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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 13 2013 @ 06:07 PM EDT |
(Christenson again)
In the case of 5,106,192 (laser interferomenter), the main difference is that I
have a little something on my resume indicating that I really *DO* have some
real skills. I'm sure that has opened a few doors and led to employment where
it wouldn't otherwise have happened.
But the increase in societal welfare is pretty marginal -- the invention is not,
to my knowledge, practiced by anyone. I'd love to practice it, but I'd need a
rich patron -- a company called Heidenhain makes precision glass scales that do
an excellent job. We *might* have been able to solve some truly difficult
issues, like inspecting the insides of hydraulic spool valves, but that was
beyond our ability.
As for the second, on the magnet control, I'm pretty sure it has made a
difference. It has allowed my current employer to enjoy a position in the
market that is unchallenged. This is in spite of some craziness on our part --
for example, we claim the enclosure for the electronics -- and the patent is on
*exactly* what we practice, rather than all the ways I know how to solve the
problem -- and that we aren't exactly a low-cost producer. I do know the names
of some potential competitors, and I have heard that there has been some
discussion between my company and those competitors.
Whether this protected position is actually a net benefit to society is a
complicated question. On the one hand, we are pretty sure we lowballed the
price compared to the value to our customers -- steel mills, where our
relatively maintenance free solution keeps people out of dangerous places -- but
on the other hand, open access to a dozen other manufacturer's products would
allow us to practice the invention by simply doing a bit of reprogramming, which
isn't all that hard to do. And those products sell for a lot less than ours.
On the third hand, though, late last (Friday) night, I was backing up one of my
fellow engineers who was supporting a customer in a distant city whose equipment
wasn't working. That also has significant value to the steel mills we sell to,
where downtime can be in the $10K to $100K per hour cost range.
********
Should either of these patents have issued? It's very hard for me to tell,
because I am significantly more than ordinarily skilled at technical arts such
as circuits, mathematics, and programming, all of which were very much involved
in these inventions. So they look obvious to me.
I think the second invention would be in the marketplace with our without the
patent, given that the patent application was filed on the last possible day --
because we had sold a copy a year before.
***************
So beware -- this is my anecdote, a sample of one. I don't know how well or
badly it extrapolates.
Oh, and thank you PJ -- the newspick about the gentleman leaving DARPA gives me
a good idea where to hawk my next crazy idea -- a practical, truly paranoid
computer operating system, with the goal of being incorruptible by malware.
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