Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Patent Reform Proposal Focuses on Education

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the all-your-eggs-in-one-basket dept.

CNet is reporting that a new proposal before Congress is attempting to increase the number of federal judges who specialize in patent litigation. From the article: "The proposal prescribes $5 million each year in federal funding over the next decade for "educational and professional development" programs for designated judges and to pay the salaries of new, specially appointed clerks with patent expertise. Under the bill, patent cases would continue to be randomly assigned to judges, but with a notable exception. Any judge who practices within a court district offering the pilot program but who chooses not to sign up for the extra training would have the option of transferring patent cases to a program participant." Techdirt also has a short writeup on why this specialization might not necessarily be a good thing.

7 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. CAFC by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The author of the article presents CAFC as if it were uniformly a bad experience. This is not exactly the case. Prior to CAFC the state of patent litigation was very bad - judges with no experience in patent law were making arbitrary decisions that arbitrary and inconsistent, venue shopping was the order of the day, many really valid patents and important were being overturned, etc.

    While CAFC has resulted in some quite bad decisions, it has at least brought some consistency. Now that there is this consitency it is up to Congress to correct the patent law to exclude or refine the scope of patent law.

  2. Unintended Consequences II by richg74 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The Techdirt article talks about some of the problems with the CAFC, which essentially boil down to having a government regulatory authority "captured" by the regulated industry. You can, of course, see this in the Patent Office itself, where there have been periodic pushes to define greater efficiency == more patents granted.

    Any judge who practices within a court district ... but who chooses not to sign up for the extra training would have the option of transferring patent cases to a program participant.

    It isn't clear that this has been thought out very well. Suppose an "untrained" judge does not opt to transfer the case to a "trained" one. Will that be grounds for appeal? Can a litigant request a "trained" judge? I think one can safely assume that the parties with deep pockets will game the system if it's possible.

  3. UK Judges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the UK the Judges are patent specialists. They are pretty smart too considering the wide range of subject matter they are able to assimilate. I recall reading that prior to one complex case on biotechnology a prof from one of the Oxbridge colleges came in to give the judges a crash course which they just lapped up.

  4. Transparency by ikejam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One would hope the course content would be available for the public to understand/critique.

  5. How about spending money to... by MikeRT · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hire top notch people from the private sector for the USPTO instead? $50M a year to hire hundreds of PhDs and people with a decade or more of great experience in programming, biotech, etc.

  6. How About Spending Less Money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are three straightforward problems with the patent system:

    1. Business Prcoess Patents

    If experienced Federal Judges weren't wasting their time looking at this abomination of the meaning of patent they would have plenty of time to research and rule on real patents like "The Cotton Gin".

    2. "Self-Funding Process" whereby the Federal patent system rewards itself for making bad patent law. Is it more important for the Patent Office to do good patent analysis on truly novel inventions or to declare as many "ideas" novel as possible and thus garner more funding for itself.

    3. Patent "portfolios" are used as sticks to beat down and stifle innovation by large corps against small innovative businesses (and against other large corps) rather than the original purpose which was to grant, for a limited time, exclusive royalties to those who put forth the effort to develop unique ideas and market them.

    Of course, pointing out flaws in the US government these days is like shooting ducks in a barrel. Think Rome, circa 410 AD.

  7. The simplest reforms are best by xkr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Most people in the patent industry [patent attorneys, entrepreneurs, corp senior management] agree that the single best reform would simply be more, and better paid examiners. Right now, the US Patent office is a profit center for the Federal Gov't. How about if it just got to keep (more) of the money it raises through filing fees? The current rules in place are 'reasonable.' The biggest problem is that rushed and weak examiners don't always do a good job.

    --
    I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.