crockett

I'm kind of torn on the whole idea behind patents and if they are good or bad. On one had I want to respect the idea, that if some guy in a garage some where builds a interesting widget, that he should be able to protect his right to bring it to the market.

However in today's world that would be extremely rare and unlikely, as most patents are usually just ideas and most things are never created. Even worse is groups buy up these patents trying to force others whom actually did create something to pay a fee because part of what they created was covered under some random patent filled years ago.

Many of us myself included had to deal with this very issue years ago when we were threaten to be sued over a random video patent. That kind of shit obviously hinders economic growth and innovation and it's absurd. It makes me want to say the entire patent system should be scraped.

When you look at China, they don't give a fuck about patents, they just make what ever they want to make and don't give two shits if someone has a patent on it. Obviously it's good for their economy, but not so good for ours when they do this.

What do you guys think should be done about the current US patent system? In my opinion, I think you should only be able to get a temporary or limited patent on an "idea". You should have to bring forward a working prototype within 5 years of being granted a temporary patent before being granted a full patent and if 5 years is not enough time then you should have to show working progress and reason for not having the working prototype finished.

I think only real items should be able to be patented, not ideas as it's far too easy to abuse the current system with just patents granted for ideas.

Thoughts?