this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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Technology

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[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I could understand filling a provisional patent and then only pulling the trigger on the whole shebang when you actually have to protect it.

That is trolling.

Patents are intended as a social contract:

  • An inventor: gets a limited time monopoly to sell their invention
  • Everyone else: gets to see how they did it, then get to do it for free once the monopoly time expires

Filing claims and keeping them hidden, then rewording them for publication when "you actually have to protect it", is trolling.

[–] derbis@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Patent trolling is buying up patents from their actual inventors for the purpose of suing and extorting money from companies that actually make use of the tech, while not actually doing anything productive with them.

Two facts here: 1) they invented the tech, and 2) they used the invention to legitimately produce items for sale.

Trolling is not a fit for this.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They kept provisional filings on hold for over 15 years, released their own product without filing for the actual patent, and only did so after a competitor announced their own product.

If you don't want to call it "trolling", what do you call "abusing the patent process to keep competitors unaware of pending patents that can be used against them retroactively"? What would be a shorter word for that?