Could I patent harmful technology to prevent it from being put on the market?
I just saw a headline about Ford patenting a system to eavesdrop on passengers conversations to serve them related ads. If I had patented that before, could I stop it from being used?
In theory yes, you have to remember though that you have to enforce parents yourself. If you suspect infringement you will have to sue and carry the lawyer costs, at least until a court judges in your favor. This is off course besides the costs of applying for the parent itself. Your patent might also not be valid in all countries.
In practice the chances of a private person doing this and winning against a multi-billion dollar corporation without going bankrupt are negligible.
Those damn parent application costs!
That's what my sister had to pay before adopting her kid.
If you hold a patent, then you have an exclusive right to that invention for a fixed period, which would be 20 years from the filing date in the USA. That would mean Ford could not claim the same or a derivative invention, at least not for the parts which overlap with your patent. So yes, you could sit on your patent and do nothing until it expires, with some caveats.
But as a practical matter, the necessary background research, the application itself, and the defense of a patent just to sit on it would be very expensive, with no apparent revenue stream to pay for it. I haven't looked up what sort of patent Ford obtained (or maybe they've merely started the application) but patents are very long and technical, requiring whole teams of lawyers to draft properly.
For their patent to be valid, they must not overlap with an existing claim, as well as being novel and non-obvious, among other requirements. They would only file a patent to: 1) protect themselves from competition in future, 2) expect that this patent can be monetized by directly implementing it, or licensing it out to others, or becoming a patent troll and extracting nuisance-value settlements, or 3) because they're already so deep in the Intellectual Property land-grab that they must continue to participate by obtaining outlandish patents. The latter is a form of "publish or perish" and allows them to appear like they're on the cutting edge of innovation.
A patent can become invalidated if it is not sufficiently defended. This means that if no one even attempts to infringe, then your patent would be fine. But if someone does, then you must file suit or negotiate a license with them, or else they can challenge the validity of your patent. If they win, you'll lose your exclusive rights and they can implement the invention after all. This is not cheap, and Ford has deep pockets.
Why in the fuck is copyright protection longer than patent protection? I feel like both should be 10-20 years maximum, but if you have to full on invent something, then work out production, the get sales going, I can see an argument for 20 years. But just drawing a fucking mouse gets you life of creator plus years beyond that?
I guess Disney isn’t waiting for competitors IP to hit public domain, but another type of company lobbying for longer patent terms might wind up with an own goal by locking themselves out of using some newly refined processes or something? It just seems really weird they haven’t been increased together.
Because it's a lot easier for Disney to churn out mickey mouse cartoons than it is for General Electric to come up with an entirely new rotating joint for the helicopter mounted motorized minigun
Although copyright and patents (and trademarks) are lumped together as "intellectual property", there's almost nothing which is broadly applicable to them all, and they might as well be considered separately. The only things I can think of -- and I'm not a lawyer of any kind -- are that: 1) IP protection is mentioned vaguely in the US Constitution, and 2) they all behave as property, in that they can be traded/reassigned. That's it.
With that out of the way, it's important to keep in mind that patent rights are probably the strongest in the family of IP, since there's no equivalent "fair use" (US) or "fair dealing" (UK) allowance that copyright has. A patent is almost like owning an idea, whereas copyright is akin to owning a certain rendition plus a derivative right.
Disney has leaned on copyright to carve for themselves an exclusive market of Disney characters, while also occasionally renewing their older characters (aka derivatives), so that's why they lobby for longer copyright terms.
Whereas there isn't really a singular behemoth company whose bread-and-butter business is to churn out patents. Inventing stuff is hard, and so the lack of such a major player means a lack of lobbying to extend patent terms.
To be clear, there are companies who rely almost entirely on patent law for their existence, just like Disney relies on copyright law. But type foundries (companies that make fonts) are just plainly different than Disney. Typefaces (aka fonts) as a design can be granted patents, and then the font files can be granted copyright. But this is a special case, I think.
The point is: no one's really clamoring for longer parents, and most people would regard a longer exclusive term on "ideas" to be very problematic. Esp if it meant pharmaceutical companies could engage in even more price-gouging, for example.
First of all patents run out generally after 20 years. And then everyone can use your technology.
The whole idea of patents is incitivising inventors to publish their invention for everyone to see. In exchange they get a period of exclusivity. This way they also don't have to deal with as many trade secrets.
Have you ever heard of China
Even if nobody finds a way around, that would be incredibly expensive.
Yes, but you would need to defend your patent and continue to file patents and variations as tech evolves to prevent work-arounds.
Patent law is a fucking mess, don't bother getting involved with it.
the US government would find some way to eminent domain it.
Pretty sure companies like bp and shell do exactly that. Except the harm reduction is to their oil profits. Can't have competing tech on the market
A lot of people accuse them of this in regards to some sort of like water powered engine. So far the evidence seems to be that there's no way to split water into hydrogen and oxygen that uses less power than the resulting burning of the gas can generate.
I said that to say take these accusations with a grain of salt.
Oh yea, you may have noticed a tinfoil hat on those telling you that. You can't make energy out of nothing, splitting it costs as much energy as combining would get you...
...minus a tonne of losses. Not that oil is remotely efficient in comparison.
I heard about solar cell tech and such. Apparently they bought the patents and said they're going to use it expand into green energy. Which they never did, obviously
In theory yes
In reality, they will find a way around your patent.
Look up the patent on window wipers as an example
Kearns and the car windshield wipers?
I think that might have been his name.