[quote=Russell] . . .
Is a completely revolutionary business model something that one goes after with a patent?How would one ever get a new model to work with state and or Federal regulations?
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Ah Russell – you touch on one of the most exciting issues that has come down the patent pike in a while. This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Bilski v. Kappos striking down the long held patent dogma that methods of doing business were not patentable unless they satisfied the “machine or transformation test.” Now, apparently, the Patent Office and courts must treat methods of doing business like any other idea and must grant or deny patent protection based on basic patent law principles.
The decision in this case has set the patent world aflutter, causing countless law firms to publish journal articles containing zillions of possible interpretations of what the Court meant in Bilski (in hopes of attracting lots of clients with these fabulous page-turners). Anyway, the Court seemed to accept the idea that purely abstract ideas were not patentable (although I don’t know if anyone knows what that means – if I build a Lego village based on my idea is it not abstract anymore?). And I have no idea what this means in terms of your real estate method question. Sorry.
With respect to the abstract idea of whether a little guy can beat a big guy when it comes to patents (I’m not taking a side on the real estate thing), I think the answer is absolutely yes. If someone engages in willful patent infringement (infringing a patent knowingly), s/he can be found liable for triple damages and may be forced to pay the patentee’s costs in litigating. So most reasonable businesses do their best not to infringe patents of which they are aware.
Short of litigation, there is always the option of convincing infringers to take licenses and pay royalty fees. A good licensing program can be a relatively low cost gold mine. The value of this approach can be seen in an article entitled “Lessons from Commercialization of the Cohen-Boyer Patents: The Stanford University Licensing Program”
( http://www.iphandbook.org/handbook/ch17/p22/ )
The Cohen-Boyer patents related to basic recombinant DNA technology (genetic engineering). Stanford and the Univ. of Cal. system offered reasonably priced licenses and collected $225 million in licensing fees during the life of those patents. (Sales of products based on the patents are estimated to have been $35 billion. ) Last I checked, the Univ. of Cal. system was also collecting about $5 million on year on it’s strawberry patents.
Don’t know if any of this helps, but this gives you an idea of how exciting things can get in the world of patent law ;).
