Remember that kick@ss keyboard designed in Russia?
yeah, that one. well:
Artemy Lebedev might have some trouble selling his attention-grabbing Optimus keyboard here in the States — turns out some dude by the name of Elkin Acevedo beat him to the punch and received a patent for a “Display keyboard” way back in 1998. The patent abstract describes the Optimus almost exactly, too:
A display keyboard including a conventional keyboard having an upper edge, lower edge, and pair of side edges. A plurality of display keys are situated on the keyboard. Each display key has a liquid crystal display, light emitting diode display, or any future state of the art display invention situated thereon for depicting alphanumeric characters and indicia. Finally, for controlling the operation of the present invention, a conventional computer is connected to the keyboard and adapted to depict via the display keys characters and indicia relevant to the function of the key during a current software application. To prevent confusion and eliminate clutter, the display keys that are not relevant to the software are rendered blank. In essence, all of the keys of the display keyboard have display capabilities, but it is at the discretion of the manufacture which keys should be able to display.
Patents are supposed to protect innovation by legalizing limited monopoly, not stifle production. Google is trying to patent RSS advertising, Amazon is trying to patent web service marketing, and now patents created 8 years ago when they weren't even technically feasible could kill yet another invention.
The lifetime of patents needs to be reduced to 5 years maximum, especially in an era of rapid development when 17 years (or however long patents are currently valid for) might as well be 100.
Dave wrote:Patents are supposed to protect innovation by legalizing limited monopoly, not stifle production. Google is trying to patent RSS advertising, Amazon is trying to patent web service marketing, and now patents created 8 years ago when they weren't even technically feasible could kill yet another invention.
The lifetime of patents needs to be reduced to 5 years maximum, especially in an era of rapid development when 17 years (or however long patents are currently valid for) might as well be 100.
Yeah but couldn't lebedev just buy the rights to create their keyboard?
Dave wrote:Patents are supposed to protect innovation by legalizing limited monopoly, not stifle production. Google is trying to patent RSS advertising, Amazon is trying to patent web service marketing, and now patents created 8 years ago when they weren't even technically feasible could kill yet another invention.
The lifetime of patents needs to be reduced to 5 years maximum, especially in an era of rapid development when 17 years (or however long patents are currently valid for) might as well be 100.
Yeah but couldn't lebedev just buy the rights to create their keyboard?
And at the same time, they can charge anything they like for the patents. Technology like this could be a runaway success and land the russians with millions and millions of dollars, or could sell a few hundred units to geeks and bomb. The selling price of the patent could bankrupt lebedev and destroy his life.
Dave wrote:Patents are supposed to protect innovation by legalizing limited monopoly, not stifle production. Google is trying to patent RSS advertising, Amazon is trying to patent web service marketing, and now patents created 8 years ago when they weren't even technically feasible could kill yet another invention.
The lifetime of patents needs to be reduced to 5 years maximum, especially in an era of rapid development when 17 years (or however long patents are currently valid for) might as well be 100.
Agreed. This patent seems lazy and speculative rather than enrepeneurial. I mean if they had 7 years to do something with it, but didn't, they really don't deserve a penny from someone who's actually trying to bring it to market.
