So this is interesting because I have no clue if it exists. But it did!! This was the one and only thing the small R&D departments of large companies did in the US in the very early 1900s.
Tons and tons of home inventors/amateurs would submit patents/specs to them to look over. The department would assess their scientific/technical validity and think about if they could profitably use the invention.
If they could, they’d come to an agreement with the inventor who sent it in. And it was efficient because there was no expectation for the inventor to also start the business that built on their patent. The company that already had the scale and ability to do that just bought your idea and then you could go on to the next one.
This equilibrium started to dissipate some time around like 1920-ish very roughly as more and more companies built internal R&D teams that did actual research/contracted with university professors to do it.
But in general, I completely agree with you that this is a criminal market oversight if it doesn’t exist. And, more than that, it would just be cool and fun.
Interesting to think what changed in that time period. Ideas prior to 1900 or so would have been primarily mechanical, and the patent system was designed for this. Even though all patents represent ideas, ideas prior to the electrical age were about mechanical objects that could, perhaps, be instantiated in one best way. Ideas in the electrical age could probably be instantiated in many ways, making patents harder to enforce. And now, in the information age, the idea itself can be articulated in many ways, making patents somewhat useless for information-based products except as post-hoc bludgeons.
I don’t think ideas in the information age are any harder to articulate. I do think that it’s harder to identify patent theft, though. You don’t get to read the source code of a tech company, but if you buy a mechanical product, you can just open it up to see if they’re using your patent.
So this is interesting because I have no clue if it exists. But it did!! This was the one and only thing the small R&D departments of large companies did in the US in the very early 1900s.
Tons and tons of home inventors/amateurs would submit patents/specs to them to look over. The department would assess their scientific/technical validity and think about if they could profitably use the invention.
If they could, they’d come to an agreement with the inventor who sent it in. And it was efficient because there was no expectation for the inventor to also start the business that built on their patent. The company that already had the scale and ability to do that just bought your idea and then you could go on to the next one.
This equilibrium started to dissipate some time around like 1920-ish very roughly as more and more companies built internal R&D teams that did actual research/contracted with university professors to do it.
I talk more about some of this here: https://freaktakes.substack.com/p/is-americas-applied-and-basic-research?s=w
But in general, I completely agree with you that this is a criminal market oversight if it doesn’t exist. And, more than that, it would just be cool and fun.
Interesting to think what changed in that time period. Ideas prior to 1900 or so would have been primarily mechanical, and the patent system was designed for this. Even though all patents represent ideas, ideas prior to the electrical age were about mechanical objects that could, perhaps, be instantiated in one best way. Ideas in the electrical age could probably be instantiated in many ways, making patents harder to enforce. And now, in the information age, the idea itself can be articulated in many ways, making patents somewhat useless for information-based products except as post-hoc bludgeons.
I don’t think ideas in the information age are any harder to articulate. I do think that it’s harder to identify patent theft, though. You don’t get to read the source code of a tech company, but if you buy a mechanical product, you can just open it up to see if they’re using your patent.