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January 03, 2006
An overabundance of patents
Jo sent a link to a Business Week online article about "The Patent Epidemic:"
Massive overpatenting, the professors say, "creates an unnecessary drag on innovation," forcing companies to redesign their products, pony up license fees for technology that should be free, and even deter some research altogether.
Apparently some companies are getting into thickets of patent infringement suits. Some are the same companies who pay their employees to come up with patentable ideas. I wonder how much a patent lawyer's firm gets when a patent the firm has written up gets accepted by the patent office.
This page about What things cost suggests it's a boatload more than the inventors get. Hmm.
Posted by Mark at January 3, 2006 08:52 PM
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