US Supreme Court looks at patent trolling

Posted Mar 22, 2014 11:55 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
In reply to: US Supreme Court looks at patent trolling by khim
Parent article: US Supreme Court looks at patent trolling

Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but there are some counter examples in history: Newton and Leibniz on calculus and Darwin and Wallace on evolution. The concepts were non-obvious at the time and they were developed roughly in parallel.

US Supreme Court looks at patent trolling

Posted Mar 27, 2014 23:45 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

You'll find, however, that a lot of things are independently invented at about the same time, because the circumstances are right. Calculus is an obvious article - I don't know how much Newton and Leibnitz circulated in the same circle, but as Natural Philosophers they would have shared interests and had similar influences.

Powered flight is another example :-) The Wright brothers are credited with the first flight, in 1903. I've seen reports that there are newspaper articles describing a flight taken in 1902. The first successful aircraft to be built, was actually built near me, in 1896. There were a lot of people chasing the same goals.

As others have said, "independent invention" is the norm, not the exception, which is why patents have to be very narrowly drawn.

Cheers,
Wol