Comments on: Former patent examiner concerned about nanotech patent thicket

By: jerry

jerry — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 04:17:09 +0000

i think drew and marvin are both partially correct.in any event,our already overworked legal system is in for some changes,possibly, a specialty court system?

By: Jonathan Grant

Jonathan Grant — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 15:24:55 +0000

Regrettably, as a result of “overlapping patents,” the nanotech industry will have to spend much of its capital on patent litigation instead of R&D.

By: Drew Harris

Drew Harris — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 16:24:56 +0000

Having attended the Nanomedicine conference, I have no doubt that pharmaceutical companies understand the importance of patents to their business. But even big pharma is going to have litigation problems when investment companies start buying up patents from research startups and bankroll huge patent suits against big companies. I’ve already seen this trend in big ticket securities litigation, where investment companies buy up worthless securities so that they are essentially “buying” a securities fraud claim against another company. Given the damages awarded in patent cases, I predict we will eventually see some investment companies “buying” nanotech patent suits from startups against big companies.

By: Marvin Motsenbocker

Marvin Motsenbocker — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:05:54 +0000

Dr. Bawa has a good point. This problem is similar to what the software industry has faced. We need a higher quality patent office. Unfortunately most patent examiners do not understand English well and also are not given enough time to evaluate patent applications properly. This problem partly has resulted from our poor quality government.

By: Christine Peterson

Christine Peterson — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 21:12:21 +0000

I think the previous comment has a typo — it should say “big companies”.

By: Britney

Britney — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 01:27:25 +0000

I agree with him this not doubt has a negative affect on the industry and would hate to think just all the nig companies get all the great inventions to come from the nano tech industry!