Patents were created to help creator get a leg up not to stifle innovation its time that patents as we know them are ended and a new simple short term patent is put in place anything else is a slap in the face of the citizens of the free world whom the laws were created for not companies and corporations,WE THE PEOPLE, not them the money !!

Patents and copyright laws represents a big step back for humanity.

Just imagine where would we be if this law were active when wheel, cement, violin, toilet, battery, electric motor, ... was invented.
What if uSoft would have patent for flushing toilet?

I want to see inventors, artists make an invention, creation, without using the huge amount of information, technology, ideas, that they are getting for FREE from previous generations. Are they prepared to PAY for every invention they use?

Invented by **** to control others. It is not the only thing invented for controlling other people. But this is other topic.

The idea is excellent. It's a long-held principle that to be guilty of a crime you need to have intent. Very few people intend to use a patent without authorisation.

It's also an oddity of the criminal law that corporations cannot be criminals.

Also, the laws of criminal compensation are very different to those of a patent suit. The amounts in civil patent suits are massively higher than in criminal compensation cases.

More seriously, it a bonkers idea. If only because it makes life harder for those with decent patents to enforce them.

When you steal a car you know you have stolen the care. Ifyou violate a patent you almost certainly do not and it would take a court case or three before anyone is certain.

If you are developing a new product it is a difficult taks to find patents which may apply. Many appear to have deliberately misleading or obscure titles. You then need to decide if you have actually infringed the patent and lastly whether the patent is valid or whether the claims are for pre-exisiting of obvious inventions.
None of these steps are straight forward black and white decisions. In many cases if you have violated a patent ot would be easy to chaneg the design so it does not violat ethe patent, theer is no real harm to the patent holder becaus ethere is no prospect of extracting significant license fees except by ambush.

Making patent violation a criminal offence is completely unrealistic and unjust.

The patent system is very broken and being increasingly manipulated by big business. We need a total rethink, but for starters here is my take:

1. Patents to last 3 years maximum. If you can't get an idea developed in that time it is time others had a go - that is the only way to help the wider society. Tying up good ideas for decades is stupid.

2. Patents should be issued to individuals and not be transferable - this means the original inventor gets a chance to develop the idea, then it is open to all.

3. A much more rigorous definition of what is an 'original' idea. Minor development of existing knowledge or applying something to a new product doesn't count. For example a 'crank' should not be patentable in an engine when it was already used in a spinning wheel. It converts linear motion to rotary motion and the application isn't relevant. It is a pity James Watt didn't pursue this!

4. Absolutely no software patents (see below) or conceptual patents (paper ideas) or discovery patents (eg: DNA sequencing).

Software is exactly the same as a mathematical equation: just imaging if someone had patented something like "A+B=C, where A,B and C are numbers where C is a representation of the sum of A and B". No more adding up without paying someone a royalty.

If software patents were valid (like in the US) then words are next. There is little if any difference to writing or fragments of writing; in which case I would like to patent "Once upon a time ...". The whole thing is utter madness and all about money and greed.

"so like any modern British subject Bayliss looks to the Government for help with his problem".

Figures. All you Euro-peons, especially you brits have all become whiny, petulant, sissy gayboys. Except for the British Armed Forces, still good MEN.

Why not try something new and exciting, and grow a pair?

If you'd seen one of the news interview with Baylis, he was saying that it was about giving small inventors the protections so as not to have their ideas stolen by large corporations who could then "out-lawyer" you in expensive court cases. This is exactly what the patent system was supposed to prevent in the first place, but which has been abused by those companies with a lot of money and the inadequate technical understanding by those who administer the patent system.

What Baylis doesn't understand, is that criminalising breaches of the patent system simply gives large corporations not only the ability to out-spend you in order to steal your ideas, but also the ability to send you to jail (or use the threat of it) in order to steal your ideas.

Fixing the patent system to do what it is supposed to do is a much better solution than simply making a broken system even more broken in favour of those that abuse it.

Baylis has spoken for years about making the patent system cheaper and more robust for small inventors like him, but his latest "idea" is just flailing around without an understanding that it would make things worse, not better.

It is a government sanctioned monopoly. The idea that patent infringement equates to theft of a car is absurd.

I'm all for patent reform that would level the playing field though. Maybe create a special, dedicated patent court process that would give impoverished patent holders a fair shake.

It could be a an idea for a film plot, forcing people to get their DNA cut and pasted or re-sequenced with this diabolical machine so it conveniences a patent situation.

You could also work in a teleportation film to prequel where the DNA mixer machine technology was made from.

Yes, let's call it a crime and have the tax payers pay for the patent trolls. That will break the backbone of the patent system. And in the US of MAFIAA, make it punishable by death or, worse, an 8 year imprisonment at the US Guantánamo Bay torture camp.

The author seems to believe that using the criminal courts to pursue IP infringement is appropriate if applied to copyright but "barking mad" if applied to patents. Is there any difference at all between the RIAA and "... companies and their lawyers that produce nothing but expensive lawsuits that stifle useful innovation and productivity...". It seems to me that "by conflating patents with copyrights under the vague, legally meaningless term "intellectual property", Bayliss is pointing out to an audience that otherwise doesn't get it the absurdity of "seeking heavy handed Government protection in an area where, unlike ordinary criminal law, black and white distinctions of right and wrong are seldom to be found."

If me downloading a song on p2p by "A-manuafactured-band" is a crime punishable by a bankrupting level of fine even though I haven't made a penny from my "copy", why shouldn't taking someone's idea and flooding the market with your cheap Chinese made copies of my idea not be?
The problems are not with the enforcement, but with the process of getting the patent in the first place. That needs to be fixed properly (i.e. the entire American system needs to be covered in petrol and ignited).

My friend's obsessed with patenting inventions for loudspeaker designs. He's made some cash with some of them, but mainly he spends his time waving tatty, dog-eared copies of What Hi-Fi around, whilst ranting and raving about loudspeaker manufacturers stealing his ideas. He's forever sending them threatening letters that he painstakingly types out on an old pre WWII typewriter he once dragged out of a skip.

Do we really want our hard-working and dedicated police force forever tied up dealing with eccentrics like this, whilst the low-life are pedalling crack cocaine to children on the streets and turning our towns into ghettos!!!

If the law is supposed to police patents as well as everything else, then how much do you think your council tax will increase?

Perhaps the patent offices should police their own patents - they get paid enough to register one in the first place.

Patent infringement is NOT a crime. It is an actionable offense against civil law, and the proper remedy is a lawsuit. Would you want to go to jail if your son broke a neighbors window, or someone fell on your sidewalk, or your brakes failed, and you damaged someone else? These are not crimes, but there is the possibility of a suit to recover costs when blame can be clearly assigned.

Criminalizing IP infringement would possibly lead to the end of the patent trolls. Due process would bring back sanity in investigations for business process patent infringements, if these monstrosities (the patents) would be allowed at the EU level some day. The customs should already deal with the counterfeit products using the means provided by the criminal law.

There are three classes of entities involved in creating and stealing patents.

Large entities with millions in resources.
Small entities with a few million in resources
Individual entities (9 or fewer people) with a few thousand in resources.

The proper place for disputes is the civil court unless true fraud is involved in which case it may indeed go to the criminal side.

To make it work it is the place of government to see that the playing field is level. One possibility is to make all players limit their representation to the lowest player so that the Individual entity could constrain the Large entity it is suing to its resource limits. Alternately the larger entity could be required to subsidize the legal representation of the small or individual entity. This seems hard but in fact in high value cases it is not really a problem and it would make the large entity reconsider and focus on high value cases.

Small and Individual entities for whom small markets are important would be able to fight to win its small case on an even playing field. While at present the small market problem prevents small and individual entities from obtaining contingent representation (the case is worth too little to pay the attorney for the risks). It is especially in these small or early markets with large entities using their deep resources to overpower the small and individual entities in marginal cases where there is only justice for the rich.

I don't believe having a good idea means you never have to work again. Like a hand crank was so new and amazing he should be able to live off it for life. He had his few years to make some dosh. Now it's in the public domain. Whinging on instead of working on a new idea or making the old one more refined.

Patent infringement is a crime and there should be mandatory jail or prison time depending on the infringement.

Theft is theft, and inventors are constantly terrorized by those who use their patents without (much) fear of reprisal. Make the statute of limitations a good long time, attach some jail time to the offense, and maybe we'd see some more legal patent licensing.

Patents are quite ill defined.

Imposing criminal penalties for violating patent is a bad idea.

A very good idea would be reforming the patent system so that prior art is respected and naturally occurring things (DNA sequences perhaps, basic physical processes perhaps, big prime numbers) cannot be patented.