http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/01/15/legal-entrepreneurship/ Economics of organizations, strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation, and more Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:24:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/01/15/legal-entrepreneurship/#comment-69128 spostrel Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:34:01 +0000 http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/01/15/legal-entrepreneurship/#comment-69128 The only solution is to get the PTO to stop awarding patents that are so obvious that the same idea is independently stumbled on by every person that works in the area. Jeff Bezos once admitted he was embarrassed by Amazon's patent on "one-click" checkout, but said he had to play by the rules as he found them; he proposed shorter patent life for e-commerce patents as a reform. I think it would be better simply to refuse such patents on the grounds of obviousness. And a retroactive proof of obviousness would be evidence of widespread independent rediscovery. The only solution is to get the PTO to stop awarding patents that are so obvious that the same idea is independently stumbled on by every person that works in the area. Jeff Bezos once admitted he was embarrassed by Amazon’s patent on “one-click” checkout, but said he had to play by the rules as he found them; he proposed shorter patent life for e-commerce patents as a reform. I think it would be better simply to refuse such patents on the grounds of obviousness. And a retroactive proof of obviousness would be evidence of widespread independent rediscovery.

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