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The Economist on Patent Reform

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

ar1550 writes "The Economist recently posted an opinion piece on the state of patent systems, describing not just the mess that is the USPTO but flaws present in Europe and Asia. From the article, "In 1998 America introduced so-called 'business-method' patents, granting for the first time patent monopolies simply for new ways of doing business, many of which were not so new. This was a mistake." The article also describes the difficulty of obtaining legitimate patents. "

1 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Re:One-sided article by Jumbo+Jimbo · · Score: 4, Informative
    The motivation for allowing business-method patents, described in this paper from Harvard Law School is that innovations were too easy to copy - essentially the same motivation behind the original idea of patents.

    It seems that a good idea in principle may have resulted in legislation that is not working in practice because of a flawed framework / companies taking advantage (your choice). Not that I agree with the idea of business-method patents in the first place, but this may make the idea behind them clearer.