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April 01, 2004
More Stupid Patent Tricks
Posted by Dana Blankenhorn
This started with a third-party e-mail. Someone was being hassled over a patent on affiliate marketing from an outfit called BTG.
The story was legit, although I thought the patent claims overly broad. Along the way I found that Amazon also claimed a patent on affiliate marketing. (That's the original Zippo Lighter patent to the right.)
And with that the flood began.
- An outfit called Postini claims it has a patent covering all anti-spam technology.
- Ideaflood claims patent rights on handling sub-directories.
- Back to Amazon again. They claim to own cookies.
The rush to the patent office has become a flood, much like the spam flood. And the patent office, flooded as it is, lacks the time (and these days, apparently, the inclination) to investigate whether claims are valid, or overly broad. They're just rubber-stamping the things.
This has to end. We can't expect courts to sort out the mess. Someone has to pay the government to do it. If that means the patent application process goes up by a factor of 10 in price (perhaps with a process for small inventors who sign a statement acknowledging a lack of investigation) then so be it.
Otherwise, the next hot Democratic candidate won't be a plaintiff's lawyer, but a patent lawyer.
Comments (2)
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Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. brian on April 1, 2004 06:15 PM writes...
Increasing the price won't hurt anyone but small inventors. Due you think that an Amazon, GE, Mircosoft, et al care whether the cost of a patent application to a key technology costs 10K or 100K?
Permalink to Comment2. Dana Blankenhorn on April 1, 2004 07:33 PM writes...
As I said, a process should be put in place for small inventors. And far more important than the fee is the purpose to which the money would be put, namely preventing the awarding of bogus patents, like those mentioned here.
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