Suppose that we said each year, each person named as an inventor or each company or person named as an assignee on a patent qualified for a rolling fee. Say $200 for the first patent, $1000 for the next, $5000 for the third and $25000 for the fourth – 200×5^N. Nice and simple. And to make it hard to spoof, charge the same amount for transfers.
Easy patent solution: Exponential method
Interesting.. I think that would cut down the number of patents by quite a bit… someone I know at Sandia with over 400 patents in 20 years would be down to probably 100 as were really useful inventions that would recoup costs. IBM would be down to what 25 or so patents a year before it broke its budget?
So a big company’s R&D operation could have its employees assign their patents to small entities that the big company doesn’t actually control but has a blanket licensing deal with.
Don: If the law was properly written, that would make it impossible to enforce those patents or to prevent employees from walking off with their patents. Of course, nothing is perfect, but …
My guess is this proposal will not be well received among many of the anti-patent activists who, in reality, are acting as fronts for big companies.