I was sort of darkly amused by the messaging eBay sends out to solicit patent ideas from employees. One of the primary themes is "don't worry if it's obvious; obvious ideas are still patentable".
Well, money is money and capitalism is capitalism. I have a pretty big internal debate about the morality of our patent system, but probably wouldn't bat an eye about proposing/provisioning/filing one for a nice bonus.
It's not just "skilled in the art", someone of "ordinary skill in the art".
And with all the complaints you inevitably read whenever an interviewing thread happens about candidates unable to code up FizzBuzz, you can guess what the level of "ordinary skill" in our industry is...
>there was always pressure from management to file patents //
IBM's past technical disclosure bulletins (TDB) [I think they stopped them a while back] suggest that there wasn't "always" pressure just that they realise[d] that their patent portfolio is one of their greatest assets - strongly encouraging employees to flag apparent innovations (and getting upstream oversight of those innovations) means that IBM can make the most of the inventiveness of their employees though.
The public benefit is early disclosure of every possible innovation and the TDB helped to disseminate details of tech that may not have been well known.
I could see how that would encourage every employee to try to churn as many "inventions" as possible, especially since patent deals are usually made in bulk, and not over specific patents. So even if the patent is crappy, there's a chance you can get a big payout.
Yes and no. Patents are often licensed or traded in bulk, but only a foolish entity would pay anything for a patent they have not read. However, patents are typically traded as part of a portfolio, and often the portfolio is structured so that it has a few really good ones and a bunch of nuisance or filler patents. Ideally you don't want to pay for those at all, but the seller won't sell anything other than the whole portfolio. Say they offer it for some amount X. So essentially you have to go back and say, "look, these 3 are OK but the rest are really narrow/useless/invalid/crappy, so we think your portfolio is worth much less than X." And negotiation happens.
I can't say how the bonuses are handed out once a portfolio is sold. Ideally, you'd guess the inventors of the "better" patents would get bigger bonuses. The most likely scenario, unfortunately, is that the inventors get nothing, and very likely are not even aware. It's a shame inventors are so unaware of the value companies reap from their IP.
- Fill in an internal form
- Have a chat with an internal lawyer / patent expert
- Receive a (small) payment if it is submitted to the patent office.
- Receive a (bigger) payment if the patent is granted.
- Receive a (huge) payment if the patent is used / sold / cross-licenced.
The exact process and payments will depend on country and company.
And, yes, it is possible to game this system. For a good study, read "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman" http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Z7g-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT170&lpg...