The problem is that no one would believe you. And since you don't have any IP protection, the second you showed off anything of real interest (to prove you could do it), they could simply steal the idea at that point.
In this model that I've constructed in my head, you do have IP protection. As I've said in my posts, if you're actively trying to commercialize, you should be able to receive the patent.
The problem with this model is now, "how do you define "actively trying to commercialize?" Patent trolls would then just move to doing the bare minimum to qualify for this category. If we make it prohibitively expensive, however, we may eliminate some of the patent trolls.
Some ideas in this direction:
1) IP companies must notify any infringing company within 3 months of the infringing product's release. IP companies can't wait until something like the iPhone blows up to sue.
2) If a company wants to maintain a patent, it must either be a commercial product or be willing to license it for a reasonable fee. Some IP companies refuse to license at first, in order to drive up the price.
3) Every 3 years that you have the patent, you must show progress towards commerciality (commerciality remains to be defined in this thought experiment).
4) The patents for ideas, strategies, etc. should either be banned outright, or the lengths made much, much shorter. There's no reason that Amazon should still have a patent over "one-click" in 2010.
My problem with "no one would believe you" is that it remains purely hypothetical. Capitalism and the marketplace has proven time and time again to be the great equalizer. If you had a working cold fusion experiment that you could patent, why wouldn't they believe you if you could prove it in a laboratory setting?
> 1) IP companies must notify any infringing company within 3 months of the infringing product's release. IP companies can't wait until something like the iPhone blows up to sue.
So no stealth startups then?
> 2) If a company wants to maintain a patent, it must either be a commercial product or be willing to license it for a reasonable fee. Some IP companies refuse to license at first, in order to drive up the price.
Who defines reasonable? I understand that the market can determine this, but the market can't then go to the patent office and say "Yeah, this patent should not be allowed."
> 3) Every 3 years that you have the patent, you must show progress towards commerciality (commerciality remains to be defined in this thought experiment).
Show progress to whom? The patent office? How do you define progress? Then we are back at square one: the patent office holds all the keys.
> 4) The patents for ideas, strategies, etc. should either be banned outright, or the lengths made much, much shorter. There's no reason that Amazon should still have a patent over "one-click" in 2010.
Agreed. Patents on software == patents on mathematical concepts. By the same token patents on strategies.
Here is a solution that can be implemented as an algorithm:
1. The inventor registers a patent and is required to set a licencing fee.
2. If within a year nobody licenses, the idea, the licensing fee is dropped to at least half the original or lower if the inventor chooses to do so.
3. This repeats until the fee is less than $1. Then the patent expires and everything is public domain.
4. If a patent is licensed from day one at the asker's price, it still has the usual time limit on expiration.
5. As long as a new licensee was signed on in the past year, the inventor may raise the licensing fee once for that year for any new licensees.
This is not a perfect system and obviously can still be gamed in various ways. But a system like this one could use markets to determine what an idea is really worth and for how long.
This is a pretty good idea, although I'd add a couple of things:
A) The licensing price is non-negtioble. That is, you can't get an offer from Apple to license it for less and take them up on it (although you can have bulk license pricing).
B) The license fee has to be reasonable with respect to the invention. This is tricky, because who determines what is reasonable. But it avoids the problem that Apple says, "Coverflow license is $1B/license". They have no desire to ever license it, but want it to take a while to hit the public domain.
"1) IP companies must notify any infringing company within 3 months of the infringing product's release. IP companies can't wait until something like the iPhone blows up to sue."
Unless something changes drastically, I'm not sure how you pull this off. Most products aren't released on stage with Steve Jobs saying it will change the world. At this point the only companies who are likely to ever recoup any damage are companies like MS and Google, who can effectively build mini-companies that will track and analyze every product released. This simply is infeasible for most companies, including virtually every startup.
