As I was writing this comment (below) to the “New patent aggregator RPX may have an Oedipal complex” article by Matt Asay, I got chills down my back. You know I’m all for business and profits, but I am also for innovation and the furtherance of technology. If for no other reason, I got into patent law to help be a part of the future, as I believe that technology can solve the world’s problems… it can also cause and aggravate them. When you have patent holding companies that are so big and who wield so much POWER and CONTROL over those who have patents in subject matters which fall within their line-of-sight, it stuns me how quickly these conglomerates could kill businesses by “patenting past” their technologies.
Okay, first of all, very cute analogy to Oedipus. You even got a chuckle out of me. Secondly, a business model such as theirs IS something to be feared, but ALSO in an awe-stricken kind of way. Companies who cheated inventors out of licenses that rightfully should have gone to the inventors have created trolls and troll conglomerates. Obviously patent reform will somehow address this issue because corporations are shaking in their pants when a conglomerate such as this one or its family knocks on the door. Perhaps they’ll eventually have to hang on to the same patent law they threw under the bus when they decided to infringe in the first place. I equate a conglomerate to the Angel of Death (AoD). If one is virtuous (e.g. if a company stays within their protected rights covered by their patents and rightfully takes licenses to those inventors whose patents they are practicing), then that company will get a pass and they won’t have to submit to the will of the AoD.
What scares me is not the acquisition of patent rights from inventors who have been cheated out of licenses that rightfully belong to them, but think tanks of scientists who patent “just to stay ahead of technology.” Now that is freightening, because a company with enough resources can rule the world if they speculate and patent each and every speculation. This appears to be exactly what is happening, and from a corporate perspective, it is HIGHLY profitable.
That being said, I am sure that once patent conglomerates begin to stifle business’ ability to grow because they have to pay the keeper to cross the bridge — the true meaning of a troll — then at that point if not before, government will have to step in to preserve the patent system and restore it so that patents are returned to being used to further innovation rather than to stifle productivity.