Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Banning Trans Fat
New York City banned trans fat. Massachusetts is considering the same. Selling Cigarettes is still legal in both locations. Enough said?
Patents
Did I once cover this topic? I didn't look but if not what an oversight.
Recently I was catching up on my old Wall Street Journals, doesn't seem like I read much else, and found an article on patents. The article was discussing how many are challanged and thrown out these days. It went on to further discuss how the system has developed over the years and even stated one of the determining factors in if a patent is justified and should be granted. The article said something to the effect that the idea can't be something that somebody with a reasonable knowledge in the applicable field could readily build. This was like a lightening bolt to me.
My first interest in patents came about when a friend of a friend was saying he wanted to be an inventor but needed that one product to support him while he worked on more. He had a full time job and had actually patented a few ideas in the past. His 'big' patent seemed alright to me but he mentioned a friend who had patented a retractable jumper cable. I thought at the time that he was joking and that couldn't be enforceable. He said the guy had licensed it to some companies and made some money from it. After reading this article I think the guy got lucky. My mother's vacuum cleaner had a retractable cord on it when I was running around in diapers so I think a trained monkey could have put together retractable jumper cables.
Many patents on computer technology seem to fall into this category as well - when I say technology I mean more the software. Things like one-click checkout are really an idea and a good coder, not some breakthrough technology that warrants a patent. Right after reading the article I was in a hotel shower and noticed the shower curtain. It used some 'fancy' means of attaching to the shower rod and had a tag saying it was covered by 3 patents with more pending. The 'fancy' means was essentially a hard plastic circle with one side slit open so you could bend the plastic and slip it over the rod. Patentable? With 3 patents? It was a shower curtain, not a patentable item.
The US Patent system has some flaws, hopefully this will be corrected at some point to avoid the years of lawsuits we love to fling at each other.
Recently I was catching up on my old Wall Street Journals, doesn't seem like I read much else, and found an article on patents. The article was discussing how many are challanged and thrown out these days. It went on to further discuss how the system has developed over the years and even stated one of the determining factors in if a patent is justified and should be granted. The article said something to the effect that the idea can't be something that somebody with a reasonable knowledge in the applicable field could readily build. This was like a lightening bolt to me.
My first interest in patents came about when a friend of a friend was saying he wanted to be an inventor but needed that one product to support him while he worked on more. He had a full time job and had actually patented a few ideas in the past. His 'big' patent seemed alright to me but he mentioned a friend who had patented a retractable jumper cable. I thought at the time that he was joking and that couldn't be enforceable. He said the guy had licensed it to some companies and made some money from it. After reading this article I think the guy got lucky. My mother's vacuum cleaner had a retractable cord on it when I was running around in diapers so I think a trained monkey could have put together retractable jumper cables.
Many patents on computer technology seem to fall into this category as well - when I say technology I mean more the software. Things like one-click checkout are really an idea and a good coder, not some breakthrough technology that warrants a patent. Right after reading the article I was in a hotel shower and noticed the shower curtain. It used some 'fancy' means of attaching to the shower rod and had a tag saying it was covered by 3 patents with more pending. The 'fancy' means was essentially a hard plastic circle with one side slit open so you could bend the plastic and slip it over the rod. Patentable? With 3 patents? It was a shower curtain, not a patentable item.
The US Patent system has some flaws, hopefully this will be corrected at some point to avoid the years of lawsuits we love to fling at each other.
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