Beyond Conspiracy: US Patent Laws Designed To Crush Social Economic Mobility

As a born Inventor I know first hand how mostly futile it is to work out a wicked invention and expect to ever get it patented. As a child I was too ignorant to understand "why" that would be the fact of life (here in the US). For many years now it has been entirely clear to me: to restrict social mobility.



Social mobility is a Social Sciences term in reference to the ability of people within a society to empower themselves to rise up in terms of the "Social Class Ladder". Social Class of course in reference to income bracket, which of course is an ultimate measure of freedom.



I'm certain just about anybody has, or has had, or will have at least one "big" worthy invention idea. Even more so than the idea "everybody can write one good publish worthy book, but that's it" idea, where only true authors would have more than one.

Despite ever increasing patents, majority are only held by big conglomerate houses, both domestic (such as IBM) and foreign.

Now consider that many 'big' inventions (that actually make it to market) are like hitting the lotto in terms of returns, for the one hit wonder inventor. Considering such a gargantuan boost in social mobility for such a 'common stock' individual, that might be a big problem for folks in certain circles. I wouldn't be surprised if the odds for getting a big invention to market (and not get completely screwed in the process), for a regular person, wouldn't be unlike the absurd odds in trying to win a mega lottery jackpot.



Over the years I've taken note of many case studies of little people getting patents turned down, when faced by big corporations, even when it was clear they had new "art" that the contesting corporation's patents didn't even come close to theirs.

Note that I've mostly just been speaking exactly as I would have before Obama's added patent law of 2011:

The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. The law represents the most significant change to the U.S. patent system since 1952, and closely resembles previously proposed legislation in the Senate in its previous session (Patent Reform Act of 2009).
en.wikipedia.org...

What this law did most of all, from an inventors perspective is, the USPTO awards a patent to the original filer no matter what grounds one has to prove an invention was stolen from them (by the original filer). That is, it eliminates courtroom legal recourse by those who had a patent stolen from them.

These two men, the authors of the bill, both yet still incumbent in-office politicians, hate "American" social mobility:


Don't forget Lord Obama who signed it:


You think that's bad, the laws were so screwed up as far back as 2003 we have this horror story:

They came upon a booth occupied by a California startup called CoreValve. With increasing alarm, Norred studied the materials at the booth. He turned to his colleague: "That's my valve!" According to documents filed in a legal case that lasted more than three years and wound its way through multiple federal courts, Norred tried unsuccessfully to discuss a licensing deal with CoreValve. He says he reached out to the startup's then-chief executive, a Belgian Congo–born medical-devices entrepreneur and investor named Robrecht Michiels, who told him that a license would need to wait until after CoreValve had grown out of the startup phase. (Michiels denies saying any such thing.) Norred tried to follow up with CoreValve, but his calls and letters went unanswered. Years passed. Norred settled into private practice and then, in 2009, he saw the news online: CoreValve had sold itself to Medtronic for $775 million in cash and future payments.
www.popularmechanics.com...

That wasn't him getting screwed on a stolen patent, that has him getting screwed on a patent he had first!

Huh?

When Norred first saw CoreValve's version of his patented invention, he did not know that the U.S. patent system had entered an era of drastic change. Starting in the early 2000s, the rights and protections conferred by a U.S. patent have eroded to the point that they are weaker today than at any time since the Great Depression. A series of Supreme Court decisions and then the most important patent-reform legislation in sixty years, signed into law in 2011, have made it so. The stated purpose of the reform has been to exterminate so-called patent trolls—those entities that own patents (sometimes many thousands of them) and engage in no business other than suing companies for patent infringement. The reforms have had their desired effect. It has become harder for trolls to sue. But they've made it harder for people with legitimate cases, people like Norred, to sue, too.

Now some might argue some other dichotomy to explain (besides deliberately hindering social mobility) why this might all be. Well I have an alternative dichotomy too:

The situation today, in terms of relevancy of bothering inventing & patenting things is this: As soon as patents are filed and become public in the system, Chinese manufacturers 'print it right out' and start processing it out of assembly lines. The stuff more or less all ships right over into some marketplace, and if a bonafide patent holder catches wind their recourse to get compensation is marginal at best.

During my technical / manufacturing career, I've worked with several patent holders. The last one I worked with, the one with the most on the line being active in business, he basically summed it up about like this: 'patents are a problem because of trying to be able to pay the lawyers'. The problem, I argue, isn't inherently the lawyers themselves in this case, it's how obscenely backwards these laws are all built. From there, considering how apparently deliberately obtuse the patent process system is, in terms of this dichotomy, I declare we're left with this sort of inescapable burden of explanation. One we wont get. But if it isn't all about crushing US social mobility, then the next best answer its about empowering the Chinese 'economic overlords'. Of course to the Socio Agnostic, it's probably a good bit of both.

NOTICE: I should have sat on this piece for a week, hammering away (instead of crash coursing it in a few hours). I just dont have time to, but this thread shall enrichen as it goes on (like my other new "Beyond Consipiracy" piece did: Entire generation growing up on this ultra diabolical "FREEMIUM GAME MODEL").
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I gave up trying to design things to patent. Either my inventions would be abused or misused by people or they would cause a negative effect on the economy. The technology I am investigating could also be weaponized, I am not going to start selling anything like that.

From talking to others who tried to patent products that would help normal people to be less dependent on big business, I found that they won't usually allow these to go through.

I feel ya! On account of being an inventor gets you marginalized as a "nerd", if this whole "PC Movement" is for real, Obama should be protecting independent inventors, not completely obliterating their existence!

If Thomas Jefferson were alive, or Ben Franklin (nevermind Thomas Edison), they might just blow their own brains out!

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Don't give up!

A good friend of mine persevered for five years, but was awarded US patent #7614586.

He has at least one other patent thatI know of as well.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

There's a lot to rework in patent law. As someone who puts very little value on IP my ideas are pretty far off from the courts right now. I fully intend to own a few patents one day in the future though, I just need to get them invented first, or in other cases I hope to make some mathematical discoveries... but you can't patent those.

If anyone out there is reading and wants some ideas worth several million dollars here's a couple simple ones I've thought of over the years. The first can be done with mid level programming knowledge, the second with entry level knowledge of programming, file systems, motion capture, and video effects.

Make an app that lets you store and send clipboard contents between all of your electronic devices, from copying a link on one computer and pasting it on another, to copying an image on your phone and pasting it on your desktop. This would be a massive time saver for business.

Create a content management system for videos. Use motion capture technology to change how tv shows are filmed, and digitally add in props like the branding for a can of soda, based on a generic prop the actors use. Make it so that different broadcasts can include different product placement. Pepsi buys that can for the first broadcast, Coke gets it on the mid season rerun, and it reads Jones when it goes to Netflix.

It is intellectual property theft. I did not know that it is now sanctioned by patent law.
This is shameful.
I had a great invention over 10 years ago for "leash-on" a dog collar with a retractable leash attached to the collar.
I filed a utility patent with an "investor".
The invention was stolen from me.
I am hesitant to say foreign nationals were involved because I will be labeled racist.
But in the land of the free and the home of the brave, what the hell!

a reply to: Aazadan

Hey, since the USPTO patent process is borderline 'forbidden' to little people, why not post up your inventions?

There's a lot of sarcasm in that statement.

I have notebooks full of lists of ideas, pages and pages of designs, etc. It's an ongoing thing for my existence.

The best 'solution' I've come up with, born as 'common stock', to ever make due on being an inventor is to 'invent' self-sustaining business(es) that can empower me the means to be able to pursue the path of being a 'proper' inventor.....

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Yes, I read your entire OP.

But, my question, the glaring question, the elephant in the room.............why would the PTB want to restrict social mobility? How much sense does that make? What's to be gained? Why would they care? Are they that afraid of maintaining their control?

I don't get it.

a reply to: TonyS

Well there are many strong arguments for the "Elite" wanting to economically strangle the bejesus out of the little people, and many solid trends and metrics to show it. A complicated issue, and many before me to argue it well.

It didn't occur to me last night to set up a premise for WHY to crush social mobility (which it does in practice). I knew I shouldnt have rushed this one last night...

Now a lot of 'why' its all so screwed up can be argued from a mere special interests angle, like how crooked the FDA is:

OVER the years we have covered many issues and scandals in the USPTO. Not only the copyright system is rigged (managed by and serving the large copyright monopolies); the USPTO is more or less the same. It is a government body that is run by corporations and their minions (like David Kappos).
techrights.org...

But of course many people 'harmed' by the FDA (say with restricting the hospital industry from using non-patentable substances that might help treat or better yet cure their cancer) would argue in that practice the system is set to keep people sick. That is, Big Pharm actively works to keep people addicting to their non-cure "treatments", or at least pay $10,000 per dose for one size fits all cancer treatments that take FOREVER to get approved, and aren't good enough alone as singular 'solutions'. So my argument in light of that model in the USPTO context is its about keeping little people out of the game. Why wouldn't the big fish want to keep the masses from competing with them?

The bigger picture is this:
Back around the engineered housing collapse, it occurred to me that in the face of Accelerating Change (in technology), where a big modern trend is this push by the "Immortalist Movement" in using technology to gain 'indefinite lifespans'... the motives for the engineered collapsed likely transcended the age old premise of 'they did it because want our money'. Elites already have 'all' the money and power, where if they believe in this Immortalist stuff they should have a new cause to undermine everybody: to keep us all from participating in 'living forever'.

If at the technological edge for humans to have the means to live many times longer, where the ones who extend their lives by a decade 'now' can live long enough to to see their lifespan double, where within that lifetime technology is poised for them to live 'indefinitely', that creates a HUGE problem: Because in such a world not everybody can live forever (without over-population, etc). This creates (at least) a couple options: start killing people, and/or take their money so we cant participate.



So my argument became that the "war" Richard Seed there is threatening is already well underway via Economic Warfare:
Economic World War: Technocratic Plutocrat Elites vs. The People

As such, there are plenty of "soft kill" metrics one could bring into the discussion showing 'trying to kill people' (slowly) has been going on, likewise stealing everybody's money has been in place 'forever' (just look at the Federal Reserve slowly evaporating the value of the dollar right out from underneath US [where the poorer you are the more you are undermined by it]).
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a reply to: TonySI think the OP is talking too personal. The name of the game is not to stop any social mobility but just to put it simply, they don't want you to have the money it generates, they want it. It's not you, it's their greed.
Let me give you a nice scenario being as this is a conspiracy site. The patent office is government controlled as they can refuse patents and even co-opt them because of national interests. When discussing government also include big business as they are cthe same entity.
Now just for instance you've got a zero point energy device, free electricity, cheap to make and easy to manufacture. Now no-one in the world has this device, no-one even knows the workings. Will they allow you to patent it?
Yes, they will. But after a couple of weeks someone like General Electric will suddenly find a patent, exactly like yours, that they registered say in 1947. Now do you get how it works?

If it's so hard for the "little guy" to get patents why do we see ordinary people doing just that and selling their products to the big greedy evil corporations all the time? Why do 24hr networks exist that have "little guy" entrepreneurs selling patented products time and time again?

I have no doubt it's difficult, but if you give up then it's just impossible. Obviously it's possible for those who don't give up.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

Do you have some good example case studies?

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Common sense doesn't suffice here?

Lol, I can't believe that's a serious request.

Here, these are individuals, not corporations:

Top 5

Growing up in the 80s there were several of the same faces you'd see on the infomercial channels, and I'm not talking regular hosts, but regulars that showcased their own patented products. Some of these people appeared to have dozens if not hundreds of patents. I doubt most of them started with a silver spoon. They looked self-driven, and like they came from regular beginnings.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

A list of the top 5 record holders for number of patents is about the furthest thing from a case study that would have any bearing on the patent situation for new little people of the past 15 years.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Ah ha ha!

I knew you were gonna be a sore loser.

Well, I'll be sure to keep following your threads to poke holes in the reasoning.

This is fun!

What did I lose? This is a discussion of the USPTO system since around Y2K (when I first started getting to know it) through it's de-evolution into what we know it as today.

You're talking about nameless people who were already (TV salesman) in the big time in the 1980's, and the top patent holding individuals in the world (old timer's).

Totally irrelevant.
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How Stuff Works suggests getting a lawyer, though they say it's pretty easy to get a "patent pending" deal for around $150 or so: science.howstuffworks.com...

Patent lifespans are shockingly short... less than 20 years.

a reply to: Byrd

That's a non-renewable Provisional Patent. Once you file it you have 12 months to jump thru all the proper hoops to file a proper patent. If something happens and you can't say-afford it, then patent trolls can file it (kind of like when your web domain name expires and the autobots instantly park & camp on it, try to get $15,000 from you).

A provisional patent application cannot be renewed or extended. A provisional patent lasts for 12 months and to keep the filing date of the provisional patent, you must file a non-provisional patent application before the 12 months are up. If you are not ready to file a non-provisional patent application before the 12 months are up, what you can do is file a new provisional patent application. However, doing so has consequences explained in this article. When you file a new provisional patent you will get a new filing date and the filing date of your previous provisional patent will still expire. An old provisional patent and a new provisional patent are independent of each other.
www.thoughtstopaper.com...

Their main practical use is allowing you to "safely" enter the market with a product a year before you get the big expensive filing stamped.

A proper patent can be tricky for a DIY'er, as patents have their own style of "legalese" language, which tends to mean you have to hire a proper patent lawyer / team to take your draft and make it USPTO review worthy.

Unlike with a lawsuit, you have to pay these lawyers up front, unless I guess if you got sucked into one of the big firms which take peoples ideas and gives them pennies on the dollar.

Another issue is copyright. Everything designed to protect or help artists/inventors/creators has been morphed to instead serve corporations. Copyright was originally 24 years, but it's now (due to lobbying from places like Disney) been extended to something nutty like "Life of Author + 50/70 Years".

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn

Cool. That means my "Save the Whales" game code is still mine.

I can sue Greenpeace!