We all want recognition for our ideas. And we want to be rewarded for our inventions. But our fear that others will run off with them paralyzes collaboration and stifles progress. Inventors too often work in secret solitude because they do not want to share a potential Nobel Prize with hawking competitors. Big business wastes billions of dollars in court battles over patent disputes, while they could have spent the same money on innovation.

We fight too much, but we invent too little. What inventors need is a new incentive for innovation, one that abandons the paradigm of modern patent law in favor of the open-source paradigm. Creative Patents make technology available to the public domain.

A Paradigm Shift

“Modern patent law offers a temporary monopoly to reward innovative effort.” [2]

Patents monopolize technology and offer inventors the exclusive right to exploit their innovations. But inventors can’t defend their inventions against patent trolls that have deep pockets. Therefore, inventors may lose incentive to innovate. Even big corporations such as Apple and Samsung wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on futile court battles.

The once well-intended patent paradigm to protect the fruits of one’s labor now sacrifices the progress of the many for the benefit of the few. Creative Patents offers inventors an alternative incentive: provide access to a decentralized library of open-source technology, pool innovative efforts and accelerate time-to-market. In the future, innovation will be a global collaborative effort.

Creative Patents

“If national patent laws did not exist, it would be difficult to make a conclusive case for introducing them.” [3]

Creative Patents make it less attractive to hide technology in closed silos. Currently, inventors who work for corporations, universities, governments or even militaries often cannot collaborate. They find themselves reinventing the wheel, a most wasteful enterprise. Instead, Creative Patents channel such wasted effort towards accelerated innovation.

The scenario may play out as follows. First, individual inventors will each make small contributions. Over time, small businesses will up their competitive edge by embracing the Creative Patents library. At this point even corporations and universities will be forced to share technology, because doing so gives them an advantage over those who do not — natural selection all over again. Ultimately, Creative Patents help promote the Open-Source Everything [4] revolution.

Bitcoin 3.0 — Decentralize Everything

“Bitcoin 3.0 is blockchain applications beyond currency, finance, and markets.” [5]

By decentralizing patent ownership, Creative Patents pave the way for collaborative innovation at an exponential rate. Inventors can make their inventions available to the public domain at near-zero cost; and nobody can prevent them from doing so. Initially, Creative Patents will build a layer on top of the secure Bitcoin blockchain, or similar decentralized ledgers.

Creative Patents will do for technology what GitHub did for code. Similar to open-source software, Creative Patents can be versioned, branched and forked. Inventors can invite others to help improve their ideas. Contributors from all over the world can provide patches, improve manuals or branch off into a new direction.

Market Benefits

“The legal system must shut down markets when the things being exchanged have no social value.” [6]

Organizations that embrace Creative Patents will have unlimited access to the world’s fastest growing pool open-source technology. This will reduce both the cost of in-house innovation and time-to-market for new applications, because worldwide stakeholders ‘share the wheel’ rather than reinvent it. We aim to accelerate technological innovation and pave the way for a Type 1 civilization, which makes full use of all of its resources, and stimulate organizations to achieve exponential growth. [7]

But Creative Patents must first overcome an important hurdle, namely that international courts recognize Creative Patents. For inspiration we will look to Creative Commons, the open copyright license platform.

The Role of CreativePatents.org

The Creative Patents Foundation serves three purposes. First, the website will host a ‘Kickstarter for problems’. While Kickstarter lets people pledge for solutions, CreativePatents.org crowd-sources problems in need of a technological solution for which none currently exists. Inventors can accept the challenge to solve those problems and promise to share their solutions under a public domain patent.

Second, the CreativePatents.org website will offer a user interface similar to GitHub or Wikipedia with which inventors and contributors publish open technology patents on the decentralized blockchain database. And third, the Creative Patents Foundation acts as a custodian to oversee development of the decentralized Patentchain technology.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are you related to Creative Commons, Wikipedia or GitHub?

No, but we would like to partner. Please email info@creativepatents.org

If Creative Patents do not enforce exclusive rights, then why should inventors give their technology away for free?

1. Creative Patents democratize technology, so that it cannot be hidden away in the ivory towers of corporations, universities, militaries or governments.
2. We aim to establish global legal recognition for Creative Patents. Creative Patents will protect open-source inventors from being sued by third parties.
3. Creative Patents have cryptographic time-stamps that cannot be forged and therefore they credit inventors and contributors.
4. Anyone can apply for a Creative Patent at near-zero cost.

What if someone invents a homemade atom bomb, will you patent it?

Yes. Creative Patents is a self-service, which means that inventors apply for a Creative Patent without anyone’s approval. The Cold War ended without a single nuke fired and with good reason, because “the only winning move is not to play” (WarGames 1983). If anyone can build an atom bomb, then the boomerang effect will make people think twice about ever using one.

Can I patent software code, books, websites, music or my idea for a new start-up company?

We intended Creative Patents for tangible technology. We believe that ideas have no intrinsic value and cannot (should not) be patented. We suggest that you apply for a Creative Commons copyright license instead.

Can multiple inventors each apply for a Creative Patent for the same invention?

Yes. The quality of an invention is determined by public interest. Both the Chinese and the Europeans discovered gunpowder independently from one another, separated by centuries. Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook did not invent the social network, hundreds of others did so before him.

How do you prevent anyone from patenting whatever they like?

We cannot, but the Patentchain library offers tools to establish credibility:

• integrate with decentralized identity providers such as Identi.fi or Onename.io;
• implement a ranking system similar to Google’s PageRank algorithm — Creative Patents that have derivative works (e.g. forks, citations or references) receive a higher ranking.

Do Creative Patents enforce royalty payments to inventors?

No. We designed Creative Patents to be an alternative to the old paradigm, namely as a public library of open-source technology. We believe that royalty payments hinder technological advancement, although we credit and recognize individual inventors, maintainers and contributors for their work.

Can Creative Patents be traded or sold?

No. Like a Wikipedia of technology, the general public owns all Creative Patents.

Notes

1. We are currently Type 0. On the so-called Kardashev scale, “a Type I civilization uses all available resources impinging on its home planet.” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale (14 November 2014).
2. Nicholas 2013, p. 2.
3. Nicholas 2013, p. 3.
4. Steele 2012.
5. Swan 2014.
6. Nicholas 2013, p. 3.
7. Ismail 2014.

References

Ismail, Salim, Michael S. Malone and Yuri van Geest. Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to do about it). Diversion Books: 2014.

Nicholas, Tim. “Are Patents Creative or Destructive? — Working Paper.” Harvard Business School. 2013, http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/14-036_88022f59-a293-4a6f-b643-b205304bce91.pdf (14 November 2014).

Steele, Robert David. The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust. Evolver Editions: 2012.

Swan, Melanie. “Decentralized Money: Bitcoin 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.” Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies. 2014, http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/swan20141110 (14 November 2014).