As my patent attorney Mark astutely pointed out about Madey v. Duke University, Duke committed a huge “gaff” in not getting a license from Madey when Duke built a lab to house Madey’s program when Madey moved from Stanford. I pointed out that “gaff” in my article (posted on my web site at http://www.guttagiplaw.com) on the “experimental use” defense where Duke wasted untold money and then was “surprised” (they shouldn’t have been) when the Federal Circuit (for the third time) said that this defense was “narrow” and didn’t apply to what Duke was doing. Definitely a case of “crying over spill milk.”

We do not want people (companies )competing on me-too products, we want them competing to create new technologies and compete based on these new technologies. The only way increase real per capita incomes (real total wealth) is increases in our level of technology.

If Duke received any money for this research, IPWatchdog should receive twice as much for its excellent research in this area.

To paraphrase Gene’s comments – no sheet Sherlock. Uhhh … that is one of the recognized uses of patents … say for the past few hundred years.

Anybody who spouts that patents are harmful to competition without also recognizing the other side of the coin – which is that patents also spur innovation – is intellectually dishonest. Then again, it appears that the anti-patent crowd seems to have a patent on being intellectually dishonest.

As is most things in life, there are both upsides and downsides – and that also applies to patents. So the question isn’t whether patents are good and bad – because they are both. Instead, the question is does the good outweigh the bad or vice versa? The Founding Fathers of this country determined, at the time the Constitution was drafted, that the inventors should have “Exclusive right” for a limited time to their inventions. Also, as far as I know, there isn’t a modern country in the world that does not protect inventions with patents. As such, I think the evidence is that patents have long be recognized as being more good than bad.

What the other side so conveniently ignores is that decreased competition is more than offset by increased innovation. For the other side to point the spotlight at the decreased competition without recognizing the increased innovation resulting from patents is not an exercise in legitimate debate – instead, it is an exercise in obfuscation.