By Brad Feld on March 10, 2010
Today, Amazon’s 1-Click patent was confirmed following a four year re-examination. Amazon now has ownership of a highly controversial and very absurd patent which I hope will only be used defensively. This a classic example of a “business method patent” that should simply not exist. I continue to wait patiently to see what the Supreme [...]
Posted in Trends & Concepts | Tagged Facebook, google, jet pack, Patent, Patents, Supreme Court
By Brad Feld on March 4, 2010
Image via Wikipedia
The Apple patent suit against HTC really riled up my friend Sawyer. I wasn’t planning on posting another missive from him until next week, but I thought this was particularly timely given the public statement from Apple, including a specific quote from Steve Jobs about its competitors stealing their patented inventions. Sawyer explains [...]
Posted in Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts | Tagged apple, copying, HTC, iPhone, Lawsuit, Patent, Patent infringement, Patents, Steve Jobs
By Brad Feld on March 3, 2010
I saw a tweet today that said “The doubly-linked list, a structure I studied thirty years ago, has recently been patented.” After giggling at the absurdity of the idea, I went and at a patent dated 4/11/06 that appears to be for the doubly-linked list. The prior art was extremely thin, only went back to [...]
Posted in Trends & Concepts | Tagged linked list, patent trolls, Patents, Prior art, Source code, Wikipedia
By Brad Feld on February 22, 2010
I love the stuff that ya’ll email me (or comment) after I write a post that challenge my thinking. While occasionally the notes are hostile (which is mostly just entertaining), they are usually really thought provoking even when I disagree. And, when they give me a new way to think about something, they are really [...]
Posted in Trends & Concepts | Tagged intellectual property, Intellectual Ventures, Invention, patent troll, Patents
By Brad Feld on February 21, 2010
I have a number of friends who are patent attorneys. Some have strong negative feelings about software patents that mirror mine while others keep me entertained by arguing both sides of the situation with themselves while I sit around and listen. One of my friends – let’s call him Sawyer – has very strong [...]
Posted in Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts | Tagged abolish software patents, innovation, Intellectual Ventures, Law, Nathan Myhrvold, Patent, patent troll, Patents
By Brad Feld on February 19, 2010
If there is one thing you read today, go read Brad Burnham at Union Square Ventures excellent essay titled Software patents are the problem not the answer.
Several years ago when I first started saying things like “software patents are invalid constructs” or “software shouldn’t be able to be patented” or “software patents are a huge [...]
Posted in Trends & Concepts | Tagged Brad Burnham, innovation, Intellectual Ventures, Nathan Myhrvold, patent trolls, Patents, software patents, Venture Capital
By Brad Feld on February 18, 2010
After not seeing the word patent in my daily information routine for a few weeks, I saw it twice today – first in an article titled Turning Patents Into ‘Invention Capital’ (in the NY Times) and then in Region Sustains Robust Patent Production in the WSJ. Both stirred me up early this morning, but for [...]
Posted in Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts | Tagged innovation, intellectual property, Law, Patent, Patent application, Patents, Silicon Valley, United States Patent and Trademark Office
By Brad Feld on January 30, 2010
I had a very interesting meeting yesterday with an MIT Professor who I’ve known for a long time. He is anti-software patent, as am I. However, he suggested something I hadn’t really spent much time thinking about, namely that patents slow down innovation. Some very credible folks have been talking about this for a little [...]
Posted in Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts | Tagged Al Capone, innovation, intellectual property, ip, Law, Patent, Patents
By Brad Feld on January 12, 2010
Brad Burnham at Union Square Ventures put up a very important post last night titled We need an independent invention defense to minimize the damage of aggressive patent trolls. His partner Fred Wilson echoed Brad’s thoughts on his blog with a post titled Why We Need An Independent Invention Defense.
Brad’s post starts out with the [...]
Posted in Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts | Tagged Brad Burnham, Chris Sacca, Foundry Group, Fred Wilson, innovation, intellectual property, investor defense, Law, Patent, patent trolls, Patents, Startup Visa, Union Square Ventures
By Brad Feld on December 18, 2009
Posted in Business | Tagged Patents
