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Patents Are Absolutely Bonkers: An Origin Story · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
0:27
Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
0:31
Speaker 1: tuning in. Let's give a shout out to the man,
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Speaker 1: the myth, the legend, even after a long weekend. It's
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Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Woo who Happy Labor Day, guys, Max the patent troll Williams.
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Speaker 3: It's true.
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Speaker 1: Da he trollin And you're Noel Brown and I'm Ben Bollen.
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Speaker 1: And recently, in an episode or i should say, a
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Speaker 1: series on the history of drive ins, we talked about
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Speaker 1: the guy who patented concept of a drive in, Richard
1:02
Speaker 1: Milton Hollingshead Junior.
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Speaker 3: That's right, great name, great idea. I do believe there was.
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Speaker 2: There were some questions that popped up immediately on the
1:12
Speaker 2: inherent novelty of this idea in terms of like the
1:16
Speaker 2: setup and what made it patent worthy. And then we
1:20
Speaker 2: kind of got into that and explained a little bit
1:21
Speaker 2: of the nature of patents and the time limits and
1:24
Speaker 2: all of that in the episode. But today we're gonna
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Speaker 2: get a lot deeper into the concepts of patents in general,
1:31
Speaker 2: which I think is something.
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Speaker 3: That a lot of people might be a little hazy
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Speaker 3: on I certainly was.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it turns out there's a reason it's an entire
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Speaker 1: specialization for the lawyer types. This is not the history
1:44
Speaker 1: of intellectual property. Please check out our two part episode
1:48
Speaker 1: last year on IP and shout out to the Big
1:52
Speaker 1: Mouse for now. Like you said, Noel, I think patents
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Speaker 1: are pretty confusing to the average person. Before we dive in,
2:02
Speaker 1: we have to define what a patent is. And luckily,
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Speaker 1: at least the definition of a patent is pretty agreed
2:10
Speaker 1: upon it.
2:17
Speaker 2: There's a really helpful kind of cheat sheet on the
2:20
Speaker 2: University of Iowa, of all places. I'm sorry, I don't
2:23
Speaker 2: know why I act like Iowa is some sort of
2:25
Speaker 2: like you know, deep cut state.
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Speaker 3: Plenty of things go on.
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Speaker 2: In Iowa, including a very helpful defining of patent basics.
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Speaker 2: You can find this if you just search on the
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Speaker 2: University of Iowa Library's website. But they define a patent
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Speaker 2: as an intellectual property right granted by the government to
2:43
Speaker 2: an inventor or owner to exclude others from making, using,
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Speaker 2: offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the said country,
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Speaker 2: or importing the invention into the said country for a
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Speaker 2: limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention.
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Speaker 1: That's a cool part. Also shout out to the University
3:02
Speaker 1: of Iowa. They have one of the best writing programs
3:05
Speaker 1: in the United States and therefore arguably the world. The
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Speaker 1: last part of the definition you read there, NOL is
3:12
Speaker 1: I think one of the easiest ways for we, the
3:16
Speaker 1: non lawyers, to understand the nature of a patent. You
3:20
Speaker 1: are essentially making a trade with a state government. You
3:25
Speaker 1: are saying, look, I will go public with this right.
3:29
Speaker 1: The idea is the powers that be are allowing you
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Speaker 1: to propagate your invention with a degree of exclusivity because
3:39
Speaker 1: you have agreed to share it in some way with
3:42
Speaker 1: the public.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I believe when you file for a patent
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Speaker 2: with the government, you're essentially filing a schematic or plans
3:50
Speaker 2: you know of said invention. Though I'm sure it gets
3:54
Speaker 2: a little murky when it comes to like trade secrets,
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Speaker 2: for example, like you aren't necessarily required to define every
4:03
Speaker 2: single piece of material it's used to make your products.
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Speaker 3: I don't know too much about this yet.
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Speaker 4: I'm gonna do some more research later on, but it
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Speaker 4: feels like like from the stuff I was reading that
4:12
Speaker 4: they've started to establish trade secrets as its own fourth category.
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Speaker 4: So you have like patterns, you have trademarks, you copyrights,
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Speaker 4: and now you have trade secrets because to your point, Nol,
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Speaker 4: it's like, like a pattern is very cut and dry,
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Speaker 4: and that's why I really like them, because it's like,
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Speaker 4: this is how you make X.
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Speaker 3: Well, a trade secret, it's like how do you make X?
4:33
Speaker 1: And then someone sort of steeples their fingers and does
4:36
Speaker 1: little Monty burns and they say, wouldn't you like to know?
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Speaker 1: Wouldn't you like to know? Indeed?
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Speaker 2: Because I mean I could take a filed patent. You know,
4:45
Speaker 2: that is public domain. It is available to public as
4:48
Speaker 2: literally a whole caveat of being granted the patent, and
4:51
Speaker 2: I could probably mock up something close to what the
4:55
Speaker 2: real thing is. But surely there are certain components that
4:59
Speaker 2: don't have to be disclosed, certain like you know, actual
5:02
Speaker 2: materials or industrial processes inherent to making the thing. They
5:06
Speaker 2: aren't necessarily included in that filing.
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Speaker 1: And I love Max You're pointing out there are different
5:14
Speaker 1: species of this conceptual ownership. We could call it. The
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Speaker 1: trademark is not the patent right, and the IP is
5:24
Speaker 1: not necessarily the patent. But patents were a big, big deal.
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Speaker 1: The United States talks about them in the Constitution, specifically
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Speaker 1: in Article one, Section eight, clause eight, and their idea,
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Speaker 1: as we'll find, comes from the earlier legal framework of
5:43
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom. They said, all right, we know we're
5:47
Speaker 1: anti monarchy and this monarchy and specific However, not all
5:52
Speaker 1: of their ideas were bad. That's why the Constitution says, essentially,
5:56
Speaker 1: the Congress will have power quote to promote the progress
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Speaker 1: of science and useful arts, a term that will be
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Speaker 1: important later, by securing for limited times to authors and
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Speaker 1: inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discovery.
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Speaker 1: And they didn't put in that clause, by the way,
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Speaker 1: that was editorial. They didn't say a phrase that will
6:16
Speaker 1: be important later.
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Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's essentially a I mean, I think
6:20
Speaker 2: the term promote the progress of science and useful arts
6:24
Speaker 2: is really important because without some kind of protection, it
6:27
Speaker 2: doesn't really incentivize smart people to share their ideas for
6:32
Speaker 2: fear that they're just going to get them ripped off immediately.
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Speaker 2: So this really is a way of promoting the spread
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Speaker 2: of good and useful ideas and technology by smart people.
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Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, I mean, think about it, right, let's
6:45
Speaker 1: exercise the empathy of these other perspectives. You spend twenty
6:50
Speaker 1: years of your life figuring out a new and brilliant
6:54
Speaker 1: process to make don't know shoes, right, You figured it out,
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Speaker 1: and if you go public with it without some sort
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Speaker 1: of legal protection, what's to stop the next cobbler down
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Speaker 1: the way from immediately taking that idea right, taking literal
7:11
Speaker 1: decades of your blood, sweat and tears. And that's why
7:16
Speaker 1: a patent, as we'll see, is sort of a mini
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Speaker 1: or constrained monopoly. If we go back to University of Iowa,
7:23
Speaker 1: they talk about the expiration date for patents.
7:27
Speaker 2: That's right, I mean, And we're gonna end up using
7:29
Speaker 2: the term kind of mini monopoly, which I like because
7:32
Speaker 2: a big question that comes up is like, aren't monopolies bad?
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Speaker 2: Don't we not want to create monopolies? And so while
7:39
Speaker 2: the term monopoly is used for what is the duration
7:43
Speaker 2: of a patent that is issued, it isn't the same
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Speaker 2: as a monopoly of an entire industry. It is like
7:49
Speaker 2: an individual or groups monopoly over an idea that they
7:52
Speaker 2: created for a period of time. And like another good
7:55
Speaker 2: way of thinking about that is like think of like
7:57
Speaker 2: medications that then, after a certain period of time, become generic.
8:01
Speaker 2: You know, that is also a positive thing that allows
8:04
Speaker 2: those medications to then be created by other groups and
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Speaker 2: made more widely available and potentially more affordable.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the medication or the field of medicine in general,
8:16
Speaker 1: as we'll see, as quite a sticky wicket. I would say,
8:19
Speaker 1: even a little bit of stuff they don't want you to.
8:21
Speaker 3: Know big time.
8:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, there, certainly we've got episodes about that out there.
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Speaker 2: Look at I would say, look for the episodes about
8:28
Speaker 2: the Sackler family and just the idea of how medications
8:32
Speaker 2: are approved and marketed specifically, that is where the real
8:37
Speaker 2: nasty rubber hits the road. But twenty years, if I
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Speaker 2: didn't say that already, is the term that is assigned
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Speaker 2: for a properly registered patent.
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Speaker 1: And what you get in the twenty years is the
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Speaker 1: following exclusive rights to stop other people from making or
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Speaker 1: selling your invention, your patent. The USPTO or US Patent
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Speaker 1: and Trademark Office is the big wig for this stuff.
9:02
Speaker 1: They handle over something like three hundred thousand patent applications
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Speaker 1: per year on average. And another thing that will be
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Speaker 1: important later, most countries have their own thing here. Getting
9:16
Speaker 1: a patent in the United States or getting a patent
9:19
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom doesn't apply across the globe.
9:23
Speaker 2: For a time, there was even an issue with our
9:25
Speaker 2: giant company that were a part of iHeartRadio, or we
9:27
Speaker 2: weren't able to broadcast or even podcasts using that trademark
9:31
Speaker 2: in the United Kingdom. I don't know the details of it.
9:34
Speaker 2: It was sorted out, but for a time it was
9:37
Speaker 2: a bit complicated and caused some shuffling, kind of shenanigans
9:40
Speaker 2: on the part of US podcasters and radio presenters in
9:44
Speaker 2: order to make our stuff available in the UK.
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Speaker 1: And yeah, and this was again, this was a whole
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Speaker 1: bag of badgers, definitely above our collective pay grade. But
9:54
Speaker 1: we can assure you it did get worked out. It
9:57
Speaker 1: is something that made a lot of lawyers I think,
10:02
Speaker 1: really earn their crust for a while. And we see
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Speaker 1: how sticky it gets again with the difference between a
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Speaker 1: trademark and a patent, and the difference between like what
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Speaker 1: is a brand which will collectively roll our eyes out. Later,
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Speaker 1: if you're looking at patents in the United States, you're
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Speaker 1: gonna see three species. The vast majority of patents are
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Speaker 1: what we call utility patents about ninety one percent year
10:29
Speaker 1: over year, and then there are design patents that's about
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Speaker 1: nine percent. And then there's something called plant patents. Now
10:37
Speaker 1: they're by far the minority in this in this great panopoly.
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Speaker 1: That's we're talking something around zero point five percent.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, just in case anyone's curious and or confused like me,
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Speaker 2: A plant patent is a grant from the US government
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Speaker 2: to an inventor who has discovered or invented a new
10:53
Speaker 2: variety of plants that can be reproduced asexually. And I
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Speaker 2: gotta wonder if, with the explosion of legalized marijuana in
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Speaker 2: the United States, if some of, if a lot of
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Speaker 2: these plant patterns have to do with certain hybridizations of
11:10
Speaker 2: various marijuana plants and another explosion hot peppers.
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Speaker 3: I almost guarantee that's another part of it.
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Speaker 4: It has to be. Yeah, And like to be honest,
11:21
Speaker 4: when I was writing this, I saw plants, plant and
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Speaker 4: I was just like, Okay, let's be talking about like, you.
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Speaker 3: Know, fact manufacturing.
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Speaker 4: That's exactly what I thought that I'm typing it up
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Speaker 4: A b oh No, they're literally talking about a plant.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, which is still a huge deal. This also
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Speaker 1: includes things that might be loosely categorized as GMO products
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Speaker 1: genetically modified organisms. It could include, you know, things like
11:47
Speaker 1: the controversial terminator seed lines where you have to buy
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Speaker 1: the seed year over year from the same company. The
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Speaker 1: design patents are just what they sound like, a new,
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Speaker 1: original or ornamental design for an article of manufacture, and
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Speaker 1: the big ones the vast majority. Again, the utility patents
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Speaker 1: are a new and useful one process, two machine, three
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Speaker 1: article of manufacture, or four composition of matter. So that's
12:16
Speaker 1: where you get to material science.
12:18
Speaker 2: And in terms of design, they have to be all
12:22
Speaker 2: of the following, a new, original and ornamental design for
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Speaker 2: an article of manufacture. But it's not also to be
12:30
Speaker 2: confused with trademarks, because you can have a logo that
12:33
Speaker 2: would fall under trademark even though that is a design
12:36
Speaker 2: y element. I believe this would fall more under a
12:39
Speaker 2: product that isn't proprietary in and of itself. But the
12:43
Speaker 2: look of it is.
12:44
Speaker 1: Like going back to shoes examples, flip flops versus sandals. Right,
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Speaker 1: it's the same basic idea, but the way they adhere
12:52
Speaker 1: to your feet is different, right and ornamentally so also.
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Speaker 2: Possibly like the soul of a particular like Doc Martin
13:03
Speaker 2: or something like that. But then again that could also
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Speaker 2: fall under utility because it's a part of the shoe.
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Speaker 2: But it is a functional, utility part of the shoe
13:10
Speaker 2: that perhaps has some proprietary quality to it.
13:13
Speaker 3: Shout out to Crocs.
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Speaker 4: I'm wearing a Seattle Mariner's jersey right now, and the
13:17
Speaker 4: materials may out of like definitely is like you know,
13:20
Speaker 4: pattent and by Nike.
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Speaker 3: The fabric blend literally that, right, yeah, right, yeah.
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Speaker 1: And as we can see, this can get confusing because
13:28
Speaker 1: we're looking at a series of especially with utility and design,
13:32
Speaker 1: we're looking at an intense series of Venn diagrams, right,
13:35
Speaker 1: and determining which sort of patent you acquire or aspire
13:40
Speaker 1: toward is Again it's a huge industry and one of
13:44
Speaker 1: the other tricky things that we have to say at
13:46
Speaker 1: the front, not everything is patent to bolt, right.
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Speaker 3: You can't.
13:51
Speaker 1: You can't patent stuff that is here we go a
13:54
Speaker 1: law of nature.
13:55
Speaker 3: Can you patent the wind? Right?
13:57
Speaker 1: Can you sing with all the colors? You cannot legally
14:00
Speaker 1: own gravity, nor physical phenomena, nor abstract ideas. The most
14:06
Speaker 1: common word in the English language is the word the right,
14:12
Speaker 1: So you cannot patent the concept of patenting at abstract
14:17
Speaker 1: idea just to get meta with it.
14:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
14:19
Speaker 2: But but speaking of getting meta with it, I bet
14:21
Speaker 2: that would also apply to philosophical concepts, right. You could
14:25
Speaker 2: possibly copyright a book wherein you discuss a lot of
14:29
Speaker 2: these concepts, but you can't trademark or patent rather a
14:32
Speaker 2: specific concept like you know, I think, therefore I am,
14:36
Speaker 2: or something like that.
14:36
Speaker 4: Side note, did you guys know the Ohio State University
14:40
Speaker 4: did get a trademark for.
14:42
Speaker 1: The Well, trademark is not a patent, I guess, true, Right,
14:48
Speaker 1: so they could, so they were able to skirt by
14:50
Speaker 1: with that one. But I love the point that no
14:53
Speaker 1: one can own nihilism, even though we've all.
14:56
Speaker 3: Experienced her, have we ever? On the daily?
15:00
Speaker 2: And then there are just some things that should be
15:01
Speaker 2: excluded from the concept of patents because they belong under
15:06
Speaker 2: another umbrella. Literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works of course
15:09
Speaker 2: fall under copyright. And then there's the final outlier, which
15:13
Speaker 2: doesn't really belong anywhere, inventions which are not useful or
15:16
Speaker 2: offensive to public morality.
15:19
Speaker 4: I will jump in and say that gets interesting that
15:22
Speaker 4: when we get into international.
15:25
Speaker 1: Patterns exactly right, because cultural and social mores vary widely.
15:31
Speaker 1: Max we get some scary music for the worst example.
15:36
Speaker 1: Imagine you somehow created a contagion that only targeted a
15:43
Speaker 1: specific type of person.
15:47
Speaker 3: Yeah.
15:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the kind of thing that is universally
15:51
Speaker 1: offensive to public morality. But as we said, it gets
15:55
Speaker 1: much more complicated.
15:57
Speaker 2: But that's also the kind of thing that the government
15:59
Speaker 2: would probably do keep a lid on, and would it
16:02
Speaker 2: wouldn't even ever enter the conversation, would you know what
16:04
Speaker 2: I mean? Like if that were if that were a thing,
16:08
Speaker 2: and you know, likely it would be invented either through
16:11
Speaker 2: the government or attained by the government, because I dont
16:14
Speaker 2: think we're going to talk about this today in this
16:16
Speaker 2: particular context. But something that we talk about on something
16:18
Speaker 2: that I want you to know all the time, yeah,
16:21
Speaker 2: is if someone invents a thing and then files a
16:23
Speaker 2: patent and the government catches win to that and it's
16:26
Speaker 2: something that could have a potential risk to national security
16:30
Speaker 2: or some other vague concept that the government likes to
16:33
Speaker 2: keep a handle on. They can seize it and everything
16:36
Speaker 2: associated with them, and it's no longer yours.
16:39
Speaker 1: And there's a gag order so you may be a
16:42
Speaker 1: ridiculous historian joining us today and you may have been
16:46
Speaker 1: part of this.
16:47
Speaker 3: Now they what is that call? Again?
16:49
Speaker 1: It is the Invention Secrecy Act of nineteen fifty one.
16:53
Speaker 1: The other thing that it imposes upon is inventions or
16:58
Speaker 1: patents that may somehow threaten economic stability. Right, so that
17:04
Speaker 1: could go to things like imagine, what's one of the
17:07
Speaker 1: examples I used this earlier identificue, right that only you
17:12
Speaker 1: only have to use once a year. Is that going
17:14
Speaker 1: to topple an industry?
17:17
Speaker 3: See?
17:17
Speaker 2: But then you gotta wonder about like things like the
17:19
Speaker 2: cure to cancer, you know, like with that topple, the
17:23
Speaker 2: insurance industry with that topple, like medical insurance and the
17:28
Speaker 2: big pharma.
17:29
Speaker 3: I mean, sorry not to get our.
17:31
Speaker 2: Conspiracy hats on too heavily right now, but I do
17:34
Speaker 2: really think.
17:34
Speaker 3: About these kind of things. I think you do too bad.
17:36
Speaker 2: I mean it does call into question like how deep
17:40
Speaker 2: does the government go in terms of defining these things?
17:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's nuts.
17:45
Speaker 1: Please check out our episode Audit, which unfortunately still holds up.
17:50
Speaker 1: And we're very in that episode. We're collectively going, I
17:55
Speaker 1: don't like it, but I get it, but I don't
17:57
Speaker 1: like it, but I get it. The first recorded patent
18:06
Speaker 1: that we know of was granted in fourteen twenty one
18:10
Speaker 1: in Florence to a guy named Filipo brune Eschi. And
18:15
Speaker 1: we are not native Italian speakers. That's something I'll come
18:18
Speaker 1: up in a future episode on the history of pasta.
18:21
Speaker 3: Just do your hand like this when you say you
18:23
Speaker 3: know what I'm doing. Guys, everybody knows what I'm doing.
18:25
Speaker 2: Brune Leeschi, you know, and then it's fine, and yeah,
18:29
Speaker 2: this was This guy was a big deal in early
18:31
Speaker 2: Renaissance architecture. In a lot of cases, governments issued grants
18:36
Speaker 2: for the importation and establishment of new industries, like in
18:40
Speaker 2: England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. But
18:44
Speaker 2: it started to become kind of in the zeitgeist that
18:50
Speaker 2: the English Crown was abusing its authorities and perhaps playing favorites,
18:54
Speaker 2: granting these kinds of rights to only folks that kind
18:58
Speaker 2: of were in the inner circle.
19:00
Speaker 1: A little bit of nepotism. God forbid we bring that
19:04
Speaker 1: up with monarchies. But because of this, because of the
19:08
Speaker 1: increasing controversy, especially with the English Crown and the Privy Council,
19:14
Speaker 1: common law courts of the time started to scrutinize these
19:18
Speaker 1: patent applications with a little more care. And this led
19:22
Speaker 1: to sixteen twenty three when Parliament enacted something called the
19:26
Speaker 1: Statute of Monopolies. It prohibited most royal monopolies, but it
19:33
Speaker 1: gave the right, or it preserved the right we should
19:36
Speaker 1: say to grant letters patent for inventions of new manufacturing
19:41
Speaker 1: for up to fourteen years. So again a mini monopoly letters.
19:45
Speaker 3: Patent literally referring to kind of the document right like.
19:48
Speaker 1: Issued, yeah, yeah, just so, And this is great for
19:52
Speaker 1: marketing if you're starting a business in England at the time.
19:56
Speaker 1: But again, there were so many wide variations in patent systems.
20:01
Speaker 1: Depending on which country you were in, they had different,
20:05
Speaker 1: you know, different windows of time for exclusivity. It could
20:09
Speaker 1: be sixteen years, it could be twenty years. Sometimes a
20:13
Speaker 1: country would grant a shorter term for a specific patent.
20:18
Speaker 1: They would say something to the tune of, hey, this
20:21
Speaker 1: is a great idea, my guy, this is so great
20:24
Speaker 1: that everyone needs to be able to make it because
20:27
Speaker 1: our nation needs more of these things in the world.
20:30
Speaker 1: So just for the greater good, you got to take
20:33
Speaker 1: a knee. We can only give you a few years
20:35
Speaker 1: on this one.
20:36
Speaker 2: That is interesting because if you think about it, it's
20:38
Speaker 2: almost like, yeah, you own the patent for this, but
20:41
Speaker 2: maybe you're not the best outfit that would have the
20:45
Speaker 2: you know, resources to produce this thing at proper scale.
20:49
Speaker 2: So therefore we're gonna let you have some fun with
20:52
Speaker 2: it for a little bit, knowing that eventually it will
20:54
Speaker 2: pass into the public domain and then potentially we'll be
20:57
Speaker 2: able to be produced much more widely.
21:00
Speaker 1: That's a great point the infrastructure argument. Right, you have
21:03
Speaker 1: the right to do this at your cottage level for
21:06
Speaker 1: a few years, but then we have to pass it
21:08
Speaker 1: to the people who already have trade networks and mass infrastructure.
21:13
Speaker 2: That's right, though, the laws of like economics would kind
21:16
Speaker 2: of imply that if something was a great enough idea,
21:20
Speaker 2: then the money would flow and the small company would
21:24
Speaker 2: no longer be small. They would able to be able
21:26
Speaker 2: to parlay that amazing idea into set infrastructure. So it's
21:30
Speaker 2: kind of a double edged sword there. I'm not quite
21:32
Speaker 2: sure which side is right.
21:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
21:33
Speaker 1: There, we can imagine already in ridiculous cinema, an early
21:37
Speaker 1: version of Shark Tank, right where somebody might say, hey,
21:42
Speaker 1: we're in a hurry to get this out, so Can
21:44
Speaker 1: we just buy the rights from you? Can we just
21:47
Speaker 1: pay you some sort of partnership fee? In communist countries
21:52
Speaker 1: it gets pretty fascinating because, of course, the Soviet Union
21:56
Speaker 1: during its time treated the concept of property pretty differently.
22:00
Speaker 1: So patents as we would understand them in the West,
22:04
Speaker 1: weren't really a thing. Instead, if you were an inventor,
22:07
Speaker 1: you got a certificate of some sort a certification that said, hey,
22:12
Speaker 1: this person, this Jane or Joe, they deserve some form
22:16
Speaker 1: of compensation.
22:17
Speaker 2: Ata boy, you hopefully a little compensation. But it does
22:21
Speaker 2: seem to me almost like they were in that situation,
22:25
Speaker 2: are treating these things a little more like we would
22:27
Speaker 2: treat the laws of nature.
22:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit right. It was all for the
22:31
Speaker 1: greater good.
22:31
Speaker 3: Of the unis, of the collective unconscious. Yeah.
22:34
Speaker 1: And so as as trade networks expand and as the
22:39
Speaker 1: world becomes an increasingly smaller place, people are realizing that
22:44
Speaker 1: they need these rules to be more uniform. It's similar
22:48
Speaker 1: to the rollout of international rail when multiple countries said, whoops,
22:54
Speaker 1: we have different gauges on our trade tracks.
22:57
Speaker 3: That's a really good point.
22:58
Speaker 2: And when you start to venge sure into these types
23:01
Speaker 2: of parallel thinking, which also happens too.
23:03
Speaker 3: You know, you might have an invention.
23:05
Speaker 2: That's so duh. Yeah, of course that's gonna be a
23:08
Speaker 2: thing like the toothbrush. Let's just say, for exare, well,
23:12
Speaker 2: I imagine that multiple people came up with ideas for
23:15
Speaker 2: something resembling the toothbrush at the same time, and that's
23:18
Speaker 2: when the whole idea of novelty kind of comes into playing.
23:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Another example, just because it's I'm all neudle brained. Now,
23:27
Speaker 1: another example would be, can you patent the idea of
23:31
Speaker 1: wheat and water made into a paste?
23:34
Speaker 3: Can you patent a pasta shape?
23:36
Speaker 2: You can do that, Okay, you can do the spoiler alert,
23:40
Speaker 2: spoiler alert, y'all. We got a fun episode on the
23:43
Speaker 2: way about the ridiculous history of pasta.
23:46
Speaker 3: Oh my god, pasta shapes. It's very excited about and
23:50
Speaker 3: I am as well. Did you go to that exhibit,
23:52
Speaker 3: by the way.
23:52
Speaker 1: Ben, Unfortunately they were closed when I got there.
23:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're in Atlanta. I Wood's the museum.
23:59
Speaker 1: It's the Museum of Modern Design.
24:02
Speaker 2: Design, which I've never been to and really wanted to.
24:04
Speaker 2: Ben had the great idea that had to take a
24:06
Speaker 2: field trip to this history of pasta exhibit over the weekend. Unfortunately,
24:09
Speaker 2: there's just a little bit too much going on and
24:11
Speaker 2: we didn't make it, but we will explore it vicariously
24:14
Speaker 2: through an episode in the very near future.
24:16
Speaker 1: Oh and yeah, shout out to the good folks at
24:19
Speaker 1: that museum. The name, if you want to look up
24:21
Speaker 1: their upcoming exhibits is MOTA Museum of Design, Atlanta. So
24:26
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have said it was the Museum of Modern Design.
24:29
Speaker 1: It's just design and justice design in general, real large, right,
24:33
Speaker 1: It's a design patent, and this idea of these different countries, right,
24:38
Speaker 1: having the cognitive version of different gauges on railroad tracks.
24:42
Speaker 1: They run into this thing and they say, oh crap,
24:45
Speaker 1: how do we solve this? And the piggle is they
24:51
Speaker 1: never really did not really. Now you still have to
24:56
Speaker 1: get patents everywhere separately to their earlier point you made,
25:00
Speaker 1: Dear Noel, you have to apply for patent in every
25:03
Speaker 1: country that you want a patent in because the patent's
25:07
Speaker 1: power is exclusivity. So you could, for instance, like the
25:12
Speaker 1: three of us could maybe nol you patent a breakthrough
25:17
Speaker 1: and synthesizers. Right, of all the people, I know, you'd
25:20
Speaker 1: be the guy to do it.
25:21
Speaker 2: It's very kind ben the fu I think about that though,
25:23
Speaker 2: is there really haven't been that many breakthroughs and synthesizers.
25:27
Speaker 2: It's like the kind of thing where we're still just
25:29
Speaker 2: manipulating and rewiring and doing all of these things with
25:33
Speaker 2: some of the basic ideas that were present like in
25:36
Speaker 2: the thirties. Like it's super cool, and there are certainly
25:39
Speaker 2: people that make products that utilize these things. And you
25:43
Speaker 2: could probably do a design patent on the look and
25:46
Speaker 2: arrangement of your piece, But you can't patent assign wave.
25:50
Speaker 2: You can't patent a square wave. You know, you can't
25:53
Speaker 2: even really probably patent a voltage controlled amplifier, which is
25:58
Speaker 2: a very simple circuit. The cithicizers are all kind of
26:01
Speaker 2: the utilized and are based on a lot of this
26:03
Speaker 2: stuff has been around for generations.
26:07
Speaker 1: Right, and so imagine how big that breakthrough would be.
26:10
Speaker 1: Whatever this hypothetical breakthrough is, now our poor inventor are
26:15
Speaker 1: scrappy up and comer has to not only patent it
26:18
Speaker 1: in the United States, but has to go to every
26:20
Speaker 1: other country where they want patent protection, because if they don't,
26:24
Speaker 1: then you know, it's again it's the cobbler up the
26:28
Speaker 1: street from you who likes the way that you make shoes.
26:31
Speaker 2: Would you guys say that in this day and age,
26:34
Speaker 2: having something coming up with something that is that would
26:38
Speaker 2: pass the test of being patented is probably more and
26:41
Speaker 2: more difficult than it used to be.
26:43
Speaker 3: I would agree.
26:44
Speaker 1: I think so the one thing, the one countervailing factor there,
26:48
Speaker 1: and this is where the Invention Secrecy Act comes into play.
26:52
Speaker 1: The countervailing factor will be non tangible things like lines
26:58
Speaker 1: of code, right, different sorts of algorithmic applications, so.
27:04
Speaker 2: A lot of microprocessing perhaps, yeah, very very proprietary chips
27:09
Speaker 2: and micro circuits.
27:11
Speaker 3: But yeah, I agree with you.
27:13
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a parking lot that gets a
27:16
Speaker 1: little bit bigger year over year, but there are still
27:20
Speaker 1: a lot of cars in the parking lot, so it
27:23
Speaker 1: can be tougher and tougher to find your spot in
27:26
Speaker 1: this terrible analogy.
27:28
Speaker 3: Not at all.
27:29
Speaker 2: So with all of these, you know, potential weird interactions
27:34
Speaker 2: I guess we could call them, or kind of conflicts
27:36
Speaker 2: of interest when it comes to this kind of stuff internationally,
27:39
Speaker 2: definitely was time there was an opening for someone to
27:41
Speaker 2: step in and kind of figure out a way to
27:43
Speaker 2: codify this stuff in a way that wouldn't screw over
27:46
Speaker 2: the world at large.
27:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Paris tries and they they have something called
27:53
Speaker 1: the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property Right.
27:58
Speaker 1: This is adopted by Pairs eighteen eighty three. It's trying
28:02
Speaker 1: to make things a little more uniform, and then fast
28:05
Speaker 1: forward nineteen seventies, it's still wonky and confusing, and that's
28:09
Speaker 1: where we see a new gang called the Trade Related
28:13
Speaker 1: Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights TRIPS, a production of World
28:18
Speaker 1: Trade Organization.
28:20
Speaker 2: That's right, and the idea here was to extend patent
28:22
Speaker 2: protection to any inventions, whether products or processes. This is
28:27
Speaker 2: from the WTO language in all fields of technology, provided
28:31
Speaker 2: that they are new, involve an inventive step, and are
28:35
Speaker 2: capable of industrial application. We already had some of these
28:39
Speaker 2: kind of caveats laid out. I guess this sort of
28:43
Speaker 2: titans in the language up a little bit, but still
28:46
Speaker 2: seems kind of broad to me.
28:48
Speaker 3: The idea of a what is a novel step?
28:51
Speaker 4: I think the thing that really did someone was it
28:55
Speaker 4: had some enforcement because it's like, okay, you're following these
28:58
Speaker 4: It's like, if you want to be part of the WTO,
29:00
Speaker 4: do you follow that rule.
29:01
Speaker 1: So we make sense we can punish you in other
29:04
Speaker 1: financial ways if you don't play ball. And if you
29:07
Speaker 1: don't play ball, then guess what all of us wto, guys,
29:11
Speaker 1: we don't have to respect what you're doing.
29:13
Speaker 3: You're not saying at our table at lunch any longer.
29:15
Speaker 1: It's true, exactly exactly.
29:17
Speaker 3: They're real mean girls.
29:19
Speaker 1: I guess you could say, kitting wto don't come for
29:22
Speaker 1: us exactly. OMG, you guys. So with this in mind,
29:28
Speaker 1: you can see how this is already pretty complicated. We
29:32
Speaker 1: have to ask why a patent gives folks a monopoly
29:36
Speaker 1: and why does it expire. This is where we go
29:39
Speaker 1: back to the thing that I think stood out to
29:41
Speaker 1: all of us, the concept of a mini monopoly. Right,
29:44
Speaker 1: like you said earlier, aren't monopolies bad.
29:47
Speaker 3: That's right.
29:49
Speaker 2: So according to the law Offices of Jeff Williams, not
29:52
Speaker 2: our Jeff Williams, a patent can be viewed as a
29:55
Speaker 2: sort of mini monopoly in that the patent owner is
29:59
Speaker 2: granted the power to prevent others from using their protected
30:02
Speaker 2: technology without a license or other permission. However, it is
30:07
Speaker 2: always possible for others to negotiate with the patent owner
30:10
Speaker 2: to make use of the technology if no agreement is reached,
30:13
Speaker 2: then the competitor may try to design around the patent
30:16
Speaker 2: or wait a few years until the patent expires, at
30:19
Speaker 2: which time new innovations may look even more attractive. I
30:23
Speaker 2: want to bring up one more synth related thing if
30:26
Speaker 2: I might. Again, a lot of that technology is old.
30:32
Speaker 2: There are very famous synth designs companies like Roland and
30:37
Speaker 2: you know, like COREG for example, like Legacy, usually Japanese
30:43
Speaker 2: companies that have designed these innovative synthesizers that again combine
30:47
Speaker 2: you know, pieces and processes that have been around for
30:50
Speaker 2: a long time. But I guess what happens is those
30:52
Speaker 2: patents expire and they go into the public domain. And
30:55
Speaker 2: now there are literally this company called Barringer out of
30:59
Speaker 2: Germany that is basically kind of reviled but also beloved
31:04
Speaker 2: by some for creating affordable clones of these other products
31:09
Speaker 2: that look almost identical, even minus some certain little design features.
31:13
Speaker 2: And it's just interesting because they are hated by a
31:17
Speaker 2: lot of people in that community. But on the other hand,
31:19
Speaker 2: they also give people access to affordable versions of vinted
31:23
Speaker 2: synthesizers they would never possibly be able to.
31:25
Speaker 1: Buy, right, Yeah, agreed, And this idea of accessibility. Affordability
31:31
Speaker 1: is a very powerful legal concept and that's part of
31:34
Speaker 1: why patents expire.
31:36
Speaker 3: Right.
31:38
Speaker 1: This is where we need to give a shout out
31:40
Speaker 1: to one guy who did the most king move in
31:44
Speaker 1: the history of medicine, Jonas Salk. Jonahs Salt could have
31:49
Speaker 1: become a multi billionaire, but when he made the polio vaccine,
31:56
Speaker 1: he refused to patent it. And he had this famous
31:59
Speaker 1: quote where he said, they said, who owns the patent, Jonas?
32:03
Speaker 1: And he said, well, the people own it. There is
32:07
Speaker 1: no patent. Could you patent the sun and lawyers for
32:12
Speaker 1: different foundations investigated whether they could patent this vaccine and
32:16
Speaker 1: make a little scratch off of helping people stay safe
32:20
Speaker 1: from polio, and he said that's just gross. He was like,
32:23
Speaker 1: give it out. I want everybody to make this, and
32:25
Speaker 1: so Jonahs saw it. If somehow you are listening to
32:30
Speaker 1: this podcast, shout out to you man.
32:32
Speaker 4: I believe the COVID vaccine at least some of them
32:35
Speaker 4: have that role as well, for like you know, especially
32:37
Speaker 4: in international matters.
32:39
Speaker 1: Because they were spinning it up and part of that
32:42
Speaker 1: was state level actors paying so much for the R
32:44
Speaker 1: and D and then saying, look if we're giving you
32:47
Speaker 1: all this money.
32:48
Speaker 2: You have to play nice, please, sure, But then you
32:52
Speaker 2: have kind of the flip side of that. You have
32:54
Speaker 2: real life super villain Martin Screlly, you know, who bought
32:58
Speaker 2: the rights to a life saving pharmaceutical and then the
33:01
Speaker 2: jack the price of it up like you know, tenfold
33:05
Speaker 2: or whatever.
33:06
Speaker 3: That stuff happens too.
33:07
Speaker 1: I'm glad that he has to give back the Wu
33:09
Speaker 1: Tang album.
33:10
Speaker 3: He doesn't deserve the Wuotang album.
33:11
Speaker 2: But if you're the latest that he made a bunch
33:13
Speaker 2: of copies of it and is literally trolling the people
33:16
Speaker 2: that bought it legitimately or that paid for it after
33:18
Speaker 2: it was repossessed from him.
33:21
Speaker 3: The guy is an absolute.
33:23
Speaker 2: Piece of work in a real life super villain that
33:26
Speaker 2: let's not even go so far as to call him
33:27
Speaker 2: a super villain.
33:28
Speaker 3: He's kind of a weenie, but he he is.
33:31
Speaker 4: There is a villain in a level of Bordlands two
33:35
Speaker 4: that right before the boss fight with him, he stumbles
33:38
Speaker 4: down a float of stairs and dies. That's what I think, Mark, And.
33:42
Speaker 1: You know, I always try to see the good people
33:45
Speaker 1: you guys, you know that about me. But I hope
33:47
Speaker 1: every time that dude tries to fart, he poops his
33:49
Speaker 1: pants just a little, just.
33:51
Speaker 3: Hope it hurts a lot or just a lot.
33:54
Speaker 4: And it's in public and it goes down on his
33:56
Speaker 4: leg if he's wearing shorts, well that's the thing.
33:58
Speaker 1: I want there to be a stained at the back
34:01
Speaker 1: of the trousers.
34:02
Speaker 3: You know what I mean is a human steam.
34:10
Speaker 1: What happens when a patent expires, it becomes part of
34:13
Speaker 1: the public domain. Other people can use it and market
34:16
Speaker 1: their version of the invention. You stop receiving or you
34:20
Speaker 1: can stop receiving the royalties from your invention, and you
34:24
Speaker 1: can no longer enforce licensing agreements so other people can
34:30
Speaker 1: use your invention. There's another way a patent can expire
34:34
Speaker 1: before it's time. The maintenance fees. You haven't thought about
34:39
Speaker 1: that for a lot of us. I'll be honest here,
34:43
Speaker 1: when I was looking into some patents, I was under
34:45
Speaker 1: the impression that I just had to play nice once
34:48
Speaker 1: with a lawyer and the patent office. Now you got
34:51
Speaker 1: to pay a maintenance fee. You have a subscription.
34:54
Speaker 2: Now you have to prove that you're actually I believe
34:57
Speaker 2: in exercising the patent.
34:59
Speaker 3: In some you can't just like have it and then
35:01
Speaker 3: not do anything with it.
35:03
Speaker 2: You know, well, maybe you can maybe Okay, maybe it
35:05
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily mean you have to manufacture the thing, but
35:08
Speaker 2: you do have to in some way participate in this,
35:11
Speaker 2: either paying into the system or what have you, or
35:13
Speaker 2: else you're going to lose it. It kind of reminds
35:15
Speaker 2: me again not to get to cross pollinady with intellectual property.
35:19
Speaker 2: But the hell Raiser films, for example, there is like
35:23
Speaker 2: I believe it's Miramax owns the right to the hell
35:26
Speaker 2: Raiser franchise, and in order to continue to exercise those rights,
35:31
Speaker 2: they are required to make movies in that franchise, and
35:35
Speaker 2: in order to do that and make sure they hold
35:37
Speaker 2: onto the intellectual property, they will occasionally make really really
35:40
Speaker 2: low quality movies called ash Can copies that allow them
35:45
Speaker 2: to continue to exercise that control.
35:47
Speaker 1: So this is sort of the patent d version of
35:50
Speaker 1: that in a way, like you have to use the
35:52
Speaker 1: parking space that you have right, so you have to
35:54
Speaker 1: pay your parking fees. It also reminds me, of course,
35:56
Speaker 1: of the fame It not to be too much of
35:58
Speaker 1: a comic nerd, but a reminds me of the infamous
36:02
Speaker 1: controversy surrounding Sony Sony will sometimes put out a movie
36:07
Speaker 1: that's honestly not great, and the reason they're doing that
36:10
Speaker 1: is because publishing that film, even if it's Morbius's, it
36:16
Speaker 1: helps them retain the rights to that character, to its
36:20
Speaker 1: likeness to that ip, so we see, we see this
36:24
Speaker 1: use it or lose it mentality across the board.
36:27
Speaker 2: Hand, it allows them to continue to mess with Marvel Studios.
36:31
Speaker 3: I say, no, you can't have this villain in your movie.
36:35
Speaker 3: Do some more rewrites, guys.
36:36
Speaker 1: Sorry, Also, quit killing Uncle Ben. You know, that's one
36:40
Speaker 1: of the best things about the New Spider Man franchise.
36:43
Speaker 1: They just fast forwarded past that horrible moment. They were like,
36:47
Speaker 1: we all know how though.
36:49
Speaker 3: Well, also, I'm just gonna say, you just move it
36:53
Speaker 3: to a different character. That's true, that's true.
36:56
Speaker 1: Also, why does aunt May keep getting younger in every
37:00
Speaker 1: Spider Man?
37:01
Speaker 3: Phil oh Man, I really quick aside.
37:03
Speaker 2: I went to a Broadway show with our good friend
37:06
Speaker 2: of the show, Jordan Runtag, and.
37:08
Speaker 3: We had separate seats, and afterwards.
37:10
Speaker 2: He was telling me how, oh h, there was this
37:12
Speaker 2: lovely woman sitting next to me I just had the
37:14
Speaker 2: most lovely conversation with And he asked her oh are
37:16
Speaker 2: you an actor?
37:17
Speaker 3: Do you do this kind of stuff?
37:18
Speaker 5: So well?
37:18
Speaker 2: I've always wanted to but never really got into it.
37:20
Speaker 2: You know, it was Marisotome. It was totally Marissitome. He
37:24
Speaker 2: didn't even have the revelation until we were gone, Like,
37:28
Speaker 2: I think it was the next day that he like,
37:30
Speaker 2: I don't know how that happens. Like He's Jordan is
37:33
Speaker 2: a guy of a very specific taste. He basically only
37:36
Speaker 2: knows about like stuff that happened before, like the nineteen sixties.
37:39
Speaker 2: Everything else is kind of a blind spot for him.
37:41
Speaker 2: But I just love that story. He said she was
37:43
Speaker 2: a delight and wasn't self aggrandizing at all. It was
37:45
Speaker 2: just sort of like, you know, happy probably do not
37:48
Speaker 2: be wrecked exactly.
37:49
Speaker 3: That's it.
37:50
Speaker 1: Most of the conversations I've had with people who turned
37:53
Speaker 1: out to be a list musicians or celebrities, I had
37:56
Speaker 1: no idea, And I think it's a very enjoyable human moment.
38:00
Speaker 1: It's sort of like when jay Z was riding the
38:03
Speaker 1: train on the train with Woman Square and met this
38:07
Speaker 1: beautiful lady who just wanted to encourage him to pursue
38:11
Speaker 1: his dreams.
38:11
Speaker 5: Keep going, Oh you're jay Z. I've heard of you.
38:18
Speaker 5: You have mentioned, Yeah, my grandkids love you. So that is, by.
38:22
Speaker 1: The way, you should always treat people with just a
38:26
Speaker 1: positive human interaction, no matter what you may see their
38:31
Speaker 1: social standing. As we also know, and we're going to
38:35
Speaker 1: wrap up here because this will be part of a series,
38:37
Speaker 1: we also know that we've been we've been kind of
38:40
Speaker 1: two stepping around this. What makes a patent different from
38:43
Speaker 1: a trademark or a copyright. It's not quite the same
38:48
Speaker 1: as apples to bananas. It's there's not even a remote
38:54
Speaker 1: sort of one to one thing, but it can be
38:56
Speaker 1: very confusing in conversation. So the easiest way to say
39:01
Speaker 1: it and shout out to our research associate Max here
39:04
Speaker 1: is a patent is an invention. A trademark swoosh, just
39:08
Speaker 1: do it. That's a logo. A copyright is the authorship
39:13
Speaker 1: of a work. So for example, someone who writes the
39:18
Speaker 1: history of Nike, they have a copyright on the book
39:21
Speaker 1: they publish. However, Nike has a trademark this awesome swoosh, right,
39:27
Speaker 1: and Nike has some patents about how you make shoes.
39:31
Speaker 3: That's right.
39:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if we ever did seem like we were
39:35
Speaker 2: drawing parallels between them, I think the only thing we
39:38
Speaker 2: were doing was talking about they both have systems in
39:41
Speaker 2: place and kind of benchmarks that have to be met
39:44
Speaker 2: in order to maintain those trademarks, copyrights and patents.
39:48
Speaker 1: And don't even get us started folks on how all
39:51
Speaker 1: trademarks are brands, but not all brands are trademarks. It's
39:56
Speaker 1: just like bump bump bup bup bupu, bumu, bum bu bumu.
40:00
Speaker 3: It's true.
40:01
Speaker 2: And lest we tease a topic with a nickname for
40:05
Speaker 2: super producer Max and not follow through with it, I
40:07
Speaker 2: think we should end today's episode with a little bit
40:09
Speaker 2: of tangents and trivia surrounding the idea of patent trolls.
40:14
Speaker 3: I think we were I don't want to speak everybody.
40:17
Speaker 2: I certainly was first exposed to patent trolls in terms
40:20
Speaker 2: of podcasting because early on we were actually lucky enough
40:25
Speaker 2: to kind of be in on the ground floor of
40:26
Speaker 2: this crazy industry of podcasting. There was a patent troll
40:29
Speaker 2: whose name has been lost to history and I'm sure
40:31
Speaker 2: you could find it, but with someone who was trying
40:33
Speaker 2: to sue some of the biggest podcasting outfits in the
40:37
Speaker 2: world over what he claimed was a novel and patentable
40:43
Speaker 2: concept aka podcasting, the idea of publishing serialized audio content
40:49
Speaker 2: on an RSS feed. And we were named in the
40:53
Speaker 2: lawsuits at least our prior parent company US no thought,
40:58
Speaker 2: but it was something like Joe Rogan, how stuff works? Yeah,
41:01
Speaker 2: Jimmy Kimmel, I think Mark maren is well, you know
41:05
Speaker 2: some of the ogs of podcasting. And it had the
41:08
Speaker 2: potential to really throw a wrench in the entire industry
41:12
Speaker 2: if this person prevailed. So what is a patent troll?
41:15
Speaker 3: Exactly?
41:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's sort of it's a shakedout. That's the
41:21
Speaker 1: best way to say. It's just blackmail our friends, ridiculous crime.
41:24
Speaker 1: It's similar to extortion the idea. You know, a similar example,
41:29
Speaker 1: not not involving patents, but a similar example would be
41:33
Speaker 1: when the Internet became a wide common good, there were
41:38
Speaker 1: there was a group of brilliant, if not ethical people
41:41
Speaker 1: who just went around and bought domain names that they
41:46
Speaker 1: knew would be really.
41:47
Speaker 3: Populople still, oh dude, someone one hundred percent.
41:51
Speaker 2: There was a big story on NPR recently about a
41:53
Speaker 2: guy who's been doing that for years, and he does
41:56
Speaker 2: it with campaigns. He'll buy a combination of running mate
42:01
Speaker 2: potentials right, So he bought Harris Waltz dot com and
42:06
Speaker 2: just you know, made a held out for the big
42:08
Speaker 2: payday and you know, it wasn't like millions of dollars,
42:11
Speaker 2: but it was like one hundred thousand dollars or something
42:13
Speaker 2: significant like that. And he was interviewed, and I honestly
42:16
Speaker 2: think that is a little less egregious than the hardcore
42:21
Speaker 2: patent trolling, where someone you know is literally trying to
42:24
Speaker 2: shake down an entire industry.
42:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that guy sounds like he's basically rolling the dice
42:30
Speaker 1: in the casino of the Internet and politics. But a
42:33
Speaker 1: patent troll, the issue is a patent troll is inherently
42:37
Speaker 1: predatory and abusive because they're not trying to manufacture a thing.
42:42
Speaker 1: They're not selling a product that they have patented. They're
42:45
Speaker 1: waiting for someone else to do it, or some version
42:48
Speaker 1: thereof or something related to that concept, and then they
42:52
Speaker 1: try to get a ton of licensing fees from that
42:57
Speaker 1: person who is only actually building the thing they were
43:01
Speaker 1: pretending to build.
43:02
Speaker 2: And you know, if you've maybe gotten the sense throughout
43:05
Speaker 2: this episode that the whole patent process is a little
43:10
Speaker 2: bit inefficient, you would be correct. And it relies on
43:14
Speaker 2: a lot of legal jargon, and like, in order to
43:16
Speaker 2: really navigate it, you have to be an expert. It
43:19
Speaker 2: is a specialty of law in and of itself, like
43:22
Speaker 2: you know, most areas of law need to be But
43:24
Speaker 2: the patent troll actually really praise on that inefficiency and
43:30
Speaker 2: oftentimes sends these kind of blankets like cease and desist
43:34
Speaker 2: letters or I guess demand letters.
43:36
Speaker 3: I mean that's the word demand.
43:37
Speaker 2: Lill e're in my demands to someone who they believe
43:41
Speaker 2: is infringing on their kind of blanket filing of a
43:46
Speaker 2: patent for a concept that is perhaps not worthy of
43:50
Speaker 2: a patent.
43:51
Speaker 3: It's a little.
43:51
Speaker 2: Confusing to me too, because wasn't it determined that podcasting
43:54
Speaker 2: wasn't novel enough to even qualify for a patent because
43:58
Speaker 2: it was just like realized content published on a feed.
44:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, the issue is what is a good or a
44:06
Speaker 1: bad faith assertion. We know that this patent trolling in
44:10
Speaker 1: the United States specifically is a huge economic danger. It
44:14
Speaker 1: costs the US something around twenty nine billion dollars a
44:18
Speaker 1: year back in two thousand and eleven, and the study
44:22
Speaker 1: was published in twenty twelve. If you want to learn
44:25
Speaker 1: more about it, there's an excellent article in the Harvard
44:28
Speaker 1: Business Review from September of twenty twenty two hits by
44:33
Speaker 1: a guy named Max Bacchus, and the title says it all.
44:36
Speaker 1: It's time for the US to tackle patent trolls because
44:39
Speaker 1: they're not going to make the thing that's the problem.
44:42
Speaker 1: They are not themselves going to use that proverbial parking space.
44:47
Speaker 1: They're waiting to trap someone else.
44:49
Speaker 4: And if you really think about it, that defeats the
44:52
Speaker 4: actual purpose of a patent is designed for innovation. It's like, hey,
44:57
Speaker 4: we will give you a temporary monopoly on this thing
45:00
Speaker 4: if you are willing to. Because multiple times we brought
45:02
Speaker 4: up the R and D with pharmaceuticals because to develop
45:07
Speaker 4: these pharmaceuticals and there's a lot of you know, other
45:08
Speaker 4: stuff with pharmaceuticals and not gonna that not on topic
45:12
Speaker 4: right here, but it's like, you have to spend so
45:15
Speaker 4: much time and money making this thing that may or
45:17
Speaker 4: may not work that if you have all these patent
45:20
Speaker 4: trolls disincentivizing people from doing it, then we are really
45:26
Speaker 4: it's like it's a cell phone in some ways.
45:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a goal.
45:30
Speaker 2: And just to close the loop on the whole podcast patentrol.
45:34
Speaker 2: It was back in twenty thirteen and the company h
45:37
Speaker 2: was Personal Audio LLC, and they sued Adam Carolla and
45:41
Speaker 2: named a bunch of co defendants in the in the
45:45
Speaker 2: In the suit again including how stuff works, they claim
45:48
Speaker 2: that the podcasters podcasters in general infringed on the US
45:51
Speaker 2: patent eight dot one one two dot five of four,
45:54
Speaker 2: which claims a system for disseminating media content in serialized
46:00
Speaker 2: episodes aka every other form of media that's ever existed.
46:05
Speaker 2: And I just think it's interesting because they were obviously
46:07
Speaker 2: granted this patent, but it was determined after a challenge
46:11
Speaker 2: to that patent that it was not valid. The Supreme
46:15
Speaker 2: Court had to get involved. So it just goes to
46:17
Speaker 2: show that perhaps all patents that are granted are not
46:20
Speaker 2: necessarily worthy of receiving that designation.
46:23
Speaker 1: Welcome to the United States. Everything's negotiable.
46:26
Speaker 3: Stamp rubber stamp, rubber stand How.
46:28
Speaker 1: Much money do you have, my friends, how much are
46:30
Speaker 1: you willing to part with?
46:31
Speaker 4: I will say after, like, you know, writing some briefs
46:34
Speaker 4: looked at when you read constitutions and stuffer and by
46:36
Speaker 4: other countries and then you read the United States one,
46:38
Speaker 4: You're like, right, this country was built by lawyers. Yes, yeah,
46:42
Speaker 4: it's not a bad thing nor good thing.
46:44
Speaker 3: It's just a thing.
46:45
Speaker 2: Well, there's just a lot of vague language, you know,
46:47
Speaker 2: in the damn Constitution.
46:48
Speaker 3: That's why there are so many divisive.
46:50
Speaker 2: Points and people that are just like absolutely on opposite
46:54
Speaker 2: ends of an issue because the language is not particularly.
46:57
Speaker 1: Clear, and sometimes those folks are not arguing in good faith.
47:01
Speaker 1: But we want to with this that Let's give a
47:03
Speaker 1: shout out to our good friend aj Bahamas Jacobs. We
47:07
Speaker 1: will never explain that street name the author of the
47:10
Speaker 1: Year of Living constitutionally, wherein he finds out firsthand just
47:17
Speaker 1: how vague the Constitution is and the brilliance of writing
47:21
Speaker 1: it in that manner.
47:23
Speaker 3: This is why we.
47:24
Speaker 1: Call it the American Experiment. Thanks also to our pal
47:28
Speaker 1: super producer research associate for this episode, mister Max Williams.
47:32
Speaker 1: Oh and shout out to Alex Williams. I can't believe
47:35
Speaker 1: we have our own composer.
47:37
Speaker 2: Indeed, and huge thanks to Christopher Hasiotis and Eves Jeff
47:40
Speaker 2: Coates both here in spirit.
47:42
Speaker 1: Yes, big big thanks to Rachel Big Spinach Lance, big
47:46
Speaker 1: big thanks to our own patent troll, Jonathan Strickland. Aka
47:51
Speaker 1: the Quister. We would love to hear your take on
47:55
Speaker 1: the most ridiculous patents. We haven't gotten to it yet,
47:58
Speaker 1: but it's on the way. You can always find us
48:00
Speaker 1: on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians, and I'll see. I
48:04
Speaker 1: don't know, man, it'd be cool to have a patent.
48:07
Speaker 1: I just like the certification. I like, you know, I
48:10
Speaker 1: just want the paperwork, to have it on my wall.
48:13
Speaker 3: It would be cool.
48:14
Speaker 2: I guess people probably frame them, right, Like, if you
48:16
Speaker 2: always hear about folks that have like multiple patents under
48:19
Speaker 2: their belt, I'm sure in their little home offices they've
48:21
Speaker 2: got those things framed.
48:22
Speaker 3: That'd be pretty cool. I agree, and that spirit. We'll
48:25
Speaker 3: see you next time, folks.
48:33
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
48:37
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.