Are patents still a big deal in SR’s 2075?

The whole idea on a patent is that you make your new discovery/device/whatever public knowledge, in exchange for the fact that for some period anyone who uses your thing has to pay you a royalty. Obviously in our actual 2015 we’ve seen some pretty epic wars between large tech companies over patents, and these remain an important part of the strategy of companies in quite a few fields.

In the SR alternate future (/past), where technological advances are dominated by secretive megacorps, and national law is far weaker, are patents still widely pursued and defended? Or do companies just try to keep their advances secret for as long as possible? I could see the latter being the case if patent law had become impossible to enforce on companies with extra-territoriality.

Just looking at ideas for future runs, and wasn't sure whether concern for patents made much difference in 2075.

Not sure on all the fine points, but personally I imagine patents still applying, however its gets fun with extraterritoriality.

So say Ares has a patent on a new alloy process using proprietary technology.

Now Ares gets a headstart on selling this as they hold the patent on the process.

The Azzies see it and like it so much they send a team of runners to lift the blueprints for the process.

Now the Azzies can make it and use it within their own domain so in their own arcologies and such, but if they try selling it on the open market like Kong-Mart, Ares could call foul.

How well it could be enforced of course depends on where the Azzies were dumping it. In most aboveboard business zones, the patents will be nominally followed and enforced so say most of UCAS and similar Ares could probably squash the Azzie sales.
Although the Azzies could tie this up in court for years, falsifying reports of their own development and just arguing that lawyers do so well. Once the lawyer fee vs penalty fee ratio reaches a certain point, the Azzies just pull the item and start with a new trick or they may have already leaked the data so now tons of smaller corps are popping up with knockoffs so even by conceding their own case, Ares now has a swarm to chase down.

In areas not signed with the CC accords or further out on the edges, well enforcement is down the locals and most wont care. Some parts of Africa come to mind, where the corps tend sell anything they want with little to no oversight on quality or testing, indeed some regions are literally used as testers even if the locals don't know it.

Ultimately secrecy is still the best defense and runners make good money digging those secrets out for their Johnsons.

If I remember correctly, global IP rights and patent management is part of the ICC's business in Shadowrun. Interestingly, the CC also levies a Tobin tax, possibly to protect Shadowrun's mega-conglomerates (I did a rough calculation of Saeder-Krupp's yearly revenue once, based on the currently existing known parts of it, and a rough guess of the remaining parts' revenue, and arrived at some 2.2 bn US$). Which also neatly solves how BRA abstinent countries like the Tírs can be economically viable - they're tax havens where crooked banks can do their crooked banking things.

Unless the patent laws change dramatically, I don' think it plays out quite like this. When you patent something you have to describe the process/operation to a reasonable level -- the whole intent of patent law is to make discoveries public knowledge so that others can use it, within the limits of royalties and the duration of the patent. There are always details left out, so yes there could be a run to get their exact list of equipment and process recipe, as that would probably be cheaper and faster than using the information in the patent to get things up and running themself. Think of patents as being like publishing a recipe--that you have the recipe from a great chef doesn't mean you can exactly re-create his dishes, but you at least know the ingredients and basic steps.

And for sure, companies often hold off filing patents until they are ready to announce a product IF they think there is little risk of other companies filing a patent on the same thing before then (otherwise it is a race to achieve sufficient maturity that the patent will hold up).

HERMIT: thanks for the info about the corporate courts supervising patents. I guess that would be the way it would have to happen, if they are still really a thing in SR.

Actually a patent is used to exclude competition for a duration, not just to grant you permission to make and sell or license others to do so.
For example if you have a U.S. patent then you (in theory) are protected from anyone, including foreign competitors, from selling your invention in the U.S. market.
You can choose to license other parties to make things protected by your patent for royalties and such, but that is secondary.

Likewise, in the example above, since Ares has the patent on the original process, if the Azzies did lift it they can still do quite a bit within their own domain/territory as they are extraterritorial and can probably make the case said patent does not apply within their borders, like selling within the arcology to their own drones.
Ares might not like it, but within Azzie personal domain they are limited to what they can do, although Ares may fund their own run to go wreck some equipment.
But if the Azzies try shoving the product on the open market like the aforementioned Kong-Mart where anyone in the UCAS could walk up and buy, as we mentioned above that does run into conflict with the Ares patent and thus Ares does have the right to call foul with the full expectation of the CC backing it up as that is the playing field the CC was designed to look after.

Now granted most corps could not pull off what the Azzies might as many do not run whole arcologies or similar with their own enclosed groups of persons, but it does show the fun that is being extraterritorial when operating as your own mini nation-state.


I work in cosmetics and this is often gets tricky here as there are only certain things you can patent/trademark plus what constitutes a valid change and thus not violating another's work is a source of endless court cases between companies.
Companies like LUSH or L'oreal don't just register their own recipe, but often many reasonably close recipes even though they have no plans to ever use the variations, to try and keep any chance of competitors from selling anything remotely similar and even then they can be tied up in court arguing it out.

and let's not even discuss some companies trying to patent whole plants and the arguments resulting from that.

Interesting idea, besides enabling a lot of smuggling it also gives a reason why the corps would actually want to play nations in the first place