[PLUG-TALK] Patent troll program

[Keith Lofstrom]

On 6/1/2013 2:19 PM, Denis Heidtmann wrote:
>This afternoon This American Life had a program about Patent Trolls. 
>I recommend it.

By weird coincidence, I am reading the 2013 book "Tinkerers" by
Alec Foege, and stumbled into a chapter about Intellectual Ventures.

Foege discusses the 2011 NPR/Sydell piece for All Things Considered,
and drills down on both the trollish Crawford patent (which IV sold),
and Lenehan's 2000 issued patent 6080436 "Bread Freshening Method",
which Sydell dismissed as "just a toaster".   Foege reports the
good and the bad, which like most real situations in life are 
difficult to separate.

The real invention is much more interesting than a toaster, and you
can look it up with Google Patent Search.  The invention doesn't
toast the bread, but hits it with a three second burst of very
intense infrared that modifies it without carbonizing it.  The
difference from toasting is significant - it is like the
difference between Baked Alaska and lukewarm melted ice cream.

Not sure how practical the process is.  A practical devices
probably requires a brief multikilowatt pulse of electricity,
and most kitchens aren't wired for that.  But it isn't a
"toaster", just like a laser isn't a flashlight.  And if
someone is inspired by Lenahan's work to make a machine
(before 2017) that uses the same trick without blowing a
fuse, they'll probably need to pungle up some license fees.

Patents do need to be reformed, for sure.  But so does NPR's
misreporting.  Bigotry is born from a chain of misrepresentations, 
turning small observation errors into innocent people hung by
klansmen.  When reporters take sides, truth loses.

Keith

P.S. The Foege book is worth reading, a page turner.  The chapter
"when tinkering veers off course" discusses how brilliant geeks
at J.P. Morgan tinkered with corporate loans and invented the
BISTRO, Broad Index Secured Trust Offering, a form of Credit
Default Swap (CDS), which actually did good things to extend
credit and reduce risk, freeing capital to start waves of new
businesses.  Unfortunately, that evolved into collateralized
debt obligations, with risks being traded as if they were
assets.  That was unstable - large chunks of the financial
system went into positive feedback and failed.  An expensive
lesson in what does not work.  Real learning is never free of
pain.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993