Patent lawyers are slammed by insurance rates

["Christian Beauprez" <beauprez@beauprez.fsnet.co.uk>]

http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2004/05/17/story6.html

 

Even lawyers have bad days..

 

Is this the route of Intellectual Property expansionism perhaps? These days even the lawyers have to spend money on defending themselves from patent suits. When will the litigation madness end?

 

" Deborah Wade, vice president with Marsh Affinity Group Services, said the program tries to accommodate attorneys, but coverage for patent lawyers is hard to find. "

 

I am playing a violin solemnly at the moment..

 

"A year after filing a U.S. patent application, lawyers have to seek patent protection in foreign countries"

 

Yes they get addicted to filing patents, one patent just isn't enough to satisfy them these days. I think we should start calling them "Patent Junkies" .

 

"The cost of a lost patent can easily be exaggerated, he said."

As can the "technical effect" of a software "invention"..

"Very few inventions truly have enormous value, (sic) but if you blow that filing deadline, it's not hard for client to get an expert to do a projection of significant damages,"

Could this be because of a devalued patent system that it is over eager to patent everything- leading to dare I say it - patent inflation?. It sounds to me like patent lawyers are tripping on their own shoe laces. Perhaps justice isn't dead after all! - at least not poetic justice ..

 But the one thing article highlights is the insanity of an out of control patent system (much like a money supply that is out of control) and the inflationary pressures this causes on an economy as a whole.It seems to me that anyone out there who stereotypes us all as communists merely because we believe in free markets in the truest sense (e.g. where people can bring their goods to market and profit from their creations as opposed to ideas written down on an expensive piece of paper) hasn't studied their free market economics...

 I don't remember monopolies ever being considered a good thing from an economic POV, nor lead to  any better efficiency than competition- particularly not artificial monopolies of abstract ideas.. I also think that a lot of corporations will be waking up soon to these inflationary pressures. I noticed in the press Microsoft wasn't too happy over I believe it was $2bn in legal fees this year.

When will the sanity begin?