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Against Monopoly
STEVE LOHR gee-whizes in an aint-it-grand tone, about the wonders of an auction market in patents link here. He has several examples of inventors who can market ideas to others who develop, manufacture, and sell the product–after paying the patent holder a goodly licensing fee. His examples all involve patents with questionable justification. Are they really new innovations or obvious applications of ideas that have already been developed? Is a phone with a preprogrammed emergency number and a GPS truly innovative or an obvious variant for something which is already patented by someone else.
What Lohr fails to mention is that a patent is a government granted monopoly, constitutionally granted for the purpose of encouraging innovation. We are now into encouraging trade in legally granted but questionably innovative patents, as if that justifies the original grant.
“Wrangling over patents is beginning to move out of the courtroom and into the marketplace,” he writes. “A flurry of new companies and investment groups has sprung up to buy, sell, broker, license and auction patents. And venture capital and private equity is starting to pour into the field.” If you look at the court records, there is no let up in court wrangling–rather there is more than ever. Indeed, patent suits have become the great Relief for Lawyers Act.
Another example Lohr cites is a company …
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