Nathan Myhrvold, now the chief executive of a start-up company that exists to create and license inventions, told a conference in Aspen, Colorado that "before you get worked up about this gigantic problem, you ought to see what the facts are."
Patent litigation represents only 3 percent of federal lawsuits and there has been a steady decline in the number of lawsuits filed per patent, Myhrvold said. "Almost everything you have heard about patent litigation statistics is not true," he said. "Patents are the least litigious part of intellectual property law."
Myhrvold's company, Intellectual Ventures, is a kind of venture capital firm for ideas. It accumulates intellectual property in areas like communications, information technology and biotechnology, and then licenses the patents -- meaning that its business model depends on robust patent laws, the stronger the better.
The concept has been criticised for possibly sparking more patent litigation. It could also make it more difficult for free software advocates to write certain types of programs in areas where Intellectual Ventures owned patents.
Another myth is the worry about so-called patent trolls -- companies that exist only to accumulate patents and extract licensing fees, Myhrvold said at the Progress & Freedom Foundation's annual conference. "There isn't any hard data to support" the view that this is a problem, he said. "This is a great example of people having a bunch of anecdotes...I don't see that it's wrong to invent without making products."
In June, Republican Lamar Smith introduced a bill that would make it easier to challenge patents after they were granted.
But Myhrvold said that was a modest change, suggesting that real improvements could come from creating a special patent court and making it easier for patent examiners to use the Internet to conduct research into prior art.
As far as I understand Myhrvold, the normal patents system REQUIRES make a commercial product within a set time (a year ??).
Otherwise you'll have a bunch of dreamers sitting around thinking up ideas while sipping margueritas or puffin on a fat one, whacking a patent on em, and sitting back waiting for the money to come in. Who doesn't have good ideas !! But hopefully the patent system protects real workers who put money and life on the line to produce something instead of extorting money and locking others out of a competitive opportunity.
There is far too much of that going on already and its wrong.
Secondly, software patents in particular should not exist. You should be allowed to copyright your work, but there is no such thing in my mind as original software. Programmers constantly move from job to job and pick up ideas and techniques from colleagues and info on the net. Its never your idea. Its usually the royal collective's idea. So how can one person or company turn around and say they invented single click web interface or whatever and lock out or demand money for others who have been using identical schemes for ages. Its nonsense and this whole avenue should be closed off.
What happened to 'may the best product win'.