Albert Ip talks about the reality of developing new products, and then dealing with lawyers and patent issues.
In these days of patent lock-up, it is NOT about publishing the achievement and improvement. My patent lawyer told me the other day, it is about limiting other people’s use of your idea. Hence this concept of patent portfolio and mutual licensing. He advised me to break my invention into several patents in order to start building a patent portfolio. When there is a way of doing thing which is lock up in other’s patent (by the way, I discover the method myself independently – but it does not matter, somebody has the exclusive right just before you), one can use one’s patent portfolio to negotiate for some mutual licensing. This makes sense, a lot of $en$e – but only to the lawyers! I ended up protecting my IP using "trade secret". BTW, if you ask nicely, I may tell you my trade secret after a drink.
Albert’s experience shows why the open source movement and intiatives like Creative Commons are essential for innovation and for our continuing economic growth. Innovation is NOT about limiting other people’s use of your idea. Our civilisation and technology is where it is today because scientists and others freely shared their findings in order to grow their disciplines. Albert is keeping his secrets, but on his terms. We should do like CC says – skip the intermediaries [lawyers].
