🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1527.26b95e5d@dcs.simpact.com> jeh@dcs.simpact.com writes:
>  In article <12134@hydra.gatech.EDU>, ce1zzes@prism.gatech.EDU (Eric Sheppard) writes:
>  > With the talk of the mega-lawsuits nowadays, having a successful patent 
>  > seems impossible unless you have tons of money and an army of weasels in 
>  > pin-striped suits to defend it.
>
>  This is pretty much the opinion of Don Lancaster (of _TTL Cookbook_, etc., 
>  fame).  He says that not one patent in ten will survive an aggressive search
>  for prior art; that in a quick-moving field like electronics or computers, 
>  the patent process is so slow compared to the rate of progress in the field
>  that by the time a patent is granted the state of the art will have passed 
>  it by; that most big corporations will gladly pay their legal department 
>  $100K to bust your patent before they'll pay you $10K in royalties; that, 
>  all things considered, not one patent in ten will ever net any profits for 
>  its holder or assignees.  

The company I work for is large enough that my division has it's own office of
"pin stripes" to take care of patent filing, etc.  The disclosure gets you a
cash award, as does filing and final patent award, so even if your application
doesn't make it, you still get something along the way.  Of course, the company
holds the actual patent, but that's no big deal.  As was pointed out, the
possiblity of getting any significant royalties from a patent in the
electronics field these days is slim, though it may occasionally happen
(usually in the form of licensing aggreements).  

So why go to the expense of searching and filing a patent?  For large
companies, the name of the game is to build your portfolio.  Then my company
can go to a competitor (say, IBM, for example) and say, "We've got a portfolio
of 1200 patents.  We'll swap license aggreements on all of them for your
portfolio."  It becomes a leverage tool, so that license agreements don't cost
boo-koo bucks.  Chances are, there are one or two good, licenseable products in
the whole lot, as well as a few others that may help avoid possible
infringement down the road (or at least avoid the expense of tracking such
issues down).

And of course, it looks good on the company stat sheet to say, "We filed for 30
patents this year...".  But if I were an individual, I would have to think long
and hard about filing a patent.  If you want to do it just to have the patent,
I think that's great, but if you plan to make money off it, I wouldn't hold my
breath.
--
Disclaimer: All spelling and/or grammar in this document are guaranteed to be
            correct; any exseptions is the is wurk uv intter-net deemuns,.

Mike McManus                        Mike.McManus@FtCollins.NCR.COM, or
NCR Microelectronics                ncr-mpd!mikemc@ncr-sd.sandiego.ncr.com, or
2001 Danfield Ct.                   uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-mpd!garage!mikemc
Ft. Collins,  Colorado              
(303) 223-5100   Ext. 378