A Way to Ensure Just Compensation for Inventors

Inventions are secret, at least until they are revealed to others. It would be nice if inventors could reveal their secrets to the world and get a simple price in return. But human nature teaches us that we don’t want to pay for what we use unless someone pays for it. When inventors file patent applications, the secrets of their inventions are instantly shared with the world through publication. As a result of the speed with which an inventor’s secret is shared with the world, it is particularly difficult to receive fair compensation from the users of that secret.

To better illustrate this concept, the movie has the following scene. imitation game, Where the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Alan Turing, and his team cracked the German Enigma machine. One of his members of the team was shut down by Turing, with the information they learned he wanted to immediately save a British convoy of 500 men. What’s interesting about this exchange is that Turing knew that revealing information quickly would cost more than saving the convoy. So he decided to meet with his MI6 agent and told the agent: A system that helps you decide how much information to act on, which attacks to block, and which ones to let through. Statistical analysis, the minimum number of actions required to win the war, but the maximum number the Germans could take before being suspected. ’ replied the agent.

do math

In today’s world, inventors receive compensation from future infringers through patents. Moreover, all patents protect inventions in exactly the same way, regardless of the currently determined value of the invention. In other words, the system is one-size-fits-all, and an inventor pays the same fee for a patent that provides the same coverage (eg, $20,000-$30,000 he doesn’t care which attorney he uses). More specifically, patents have no damages or claim caps, and all patent terms are the same. Also, inventors generally must pay the same patent office fees for applications with different number of claims and must meet exactly the same criteria (eg, 35 USC § 101/103) when obtaining a patent. In addition, future infringers have the power to file for inter partes review (e.g., require payment of the same fee for all patents) or otherwise verify that the patent is valid. I have. Therefore, all inventors’ secrets are protected in the same way because all patents are the same. But if there’s anything we can learn from cracking the Enigma Machine, a government secret for over 50 years, it’s that not all secrets are created equal.

In a previous article I wrote, “Patent Durability: Building a Better Fence,” on filing date, having inventors enter their components into a patent durability calculator would expedite the actuarial process, much as it does in insurance. A cost schedule was obtained and submitted via. industry. Similarly, just as all patents vary in durability (strength, etc.), so do costs (maintenance, filing fees, attorney fees, etc.). What this does is remove waste from the system and move it through a mathematical process into the pocket of the inventor. In other words, secrets are trusted in statistics and mathematics. For example, requiring an inventor to pay certain potentially unnecessary patent rights (e.g., the right to claim $200 million and an unlimited number of litigation rights), or granting an inventor certain limited patent rights. (For example, the power to require future infringers to pay the same fee each time to initiate an inter partes review), the Patent Durability Calculator converts the cost and durability associated with a patent into the present value of a secret. You can adjust it accordingly.

Dealing with Skeptics

One of the concerns many people have about patent perpetuity is how it will affect our patent landscape. If a movement occurs that is large enough to implement patent durability and is definitely a large movement, the system can confirm that more patents have been granted. The reason is that more inventors will be included in the patent system, such as the inventors of the $200,000 inventions and the inventors of the $10 billion trade secret inventions. While this may seem like it would clog up courts and patent offices around the world, it could also streamline litigation significantly by prohibiting patent perpetuation on all patents. Every patent within will be marked with a unique mark on how it is litigated, so inventors and future infringers will have the ability to sue with a custom-made patent for disputes. The result is more trust and less conflict between technology inventors and users. In addition, artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques can be used to further facilitate payments from future infringers to inventors.

Another concern that many may have is that inventors do not know how to determine the present value of their inventions. While this may be true for some inventors, it may be different for others. On filing he reduced his payment by $5,000, and some may prefer the option of limiting damages and claims in future lawsuits. Some users may prefer the option of paying his $30,000 surcharge upfront to make it more difficult to defend against the patent or allow it to meet a different standard at issuance. . Some may prefer the option of sacrificing five minutes of his time to enter the information into the calculator in order to realize more money in the end. Some might think that Turing and his team were more concerned with winning the war than with Enigma secrets. One might think that the survival of innovation depends more on whether businesses can fairly compensate their employees than on what today’s patent landscape offers. And one might think that all inventor secrets should be relied upon in patents based on statistics and mathematics rather than in specific types of patents.

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Author: Lurin