Ask HN: Will we ever do something about patent trolls?
2 pointsby giancarlostoro5 hours ago3 comments
  • PaulHoule5 hours ago
    It's complicated -- I used to feel like you did but then I worked on a patent search engine and learned a lot about it.

    Many patent trolls are really trolls. But being a "non-practicing entity" doesn't make you bad. For instance an academic research group might invent a technology that is useful in making microchips but only a few companies are capable of benefiting from that so that research group/Uni is a "non-practicing entity" that can license the tech fairly to one of those companies.

    You often see things like this garden hose

    https://pockethose.com/pages/copper-head?variant=44089443483...

    that are marketed under the "as seen on TV" brand. The company behind that licenses patents from inventors and they feel like they can invest in marketing and development because the patent holds back cheap competition.

    In the case of that hose, competitors figured out other ways to make a hose that does something similar and you see a common scenario -- that page boasts about all the improvements they've made in the product, starting out with one patent helps them lead in a competitive market in which they've gotten many more patents to improve their product.

    • giancarlostoro4 hours ago
      That's a fair point, and part of why I'm asking here, I'm not sure what the perfect answer is, but it should definitely not harm genuine inventors. Maybe some level of scrutiny such as, if you bought a patent from another entity who never built it, and there's no evidence you're building it? I don't know why anyone who would buy a patent and then only sue for violations would be a good faith patent owner in any way.
  • OdinSpecc5 hours ago
    Patent trolls are unfortunately a systemic issue that requires legislative reform, but in the meantime, companies can reduce exposure by documenting prior art, implementing defensive patent strategies, and joining patent pools. Many teams are also shifting focus to trade secrets and rapid iteration rather than heavy patenting. The real solution likely needs to come from policy changes that increase litigation costs for frivolous claims or require trolls to demonstrate actual product development.
  • Whyachi4 hours ago
    I would think there are many changes that will be coming to the entire patent process. In particular, AI discovery of new inventions will throw a wrench into the system at it's core. What happens when 6 months from now, 90% of new inventions were originated by AI.
    • PaulHoule2 hours ago
      I dunno.

      My take is a lot of patents are really poor quality. (Worked on a patent search engine so I have looked at a lot of them)

      This year I took an interest in Heart Rate Variability biofeedback and developed my own system which I haven't found in the literature (patent or otherwise) [1]

      I have looked at a lot of patents on the subject and to me they are trash. They blather on with literature reviews, describe complex systems which violate all the principles of biofeedback (e.g. like they have you do "resonant breathing" at a fixed frequency or compute scores over a 2 min interval rather than look at the biosignal in real time which is the basic principle of biofeedback -- if I just want some metric to measure my health I will take my blood pressure the way my doc wants me to!)

      It's shocking because I can't believe any of these people ever seriously tried it!

      Maybe a percent or so of patents are well-written, clear, beautifully illustrated and describe genius inventions. My favorite is this one

      https://patents.google.com/patent/US3733309A/en

      which is for the plastic PET bottle of which half a trillion or so are made a year -- something brilliant and demonic (in terms of waste) at the same time!

      ---

      [1] to document as prior art: a healthy heart has variations of HR over a time scale of 10s or so called the Mayer Oscillation. The amplitude of this oscillation can be estimated by averaging the metric known as SD1 over a 20s interval:

      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28073153/

      You can increase the amplitude of you Mayer oscillation by: plot instantaneous heart rate (1/R-R interval) as a function of time; watch the slope beat by beat, if your heart rate falls breathe out, if it rises, breathe in. if your Mayer oscillation is weak you might have a hard time doing it and feel short of breath for a moment but usually your Mayer oscillation quickly strengthens (less than 1 min) and once it is strong it is very easy to keep pacing.