Brad Feld sent me a note describing in convincing detail several hair-raising stories of small companies–bad actors–coming to his small companies and using dumb patents to extort million dollar payments.
He argues that some of the worst actors in the ecosystem are small guys
who bully (my word) others using bogus patents that apply to art that
is widely available.
Brad’s case examples demonstrate that such
activities are not “a gnat”–as I had claimed–but can amount to catastrophic
extortion for a small company.
I agree. My mistake. As I said to Brad, this issue is now on my radar screen. Thanks for the dialogue!
I would like to collect other stories of this nature, from those of you out there.
I am willing to assume that Brad’s companies were not infringing in any moral sense of the word.
They were simply building upon public art that is essential to the
layering of the IT ecosystem. There should be a clear zone of art that is widely recognized as free
to use. One way to do this is to make official datasets of prior art. Patents issued that overlap with prior art are “bad quality” patents.
Extortion, by the way, is a bad in its own right.
If a patent is smart, is extortion any less painful?
Those who have valid property rights need to be fair about licensing.
I think that part of the solution here is a better way of handling licensing. I don’t what might work, but extortion is a “market failure” that needs to be addressed in its own right.
Quality patents plus fair and open licensing…steps to making a property market that works for all..
