this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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I don't think this is going to (or should) stop people applying for AI invented parents.
However.. I do think that the cost of applying for a patent should be a lot more to avoid spamming.
It's like the guy who wanted to use a computer to compose all possible combinations of notes in music with the purpose of copyrighting all music. I'm like.. didn't you also just break the copyright for all existing music?
Anyway, I don't mind people using computers or AI, but patent trolling and spamming shouldn't be financially feasible. Make the product first or fuck off.
The problem with making it a lot more costly results it much more difficult / impossible for a unfunded individual to file a patent vs corporations.
It’s already pointless to file a patent as an individual, except for brownie points for investors. You have to be able to defend it in court.
There's IP lawyers that do contingency work on patent enforcement for this reason.
Filing and prosecuting a patent application is already very expensive. Moreover, different entities are charged different rates, ranging from solo inventory (75% discount), to small entity (50%), and large/standard entity (0%, of course). Might be a little off on those discounts, been a minute since I've had to look directly at it.
Yeah, probably better to limit the numbers, rather than increase the price.
Patent Proxy Services... at your service! We'll register patents on your behalf for a small one time fee of $10,000 for low volume... or $10 for high volume! Plus the cost of actually applying for patent.
You provide all completed paperwork sans author.
Individuals who let their names used on behalf of this service have a contract with the company that pays them $5 for a submission and all they had to do was go on a website and fill in their personal info and hit confirm then accept a digital signed document stating that all patents they register belong to the company. Surely the poors will accept $5 at no cost to them.
They don't even need that. They'd just use shell companies.
The USPTO already has lower fees for "micro entities" as it calls regular people and small businesses. Still too expensive for regular people and too cheap for mega corps but they do have different fee tiers.
Maybe controversial opinion: People who can't afford to produce the product/service or can't pay for filing the patent should not be able to hold the patent. It's better if others have a chance of getting the same idea and actually following through on it.
Is it fair? I don't care. IMO It's better for society if the good ideas are actually carried out instead of sitting untouched in a patent office because the holder either can't or won't actually use the idea.
But once they have the patent they can license it to others, this denies them the chance. The point being that the idea may die with the person rather then ever being known in the first place if filing is too big a burden.
My understanding is you have to regularly pay to keep a patent valid until expiry, but I could be mistaken. Varies by country I'm sure.
I agree with your premise that it's better that someone with intent use it, but it's not that black and white.
You have different fees related to bringing the patent to issuance that depend on the quality of the application (many patents just never issue) and that can rack up considerably. Then you have maintenance fees every few years after issuance that increase exponentially. In the US.