You guys are getting ripped off. Where I work there is a bonus of around a thousand when the patent is filed and another bonus of the same size upon issuance. Plus we get a nice plaque of each of them.
I have an invention that I think might be worth patenting. But I’m not going to, because I can’t afford the Patent fees (AUD$8,000 all up!), and more importantly, even if I could make some money out of this idea, it would never be enough to pay for all the lawsuits I’d have to file against people who ripped off my invention and started making cheap copies in China or Vietnam.
Even the Patent Office in Australia’s advice (on their website, no less!) is basically not to bother unless you’re sure you’re going to make truckloads of cash out of your invention (and you’ve got the time, money, and trained lawyers to sue anyone who tries to nick your invention and/or ideas).
Not especially encouraging, IMO…
Big companies don’t encourage patents to make money directly on the patent, except for the very few that are vital. Mostly, they trade patents, and whether money changes hands, and into whose, depends on the size of the portfolio. 20 years ago, if AT&T and IBM tried to determine if the other was violating a patent, nothing would get done besides hiring attorneys. Much better to just license everything - or everything of relevance, and not worry about it. That’s not an option for an individual inventor.
In the US there are companies who try to buy up patents by individual inventors which they think some big company is violating. They then can get a restraining order to prevent the sale or use of the patent until the case is decided - or used to - the Supreme Court ruled that the orders should not be pretty much automatic. That will help.
Individual inventors love these companies, big companies hate them. I don’t know what the rules are in Australia.
The short answer is, because that’s what the Constitution says:
The Congress shall have power… 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…
Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 8.
Actually, one company I worked at was still getting money from licensing one of their patents. It wasn’t vital to us, but the bucks coming in certainly helped. (Not my patent, by the way). it wasn’t vital to our company, but it was pursued and defended (the licensee was trying to get away without paying) because it was still in the company’s economic interests.
The kicker is that the guy responsible for that patent had been laid off by the company years before.