Patent infringement lawsuits raking in the big bucks
By Jacqui Cheng | Last updated February 1, 2010 5:34 PM
It's a good time to be in the patent litigation business, it seems, as "non-practicing entities" are regularly receiving higher damages in patent cases than companies that are actually selling products and services. That's according to a new report on patent litigation from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which examined 1,400 patent cases in order to get a feel for the current landscape. Even though patent reform is a big talking point in government right now, it's clear that the upper hand currently belongs to those who aren't making products.
From: AussieGeoff [#2] 2 Feb 7:19 To: Cagey (KGWAGNER) [#1] 3 Feb 13:21
G'Day
It seems as though it is well past time to implement something like a "Use it or lose it" policy.
By "use it" I mean you have, say, 10 years to produce one (or more) viable physical product(s) or sell the patent to some entity that can produce said viable product(s). If you do use it the patent runs for, say, 25 years from the original grant date.
By "lose it" I mean the patent is terminated and it becomes public domain.
At least here in Oz you can not patent such ridiculous things as "business practices", "software" etc, only physical things or methods that lead directly to new products or physical processes. Copyright is available for software but business practices have nothing, just as it should be.