Dear @bre_pettis , do the terms of thingiverse grant @MakerBot1 the right to patent stuff people upload? From the list of patent applications Makerbot filed, one cannot ignore the suspicion that at least some patents are “inspired” by stuff people shared because, well, they wanted to share.
@bre_pettis = betrayer
The terms of thingiverse can’t do that, no matter what they are. If it’s publically available before the date of submission of the application, that’s prior art and invalidates the patent.
But the PTO doesn’t do their homework well and award patents for all kinds of things that should not be.
True, it doesn’t mean they won’t be awarded. It means they won’t hold up in court.
(If you want the PTO to reject patents, give it more funding. They don’t have enough manpower to do anything but the most cursory search.)
Our government is too busy spending money on data vacuums and data storage facilities to do anything meaningful.
@Jasper_Janssen no. They had years and years and reform after reform. They promised change for the better since 30 years while getting worse. The patent madness must stop. It doesn’t foster innovation. It causes immense costs for society at large. It serves trolls and blocks courts. They have gone too far too long.
@Jan_Wildeboer none of that is remotely related to funding the PTO or not.
@Jasper_Janssen actually it’s the other way around. There is sufficient proof that the deterioration of patent quality has nothing to do with the funding of the PTO but is far more related to the broadness of patent claims that make it difficult to define infringement. Note that most patent troll cases don’t even make it to court but are settled.
The various works by Bessen/Meurer clearly show there is a fundamental problem that cannot be solved by throwing money at the PTO.
Yes, that’s true. But that’s still not related to funding the PTO or not. There are also lots of problems that could be solved by giving money to the PTO. There are very many more patents being requested, and because of it as well as many rounds of reorgs and budget slashings the funding per patent has gone down by several orders of magnitude.
@Jasper_Janssen I pointed at research and evidence supporting the notion that we have real and deep problems with the current patent system
And you only offer “let’s give them money and wait”? Not convincing. How would more money fix the problems? Please be more specific.
You keep bringing up the problems with the patent system as if they’re relevant to the problems of the PTO. They’re not. At all.
@Jasper_Janssen my original post is about MakerBot filing patents on stuff they clearly didn’t invent and if the terms of thingiverse allow such behavior. You brought up PTO problems that AFAICS have ZERO, Nada to do with that.
@Jan_Wildeboer that would have been Rojer. I responded to his comment.
Sorry to have thrown in a curve ball. I simply felt that the two issues were intertwined - the jerks who apply for patents for which they themselves didn’t innovate and the PTO office awarding the patents having not done sufficient due diligence. A bad actor and a lazy (or overwhelmed) actor make for a bad outcome. But I didn’t mean to take focus away from the meaning of the original post. Sorry.
Great. Let makerbot do the hardwork of promoting, marketing and manufacturing a patent.
Then take them to court with your prior art. Or if they take you to court for your design whip out the prior art in court and ask for Monetary damages.
There is no such thing as “take them to court with your prior art”. The existence of prior art is only a defense against a patent lawsuit, it doesn’t give you any rights against the patent holder. There is also no such thing as “sue for damages”. Just because you created prior art does not give you any patent-like rights. There are therefore no damages.
@Jasper_Janssen the patents we discuss here are however in the examination phase. They have not been granted. Hence it does make sense to file prior art with the USPTO.
@Jasper_Janssen not quite true if you can show the process of inception was stealing. But for the most part you are right