Patently Obvious
Quando a maioria das pessoas consideram o sistema de patentes, elas geralmente pensam em uma estrutura onde grandes corporações fazem dinheiro vendendo produtos baseados em conhecimento particular, licenciando tecnologia para outros, ou processando aqueles que infringem nos direitos de patentes atrás de seus produtos de ponta. Em anos recentes, a importância de patentes e direitos de propriedade intelectual como uma importante variável no mercado tem chegado na vanguarda da consciência pública, com líderes mundiais declarando a liderança de seu país na corrida à inovação. No mercado, conhecimento é poder.
A vast amount of precedent innovation is unconsidered by patent-granting authorities in the creation of new IP rights. Patent granting authorities including the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), European Patent Office (EPO), Japanese Patent Office (JPO), Chinese State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) and many others are constrained by the use of patent classification systems which are routinely circumvented by patent applicants.
There is a two-way social contract underlying the patent system. In the United States, patent terms are generally limited to 20 years from the date of application. A social contract is implicit in the granting of intellectual property rights; the public good is served when there is complete disclosure of the information or knowledge necessary to practice an invention or granted innovation. In return, the public has been willing to allow the grant of time-limited exclusionary zones, which have anti-competitive effects, to those who have fully disclosed their innovations. By statutory intention, once a patent has expired, the patent holder loses the right to exclude others from fully utilizing any innovation described in the patent.
A large number of patents enter the public domain when they are “abandoned” – when owners discontinue paying patent maintenance fees. Patents also only provide an exclusionary right in the country for which the patent is filed. As demonstrated by the Global Innovation Commons (G.I.C.), using intellectual property available in the public domain eliminates the need to pay licensing fees on those innovations in countries where the patent was never registered, or worldwide, if abandoned.
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