After attending an Intellectual Property seminar put on by Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek, S.C. here in Madison, I was struck by the complexity and cost of properly protecting IP. This not only includes the cost of applying for the patent ($20-$40k) but also defending it ($x to $y).
I've been in this position...do you spend the $50,000 to pursue an out-of-state business who is infringing upon your trademark, or just send them a threatening letter? If you don't pursue it, you risk losing it.
In software and technology, it is even more complicated. This article provides a great perspective on the current challenges of patent law.
An excerpt from the article in the International Herald Tribune
Today, the process for capitalizing - either financially or socially - on innovation and creativity is staggering under the strain of a digital revolution of a speed and scale never seen before. At a time when many of their most valuable assets can be shared and exchanged easily, businesses and governments scrambling to redefine who owns what.
Failure to resolve where to draw the line on ownership of ideas will mean even more litigation and even more multimillion-dollar lobbying battles in the halls of the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament. Ultimately, experts say, some innovations and creations will never be exploited because it costs too much money and time to pursue the rights.
Ideas that are free, widely available and instantly duplicated were impossible to contemplate in the days when copyright and patent law took root, a time when the expenses needed to print, distribute and sell a book or movie were considerable.
Now, the information, entertainment and technology industries say they lose billions of sales to the free exchange of ideas. Incremental advances are stalled by endless lawsuits over inventions. Drug companies are on the defensive when they refuse to share their original research. And regulatory changes - like the European software patent directive this summer - are dying under the weight of lobbying forces from both sides.
The battles pit companies against companies, creators against distributors, almost everyone against the United States - and, some say, China against the rest of the world. "This is warfare," said Jerry Klein, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. "It's a high-stakes intellectual battle, and it's very complicated."
Companies, even those the size of Intel, could one day be blocked from marketing a particular product whose design is made up of hundreds of thousands of patents just because an opportunist has claimed ownership of a single patent, said Adam Jaffe, dean of arts and sciences at Brandeis University in Massachusetts and a patent expert.
