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Patent Reform Ping!
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Posted on 04/01/2011 1:25:25 AM PDT by Swordmaker
“Patents would be issued to whoever files applications first and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would be allowed to set its own fees under a measure introduced today in the U.S. House of Representatives [H.R. 1249],” Susan Decker and Eric Engleman report for Bloomberg. “The proposal, sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, is similar to legislation passed by the Senate in a 95-5 vote on March 8. If approved and made law, it would mark a fundamental change in how patents are reviewed and the biggest revision to U.S. patent law since 1952.”
“The measure seeks to give the patent office more power to control its funding, with an end to Congress diverting fees for other non-patent purposes. It would let small businesses pay lower fees, limit the ability to obtain patents on tax-avoidance methods, and curtail lawsuits that accuse companies of putting expired patents on products,” Decker and Engleman report. “‘The strength of our economy relies on our ability to protect new inventions and build on innovation,’ Smith said in a statement. ‘Unfortunately, our outdated patent system has become a barrier to innovation and invites lawsuits from holders of questionable patents seeking to extort millions of dollars from companies. We cannot protect the technologies of today with the tools of the past.’”
“The Senate bill had support from a coalition of U.S. companies such as 3M Co, drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc, construction equipment-maker Caterpillar Inc., chemical company DuPont Co., General Electric Co. and International Business Machines Corp.,” Decker and Engleman report. “The Coalition for Patent Fairness, whose members include Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG), was critical of the Senate version. In a statement, the group said there are ‘improvements in the legislative language’ in the House version.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: The Coalition for Patent Fairness (CPF) issued the following statement following the hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet on patent reform:
Patent reform has been a lengthy and complicated process and we commend the House for debating this topic. America’s top innovators and job creators depend on a fair and equitable patent system, thus consensus must be achieved during this debate.
Today’s testimony correctly highlighted some of our concerns with the bill including the language related to inter partes re-examination and supplemental examination. We will continue to support prior user rights and a robust funding structure for the Patent and Trademark Office, and work with Congress to resolve our concerns.
Getting patent reform right is critical to our economy and the Coalition for Patent Fairness looks forward to improving the bill throughout this process.
The Coalition for Patent Fairness is a diverse group of companies and industry associations dedicated to enhancing U.S. innovation, job creation, and competitiveness in the global market by modernizing and strengthening our nation’s patent system. Coalition for Patent Fairness members include Adobe, Apple, Cisco, Dell, Google, Intel, Intuit, Micron, Oracle, RIM, SAP, Symantec, and Verizon Communications.
Source: The Coalition for Patent Fairness
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“Coalition for Patent Fairness members include Adobe, Apple, Cisco, Dell, Google, Intel, Intuit, Micron, Oracle, RIM, SAP, Symantec, and Verizon Communications.”
Oh yea... I can see that these clowns want the system to be nothing but ‘fair.’
Yup. Mmm-hmmm. Riiiiiight.
“It would let small businesses pay lower fees....”
Hey, they’re just looking out for the little guy. ;)
"Fairness" is code for anything but.
I see they want to continue a bad policy. This is one of the most unfair bills I have seen. Do not do it. It gives the wrong people the right to take over and benefit from someone else’s work which more than one crook has been doing for a long time.
It supports:
For proof of how insane our patent system has become, I offer for your perusal, the Google Doodle patent.
See also this article.
Today's Harry Houdini logo is the first to appear after Google received a very interesting patent. The "Google doodle" – which shall forever after be known as the 'System and Method For Enticing Users To A Web Site' – has been approved by the US patent office.
I figure the prior art for this is, oh, how about the entire internet?
Anyone knows that the best way to keep your secret is to NOT file a patent. If you’re actually selling the gadget you’ve invented, wait till you’re ready for production and marketing before you file to get a jump on everyone.
Bottom line is the lawyers rule the game. Even if you invented it and filed the patent, most companies pockets are too deep to win a patent suit. They can always claim they invented it themselves and it only takes a few modifications to get around your patent.
There are also other sharks out there - those looking to mine the deep pockets of companies with bogus patent claims. They claim they invented it first even though they were too stupid to make a buck off it, they’ll try and make a buck off you getting the job done. Lots of times they’ll strain to prove your is a patent violation of theirs.
Either way this is set up, someone’s going to lose. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages. I’m not sure which is the best one.
The doodle patent is specific to changing the top of the page (in this case the logo) for users to see when some special occasion happens. It has prior art dating at least back to some 70s message boards.
Congress deals setback to patent officeAction by Congress to end this diversion of funds -- a heavy tax on innovation and job creation -- is long overdue.Congress has dealt a renewed blow to America's inventors and innovators by stripping another $100 million from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, an agency incapacitated by two decades of raids on the fees it collects.
Legislators siphoned the funds as part of the emergency spending bill drafted hastily to avert a shutdown of the government this month. The stopgap measure, which President Barack Obama signed into law Friday, cuts federal spending by $38 billion and quietly offset a fraction of that amount by draining more than $100 million in fee income from the patent office.
"They will be running on fumes," said former patent office director Q. Todd Dickinson, who now heads the American Intellectual Property Law Association, a Washington, D.C., trade group.
The patent office is meant to act as steward of the nation's newest technologies, granting protection to new ideas and products so their developers can commercialize them - and ultimately create jobs. The Harvard Business Review this year described the agency as the "biggest job creator you never heard of."
But beginning in the early 1990s, Congress got into a nearly two-decade habit of draining funds from the agency - which is structured to be self-supporting by charging fees without any taxpayer support - and using the funds to pay for other federal projects....
That part is desperately needed (see previous post), regardless of the merits of the other stuff.
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