
It takes 20 years for patents to expire, and you can’t commercially use the patented invention until then. If I “invent” and patent 50 different methods to track viewer attention during video advertisements, that’s 50 fewer ways that some company would be able to achieve it.
It would be impossible to cover every possible method to achieve the same thing, but the risk of violating a patent held by a highly litigious patent troll might be a good enough deterrent to stop the whole idea from making it to market for a couple decades.
Yes, but after 20 years you’re not at square one, others have free reign to use and abuse your expired patent. Sure, you can tacticize patents in a way where you make a starting patent, then before it’s about to expire “expand” it with a new one in a way which invalidates use of the previous, but I don’t know if that “loophole” is patched and if not, how it looks in real life.
Eh? Do patents necessarily have to follow the law?
…no? They are ideas.
They are also a legal construct to organize business uses and control of ideas around.
Hence a patent and the patent system are a legal framework.
Legal frameworks are often involved in things that later end up being determined to be illegal.
Large businesses usually like to set up some kind of comprehensive legal framework before they roll out a new product or feature.
Not saying they will. I am saying setting up a legal framework is usually groundwork before you do though.