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Yet another example of just how broken our patent system really is.
Note that the suit was filed in the Eastern District of Texas. As I have commented numerous times on this forum the district is pejoratively nicknamed “The Rocket Docket” due to the perceived rubber stamping of patent litigation.
Look up the patent in question (link: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5653760.html). Look specifically at the narrative description. Do you think a jury seated from the Eastern District of Texas could possibly understand the nuances of such a claimed invention adequately enough to make an informed and rational decision in the case?
What impact do you think a $500M judgment (by the way, the second such $400M + judgment that I am aware of for this one individual patent holder) will have on our spiraling medical costs?
Our patent system is an anti-market communist system whereby the State uses its power to give government-granted monopoly rights to specific entities. It exists solely to ‘further innovation.’
Do you think a suit such as this helps or harms innovation in the field of medical devices?
Entities are out there right now patenting methods of treatment, specific human genome sequences (I believe the breast cancer gene is in fact patented, and the company wants you to pay up in order to do any cancer research using that gene sequence). Will this help or hurt human health in the long term?
Will a complex and unnavigable maze of patents and subsequent risk of nine figure damage awards encourage or discourage scientific entities from innovating in heavily patented fields?
It’s time for everyone, not just patent lawyers, to wake up to the terrible dangers of our rogue and broken patent system.
The USPTO recently granted patents on: sticks from trees used as dog toys, plus another for a method for automatically filing patent applications. I’m dead serious– those are real patents!!!
Here’s some additional reading: http://www.medindia.net/news/US-Stem-Cell-Research-is-Being-Hindered-by-Rush-for-Patents-79959-1.htm
“…nearly all innovation does not work on “the one big breakthrough” theory, but on incremental improvements over time, that all add up to big changes. But when you put a tollbooth and a decades-long monopoly on each incremental change, you massively slow down the rate of innovation. And, it’s even worse in scientific research areas. That’s because a lot of successful scientific innovation comes about from researchers sharing data and information with each other to get the ideas and inspirations to make the next leap. But with the rise in patenting basic science, scientists have been holding back information, slowing down their own breakthroughs.” –Mike Masnick, from the techdirt blog