New Patent Legislation Makes Some Headway

dreamchaser writes "EETimes has an article discussing new legislation that will stop Congress from siphoning off money from the Patent Office. The hope is that increased money in the coffers will allow the hiring of more highly skilled engineers to look at technical patents, as well as speed up the sometimes ponderous process of securing a patent. The bill has passed the house with a resounding 379-28 vote, and now goes to the Senate. Given all the discussions about how so many bad patents are being granted, could this be a good thing?"

Comments

Problem Solving 101

[funny-jack]

The legislation would keep patent office revenue in-house and thus could expedite the patent-application process, which grows lengthier and more costly as technology gets more complex, sources said.

Is it just me, or does this sound like it is just throwing more money at a problem and hoping it will solve itself? If the legislation doesn't have provisions to specify new procedures to actually get around to solving the problems, it is unlikely to solve much of anything.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[WebMasterP]

Ok, slashdotters complain all the time about ridiculous patens being accepted because the people in the patent office appear to be mentally incompetent. So, I ask, how can hiring better engineers be a step in any direction but the right one?

Re:Problem Solving 101

[thogard]

The 1st things government do when they see a hard problem that they have to solve is to throw money at it. This means that congress seems to have noticed.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[the_mad_poster]

And at least this time they're not throwing OUR money at it...

Re:Problem Solving 101

[dreamchaser]

That's the main reason I'm on the fence as to whether this will be a good thing or not. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not sure I trust bureaucrats to do something constructive with the funding.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[krlynch]

Um, actually, they are throwing our money at it, if only indirectly. The money that was formerly being diverted from the Patent Office into the General Fund was money that could be spent on programs without requiring a direct infusion of tax dollars or debt increases. That money has to be replaced with an identical chunk of money from somewhere else. That somewhere else has to be tax revenues flowing into the General Fund from tax payers.

Which isn't to say that this is a bad way to spend our money. Just that it is our money that will pay for this.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[k98sven]

Is it just me, or does this sound like it is just throwing more money at a problem and hoping it will solve itself? If the legislation doesn't have provisions to specify new procedures to actually get around to solving the problems, it is unlikely to solve much of anything.

Well.. what would you do if you had the choice between

Hire more engineers
or

Hike your own salary, get a nice new office building with a pool, sauna and indoor shuffleboard facility?

No obligations.. :-)

Re:Problem Solving 101

[yellena]

That somewhere else has to be tax revenues flowing into the General Fund from tax payers.

It doesn't HAVE to come from taxes. The money could come from tariffs.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[Delphiki]

I can't tell if you're serious or going for funny, but a tariff is a type of tax. It's still collected from the tax payers, just not in a way as direct as deducting it from their pay checks.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[Short Circuit]

Definitly. Tariffs not only raise the prices of goods in the country, they also spark malevolence between nations, which can easily lead to more harm to consumers.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[Short Circuit]

Even spending the money on things like office supplies would help. If they're strapped for cash, there's almost certainly restrictions on consumption of materials. Spending money on "luxuries" would help improve morale.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[Anonymous Coward]

This first step in solving any problem is to get as many pertinent facts as possible. I seriously doubt either you or I have them.

What you've proposed is essentially the libertarian stereotype of an inefficient government. If true, throwing more money at the problem certainly won't solve it.

But there are other possibilities. I can think of several government agencies that are ineffective BECAUSE they are underfunded. Perhaps the USPTO is one of them--I don't know. But as long as we're spouting off analyses based on broad stereotypes, I figured I could throw in a lefty sterotype to balance the right-wing one.

Example: Like many agencies, the USPTO has its duties defined by legislation. It must perform those duties even if it does not have the funding to perform those duties properly. As a result, it performs all of its mandates very very poorly. If provided with more money, all things being equal, it could do a better job.

This, of course, is nonsense. But so is the assertion that government is more inefficient than private companies, or that cutting budgets are all that's necessary to make an agency more efficient. Frankly the truth is somewhere in between. To badly misquote someone without giving proper credit: "For every problem, there is one solution that is simple, inexpensive, painless, permanent, and--most importantly--wrong." Throwing money at the problem won't fix it...but fixing the problem will involve a lot more money than they're currently throwing at it!

Re:Problem Solving 101

[darkonc]

There's a big difference between a step in the right direction and a completed journey. It does not negate the first step to encourage and describe the second, the third, the fourth, . . . . . .

Re:Problem Solving 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Because this is Slashdot, where we aren't happy unless we're bitching.

If the US government announced tomorrow that Microsoft was going to be dismantled, Bill Gates led away in chains, and that Linux would be the only OS approved for use in good ol' Murica, somebody here would still bitch about the choice of KDE over Gnome, or vice versa.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[Bull999999]

It's not throwing the money at it, it's about taking less (or no) money out. They should be doing the same thing to Social Security.

Re:Problem Solving 101

[Anonymous Coward]

It is very bad from a practical end result point of things for the US Congress to actually specify HOW exactly appropriations should be spent, but better only to attach certain guidelines, because any exact details are likely to be really no more than guarantees for the money to be spent preferentially in certain states (Senators) or districts (Representatives).

But with the current administration, what will actually happen is that Congress could dictate that more money be spent on hiring patent investigators, but because the PTO is an Executive Branch office, then GWB will figure out how to actually postpone the hirings until after the election this fall, and thus will siphon the $$$ somewhere else (John Asscroft's gal bladder surgery).

Re:Problem Solving 101

[Anonymous Coward]

While it may be a step in the right direction, there's a river up ahead, and the bridge to cross it, is actually perpendicular to the current direction this is going.

IOW, we need new IP laws which take into cosideration the fact that copying is not the problem, ideas should not be patentable and getting protection for that noun isn't really a good idea.

Still flawed

[Craig Maloney]

If the patent office is still run the same way as it is now (with the quantity of approvals vs. quality), this will be worthless. Only with true reforms of the patent system (non-obvious patents, abolishment of software patents, protection of inventions, not algorithms) will the patent office really be reformed.

Re:Still flawed

[shaka999]

Personally I think the patent process is a house of cards. At some point it will tumble. This bill will hopefully just make it happen faster

Re:Still flawed

[Nakito]

I perceive another flaw in the system that I do not believe is widely recognized: being a patent examiner is essentially an entry-level position. Patent examiners tend to be young law-school graduates with technical undergraduate degrees. Consequently, although they may be smart and have good intentions, they do not have sufficient practical experience in business or industry to dinstinguish what is truly "novel" from what would be "obvious" to an old hand. Being young and inexperienced, to them everything appears to be novel. There is nothing wrong with being a beginner, but the system really needs some kind of oversight by grayer heads who have sufficient familiarity with the field and are less easily impressed. And yes, this means money in the form of higher salaries to attract and keep such people.

Re:Still flawed

[Mysteray]

The hope in this is that once Congress ceases to view the USPTO as a revenue source, they will be more receptive to the argument that overly-broad patents (and trademarks) hurt the economy overall.

Re:Still flawed

[iminplaya]

You can't reform a system that encourages a person to "sit on" their ideas until some millionaire offers to buy it from them. There are many inventions out there that could save lives, money, whatever, that won't get to market beacuse the greedy inventer won't release it without a million dollar buyout. The drug companies are a prime example of this. They will watch millions of people suffer and die rather than give up even a penny to make a possibly life saving drug available. This is what all IP gives us. It's turning the creative process into a poorly run lottery. Doing away with IP can only help weed out the chaff. (Aw, jeez. No more "Pet Rocks"). Doing away with IP can insure that good inventions will be available to all, instead of rotting on the shelf waiting for those mythical millions to appear. Doing away with IP will insure that old works won't be sold again and again as new. All the creative geniuses(sp) can work for hire, like the rest of us, instead reaping millions from great grandpa's 75 year old cartoons.

Re:Still flawed

[bodrell]

If the patent office is still run the same way as it is now (with the quantity of approvals vs. quality), this will be worthless. Only with true reforms of the patent system (non-obvious patents, abolishment of software patents, protection of inventions, not algorithms) will the patent office really be reformed.

(emphasis mine)

I get your gist, but have to disagree on a slight technicality: you mean software algorithms, I assume, because the word "algorithm" can constitute all sorts of processes that I believe should be protected by patents. If I come up with a process to cheaply digest organic matter into hydrocarbon chains (i.e., oil), and the temperature, pressure, composition etc. are all crucial to this process, how are those parameters and that sequence of reactions different from an algorithm? But when the algorithms involve manipulating numbers, rather than molecules, I certainly agree with you.

Re:Still flawed

[gcaseye6677]

If you're ideas were implemented, instead of people sitting on ideas until that million dollar buyout, they would just not come up with them in the first place. Sure, people would still have ideas, but they wouldn't put a lot of time and money into researching something truely unique and revolutionary, if there were no possibility of a big payout. Its not that they are too lazy or greedy, its that it takes a lot of cash to research something like cancer drugs and if nobody can make money off of it, nobody will invest in the research, and no new drugs will be produced. Are you still convinced this is a good idea?

Re:Still flawed

[Citizen of Earth]

Only with true reforms of the patent system (non-obvious patents, abolishment of software patents, protection of inventions, not algorithms) will the patent office really be reformed.

The process needs to be reformed. The only serious solution is to publish patent applications upon receipt. My spiel:

The USPTO and by infliction and extension most of the patent offices of the world are massively corrupt by virtue of overwhelming incompetence. Perpetual copyrights are bad enough, but bad patents are poisonous to all industries. To avoid copyright problems, you just need to avoid plagiarizing the other guy's work, but overbroad and trivial patents are crippling because they are a government-granted monopoly on an idea, frequently a trivial and obvious idea that many people may have without realizing that it's been patented. It can be very difficult to work around a simple idea.

Fortunately, patent reform is easy. Upon initial submission and for every alteration, a patent application is published and the public has one year to submit comments and prior art to the patent office. The patent office acts as more of an administrative office, which is what it is improperly and dangerously doing now, rather than as a research office. When a patent is granted, it lasts for 10 years from the date of submission. The patent may be extended for another 10 years for a fee of US$1-million, adjusted annually for inflation and different currencies. If the renewal fee is not received by the 10-year date, the invention instantly and irrevocably becomes public domain.

The quality of patents submitted should increase as companies elect to submit only patents that they figure are likely to be granted, to avoid giving ideas away that likely aren't good enough for protection.

Re:Still flawed

[Short Circuit]

Yes, I know that a huge number of patents get approved every year, but you have to realize how long it takes a patent to get approved. Even on Slashdot, there are documented incidences of patents that took so long to approve that the technology was widespread before the patent was finally approved. (For example, the technology underlying multisession CDs and the UDF filesystem.)

At least getting patents through the process faster will help reduce the confusion somewhat, and help speed technology along.

Think about it; would UDF and multisession CDs exist the way they do today if the patent had been approved in a timely manner? No. Instead, companies like Roxio would have figured out a different, possibly better, way to accomplish the same goal.

Re:Still flawed

[datababe72]

So what are all of the scientists employed by pharma companies doing? Playing tiddlywinks?

Come on... its not a perfect industry, but its not populated by evil people who want to watch people die, either.

If a drug company has developed a drug that actually works, they're not going to sit on it. If its not cost-effective for them to take it to market, chances are they'll out-license it. The problem is, developing a drug that actually works is hard and expensive. Once you have a drug that seems to work, actually proving that it is safe and effective (i.e., getting FDA approval) is also hard and expensive.

In my opinion, without IP protection, no one would ever do it. The primary output of a pharma company isn't the little pill you swallow: its the knowledge that making a pill with those ingredients produces a good medicine. Getting that knowledge is expensive... producing the pill is not. This is why generics are so much cheaper. If you don't let the people who spent the money to get the knowledge benefit from it... well, you aren't going to get many new medicines.

I'm NOT saying drug companies are paragons of virtue. But really, villifying them isn't going to solve the problem. There are real market forces at work here. Any solutions you present must take these forces into account, or its no solution at all.

Re:Still flawed

[iminplaya]

If money is going to be THE motivating force behind everything that we do then we deserve whatever happens to us. Yeah, the guy inventing the cancer drug might do it to save the life of someone he cares about. Some people might invent something because it might improve their own lives. Do you think they would feel better to suppress it simply because there's not a million dollars waiting for him? They might even cooperate with with each other to get the invention out. (That would be a first now, wouldn't it?) I hope that some day we can use something other than money to motivate people. Otherwise we're doomed. And yes, more than ever, I'm convinced that this is a very good idea. It's just not patentable. Or maybe it is, in today's times. :-)

Re:Still flawed

[ezzzD55J]

Being young and inexperienced, to them everything appears to be novel.

Looking at some of the granted BS patents, I doubt this is the full story.

The problem with the system seems to be that the burden of vetting a patent application has been shifted from the USPTO and the patenting process (a very slow and expensive process already) to the courts and lawyers when it becomes time to challenge patents..

Re:Still flawed

[murphyslawyer]

Okay - you've developed the process, but a process is just that, a way of doing something. Your patented process won't ever actually create oil from plants to use your example. If you actually want to make oil, you'll need some sort of machine to do it, even if it is just pouring Flask A into Jar B. Now you have something to patent

Re:Still flawed

[iminplaya]

Without IP people WILL do it. They aren't going to let their loved ones die off without a fight. They will produce the medicine. The drug companies are letting millions die from malaria and AIDS, because they won't allow generic drugs on the market. Making things scarce in order to make a buck is a pretty evil way of doing business. The fact that goods are easier to produce with less makes it very important that we find another way of interacting with each other. It's only going to get harder to "sell refridgerators to the Eskimos".

Re:Still flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? It's making use of facts (mother nature and her "rules" about how matter behaves") which should NEVER be able to be patented/copyrighted.

Re:Still flawed

[rhysweatherley]

because the word "algorithm" can constitute all sorts of processes that I believe should be protected by patents. If I come up with a process to cheaply digest organic matter into hydrocarbon chains (i.e., oil), and the temperature, pressure, composition etc. are all crucial to this process, how are those parameters and that sequence of reactions different from an algorithm?

This is similar to the argument that the EU tried recently. The argument was: "well a mobile phone is mostly just a bunch of software, and mobile phones are useful inventions, so we must allow patenting of software".

That argument is pure rubbish. If a device is mostly software, then Copyright already provides more than enough protection for your "invention". Your competitors must either license from you or do the hard work themselves from scratch.

Patents are not necessary to protect software. Copyright is, and always has been, the most effective means. There are only two reasons why you might want a patent on software: to extort money from others, or to protect yourself from such extortion.

Re:Still flawed

[RAMMS EIN]

``You can't reform a system that encourages a person to "sit on" their ideas until some millionaire offers to buy it from them.''

Well, patents are there exactly to get people to publish their inventions. If you're in it for the money (and I think you should be free to be), you can keep your idea to yourself and try to make money applying it. The risk you run is that someone else comes up with the same idea, after which you are no longer the only one who knows the trick, which means you have to compete and thus have less opportunity to stuff your pockets. A patent guarantees that you can stuff your pockets for a while, in exchange for sharing your knowledge. This is a good deal for most inventors, as the risk that competitors will come once you launch your product is significant.

So far for the good part. I personally feel patents are unfair to the point of becoming unacceptible. Once someone comes up with an idea and patents it, someone coming up with the same idea independently (thus supposedly making the same effort) won't be allowed to use it until everybody is. And, as people here are well aware, there are many practical problems with patents. It is not always feasible to find out whether something has been patented. You could be infringing on a patent without knowing it, even after having made an effort to avoid that. Patents are sometimes granted without there being an invention (e.g. the discovery is not new, or it's a trivial one, but those who granted the patent weren't competent enough to notice). Once you patent your invention in one place, others can learn about it and freely use it where your patent does not apply. Etc. etc.

I hate whining without providing suggestions for improvement, so I'll make a suggestion here, though it will likely not be ideal. The problem is that we want to encourage people to innovate and share their inventions, but we want to avoid monopolizaition of the market and excessive litigation. I think it makes sense to distinguish between the case where inventions are mostly desirable from a corporate point of view, and the case where inventions are in the public interest. The former case would include such things as software, where companies could innovate to get an edge over the competition. The latter case would include medicine, where there is a pre-existing need for inventions, and one would ideally cure as many people as possible in preference of maximizing profits. In the first case, I think we can do just fine without any legislation. Whoever discovers something can use it, and charge whatever they want, or share it at will. In the latter case, I think it makes sense to pool funds for research and share the discoveries. By cooperating, research might actually get more efficient.

I think we can get by just fine without patent law. Where research is economically viable, corporations will do it with or without patent law. If some businesses can't make money, then maybe we should let them die instead of bending over to keep them around. If we still want the service they provide, we can always decide to fund it publicly. For-profit companies are not the only way!

Re:Still flawed

[bladernr]

Doing away with IP can insure that good inventions will be available to all, instead of rotting on the shelf waiting for those mythical millions to appear.

Without Intellectual Property protection perhaps those good inventions would never have been invented at all.

Without IP, drug companies could not poor the billions they do into drug research, because the cost reduction caused by generics would mean they could never recoup their R&D. IP allows drug companies to invest heavily, and make their money back. Notice, I'm not talking about getting rich vs. making a good living. I'm talking about avoiding bankrupcy: inventing a drug is not cheap.

I am not for (or against, I guess) inherited patents, and other such nonsense, as it seems a little silly to keep Micky Mouse under protection for so long (that was copyright, right), but some allowance must be made for the protection of truely original work. It is not greed to expect grand compensation for a grand invention - or fair compensation for a fair invention. Many inventors show a level of focus and dedication that is almost super-human; why not reward them?

Re:Still flawed

[bodrell]

This is similar to the argument that the EU tried recently . . .

That argument is pure rubbish. If a device is mostly software, then Copyright already provides more than enough protection for your "invention". Your competitors must either license from you or do the hard work themselves from scratch.

So do you think what I said is rubbish, too? I'm not arguing for software patents--just process patents for stuff not protected by copyright (or copyleft). Should a process be copyrighted, when it's the algorithm that is important (rather than syntax)?

Re:Still flawed

[iminplaya]

One of my contentions against IP is that it wouldn't cost billions to do drug research. That's a whole nother bloated industry created by IP. I contend that without IP the drugs would probably be found in a naturally growing plant or something. The IP might make R&D very profitable, but it doesn't necessarily make it more productive.

Re:Still flawed

[rhysweatherley]

If the process can be purely represented in software, with no physical component, then Copyright is the most appropriate protection. If there is a physical component, then that component may be patentable, but only that, with Copyright protecting the software.

Since any automatable process can theoretically be done manually, allowing the combination to be patentable is equivalent to saying "well, the physical lever itself is not patentable, but if a human operator pulls it, then the process is patentable". Even if it completely obvious how to operate the lever upon manual inspection.

Re:Still flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

I would take it further. It's humanly impossible for anybody, experienced or not, to assess whether a general patent application is truly novel.

The basic premise of the patent office is flawed: That a small government office can assess all human knowledge generated by 6,000,000,000+ people on a daily basis and be sure the idea they are looking at is new is quaint at best.

It only works at all because they assume, unlike all other law, "guilty until proven innocent": somebody "infringing" a patent must show prior art, not a patent owner proving, impossibly, a patent has no prior art.

Re:Still flawed

[Gherald]

Oh? What makes you think the situation is fragile?

I do not see the patent process being reformed any time soon. Corporations (the chief source of frivolous patents) are greedy, and can afford many lobbyists.

Re:Still flawed

[Bull999999]

And how do you think that people will do it? Out of their basement lab? Sure, millions die for malaria and AIDS, but yet, people spend billions on gaming every year instead of donating their money to the finding the cure. People invest in stocks of drug companies to MAKE money and thus, to get more funding, the drug companies has to make money for its shareholders and they do it by IP.

Since there is no cure for AIDS, why don't YOU try producing a cure for it? I'll bet that the average slashdotter will spend their $50 on buying the latest game instead of donating it to your cause.

Re:Still flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, people would still have ideas, but they wouldn't put a lot of time and money into researching something truely unique and revolutionary, if there were no possibility of a big payout.

So...how much did Linus get paid to write Linux?

Re:Still flawed

[BlueStrat]

"Doing away with IP can only help weed out the chaff."

If you do away with the motivation to invest the resources necessary to invent by not allowing the investor to realise any profit, or even recoup the expenses, how will anything new get created? Will you make having full citizenship/rights conditional on an individual contributing an idea/invention? If someone has an idea, will you make it illegal for them to withold it? Would you make a criminals' release from prison conditional on contributing an invention? Will you assign the government the job of invention? *Limited* IP rights encourage invention and innovation by making investing the resources in developing an idea attractive.

Re:Still flawed

[moviepig.com]

...the system really needs some kind of oversight by grayer heads who have sufficient familiarity with the field and are less easily impressed...

A patent-review system that requires abundant hybrids of Thomas Edison and Old Deuteronomy is not a robust blueprint.

If you believe (as I do) that patents are Good, then the aim should be towards properly tutoring new examiners. My experience with them suggests that they're typically more than capable, but too often "mal-focused" ...probably by mentors who should know better. (As a parallel, think what "first principles" were taught you by your best vs. your worst driving-instructor.)

Re:Still flawed

[miles_thatsme]

I can only speak to the (very similar) Canadian system, but I think this complaint is off the mark. I am surprised by the low-level qualifications that our office accepts: http://strategis.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/patents/pt_em ployopps_p4-e.html. However:
1) Case law, not examiner discretion, determines the laxity of the novelty and obviousness tests;
2) Agents, who frequently have post-grad science experience, their four years legal education, and a required year of apprenticeship under another patent agent, usually review the patents--threat of malpractice helps set standards here;
3) Accessibility is a requirement of valid patents;
4) Patent litigators you speak to--infrequently with any science background--will tell you that they are perfectly capable of distinguishing two patents because it's a logical, not practical, exercise.

Re:Still flawed

[IamTheRealMike]

if nobody can make money off of it, nobody will invest in the research, and no new drugs will be produced. Are you still convinced this is a good idea?

This seems more like an argument for funding cancer drug research from alternative sources rather than keeping the patent system, to be frank.

Re:Still flawed

[jsebrech]

it takes a lot of cash to research something like cancer drugs and if nobody can make money off of it, nobody will invest in the research

In that case, let's call the patent system what it is and say that it is a tax to fund innovation. I'd rather see this be done above board, by a genuine "innovation tax", where you could clearly see where the tax flows to, whereas with patents a considerable chunk of the tax does not produce more innovation.

I think that society would be better off if patents were abolished and all the things that aren't viable/done without patents would be funded by government. That's the job of government anyway, improving the lives of its citizens. Also, the benefit in this case would be that any research done in this way would become public property, whereas with patents you have to wait 20 years before anyone but the patent owner can use that technology freely. This is a useless and quite damaging delay in today's fast-paced society.

Re:Still flawed

[smithmc]

I hope that some day we can use something other than money to motivate people.

I hope you also have a scheme in mind where people can use something other than money to obtain food, clothing, and shelter, not to mention hookers and beer.

Re:Still flawed

[Perky_Goth]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/298 2797.stm
http://www.seroxatusergroup.org.uk/who_w e_are.htm# About%20Seroxat

I TOOK THAT FUCKING DRUG!
I saw a documentary somewhere that they were still promoting the drug despite all the related problems.

I don't feel any obligation to feel that i owe anything to the assholes.

Re:Still flawed

[HeghmoH]

I hope that some day we can use something other than money to motivate people. Otherwise we're doomed.

Er, why? It's worked pretty well so far. I mean, sure, using money as the motivator causes all kinds of problems, but there's a reason that there are no societies of any significant technological advancement that don't have money. Money is a wonderful device. I know that we see it as evil, but imagine what the world would be without it. How would you motivate people, how would you decide who gets what, how would you decide anything without money? Invention has always been motivated by money, and that motivation has produced an awful lot.

Not it just means more bad patents faster

[Anonymous Coward]

Subject pretty much says it all.

Re:Not it just means more bad patents faster

[Short Circuit]

Depending on how you look at it, more "bad" patents could be better for the consumer.

If developers still want to produce a product after one of its underlying technologies has been patented, then they can come up with a different, possibly better, way to produce the same overall functionality of their product.

Unfortunately, it can lock out small developers unless they can get some VC, or maybe a spouse who wins the bread in the meantime. (I suspect that second method would be less stressful. ;) )

What is the HB ID?

[ObviousGuy]

How do we know that this wasn't just some insignificant rider on some more important "terrorist fighting legislation"?

What is the House Bill number?

Re:What is the HB ID?

[sheemwaza]

Smith, who chairs of the House Judiciary Committee's IP panel, said his bill, H.R. 1561, could result in 140,000 more patents being issued in the next five years. "That's 140,000 more economic opportunities for the American people," Smith said.

from the article

Re:What is the HB ID?

[asyky]

"That's 140,000 more economic opportunities for the American people,"

what american people? not the average guy on the street that's for sure.

Re:What is the HB ID?

[privaria]

The House bill is H.R. 1561.

I'm a registered patent agent, so this bill is obviously important to me. (Before I get modded into oblivion for having that occupation, please note that I am also an open-source software author. You can see something I wrote about that topic on one of my project pages. I watched the bill being enacted on C-SPAN. It stands alone, and is not any sort of a rider.

It is also a Good Thing (sorry, Martha) because the USPTO is desparately in need of funding to keep up with the flood of applications. The only thing I don't like about it (other than the fee increases it includes) is that it opens the door to outsourcing (not offshoring) searches to private contractors, something I think really is the patent examiner's job.

Re:What is the HB ID?

[k98sven]

You can see something I wrote about that topic on one of my project pages.

I did. It doesn't really tell me much more than "yeah, I'm a patent guy, and I wrote this software and made it free for these reasons."

What I (and presumably others) would be interested in knowing, is how you feel on the specific concerns raised by free-software authors on software patents. Since you (I assume) feel software patents are a good idea: How would you adress these concerns?

Most software-patent advocates out there have not given me the impression that they understand the concerns raised. As someone in a good position to do so, I'd be interested in hearing your side of it.

(That's of course, if you feel like giving it.)

Re:What is the HB ID?

[dreamchaser]

If the patent creates a marketable product, who do you think fills the jobs to make said product? Elves?

Re:What is the HB ID?

[TygerFish]

"The only thing I don't like about it (other than the fee increases it includes) is that it opens the door to outsourcing (not offshoring) searches to private contractors, something I think really is the patent examiner's job."

That strikes me as a big uh-oh.

A patent office staffed with public servants whose job it is to keep things secure while under consideration is one thing. Outside firms, staffed by you-know-not-whom brings people into the loop you might not want there--like the guy who stole *half* of a Japanese process for new electrolytic capacitors and caused a product recall when the stolen and only partly-understood technology burst on motherboards.

You've got to love those free-market solutions.

Re:What is the HB ID?

[Bombcar]

Chinese. :)

Re:What is the HB ID?

[privaria]

Article I, Section 8

"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..."

There have been many people in groups interested in limiting what types of "discoveries" for which inventors can obtain the exclusive right via the constitutional provision of a patent. Many who are concerned about the high cost of medicine would like to see limitations on the availability of patents for pharmaceuticals and methods of performing surgery. And of course, many of those who care about the future of free software (and I certainly do, basing my practice IT setup on Gentoo Linux), would like to see the availability of patents to software limited or eliminated.

What all of these people and interest groups fail to recognize is that the patent system was not set up or even envisioned to cover only a specific type of discovery. The founders could never have conceived of software, yet they in their wisdom left the constitutional authorization wide open to discoveries of all types. The very nature of a patent -- a legally sanctioned granting of exclusivity to one party -- naturally creates groups of people who opposed the existence of particular patents because that existence means that they might have to pay a lot of money or stop doing what they're doing.

A point that is widely missed in the hysterics about software patents is that, pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 102, an inventor, say at Microsoft, can't patent something unless it is novel. The inventor is blocked from apply for a patent if (among other things):

the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States,

Open-source software, as the name implies, has its workings exposed and publicly accessible to all. There is a lot of prior art in widely publicized and searchable CVS repositories, IMHO, that can be used as "printed publications" against patents that are ever asserted against OSS projects. (The key is availability by interested members of the public with reasonably diligent research, not "printing" on some physical media.) And the more detailed and more "suggestive" your comments in that publicly accessible code, the better a weapon the code becomes against patents others might try to obtain for the concepts it employs!

Ed Suominen * Registered Patent Agent
Web Site: http://www.eepatents.com
+ Nothing above to be construed as legal advice
+ or the opinion of my firm or any client.

Re:What is the HB ID?

[Short Circuit]

It would seem to me that the word "printed" is still somewhat dangerous, even if the intent is clear to the average observer.

I'd like to see that clarified. I'm sure a massive letter drive to congressmen would help, but does it help any to send letters to members of relevant government organizations?

Re:What is the HB ID?

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside firms, staffed by you-know-not-whom

Ah, but you do know whom. Corporate shills. Ka-ching$$$$!

Re:What is the HB ID?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many non-US companies apply for and receive US patents...

Now it's you turn again.

Re:What is the HB ID?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter how much money they throw at it. It's humanly impossible for anybody, experienced or not, to assess whether a general patent application is truly novel. A specialist with a lifetime of experience in a very narrow field might be able to do it for that narrow field but for a general patent, forget it.

The basic premise of the patent office is flawed: That a small government office can assess all human knowledge generated by 6,000,000,000+ people on a daily basis and be sure the idea they are looking at is new is hopelessly optimistic.

It only works at all because the patent office assumes, unlike all other law, "guilty until proven innocent": somebody "infringing" a patent must show prior art, not a patent owner proving, impossibly, a patent has no prior art.

I for one do not want my tax money wasted on an impossible task, quite apart from the unfairness such artificial monopolies frequently cause.

Re:What is the HB ID?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that explains allowing patents and trademarks for things that already exist elsewhere in the world.
It's a great way to make "american jobs"

Re:What is the HB ID?

[dreamchaser]

Foreign companies employ roughly 6 million US workers *in* the States as well.

Re:What is the HB ID?

[CKW]

Marketable product?

Now-days most patents are used for "protection" and "extortion" by large corporations in nearly the most literal sense.

There is more than adquate reason to question whether or not "more patents" with no qualification on the type or worthiness of said patents - is a good thing or not.

Maybe this will help...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this will head off a lot of the SCO/MS/Anderer bull****.

After all they have 20 more bogus claims coming down the pike designed to do nothing but extort monies out of the true inovators and risk takers.

Change it is coming.

Patents in General

[Un0r1g1nal]

I am not particularly a big fan of patents in general because of the amount of abuse that the system receives, this 'extra' cash in the coffers could either go one of two ways. Patents will be forced to become more realistic and used properly, or people will be able to 'specialise' patents to an even greater degree and so create more crap than before.

Patents in general are still a bad thing IMHO.

Re:Patents in General

[oZZoZZ]

I see necessity for some patents... Medical is a big one... back after the original Anthrax scare, the Bush government wanted to create a generic version of Sipro (sp?). Bayer spend hundreds of millions researching and creating it, and they patented it. This is a perfect example of patents, without patents in medical, nothing would get done.

Re:Patents in General

[Rocinante]

without patents in medical, nothing would get done

Nonsense; without patents in medical, things wouldn't get done the way they are now. Big corporations are not the only entities that can discover things; universities and publically-funded research groups could keep right on researching drugs. This would probably result in fewer new drugs being discovered, but they would probably be important ones as opposed to penis pills, and be more widely available. There would still be a place for businesses, even, mass-producing and distributing these "open-source" medicines.

This whole idea is abhorrent to capitalist zealots, of course.

Re:Patents in General

[Rocinante]

I'm not sure I agree that patents in general a bad thing, at least patents as I think they were originally intended. The point of patents is that you make public your invention in return for a short-term monopoly on its use. Suppose I invent a more efficient frob-making machine. I can set up a factory and get rich selling frobs for cheaper than my competitors could, because I have a cheaper way of manufacturing them. Of course, if my competitors independently discovers the same process I'm using, they can use it too. With a patent system, I make public my frob-making process, advancing the state of the art and perhaps inspiring other inventions, but no one else can use my actual invention to compete with me for a decade or so (after which time, the entire industry gets more efficient as everyone adopts my invention). I get rich in that decade, technology advances, the economy gets more productive, everybody is happy.

Of course, the present patent system is terribly broken. I agree that no patents at all would probably be better than what we have now, but a working patent system would be better than either.

Could...

[gid13]

"Could this be a good thing?"

Well, it COULD... It doesn't seem likely to me, though. As far as I can tell, the people who grant patents tend to be missing the point entirely. How is one-click shopping really an innovation that should be protected???

No, if you ask me, it needs a complete overhaul, not just more money. And disregarding the practical considerations, I still think it's ethically ridiculous to lay claim to an idea.

Yeah, it's a good thing

[cybermace5]

Anything that could result in more engineers being hired is automatically good, from my point of view.

Re:Yeah, it's a good thing

[shaka999]

Wonder if they'll consider outsourcing to India :).

Re:Yeah, it's a good thing

[cybermace5]

We really need to hurry up and get all the developing countries up to speed. Gotta get 'em rich and snooty enough so that they won't work for peanuts.

"could this be a good thing?"

[Capt'n Hector]

Yes. More money = more time for officials to look at patent applications = less bad patents.

But of course, do you know anybody to work harder when they're paid more?

Re:"could this be a good thing?"

[markov_chain]

On the other hand, it could turn out: more money => more of the same kind of officials => more bad patents per unit time.

Re:"could this be a good thing?"

[Anonymous Coward]

But of course, do you know anybody to work harder when they're paid more?

hmm i don't know Me, maybe anybody that does a per item based job, commissioned sales reps , and anybody that more = at all applies to

One of the problems with Intellectual Property law

[Anonymous Coward]

The Patent Legislation has some inherent value in that it protects what most people perceive as property much as Copyright, Trade Secret, and morphing laws. But the "reasonable person" test MUST be made by the legislators and when we get Congresscritters like Grallice and Womit forming the senate majority including some of the industry reps. (Disney, Pixar, MPAA, RIAA, etc) what you get is a complete clash of culture involving Patents, Legislation, and new intellectual property. This tension is seem most recently in the USA where the DCMA act is a throwback to the days where physical processes are patentable much like when a Highway (Headway) act gets vetoed by the Pres. Bartlett and I'm not talking just about Pears here... Copyright will agree to happen in this same exact phase. It will probably just take a few years more to morph and develop.

Ohura

Bad Patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting anonymously for obvious reasons. I'm a Teaching Fellow (TF) at Harvard, and as part of my work I have to mark assignments. I'd say most of the assignments I mark contain unfounded statements like the following one found in the body of this very story:

Given all the discussions about how so many bad patents are being granted, could this be a good thing?

There simply has not been any study of the quantity of 'bad' patents versus 'good' patents. Whenever I see such baseless statements in essays, I make a point to tell them a community college might be better suited to their future.

The facts are:

1. There are bad patents. No one disputes that - like the amazon patent on one-click shopping and the transmeta patent on code-morphing.
2. There are good patents. Patents on compression are a good example of such patents. They involve some serious work by one or two geniuses who deserve some monetary reward on their work.

I'm surprised the patent office is undergoing such a wild goose chase with no data to back the project up. We expect more from services funded by tax payers.

Re:Bad Patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

We also expect more from teaching fellows at Harvard. Just because you are ignorant of patent abuse, doesn't mean it doesn't happen, nor that it hasn't been well documented. You might ask your students to provide some supporting evidence, but by dismissing their critique outright, without basis, makes you guilty of the very presumptiousness you despise. Perhaps you are the one who should considering community college.

Re:Bad Patents?

[PCM2]

And I thank God you never graded any of my papers, because I don't see a single word in the quote you cited that says anything about the number of good patents vs. the number of bad ones -- just that there is a lot of discussion about how many bad patents are being passed (and there is).

Maybe you'd be better off marking papers at a community college.

Re:Bad Patents?

[Anonymous Crowhead]

I don't see a single word in the quote you cited that says anything about the number of good patents vs. the number of bad ones

Ah Slashdot:
Defend patents without stating evidence: Get flamed.
Be against patents without stating evidence: +5 insightful.
Seeing this post get modded -1 flamebait (and I'll even post logged in w/karma bonus for max effect): Priceless.

Re:Bad Patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent was defending patents? Sounded to me like all he was doing was nit-picking the grammar on the submission while bragging about what a collegiate genius he was.

Re:Bad Patents?

[Nakito]

I'm surprised the patent office is undergoing such a wild goose chase with no data to back the project up.

True, I am not aware of any metrics to support or refute conclusively the proposition that things today are worse than they were prior to the era of software patents. But certainly, since the era of software patents began a few years ago, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that is very disturbing to people with long-term experience in the patent field. Many of the worst examples of "obvious" patents being granted are in the area of software patents, and the horror stories are real. So even without conclusive metrics, I remain concerned that something is wrong. The flip side of your assertion is that the absence of hard data certainly does not mean the absence of a problem. It just may mean that the data is not easily quantifiable due to the need to apply judgment and expertise to each example rather than crunching a lot of easily-accessible numbers.

Re:Bad Patents?

[mark-t]

There are good patents. Patents on compression are a good example of such patents

But you are advocating the patentability of _algorithms_, which is what so many people here are opposed to (present company included).

Not denying the fact that it took work to come up with some of these brilliant algorithms, but why should it be permitted that a process which can be _COMPLETELY_ replicated with pencil, paper, and a little bit of thought should be patentable?

If the process describes a physical process, that's fine... but if the process can be entirely carried out by mental steps alone (and any compression algorithm can be, the amount of time it would take to do this is immaterial to the fact that it *CAN* be done), then the process should categorically *NOT* be patented.

If they want to make money off of their brilliant idea, keep it a secret, give it trade secret status, and make money that way.... Allowing patentability on algorithms is almost tantamount to legislating what a person is and is not allowed to think about.

Re:Bad Patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another "priceless" joke? Fucking hell it's anoying.

Re:Bad Patents?

[CrankyFool]

Of course, "since the era of software patents began" one of the things that changed OTHER than the advent of software patents is also our ability to quickly (and verbosely, so verbosely) discuss every case of bad patent, leading to a perception of increased incidents of bad patents. It's like child abduction -- it's always happened, of course, but now with the advent of Amber Alerts, flashing freeway signs, and immediate media saturation when a child is abducted, there's an increase in perception that abductions are a serious problem.

Re:Bad Patents?

[k98sven]

There are good patents. Patents on compression are a good example of such patents. They involve some serious work by one or two geniuses who deserve some monetary reward on their work.

Others would disagree. What is a compression method? It's an algorithm for altering the representation of data from one form to another, smaller one.

You see, an algorithm is math. It's pure thought-- an idea of how to do something, not a method.

Math results aren't patentable even though a lot of work goes into them. They are ideas, or discoveries.

Patents were never intended to protect ideas or discoveries. They were created to protect methods and designs.

Combustion is a discovery.
The combustion engine -- that's an idea.
A design for a combustion engine - that's a method.

This is why patents work well. People are still free to use the original idea, but with a different method, or implementation. You can still build a combustion engine, it just can't work the exact same way. The distinction is simple.

With software, that distinction is not there. What's the difference between binary code, C++ code, pseudocode or just a plain description of the algorithm?
The idea is not distinct from the implementation.

The other question is why patents are required? The software industry is hugely successful as it is.
Why encumber it with patents? Competition disadvantages are a far greater problem than code theft in the software industry. Patents are state-given, time-limited monopolies.

I don't see any evidence that creating further disadvantages will work to eradicate those that already exist.
I'm worried they will work to increase them.

Re:Bad Patents?

[Nakito]

It's a good point, especially regarding the "worst case" examples which make such good online headlines and attract so much online buzz.

But there is a counter-argument. In the field of law (and particularly in specialties like patent law), weekly and monthly newletters have been published by companies like CCH and West for many decades. So even before there was a Slashdot, there were communities of experts keeping abreast of the latest decisions. And even in that long-term context, some of the recent patent decisions are just off the wall.

Re:Bad Patents?

[dreamchaser]

You should really try to improve your reading skills if as you claim you work at Harvard. All I reference is the amount of discussion about bad patents, then ask a question. Nowhere do I ascribe a quantity to either good or bad patents. I never claim that there has been any sort of study, just that there has been a lot of discussion on the matter.

Then again...those who can do, do...etc. ;)

Re:Bad Patents?

[Laser Lou]

Ah Slashdot:
Defend patents without stating evidence: Get flamed.
Be against patents without stating evidence: +5 insightful.
Seeing this post get modded -1 flamebait (and I'll even post logged in w/karma bonus for max effect): Priceless.

There are things money can buy. For everything else, there's Slashdot.

Re:Bad Patents?

[rjstanford]

Others would disagree. What is a compression method? It's an algorithm for altering the representation of data from one form to another, smaller one.

You see, an algorithm is math. It's pure thought-- an idea of how to do something, not a method.

Not really. The idea is, "Hey, lets go through the source data and toss out some of it, while making notes in the destination file as to how to re-create it." Now, don't get me wrong. That's a great idea, and a somewhat revolutionary one. But its an un-patentable idea.

Let's look at a process now:

Check each byte of data in the source file, in order. If one is a '\', write '\\' into the destination file. If there are more three or more consecutive characters that are the same, write '\' followed by the number of repetitions followed by the character, so "\XWWWWWXXXX" would become "\\X\5W\4X" in the destination file.

That's a potentially panentable algorithm. And a pretty dumb one, but hey, nobody said that inventions had to be smart.

See the difference? One describes a concept, the other documents a repeatable process.

Re:Bad Patents?

[JustAClam]

You see, an algorithm is math. It's pure thought-- an idea of how to do something, not a method.

NO

Integral Calculus is math, numerical methods for integration are algorithms, and people buy or download libraries to get implementations of the algorithms that work for all of the corner cases. If "an algorithm is math" then implementations are just SMOP and no one would buy them or pay to have them developed for use across scientific domains. Ask an engineer.

If you don't think that there's a difference between a plain description of a mathematical idea and an algorithm to implement it, you haven't been doing scientific or engineering computing.

Re:Bad Patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

unfounded statements like the following one found in the body of this very story:

Given all the discussions about how so many bad patents are being granted, could this be a good thing?


I suppose the absense of discussion questioning the legitimacy of specific patents - and the patent system as a whole - is what gives that statement a ring of hollowness.

Why should I care if you're a Harvard Teaching Fellow: Get your head out of your ass and read the sentence as it is written - then pass judgement. Otherwise please abstain from putting your lack of regard for anyone else's writing into public fora.

cheers

Re:Bad Patents?

[paiute]

A freshman at Harvard is looking for the library, so he goes up to an upperclassman and asks, "Excuse me, but where's the library at?"

The upperclassman superciliously looks down his nose at the freshman and answers, "At Harvard, we never end a sentence with a preposition."

To which the freshman gamely responds, "Oh, I'm sorry, man, let me rephrase that. Where's the library at, asshole?"

Re:Bad Patents?

[kahei]

Good grief, is _this_ all it takes to teach at Harvard?

The 'unfounded statement' you mention

1: is a question, not a statement
2: contains no assumptions about the number of any kind of patents being granted

You are _not_ good enough for a community college. You badly need to understand basic logic. Ick.

Re:Bad Patents?

[k98sven]

You just say "NO", algorithms aren't math and somehow the fact that people pay for implementations of algorithms proves that?
That's just silly.

Algorithms central to a branch of mathematics known as "discrete mathematics". Integral calculus is a part of "analysis".
The entire world of mathematics is more than just what you learned in high-school, you know.

"Ask an engineer" -I have a masters degree in engineering, thank you. And I do scientific computing for a living.

Re:Bad Patents?

[njcoder]

Guess they don't make teaching fellows like they used to.

"There simply has not been any study of the quantity of 'bad' patents versus 'good' patents."

Ok.... so what does that have to do with discussions about bad patents? " Given all the discussions about how so many bad patents are being granted, "

There has also been a surge in the number of patents. If next year we had 30 times more movies made than last year, would you think someone inven ted some magical pill that awakens our deep cinemagraphic abilities?

Salaries for examiners

[zuikaku]

"work and have risen through the ranks, and young examiners, either fresh out of law school or still working on their degrees, who stay perhaps five years before moving on to the more lucrative private sector."

While I would hope that higher salaries would attract better employees, I seriously doubt that the government ever could (or should) compete with the range of salaries that these lawyers can earn in the private sector, especially if you factor in the occasional large jury award.

I think it's more important to attract more of the people who enjoy that kind of work and less of those who are using this as a stepping-stone. Increasing the salary is not very likely to accomplish this, unless the increase is for those who work there more than just five years.

Re:Salaries for examiners

[shaka999]

How do you differentiate the work done in the private sector by that done in the public? I guess you could find people who would rather review applications then prepare them but thats a long shot. Increasing salary is a sure fire way to get, and retain, people.

Personally this is one thing I'll never understand. People refuse to allow our governments to pay competitive salaries and then are upset when they have to stand in line because some clerk is completely incompetent. You get what you pay for!

Re:Salaries for examiners

[zuikaku]

Increasing salary can be a good way to get and retain people, but it's not a panacea.

The important thing, if we want to retain quality employees at the patent office, is to find a way to tie salary to performance - perhaps those examiners who have the fewest patents overturned should be paid more, or something like that.

Making salary dependent on performance may help eliminate the deadwood as well, as those who are incompetent will have trouble getting pay raises and may eventually be encouraged to find more appropriate work elsewhere. If we simply raised every examiner's salary the same amount, the message would be that no one really cares how well (or poorly) you do your job.

Re:CHRIST THIS DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING MAKE SENSE

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that I made you read through it and TRY and understand it before you came to the conclusion that I'm either crazy or a troll.
(and yes, I am a crazy troll...I'm gathering up Mod points)

I think it's time..

[Anonymous Coward]

to privatize the patent office. Contract out the work of reviewing patents, and renew the contracts of the best workers when the contracts expire.

Re:I think it's time..

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah because that won't be abused at all...

Re:I think it's time..

[zuikaku]

In general I believe privatization is a good trend in government. This may be one of those rare instances where it's not necessarily a good idea, however, unless some safeguards are put in place to prevent (or at least discourage) the misuse of the patent office.

The thing that gives me pause when it comes to privatizing the patent office is that this is an organization that is devoted to granting temporary monopolies to companies so that those companies can recoup the money spent on developing the technology. Monopoly powers should not be granted lightly.

Of course, the current patent office is abusing this power, or at least enabling others to abuse this power. Perhaps privatization isn't a bad thing after all!

Madrid Protocol

[MeBadMagic]

They must be trying to make up for the
Madrid Protocol
where now you have a direct means of applying for registration in 60 countries throughout Europe, Asia, Latin and South America by filing a single application in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
hmmmm......

Social Security

[Anonymous Coward]

A step in the right direction, but isn't the relentless siphoning of funds from Social Security a more pressing issue? The longer we ignore these issues, the more momentum the debt train builds up and the harder it will be to stop it.

Every week the government takes money from my paycheck, ostensibly for my retirement. Then they spend the money for their own pet projects, and have no feasible plans for restoring those funds. If a bank did the same thing it would be called fraud, massive fraud. (Banks reinvest your funds they don't spend your money to pay expenses.)

Re:Social Security

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like the kind of guy who gets a speeding ticket then complains that cops should be out catching the real criminals.

Re:Social Security

[Anonymous Coward]

Every week the government takes money from my paycheck, ostensibly for my retirement.

Um, where did you get that idea? There's nothing in the code that says that you're entitled to a thing (except medicare and basic benefits, but then they turn around and say that those can be changed at any time.) Besides, SSI is just that - supplemental income. YOU'RE responsible for your retirement, whether that be via self-savings or via a pension. Social security is just a bonus - and one you shouldn't rely on.

As far as the money that they're taking from you? Well, that's going to pay the benefits for the people who are currently retired... people, who, due to longer lifespans, will be drawing on the SSI fund for a lot longer than originally planned.

Re:Social Security

[argoff]

Well, if you're saying that we need to reform social security too, by getting rid of it. Than I am all for it. It is clearly the biggest exploiting the elderly, racket, ponzi-scheme ever to birth upon the history of human kind.

The soluion, as in any similar crime, is to stop the exploitation, halt the collection, and punish those responsible for promoting the scheme to begin with.

Re:Social Security

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the parent poster, but how the hell did this get modded up so high (+4)? Its fucking OFF TOPIC! Go post this on the Social Security sucks board.

Re:Social Security

[Bull999999]

I second that! I can put that money in a conservative tax free or deferred investment and still beat out social security a wide margin, esp. if they plan on cutting social security payments in the future.

Re:Social Security

[Anonymous Coward]

This is totally off-topic, but you are completely correct, of course. Being on the tail-end of the Boomer generation, when (if?) I retire, I'll be lucky to get $1/week from FICA, after having paid 7.5%+ of my income (and my employers' matching 7.5%) into the fund for over 45 years. I for one would be happy just to get back the $$ I've contributed already, so I can invest them in my 401(k). Heck, I wouldn't even charge interest...call it an interest-free loan to the Gummint, in exchange for protecting my *ss from those naughty Viet Cong and those pesky Iraqis.

public forum for patents

[garns]

Wouldn't it be grand if when a patent was applied for it was sent out to a number of people who had signed up to review patents of a certain type. These people would provide feedback to the patent auditor and there would then be the possibility of a quick rejection.

Otherwise the auditor would have to do the same leg work as before, but this should reduce the amount of time a paid employee would have to review a patent, and allow more time for them to evaulate the "tricky" ones.

Re:public forum for patents

[MoebiusStreet]

Interesting idea, but I don't think it would actually work.

Would the applicant have any recourse if you (the volunteer vetter) provided bad input? It wouldn't be fair if he didn't have a way to challenge bad calls. Consider the liabilities that you could incur.

Also, it's likely that interested parties would be competitors. It would be difficult to ensure impartiality (it may also be hard for me to spell it :) )

Re:public forum for patents

[garns]

I would say that any evidence offered by the volunteer would have to be verifiable.

Also, it would be to advantageous to have competitors reviewing a patent application as they would have a motive for finding prior art (so they could use it).

I guess the way I am looking at it is to reduce the number of patents that are granted. So that the ones that are granted are valid.

The idea is to reduce the workload of the patent invesitgtor.

Huh?

[extra the woos]

A good thing? LoL. All the article talks about is this making patents go through the system faster. "the company has been frustrated by the long wait for several key patents that, if granted, could strengthen its intellectual-property position in its target digital audio, infrared and MP3 chip markets" YAY! Maybe congress was siphoning off funds because the patent office is worthless? Congress isn't usually as dumb as you think :) What it sounds like to me is tons of intellectual property companies lobied congress hard for this change, they just want their patents to fly through the system faster.

Re:Huh?

[dreamchaser]

It also talks about hiring more skilled engineers to better vet technical patent applications. I'm still not holding my breath though...

More lawyers (yeah, believe it!) might help...

[cenonce]

I used to work in the Trademark Division at the USPTO. One of the criticisms my friends on the Patent side had was that there were too many patent examiners who were engineers and not lawyers as well. They would issue patents even though there was caselaw to support not granting a patent in a particular case. My friends felt the Patet side needed more lawyers, who understand the legal theory behind the patent system and less engineers, who appeared to issue patents based purely on scientific theory.

I don't know if there are right or not. And I am certain there are some lousy lawyers as well as some lousy engineers issuing patents in the Patent Office. The question is, why should the Patent office be any different than any other Federal agency that requires an attorney to represent the interests of the public good?

Re:More lawyers (yeah, believe it!) might help...

[ewhac]

I have a very, very stupid question: Why are lawyers involved in the patent process at all?

I mean, yeah, it's a legal document at all, and a lawyer could wordsmith your similar creation into non-infringing territory. But, at the core, patents are about engineers communicating with other engineers. So why are patents written by lawyers, people unfamiliar with the engineer's, "dialect?"

Schwab

Re:More lawyers (yeah, believe it!) might help...

[gcaseye6677]

Most patent lawyers come from some sort of technical background. A lot of them are former engineers that got sick of being like Dilbert. Some of them do go into it just for the money, but its actually a very hard field to get into since you must have a law and technical background in order to have a realistic shot at getting hired.

Balance of Interests & Preexisting Bad Patents

[amplt1337]

The question isn't whether more money for the USPTO will result in better engineers being hired, the question is whether it will remove the income incentive for approving as many patents as possible. Well, that and whether that change will shift the balance of interests enough to influence PTO behaviour.
Will there still be pressure from large corporations to get lots of patents approved? We've seen patent disputes cut both ways, so that may be a wash.

Anyway, don't hold your breath for this little change to result in massive review of the bad patents already issued. Patent law won't be in order until it's been thoroughly scoured by Congress with the express purpose of fixing it, and changing the status quo is the hardest thing for a legislative body of wealthy elites to decide to do...

Experts?

[highwaytohell]

What so called experts will they hire? Tech experts who have been in the industry for several years or more politicians who could siphon off a bit more money to advance their political status? WHy does it seem that whenever it comes to patents, everyone is either passing the buck, or chasing their own tail.

Re:Experts?

[normal_guy]

Why does it seem that whenever it comes to patents, everyone is either passing the buck, or chasing their own tail.

Because they don't read Slashdot.

This Sucks. They might disallow my application!

[Selecter]

I have recently thought up a new invention that is a refinement on existing stuff but not the same as that stuff in a number of ways. I am going about the business of finding out if my "invention" is marketable - I dont want the existing laws messed with too much in terms of quality becuase I dont believe it's nessacary.

I'll give an example, an absurd one. Somebody actually succeeded in getting a patent for a helmet that you wore on your head that was airtight - except you would be breathing oxygen generated by little cactus's that sat on a shelf near your ears inside the helmet !!!! No, it's not a gag!

The point is that anyone but that inventor knows that that patent is wasted time and effort on the inventors part, but he paid his share of the fees too. I dont want some one at the government looking at my patent for worthyness or not; that's NOT what they should do. The *marketplace* determines that, not the patent office. A patent on a stupid or unneeded thing is worthless.

We dont need armies of government types doing this. The marketplace does it for us.

Time for a change

[TygerFish]

This may be heartening news.

As things stand today, getting a patent, from the most complex biotechnologies, to the simplest gadget costs tons and takes years.

If, for once, the government does it right, ignores the lobbyists, and provides for the patent office to be less of a cash-cow by taxing crackpots, and granting every unscrupulous firm that asks a seventeen-year lock on breathing, we might see a time when it costs less to come up with an idea and use it to quit your day-job.

And on that day, I for one will shout 'Halliluyah!'

This is BAD news

[argoff]

The patnet office needs to have less power, not more. When's the last time you ever herd of a bureauocracy being improved by throwing money at it.

The simple fact is, patents are evil, especially pharmacutical patnets where they have done little to create medical breakthroughs (inspite of all the propaganda to the contrary) but they have done alot to lock out people who are dying and can not afford certain types of medicine. Hell, they even sued the nations of Africa for creating generic drugs for people who's percapita GDP is less then $400 per year! This is not what I call innovation. And those countless millions of dollars worth of ads for lipator, are not what I call innovative either.

Re:This is BAD news

[Rakishi]

Creating new drugs is expensive, the R&D is high, then you get the costs of FDA approval (necessary trials, etc.). This is doubly so now that a single lawsuit for a single drug can kill a company. So without patents what incentive will there be for companies to research new drugs? The maybe 6 months you get to sell it for before someone makes a cheaper alternative since copying costs a lot less? Yeah they're suing African countries but at the same time without them the drug would never exist in the first place. There are already drugs which are never sold because they would not be profitable (few people have the disorder).

Re:This is BAD news

[argoff]

Creating new drugs is expensive, the R&D is high, then you get the costs of FDA approval (necessary trials, etc.). This is doubly so now that a single lawsuit for a single drug can kill a company. So without patents what incentive will there be for companies to research new drugs? The maybe 6 months you get to sell it for before someone makes a cheaper alternative since copying costs a lot less? Yeah they're suing African countries but at the same time without them the drug would never exist in the first place. There are already drugs which are never sold because they would not be profitable (few people have the disorder).


Most of the cost of new drugs does not go into R&D it goes into marketing, and to say drugs wouldn't be invented is very presumptions (think insulin, think penacillin they happened inspite of patents not because of them) And if too much regulations and liabilities are killing our medicine companies, that might be a good argument for reducing liabilities and regulations, but not a good one for patents.

In addition, you are ignoring how patents have a profound effect on collaberation. 500 researchers who are working together to find a cure for X will do alot more then 500 researchers trying to lock each other out by getting a patent application first - at considerably less cost too, and considerably less risk that they will all loose their shirts if a better cure comes along 6 months later.

Once again, patents are a fraud and a lie and they ruin peoples lives for no just reason. They day they die - our society will be alot better off and our people a lot healthier.

Re:This is BAD news

[man_ls]

Nobody in their right mind would *produce anything new of any value at all* if they didn't have some financial insentive for doing it.

That insentive is patent royalties for 9-15 years.

Face it, that's capitalism. The bottom line drives everything --- but the system approaches maximum efficiency, so it's hardly "bad"

Re:This is BAD news

[Moridineas]

How are drug companies that spent hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars developing drugs supposed to compete when a company can simply replicate their drugs for a penny, without the R&D costs?

How can they possibly make enough money to pay their scientists, to buy equipment, to fund studies, etc?

Do you have any ideas?

Re:This is BAD news

[argoff]

How are drug companies that spent hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars developing drugs supposed to compete when a company can simply replicate their drugs for a penny, without the R&D costs?

How can they possibly make enough money to pay their scientists, to buy equipment, to fund studies, etc?

Do you have any ideas?


Well isn't that the point. That's like asking how will the plantation masters ever make any money without slaves, ever recover the large cost of purchase and of running a plantation?

Of course the answer is that the road to prosperity cones thru making freedom an end in itself and not greed. Patents are not about incentive, not about freedom, not about R&D but controll and greed. That's why they are so inherently evil and need to go away.

Re:This is BAD news

[argoff]

Nobody in their right mind would *produce anything new of any value at all* if they didn't have some financial insentive for doing it.

That insentive is patent royalties for 9-15 years.

Face it, that's capitalism. The bottom line drives everything --- but the system approaches maximum efficiency, so it's hardly "bad"



That's like saying it's free market if the government granted someone a monopoly on growing oranges, because they have no "incentive" to grow oranges if someone else can. Bull. Patents have nothing to do with free markets at all, they have to do with controll. Controll that's based off of government regulation, not natural limits in supply and demand, not shortages of talent, not lack of ability, or lack of knowhow. There already enough limits and conflicts about how to use limited resources without the government adding in more, dont you think?

Orange farmers, beef producers, walmart, sears, funny thing is they seem pretty capitalistic and pretty big without special government granted monopolies on what they can sell.

So the bottom line is that the patent system is inherently unstable because it is not true to free market principles any more the plantation system and the "right to own slaves" was. It's a phony right that is a fraud because it is far more about controll that restricts how people can use inventions than it is about property or other rights. The sooner we get rid of patents the better and safer we will all be.

Re:This is BAD news

[Moridineas]

Well isn't that the point. That's like asking how will the plantation masters ever make any money without slaves, ever recover the large cost of purchase and of running a plantation?

That's a wretched example. Did you ever stop to think and wonder why slavery didn't spread outside of the south? Why it never caught on in the north, in factories, in the west, etc? It's quite simple--slavery wasn't economical! Yes it's true, there were political and religious factors LATER on, but had slavery been more economical, you can bet it would have spread far more than it did.

Besides the inaccuracy of your assumptions, I fail to see any parallels between a company spending hundreds of millions, paying hundreds of SCIENTISTS, to create drugs, and slave labor. In fact, I think we both know you just went for a standard nonfactual polemicist argument.

Of course the answer is that the road to prosperity cones thru making freedom an end in itself and not greed. Patents are not about incentive, not about freedom, not about R&D but controll and greed. That's why they are so inherently evil and need to go away.

You can spread dogmatic blither blather all you want, but you didn't address a single one of my points, except with a terribly flawed example that even had your assumptions been correct would not at all have been pertinent.

I ask you again--if a drug company spends hundreds of millions of dollars developing a new drug (and provides the livelihood of hundreds, if not thousands of employees), and a competitor can simply copy that drug and sell it at their cost to produce (minus R&D), how can the original company make any money? How can they be expected to develop any further treatments without money? If there's no money to be made in drugs, how can you expect any drugs at all to be developed?

If you have a coherent answer for this question (and I would appreciate it if you don't ramble off again into poorly defined rants about the "evil patents" -- if you just have that nonsense to spew again, please don't bother posting) I would honestly love to hear it.

Re:This is BAD news

[beakburke]

What you fail to mention is the problem that occurs for "Intellectual Property" production is not the same as that for oranges or retail business.

Patents/copyrights encourage the inventor/creator to make the knowledge widely available instead of closely guarding their work. It's a tradeoff, the knowledge is shared publically, advancing the arts and sciences, but the creator/inventory is granted a temporary monopoly on their works. The point is to allow us to build on the works of others instead of keeping technical and artistic production closed to all but a small group in order to protect their "property"

There is a cost that the "discovering" firm/individual incurs that none of it's competitors face. Even if they are highly efficient in terms of marginal production, they still have to defray the cost of R&D and FDA approval. The process is difficult and risky, and by the time drugs get to market the patent is frequently half gone. Lots of drugs never see the light of day. Remember, a drug's success isn't just Approval, it's revenue - explicit costs - opportunity costs (which are large for drug research that may take a decade or even two) from start to approval and use.

Re:This is BAD news

[argoff]

...
Did you ever stop to think and wonder why slavery didn't spread outside of the south? ...

Of course I've thought why. It is because the the industrisl revolution required a mobile and educated workforce to succede. The anti-thesus of the plantation system which bacame popular in the more tropical southern regions. Today we are are in the information age, it requires the free flow of information, ideas, and invention ... get it.

...I fail to see any parallels between a company spending hundreds of millions, paying hundreds of SCIENTISTS, to create drugs, and slave labor....

Well then let me explain it to you. Perhaps I have no incentive to grow cotton unless I can whip slaves on the plantation, perhaps I have no incentive to develop AIDS drugs unless I have the right to lock out 10 million children in Africa dying of AIDS from getting generics. You tell me if there's any moral difference. Incentive does not a right make.

I ask you again--if a drug company spends hundreds of millions of dollars developing a new drug ...

And I'll explain it to you again. The road to prosperity comes thru maing freedom an end in itself and not greed. Maybe some drug companies will go bankrupt, maybe some plantations will too. I don't give a crap, there are things infinitely more important. Once you stop asserting sone poorly thought out notion that there exists some kind of a right to restrict how others use ideas and inventions then the solutions will present themselves. Maybe, you won't like them, maybe how things turn out will suck for you. I have no sympathy because plenty of other people are needlessly dying because of the way things are now. Patnets need to die and they will one way or the other, deal with it.

Re:This is BAD news

[argoff]

FYI, I was a kid when IBM lost the lawsuit where they assumed that they had patented rights over the PC interface, and Compaq prevailed in the lawsuit that was filed against them over the BIOS imitations, and AMD won even though they had the daylights sued out of them for immitating the x86 instruction set.

So with all these presumptions of intellectual property thrown out, and all these "incentives" forever ruined. Did the industry dry up? Did R&D fizzle out? NO! In fact just the opposite happened. No, in fact it would be more accutate to say that these events triggerred a nuclear explosion of innovation never seen before in the history of human kind. Well, the funny thing is that when they could no longer compete by locking out their competitors, the only other option was to compete on innovation and costs.

Incentive to make knowledge available, advancing arts and sciences, cost of discovery, cost of R&D, unpredictable difficulties and risks. I've herd it all before and it's all crap. Patents are about winning the race by throwing up road blocks for you competitors rather then winning it by running faster, that's all there is too it.

On no uncertain terms patent monopolies are crap, they waste time, money, and they ruin peoples lives. They have no place in a free society, and people literally needlessly die because of them. The day that patents are gone forever will be a great day for humanity, freedom, free markets, and the world.

Re:This is BAD news

[Moridineas]

And I'll explain it to you again. The road to prosperity comes thru maing freedom an end in itself and not greed.

You want to decode that sentence for me? I have no clue what you're getting at that, and I quite frankly can't believe you have ANY evidence to backup whatever you're saying. Prosperity has come through free markets, free societies, and free governments--the same system that you are now trying to destroy by destroying property rights.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the only possible meaning I could get out of your sentence was that you want people to be free, but only free as you define it--for instance, people can't be free to follow their own desires, they have to be slaves to the collective will. That's not freedom bro.

Maybe some drug companies will go bankrupt, maybe some plantations will too. I don't give a crap, there are things infinitely more important.

Well I guess you're happy to just sit by and say "fuck you" to everyone that has a problem not solved by existing technology or an untreatable disease (I guess that's what you're getting at in the above paragraph) however I prefer to see forward progress, and the same progress that has made more people today live longer, healthier lives--well, I'm happy to see that continue. I guess you're still lusting after Maoist and Stalinist gulags huh?

Once you stop asserting sone poorly thought out notion that there exists some kind of a right to restrict how others use ideas and inventions then the solutions will present themselves.

Ok, let's just for a minute throw out your theoretical "maybes" and "the solution will MAGICALLY present itself--I believe in faeries!" and answer my question--if companies can't make money developing VERY expensive drugs, then who is going to have the money to invest in research and development and testing? Who is going to support the thousands of scientists that no longer have jobs thanks to you? I can't believe that you would be so cruel as to destroy the livelihoods of all those thousands, maybe even millions employed in such a noble pursuit--that's truly heartless.

Maybe, you won't like them, maybe how things turn out will suck for you. I have no sympathy because plenty of other people are needlessly dying because of the way things are now.

You're damn right I wouldn't like that future, and not just for myself, because it would be a trainwreck for all of the planet. People needlessly dying? I suppose you want some form of government control (your type usually merely wants to replace "corporation" with "government"). Well, let's just do a brief comparison of how many millions, MILLIONS of innocents have died under socialist regimes, versus free, capitalist societies. Stalin, Marx, Mao--are you an admirer of theirs? If you are, I suggest you look at the figures, and see which type of society needlessly wastes life.

Patnets need to die and they will one way or the other, deal with it.

Sure, whatever you say bro.

Re:This is BAD news

[ProfBooty]

what about disclosure? Isn't it better to allow people to improve patented technology once it is publically disclosed rather than staying a trade secret?

Re:This is BAD news

[argoff]

... Prosperity has come through free markets, free societies, and free governments--the same system that you are now trying to destroy by destroying property rights....

and ... Well, let's just do a brief comparison of how many millions, MILLIONS of innocents have died under socialist regimes, versus free, capitalist societies. Stalin, Marx, Mao--are you an admirer of theirs? If you are, I suggest you look at the figures, and see which type of society needlessly wastes life....

What the hell, I consider myself libertarian, these two sentences pretty much sum up your whole problem. Free markets and property rights are rights that exist inspite of government, not because of it. Just because the government calls something a property right does not mean that it is. Just because the government calls anything a right does not mean that it is. Why do you think I went thru all the trouble to talk about slavery. They called it a property, they cried from the mountains that is behind americas prosperity and great economic success, they wined and screamed about incentive and free markets, and it was all crap. It was not about property at all, but controll. That pretty much sums up the patent situation too. The moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact the property has natural limits where not everybody can use it at the same time. Patents have no such foundation, it's all about subjective incentives and percieved rights. There are all about creating limits for the sake of limits, not because of natural law realities.

I totally agree about those two sentences you mentioned above, the problem is that patnets are NOT property. If anything is about faries and wishfull thinking, they are.

Re:This is BAD news

[Moridineas]

What the hell, I consider myself libertarian, these two sentences pretty much sum up your whole problem. Free markets and property rights are rights that exist inspite of government, not because of it

Natural rights.. ok, so I take it you're an archo-capitalist then? Well that's weird, because most anarchos like corps. Let me put it this way, I am a libertarian, and the government exists solely to protect individual rights.

AND, being a libertarian has NOTHING to do with being against greed (I take it you've never read Ayn Rand's Virtue of Selfishness) and being libertarian doesn't mean you don't believe in IP either. For instance, Boaz, director of the Cato institute (one of the most highly regharded libertarian thinktanks if you're not familiar with it) believes in intellectual property in perpetuity--we're not talking 76 years, with a possible extension, we're talking for EVER--no one can take it from you, unless of course you say it's ok, sell it, trade it etc. A work is property like any other.

And I can't help but notice, that you've yet again failed to have any possible suggestion about how in magical fearie land where corporations are not allwoed to be greedy and property rights aren't allowed to be enforced (doesn't sound libertarian to me) any company..ANY COMPANY..could hope to make a go of it. Forget just drug companies.. You would destroy the engine of world prosperity for some imagined egalitarian ideals.

Re:This is BAD news

[argoff]

...And I can't help but notice, that you've yet again failed to have any possible suggestion about how in magical fearie land where corporations are not allwoed to be greedy and property rights aren't allowed to be enforced ....

And I couldn't help to notice that you avoided the slavery analogy. So is slavery a property right or is it not? What's the mater, aren't you pro american, don't you believe in property rights, commerce, and business, how will the plantations recover their costs and be profitable without slaves? You answer that question, and I'll answer yours.

You remind me of "singapore inc", they talk about commerce and markets - but they're really statist officials preserving the're cozy little butts - that's the greed I'm refering too. Maybe that's the problem with the old guard in the LP too. If you know that much about the LP, then you know damn well that alleged "intellectual property (meaning copyright and patent monopolies)" is anything but a settled issue - so it's rather cocky of you to go off like anyone against IP is some kind of socialist. It's bad enough that your unfounded assertions that patents are a property right are more likely to screw you than help you, but that you want to screw everyone else too under the false pretext of free markets noless is what will be your undoing.

Re:This is BAD news

[Moridineas]

And I couldn't help to notice that you avoided the slavery analogy. So is slavery a property right or is it not?

As a libertarian I would say that no, slavery is not a property right, _however_ you can sell your labor to anyone you want. That's not slavery though. You have the freedom to work for whoever you want (and they have the freedom to hire you, or not).

What's the mater, aren't you pro american, don't you believe in property rights, commerce, and business, how will the plantations recover their costs and be profitable without slaves? You answer that question, and I'll answer yours.

I think I answered that above, but I'll restate some points I made earlier--plantations were uneconomic before the end of slavery. That's one of the reasons why the south was so far behind the north economically and in most other ways. In addition, plantations were only really viable for a short window of time, and in certain geographic areas (and there weren't even that many big plantations in exist). I'm really not fond of this example... There is no choice, no freedom in slavery (duh), slaves are the subject of violence and force. That is why slavery is not a right.

Good answer?

Re:This is BAD news

[argoff]

...There is no choice, no freedom in slavery (duh), slaves are the subject of violence and force. That is why slavery is not a right.

But there is no choice with patents. I might have the knowhow to make say AIDS drugs, I might have the equiptment, I might have even invented them myself anyhow if given another month, but the government will coerce me not to do it because they call this invention a property right to the first person in line at the patent office.

Because of that, people dying of AIDS don't have a choice of who they buy drugs from, they have no freedom to do it themselves, they have no freedom to choose another vendor, when they die they have effectively been subjected to violence and force. That is why patents are not right,and why it is fair gaim to compare them to other false property rights like slavery.

Of course, if you don't like patnets, you are free to invent something else of your own, and if you don't like slaves you are free not to own them.

Are patents and copyrights economical? For example, if everyone looses controll over 10K worth of copyrights, but gains access to everyone elses 10K worth of copyrights - then that is a massive effective net gain. The same logic applies to patents. The same logic does not apply to tangable property like cars, because not everybody can use my car at the same time without depriving me access to it too, with copyrights and patnets they can.

Someone else making use of an invention or work does not deprive you of it's intrinsic benefit. If a factory can make their production 10% more efficient by inventing a new cog, you can better believe they will do it even if their competitors can too. If the IBM has a serious bug fix to the Linux kernel on their PC's - you can better believe they'll implement it even if their competitors can copy it. In fact the success of Linux demonstrates quite clearly that you don't need massive private monopolies to create massive achievments technical or economic.

Copyrights are already gone, and patents are comming soon precicely because they are not economical. Percicely because they can not survive the information age, just as slavery could not survive the industrial revolution. And as with slavery, the shit is already starting to hit the fan (at least with copyrights) because of of the internet. Patents will take a little longer - till rapid prototyping and nano technology reaches the home.

Re:This is BAD news

[servoled]

they call this invention a property right to the first person in line at the patent office.

Sorry to jump into your little lovers quarall, but you are just plain wrong here. The US system is based upon first to invent, not first to file. So if you invent your AIDS drug before someone else, you can choose how you wish to deal with it. Also...

For example, if everyone looses controll over 10K worth of copyrights, but gains access to everyone elses 10K worth of copyrights - then that is a massive effective net gain.

Nice example, unfortunately not everyone has an equal amount of copyrights to lose control of, making your example useless for the real world.

Re:This is BAD news

[Lehk228]

you fucking commie bastard, according to the church of the almighty dollar anyone unable to afford life-saving medicine should not benefit from said medicine. Survival of the fittest, anything else is blasphemy.

/Sarcasm

Re:This is BAD news

[Anonymous Coward]

All Stalin and Mao demonstrated is that you can't impose communism at gunpoint. Not that they were really trying for anything like what Marx described; they created plain old dictatorships disguised in communist rhetoric.

Re:This is BAD news

[Anonymous Coward]

Society only comes out ahead if the total cost of licensing the patent is lower than the cost for others to rediscover the invention (via independent research or reverse engineering). Capitalism works when you reward the most efficient producers, not the first one to make any progress at all.

Re:This is BAD news

[Moridineas]

I recommend Nobel prize winner Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" for a comprehensive explanation of why communist/socialist societies must inevitably devolve into dictatorships.

More, or less?

[EzInKy]

Smith, who chairs of the House Judiciary Committee's IP panel, said his bill, H.R. 1561, could result in 140,000 more patents being issued in the next five years. "That's 140,000 more economic opportunities for the American people," Smith said.

Maybe, but chances are for every one of those 140,000 monopolies there will be ten potential competitors who won't have any economic opportunities at all.

This is NOT a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The fundamental breakage in the patent system today is that the patent office has only incentives from people getting patents. They get money per patent issued. They have every incentive to issue patents. They have no real incentives to be careful. That diffused cost is borne through society, but isn't an issue that is ever raised with the patent office.

This kind of feedback loop is well-known to economists. It goes under the name, "regulatory capture". And the patent office which was meant to regulate the patent system has indeed been completely captured by the interests of people who want patents issued.

Increasing how efficiently people get rewarded for existing behaviour doesn't help. Attempting to speed the process up while leaving the incentive system in its current broken state will make things worse.

Fix the incentives. First.

Re:This is NOT a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's bullshit. Like the trademark office, patents require that a fee be paid *at the time of application*. This means you pay them money whether they approve the patent or not. If you send them money and a ridiculous patent, then they'll keep your money and reject your application (hopefully).

And the patent office is one of the few branches of gov't that actually takes in more money from application fees than it needs to operate, so the surplus went back into general funds. This legislation lets the patent office put that money back into hiring new (and hopefully better) patent reviewers and other staff. Sounds fine to me.

Re:This is NOT a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The USPTO gets $8320 ($2100 right away, $6220 spread over the next twelve years) for issuing a utility patent but only $770 (the filing fee) for rejecting one. Worse, if an examiner has to send an application back to the filer more than once to clarify or narrow the scope, they can't count that work towards their quota. Sleazy patent agents know this, so they keep filing requests--after the first challenge the examiner will often let anything through, because the ones who won't get fired eventually.

could this be a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know. Let's ask Martha.

Re: Jackass

[Anonymous Coward]

You certainly know how to 'qualify' yourself.

You get modded up for being a 'TF at Harvard', but to me it means nothing.

Yes, there are soooo many bad patents being granted.
What the fuck did you expect, "33.2 % of patents are bad"?

Harvard my ass- get back to fucking work.

Interesting example of a good patent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents on compression are good patents?

You mean like the LZW patent that Unisys has? Yes, I mean this one. See also here. You could have chosen a better type of patent to defend.

An interesting data point. Several years ago from a random sample it was estimated that about 70% of software patents would not actually hold up in court. (It would take me a while to track the quote down. Anyone who wants to troll through the fsb archives looking for it, can.) Some would, but most wouldn't. However portfolios of mostly invalid patents are a useful negotiating weapon since nobody wants to go through the court fees to prove patents invalid. And if you think that you'll get it granted, what incentive do you have to not seek a probably invalid patent? Of course economists are far from convinced that even legally valid patents are economically beneficial to grant.

As long as the system produces such a lopsided ratios of clearly bogus to legally tenable patents, the existence of occasional arguably reasonable patents does not justify the system as it stands.

Re:Interesting example of a good patent...

[bladernr]

Several years ago from a random sample it was estimated that about 70% of software patents would not actually hold up in court.

Ok, I've seen this sort of thing on /. for a while, and thought someone else would say it, no one did, now I am: the purpose of the vast majority of software patents is not to enforce them.

They are marketing gimics. "Acme Graphical Design: Using patented Make-It-Better technology...". Some companies advertise using the absolute number of patents they've been granted, like it was some sort of race, and buyers would buy from whoever won. The companies know they are not enforceable; thats not the point.

This is not, of course, universally true. Companies like Rambus are deadly serious about enforcement. I am just saying that an awful lot of these are simply to claim some percieved intellectual leadership.

conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

If the patent office recieves a fixed budget regardless or the number of patents they grant, they can objectively determine whether or not to grant the patent.

If their budget depends on the number of patent applications they get, which depends on the number of patents they grant, then it is in their interest to grant more and more patents - regardless of merit.

How about a distributed prior art search?

[junkmail]

Just post each new questionable patent idea on Slashdot and let the responses guide the search.

Closing the barndoor after the cows are out

[gcaseye6677]

This is too little too late, even if it is well intentioned. There are enough bad patents out there to make a fortune for the owners for the next 20 years. Worse, the patent litigation process is so expensive for defendants that they often settle even knowing that the plantiff could never prevail in court. Not too many small companies have $1 million, which can be necessary to spend on a patent defense. So even with reforms, it will still be just as possible to bully small firms with patent barratry as a business model. Until it is more realistic for someone to defend themselves against bogus patent claims, new laws about what you can patent won't do much good.

ALL patents are bad

[argoff]

The facts are:

1. There are bad patents. No one disputes that - like the amazon patent on one-click shopping and the transmeta patent on code-morphing.
2. There are good patents. Patents on compression are a good example of such patents. They involve some serious work by one or two geniuses who deserve some monetary reward on their work.


This is the whole problem, too many people don't see patents for what they are. They are not a form of "protection", they are a form of controll. Sort of like saying "well the King disallows bad religions, and the King disallows good religions - so we should do a study of which religions are good and which religions are bad" . NO, Pull your head out!!! Annytime you restrict how people can use any type of innovation you are going to have negative and unpredictable consequences. Some are worse than others, but lets get real - as long as patents exist you are not going to have a fair patent system any more then we could expect a King to fairly choose which religions people can worship. (eg. how do you know that 50 other people wouldn't have independently invented similar compression routines within the next year or so anyhow patents or not, is their work and effort worthless)

The end in itself is to get rid of Patents, anything that goes in that direction is inherently good, anything that pulls away from it is inherehtly bad.

Re: FIRST POST

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right, the FTC, the folks that are supposed to protect us from online crime and scams, have an unsecured redirect script that has been hijacked for a tubgirl link. This should answer any questions that anyone has about whether the government will be able to help make the Internet a safer place.

what we pay for?

[bodrell]

People refuse to allow our governments to pay competitive salaries and then are upset when they have to stand in line because some clerk is completely incompetent. You get what you pay for!

I would love to pay government employees competitive salaries (though not exorbitant), but you're assuming "people refuse" to allow the government to do that. How so? If you mean people don't like tax hikes, you're right. But the reason is not necessarily because people are stingy or don't want to pay government employees fairly--it's because governments are notorious for wasting money. Do you really think allocating more money to the patent office will result in higher salaries? It may not even bring more jobs! What if all the extra money is used exclusively for decrepit equipment? And that's an example of a wise use of funds. It could very well go to landscaping of the executive bathroom, for all we know.

Let me vote on an itemized budget, and I'll gladly put money where I think it's deserved. I guarantee it won't go to corporate subsidies, or offense spending, or tax breaks for those who make over $1 million a year.

Re:what we pay for?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if all the extra money is used exclusively for decrepit equipment? And that's an example of a wise use of funds. It could very well go to landscaping of the executive bathroom, for all we know.

Unfortunately, that's all too accurate a description of the new PTO headquarters -- plenty of impressive-looking atrium spaces for VIP tours; lousy office spaces for the worker bees (for instance, examiners in the new facility aren't allowed to have amenities like coffee brewers and minifridges because the HVAC is inadequate).

New funding formula that works

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a new funding formula.

Funding = (# patents passed) / ( (length of time to validate patent) * (number of people who contest the patents in court) )

Reward examiners for obvious/prior art findings

[Anomalyst]

Take this new appropriation and use it to reward diligence by examiners to correctly declare a patent obvious and/or covered by prior art. This should reduce the frivolous filings and motivate the examiners to perform the job to the best of their ability. Findings by the initial examiner should be anonymously verified by a more senior examiner. Take it a step further, REQUIRE that a minimum number of possible "prior art" candidates be attached to the patent by the initial examiner. Points off their bounty for those that do not pass muster and bonuses for those that do.

Re:Reward examiners for obvious/prior art findings

[ProfBooty]

if you knew anything about the patent process you would know that findings by a junior examiner are already verifyed by a senior examiner.

The vast majority of patents are rejected the first time around, its after several rejections that patents are allowed.

When a patent is allowed, the examiner has to specifically state what portion of the claims are not found in the prior art. Prior art is then discussed saying what portion of the claims have been done. Its called a notice of allowability.

Also patents list all the prior art which was cited by the examiner and the applicant, you can see it on the front page of each patent. It isn't a list of all the prior art the examiner found, but usually what they thought was most pertainent to the application.

Re:Reward examiners for obvious/prior art findings

[Anomalyst]

I'll cop to ignorance of the patent procedure. What you describe sure looks right and proper on phosphors. So why is the system so broken? For the hoops and obstacles you descibe, one would think that there shouldn't be more than a hundred truly innovative ideas patented in any year. It sure appears as if there are not ENOUGH hoops and the ones that exist might be too easy or too easily gamed by the unscrupulous.

patenting a process

[Anonymous Coward]

so whats the difference between the numbers and the control of temperature? If you made a device to control the temperature that's one thing... but the idea itself.... personally I think being able to patent the concept of PCR is as bad as a computer algorithm. They both are too similar in principle to afford one protection and not the other. Patenting a machine that performs PCR would be far more appropriate (IMHO (wow! first time I used this abrev!!))
As far as being against patents: I just don't like to pay for stuffs. However, I do understand the uproar in the computer industry and I figure if PCR deserves protection then there are ideas in computing that deserve protection... but what is just a basic principle should not be patentable even under the current system... and those are the patents currently being granted in the computer field that are causing such an uproar. Raising the bar as to what is non-trivial on the other hand would be a fair solution, but one that would require educated people able to conduct proper background checks on the subject

It doesn't require courts.

[Short Circuit]

Challenging patents needn't involve the courts, if it's done properly. Currently, you're supposed to submit the evidence of prior art, then pay for a reexamination of sorts.

If there was a website dedicated to collecting evidence of prior art and funds for a reexamination request, then the people who are interested in a patent being invalidated could share the cost.

worse than worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't be worthless. It will be worse than worthless. Giving more money to a demonstrably incompetent organization simply rewards their poor behaviour. Or, put another way, perhaps there are people pulling the pursestrings who *like* the patent office's performance, and would like to see more of it. There's nothing in this legislation which mandates, or even suggests, that the patent office is guilty of gross incompetence. Yet that is exactly the problem, and giving them more money will only incite further idiocy. Even if they *were* competent, their corporate obeisance make them nothing more than tools of the oligarchs.

Will a 7% Solution be Enough?

[serutan]

It says Congress has taken away $750 million in revenue since 1992. That's less than $70 million per year. Adding that $70 million back into the patent office's $1 billion budget is only a 7% increase. Should we expect a huge difference?

Nothing New

[syntap]

This happens every year... fees from the Patent Office are often grabbed for budget-balancing purposes. When this gets out of committee it'll be the same thing... fees that could go toward hiring patent examiners, better automation, etc will be siphoned off to pay for studies on the mating habits of daffodils or something.

Re:Bad Patents? (Yew wrayt purdy... huh, huh)

[TygerFish]

I'm posting anonymously for obvious reasons. I'm a Teaching Fellow (TF) at Harvard, and as part of my work I have to mark assignments. I'd say most of the assignments I mark contain unfounded statements like the following one found in the body of this very story:

I'm a bouncer in a bar and I can post as myself.

The poster whose lines you find objectionable do contain evidence: it is anecdotal and not statistical, but it is by no means absent, nor is the original poster's assertion unfounded.

The original poster cites evidence based on the volume of discussion in one or more forums, thus bypassing expensive and difficult-to-quantify analysis by engineers and statisticians.

As the examples you yourself provide point out, the original poster was right to reason as he did--citing only evidence of public interest--because it is a given that both good and bad patents are granted as a result of the current process.

Considering the nature of the legislation in question (e.g., measures to maintain and increase the number of skilled examiners by retaining funds from fees), the actual number of 'good' versus 'bad' patents is, as you should recognize, irrelevant.

Harvard must be lowering its standards.

Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Possibly... or they could just be making up for lost revenue and thus expand the patent office work force so that they can churn out patents even faster than the medieval popes could sell indulgences.

Re:This Sucks. They might disallow my application!

[Chris Burke]

I'll give an example, an absurd one. Somebody actually succeeded in getting a patent for a helmet that you wore on your head that was airtight - except you would be breathing oxygen generated by little cactus's that sat on a shelf near your ears inside the helmet !!!! No, it's not a gag!

What are you saying? That's an awesome idea! Assuming you can get a cactus that could match a human beings CO2 emissions/O2 requirements, which seems doubtful...

But I see it doing two things -- first, providing divers, astronauts, and people living in Gary, IN with a continuous source of clean air that lasts much longer than the tanks they currently have to use. And second, as an aid to teach irresponsible people to take care of their plants.

Maybe they'll spend time searching ALL CVS trees.

[openmtl]

When any software application gets examined then all Open Source CVS trees for related software should examined as prior art in the same field of endevour.

A CVS repository is a published work thats readily and publicly available.

Maybe the USPTO will not spend time doing the right deep searching that it should.

Its a crock that the Patent process grows lengthier and more costly as technology gets more complex: Thats like saying that as the Internet gets bigger it gets harder to search it because there are so many pages. Hello - anyone heard of Google ?. As technology gets more complex it automatically brings with it the ability for it to be understood. Until we get self-learning machine intelligences filling patents, its humans who file patents and unless they plan to use some weird Elf /Orc language its in English, albeit Patentese.

No - the Patent system is suffering because (what should be) golden rules of non-obvious to persons trained in the art are not being followed. The extra money is required to help buy the right people and they are expensive, and develop the right technologies to help speed the search process - which will also be expensive if neural nets are needed to be trained and maintained.

There is no logical reason why an expert system could not be trained. If the expert system says it don't know about what the patent claims are claiming then it must be new ! If it laughs and says been-there done-that, then the patent doesn't get issued.

machine vs. process

[bodrell]

I don't see a clear distinction between the process and the machine, as stated by you. If the "machine" is actually an entire chemical plant, then is it patentable? If every step of the way uses parts that have been around forever (heat exchangers, pumps, stirrers, flash drums, etc.) then is it patentable? What if the sequence of several well-known steps, is the crucial element, because an intermediate material is destoyed/never produced when the sequence is different?

I agree, the line is shady, but perhaps a better solution than not allowing such patents is to have different time periods for different types of patents. Like 2-3 years for software patents, 10 years for biological patents, and different amounts of time for other types. It's pretty arbitrary, but I do think some sort of patent system should exist, if for no reason but to protect small inventors/businesses (who would otherwise have no leverage to keep established businesses from taking the idea and running with it).

hyperbole

[bodrell]

You are completely right, in some cases. Like DNA/genes. Should a sequence be patentable? People have already patented a breast cancer gene, which has prevented valuable research due to someone's greed. But what if someone mutated a naturally-occurring gene to produce a protein with extraordinary properties? Do the "rules" apply here? What if it's a completely invented DNA sequence that encodes the protein? Should the work done to create that protein be unrewarded? Or would it be better for the discoverers/inventors to keep the sequence under lock and key, like the Coca-Cola recipe, so no one will be able to benefit from it for free, ever?

And the logical extension of your claim is that circuits can't be patentable since they are composed of capacitors, resistors and inductors, all of which "behave" according to mother nature's rules. Or is there some obvious boundary that I've overlooked?

The existing rules we have about patents are not so bad, but they certainly aren't applied well. A patent cannot be obvious (check). A patent must be new, and of value (check). But how are these criteria to be interpreted? The only simple answer--to bar all intellectual property--doesn't apply to most of the world, because we are not communists. We agree intellectual property exists, in general, but we disagree about how it is to be managed.

Re:Maybe they'll spend time searching ALL CVS tree

[Anomalyst]

Then feed all the existing expired and current patents into the expert system and invalidate the current patents that expert system shows to be obvious or prior art. Should weed out 99.9999% of the Microsoft and IBM software patents.

Will this really work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, there's an economic incentive for the patent office to allow anyone to patented anything. (they don't of course, but the incentive is there none the less.)

If this bill passes, then there will be an economic incentive or the patent office to allow anyone to patented anything. (they won't of course, but the incentive will be there none the less.)

Re:This Sucks. They might disallow my application!

[ewhac]

The point is that anyone but that inventor knows that that patent is wasted time and effort on the inventors part, but he paid his share of the fees too. I dont want some one at the government looking at my patent for worthyness or not; that's NOT what they should do. The *marketplace* determines that, not the patent office. A patent on a stupid or unneeded thing is worthless.

In an ideal universe, where all patents issued were novel and non-obvious; and infringement required substantial overlap, you would be correct.

Sadly, it is not that way. Patents are awarded for trivia and, as such, infringement can happen on an equally trivial basis. In the case of your example, a sealed helmet with a cactus as an O2 source is pretty silly. However, if someone came up with a helmet using a different O2 regenerator, then the cactus guy could sue him, claiming infringement. After all, substituting the O2 regenerator is a "trivial" change to his patent. Who cares if the suit has merit? The court costs alone will ruin you.

You can't just hand out patents like Roman Catholic Indulgences. They need to be founded on solid principles. The "value" of an invention may not be a very good principle, but it's better than what the USPTO is using now (which, to the jaundiced eye, appears to be nothing at all).

Schwab

Stop the abuse!

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Hopefully this bill will prevent abusive patents from making it out the gates.

Well, if we're lucky

[jelle]

If we're lucky, they will actually be able to hire a lot of good engineers to review all those patent applications. So that in the end, after all the outsourcing, and more and more lawyers applying for patents for business politics reasons (baystar?), all us engineers will be employed by the USPTO reviewing the deluge of patent applications of the local lawyers plus the outsourced engineers...

Of course, 'lucky' in this context is only true for those who can manage reading the patent application texts without falling asleep or going crazy...

This is not really a good thing...

[Eric Damron]

"The hope is that increased money in the coffers will allow the hiring of more highly skilled engineers to look at technical patents, as well as speed up the sometimes ponderous process of securing a patent. The bill has passed the house with a resounding 379-28 vote, and now goes to the Senate. Given all the discussions about how so many bad patents are being granted, could this be a good thing?"

The rate at which large monopolistic software companies are applying
for software patents is astounding. There have been something
like four million software patents applied for in just the last few
years. At that rate it doesn't matter if there are hundreds of
highly skilled engineers to the payroll. They will still be
unable to give the needed time to make good judgment calls.

The only real solution is to abolish software patents altogether.
I fear that a large company of questionable character who will remain
unnamed but who's initials are "Microsoft" will try to use software
patents to destroy Linux.

Groklaw has a good article
dealing with this subject. Well worth the read if you haven't
read it already.

Re:This is not really a good thing...

[ralphh]

Another (less desirable, but more likely) solution is to let the number of software patents balloon into the tens or hundreds of millions, then let the whole asinine system collapse under its own absurd weight.

Of course the people and organizations benefitting from the current mess won't let it go that far.

Re:This is not really a good thing...

[Eric Damron]

Interesting possibility.

I don't know that the system will actually collapse however. Probably what will happen is that patents will be selectively enforced. That is Microsoft won't sue other large corporations like IBM who would have an arsenal of patents that it could counter sue over but they would be glad to make strategic strikes against open source groups in an attempt to kill or at least slow what they now perceive as their greatest threat. Linux.

I strongly doubt this

[Anonymous Coward]

At least when it comes to software patents.

The patents that giants like IBM, Intel and Microsoft have do not form a major part of their marketing. If they are not part of their marketing, then it is unlikely that they are recognizing a major sales benefit from them.

However what IBM does do (and says that it does) is a lot of cross-licensing. IBM's portfolio provides a huge incentive to get other major players to cross-license with IBM. (Oops, did we trample on your patent? Well how many of ours are you infringing on? Wanna talk this over before you do anything silly?) That way neither company has to risk taking their patents to court (where they might get thrown out).

Of course that is a scale defence. IBM is so big and has so many patents that virtually anyone can be found to be infringing on a few. So they are protected from virtually everyone. But your average small company cannot even dream of doing that. Hence a big competitive advantage goes to IBM.

The result is that for the expense of having everyone maintain a patent portfolio, established players can avoid most potential problems from other people's patents, and also limit the amount of new competition that they have to deal with.

If you google around, you will have no trouble documenting quotes from players like IBM on cross-licensing suggesting that they really think like this. You will also run across plenty of cross-licensing deals that they have done.

But you'll have trouble finding marketing material from the established players where the existence of the patent is a big sell.

Which leads me to accept the patent cross-licensing theory as a better description of probable motives.

Incidentally for a decent overview of the problems that patents introduce, read this talk by Stallman.

semi retirement

[Anonymous Coward]

indeed the patent office should be staffed with semi retired professionals. i'm sure most of the old salt engineers would be very keen to be on the cutting edge again.
It's a great way to keep all that knowledge in circulation.

Patent Office Educational Video!!

[danoatvulaw]

I took a patent law class this year at school, and the professor started the class with a video put out by the patent office. it went something like this - an inventor creates an invention. he sees a lawyer who will fill out some documents for the invention and sends it to the patent office. once at the patent office, it gets sorted and passed to the examiner's office, where it SITS IN A PILE AND WAITS ITS TURN! AFTER ALL THE EXAMINER IS VERY BUSY, AND THE DOCUMENTS MUST WAIT THEIR TURN!

If that's not a prime example of inefficiency....

Re:Patent Office Educational Video!!

[mikewas]

No, having incoming work queues always full IS efficiency. The examiner is always working because he always has more work waiting.

Inefficiency is having so many examiners that the incoming queue empties. That means that the guy is sitting there with nothing to do, waiting for somebody to submit a patent application.

Re:Patent Office Educational Video!!

[Lehk228]

heh grandparent poster probably doesn't play any RTS games, you gotta keep all your workers busy all the time unless you wanna get owned

The cynic in me

[Gandalf_Greyhame]

This may just be the cynic in me speaking, but getting the senate to vote on whether or not they can siphon off money doesn't seem like it will work.

That is like taking a vote to see if your industry will take a paycut.

Hey, maybe that can be the next Slashdot poll

Would you take a paycut to continue doing your current job?

1. Yes
2. No
3. I am an American IT worker... I have no job

Re:The cynic in me

[BCW2]

Every now and then a legislative body will do something right by accident. An example: The New Mexico Educational Retirement fund. The legislature has no control over it and can't touch a penny. Thats the way it was set up over 60 years ago. Every few years someone wants to change it (how can there be state money we can't waaste) and the PEOPLE raise such a fuss that it stays. It's about the only Govt thing in that state that works.

Re: Jackass

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how the dunce who posted the grandparent comment thought that claiming to be from Harvard would get him lots of respect but everyone who replied to him said something along the lines of "Harvard must be lowering their standards". Next time you pretend to be someone you're not, loser, at least pick something where you can ever so slightly fit the part. And get out of your mom's basement a little more often.

Patent System Flawed

[solprovider]

being a patent examiner is essentially an entry-level position. Patent examiners tend to be young law-school graduates with technical undergraduate degrees.

I agree with the statements, but the emphasis may be wrong. Patent Examiner may not be the final goal of someone's career, but it should not be entry level. Patents have too much effect to be controlled by people with no experience.

Patent examiners need to:
1. Check if prior art exists.
2. Decide if it is obvious.
3. Make certain the patent is specific enough to be applicable.
4. Make certain the patent is written in legalese so normal people will not know if they are violating it.

Lawyer types have the research ability needed for #1, but so do most information scientists (librarians). Good computer applications would help.

#2 seems to be skipped completely in the current process.

#3 is the responsibility of the applicant's IP lawyer. That is why applying for a patent without your own lawyer is usually a waste of money. The patent office could offer service to assist with this, but not until they have the resources to handle it.

#4 is the part the lawyers enjoy. When they are done editing a patent, even a see-saw can seem to be innovative. ("A manual device for vertical transportation using a lever to create equilibrium between the masses." IANAL. This is still too lucid for a patent.) That is the only part where legal training is essential.

Does the patent office have recognized experts to assist with #1 and #2? It should help the resume of an electronics engineer to have a few years of patent research. Maybe there should be an organization of (amateur) patent examiners. Anybody can assist, but pay only starts (and is a very small annual award) if the peers vote you to the level of "Master", either within the organization or by other professioanl organizations. Each year they award the rank to 30 people, 10 voted in by the community, 3 appointed by the IEEE-USA, others for the skills that are required for the current patent applications. (Add a rule that you cannot be active if you have a patent being processed.)

A public forum could help with this, especially #2, if the patent office had the time to read the responses, but it would have to be done very carefully. Post the issue the patent is claiming to solve. Then read the responses to see how many match the patent. They could even "sell themselves" by suggesting to contributors of unique solutions that they apply for a patent. The responses would also help limit the patent by specifying what is not being patentable.

An easy way around this...

[tkrotchko]

You can't be a patent examiner until you have 15 years of experience in your field and you're at least 40 years old.

That will cut the patents down by about 2 orders of magnitude.

Re:An easy way around this...

[techno-vampire]

You have it wrong. It won't cut the number of applications one bit, but it will cut the number of examiners considerably, quite possibly by the two orders of magnatude you suggest. This will either slow patent approval down to an unacceptable rate, vastly increase the number of bad patents granted or (probably) both.

Re:An easy way around this...

[DaveHowe]

Wouldn't that make it impossible to get a patent in any new field reviewed by someone who knows that field for the first 15 years?

HUH?????

[Anonymous Coward]

"They involve some serious work by one or two geniuses who deserve some monetary reward on their work."

This is why you are a college boy and not working like a man in the real world.

Nobody *deserves* montary reward.... well, maybe the poor schlub at McDonalds making minimum deserves it. But nobody is entitled to wealth no matter how hard they work.

Let me give a perfect example. If you've ever been to washington DC, in the Smithsonian, American History, there is an entire model of the Capitol made entirely out of glass rods. Must've taken some poor guy years to do it. My god...the detail, the size.

If it took him 2 years...it must be worth what....
?????

Answer: It ain't worth nothing. Or maybe its worth a billion dollars. My guess is that its closer to $0, because he gave it to a museum. If it was worth $1B, then my guess is that he would have sold it.

And so it goes with patents. Is it worth nothing or something. Answer: It depends. But nothing is guaranteed.

So my answer to you is that a mathematical formula is not patentable because you didn't invent anything, you discovered a natural law. It may not be obvious, but E=mc^2 isn't obvious either. But its not patentable. Well, maybe in your world, but not back here where real people live.

Invention is too important..

[Anonymous Coward]

..to leave in the hands of individuals. Since so much, including, in the case of pharmaceuticals, lives, are dependent on inventions and ideas, the government should be the only one allowed to pursue research and invention. With possibly an exception for Microsoft.

How's that?

[jtheory]

The patent system is at its weakest when the examiners make obvious mistakes, like granting patents for technological advances that have significant prior art or are blazingly obvious extensions of existing tech.

People question the system, with reason, each time it is obviously serving to stifle innovation, like when a company with a questionable patent uses it purely to bring lawsuits against "violators" instead of even trying to develop a product.

More resources for the patent office will probably result in more and better examiners who will be able to avoid these kinds of extreme abuses... which in turn will reduce press coverage and public awareness of the continuing (but more subtle) problems -- which will in turn serve perpetuate the patent system in spite of its fundamental flaws that remain unresolved.

Making a wheel less squeaky doesn't get it greased.

Personally, I think it's a good move, simply because I don't see the patent system as a "house of cards" type of thing. There will be changes eventually (probably later rather than sooner), but it's not the kind of system that will collapse -- after all, it does serve a purpose in spite of its weaknesses and loopholes.

120,000 Bad Patents

[Someone Else Entirel]

In the debate on HR 1561, Howard Berman said, "Using a random sampling methodology, the PTO estimates its error rate for patents issued in fiscal year 2003 at 4.4 percent. That means more than 7,000 patents were issued in error. That means that at any given time given the 7-year pendency term for patents , there are over 120,000 bad patents in force. " He meant 17 year life, not "7-year pendancy", but his 120,000 figure was in the right ballpark. PTO currently gets $1.2 billion dollars to examine patents on everything under the sun... from blue lasers to new cleaning solvents to fishing reels. While some /.ers question whether giving PTO more money is wise, I can't see where starving it for cash will make it operate any better. Because it takes years not days to get a patent, USPTO is under pressure to speed things up. Speeding things up either means hiring more people to handle the cases, or spending less time on each application. Hiring more people requires more money. Spending less time means there will be more than 120,000 bad patents floating around at any given time. When judgements for single patents can cost $500 million, as in the Eolas case, and patents on drugs can be worth a billion a year (e.g., Viagra) does it really make sense to cut back the PTO budget? Again, PTO gets a mere 1.2 billion. It's not like an extra billion will break the US budget. HR 1561, which was supported by the National Association of Manufacturers, the Intellectual Property Owners Association, and the American Intellectual Property Lawyers Association, will only add an extra $300 million. $385 billion gets spent on the military and national defence. $332 Billion gets spent on interest on the national debt. $278.5 billion on health care. $46.2 billion on the federal Department of Education. Only $1.2 billion for the agency that is supposed to protect all the R&D investments made in the US?

Did you even read the Blurb?

[rsilvergun]

>>"new legislation that will stop Congress from siphoning off money from the Patent Office."

This isn't about throwing money at the problem, it's about removing some of the profit motive from recklessly granting patents. As things stand now, Congress is profiting off of the current patent madness. A Congressman can use that money to buy votes in his state with pork projects, which'll make him damn likely to support any patent that comes along.

Basically, no government agency (short of the IRS) should be turning a profit. If they are, they're either over charging or under-funding themselves.

Re:CHRIST THIS DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING MAKE SENSE

[geela]

if I DO find the hidden sense in your apparent non-sense do I get mod points?

An engineer's POV

[Gr8Apes]

Is it just me, or does this sound like it is just throwing more money at a problem and hoping it will solve itself? If the legislation doesn't have provisions to specify new procedures to actually get around to solving the problems, it is unlikely to solve much of anything.

Some info on PTO employees: they are generally easily promoted to GS-13 level (out of a max of GS-15). Now, GS-13 may sound high, but you work in DC. Guess what? The working level of most engineers/scientists in DC is a minimum of GS-12. (PS - I was already a high-end GS-13 before I left)

The PTO requires that you get a degree in patent law before getting your GS-13 (at least that's the quickest way). A GS-13 means about $5K extra a year, at least initially, over a GS-12. While they pay for schooling, you have to do it on your own time, while holding down your FT job. Once you hit your GS-13, you're making about 70-80K (it's been a few years, not sure what the new rates are and I'm too lazy to look it up) and you're stuck at that rate for quite a while, because promotions are scarce, as always. Oh, and your job's no different than the one you held as a GS-12, going over mind-numbing patent applications. (It's why the standard pay scale rate is a GS-13, and there was a requirement after getting your patent law degree, that you had to stay with the PTO 2 or 3 years or you had to repay your schooling, that's a really good incentive to not bolt the second you get your degree.)

Now, you're probably thinking, wow - 70-80K /yr is a pretty good pay rate, even in DC. Yeah, it sounds pretty good, until you realize that "reasonable" housing, in terms of location and quality of neighborhood, is somewhere between 380-600K (depending on being inside or outside the beltway). And, there's the little issue that as soon as you get your degree, you're worth somewhere between 110-140K to any of the numerous corporations/law firms in and around the area. So, that's why I only know some folks that had temporary stints with the PTO. They signed on, got their degree, put in their required time, and then reaped immediate significant rewards by leaving. If the PTO would like to hang on to more qualified folks, they need to up the pay scale significantly over time (more promotion possibilities) and give their employees more variety, such as going and defending cases, etc, since just shuffling paper appeals to them as much as most likely, you, the reader....

That is a terrible idea

[FreeUser]

to privatize the patent office. Contract out the work of reviewing patents, and renew the contracts of the best workers when the contracts expire.

Oh yeah, there's a great idea. I can see the press release a few days after that happens ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Ligitious Thugs R Us, Unlimited has signed a strategic agreement with Patent Outsources & Examiners, Inc. This historic alliance of Industry with government subsidiaries will facilitate greatly improved speed in the protection of Our Intellectual Property, and that of our Clients. We expect cases of conflicting patent applications to be resolved by Patent Outsourcers and the USPTO in a manner consistent with increasing shareholder value. This is indeed a great day for innovation in America.

Sianara any remaining pretence of fairness in an already destructive, broken system.

Re:This Sucks. They might disallow my application!

[ProfBooty]

it is not the job of the examiner to determine the marketability of a patent, because how does one judge that?

What are the standards?

A proposal for patent reform

[DickBreath]

Right now it is expensive to get a patent. Only well funded corps can file for boatloads of patents.

It needs to be cheap to receive a patent! Now everyone with a good idea can get a patent.



Oh, and did I mention that it should be very expensive to have a patent application rejected?

More high-quality drugs

[Anonymous Coward]

The patent office can use the extra money to buy more crack!

I HATE PATENTS!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that Patents should be FINITE
so that you can only hold an exclusive patent
for X number of years then it free game to anyone

BASICALY Patents should be abolished or the idea
needs to be totaly reworked

Re:I HATE PATENTS!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents are already finite. The trouble is X = 20 always and the assignee can set any price on licenses, no matter how little effort went into creating the invention.

But "profit" is the problem!

[aquarian]

The trouble with the Patent Office is that it's being used as a cash cow. There's too much incentive to grant patents, in order to generate fees. Contracting the work out would only increase this profit incentive, and make the situation worse.

Patent Office is a cash cow, hustles fees...

[aquarian]

The trouble with the Patent Office is that it's being used as a cash cow. Patents are granted too liberally in order to generate fees. There's a negative incentive to deny patents, which is one reason why we have so many bad ones.

but still

[slew]

However, if the USPTO gets to keep all the money collected when a patent is processed, then they have an incentive to allow even more things to be patented...