USPTO Rules Fogent JPEG Patent Invalid

fistfullast33l writes "Groklaw has reported that the USPTO has ruled the broadest claims of the JPEG Patent held by Fogent to be invalid. PUBPAT, the organization that requested the review, released the news earlier today. According to PJ, the ruling will be hard to overturn as the 'submitters knew about the prior art but failed to tell the USPTO about it.'"

Comments

Re:Three Things To Think About

[WillAffleckUW]

Such delays were common at the time the patent system was established in the US Constitution, and even more limited patents existed in Switzerland, where Albert Einstein was a patent clerk.

One's greed at having a longer license time does not equal the societal good of public patents and short patent life. It was a limited time then, and it should be a limited time now.

Copyright, for example, used to be for only 12 years, was extended, and then extended, and then extended. Now, it's effectively 70 years after the copyright registrant dies. Which makes a farce of the intention of copyright, just as our current patent regime makes a farce of the intention of patents.

WWJD? My guess is he'd overturn the moneylenders table.