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How to Fix U.S. Patents
Frisky070802 writes "IEEE Spectrum has an interesting article on how to fix the U.S. patent system. It starts with an example of how broken the system is, with Smuckers suing a small company for crustless PB&J. It has a great overview of how the system has evolved and how much it favors the big patent holders, and suggests 3 specific fixes: 'create incentives and opportunities for parties to challenge the novelty and nonobviousness of an invention before the PTO grants a patent,' examine the important patents meticulously; don't waste effort on the unimportant ones that can be ousted early, and for examining prior art, use judges and special masters rather than uninformed juries."
And here's my solution to the nation's overpacked prisons: everybody behave! See, it's really just that easy ... now go do it!
And the chances of these kind of reforms going through are... what? From a national economic standpoint, even the US has an incentive to pump out as many patents as possible, no matter how frivolous, in order to extract money from corporations in other countries, since the US is using the WTO to push its "intellectual property" regime onto as many countries as it can.
Europe has a patent problem too, don't just pick on the US!
not cool for DSL, feather linux, puppy and others USB GNU/Linux distros : link to Patent on "Portable operating system and method to load the same ".
In other news, David Boies, acting on behalf of Darl McBride, has filed three suits against IEEE for infringement of patents #13,371,337 #3,133,731,337, and #8,013,580,135, "Method for fixing the US Patent System", "Method for Borking a Patent System", and "Method for Subtly Implying That Every Idea In The World Is Mine, All Mine", respectively.
do away with patents.
Seriously, they are anticompetitive and aid MONOPOLY. If we want monopolies, do it the right way and institute Communism already. Governement-endorsed monopolies in a free-market system are bad. That's why Linux beats 'doze.
Le français vous intéresse?
bit late to "fix it". The damage has already been done, they need a system where you can go "Hey they didn't invent that!", where they will require you to give information proving the patent is totally wrong.
Wouldn't you just love to see a Slashdot article saying "Microsoft lose 50,000 patents due to false claims"?
I like muppets.
See that's the type of invention that should be patentable: it's unique, a significant advance(???) over existing products, and totally insane.
I want one, and I'd be prepared to pay a premium to the legal monopoly/patent holder to get one.
From the article:
First, create incentives and opportunities for parties to challenge the novelty and nonobviousness of an invention before the PTO grants a patent.
Prior art 'bounty hunters' and adding some common sense to the patent process sound like great ideas. Too bad they'll never be implemented, due to expensive lobbying efforts by those who stand to lose the most (i.e. the megacorps).
~Philly
Patent Raquel Welch... ...And I have a feeling she'd patent me.
Instead of bitching about how broken the USPTO is, and how the patents they grant are obvious...
Get a job at the USPTO as a patent master.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Patent reform will NEVER occur before Political reform. Political reform will NEVER occur without Citizens strongly voicing protests... and frankly, I don't feel like getting up from my computer.
This is a great way to fix the system! They should patent it!
Just put all the stupid, opportunistic, just-graduated-from-law-school-and-need-to-prove-I -have-a-large-penis lawyers on a boat, take it to the middle of the pacific, and sink it.
Seems to me like these "reforms" will only serve to lock out the small guy even more. Extra hurdles and extra expense will mean that only those who can afford the best patent attorney can get patents.
The system DOES need to change, but let's make sure that we change to a better system, not just a different one.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If you buy one of these people's gizzmos to store Linux then this is OK. If you manufactured an equivalent gizzmo and tried to sell thet then that would not be OK.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Yes, definitely use Judges. They're easier to pay off or whack, which just isn't feasible with an entire jury.
Kill all the lawyers!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
not cool for DSL, feather linux, runt, puppy, flonix and others USB GNU/Linux USB distros :
link to Patent on "Portable operating system and method to load the same ".
I think I'll patent it and sue the US PTO! =D
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Instead of proposing more reviews - which will never happen - why not assign patent length based on time and money spent by the applicant on a given patent? For example, if I come up with a patent while taking a shower my application would show that I spent all of five minutes and 0 dollars thinking about it. The USPTO might determine that it is novel but - given the effort - only grant a patent for two years. On the other hand, if I'm a big pharma who's spent tens of years and millions the USPTO might give me a patent in excess of twenty years.
This kind of a approach would dissuade people from filing trivial patents since they'd no longer get a twenty year monopoly for them. Conversely a real EUREKA kind of idea might be worth having exclusively for a year or two.
Lastly, while lawyers aren't very good at determining what is technically innovative, they are good at determining the value of things (ie contract disputes, damage awards, etc.) A lawyer can argue that an application only spent 2.4 million, not 8.2, and thus only deserves a patent for five years, not ten. Patent lawyers are better suited for those kind of battles. So while the counsel of RamBus, SCO, et al hector the USPTO with the relative development cost of one obscure process or another, the rest of us can get on with our lives knowing that we don't have to worry about XOR being patented.
Forgot to mention, my snail mail address is on the 2nd webpage. I can be contacted there.
One of the major problem with patents (in my mind) is the fact that patent holders are permitted to sit on their patents and do nothing, even when they are aware of infringing acts. Then, 10 years down the road, they spring out of nowhere with the infringement suit. This is what Unisys did with GIFs. Unisys allowed the web to become addicted to GIFs, without filing any suits. No, no... they bided their time! Wait until everyone is dependent on GIFs, THEN spring the trap; that's the key! I find this behavior to be underhanded and repugnant. UNISYS HAD TO KNOW! As if they were not aware that GIF was the image format of choice on the web. It's impossible.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
I believe Patents were created to aid innovation not aid comptetition. They exist to protect the inventor. The idea is that if you create something, and don't have the money to bring it to market, someone with money shouldn't have the right to come along, skate your idea, and elave you uncompensated for your invention.
In fact, it's been proven that patents hinder competition, but they don't hinder innovation.
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if we do away with patent law, we'll just have a bunch of unemployed lawyers on the streets. I, for one, don't want to see some guy in a grimy, torn Armani suit standing in my way in traffic with a sign that says "Will Sue For Food".
That reminds me of that joke... what's the difference between a dead lawyer and a dead dog in a road...
*yawn*
How about "If it sounds too stupid to be true.... ..its null and void"
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The case workers in the US Patent Office are under the gun to make certain quotas. Failure to make the quota for one quarter will put you under probation. Screw up again in a certain time frame and you're gone. The threat of losing the job is an incentive to rush along with little regard for the absurdity of the patent.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Patents are granted unter the pretext and condition that the work is original and inventive. To a mathematician, a decent definition of "original and inventive" in this context would be "The probability that someone else comes up with the idea within the time the patent holds is below 5%".
However, even if you used such a definition of "inventiveness", there is no way one can actually implement it. So patents just cannot be granted but on a whim; patent examiners are not as much to blame is the impossibility of defining "inventiveness".
Another reason to grant a patent would be that some stuff is hard to do and a monopoly is required to make it work. This might be a good reason, but it has nothing to do with how the current patent system is designed and justified.
Such a system might work better in the way of the X-prize, or even by auctioning of the monopoly to be the only one to be able to produce "X" to the highest bidder.
Unfortunately I don't think anyone will fix the system until it is more obviously borked. So we need "free patents" and "patent trolls" to bork it.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
One small hint when you have alot to write. Break it up into small, easy (easier) to read chunks.
That way If people read it (instead of looking at it and saying "Huge block of text, I'll skip over and read the next one") they will also be able to get the points from it.
Re-read your post. It's difficult to read simply because of the formatting.
The sharks will just carry them safely back to shore. ("Professional Courtesy".)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
If Smuckers can patent a sandwich, why can't I patent hamburgers or hotdogs. Just send my royalties when someone eats "a device consisting of two layers of baked wheat/yeast, tomato, lettuce and cooked ground beef".
This basically means that it got a lot more expensive to file patents in the US. It's not uncommon for patent applications to have 100 or more claims. Filing fees are lower if you file electronically, but e-filing is a pain (it's not through standalone application, it's through a bloated Word macro that converts things to XML). The USPTO has long griped that it does not get to keep all of the money collected by fees, and methinks that this is another way to generate revenue by the government.
they should hire that Jeaprody Champion! Oh wait.. microsoft already hired him.. Okay, what about trivial pursuit champions? ANyway you could even make a show out of it!
Heres a solution everyone can enjoy.
"Fink That Patent" - a fun crazy trivia show where the contestants try to name/list prior art to a given patent, and they have a research database on hand (the internet and access to the american patent database thing) to search/check things. Every show, they go though a few hundred patents of a dubious nature, getting points, and the winner wins something great, like a high paying job at the patent office (lol) or just a normal Prize, or something.
Have the Halfbakery handle all patent submission. Those people are ruthless when it comes to ideas already thought up!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
We need to go to the "toe test".
Thus, you can patent "A device for playing back recorded movies...." since you can drop that on your toe.
You cannot patent "A method for playing back recorded movies..." as you cannot drop "a method" on your toe.
www.eFax.com are spammers
As I said in a post to a previous topic, if getting a patent were more like getting planning permission, the system would be much improved.
he probably has his settings to do html formatted, but doesn't know the carat-p or carat-b type stuff.
Only accept patents that have an chemical or physical background - do not accept patents on business methods or software.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
A lot of people in the States seem to think that European-style opposition procedures, where private companies can challenge patent applications before the PTO grants them, are some sort of magic solution to the patent mess.
They aren't, at least not by themseves. Opposition procedures can help, but Europe still grants its share of daft patents.
More worryingly, the number of oppositions at the EPO has been steadily falling over the last ten years, though there is no evidence that EPO quality is improving. Instead, companies seem to be deciding that it's simply not cost-effective to put in the resources to do the EPO's job for it. If you're the size of Canon(Europe) for example (who I've heard this argument from), you've got a pretty good arsenal of your own patents you can hope to counter-sue or cross-licence with, and if the bad patent does come to court, you have the resources to fight it at that stage.
The people the worst patents really impact are SMEs, who have to settle, because they can't afford to fight them.
how about a section of slashdot devoted to patents which have been spotted by a /.er (i remember an article in 'main' about microsoft patenting virtual desktops for example), this way the /. crowd can debunk patents as a group, for example somebody might say "i remember twm had virtual desktops in 1992, here's a link to prove it"*.
/. editors if they feel inclinded) or a /.er can use the following
procedure to officially protest, or report it to that website of the organisation that protests against patents officially (i spent about 10 mins googling and couldn't find it but im sure somebody else knows what i mean)
Then somebody (either one of the
* i dont know if this is exactly acurate, just an example
Just the violent ones. Because they're "violent criminals", not because they're "drug dealers". What do you call doctors/pharmacists/pharmacos which sell oxycontin? Or any of the other life-destroying addictive legal drugs? Or bartenders who serve alcoholics, for that matter?
--
make install -not war
The definition of "important patent" could keep lawyers dining on goose liver for years. What may seem like an unimportant patent today may turn out to be horrendously important many years later.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
yeah, if we continue like that we will have the same problems in 10 years, while the us have long reformed their patent system. (which will be copied by europe 10-20 years later...) It's always the same. The USA have the shit first, the USA get rid of it first ...
Two of the ideas are already sunk, as they'd require the patent office to spend even more money on reviewing patents. But since they're already out of money, there's nothing more they can do there.
I personally think the patent system is too heavy-weight. A patent should be nothing more than a claim, and it should be granted immediately without review. If you need to protect your invention, you go to court, and point to your claim. At that point, prior art and prior patents are finally investigated. If your patent is useless, it's stamped Common Knowledge, and becomes free. If solid, then you win the case.
As I understand it, this is mostly the way the patent system works now. So what's the problem?
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
A recent winner at the Ig Nobel awards. (I think he figured out step 2)
The Comb over
A direct link to the Patent
Patent an exclusive system for granting patents. Sue the USPTO for infringement. That will spur reform as fast as possible.
Alternately, patent a system for forming a political party. Sue all others.
Moo.
unless u like bad link
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
...it's got to be litigious!
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Referring to High protein peanut butter and jelly sandwich and method of making the same, I see nothing which is non-obvious to "a person skilled in the art" of sandwich-making. I encourage folks to take direct action by handing out free home-made crustless PBJ's, especially if you can get to the corporate headquarters in Ohio.
Some hurdles don't have to cost anything. Erecting the right hurdles and leveling the wrong ones is what needs to happen. Money is the wrong hurdle, because everyone pays taxes and deserves a fair hearing. Using the process as a "revenue center" is an outrage. Quality hurdles, and I don't mean grammar and spelling, are what we need.
The summary sounds like a well thought out and careful plan. Challenges of bogus patents are good for everyone and can be carried out by anyone practicing in any field. The quality is what I would expect from the IEEE.
I have only one problem, the requirement of "use judges and special masters." That's what we are supposed to have now. Picking them from industry could cement the current big company lock and make things much worse. The government is already supposed to be knowledgable and careful in it's grant of exclusive franchises. A mechanism to get useful information to the people who are actually making the calls is a great idea. Finding and hiring experts from every field is impractical. Granting expert power to "recognized experts" from big companies with conflicts of interest is a recipe for disaster.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Something. Anything.
The fact that the lawyer community makes a bundle off patent suits/searches/application means that any patent reform, well, has no chance in hell. The only reform will come when its to the benefit of the legal profession. File this with other "dreams" - tax code reform, campaign financing reform, insurance reform, SSN reform.............
To prevail in an infringement case, an accused infringer has to present clear and convincing evidence that the patent is invalid.
Simply reversing this standard might be good: someone who wants to obtain a 20-year monopoly should have to present clear and convincing evidence that the idea he is seeking protection for is novel, useful, and can be reproducibly implemented based on the patent application. If he can't make a clear and convincing argument, then the patent should be found invalid by default.
Furthermore, patents should be found valid and invalid not claim-by-claim, but all-or-nothing. That way, applicants for patents have themselves a strong incentive only to claim what is actually novel and useful. Right now, almost every patent has claims in it that are ridiculously broad, that create unwarranted uncertainty and risk for competitors, and that courts need to spend enormous amounts of resources whittling down.
I think those two changes alone would do wonders for the patent system. But the IEEE suggestions are also welcome.
The drawing of the Gerbil Shirt about a third of the way down on the article page looks less like a patented invention and more like an ad for the next Lemmiwinkks episode of SP.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think you've described the problem exactly. People have gotten used to being too lazy.
People love to whine, but don't want to do anything about problems. I think that's one of the reasons corporations can get away with being so irresponsible - nobody will bother to change their habits no matter what they do, so they don't even need to consider changing their business practices until they're sued. And maybe not even then, because lazy "consumers" will continue to shovel money at them rather than go through the mental effort of taking their business elsewhere.
The issue of the infamous "McDonald's(tm) Hot Coffee" lawsuit came up peripherally on a Groklaw post recently, and the ensuing discussion of the real facts of the case pointed out a few facts that aren't commonly mentioned, like the fact that apparently this McDonald's(tm) had been getting complaints about the coffee being too hot for some time.
If they'd been getting all of those complaints, why didn't McDonald's(tm) quit serving the coffee too hot? Because listening to complaints doesn't cost anything, and evidently people kept coming and paying them for the overheated coffee ANYWAY. If people were willing to continue buying the coffee even after complaining about it, it must not be all that important, right?...(I would have sworn I'd read elsewhere that the plaintiff in that case got coffee from this place "every morning".)
Of course, since the laziness of "consumers" means most corporations have what amounts to a virtual "willingly captive" audience, there's not much point in trying to compete with them, and that means the "not-dangerously-hot coffee and fast food" place down the street will end up going out of business, and those few of us who would actually bother to take our business elsewhere end up not having anywhere else to take it TO. Yes, people's laziness doesn't just hurt themselves...
Even the WORD "consumer" implies this - the "consumer" is nothing more than a metaphorical digestive tract. Corporations offer "goods" and the "consumer" just gobbles them down, whatever they are, and produces economic fertilizer as a result, and that's all that's important about them. Yes, I consider the word to be an insult.
Yeah, I know, I'm ranting. I'll stop now.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I guess this shows a corollary of "With enough eyes, all intractable bugs (problems) are obvious".
With too few eyes, there's at least one simple problem that is not obvious.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
Like, when I do work and invent things it's usually the company I work for that gets to keep my inventios.
What would be nice is if I could take a little portfolio of tools and libraries around with me, It seems stupid to waste time writing the same kind of libraries every time I start working for a new company.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
That the last suggestion is probably unconstitutional.
The first is a really good idea.
The second, seems like a good idea but it would be very hard to implement in practice. How do you know which application is "important"? Most businesses cannot get this right, and you expect the patent office to be able to.
use judges and special masters rather than uninformed juries.
I can tell you, from personal experience, that judges are quite often at least as clueless as juries. There are some judges that specialize in patent law, but it's a long legal road to travel before you get to one. By then, it's often been so long that the problem at hand becomes academic.
My solution to the USPTO is: regulate it like the Brazilian PTO is regulated. A pending patent is only granted after enough research (ie never). Granted patents have to have FULL DOCUMENTATION BY THE PTO explaing and justifying WHY it was granted. OR the patent can be granted in court, in a case where the defendant has all the resources to make the judge drop the patent. Simple, easy, efficient and works.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
join them. Apply for a patent on sending commercial solicitations through electronic mail, then start suing spammers out of existence. For bonus points, send them your first C&D letter in an email entitled "Make BIG $$$ using teh p.a.t.e.n.t system!11!1!!!1 LOLOMGWTF"
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
We live in a world of property, and much of the role of government is in protecting property rights. Most properties are subject to taxation, but it seems that Intellectual Property has been neglected. The budget short falls of governments could be reduced or eliminated by simply taxing all Intellectual Properties.
I would suggest a time progressive scheme - say $100 the second year and doubling for each subsiquent year until the property is abandoned to the public domain.
The root of the problem is the utter nation that a govt granted monopoly on invention is somehow beneficial at all. The incentive theory is complete bullshit. That it helps society even a little bit is complete bullshit.
Perhaps I don't have an incentive to run track, unless I have the right to make you start 5 paces back from me. Perhaps I could buy and sell shares of that incentive and call it a property right - it would still be complete bullshit.
Private individuals inventing things in their basements need the patent system (much more than corporations who have vast resources) in order to profit from their hard work. Generally speaking, these guys can't make and market their inventions themselves and instead rely on selling patent rights to larger companies that can make and market them. But usually they need the actual patent awarded to them in order to sell those rights. If it takes 5 years to get the patent, it will take 5 years before they can finally start to sell their product. Imagine if it took you five years before you could get a paycheck. And by then their invention may well already be obsolete. If it takes too long for patents to be processed, you will only end up killing off private inventors.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
And to think, David Carradine does this in Kill Bill, v. 2. I wouldn't have gone to see that movie if I knew it had a scene that displayed such contempt for the law!
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
Right...
The reason Unisys didn't sue until it was no longer small potatoes is that it wasn't *worth it* until it was worth it.
BTW, that PB&J patent everyone complains about is actually for a pretty cool invention. It has nothing to do with pasties. It involves application of layers of permeable and impermeable foodstuffs (such as J and PB) in a rather clever way that keeps the bread from getting soggy while it sits on a shelf for a month.
Even if it does have an effect, all it does is give the patenter an opportunity to craft their claims to carefully avoid the prior art while still being annoying.
For this reason, patent lawyers will often tell you *not* to challenge a patent application until after it's granted.
But the company I work for (I should stay anonymous for legal reasons related to this post) has been contacted twice in the past six months about possible patent infringement.
The first time was a patent on storing a subset of our customers who chose to be on a mailing list in a seperate computer file. (This happened when we extracted the mailing list from the DB). Their fee was low so we just paid up on this one even though we knew how stupid it was. It just costs too much to argue.
The second time was a patent on recommending new products to a customer based on the purchasing history of other customers. We've stopped doing that one as their fee was huge and again, it just costs too much to argue. We now recommend based only on viewing habits, not buying. I'm waiting for someone else to tell us we can't do that either.
These decisions made my blood boil, but were probably sound from a business perspective. Still, we aren't even a large company. If I've seen two in six months I imagine a lot of people are getting burned like this. It gives me a little hope then, that when enough people have been burned it will force change.
Kind of a "tragedey of the commons" -- the patent-pirates will destroy their own environment. Except in this case I might prefer to call it a "comedy of the commons".
I shure hope it all comes around soon.
that patents ought to have a sunset provision, kind of a use-it or lose-it. Something along the lines of patents holding for 6 or 8 years, with a mandatory renewal at the end, and every two years after that. If the renewal is not optioned, an expiration notice is sent, with a 180 day grace period for renewal, and revocation afterwards. This will weed out a lot of dead wood in the patent world, and make the patenter's clearing house firms that make a killing on buying up old patents do more work to keep the system in check.
What's really wrong with taking the Constitution literally and have the jury really be a party of peers, that means people with about the same background than the defendant? When the "jury of peers" was introduced, it meant that an aristocrat could only be judged by a jury consisting of aristocrats, and a free man only by a jury of free men. In a society where everyone should be equal before the law, the jury of peers has lost its deeper meaning: A jury of people from your milieu, class or group. So why not having a jury of engineers for patent infringment cases?
Ok, it's just a thought but...
1) Since inventors are people, how about restricting the assignee to people only.
2) Make all payments to the assignee and or inventor a matter of public record.
3) Make it illegal to withhold license of patents to individuals or corporations willing to pay more than the current maximum amount stated in public record.
(Wordy example):
So Joe Inventor creates a widget for Company Z. Joe would be the inventor and some other person is (maybe even Joe) will be the assignee. Z Company will license the ability to make widgets by paying $1000 to the assignee. The $1000 is posted as a mater of public record. Now anyone or any company can pay $1001 to the assignee and have a license to produce the widgets.
A market effect of an open auction etc..
All the worlds indeed a
An even better way is to just reduce patents from 17 years to 5. This reduces the incentive for patenting trivialities, and if they do get patented, it becomes a more reasonable strategy to just wait it out.
The patent system was concieved to protect unique, innovative, and useful ideas. Now, I may not be one to complain, but I seriously doubt the uniqueness of the spiral stack of post-it notes, which is almost identical in its description to the patent on a straight stack of post-it notes. Also, software patents just suck in general. There should be no such thing as a software patent, merely copyrights on source code. For instance, the original patent on the Windows OS ended several years ago, because patents only last 7 years. At the time that the patent ends, the patent holder is required to release the product to the public for use. I don't know about you, but I payed good money for this crap-o-rific Windows XP. Do you know why? Because Microsoft filed a patent for every single friggin' line of code they've ever written (obviously an exaggeration, but they have taken out multiple patents as ways of extending expired patents). I say we abolish the patent system, abolish all forms of unbacked currency, and go to the liberty dollar.
Unless someone comes up with something creative, GaN device technology will be hampered by the proliferation of minor patents.
This is even in the absence of dumb patents (like one click shopping) - these are patents for serious semiconductor work. In this case, stronger patent protections are hampering progress (to no one's benefit) rather than facilitating it.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
The main problem with the system is that it suffers from regulatory capture:
o J: www.iipe.org/conference2002/papers/McMahon.pdf+reg ulatory+capture&hl=en
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:yDK_liolfE
The IEEE solutions sound like they might be able to evade the problem of a "superior staff" by distributing the analysis phase to all interested parties, as well as special masters.
But the problem of the whole system being financed by those that are trying to get patents leads me to think that it will always be crooked unless the money link between people that want patents and people that grant patents is broken
I feel just a bit concerned that a big country, such as the US, has nukes, but I would feel very concerned if some potentially unresponsible small country, such as North Korea, has nukes. Same for patents.
A good start.
Seriously, folks, I'll be here all week.
SAILING MISHAP
If we can sue auto manufacturers for defective products and workmanship that result in a tragic economic loss and loss of livelihood, then the people/companies can sue the USPTO for dereliction of duty and lack of fudiciary responsibity in handling fraudulent patent claims that result in unnecessary and expensive litigation.
If a district court judge agrees with this then he can effectively order the USPTO to clean up its act or face sanctions or have the status of issued "patents" greatly altered. ("I judge Ronald M White decree that all district 13 patent lawsuits shall be heard in my courtroom." and then declare their own ground rules of patently absurd engagement.)
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
... have fractional fingers.
Double programmers have fractional fingers on both hands.
Integer programmers have complete fingers.
Hex programmers have sixteen complete fingers.
Octal programmers don't use their thumbs, only their (complete) fingers.
Infuriate left and right
Although you'll probably want to sedate them first.
I can only wonder at the motivation of the writers of this piece: it looks like a device to distract people into thinking that there is a solution to the patents problem that does not involve returning to what was before. These solutions are too complicated or difficult: they will be born with malformations due to undue influence from those with an interest in the status quo, and their complexity is likely to allow ample scope for being abused by clever people.
These solutions remind me of the attempt in the UK to make everything absolutely fair with the result of weighing everyone down with unlimited amounts of complicated paper-work.
I may have one myself : but I really do hate hate hate the product of mediocre minds.
'create incentives and opportunities for parties to challenge the novelty and nonobviousness of an invention before the PTO grants a patent,'
examine the important patents meticulously; don't waste effort on the unimportant ones that can be ousted early
And who is to make the judgement call over those that are important and those that are not. I bet the one-click patent was seen as nothing much really by the guy(s) who examined it. Further the judge becomes very important and therefore a point of corruption.
and for examining prior art, use judges and special masters rather than uninformed juries."
Sounds great, doesn't it, but experts are not without their own set of problems as seen in the judicial system; I doubt many would be comfortable with juries composed of "experts". Choosing these "special masters" is not a trivial matter. There are good reasons for picking juries from 12 "ordinary" men and women.
What a load of rubbish.
As I wrote some time ago (I looked for it so I could just put the link in here but couldn't find it on SlashDot), one of the things that keeps getting left out of this debate, is the fact that because the PTO is being bombarded by thousands of patents each year it needs to computerize the way it works. The steps I see are:
1. Create a dictionary of all words used in applying for a patent. This is rather obvious because a good spell checker is needed anyway. But this goes beyond that. It allocates a unique id number to each of the document's words. This allows you to reduce the overall size of the document quite a bit. (After all, if you use a four byte word that gives you around four billion words and the largest dictionary only has a couple hundred thousand words in it.) Legal jargon usually uses more than four letters in a word and thus the document would be smaller overall.
2. A second dictionary of terms which are equal to each other. This dictionary would grow over time. Basically, things like "flashlight", "Light emitting device", "a device with a lamp in it which projects a beam", and "hand held light device" are all the same or similar. Thus, when a term which is unrecognized comes up in a document it can be added to one of the lists and from then on it is associated with that term. (And yeah, they should be able to add, remove, etc... from the list.)
3. The program should have already scanned all previous patents and created the above two dictionaries. Then when a new patent comes through (since they have to be submitted electronically now anyways) it is passed through the program which determines how closely a given document comes to other patents. Note that this is different from "are the sentences the same" or "are the sentences in the same order". The program should not care what order anything appears in - just do a search like Google and find how many words are the same or similar (remember they could replace all words of "flashlight" with "hand held light emitting device" via word processor).
3a. Since the patent system is divided up into various areas (ie: Games, Construction, etc...) the program should scan across all boundaries to ensure that something from one area is not now being patented in another area.
3b. All entries should be listed (just like with Google) in a descending order of revelance. So a patent which was given out in, say 1816 (The Stirling Engine) isn't re-patented as "The Audacious Engine" simply because all of the places where it says "Engine" in the orginal patent are replaced by "a non-internal combustion device".
4. All applied for patents should be kept on file so they too can be checked against. Notes on why the patent was denied should also be kept on file so they can be referred back to.
People may say we can't do this. Google has to handle over a billion web pages yet it can do it in a matter of a few seconds. There are only a couple million patents. The PTO should be able to handle this really easily. Hire the guys from Google to set things up. (And no - I don't work for Google.)
As for graphical pictures showing how something works - it depends. There are software packages which can compare one item/picture to another but all it would take is to accidentally send the picture reversed, rotated slightly so it looks different, use different colors, shades, shadows, etc.... You can look for similarities but that is about it.
In any event - it is nice that the powers that be are trying to fix the problem (or at least suggest changes) but it would be more realistic to try to automate the whole process so the patents can be throw out faster and faster. Which is why both good and bad patents are needed and both should have their own set of dictionaries. You need the bad patents in there as a way to say "Hey! Here are examples of why you can't have a patent!" Further, the bad patents could be used just like the good ones to show how someone tried once before to get something pas
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
They can't patent it, I have prior art here!
The last time this came up someone posted an interesting idea. If the USPTO can't reasonably review all the patent applications simply accept them all. But change the expiration to say 2 years with an option to renew the patent for the full 17 year and make the renewal cost a considerable amount of money (eg $40,000). This will give legitimite patents the protection they need to develop their idea enough to know if it's worth more effot. It wouldn't stop people from filing frivolous patents but the submarine patents would probably disappear almost entirely.
Tired of all these people who spend their time producing patents just based on ideas while others are doing the hard work of implementing similar ideas without patenting, only to be sued later. Tired also of all the lawyers and organizations who collect patents in order to sue implementors, which is an awfully selfish purpose that is highly detrimental to the common good. Having an idea is easy. Having an idea and implementing it is what deserves credit. You could still obtain a patent just based on an idea but anyone who implements it before you do would be exempt from licensing it from you. And if you buy a patent, you would not be able to collect money unless you also provide an implementation. In the end, this would be beneficial to the general public.
You have engaged in the following logical fallacy:
False Dichotomy
By stating that one cannot be against patents unless they are a communist.
A patent is a rule that states that I can't do certain things with my property and labour. for example: make a sealed crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sell it to a willing customer. Absent the patent, this is legal. But the patent system, a collective body of rules limiting the forms of commerce I may engage in with my customers using my property and my labour, states that this is illegal behaviour unless I first acquire a licence from the patent holder. This is therefore a restraint of free market economics, as a third party may now use state coercion to enforce an unnatural monopoly that interferes with the voluntary exchange of goods and services. Therefore the state has been granted more power to direct my labor and capital.
You can certainly disagree with the previous paragraph, and I have a few issues with it myself, but it is an anti-patent statement that is certainly not communist, as it holds paramount the individual right of ownership of capital and labour. If memory serves, communists aren't big fans of that.
Hmm, the article seemed like a good overview with some useful suggestions.
But it completely left out the biggest, IMHO, problem with the patent system: triple damage for "knowingly infringing." This one policy (not sure if it's in the law, or a court precedent) simply has to go before any reform based on competitors will work.
As it is, every IP lawyer tells every engineer to go out of their way not to learn about competitors patents. And certainly don't write down that you know. And abso-friggin-lutely don't let the patent lawyer know that you know. Because if there's proof, boom! triple damages. Regardless of whether you also "knew" that there was prior art, that your company already had a patent that covered the same thing, that the patent was invalid, or that it was obvious to a skilled practitioner of the art.
Overturning this one aspect of the patent system would let tech companies actively monitor their competitors patents, get valuable technical details out of them, and challenge the patents *before* infringement suits are brought by the holders. It would curb the worst of the submarine patents because companies would *know* when someone patents a standard (esp one being developed) without being forced to turn a blind eye to avoid tripling their liability later.
www.ip-wars.net/story/2004/12/7/17438/7975n t Reforms Mustn't Undermine Traditional Patents"
;-)
"Pate
Check out the rest of ip-wars.net while you're there. It's a wide ranging discussion of IP issues as they affect Free software.
This is a new site and you can still get a 3 digit UID.
1000 SlashDot sigs
Your premise that "patent holders are permitted to sit on their patents and do nothing, even when they are aware of infringing acts" is simply incorrect. The law (under something called the doctrine of laches) specifically prohibits someone from "sitting on his rights" so that additional damages accrue. The doctrine of laches applies to basically every civil action including an action for patent infringement.
In addition, there is already a statute of limitation for patent actions. You are not allowed to recover damages for infringements which occurred 6 or more years from the date you file your lawsuit.
I'm going to patent stupidity....
....Imagine the royalties.....
I want to be a patent examiner.
When travelling, it's ok if the airlines lose your emotional baggage.
that way you'll have to pay to get into heaven (sound familiar?)
When travelling, it's ok if the airlines lose your emotional baggage.
abandon the entire concept of intellectual property. Millions of people are suffering because they cannot afford the artifically expensive medicine. Thousands have ended in jail or with an otherwise ruined life because of some copyright violation. Innovations are beeing held back because corporations are better off selling and licensing the ancestor. New players are hard to get into any market because they cannot afford the numerous patents held by the establishment.
This New Scientist article discusses the evidence for a link between regular pot use and schizophrenia. There is also a possibly a link between pot and depression, but it's hard to tell because regular dope smokers often fail at education and end up unemployed - not exactly a great outcome either.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Scientific studies have been done, and we know that pot is less harmful than tabacco.
To say otherwise without scientific backing of any kind, is mere noise.
Changa hates change.
One problem I see is that companys demand any invention be turned over to themselves as terms of employment.
Decent patent reform would make this illegal - any invention created by an employee under the guise of his job would still be patented and owned by the employee, and the company who funded the invention would automatically get license rights to that patent over the term of the patent IF they pay the filing fee, but the employee could shop it around, develop it himself, etc - but NOT transfer ownership (destroy these scummy patent brokerage houses).
In my view, such reform would respect the original intention of patent laws: to reward and encourage innovation.
I for one find the patents that are given is silly like Clearchannels Live cd patent...how can things like this happen when people have the technolagy and the know how and been done before by others.... even bar bands can do it.. but if they sell at the end of there gig they can get sued by CLearchannel that just plane sucks and is extreamly silly there are a lot more patents that have happened that are just as bad
http://eff.org/patent/wanted/
This is a list of sillyness that has to stop
I have to strongly disagree with this as a universal truth (that is, I'm not saying that it isn't true sometimes). It simply isn't the case that the current patent system necessarily favors large companies.
I work for one of those "large companies" (I won't tell you which, but it's one of those referenced regularly in these pages...).
In the case of a large company, patents can act as protection from lawsuits from other large companies (and small ones) through a kind of mutually-assured-destruction type of argument. However, they provide no protection whatever from lawsuits (even though they may be frivolous) from "intellectual property" outfits that ship no products themselves, but file a few patents and wave them at an entire industry demanding money. Even if the threat is entirely without merit, it can tie up a huge amount of engineering effort to defend, especially when there are so many of them (and there are - unless you have been subjected to this, you really wouldn't believe just how frequently this happens).
The important factor which isn't considered in the spectrum article is exposure. A large company is always going to have a much larger exposure to being sued for alledged infringement than a small company that doesn't ship as many products, and is completely defenceless against a company that doesn't ship anything. Your only option is to pay up (if you actually think the patent is valid) or spend a ridiculous amount of money on attorneys.
What should a large company do when somebody shows up at its door every week waving an obviously invalid patent at them and claiming that it owes them a dollar for every of the gazillion products it's ever shipped?
The patent system is broken alright. But I don't honestly think the prescription in the article is the right one. All it's saying is that large companies will be authorized to spend even more money on attorneys earlier in the process. What we really need is much stricter definitions of what constitutes "novelty" to make it easier to toss out obviously unworthy patents whenever it does make it into the hands of the lawyers.
Just the 2c of a weary engineer who spends a hell of a lot of time talking with his employer's attorneys...
I have an idea. I think it might help if patents were only issued to individuals, not corporations. The original idea behind patents, as I understand it, was to protect the little guy from competition and give him the chance to profit from his invention, thus encouraging innovation. Large corporations might like the protection offered by a patent, but it can hardly be argued that they need that protection. Also, we see brilliant inventors create ingenious products and then they see nothing more for that than a nice Christmas bonus. I think I would be demotivated if I studied for years, created some incredible technology and then sat back and watched my company claim it as their own and make hundreds of millions off it while I got basically nothing.
Also, I think it might help to shorten the duration of patents. Technology moves too fast these days for long patents and a lot of cases would never make it to court because they would have been past the statute of limitations. And they should not permit software patents.
Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
nt
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
Simple - abandon software patents, and cut down the times for the other patents back to what they were to start with.
The reason to have a patent system is to encourage the inventors to promote and freely disclose their inventions, rather than keeping them to themselves. Not to protect inventors rights, or anything like that.
One problem which the article does not address is how to convert IP, and by implication Patents, to actual innovations and further, how to prevent people from filing Patents to hurt other companies.
Very simply, IMHO, although IANAL.
Each valid patent is to be tentatively issued for a period of a year. The holder of the Patent may petition the USPTO for an extension of the validity if and only if the Patent is used in some product that is actively and commercially marketed. Otherwise, the Patent will lapse and the IP will fall into the public domain.
This will prevent people from filing a patent which they intend to abuse.
Since abstinence education doesn't work, wouldn't the more enlightened way to curb gun violence be to have gun training programs at every high school, and teach people how to be responsible assault rifle owners?
This is my sig.
This way, "poor" inventers could still file the initial patent, and then get backing if ever they needed to invoke it, but at the same time nobody (large companies or other) would be able to sue until a serious effort had been made to investigate the patent.
One of the problems now, which I think is partly to blame for how poorly patents are reviewed, is how to balance the cost of filing against the cost of properly investigating the patents. This pretty much solves that problem, since the initial dirt-cheap effortless filing is a placeholder which can be used in more free-market-like negotiations. (E.g., any sure-win patent never even needs to be properly instantiated [thus saving lots of legal fees] since both parties can see the inevitable outcome and would rather not waste the money. Similarly, a holder of a likely-win patent initial filing ought to be able to garner external funding for the more expensive filing. Etc.)
The goal here is to enable/require way more diligence before giving someone the "right to sue" (since as y'all know it's often just the cost of the suit that kills, even if the patent is ridiculous).
More on this idea here.
Anybody see why this wouldn't help (at least somewhat)?
wouldn't the more enlightened way to curb gun violence be to have gun training programs at every high school, and teach people how to be responsible assault rifle owners?
Yes, and Switzerland does it roughly this way.
but it's hard to tell because regular dope smokers often fail at education and end up unemployed
That's true only if "education" is the word for a pee test in your language.
U.S. patents already have such maintenance fees, and large corporate holders of patents still pay them.
Patents are issued to one or more individual inventors, who generally assign the patent to the employer as specified by the employment contract.
Also, I think it might help to shorten the duration of patents.
People would argue with you about that because half of the patent term of a new medication is spent waiting for the clinical trials and regulatory approval that must be completed before the drug maker can market the drug.
Outlaw them, they're Immoral.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as patents are legal in the US, the US is not a free country. It's less non-free than some other countries, but that doesn't make it free.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Almost the entire rest of this planet enforces such a policy. Currently no matter how week the case is, the defending party has to effort their lawyers and won't be compensated even when they win the case.
Of course it won't happen, because lawyers make a lot of money from these lawsuites and also from deals like "if you lose you do not have to pay me, but if we win I get X % of the proceedings" (where X is usually > 40%).
Lawyers are also powerful in this country, and - really - who cares about whether the law is actually fair. So, personally, I do not expect to see any change at all.
This maybe off-topic, but does anybody remember the 10bn Deutschmark (about $5bn at that time) lawsuit against German companies for forcing Jewish prisoners into slave-like work during WW-II? As nobel as the cause is, guess who got the first 600 million of the paid money, before a single victim saw a dime...
If you guessed "The Lawyers", you would be correct.
I.o.w., the large companies will now own the largest patent troll of them all, which will work for them and consume the smaller annoying ones.
Donate free food here
BRAVO!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There are enough people and geeks out there that specialise in various technical areas. Most hobbyists have a far more in-depth knowledge of their chosen area than probably any patent inspector. Why not put the broad specs up for review on a website and see if anybody comments or finds prior art? I mean, it works here on Slashdot for software-based patents all the time. Throw in a few USPTO Karma points and the whole system will stabilize in a few months.
Try again. These days there are lots more innovation down here than in the USofA. Good troll.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Nothing in their proposals comes even vaguely close to being a radical reform. What's worse, their proposals would do nothing to curb or limit the lax SUBJECTIVISM that is epidemic within the current system. More OBJECTIVE tests, limits, and controls are needed, not more subjective ones. My radical suggestion that I mentioned above, for instance, lacks any opportunity for subjective interpretation... it's a simple, clear, concise, hard-and-fast rule that leaves no room for lawyerly wiggling.
I know I'm asking too much, however... we live in a country utterly mired in subjectivism, a country that can't even manage to collectively define "obscenity" much less complex issues surrounding intellectual property and invention.
Is state-sponsored treatment of addicts cheaper than police action? Because if it all costs the same, shooting eople while they're on bad trips is a lot more fun than just treating them when they come out of it.
Shooting is also more effective at preventing relapses.
paintball
Corporate Executives bankrupting the retirement savings of tens of thousands.
Maybe not VIOLENT, but definitely dangerous.
Ultimately, directly killing one person is a lot less detrimental to society that sending tens of thousands into poverty.
paintball
I'm thinking out loud here, so don't kill me...
(1) Patents must expire. No extensions. 50 years tops. If you are still requiring or relying on your patent to provide meaningful revenue after 50 years, you need a better idea.
(2) Things that are obvious, improvements on other ideas, or natural extensions of existing (or potentially existing) technologies should not be patentable.
(3) There needs to be an office that reviews patents to determine if they should be revoked. They must have the explicit power to nix a patent, with no possible recourse, and they must not be "owned" by any one.
(4) In conjunction with #1, all patents generated before 1954 immediately expire.
(5) Any organization that receives federal funding may not patent an idea. This eliminates Universities outright, and a lot of other companies. With the current system we're using taxpayer money to give a monopoly. That's not a really stellar idea.
(6) There should be a single, global, patent office to which all nations must be subjected.
(7) Genetic code derived from living things should not be patent worthy. What happens if someone accidentally patents my particular code, and I'm found to be in violation? I lose.
(8) Patent infringement suits must go to binding arbitration rather than the criminal or civil courts, to keep the lanes clear for trial worthy of such attention.
Ok, opinions?
This will limit the damage of stupid patents, and with the pace of technology today, even valid patents are pointless after a couple of years.
For fun, calculate how much DDT would be lethal for you!
The older you get, the older your music gets. Following the "you like what was good in high school" theory, when you're 40 years old you'll be listening to music from ~20 years ago.
I'm 33 and still listen to 80's music quite often, so I follow the numbers.
Murphy was an optimist.
I have been through the whole thread and there has been only one mention of the toilet snorkel. That is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. gerbil shirt was pretty funny too
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
"Offtopic"? Heck no. The big reason possession of cannabis is illegal today is that at the time Congress enacted the Marijuana Tax Act, chemical companies such as du Pont owned U.S. patents on several synthetic chemicals, and they didn't want competition from the newly found uses of the hemp plant, so they dreamed up some bullshit excuses and sent a report to Congress. It appears the big pharma companies continue this tradition of distorting evidence surrounding "street" drugs in order to protect their patented products from public-domain competition.
This thread may have not been on-topic in the strict sense of the word, but DMCA, Drug Law, current Copyright Law (other than DMCA), and current Patent law are all part of the same problem. The USA is currently in a political environment where the trend is to micro-manage people's lives as much as possible while ensuring big corporations can make as much money as possible.
/end of rant
Current Patent law makes it difficult, if not impossible for small businesses to defend against bad patents. Corporations use their patent portfolios to bully smaller companies, and agree to a "Patent Detante" with other bigger companies. The only thing that may change this behavior is the emergence of companies such as PanIP that produce nothing, but just live to collect on dubious patents. The fact that the Microsofts of the world are getting hit by these patent "Hit Men" may lead to changes.
Strict Drug laws only serve to make the Prison industry grow fatter. Non-violent Drug "offenders" not only cost Society when they are in Jail, but continue to cost Society when they cannot find good jobs due to a drug conviction.
DMCA and other copyright law only serve the current Corporate structure, while damaging our culture. If copyright law was rolled back, the media companies would be forced to innovate, and would actually be better off in the long run, while our culture would be better off.
I could go on, but the worse part about all this is that the US Government seems to think that the whole world should be under US type law. The changes coming to Australian copyright law is just one example. As far as Patents (to stay on topic), hopefully the EU will ultimately decide that software patents are crap and not allow them. I am not going to bet on that though....
Beware of Sleestak
If Microsoft invents innovative technology, which will facilitate the streamlining of compelling enterprise solutions at global content providers (in other words, they invent something like, say, the ability to push a button on a keyboard and have that cause a response in a computer system), then Microsoft would have to pay billions of dollars to get the patent. But if they allow the person within their company to get the patent on his own name and not on Microsoft's name, then the patent would cost two cents.
Looks like you didn't touch logic with a 10-foot pole either. See, you grouped everyone who is a nice, harmless pot dealer with everyone who sells highly-addictive drugs like coke, heroin, or speed. You have no basis to say that peer-pressure, a bad upbringing, or any number of factors led to this girl's abuse of hard drugs, just like you have no basis to say that softer drugs caused the problem either.
How does this apply to the drug-war? Wouldn't you rather have had the opportunity to give the girl couseling when the major problems first arose? Unfortunately, we have little to no mandatory-drug programs for abusers, as hundreds of billions of dollars are being used to fight the drug-war, you had no avenue which required this girl to get help. Instead, you tried to fight the war the way it is currently being fought: you called the cops and tried to lock her up. It really shows how well the current system is working, seeing as how she 'ruined your neighborhood' with 'no penalty'.
It's sterotypical, close-minded thought like your last paragraph that will continue to ruin this nation and it's people. This girl didn't need jail! She needed MAJOR FUCKING COUNSELING. Something our current system has no means of providing. However, it is more than likely that people who think like you will never change, and the cycle will continue. People with shitty lives like this girl will continue to become addicts, and people like you will continue to lock them up.
No, the factor of 5-15 has to do with the greatest "nucular" power force-feeding every other nation of the capitalist world for the last 60 years. Go swallow your own dogfood, troll.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
If we shot everyone who used drugs, there wouldn't be any customers, and thus there wouldn't be anyone for the criminals to sell to so we'd be able to recoup them into the productive workforce. And the now-dead drug users wouldn't be a burden on that workforce either.
And what about that warm, fuzzy feeling feeling mercenaries call killing? I'm a pacifist, but I recognize the value in snuffing out an addict's existence. It's a good investment and our species' success is a testament to that survival strategy called killing off the weak.
More seriously, it does seem somewhat illogical to write-off the costs of treating millions of addicts as cheap while viewing the costs of treating thousands of criminal violence survivors as expensive.
paintball
A mighty effective way of gutting the patent system, though.
You have not provided any objective evidence that the American patent system produced superior results to any other one either. You just used unrelated economic development figure = GDP.
You see, go fetch Brazilian, American, Soviet and some European GDP, patents, and other innovation figures for the 1930's 40's and 50's on. Now see what happens once the US and the CCCP become nuclear powers, and see what happens when they organize all the satellites to their powers. They effectively choked innovation in the countries in their side of the Iron Curtain to death. Until the 1980's -- economic rebirth of Japan -- no one would like to mess with the US in the international market.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
What's really wrong with taking the Constitution literally and have the jury really be a party of peers, that means people with about the same background than the defendant?
Aspiring Constitutional literalists should remember to READ the Consitution occasionally.
Since there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution about "a jury of peers", you just sound stupid. (In fact, the word "peer" isn't found at all).
Check 3.2.3 or amendment 6 for text regarding juries. In fact, it says the jury must be "impartial", which actually counts against peers (since people be more willing to favor someone from the same economic/racial/gender categories).