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New Patent Legislation Makes Some Headway

Posted by simoniker on from the patently-positive dept.

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?"

8 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Problem Solving 101 by funny-jack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re:Problem Solving 101 by krlynch · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. What is the HB ID? by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

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    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:What is the HB ID? by sheemwaza · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

    2. Re:What is the HB ID? by privaria · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  3. public forum for patents by garns · · Score: 5, Interesting


    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.

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  4. More lawyers (yeah, believe it!) might help... by cenonce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  5. Re:Bad Patents? by k98sven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.