[Patents] consultation questions

[srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

>However the study I point you to states that patents are of no use to
>SMEs, because it offers them no gurantee.

A poorly researched study.  Here is one absolute guarantee that a
patent application guarantees you, at least here in the United States.
It guarantees that you business plan won't be immediately rejected
by a venture capitalist.

To venture capitalists, patents and patent applications are a form of
insurance for their investment.  Why invests tens of millions of 
dollars for a new software idea to help create a new market niche,
only to see that market niche captured by a big software company once
the startup has done all of the hard initial market creation?  
Copyright?  Venture capitalists laugh at copyright as a form of protection
for their investment (as do most intellectual property lawyers the
VCs retain).

So to SMEs seeking investment capital, patents and patent applications are
an important tool to raise funding (and once you raise the funding, you
can afford to play the patent game).  This is probably not that apparent
in Europe because venture capital is still in its infancy there.  But
as it grows, I am sure that the European VCs amd certainly American VCs
investing in Europe will demand that the SMEs they invest in apply for
and acquire patents, including software patents.

Of course, improving patent quality helps SMEs greatly, so that when they
get their patent, people will take them more seriously (which is why I
have argued for many years to improve patent quality - it helps out
small businesses very much).

So if you really support SMEs (as opposed to using them for your goal
of eliminating patents), it is not obvious apriori that patents are
useless to SMEs.  Quite the opposite, at least for those SMEs seeking
investment monies to build independent businesses.

Greg Aharonian