Re: [Patents] Indian patent practice

[jm@jmason.org (Justin Mason)]

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Jim Bessen writes:
>>>From the New York Times:
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/15/technology/15innovate.html
>
>It seems US firms are using Indian engineers to write US patents. This makes
>the cost of patenting less but also shows that patents provide no protection
>vs. outsourcing.

US firms are using Indian engineers, full stop.  Also, software developers
applying for patents is common practice - and encouraged - in many
companies.   If the software engineers are in India, they'll be the ones
applying (via the company's US office typically).

And regarding this:

> Well given the trend, indians will soon start patenting in US
> themselves, using the west industry weapon against itself ...

Already the case, and has been for a while.  While I worked at one company
in Ireland, we were encouraged to work on software patent applications.
US patents were the main aim, although EPO patents were also be applied
for, too.  I don't think this was anything to do with the enforceability of
swpats in Europe -- rather that more software development companies are
based in the US.

As far as I know, the common practice in the "foreign worker applying for
US patents" case was that the company would have a (small) US office which
can hold the patents.   Since a small US office is generally a very useful
thing anyway for most software companies selling into the US, this is
hardly a major hurdle to overcome...

- --j.

>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Hartmut Pilch" <phm@a2e.de>
>To: "Carsten Svaneborg" <zqex@mpipks-dresden.mpg.de>
>Cc: "Patent forum" <patents@aful.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 7:49 AM
>Subject: Re: [Patents] Indian patent practice
>
>
>> > One of the argument for the directive that has been mentioned in Denmark
>> > is that patent protection is necessary otherwise jobs will just move to
>India.
>>
>> > Clearly a bogus statement, but anyways, I checked the software patent
>> > status in India, and the Indian patentpractice guidelines (of 2001) are
>> > available at:  http://www.patentoffice.nic.in/ipr/patent/manual.htm
>>
>> Very interesting, but unrelated to the bogus statement (McCarthy "low cost
>> economy" recital).  According to this bogus logic, it is quite normal that
>> "low cost" places like India should grant few patents whereas high cost
>> places should grant many.
>>
>> But, evidently, jobs, even those in R&D, are not moving to where the many
>> patents are.
>>
>> Andy Grove of Intel in his BSA presentation
>>
>>   Andy Grove presentation: US IT industry decline, rising litigation costs
>>   http://www.globaltechsummit.net/press/AndyGrove.pdf
>>
>> points to the cheap production cost and good infrastructure in terms of
>> non-rival goods (e.g. basic research, university education) and to the
>> high litigation costs imposed by patent inflation in the US, and says that
>> all these together are causing a rapid exodus of IT jobs to India et al.
>>
>> Unfortunately Grove stops short of calling for a cheap and effective (but
>> politically risky) cure to the problem: a return to the concept of
>> technical invention, as envisaged by the EP.  Instead he calls for
>> "strengthening the patent office", i.e. more public spending on prior art
>> search.  He seems to estimate this at 1 bn USD p.a., although it is not
>> clear to me fromthe presentation whether this yearly 1 bn is solely for
>> "strengthening the patent office".
>>
>> -- 
>> Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
>> Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation      http://swpat.ffii.org/
>> 290,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents
>http://noepatents.org/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
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