[DiogenesLamp]

As an author, a creator of intellectual property, I strongly disagree with you. Why should my property rights to my intellectual property creation disappear with my death and my heirs, my children NOT get my work that I have worked hard to create with my imagination and skill and built with the intent that it be passed on to them merely because YOU want it without having worked for it? Why should you have for free what I worked for? Why should my children be taxed of their entire inheritance because YOU want the free use of it?

And why shouldn't the same idea apply to patents?

[Swordmaker]

And why shouldn't the same idea apply to patents?

Patents are different creations than are copyrighted works of art, literature, or music. Those are very personal creations that have no other purpose that can be beneficial except in and of themselves for the enjoyment of the people who may wish to view, read, or hear them.

Patents are meant to protect inventions for a limited time to encourage advancement of technology and reward their inventors. By extending the life of patents beyond the set periods in law, may block the first purpose of the intent of Patents, and not permit the advancement of technology. A patent requires the inventor to describe his invention such that others can easily re-create it. I would support a reducing allowance for lower royalties over a longer period and after an initial period of exclusivity for the inventor to exploit his invention it must be mandatory to licensing all patents to all comers for a reasonable rate, similar to FRAND requirements of Standard Essential patents which are licensed to all comers under Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory rates so that technology can be used by all developers.

However, IF that were the case, then my argument for long term ownership of patents and inheritability of the Intellectual Property would and should also apply.

Our patent system is broken as it is currently implemented. . . because the terms are so short for certain patents, making monetizing the invention in the time available is problematic given research and regulatory costs and the requirement that patent application dates are the start date of the clock. Court rulings that a fictionalized description of an invention, even without describing how it can be accomplished, or even knowing if it is possible, can make the "invention" is no longer a viable patent, which make patents "prior art", thus making patents a difficult thing to defend once granted because all it takes is to find one non-technical minded judge to rule the patent invalid. We need a fairer system for the inventor, and for the people who want to license the patents under fair licensing rates.

My proposal would include the following:

• Technical patents deserve a short term exclusivity to the inventor to encourage innovation.

• After the end of the exclusivity period all Technical patents should be required to be licensed at FRAND rates.

• Technical patents that are not being either utilized or licensed by their inventor during the period of exclusivity may be challenged to demand FRAND terms by anyone who wishes to use the patent. Once challenged, the patent holder must demonstrate intent to utilize the patent within exclusivity period. If patent holder fails to use the patent during the period of exclusivity, the patent is placed in the public domain. Successful challenger required to use the patent to prevent all patents being challenged.

• Design Patents are completely different legally that protect a company and consumers from copycat, counterfeit, fraudulent products and should exist for the life of the product line plus five years after the last sale of the authentic product.

• Trademarks are handled by the patent office and should be granted in perpetuity until abandoned in writing by the grantee or adjudicated as abandoned. Perhaps a fee for continuing a Trademark may be required every ten years to maintain a trademark would be appropriate.

• Certain recognizable characters such as Walt Disney's cartoon characters would be allowed to be trademarked instead of copyrighted, eliminating the current absurd copyright expiration issues on these iconic characters that are still in use by their corporate owners that resulted in the extension of the copyrights in the Millennium Copyright act.

• Software cannot be patented.

• Algorithms and Mathematical expressions may not be patented or copyrighted.

• Specific software implementations may only be copyrighted as can the appearance of software on screen.

• Business plans or techniques may not be patented or copyrighted.

• Fictional story lines may not be patented. (Yes, someone was granted a patent on a story line!)

• Ideas may not be patented without step-by-step descriptions of exactly how they are to be implemented using technology that is currently available so that they actually can be done now, not at some future time when something hypothetical becomes available. i.e., the idea must be capable of being done with currently available technology, not pie-in-the-sky.

• Discoveries cannot be patented or copyrighted, including DNA strands or Genomes.

• New artificial combinations of DNA may be patented under normal patent rules.

All of this is about property rights. . . balanced with a reasonable public right to use intellectual property.

We also need to figure out a reasonable royalty rate for incidental internet use of photographic and music use by cutting and pasting. . . so that such innocent non-commercial use does not incur huge after the fact licensing demands from such organizations as Getty images that almost indistinguishable form extortion for innocent use of often intentionally non-labeled copyrighted images. The Fair Use doctrine needs to be expanded or nailed down for the Internet use for forums such as FreeRepublic.