from the it-wasn't-supposed-to-be-this-way dept.
From a Wired article:
The unspoken reality is that the U.S. patent system creates a market so constricted by high transaction costs and legal risks that it excludes the vast majority of small and mid-sized businesses and prevents literally 95 percent of all patented discoveries from ever being put to use to create new products and services, new jobs, and new economic growth.
Even the most dramatic estimates of the social cost of abusive patent litigation range in the low tens of billions of dollars. But according to a new study by the distinguished economists Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution and Hal Singer of the Progressive Policy Institute—a study I [Jay Walker] helped to fund—liberating patent licensing from its litigation-focused costs and risks would enable tens of thousands of currently-dormant inventions to be commercialized and conservatively add up to $200 billion a year in increased output to the U.S. economy. That’s at least ten times bigger than the litigation problem, and directly impacts job creation.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @07:54PM
Now look at what happens to the tranche of patents that expire in a given year. Are they suddenly all incorporated into products? My guess would be no, because most of them are crap, but I'm sure someone will read the article and tell me the answer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday January 05 2015, @08:15PM
Article doesn't even touch on expiration.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @08:25PM
I trust your analysis because of your user name.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday January 05 2015, @08:54PM
Those expiring are from (best case) 17 years ago. If they aren't in products by now, they were probably "Crap" as you say, or defensive patents just there to prevent anyone else from using it to end-run another patent that was worth something.
TFS says
liberating patent licensing from its litigation-focused costs and risks would enable tens of currently-dormant inventions to be commercialized
, but I suspect, like you that there are very few that aren't commercialized already or are simply no longer of value (if they ever were).
I think we need to redefine "a time certain" down to 5 years, and enforce a choice: License it, or use it, or Lose it. Pic any one, but do it in 5 years, or the default of Lose it kicks in.
I'm not alone in this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/valleyvoices/2014/12/29/fixing-what-ails-the-u-s-patent-system-a-modest-proposal/ [forbes.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 05 2015, @08:56PM
That seems like a good idea, but you have to realize that lawyers are both assholes and smart. Create a shell corporation, license the patent for redistribution, and sue away.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday January 05 2015, @09:36PM
I suspect the world could tolerate a smart asshole for 5 years.
Point is, you better get money for your invention (make it available to society in one form or another) in 5 years or you get nothing. That tight deadline would remove a lot of shenanigans. It still gives Apple 5 years to get a rounded corner to market. By then, its old hat.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday January 05 2015, @09:39PM
Yeah, but what I'm saying is that they can fake making available to society.
"Oh yes, our design for a XY-backed widget has been licensed to shady-only-has-a-PO-Box Corp LLC, owned and operated out of friendly-court-district, Texas, thus has been made available and we're suing you"
Whatever restrictions you invent to block that behavior can almost certainly be circumvented as well by legalistic bullshit as well.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday January 05 2015, @09:53PM
No, not really.
Such things like that could easily be tied to sales, or demand that a certain amount of product be manufactured and sold. You can run it through shell companies, but if you don't have the capabilities to either make your product and/or make it available for sell to end users, then you lose it period. Making your product is pretty simple too in this day and age. A half million dollars will get you a prototype for pretty much anything you want out of Taiwan. Yes, they could conspire with a Taiwanese company but....
In order to qualify for a patent extension, you need to prove sales or that X amount of product included your technology from various industries. Shell corporations and licensing agreements don't mean anything when your demand is that it is publicly available. If it's a software or business patent, just list your most prominent customers currently utilizing your technology.
I agree they can circumvent it, but I don't agree that we can't come up with suitable metrics for performance that are much harder to game.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday January 05 2015, @10:07PM
And if my clever invention costs 2 million dollars to build and saves companies in a specific industry 3 million dollars each, and the invention doesn't target the mass market, is it less useful?
You're only going to sell a few of them. No mass market.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday January 05 2015, @11:12PM
You're only going to sell a few of them. No mass market.
In which case, you don't need a patent. You just need to be first on the scene. Nobody else is going to jump into a fully served market.
Unless they can undercut your costs, typically by using a different method, there is no money to be made.
Go ahead and get your patent, just to keep followers from beating you to market, but after 5 years, if you don't have a running head-start sufficient to keep the competition from gaining traction, then you probably aren't the right person to bring that invention to market.
I can foresee a product so ingenious and yet so complex that it might take 5 years to build one. Probably no market except governments in that case either. Aircraft Carriers and the ISS come to mind. Almost 5 years to build. No point in patenting it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday January 05 2015, @11:08PM
Such things like that could easily be tied to sales, or demand that a certain amount of product be manufactured and sold.
Again, it's an easy thing to fake. And who decides what this number is? That sounds like someone to bribe to me. Finally, it sounds to me like you're proposing a reward for the people who need the reward the least. What is the point of granting a patent to people who figured out how to successfully market a patented idea? The whole point is to reduce the risk for inventors who haven't yet succeeded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @03:37AM
Take some courses in accounting and come back.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday January 05 2015, @11:17PM
Yeah, but what I'm saying is that they can fake making available to society.
So, if it turns out you were indeed violating their patents, cease and desist for 5 years.
Case Moot.
Restart production.
Proceed to profit.
You could also require sales of products, either by the licensee or the patent holder, but for a measily 5 year duration, it might not be worth the book keeping.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 05 2015, @09:00PM
A proposal not without risks for small but genuine inventors: enough for the corps to enter a launch-the-bait-and-drag-your-feet game and, after 5 years, they get the invention for free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday January 05 2015, @09:07PM
Then you just build and sell the thing yourself. Competition for your idea, hypothetically, is at the root of our system, and why anyone would pay you at all. If it's really better than the status quo then, again hypothetically, one corporation can get X amount of profit over its competitors out of using it for 5 years first.
That, of course, assumes that the free market magically actually successfully guides anything other than commodity prices in any meaningful way.
But since taking that particularly bullshit as gospel is at the heart of our system, the proposal is relatively parsimonious with our existing economy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday January 05 2015, @10:06PM
Aren't we already outside of the starting assumptions I proposed (small but genuine inventor)?
Suppose that one such inventor discover a way to reduce the bow wave of large ships by 20%. What's that inventor suppose to do, build a shipyard and compete with Samsung in building giant tankers or container ships?
Or an invention that makes sense only over a certain scale of manufacture - e.g. a cheaper way for a chip maker that produces over 1k CPU-es/day - should the inventor build a foundry in 5 years?
Well, of course, putting the "free market" and "patents" in the same phrase is very good way of generating oxymorons (patents - a temporary monopoly granted in exchange to making an invention public. Whatever the rationale for the grant and whatever limited in time, a patent remains a monopoly: something which makes the "free market fairy" frown and break down in tears).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @11:04PM
>Or an invention that makes sense only over a certain scale of manufacture - e.g. a cheaper way for a chip maker that produces over 1k CPU-es/day - should the inventor build a foundry in 5 years?
The system is _not_ created for feeding money to poor little inventors. The society agrees to put up with a certain amount of extra expense and inconvenience, in order to _promote the progress of science and useful arts_. An inventor sitting on his invention does promote neither.
If someone's invention "makes sense only over a certain scale of manufacture" which is outside one's capability, and one does not agree to conditions set by those who do have the capability - then it _is_ better if he is able to hold back the progress by 5 years, than by 20.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 05 2015, @11:17PM
Which happens by offering an incentive to inventors, not by punishing them.
If the corporations:
then I don't see any incentive for the inventor to publish the discovery.
So, how exactly is the situation better for the progress of science and useful arts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @11:47PM
>by offering an incentive to inventors, not by punishing them.
Who is getting "punished"? The inventor is _not_ the one losing anything he had before - the _society_ is. The people are losing the use of something, most likely pretty obvious, for full 20 years. Only because some overworked drone at USPTO rubber-stamped an application written by some corporaite lowlife.
And if you want to talk "expected revenue", you need to ground your expectations in reality, first. If it's more advantageous for a business to avoid your invention altogether for 5 years, then either it isn't that much useful in the first place, or you are that much delusional in setting the licensing cost.
>then I don't see any incentive for the inventor to publish the discovery.
Then I guess you do not see any free and open source software, too. And do not see this website, as well. ;-)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 06 2015, @01:09AM
You forgot or just chose to ignore the premisses I set for the "case story": independent, small (but genuine) inventor?
This would be true for "rational players". Personally, I have some doubts when applying the rationality of presumption to today's corporations.
If you relax the "rationality" requirement for the problem, everything boils down to "who - of the two players - can survive longer: the corporation or the inventor?"
Oh, com'on! While both copyright and patents pertain to the so-called "Intellectual property", they do have specific but relevant differences (e.g. the cost of delivery the value to the end-users: while both require a creative "intellectual" effort, the cost of producing/distributing copies of the software and the cost of manufacturing a product are quite disproportionate).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @01:31AM
"This would be true for "rational players"."
So you want patents to exist under the assumption that corporations aren't rational?
"If you relax the "rationality" requirement for the problem"
So your argument is that patents are bad if people and corporations are rational but since they aren't then patents could potentially be a good thing under certain irrational conditions. You can use this logic to justify a very wide possibility of laws.
"You forgot or just chose to ignore the premisses I set for the "case story": independent, small (but genuine) inventor?"
The world doesn't have to operate under your hypothetical case stories and laws shouldn't be based on any random person's hypothetical case stories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @01:34AM
"You forgot or just chose to ignore the premisses I set for the "case story": independent, small (but genuine) inventor?"
The premise you gave is a very unlikely one. The premise you quoted is much more likely (and evidenced, given the fact that most patents don't even make it to product).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 06 2015, @01:38AM
Ah... Ok... (long way to a "nation of makers" you reckon. Wouldn't be nice to get there, though?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @02:47AM
The premise that patents will be used to encourage inventions by helping the independent inventor is what's unlikely.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday January 05 2015, @10:02PM
On this we agree wholeheartedly. The entire idea of intellectual property (the ethics promulgated) was to encourage further contributions, not create infrastructure for some to have power and influence.
Once the person granted the entitlements effectively sets them down like trash, we should be able to rescind them just as easily as they threw them away. Currently we treat them as property for legal reasons, and this apparently gives people license to lock it up as property and use it in ways we never agreed to. It's only property in that we recognize ownership over these entitlements, but it shouldn't be property in the same way my TV is considered my property. Meaning, the concept of peaceful enjoyment *does not* apply to intellectual property. You wish to add social and economic responsibilities to that property ownership, which is something I find quite reasonable to consider when it was *never* really anything but imaginary in the first place and not actually real.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday January 06 2015, @05:09AM
Maybe if we extended property tax liability along with property rights protections?
That is, if you are making money on it, its worth keeping, otherwise abandon it so you aren't accountable to it.
I know I have taxes to pay for the right to tell others to get off my lawn.
If they want something protected as property, then maybe taxed as property applies as well?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @09:02PM
Henry George was a 19th Century brainiac who said that productivity shouldn't be taxed (e.g. no income taxes).
He said that the only stuff that should be taxed is stuff that is owned but isn't being used to produce. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [dissidentvoice.org]
He understood Keynes' Multiplier Effect a century before that guy showed up.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday January 07 2015, @01:55AM
Thanks, gewg_...
I wasn't aware of this Henry George fella, but I sure admire his thinking.
I get the idea mankind would be far better ahead if such a paradigm for taxation was in effect.
Taxation is the most logical way for communal support of a common good, however right now, we are sacrificing the horses to feed an already overfed elite.
Ownership merely for rent-seeking has to be the most frivolous and wasteful use of resources imaginable, however ownership for producing a public good has to be rewarded. Who cares who "owns" a car manufacturing company if they are producing cars in fair competition with other companies making like product, however I have big beef with ownership for the sole purpose of maintaining a rent-seeking monopoly of a limited item. And banking shenanigans.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday January 05 2015, @10:47PM
Or maybe because the patents are crap once their expiration date rolls around, because they're all horribly out of date now, whereas they were useful when they were first filed?
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @10:52PM
A patent that offers no value to society 17 years after it was invented, wasn't a very valuable patent to begin with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @11:48PM
And certainly should not have been granted. That is if the intention is to advance society rather than profit a corporation...
(Score: 1) by kanweg on Tuesday January 06 2015, @05:27PM
How is anyone harmed if the patent is for a crap invention nobody wants to implement anyway???
Bert
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday January 05 2015, @11:53PM
Some are worthless, some are surrounded by a thicket of more recent patents.
Of the ones that are worthless, some portion of them are simply past their time or a less optimal but less patented solution has taken hold.
Some are simply forgotten.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday January 05 2015, @09:08PM
that it excludes the vast majority of small and mid-sized businesses
So, the big businesses that pay for re-election campaigns like it that way, and on the other hand some pointy haired academic doesn't like it. Hmm.
That is the PR problem, if you're trying to get rid of something, don't tell the only guy in charge that the primary effect would be making life rougher on him as your primary selling point.
Another way to phrase it is the kind of thinking / people in charge who got everything all screwed up, probably aren't the ideal selection for fixing it. And we currently operate under one party rule, so ... yeah.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @10:21PM
I'm afraid however cynical it sounds this is the truth. It's an old system, if it was a design flaw the powers that be wanted fixed, they'd done it a hundred times already.
Compare this sorry state of the (US) patents system with the sorry state of the (US) copyright system: The (US) constitution justifies copyright To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8) Emphasis mine, that's the part "abused" today. It's constitutionally just fine to have a million year copyright...
It's smoke and mirrors all the way down I'm afraid. And the bigger the lie sadly the more willingly people will swallow it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @09:33PM
Because you have to put a stupid warning label on a cup of coffee at McDonalds because somebody sued them because their coffee was too hot. People act ignorant to make money. I say create an ignorance law to keep trolls out of the courts. Same for lawyers, anti-troll them.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @09:54PM
Yeah, that hot coffee was frivolous. The woman who burned herself spent spent eight days [wikipedia.org] in hospital while she underwent skin grafting, but I agree completely: she didn't have a leg to stand on.
It's not like she was permanently disfigured, or suffered a partial disability for a couple of years afterwards (although a quick read of that link says yeah, she was, and yeah, she did).
As if McDonald's required the franchisee [wikipedia.org] to maintain coffee at a temperature (82–88 °C/180–190 °F) just a little below boiling point, that would be utter stupidity.
No, that's definitely a case that certainly wasn't worth pursuing through the courts.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday January 05 2015, @10:59PM
I dunno, man. I mean, I expect to get scalded if I spilled hot water on myself. Isn't that common sense or was I just lucky to have a decent upbringing? It's not like McDonald's was using cheap cups that collapse or break easily, that Liebeck incident was clearly user error.
Is McDonald's coffee TOO hot? I think one can argue that, but again, it's not like McDonald's was maliciously serving plasma-fied coffee for the sole purpose of scalding customers. However, considering that McDonalds has receive many complaints about this before suggests that they really should have added a warning without requiring litigation.
However however, I agree with GP that the US is too litigation-happy. We're basically using litigation as a replacement for common fucking sense, which is guaranteed to drive our species toward oblivion (just look at how well our democratic system is working now, with our intelligent, well-educated populace casting votes in their own best interests).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Monday January 05 2015, @11:43PM
Keeping the coffee machine at an excessive temperature is a labor saving tactic. A boiling hot tank needs cleaned less often then a pleasantly piping one does. It's not malice, but it is depraved indifference to the potential harm caused by their corner-cutting. The difference between how hot that coffee should have been (my McD's own policy) and how hot it was is the difference between 2nd degree burns at 30-seconds of exposure and 3rd degree burns at 1-second of exposure. It's not their fault that her coffee spill hurt, however it's absolutely their fault that her coffee spill required hospitalization.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday January 06 2015, @01:39AM
Keeping the coffee machine at an excessive temperature is a labor saving tactic. A boiling hot tank needs cleaned less often then a pleasantly piping one does.
So we have health benefits to hot coffee in addition to customer preference? I guess I'm just not seeing the "depraved indifference" here.
Also, would it have hurt you to actually research advised brewing temperatures? For example, after five minutes of searching I came across this standards page [scaa.org] for "specialty coffee":
Cupping water temperature shall be 200 F ± 2 F (92.2 – 94.4 C) when poured on grounds.
That recommended serving temperature, just below boiling at sea level pressure, is at least 10 F warmer than the McDonald's coffee case. Though to be fair, they were also recommending a glass or ceramic container to serve that coffee in which presumably would be more reliable than a styrofoam one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @03:54AM
Khallow wins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday January 06 2015, @07:31PM
Cupping water temperature shall be 200 F ± 2 F (92.2 – 94.4 C) when poured on grounds.
That recommended serving temperature, just below boiling at sea level pressure, is at least 10 F warmer than the McDonald's coffee case.
'Cupping' is when you pour the water on the grounds. It is not a serving temp recommendation!
From your own link:
Water used for cupping should be clean and odor free, but not distilled or softened. Ideal Total Dissolve Solids are 125-175 ppm, but should not be less than 100 ppm or more than 250 ppm.
◦ The water should be freshly drawn and brought to approximately 200º F (93ºC) at the time it is poured onto the ground coffee. *Temperature needs to be adjusted to elevation
◦ The hot water should be poured directly onto the measured grounds to the rim of the cup, making sure to wet all of the grounds. The grounds to steep undisturbed for a period of 3-5 minutes before evaluation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 07 2015, @04:26PM
'Cupping' is when you pour the water on the grounds. It is not a serving temp recommendation!
They also use "cupping" to refer to serving that coffee. Look at the standard for "cupping" tables from the same page.
Cupping tables (for 6 people) shall have a surface area of at least 10 square feet (0.93 square meters), and be between 42 and 46 inches (1.07 - 1.17 meters) tall.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 05 2015, @10:00PM
Too bad you don't know shit about what you're talking about, but we won't let that get in the way of supporting your gross over-generalization:
You're just another weak minded tool easily manipulated by corporations. I suppose next you'll be telling us of the evils of net neutrality and how it will stifle investment and innovation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @12:01AM
Dear Sir! You're to recalibrate your sarcasm detector ASAP:
I'm fairly certain the grand parent means the exact opposite of what he says. That's just a clever literary device.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @03:34AM
He must be an attorney. Here's another example, a car service place has signs all over saying employees only in service area, chains draped across the service bays to keep customers out, lady goes in the service area anyway to get something out of her car that is up on the lift, falls, breaks her leg, sues the fuck out of the company. Too many ignorant people out there. Ignorant caused accidents should be banned from lawsuits. And I want my coffee just under boiling point, if I spill it on myself It's my fault.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @04:47AM
Apparently, it takes someone getting 3rd degree burns that require major surgery before that corporation will do anything.
...but you just go on bleating the talking points of Fox so-called News.
It reminds me of the way a certain software vendor responds to complaints about exploitable holes in their products.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @03:46PM
You have to be mentally deficient to not know coffee is served hot. If you don't know what mentally deficient means, it means dumbfuck. I don't buy this crap where people can sue for their own ignorance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @08:41PM
McDonalds is criminally irresponsible. [texaslawofficeblog.com]
...but I'm sure that corporate America appreciates your unwavering fealty and the check is in the mail.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06 2015, @01:18AM
Dont tell QCOM or INTEL that what they work on and sell is useless.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by SuperCharlie on Tuesday January 06 2015, @02:07AM
It is time to realize:
The internet is unsecure.
There is no data that is unreachable.
There is no form of transmission or cryptography which has not been compromised at some level.
That whatever you do, wherever you do it on the Internet it can and will be collected.
There may be a country with enough balls to stand up about it, but its not the U.S.
The US can and will make any other country do whatever the F they want.
It is time to stop pretending data can be safe and secure.
Once we collectively get this through our thick skulls, we will see that the internet is a cesspool as far as security and only fools put up data which they think cant or wont be compromised.
(Score: 3, Funny) by SuperCharlie on Tuesday January 06 2015, @02:10AM
idiot posting to the wrong story... sigh.. thats how my day has been...
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Tuesday January 06 2015, @07:42AM
I'm going to disagree with the article - it presupposes that companies *use* the patent database in product development; as it says early on
Giant companies have long recognized the value of the patent database and spend millions, and in some instances billions, on dedicated teams and expensive tools to mine the patent database for competitive advantage and effective legal risk management.
Well, sort of, but for the consumer electronics/tech field I've seen - not really. Large companies will use these tools when filing their own patents and doing background searches on those, working with standard bodies, and maybe doing something a bit more blue sky - but my experience is that nobody involved in actual product development even looks at the patent database.
The legal risks (look up "willful infringement") and the complication of the any infringement defence means that the nearest anybody who actually makes anything will get to the patents is (maybe) reviewing very specific patents that the technical-legal guys have flagged for prior art on their own filings, or where they have a potential inadvertent violation - although I've known a few companies that have very deliberately isolated that function away from the product groups as well.
This theory that a company making something will have the product guys mine through the patent database for ideas? It just doesn't happen in the vast majority of the consumer technology industry - nowhere I've seen at least.
(Of course, somebody will pop up and say "my company does it for stuff we make" now I've said that - in which case I suspect your company isn't doing general consumer tech, and/or are possibly a bunch of absolute muppets. No Offence :)