Talk:Patent/Archive 4

EnglishLogicKernel
The web site page I added describes a FREE claim chart generator. There is no fee, cost, charge or other exchange of value for use of the claim chart generator. If this is still unacceptable, please explain to me what has to be done to make it acceptable by emailing me at rich@englishlogickernel.com - thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by EnglishLogicKernel (talk • contribs) 22:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * A link intended primarily to promote a website is not acceptable. I do not see any possible way this link could find a place here since it provides no useful encyclopedic information on the topic of patents. GDallimore (Talk) 22:50, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi EnglishLogicKernel, thanks for your message. I concur with GDallimore, the insertion of the link does not seem acceptable. Please take the time to read Conflict of interest and Spam. Thanks. --Edcolins (talk) 10:57, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Formulation
- The expression "... used in countries such as the United States to ..." is not clear and precise enough. In such statements, one has to either give a category/feature that characterizes the class referred to, and supply example(s), for example "in FEDERAL countries such as the United ...", or give enough examples s.t. the reader can understand what category it is about, e.g. "in countries such as the United States, Germany, Austria, Spain". If the mentioned entities (the United States in our case) do not fit in any particular category, the formulation should simply use an enumeration: In the United States, ..., the additional qualification utility patents is used ..." My examples where just given to make it clear what i mean. Somebody with enough knowledge in Patents, please correct the formulation, with one that transmits the correct information. Thanks! SiSoie (talk) 21:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Good point, thanks. I have changed the wording to simply "in the United States". Are there actually other countries using the expression "utility patent"? --Edcolins (talk) 19:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

dead link
To whom it may concern, Hello the second link (British Library) is dead...It gives 404 not found error. http://www.bl.uk/collections/patents/polinks.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.177.153.207 (talk) 15:21, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the message. I have removed the link. --Edcolins (talk) 16:29, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Extension of Patents.
Some patentholders are unlucky if their patent cannot be exploited before expiry due to depression or war. This happened to early television patents.

On the other hand, Boulton and Watt arranged, in 1775, an act of parliament extending the term of Watt's 1769 steam engine patent to 1799.

Tabletop (talk) 00:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Order of sections
Please discuss any reorganization of the article's structure on the talk page first. The order of sections in this stable version appears IMHO to fit with the average reader's needs, i.e. first understanding what is a patent and its effects, then understanding the governing laws, the economic rationale and finally the history. And please also add edit summaries. Thank you. --Edcolins (talk) 07:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Free encyclopedic public domain source (CRS report)
I'm adding Congress's CRS reports to their relevant talk pages, since they're so thorough and you can just copy-and-cite the content ... here's yours:

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS:_An_Examination_of_the_Issues_Surrounding_Biotechnology_Patenting_and_its_Effect_Upon_Entrepreneurial_Companies%2C_August_31%2C_2000

PS with this content, we should be able to create a dedicated page for "biotech patents", which would be coool

PPS one more http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS:_Stem_Cell_Research_and_Patents:_An_Introduction_to_the_Issues%2C_September_10%2C_2001

PPS actually there are dozens of free research reports on "patents" at the CRS page, I'd like to invite someone to please extract the hyperlinks and put them on this discussion page. http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS_reports_by_date
 * Thanks for the tip-off. GDallimore (Talk) 08:02, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * PS : see my contribs page for a list of pages I've added CRS reports to Agradman talk/contribs 08:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I have just added links in biological patent, business method patent, Bayh-Dole Act, chemical patent, Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act, Doctrine of equivalents, Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., plant breeders' rights and United States Patent and Trademark Office, for now. Thanks. --Edcolins (talk) 20:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, that's awesome. Could I ask another favor -- we just created a template to serve this purpose (I'm pretty proud) and now I'm going through about 100 pages to transfer my links into it. Would you mind implementing the template for the pages you just referenced. Here's an example of the template for this page. It's got some nuanced documentation (multiple sources, public vs. nonpublic domain)


 * Ok, I'll try to do that also. --Edcolins (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

London Agreement
The article states that until 2008 European patents costed on average 32,000 euros. How much they cost now? Ben T/C 16:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

History Section
It seems to me that the history section for this page should immediately proceed the etymology. It seems inappropriately placed at the end of the article. Comments? Wiki emma johnson (talk) 05:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, I think it belongs closer to the etymology section. It also seems a relatively glaring omission that the fact that British patents at least were originally granted either for invention or importation, to encourage entrepenuers to bring back new inventions from the continent.VeryRusty (talk) 12:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Very Rusty, Thank you for commenting! With regards to your observation, are you suggesting that the original purpose of British patents be added to the History section? With references, I think it would be very appropriate to include within this article. Wiki emma johnson (talk) 00:13, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it should be added in this article. I think it is already in the history article. I think it makes an interesting counterpoint to peoples perception of patents VeryRusty (talk) 07:40, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Costs associated with patents
I came to read this page because I'd come across a discussion as to what sort of ideas should or shouldn't be granted a patent. Given that people have always expressed discontent when there are legal restrictions on using ideas, and given that more than one English-speaking country is considering changes to what things should be patentable, I would guess that other people would come to this page for similar reasons too. I see that the page lists the benefits of granting a patent, but doesn't have much information on the corresponding costs to society.

As a starting point, I thought I'd look up what the legal costs associated with patents are. It is, however, just a brief note, and not very thoroughly researched (as my wife was hurrying me to leave the computer): I used a google search for ‘"legal costs" patents’, and consulted just the first relevant-looking entry, namely the Bessen & Meurer book I cited. Edcolins has since marked that citation as ‘vague’; is that because I gave a chapter rather than a page number, or is it marked vague because it's unclear what information that work supplies? The reason for giving a chapter is that the chapter title is ‘The Costs of Disputes’, and gives various other costs associated with patent disputes, which are also relevant to this section.

I agree that the AIPLA reference is vague both in where the information comes from and what costs are represented. For discussion purposes, I transcribe here the relevant section that gives more detail about the costs and how the figures were obtained. Obviously be careful to avoid infringing copyright (expressive/creative elements as distinct from facts) if copying any of this to the main page, though I believe my transcribing it here counts as fair dealing / fair use.


 * Legal Costs


 * As a starting point, we present estimates of direct legal costs of patent litigation. We obtain these estimates from two sources.  First, the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) conducts a survey of its patent lawyer members.  Second, in some cases, at the conclusion of a lawsuit, a judge might order one side to pay the other side's legal fees.  From court documents we obtained these figures for eighty-nine patent lawsuits.  [Note that no indication is given of how these 89 were selected, so I don't know what sort of biases may be present. -- pjrm]  Table 6.1 shows mean values in millions of 1992 [U.S.] dollars.  The survey data does not distinguish between costs to the patentee-litigant and the alleged infringer, but the fee-shifting data does, and it indicates costs are high for both parties.


 * [A paragraph giving some information on what factors influence the costs: whether it goes to court, how long in court, etc. “In extreme cases, legal costs can mount to tens of millions (for example, in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Rhone-Poulenc Rorer ... was awarded over $25 million in attorneys' fees...”]


 * Table 6.1. Estimated Legal Costs of Patent Lawsuits, from Survey of Patent Lawyers
 * a. Estimated legal costs from survey of patent lawyers


 * b. Mean legal costs from cases where fees were shifted


 * Sources: AIPLA (2005); Bessen and Meurer (2006) [Note that this latter is (apparently) a self-citation, though I don't have access to the bibliography section. -- pjrm]


 * Business Costs
 * ... [Names some costs, and tentatively tries to quantify them.]

(Note that these are in 1992 dollars, so multiply by about two as a first approximation for current numbers.)

Given the title of the book, it would be good to check with another source; though it is in line with what I've heard from other sources, and matches the (unsourced) claims in the Patent infringement page (“A typical patent infringement case in the US costs 1 – 3 million dollars in legal fees for each side.”).

In the main article, I've summarized all of the above in the single phrase “on average in the order of a million [US] dollars”: I believe that such an approximation is good enough for at least the purposes I had in mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pjrm (talk • contribs) 02:26, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Balance
@ User:GDallimore Probably you should read SCP/14/7 and you find that Brazil criticises that patents are out of balance.

Page 4 #6: “The focus of the current IP system, however, heavily lies on ensuring rights to the IP title holders. Their claims are, undoubtedly legitimate, but certainly incomplete from the perspective of the public policy.”

Page 4 #7: “Director-General Francis Gurry ... has asked “What does a Member State get out of being part of this Organization?”. The question remains unanswered unless changes occur. A judicious balance of rights and obligations would be a good start in that direction, so as to help society as a whole to understand, accept and thus fully support an improved IP system; and exceptions and limitations to patent rights are fundamental elements to reach this equilibrium.”

Page 4 #8: “The naïve assumption that providing IP title holders with stronger rights will, by itself, foster innovation or attract investments is no longer acceptable. The open and global economy has rejected this assumption and severely hit the very essence of the patent system, whereby a country would confer an artificial and temporary “monopoly” for the inventor in exchange of having the invention revealed allegedly benefiting the society. No such thing is currently taking place, with a few countries excepted.”

Page 4 #9: “the key issue is about revising old assumptions and starting to recover the essentials of the patent system.”

Page 6 #20: “We are now facing a moral deadlock. Developed countries seem to be the only ones capable of reaping any advantage from the system, as very little guidance is provided in order to satisfy the objectives of the TRIPS Agreement, whereby “the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology, to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, and to a balance of rights and obligations”.”

Which one shall we take as critisism and where shall we put the “common sense statement”?

--Swen (talk) 08:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You didn't add any of that to the article. GDallimore (Talk) 12:58, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

GDallimore removed subject matter added to the section headed 'criticism' on the ground that "This is not a criticism but a common sense statement that the patent system must be balanced" (quoting edit summary). That seems a poor ground for removal of subject-matter. Firstly, 'criticism' as a category is clearly broader than 'negative criticism'. The removed statement was clearly criticism in the broader sense, whether or not a negative criticism was diplomatically implied. Secondly, the sources show that critical evaluation has been a constant accompaniment of the patent system and patent practice, ever since the start of the modern continuous legal tradition. Significant evaluative statements by participants in current international developments clearly deserve to be represented, subject to WP:NPOV, WP:N and WP:WEIGHT. I would accordingly support Swen's viewpoint that the material desrves inclusion. Terry0051 (talk) 00:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I still stand by my deletion 100%. The addition was full of words signifying nothing and added nothing to the article, either criticism positive or negative. The latest addition is significantly better because it at least gets the point across. GDallimore (Talk) 10:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Just for completeness the deleted paragraph: Brazil proposed 2010 in the WIPO standing committee on the law of patents: “The patent system must strive for the equilibrium of rights among its users, which should, accordingly, not only comprise IP title holders, but also the society as a whole, so that the welfare of the society as a whole prevails. They all constitute legitimate “clients” of the system.” --Swen (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Patents don't work as well as commons - study
Perhaps this study should be mentioned in the article -- M2Ys4U ( talk ) 14:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Patents becoming secretized
Sometimes the government, e.g. the military, will intervene in a patent application process and secretize the patent, probably for reasons of national interest. I am watching an interview (time 25:30) with famous patent officer Tom Valone where he states that in the U.S. 4,000 patents have suffered this. Do we have some information on this in any of the patent-related articles? __meco (talk) 11:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * A general article on this topic would be quite interesting (suggested title: Secretization of patent applications? any better idea?). The practice is not new, see for instance: "Agreement for the mutual safeguarding of secrecy of inventions relating to defence and for which applications for patents have been made" (1960). --Edcolins (talk) 21:30, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm in the process of completing a book on Soviet and Russian secret patents. I also refer to US and British patent secrecy. I have little information on other countries' practices. Some Wiki articles refer to secret French patents, but evidently the law and procedures are secret. Same for Germany. Later, when I have more time, I could take a stab at a section on this topic.--JMartens (talk) 05:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Octrooibureau Vriesendorp & Gaade B.V.
The article Octrooibureau Vriesendorp & Gaade B.V. (a Dutch patent attorney agency) has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Articles for deletion/Octrooibureau Vriesendorp & Gaade B.V. Thank you. --Edcolins (talk) 12:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Patenting when you're poor, or can't do it yourself?
Is it true that patenting is only useful when the patent holder has the financial capability to able to pay for defending their patent in court? Without the financial backing to support an infringement case, it appears that a patent holder's rights apparently can be violated at will by others without regard.

I have several ideas that are probably unique and patentable, but I personally am not a wealthy person. I personally don't have the technical skill or facilities to fully develop these into actual products or services, nor am I involved with companies that could carry them out to completion. As such I feel that I likely can not benefit financially from these ideas even if I did get a patent on them.

If these ideas can benefit the common good, then apparently open discussion and publishing without patenting them would ensure that multiple others will be able to develop the concepts, and yet none will be able to claim it as their own to the exclusion of others (or me), since my publishing will be available on the Internet and elsewhere as "prior art".

DMahalko (talk) 03:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid this is not an appropriate place to ask for advice. Try your local patent office or a patent attorney. It also sounds like you need business advice. GDallimore (Talk) 09:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not advice but rather legitimate questions where the answers could be added here or in other articles. The first paragraph alone is worth covering in the article in terms of costs to patent and costs to defend vs ability to defend. And anyway here is a partial answer for the second half of my question, for anyone else who wants to know:


 * "Publishing a detailed description of a new invention without patenting it, so as to prevent others from being able to patent it, is called a Defensive publication."


 * DMahalko (talk) 10:13, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * .... added a reference to defensive publication in the article introduction, since it is not present anywhere else. DMahalko (talk) 10:24, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Remember, wikipedia is not a how-to guide. For the rest, the costs section could always do with expanding if you can find the sources. GDallimore (Talk) 11:09, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Discussing alternatives in a three line summary paragraph is not "writing a how-to guide". No step-by-step instructions are being provided. The section I added is relevant to the article introduction to briefly contrast an alternative to patenting, without going into further detail. Your removal appears to be out of spite or WP:OWN rather than trying to improve the article. DMahalko (talk) 19:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Stop attacking me and whining about something I didn't do. I didn't revert your edit, I moved it to the body of the article since it did not belong in the lead. The lead summarises the article. There is nothing in the article about defensive publications, so there should be nothing in the lead. If you can write a properly referenced section about defensive publications and their relationship with patents (as I started in an effort to improve the article) then something can go in the lead.
 * The "how-to" mention was to everything else that you've said so far in this section. If you had added a how-to guide to the article based on your questions about "how do I get a patent when I have no money", I would have removed it entirely, not moved it to a more relevant place in the article. GDallimore (Talk) 22:29, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Taking an explanatory paragraph and reducing it to a single wikilink without explanation is basically an edit revert. I have re-inserted and expand the paragraph in your new Alternatives section.
 * The paragraphs do not require citations because the wikilinks to the articles themselves provide the citations in the other article.
 * This question is not a how-to and is a valid issue to discuss in the article:
 * Is it true that patenting is only useful when the patent holder has the financial capability to able to pay for defending their patent in court? Without the financial backing to support an infringement case, it appears that a patent holder's rights apparently can be violated at will by others without regard.
 * DMahalko (talk) 17:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Criticism
A couple of recent edits (sorry, but linking is not my strong point) have removed a couple of sections from criticism, namely the difficulty of fully searching prior art, and the humanitarian aspects of drug patents. The section on patent trolls has also changed. I would like to see the humanitarian aspects reinstated or incorporated into the existing paragraph that touches on it.

I would like to see the section on patent trolls expanded, and to cover the concept of the defensive patent, and fundamental technology patents, and the level of risk these pose on new entrants, particular in the tech sector. Any thoughts VeryRusty (talk) 12:32, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I would say that this article is perhaps no the best place for some of those things. Expansions can be made at patent troll and pharmaceutical patent, and then this article rewritten to very briefly summarise some key points. Not sure what to say about the difficulty of prior art searching, but it's true that taking a 1938 quote to support the criticism that patents are granted on known inventions is a bit misleading. GDallimore (Talk) 13:15, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the explanations. I have added a few words on the common complaint that bad patents slip through the system, which should already be a slight improvement. We could also add, here or in the article prior art, a few words about the difficulty of fully searching prior art, or maybe the impossibility to do so, if there are any references for that (I haven't searched for that yet). --Edcolins (talk) 18:09, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * With a separate article on Criticism of patents, I feel that Patent should have only a brief summary of criticisms (humanitarian aspects can be mentioned, but elaborating on it IMHO belongs to Criticism of patents - which aim is exactly to avoid having Patent too long). Also - most of the stuff which I've recently removed, was WP:OR or WP:SYN; all material on Wikipedia should be properly sourced (we're not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS). In general, I'm going to move some of the stuff from Criticism section into Criticism of patents, leaving here only brief summaries. Ipsign (talk) 05:49, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Patent Motivation
The following is a proposed addition to the article summary. It has been criticized for failing to summarize content in the body of the article and for not having references.


 * The protection of intellectual property provided by patents is motivated by the goal of preventing the financial loss that the information owner would suffer from the free use of the information. It thus bestows a temporary monopoly on the sales or licensing of any product or service that uses the information protected by the patent. The sales of the product or service are temporarily shielded from competition in the setting of sales or license prices, giving the owner and any licensees more market power than they could have if the information were freely copied. The loss that patents try to prevent would come from either unrealized sales or unrealized profitability of completed sales. This would hamper the recouping of the cost (if any) of developing the information (for example, research and development costs); as well as the due reward for innovation that any profitability beyond mere expense recouping would provide.


 * A patent infringer can violate a patent even if he does not profit from the activity. The key idea is not whether he profited by his activity, but rather whether his activity prevents, or could prevent, the realization of sales or licensing revenue by the patent holder (information owner). Thus someone who only copies and shares information can be a patent infringer (by helping others to avoid paying for the use of the information), and someone who uses the information without selling the resultant product can be a patent infringer (by making the product for his own use and thus avoiding buying the product from the patent holder or licensee).


 * The effectiveness of patents in achieving their goal (the prevention of financial loss) is only as good as the effectiveness of the rule of law, law enforcement, and treaty enforcement. In order for a patent to work, information about the copying and use of information (in other words, metainformation) must be discoverable, actionable, sought, found, and acted upon. The difficulty that often is inherent in getting and proving (meta)information sometimes makes patent enforcement a vexing process, whereas in other cases it may be easy. The ease of hiding a black market from law enforcement determines the difficulty of patent enforcement, and vice versa.

Please provide supporting references and discuss where to best place the content.--Nowa (talk) 09:57, 26 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I was the one who added the material. I'm not "married to it", but neither do I think it's as dubious as GDallimore marked it up to be. I simply think that the patent article should explain plainly *why* people want exclusive rights. They do it so that they can *profit* from the patented idea.[not_dubious] It grants them a temporary (i.e., limited) monopoly,[not_dubious] which shields them from competition[not_dubious] long enough to charge a premium price[not_dubious] for the use of their idea.[not_dubious] Obviously I am not about to argue with a patent attorney about patents—I could never win the argument because IANAL. But the ideas that I just stated are not mysterious, novel, dubious, or questionable—they're the simple motivation why patents even *exist*. Otherwise, everyone would readily release every idea into the public domain. I agree that the article *body* needs to include all relevant info, and the lede is only supposed to summarize the body. To tell the truth it won't make my triage list to work this content thoroughly into the article with cited refs. But for anyone who *does* work substantially on this article, I suggest that it address these points directly. BTW, GDallimore, I'm not sure if your capping of LEAD included any implicit spelling rebuke, but "lede" is an accepted variant spelling among people who don't like the Pb/lede homography. I wasn't using it out of ignorance (mentioning this here in case you thought it was wrong—not sure if you did). And to anyone else who cares about this article, please look at some of the things that GDallimore tagged as dubious and ask yourself whether they're truly dubious. I am not the one who will take the time to counterargue on this topic, but perhaps *someone* should. Or, if not, then take the time to explain here at Talk why X, Y, and Z are in fact dubious, contrary to what I (IANAL) think. Thanks. — ¾-10 22:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * PS: In fairness I look back and see that not all of your tags were "dubious" tags—some were "cn" and "clarify" tags. But I still question your tagging because you're claiming that citations are needed for concepts that are plainly true and obvious to anyone who thinks critically about why patents even exist, or how they are enforced. So it's a bit disingenuous of you to plaster the paragraph full of "cn" tags (which, let's face it, makes most readers think the info is wrong (as opposed to true-but-uncited). Maybe you're making the point that if I want the info to stay, then I am the one who has to bother to do the work of digging up citations for it. That's true, but my point is that some of those concepts are so basic that this article is incomplete without mentioning them. Yes, it's true, I have no time to stick around here at this article and do the citation development. But that doesn't mean that the info is wrong or should be deleted or plastered with a "cn" tag on every line. Know what I'm saying? No hard feelings, just expressing what I see as the rest of the story here. Sorry I lack time to stay, cite, learn, revise where I'm off base, defend where I'm right, and so on, in the case of this article. Would love to if not pressed by time opportunity cost. — ¾-10 23:09, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

¾-10 I think you will find that addressing the citation needed tags first will be effective at resolving many of the the clarification and dubious tags. As an encyclopedia, our mission to to summarize what other authoritative sources have presented.--Nowa (talk) 23:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I will give two examples of where my tags are wholly appropriate. 1. The goal of patents under US law (just as an example) is to promote the development of useful arts. Patents may have other effects than this, but your stated goal for patents requires an excellent citation at minimum and is highly dubious in my eyes. 2. The free use of the words "information" and "metainformation" are so vague as to be useless and meaningless and have no basis in patent law that I am aware of so are also definitely in need of a citation and are highly dubious without it. GDallimore (Talk) 23:40, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The "why" is "to promote the development of useful arts". The "how" of promoting the development of useful arts is ... by letting the inventors make money from their inventions. Only a lawyer could find that connection highly dubious. ;-) — ¾-10 17:36, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

International Patents
It would be useful, perhaps under the 'Criticism' section to discuss the cost & complexity of inventors having to patent in each jurisdiction (country) in which they wish to have protection, and the unaffordability of that to most private inventors. Currently there is no mention of the attempts to remedy this by having international patents, or Europe-wide patents. Although these attempts have failed to date, I think it would be useful if a paragraph about this issue were included. FreeFlow99. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FreeFlow99 (talk • contribs) 08:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Anything backed up by reliable sources can go in. But it's not something I've seen a lot written about. any news/journal articles you know of? GDallimore (Talk) 12:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's a Google scholar search to help get started. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nowa (talk • contribs)

Rationale: India
"The 1970 Indian Patent Act allowed the Indian pharmaceutical industry to develop local technological capabilities in this industry. This act transformed India from a bulk importer of pharmaceutical drugs to a leading exporter. The rapid evolution of Indian pharmaceutical industry since the mid-1970s highlights the fact that the design of the patent act was instrumental in building local capabilities even in a poor country like India.[37]"

It seems very odd to give this as a rationale supporting patent law when this law meant that drugs could not be patented but production methods could. This was a weakening of the international drugs companies control of India's drugs by patents. Indian pharmaceutical industry flourished because they could make drugs that were previously patent encumbered simply by developing a new production method. QuentinUK (talk) 22:08, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Global implications of taking a patent
It should be noted in the article that once a person takes a patent in any country, a patent for a same invention can not be taken by anyone else in another country. This as every patent has to be taken on a "new" idea, and so it isn't possible for anyone else to steal an idea and patent it in a country where the same idea has not yet been patented.

I think this is quite important information and should be noted here. 81.242.230.241 (talk) 14:41, 1 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Not really. It's just one way in which an invention can lack Novelty (patent), linked to from the lead, and all of that is better covered there. GDallimore (Talk) 18:54, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I added some content relevant to this. GDallimore is right -- it is really an issue of novelty.Jytdog (talk) 19:06, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Deleted sentence
This sentence
 * "Because novelty is a requirement for patentability in each jurisdiction's patent law, patent owners who are interested in obtaining patent rights in multiple countries can make use of international treaty procedures discussed below to ensure that obtaining patent rights in one country does not interfere with obtaining patent rights in other countries."

requires a reliable source. The provided source does not really help. I have removed the sentence for now. In my opinion, the EPC or PCT exist mainly for procedural simplification rather than "Because novelty is a requirement for patentability in each jurisdiction's patent law" or "to ensure that obtaining patent rights in one country does not interfere with obtaining patent rights in other countries". If patent applications are filed nationally in each of a number of countries, even if no priority is claimed under the Paris Convention and even if the patent applications are not filed all exactly on the same day, there will be no "interference" between obtaining patent rights in these different countries. Patent applications are generally published 18 months after filing. --Edcolins (talk) 21:09, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Makes sense; I was trying to address the question above and in the course of it I did mangle the purpose and use of the PCT. Thanks for fixing itJytdog (talk) 02:20, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. --Edcolins (talk) 16:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge
If anyone wants to weigh in on whether this article and the Societal views on patents articles should be merged, then here you go: Articles for deletion/Societal views on patents. GDallimore (Talk) 22:38, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Policy for linking to patent pages in External Links
I've been in discussions with about the best policy for linking to patent reference pages. I've been using IP.com lately and I recommend it (it's free, of course, or I wouldn't even mention it, with very powerful search syntax) -- I've linked to some of their patent pages using both Reference citations and, when there has been no exact match for a citation, in External Links, but some of those External Links have been deleted by other editors. Chaser suggested I post here to get feedback on this issue. My (revised) thought is that appropriateness should be determined on a case-by-case basis, so perhaps the proposed External Link should first be added to the Talk page for a given article to get clearance from other editors before adding it as an external link. Any thoughts? —Snarkosis (talk) 00:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I cannot think of a single circumstance where a link to this site would serve a useful purpose. The links you appear to be adding are merely search result pages for patents related to the topic in question. Completely and utterly useless. Add to that the fact that the site is a commercial one which large amounts of advertising when there are plenty of non-commercial and advert-free sites to which similar links could be made (in the unlikely event that they were deemed useful) and I can't see there is much to discuss. Please provide an example of a useful link and explain why it would be useful. Then explain why espacenet, the USPTO website or google patents as free resources are deficient.
 * I see the site does include some non-patent resources (eg IBM disclosures). But, again, I fail to see why the original published source is deficient and why the commercial link is necessary. GDallimore (Talk) 00:51, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Snarkosis, I see no reason to use ip.com links and I have already said this to you on your talk page. As well, the standard external links warning you received on your talk page has links to our relevant policies and guidelines. -- A. B. (talk • contribs) 01:00, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the usefulness of the search query links, I consider it potentially quite useful when it is a highly focused search query that matches closely to, say, a specific technology that is the subject of a given Wikipedia article. Why wouldn't corresponding relevant patents be useful "additional information" for a given topic? I'm not saying in every case, but certainly in some cases, and therefore not "completely and utterly useless". That's my considered opinion anyway, but if the consensus is that it's always useless, then so be it, I won't bother with such links.

I concede your point about the ads, and perhaps my preference has been based too much on the layout and usability advantage that I think the IP.com pages have. In other words, I think the process of using IP.com is better than the process of using USPTO or espacenet, with better search and more features, but perhaps just looking directly at a single static page others might prefer a different site's patent dislpay. Personally, I think IP.com's layout and usability is superior, as can be seen in these 3 versions of the same patent page, from each service: Again, this is my opinion, and I'll go along with the consensus on this -- if all patent links must be to USPTO or espacenet, even though currently editors post links to dozens of different patent sources, I can live with that, though I'll likely post fewer patents, as I prefer to use IP.com from a process point of view. Not a big deal. —Snarkosis (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * IP.com
 * USPTO
 * espacenet


 * We sometimes use Template:Caselaw source for Supreme Court cases (example). I'm not sure we're there yet for patents, however.--Chaser (talk) 02:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

IP.com, although presenting patent text more clearly, appears to omit the drawings, presumably due to copyright. In my opinion drawings are often essential for understanding a patent. FreeFlow99 (talk) 21:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There are no copyright issues. If they are not available it is because they are trying to make money. wipo, espace.net, uspto, google are all free.  i don't think there is any policy at wikipedia about which site to use.Jytdog (talk) 00:47, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Acceptable link?
Hi All

A new user, Mavady, wanted to add the following link to the article https://www.ipsmartup.com/learn. I reverted the addition, on the grounds that this looks a lot like link spam, and there are other sites that explain what a patent is in plain language. I asked Mavady what was up with this, and Mavady said "I actually found this content more helpful than the other references. This was really well written and even my kids got a good understanding from it. I am sorry if it appeared to be spam but I just wanted to add some simplicity to this complex subject." To be honest, I agree with Mavady that the explanation on that page is exceptionally clear. I went hunting for something good - really aimed at the public, and found some links. But to frank, I found nothing that is as clear, in my eyes. I objected to this link because of the way the page is constructed -- the top of the page is an FAQ for IPsmartup's services - the very clear information is in the middle of the page under Patent FAQs. The way the page is constructed, once cannot link directly to the clear information. Somebody who follows the link looks first at the the thing at the top of the page - basically an ad for the company. This makes it too link-spammy to me. But since this is one against one, it seemed reasonable to take this to talk. What do you all think? Jytdog (talk) 04:49, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you rewrite the spam page with equally clear prose and reference the Patent Office web site. Greensburger (talk) 05:23, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * But its not a spam page, it just happens to be a commercial website, that specific page is not selling anything or having any malicious intent. Also they might have copyrighted the contentMavady (talk) 06:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I think it's spam. But it doesn't matter, it's not a reliable source. GDallimore (Talk) 09:37, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I have withdrawn the nomination for deletion, as what I think is appropriate is a merger.

I propose that Societal views on patents be merged into Patent. Most of the content of Societal views on patents violates WP:OR or WP:SYN and the criticism content blends very easily into this article. The resulting article is not too long nor does it create undue weight -- it has about 5000 words, and as per WP:SIZE this is even under the recommended length of 6,000 to 10,000 words. I actually did the merger and it was reverted - you can see how the resulting article would look [here]. Jytdog (talk) 03:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose A much more useful result would be to expand Societal views on patents. This is a topic of huge current interest. Andy Dingley (talk) 03:31, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment! How would you see it expanded, and what is your objective basis for saying there is huge current interest in the topic?  In my opinion there is not huge current interest, so I am curious.Jytdog (talk) 12:40, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm speaking as an IT geek. There is a lot of current interest in patent trolls and the use of patents to defend a shrinking business, as opposed to supporting a growing business. We also have companies like Kodak that have effectively collapsed, and their remaining value is based on their patent holdings and little else. "Societal" is perhaps rather broad for these and "business community" is a closer fit, but it's still a much broader scope than the mere legal and technical aspects of a patent. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:36, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * :Thanks for your response!  THe USPTO is in the Department of Commerce -- patents have always primarily been a business tool used to exclude competitors - that's why businesses invest money in getting them.  So interest in the business community is nothing new.  I do completely hear you that patents are a big deal in the IT industry these days as they have come to play a big role there over the past few years, especially wrt to Software patents and trolls, litigation b/n google and samsung, etc.    The wiki-community is pretty IT-geeky.  So we already have the article wikilinked above, as well as Software patents under United States patent law and  Software patents under United Kingdom patent law  and Software patents and free software and List of software patents and of course Software patent debate.  The topic is also discussed in the article I want to merge into this one, and this one.  In other words, the topic is beat to death on wikipedia.Jytdog (talk) 14:19, 11 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose - this article is already long enough. Expand the other article which is clearly notable. You say you made some improvements in merging that article with this one. So why not make those improvements in situ. Seems simple enough. I simply cannot see a single reason, good or otherwise, for merging the two articles. GDallimore (Talk) 13:13, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for commenting. What is your basis in wikipedia policy for saying it is "long enough"?  I noted above that even with the merge this article would still be shorter than the range recommended and only half way to the limit for max length.   As for fixing it, I did what I thought was best by merging the article into this one. Jytdog (talk) 14:19, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I cannot speak for GDallimore but if you merge the two articles it would be hard to navigate. There is already a link to the page for people who want to see it. MGray98 (talk) 00:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * thanks, the proposal is dead. . GDallimore opposes and will not discuss so consensus will be impossible.Jytdog (talk) 00:56, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't be a dick. Everybody else here opposes the merger to. GDallimore (Talk) 10:59, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Back at you, non-responder.Jytdog (talk) 16:04, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Based on the consensus, I have removed the tags proposing a merger. LT90001 (talk) 14:01, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Intellectual Property as a Weapon
This material was recently added:
 * There is also some evidence that patents can be used as strategic national intellectual property weapons to weaken an area of industrial activity in a target country. Joshua M. Pearce and Amberlee S. Haselhuhn "Intellectual Property as a Strategic National Industrial Weapon: the Case of 3D Printing" Engineer: The Professional Bulletin of Army Engineers. 45(2), 29-31 (2015)

The article makes an interesting point, but I think before we include this material, we should find several more corroborating references.--Nowa (talk) 14:00, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the statement added was factual -- there is some evidence (e.g. if you read the paper the patent numbers in China (high) vs the US (low) in this field are pretty convincing when you look at the US (high) vs China (low) commercialization in this space. There is plenty of evidence that firms use patents as a barrier to entry see (http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324520904578553700647653828) - why would countries not do the same? I have added it back in with further evidence. --Rety2w (talk) 13:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting. It seems true that there is an international component to the economics of patent laws. In a similar manner, international trade agreements are obviously negotiated with in mind the aim of protecting one's national interests. The added sentence, however, does not really fit into the "Law" section, wherein, in my understanding, the sub-section "Effects" is supposed to cover the legal effects of a patent, as a legal right. I have added a new sub-section "Industrial strategy at the national level" under "Economics" to cover that aspect of patents and patent laws. That section should evidently be expanded to provide a broader perspective on the issue... --Edcolins (talk) 14:29, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I am in agreement that treatment of patent laws as extensions of a nation's policies to promote its own self interest is appropriate for this article. I believe, however, that the Pierce article, which insinuates that patents are used as a "weapon", falls under wp:fringe and should be removed until other sources can be found that treat the subject as well.  At that time it would be appropriate to develop a stand alone article and then summarize its contents in this article.--Nowa (talk) 15:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Industrial strategy at the national level
I've moved this section to talk pending further vetting.
 * There is some evidence that patent laws and patents can be used for a strategic national industrial weapon Joshua M. Pearce and Amberlee S. Haselhuhn. Intellectual Property as a Strategic National Industrial Weapon: the Case of 3D Printing. Engineer: The Professional Bulletin of Army Engineers. 45(2), 29-31 (2015) as nation states can use well-established industry practice of using patents as barriers to competition.M. Ridley, 2013. A Welcome Turn Away From Patents. Wall Street Journal

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with the references per se, but I don't know of any other instance where a respected scholar makes the point that a country's strong patent system can be used by another country as a weapon against them. This appears to be the thesis of the Pearce article. Regarding the Wall St. Journal article, that is behind a paywall and to be candid, I am not willing to pay $400 to take a look. I would nonetheless respect another editor's summary of the contents, particularly as it relates to the Pearce article.--Nowa (talk) 20:08, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Wise move. I agree, the word "weapon" seems indeed pretty "conspiratorial"... --Edcolins (talk) 19:58, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed - I just used it because that is what the Army Engineers article had as the title-- perhaps soften with "strategic strategy"? --Rety2w (talk) 22:51, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Would another editor with access to WSJ please verify the claim about industry using patents as barriers to competition. --Rety2w (talk) 22:51, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * For another few examples, Nowa, please consider adding the following (see pg 5 Chemicals Without Patents) -- Rety2w (talk) 22:51, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

In the past, a similar national strategy was used to hobble the French colorant industry and Germany crushed the U.S. chemical industry prior to WWI using such a patent strategy. Boldrin, M., & Levine, D. K. (2008). Against intellectual monopoly. Free text http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/ip.ch.9.m1004.pdf
 * It seems to me that there are a number of great issues raised here. The Boldrin & Levine chapter gives a nice overview of the development of patentable subject matter in various European Countries in the 19th and 20th centuries.  Those would be great additions to the respective articles on the patent laws of those countries, or perhaps could be the basis of a stand alone article on the development of a patentable subject matter in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.  As to the consequences of those developments, that too would be good additions to various articles provided that the materials are expressed as the views of the authors. So instead of saying “Patents crippled the US chemical industry prior to WWI”, say “Boldrin & Levine say patents crippled.....”  At least that's how I see it.--Nowa (talk) 03:14, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I think I need to clarify my position and perhaps be a bit harsh. I don’t think the Pierce reference is appropriate for this article with regards to its assertions that nations use other nations’ patent systems against them as a weapon and that the only defense is for a nation to “significantly modify or possibly abolish the intellectual property system…”  .  This appears to be a fringe theory put forth by someone that has no credentials in history, sociology, economics, law or military strategy.  I’ve also read the Boldrin & Levine reference the Pierce article is based in part on.  Its contention is that patents inhibit innovation.  It uses the development of the German dye industry before dyes could be patented in Germany as an example.  Fair enough, but the only “military” use of patents discussed in Boldrin & Levine was the US government allowing DuPont to practice German companies' patents after the end of WWI (see page 50).  That is certainly not the point that Pierce is making which is that in order to build the US chemical industry, the US should have nationalized all of DuPont’s patents as well.  So unless someone can show me that there are multiple authoritative and reliable sources supporting the Pierce position, or until there is overwhelming consensus from other editors that it should be included on its own merits, I will continue to remove it from this article.--Nowa (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

alternatives to patent section
I reverted the deletions of all the edits to an algorithmic approach to avoiding patents -- I apologize for referring to Chin's work with superlatives adjectives - I have removed them and the hyperlink to him as it appears there is not a page about him. I m not affiliated with him in any way, but I do think this new type of approach is important for this article. -- Reginll (talk) 02:09, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * it is not new, and this is UNDUE weight on one guy's idea. Do you have any evidence that this idea has been picked up and used, and actually matters in some way?  Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 02:27, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I thought it would be worthwhile to put a copy of the proposed material here for further vetting.--Nowa (talk) 22:34, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Recently several authors have argued for fabricating lists or algorithms For example a Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina, has demonstrated a method to protect DNA research., which could can apply to other technology. Chin wrote an algorithm to generate 11 million “obvious” nucleotide sequences to count as prior art and his algorithmic approach has already proven effective at anticipating prior art against oligonucleotide composition claims filed since his publication of the list and has been cited by the U.S. patent office a number of times. More recently, Joshua Pearce developed an open-source algorithm for identifying prior art for 3-D printing materials to make such materials obvious by patent standards. As the 3-D printing community is already grappling with legal issues , this development was hotly debated in the technical press.  


 * Thanks for doing that, Nowa - it is helpful. The actual content of this doesn't flow logically, either. Chin's work is about making claimed sequences not new, or obvious,  by machine-creating variants and publishing them.  Pearce's doesn't come up with things that weren't published before - it simply surfaces known uses of materials and presents them in an easy-to-find way; it is tool for helping others argue for obviousness or lack of novelty.  I don't know if there is a connection, either.  does Pearce cite Chin or is this juxtaposition a WP:SYN?Jytdog (talk) 21:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Now reading up through the talk page -- I see a pattern. Some editor puts in a reliable source on criticism of patents and then Jytdog cuts it. Chin's article is relevant to criticism of patents as it shows that a lot of patents are trivial in one area (nucleotides). He easily machine generated a list as defensive prior art- thereby demonstrating the trivialness. Pearce cites him and takes this a step further and shows that in materials processing generating the list of materials is not necessary if you use known techniques. Chin has made the same argument in DNA probes here http://www.unclaw.com/chin/scholarship/printedmatter.pdf (Interestingly that article also showed is former article worked as a defensive publication of prior art citing the patent office.) Trumpms (talk) 11:30, 19 August 2016 (UTC) Source: Chin, Andrew. "Gene Probes are Unpatentable Printed Matter." Fed. Cir. BJ 20 (2010): 527.-- Trumpms (talk) 11:35, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Criticism
My question is - who cares what these people think? Wikipedia would godzuple in size if we cite every paper published that criticized the patent system somehow. Generally we use secondary sources - reviews of issues - rather than primary sources like this one - for exactly this reason.

The primary economic theories supporting patent law hold that inventors and innovators need patents to recoup the costs associated with research, inventing, and commercializing; but this reasoning is weakened if the new technologies decrease these costs. A 2016 paper argued for substantial weakening of patents because current technologies (e.g. 3-D printing, cloud computing, synthetic biology, etc.) have reduced the cost of innovation.

I'll add that the argument is completely irrelevant to say, drugs, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars and ten years or so to develop, and no 3D printer or internet of things is going to change that. but whatever Jytdog (talk) 00:49, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * When you say “Who cares what these people think?”, what do you mean by “these people”? Nowa (talk) 12:07, 18 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Jytdog you are right -people's specific opinions are not relevant - but the logic in a peer reviewed paper is....You did not seem to read the article in question the logic seems very sound to me and it was a new idea which is why I included it - specifically research in all areas is reduced by the application of new technologies. Drug discovery is no exception -- costs are reduced by simulation that can be run on cloud computing for a tiny fraction of the costs in the past (e.g. computation time is one of the reasons for higher drug costs ). Similarly, 3-D printing enables more rapid combinatorial approaches to drug discovery and the use of 3d printed reactionware also reduces costs while increasing innovation potential (see: [Kitson, P.J., Rosnes, M.H., Sans, V., Dragone, V. and Cronin, L., 2012. Configurable 3D-Printed millifluidic and microfluidic ‘lab on a chip’reactionware devices. Lab on a Chip, 12(18), pp.3267-3271. and Kitson, P.J., Symes, M.D., Dragone, V. and Cronin, L., 2013. Combining 3D printing and liquid handling to produce user-friendly reactionware for chemical synthesis and purification. Chemical Science, 4(8), pp.3099-3103. and Symes, M.D., Kitson, P.J., Yan, J., Richmond, C.J., Cooper, G.J., Bowman, R.W., Vilbrandt, T. and Cronin, L., 2012. Integrated 3D-printed reactionware for chemical synthesis and analysis. Nature Chemistry, 4(5), pp.349-354.)--Trumpms (talk) 12:16, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I am not going to debate the cost structure of drug discovery and development with you, but what you write is la la land.  The policy/guideline based point here is that this is a primary source giving these authors thoughts, and every policy and guideline calls us to use secondary sources. Jytdog (talk) 23:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Jtdog: I think this reference fairly meets Identifying_reliable_sources “Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.” This reference was published in a peer-reviewed law journal. I also think it fairly meets the definition of a secondary source in that it largely summarizes what others have said.  More importantly, it draws attention to a criticism of patents that's not currently in the article.  New technologies, such as 3D printing, are lowering the cost of innovation and hence innovations affected by these new technologies may not need the same protection to stimulate initial risky investment.Nowa (talk) 02:02, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Nowa: Agreed I think we can all agree this particular article on patents is very very weak on criticisms of patents and doesn't even pretend to cover the literature on it - so I was trying to beef it up with some peer reviewed literature. If it is ok with the more senior editors here - I am going to complete a mini literature review on the other criticisms and add in the best peer-reviewed published source for each claim.


 * Jtdog -before I do this I want to make sure everything I do is not immediately deleted. You are clearly a much more senior wikipedian and your edits on other pages appear to be mostly positive. However, I noted that at least your last few edits of this section are almost all negative (meaning your edits are reducing the information not increasing it). Besides deleting my modest addition, you just made an edit to the criticism section that weakened the last edit substantially by limiting the criticism to info tech (which I think is not at all what Boldrin was saying) and you put in a sentence that reads "Patent applications are a good proxy for innovation." in the section on patent criticism. I don't see how that is a criticism - in this particular instance that would be a benefit and should be moved up. It is not clear to me why you appear to be systematically weakening this section. Please explain so I can ensure I am sticking to the rules.  -- Trumpms (talk) 02:29, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I have no objection to criticism but it should be cited to secondary sources that provide an overview of the field, not this or that primary source. Again this is what every policy and guideline calls for.  I will look for some reviews of the issues. Jytdog (talk) 02:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * My reading of the following is that review articles are preferred - but that primary research is second best and acceptable as long as it is in peer-reviewed reputable journals - and particularity if it is cited a lot. For the Osborne article I think it is clear it is summarizing a lot of other literature- it has over 300 footnotes- most of which are citations to other law journal articles. My plan is to use that and Boldrin's book (cited over 900 times according to Google Scholar) and fortunately open access. --Trumpms (talk) 11:02, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. For example, a review article, monograph, or textbook is better than a primary research paper. When relying on primary sources, extreme caution is advised: Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves. See Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses. One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes. A corollary is that journals not included in a citation index, especially in fields well covered by such indexes, should be used with caution, though whether it is appropriate to use will depend on the context


 * i've gone ahead and improved the Societal views on patents article, updated the lead of that article, and then copied the lead of that article here, per WP:SYNC. Jytdog (talk) 05:03, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog weakening criticism arguments
Jytdog: I was just about to start into some major editing and I looked back at the article log to see if you had moved the benefit text out and fixed your mis-representation of Boldrin - but realized you not only didnt do that but had just cut another peer reviewed source from the criticism section and weakened the section even more. The Barnett article you cut reviewed over 70 articles that looked at the trivial nature of IP and has been cited 43 times according to Google Scholar. This appears to be a reliable source - exactly the kind I was about to add a lot more of -- would you please explain your reasoning for weakening the patent criticism section in detail. -- Trumpms (talk) 11:12, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog: So I just went through the edit log of this page and the Societal views on patents page - and found that your editing is almost always reducing (e.g. removing content particularly that is critical of patents). I have no doubt that you are an editor of good will - but I noticed in your COI disclosure that you "work for a startup company developing drugs for acute neurological disorders..." You appear to be technically sophisticated - so I would suspect that you personally or at the very least your employer is heavily invested in the patenting process, which appears to be a COI of your continued editing of these types of articles. I recommend that you do another "Self-initiated COI Investigation" - but from my skimming of your edits I think the bias is clear. That said - I respectfully disagree with your interpretation of what to do about COI. I think you should continue to actively edit this page - and put the best possible cited arguments for the continued use of the patent system - but put it in Patent (or even change that section title to "Patent Benefits". In addition, however, I request that you stop deleting criticisms supported by peer-reviewed articles. I think with both those actions we can make a really strong wikipedia article. -- Trumpms (talk) 11:54, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:TPG - article talk pages are for discussing article content. If you want to discuss my behavior I would be happy to do that, but the place for that is your Talk page or mine. Jytdog (talk) 18:24, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I dont mind moving the discussion to either talk page - but I thought it would be more clear to do it here - the section/pages in question. Please respond in detail on my talk page so I can understand your POV. Trumpms (talk) 20:18, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, per the TPG it is not appropriate here. Jytdog (talk) 20:26, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Fine -- please respond on my talk page - Trumpms (talk) 02:12, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog was unable to provide any reasoned argument showing that he/she was not actively weakening the patent criticism section on my talk page or hat he.she did not have a COI. I have asked him/her to stop deleting content from that section and to have other wikipedians do it and instead be constructive and work on substantiating the benefit section. I plan to beef up the criticism section that is really weak at this point first - and then I will beef up the benefit section that at least has some of the main content but it missing many references. I will only make statements that can be backed up with a peer-reviewed study in an archival well-respected journal. I would ask that other wikipedians carefully monitor and undo any vandalism or inappropriate editing by either myself or Jytdog. Thank you - Trumpms (talk) 11:24, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Book “Against Intellectual Property”
I've move the following material from the Criticism section to here for further vetting. It's not clear if the referenced book is notable, although the authors certainly are. If the book is notable, I recommend an article be written about it first, before we summarize it here, or someone finds a reference that summarizes the content of the book.
 * However, in the seminal book co-authored by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Against intellectual monopoly the criticisms from dozens of academics and lawyers was summarized.
 * I don't yet feel confident about starting a new article - but here is some background on the notability of the book -- According to Google Scholar it has been cited 905 times, which is pretty significant in most fields.

Other web evidence -- there are 6 pages of google search in News for "Against intellectual monopoly":
 * original press release http://www.newswise.com/articles/economists-say-copyright-and-patent-laws-are-killing-innovation-hurting-economy
 * Authors summarizng in CSM http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/1208/p09s06-coop.html and HP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-k-levine/save-the-whales-abolish-p_b_434595.html
 * washington post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/07/31/heres-why-economists-hate-software-patents/
 * WSJ http://www.wsj.com/articles/where-does-technological-innovation-come-from-1447258125
 * MIT tech rev https://www.technologyreview.com/s/427628/the-library-of-utopia/
 * http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/AAgGncB93Q3TXuyKX2yCCL/Intellectual-property-rights-when-its-broken-fix-it.html
 * market or http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article19807.html
 * This one is particularly interesting -- it uses the book to argue that celebrities have inflated salaries because of IP, which should be lower than porn stars - http://bigthink.com/dollars-and-sex/why-arent-porn-stars-paid-more

It appears clear that the impact of this book is much more concentrated in academia and law journals (very notable) and although covered in the popular press to some extent (marginally notable) it appears largely marginalized by the mainstream media, which of course has a strong COI to maintain current IP rules (the book also covers copy right) -- so I am not sure how to deal with it in Wikipedia.

I am now going to turn my attention to beefing up the benefits of patents section. -- Trumpms (talk) 13:55, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * If you want to create an article about the book, you need to find reliable secondary sources that talk about the book itself. Why is it important?  What impact has it had?  Articles from academic or law journals would be fine.--Nowa (talk) 20:31, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

No incentive
I removed the following from the benefits section: Unless there is some way to prevent copies from competing at the marginal cost of production, companies don't invest in making the invention a product.

I tried to find a citation for this and could not. All the first hits on Google for "wont innovate without patent" are anti-patent references. In looking for it I found the opposite in a post by the CEO of an open source electronics company about "IP Obesity". Obviously not all companies share this sentiment of "If your idea is unique, easily copied, and can be sold for profit in a local market, it will be." So I think the sentence should be changed to: Unless there is some way to prevent copies from competing at the marginal cost of production, some companies may not invest in making the invention a product. Although we still need at least one ref for it - Trumpms (talk) 14:12, 20 August 2016 (UTC) Trumpms (talk) 18:29, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to the Markey article.Nowa (talk) 20:41, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

"Detailed public disclusure"
I removed the word "detailed". The statute only requires the disclosure to be sufficient for the "person skilled in the art", and patentees have an interest in disclosing as little as possible. Rbakels (talk) 08:29, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I would disagree. "Detailed" is needed because a patent will not be granted unless the detail is given: "I have invented a flux capacitor" is not patentable; "I have invented a flux capacitor composed of two turboencabulators and a swingle tree." may be so.
 * The level of detail is difficult to get right in a patent. Not because it discloses secrets (that's the function of a patent) – if you want to keep it secret, don't publish it! Patenting relies on the operation of a legal process for patents and their enforcement. If you can't trust that, then the (expensive) process of patenting is useless anyway.  The level of detail is more about managing the scope of the patent, against infringements. An infringement has to be against the details in the patent, both clearly enough (i.e. details were given) and yet also without allowing a workable alternative solution which is not an infringement because it's different enough – an over-detailed description may make the patent unwarrantedly narrow, thus leaving space for non-infringing work-arounds. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:38, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the correct term is "enabling". I have changed that. --Edcolins (talk) 06:07, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

"Detailed disclosure"
I tried to improve the article by adding te word "detailed" to disclosure, but it was removed.

Should I have used the (American) legal term "enabling"? Article 83 of the European Patent Convention says "Disclosure of the invention. The European patent application shall disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art."

Just the word "disclosure" could be understood as just a requirement for the inventor to tell that he made the invention. The above provision shows that it is more than that. Rbakels (talk) 11:38, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your message. The wording "The patent rights are granted in exchange for an enabling public disclosure of the invention" seems accurate. The term "enabling disclosure" is also used in Europe IMHO. I understand that how detailed the disclosure must be depends on the capabilities of the skilled person. --Edcolins (talk) 10:23, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

"Patent Costs"
Information to be added or removed: Using 2018 data derived from AIPLA Economic Survey, the average cost of a US patent application is between $30,000 and $60,000.

Explanation of issue: The current information on the page is from 2000 and excludes some of the costs of a patent.

References supporting change:

Russkrajec (talk) 12:56, 7 October 2019 (UTC)


 * We don't use commercial / advertorial blogs as sources. Is this information all in the AIPLA report? What does the blueironip post add? - MrOllie (talk) 13:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)