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IBM Calls for Patent Reform

Posted by samzenpus on from the level-playing-field dept.

daria42 writes "IBM has called for tighter regulation of patents and a review of intellectual property ownership issues in collaborative software development. The company is one of the largest patent-holders in the United States. IBM executive Jim Stallings said examining patents for prior art should not only be the job of the patent office but that the wider community should be involved. Stallings also called on the industry to stop what he calls "bad behaviour" by companies who either seek patents for unoriginal work or collect and hoard patents."

2 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting insights by "innocent IBM"... ;-/ by D4C5CE · · Score: 4, Informative
    Of course, "poor old IBM" has a history of its own in "hoarding" software patents, as well as enforcing them in ways that infuriate even top industry attorneys and the most fervent pro-patent advocates - cf. already Heckel, Debunking the Software Patent Myths, Communications of the ACM, June 1992, Vol.35, No.6, p.130.

    It's good to see how the taste of their own medicine in cases such as the SCO litigation finally seems to lead IBM back to their initial stance of speaking out against software patents - from one of the world's largest patent holders, the obligation to "use or lose IP" as in trademark law is quite a remarkable one.

  2. I work for IBM... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...therefore I will post this anonymously.

    It is harder to get a patent through the IBM internal review process (which you have to complete before Legal will consider filing it) than it is to get the USPTO to take it. A team of other IBMers (usually inventors themselves) ensure that it is innovative and possible. The revenue possibilities are also considered.

    I've put 11 ideas through the process, all of which I am reasonably sure would have been granted by the USPTO, and only 1 of those has been applied for. Three were thought worth protecting but not patenting -- they are published on the ip.com prior art database to prevent anyone else patenting them.

    If all corporations handled patents as responsibly as IBM we wouldn't have a problem.