Prompt Cast
The History and Issues Surrounding Patents in the United States
TLDR The patent system in the United States was established in 1802 and is designed to protect inventions that are novel, non-obvious, useful, and not strictly for immoral purposes. However, the system is broken, leading to the emergence of patent trolls and burdening the courts with patent disputes.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
The podcast episode is about patents and how they are protected by the Constitution.
05:45
The patent system in the United States was established in 1802, and the first person to receive a patent was Samuel Hopkins for an improvement in making potash, with Thomas Jefferson reviewing his patent.
11:14
Patents protect inventions and must be sufficiently novel, meaning they have to be different enough from existing patents or published works.
16:45
Patents must be filed before any public disclosure of the invention, and inventions must be novel, non-obvious, useful, and not strictly for immoral purposes in order to be patentable.
22:01
Utility patents can be granted for processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter, or improvements on existing ideas, and last for 20 years, while design patents are enforced for 14 years and plant patents are good for 20 years as well.
27:36
Submarine patents can still occasionally arise, such as with Tevo claiming to have invented the technology behind Comcast DVRs, but the details of how these cases are resolved are unclear.
33:04
The courts now rule in favor of patent holders so frequently that a cottage industry of patent trolls has emerged, where groups of people or companies go around applying for or buying patents and then suing others for infringement.
38:26
The patent system is broken due to a large backlog at the patent office and the issuance of shoddy patents, leading to the emergence of the patent troll industry and burdening the courts with assessing patent disputes.
43:27
After filing the patent application and paying the application fee, the inventor can start selling their product with the "patent pending" label, but the application must include a detailed description of the invention, including potential roadblocks and prior art, as well as well-written and concise claims that will be argued in court if necessary.
48:53
After filing the patent application, it has a good chance of getting rejected on the first pass for various reasons, such as being too similar to an existing patent or having vague claims, but the inventor can make changes and resubmit it.
54:21
The patent system can be problematic for inventors who work for companies, as the company may own the product or process that the inventor created, even if they receive a personal patent for it.
59:50
The first inventor to file for a patent is now the one who receives the patent, regardless of who actually invented it first.
Categories:
Society & Culture
