The majority of SMEs struggle to file more than one patent, according to the Colorado College study. Of the SMEs granted patents by the European Patent Office, 81 percent had only been granted a single patent over six years. The report also showed that less than one percent of SMEs had filed 10 or more patents.
Larger companies, which have larger human and capital resources, are generally able to fully take advantage of the patent system and often file hundreds of patents over the course of a year. For example, Microsoft, SAP and IBM have had 225, 142 and 106 patents published respectively by the European Patent Office this year.
International patents
Small companies also often have to make difficult decisions about which country to file patent in — more countries equals more cost. Unisto, a Swiss-based company that produces security seals for retail and manufacturing, has only taken out its patents in a few countries, as it is too costly to file the patents worldwide.
"We thought about filing the patent in China as it's an emerging market. But then we thought, 'Will somebody copy this product and make it in China? Am I ever going to defend it in China? How much will it cost me to file it in China?' Eventually we said we'll write it off," says Unisto sales and marketing director Mark Hayward. "I would like it the patent system to be cheaper in the early days to secure patents in more countries for less money."
Again, costs are less of a factor for large multinationals that often are able to fire off as many patents in as many countries as they please. "The reason multinationals have a greater number of patents is probably due to the fact that they have full time patent departments. I worked in a patent department of a multinational pharmaceutical company when I was younger, and it was routine to file a patent in every country which had a patent system," said an anonymous former insider.
Spreading patent confusion
Larger companies clearly have an advantage when it comes to the geographic spread of patents but they also have a further advantage in the type of patents they can produce. Large companies have the financial muscle to invest in filing what are best described as trivial patents. On the whole, these kinds of patents are not protecting any current intellectual capital but may allow that company to tie up or benefit from a future competitor's innovation.
According to a software manager at a small technology company, multinationals are swamping patent offices with well-worded patent applications for currently trivial technologies in the knowledge that a certain proportion of them will be passed and may pay off in the future.
Talkback
Looks like some happy few are hoping that the politicians will be stupid enough to simply hand them on a silver platter a complete new international market that they have the monopoly over.
And on top of that rows of rich, mostly overseas, internationals that will stumble over eachother to get their hands on anything they can.
But, as they say, to make a few people richer you need to make lots more poorer.
And that is exactly what this patent thing is boiling down too. Some want to be the arms dealer in this legal arms race and some are looking to conquer new lands and profits. But what's left then for the rest of us?
Maybe the captains of industry see a glorious future in this new legal war they envision. But what about the soldiers, corperals and sergeants? Is it really the case that the politicians are telling the generals what they can and can't do or is it vice versa?
Ignoring the tricksy "per se", that the UKPO/EPO use to pretend (absurdly) that they were talking either about written source code or about whole applications or about some phantom "non-technical" kind of software, when they are forced into a corner, it is a simple fact that the unamended directive will *codify* the EPO's legally questionable practice of granting software and biz method patents.
Never mind what the opponents of the Council version of the directive say: just read any independent analysis, such as the EESC opinion or Rossi's paper. Still not convinced you can patent the same software and biz methods at the EPO that the USPTO notoriously allows? Go to amazon and get yourself a copy of Keith Beresford's book, which tells you exactly how to do it, or read this:
http://www.european-patent-office.org/epidos/conf/patlib2000/presentations/beresfordk.pdf
Or look in the EPO and UKPO databases, which already hold around 50,000 software and biz method patents. So how exactly did they get there if they're "not allowed"? And just how exactly will the directive stop the recent avalanche of more of them, if - as claimed - it makes no changes to what the EPO considers patentable? This disgraceful and underhand attempt by the EPO and UKPO to sow confusion about what is really going on and what they intend the directive to achieve, is one of the most depressing aspects of this issue. The door is already wide open - the directive is intended to rip it off its hinges.
"How not to do it. In this was to be found the basis of the wise system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution Office, of warning every ingenious British software author to be ingenious at his peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers in the guise of "IP companies" to plunder him, and at the best of confiscating his property after a short term of enjoyment, and giving it to the few largest companies, as though invention were on a par with felony. The system had uniformly found great favour with the Barnacles, and that was only reasonable, too; for one who worthily invents or writes innovative software must be in earnest, and the Barnacles abhorred and dreaded nothing half so much.That again was very reasonable; since in a country suffering under the affliction of a great amount of earnestness, there might, in an exceeding short space of time, be not a single Barnacle left sticking to a post."
From "Little Dorritt (for the modern reader)", by P.L.Hayes.
Thanks for info. We're a small software company and used the services of a legal firm specialising in patents on the advice of a government-backed advisor.
The experience was very expensive and bruising.
For anyone thinking of applying for patent on software, here is our experience.
First, trusted third-party advice is that up to 60 per cent of any software created will be stolen and modified/reused within four years - even if it is patented or patent application is filed.
Second, the legal profession work by the second and charge highly for their "expertise".
Third, we entered the process with the legal firm in good faith. When we decided not to pursue the patent application (at a MINIMUM cost of £4000 plus VAT), we were hit by an invoice for around £800. This was for the legal firm's time in looking at our hard work (all the patent searches we had done globally), a two-hour meeting with two legal representatives to discuss this, and a promise of a full questionnaire after agreement to pay the minimum £4000 (with no ceiling and no advice on how high the costs would go).
Fourth, a trusted third-party with experience in this field advised that we would need at least a £2 million "war-chest" to protect our patent.
So, our conclusion is - please, think very carefully before you enter into any patent process.