| The only question is whether this will make the mess worse, or just different.
|
Posted on 09/09/2007 11:15:49 AM PDT by khnyny
The House yesterday passed the most comprehensive patent reform in half a century, delivering a victory for computer technology and financial services companies and leaving drug companies, small inventors, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office bracing for a bigger fight before the bill hits the Senate floor.
The bill, which passed 225 to 175 with strong bipartisan support, is meant to reduce the mounting number of patent infringement cases by changing the ways patents are awarded and challenged.
Because much of the bill is perceived to be favorable to targets of patent-infringement suits rather than patent holders, it has attracted passionate support from big technology companies, which are usually the defendants in such suits, and criticism from drug manufacturers and small inventors, who are typically plaintiffs.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Is this necessarily a good thing?
From Congress? An appropriate question might be if this is possibly a good thing.
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
Well, there goes my patent on selling ‘customers’ merchandise in exchange for ‘money’.....
I know the patent process is a mess, but seeing the word “comprehensive” used to describe a piece of legislation is usually a cause for concern.
“Is this necessarily a good thing?”
Not unless the Democrat majority returned to Original Intent.
Sorry. I couldn’t say that with a straight face.
“The House yesterday passed the most comprehensive patent reform in half a century, delivering a victory for computer technology and financial services companies and leaving drug companies, small inventors, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office bracing for a bigger fight before the bill hits the Senate floor.”
Smells bad already.
This bill (the ID is not mentioned in the article, sadly) appears to relate to calculations of damages.
I hope it does not attempt the monumentally unconstitutional approach of switching to a “first to file” system.
I can see why that might be deemed unwise, but how would that be unconstitutional? The Patent provision of the Constitution does not mandate means.
Here is a more informative article:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/09/07/House-passes-patent-overhaul-bill_1.html
This is outrageous, and will hurt this nation badly when Chinese-controlled entities take full advantage.
Kill it!
I can see why that might be deemed unwise, but how would that be unconstitutional?
An inventor by definition is the first one to come up with a concept.
The patent system is already in a mess. The only question is whether this will make the mess worse, or just different.
Thanks for the link.
Depends on your portfolio.
Thank you for the link.
Real bad.
Stupid me, watching the game and FReeping. You meant hi-tech vs. pharma, etc.
Not necessarily. There can be (and not infrequently are) more than one persons who independently came up with the concept. All could be legitimately called "inventors."
Do you have an authority on point to back up your restrictive interpretation of "inventor"?
Would this bill have any bearing on this case:
Amazon, Google, Yahoo, And Others Sued For Automating Their E-mail
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1888327/posts
That stinks. Why is this happening?
| The only question is whether this will make the mess worse, or just different.
|
In other words ... legalized claim jumping! Now who would have thought a government that deems it fit to use imminent domain laws to take private property from citizens so developers can use it to make a profit would come up with a similar plan on patents.
This excerpt doesn’t sound good, lol:
Chinese pirates don’t roam the high seas looking for booty but sit at their computers, roam the internet, and steal the details of U.S. inventions that the U.S. Patent Office loads online. This practice became China’s R&D program, and it is even more efficient than China’s network of industrial and military spies.
U.S. policy has always been to grant a patent to the first one who actually invents something. But the new Patent bill would change to the foreign system which grants patents to the first one to file papers.
First-to-file would be a windfall to the megacorporations and a big disadvantage to the small-entity inventor. First-to-file would invite an avalanche of applications from the big companies that have the resources to grind out multiple filings, and the small inventor would be lost in the shuffle.
The new Patent bill offers yet another way for patent pirates to steal our technology. It’s called post-grant review: a plan to make it easier to challenge patents during the entire life of the patent.
Another provision of the new Patent bill would shift decision-making about damages for patent infringement from market valuations to judgments by judges and juries. This would increase litigation and limit the ability of independent inventors and small companies to enforce their rights or to win just compensation from those who infringe their rights.
The new Patent bill would also transfer unprecedented rule-making authority to the Patent office. That’s an abdication of congressional responsibility.
Add it all up, and it is clear that the new Patent bill is a big attack on the constitutional property rights of individual inventors and small enterprises, the very kind of entrepreneurs who give us our most important innovations. About a third of all patent applications are filed by individual inventors, small companies, universities, and non-profit groups.
Why is this a shock...the dems have to figure out a way to aid the chi-coms....they are beholden...
Here’s more information on this matter.
Will Congress slam small inventors?
http://biz.yahoo.com/hfsb/070619/061807_patent_reform_fsb.html?.v=1
The portfolio crack was a little cheeky. :^)
Great./s
Hah! A tried and true business method!
A lot of improvement could be achieved simply by excluding business methods and software from the patent system, as they were prior to some bad court decisions in the 1980's.
Sorry, but I have to point out in fairness to Commissioner Duell that this has been debunked.
As the article states, in his 1899 report, he actually said: "May not our inventors hopefully look to the Fifty-sixth Congress for aid and effectual encouragement in improving the American patent system?" Those are certainly not the words of someone believing the office should be shut down.
Certainly no need to apologize.
That is the great thing about FR. If my post of the “infamous” post is incorrect, it can stand corrected. I take no offense in the truth being known.
Thanks for the info!!!
This bill is window dressing: patents are dead.
Anything that you patent is immediately stolen by the Chinese, and American trial lawyers **REFUSE** to sue the Chinese.
“The only question is whether this will make the mess worse, or just different.”
My guess is worse, and will benefit the few :-)
That is kind of what I was driving at.
But how about amusing a cat with a laser pointer? You can’t really call that business - and you can’t make ths stuff up, either!
THANK YOU for having that spirit! :-) It's a GREAT part of FR!
| Chinese pirates don’t roam the high seas looking for booty but sit at their computers, roam the internet, and steal the details of U.S. inventions that the U.S. Patent Office loads online.
We already have that. We've had that for decades. For years, IBM was the #1 patent filer, and by a wide margin. For all I know they still are. Why try to scare people with a "change" that's no change at all?
We need that. In far too many cases, the Patent Office has been bamboozled into awarding patents for ridiculously obvious things (e.g. the Compton's encyclopedia patent), seemingly new things that are really just retreads on very old ideas (e.g. mixing data and instructions on the Internet, an idea that goes back to the IBM 3270 of the 1970's), and business processes like Amazon's one-click patent. I personally am a co-inventor on a patent that I defy anyone to describe in a way that makes sense, or even to say what the device does. I don't claim to know whether this bill will help or hurt. I don't believe you know either. I don't think anyone does. |
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1875052/posts
Prior to 1999, the U.S. Patent Office was required to keep secret the contents of a patent application until a patent was granted, and to return the application in secret to the inventor if a patent was not granted. That protected the legal rights of the inventor, who could then go back to the drawing board to perfect his invention and try again.
A mischievous congressional “reform” in 1999 authorized the U.S. Patent Office to shift to the Japanese and European practice of publishing patent applications 18 months after filing whether or not a decision is yet made on granting a patent. Congress allowed a patent application, under certain conditions, to be exempt from the publication requirement, but the default procedure is to publish.
The 2007 Patent bill would delete this exemption and require publication of all patent applications 18 months after filing even though a decision has not yet been made on granting a patent.
By 2006, the U.S. Patent Office had placed 1,271,000 patent applications on the internet, giving access to anyone anywhere in the world. This foolish practice created a gold mine for China to steal U.S. innovations and get to market quickly.
Anything that you patent is immediately stolen by the Chinese, and American trial lawyers **REFUSE** to sue the Chinese.
One would never sue on a US patent in China, because US patents don’t apply in China.
But a US patent protects against anyone, regardless of nationality, making, using, or selling a patented product in the US. You don’t need to sue “the Chinese”, you just need to sue the store selling the Chinese goods, and it happens all the time.
My concern here would be that a company who sells a product with some new but unpatented aspect of the product could be sued by someone who files a patent years later for the same thing.
| This foolish practice created a gold mine for China to steal U.S. innovations and get to market quickly.
|
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Good question. I doubt that anyone knows. The whole issue is so complex, with so many competing interests, that about the only thing humans can do is take a stab, and then wait ten years to see how it worked out, and then take another stab to fix what went wrong the first time.