Book Review

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“Why Has America Stopped Inventing” by Darin Gibby was published in December 2011. Mr Gibby is a patent attorney with the large US firm, Kilpatrick Townsend.

An interesting book if only because it includes a number of anecdotes about problems that were faced by early US inventors trying to enforce their patents.  These include:

  • Eli Whitney provided a tremendous boost to the American economy by inventing a machine that removed seeds from cotton, but he tried to charge too much and courts refused to uphold his patent.
  • Charles Goodyear spent years trying to make a rubber that did not melt in hot weather. When he finally invented the vulcanization process, his invention was stolen and he faced years of litigation to protect his rights.
  • Sam Colt would have gone bankrupt if he had not been saved by the war in Mexico which increased demand for his patented gun.
  • Samuel Morse struggled for a long time to convince the government to install telegraph lines to take advantage of his invention, and when funding became available he was forced into patent battles against blatant infringers.
  • Isaac Singer created the most popular sewing machine, but became ensnared in a patent battle over the prior patent rights of Elias Howe. Problems with overlapping patents were eventually resolved by the creation of a patent licensing pool, and Howe became a millionaire even though he never produced a commercially viable sewing machine.

A book that is distinctly pro-patent, has at the end recommendations about what to do about the problems.  So of the recommendations have already been incorporated into the US legal system by the America Invents Act which entered into force last year. Others are more contentious and would likely require a complete overhaul of the patent system in the US. 

What is clear from the book is that a patent won’t make you a commercial success and if you have no commercial success, then you don’t need a patent to stop people copying something that no-one is buying anyway.  There you go, the entire book in three lines!

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