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Patent Reform Act Proposes Sweeping Changes
Geccie writes "CNet is reporting that Senators Patrick Leahy and Orin Hatch have proposed sweeping changes in the patent system in the form of the Patent Reform Act of 2006. Key features are the ability to challenge (postgrant opposition) with the Senate version being somewhat broader and better than the house version." From the article: "Specifically, it would shift to a 'first to file' method of awarding patents, which is already used in most foreign countries, instead of the existing 'first to invent' standard, which has been criticized as complicated to prove. Such a change has already earned backing from Jon Dudas, chief of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office."
and guaarantee the freedom to innovate so true competition may exist? That way a small inventor won't lose his house when trying to compete with the large companies who buy up all the intellectual real estate on the monopoly board.
$DEITY have mercy on the first to patent the time machine.
Does this mean you will no longer be able to cry "prior art"? If so, this is a bad thing IMHO.
I predict that any bill that makes things through Congress will only change the system for the worse.
Wow, a bill that solves none of the many real problems with the patent system. Way to go lawmakers! Who votes for these fools?
Philosophy.
I'm the first to say if another country does something better than the US, but just because other countries do it differently doesn't mean it is better. I consider "first to file" just promoting patent trolls even further, as they just keep an eye out for what everyone else is doing and patent what the other guy didn't really consider worth patenting. This provision is useless - yes, first to invent is hard to prove, but that is why keeping some type of traceable records is a good thing and you can't be locked out of the market just because patent troll X decided to file paperwork before you did.
What is wrong with inventors getting patents for their inventions? This does not seem to be an area I have heard the majority of criticism about the patent system.
As usual, it is like the politicians hear "reform" and then just want to implement the reforms of their monied constitutents (corporations) and not the reforms of the regular people. For example, stop granting patents on so many obvious things. To accomplish this, remove the financial incentive the patent office receives to grant as many patents as it can. But that might hurt big corporation X from ramming its patent through. So, don't expect any meaningful reform with these bills.
Brent O. Hatch is one of SCOs many lawyers. One wonders if any part of the new law would be of any help to SCO grabbing the work on many Linux programmers?
When you publically disclose something in order to put it into the public domain, it can take up to six months before the idea cannot be patented by someone else due to the fact they can claim to have invented it first. The "first to invent" thing. Will this new scheme make the effect of public disclosure a little more immediate? Or will it just increase the use of provisional patents which are not published?
In the current system, a person/company has some fixed amount of time (1 year? 6 months? I don't recall) to file a patent after the invention has been mentioned publicly. Some companies rely on this by shipping the product first, then worrying about filing the patent applications. "First to file" will likely delay many product releases, as the inventor will be required to get the patent application process started before release.
Oh dear God, not Orrin Hatch again! Seriously, this idiot was the man who introduced the DMCA and look how wonderful that piece of legislation was.
As usual, follow the money....
Orrin Hatch received $126,918 from the entertainment industry in this last cycle. Not to be outdone, Leahy received $251,970
By my calculations that means that congressmen can be bought for less than $400K. My, my, my what an insanely great ROI.
America, the best government money can buy®
This sounds nice, and I can see how it helps with resolving issues re: deciding who gets a patent. But it won't really change what I see as the bigger issue-- patenting things as a patent troll does, those people who patent stuff without any work on their own, then claim rights when a real primary producer does something (primary producers are decreasing in number in the US as a result, I think). The first person to create antigravity is still screwed--- most applications of it are still locked up by others--
Sounds like an easy way to steal other people's ideas and patent them without having to do the work yourself. The people with the best lawyers and most money will win all the patents.
First to file rather than first to invent means that all pesky open source programmers will have to worry about patenting random parts of what they do or risk that some large corporation or patent troll patents them out of their invention.
Even people that uterly despise software patents will have no choice in the US.
On the other hand all countries that heavelly invest in public education under the idea that education should not be only for rich kids and insannely smart, but also for smart creative poor or just not so rich kids, should be happy to see anything happen that makes the US less interesting for creative minds.
And helps the ROI stay in the country that made the investment.
How about reforming software and business method patents while you're at it? We'll mark our brib^w donations as charitable, just name your price and pucker up.
Of course, this is unconstitutional. The Constitution requires that patents only be granted to an inventor. An inventor is the first person to develop a discovery or technology. The second guy to do so, even if he does so independently, is ultimately just an also-ran. If someone who had been unaware of them spontaneously invented the wheel, why the hell would he deserve anything? Why would it matter whether he did so thousands of years after it was invented by the actual inventor, or a day?
If other countries want to do that, then that's up to them. I'm not going to tell them what to do. But not only is it a bad idea here, it is one that would be entirely unlawful. It's only in here due to a combination of laziness on the part of the PTO, since they could avoid having to run interference proceedings, and greed on the part of large, corporate inventors, since they can act more quickly than smaller inventors.
I haven't had a chance to look at the latest bill, but I doubt there's much good in it, if anything, if this is any indication.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
It specifically gives legislative authority to congress only, but this didnt stop the formation of the FCC, or the nixon drug laws (which give some yokle at the fda legislative authority against any pharmaceutical agent).
It also called for limited terms to copyright, but we all know who won in eldred vs ashcroft (so instead of infinity, it's infinity - 1.. which only those educated in calculus or higher know is still infinity)
I learned through my history classes and especially current events not to count on the constitution shooting down unjust laws. I think that's one of the strengths of other developed western nations with less stringent constitutional protections.. the people have to stop it at the source actively because they cant count on the same kind of checks and balances.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Source: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Are you telling me that this silly piece of habberdashery is the future?
..as two of congress's biggest sock puppets to moneyed interests, so there is no surprise theyre the ones comming up with this, and it's also a slight relief to know this is what some of the worst of the worst are comming up with, because if not this it would be something much much worse.
Anyway, this is designed to "reform" the system by clearing the courts of many cases by simply awarding the sneakiest party. This law would result in the legitimizing of those "patent parasite" firms who snag patents, then ambush companies just as theyre going to market. It would reverse the apple v creative case too. This is definitely at the expense of the inventor, and would also make invalidation of obvious patents much harder, since prior art would no longer apply. In that way it is playing to moneyed interests, but even moneyed interests would incur great expense to these parasites mentioned above.
The hatch/leahy duo are the perfect illustration of how partisan grandstanding only serves as a red herring, and that corruption extends beyond party lines.
In addition to the horizontal axis of left and right, there is a vertical axis nobody in the media or politics wants the public to pay attentin to, moneyed elitists vs populists.
voting one party or the other does not guarantee the politician's position along this vertical axis, and that axis in this nation is the one which is more important.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
This is great; I will patent the process of sucking air to live.
Or fire, the wheel, the screw, the inclined plane and the wing.
Hey, how about a patent on stealing the election through Diebold voting machines?
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
An interesting tidbit, this was introduced in 2005 as well by Lamar Smith of Texas:
t _reform_p.html
http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/06/paten
Not sure what the difference is between the two, because I'm still looking for the bill's number. It's almost as if people like to use the fluffy name and never really look at the bill - only reference it from other articles.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
And it requires that copyrights only be granted to an author. But then the Constitution doesn't specify how "author" and "inventor" shall be defined.
The entertainment industry, apart from isolated cases such as Knight & Associates, is nearly inactive in filing patents. Mr. Hatch's record on copyright law can only be an attack ad hominem without a link to the bill. I'd give one, but all the bills on thomas.loc.gov containing the phrase "patent reform" are months too old to be the bill that this article discusses.
-b.
The real problem with our patent system is not the first-to-file or first-to-invent rule. The real issue is the bogus patents. No solution will work until we stop funding the patent office based on the number of patents it grants. We have an big incentive for the office to NOT do their job. It would be like paying lawyers only if they lost a case!
"The bill would also establish a "postgrant opposition" system that would allow outsiders to dispute the validity of a patent before a board of administrative judges within the Patent Office, rather than in the traditional court system. The idea behind such a proceeding, also endorsed by the Patent Office, is to stave off excessive litigation.
The Senate version appears to give broader leeway for such challenges, offering up to 12 months--as opposed to the House's nine-month window--after the patent is awarded for challengers to file a "petition for cancellation." That time period could then be widened even further, with a second window available if the petitioner "establishes a substantial reason to believe that the continued existence of the challenged claim causes or is likely to cause the petitioner significant economic harm." Challengers would be limited, however, in the issues they could raise after that first year expires." from the article
Economic harm, seems to be potentially a way of blocking a large number of interested parties even the original inventor. seems that gpled software could be vunerable to this, it's free therefore no economic harm and no standing to challenge the patent. who can fight back in this situation ?
I will leave it upto someone else to explore the pitfalls of that little idea
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Such a change has already earned backing from Jon Dudas, chief of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
If it will increase the size and budget of the USPTO (which is what this means) it's bad.
It's done in Japan all the time. In fact, they are known to peruse a US PhD thesis, then file stuff based on it. Now US companies could do the same. Still sound good to you? Oh, gonna claim that the thesis was prior art? Bzzt, been tried. Didn't work. Usually there's just one copy sitting on a shelf in a library, so it gets treated as non-public.
Brent O. Hatch is one of SCOs many lawyers. One wonders if any part of the new law would be of any help to SCO grabbing the work on many Linux programmers?
If Wikipedia is right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orrin_Hatch
Mod parent UP as the post is on to something.
I guess the SCO group realizes it has no case so it is now influencing a change in law to change its case. Where is the SEC when you need them? Maybe this explains why SCO gets away with so much.
IBM/Linux should patent 0/1 (binary) since prior art no longer maters. Then countersue. I look at the bright side, the more of a circus they make of the patent system, the sooner it will fall.
If I were to propose a law regarding patents, it would be rather simple.
If you can't touch it, you can't patent it.
This would eliminate patents on business methods and software, while still preserving them for physical objects which are why the patent system was made.
Does anyone see problems with this?
You thought we wouldn't recognize you, Don Judas? This man can't be trusted.
if you've released code as open source that means it's been published, and no patent application filed on a later date could be granted covering any supposed invention in that code.
Hah! Have you ever browsed the patent database?
So.. Now, everything anyone see's, they patent.
First to file gets it, right?
Let's patent the process of electing government officials in a democratic method utilizing an electorial college, and sue the pants off the government.
First to file afterall..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
"then who in their right mind would invest 10's or 100's of millions of dollars into producing a product when that basically means they're giving it to their competetors for free?"
The answer is every single large western business that ships manufacturing capacity to china or sells advanced products like machine tools, etc. Every single one of those industry "experts" is selling off the farm for pennies, for short term goals. Anything valuable is cloned and reproduced, patents be damned. It's the biggest industrial mass suicide ever, with only a few people at the top making any money from it. Everyone elese will suffer in the long run from ignoring the basic fact that they don't adhere to basic patent protections over there, despite the rhetoric and financial agreements. If their "globalism" bullshit worked we wouldn't be running such huge trade imbalances. so their solution is to ship MORE stuff over there, basically all the R&D that happens. So, those idiots aren't in their right mind,and combined they have gven away trillions to the competition. They skim off bllions for their golden parachutes and laugh at the suckers swallowing their lies.
You cannot be in politics and be completely honest, anyway. By definition, a politician has to lie to someone at sometime in order to get elected. Over time they get so used to lying that they can't tell the difference between a lie and the truth, they only see varying levels of personal benefit.
Why can't we just go with the most specific patent. Really would solve the problem of overly broad patents, as well as the problem of somebody patenting somebody else's invention.
I probably don't understand patent law, but how exactly does moving to a first to file system solve the problem of patenting other people's work? As it is there is at least in theory a way and means of an inventor regaining the ownership of a patent if the patent applicant didn't invent the process or device to begin with.
Okay, imagine this.
The open-source community comes up with something innovative and something that could be patented. But it may be such a basic software feature that noone bothers to patent, or may not have the means to patent. Random Evil Company X comes along, sees said product, submits a patent application and it somehow goes through. Then what?
The only way would be to barrage the patent office with applications for every tiny little thing. But not everyone has the means to do this.
But, its supported by Orrin Hatch, same guy who is behind a lot of other nasty IP related bills that have appeared on Slashdot. Which automatically makes it bad. (since Hatch has shown time and time again that he is a shill to big corps with lots of investment in IP)
Just a fact of life. I got a patent for trapping and color separation of postscript print files in the mid 80s. When another company stated doing the same thing, my patent lawyer had sent out letters to sease and desist of course they ignored that. Patent law litigators response was send them a check for $50,000 to get started.
If you look at all the bills this guy sponsors, you will have a hard time finding a bigger nut in Congress. That alone should prompt people to take a hard look at this bill.
The problem is there are too many incompetent people working there who are not intelligent enough to decide who invented what. So they are giving up, saying that anyone can steal anyone's idea, as long as rush into the office quick enough. They do not want their shoddy work to be reviewed by the courts!
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
People need to understand that patents are a lie, and pure evil. There are several reasons for this ....
a) Inventions are usefull, they are beneficial that's why there will always be a need for them with or without patents. The choice is not between patents and no innovation, the choice is between wether invention revenue will derive from a service model vs an invention control model.
b) When you have patnets that forces the market to center around invention controlls, when you don't have patnets that forces the market to center around invnetion services. So the notion that patents help small inventors, and incentivize invention is complete fraud.
c) Inventors are good at inventing things, big-business and government and lawyers are good at controlling things - patents do not help inventors. Patents help some large businesses, lawyers, governments, and anyone else who likes to control and deny other peoples liberties. They hurt inventors and do not promote innovation.
d) Patents are not a property right. Property rights exist because of natural scarcity, not because of human made scarsity. Slaves on the plantation were not a property right either. All the argument about incentive, business, commerce, and the wealth of America was crap back then and is now too.
e) Patents are a pure evil, and even genocidial. Those millions Africans who suffered and died of AIDS while pharmacuticals sued in the world court to forbid African nations from making generics - they suffered and died in the name of patetns. Those millions of people who died in auto accidents while patents held back air-bags and anti-lock breaks for 20 years - they suffered and died in the name of patents.
In sum, patents are a fraud, they are a lie, they harm inventors, they stiffle innovation, they are not property, they are anti free market, and they are evil to the point of genocide. We shouldn't be trying to reform them, we should be trying to kill them and hammer anyone else who dares try to impose them on us.
A tangible could be patented, an intangible not. That would certainly bring it back into focus and intent more. They had intangible "intellectual property" back in the olden days and specifically DIDN'T include it under something that could be patented. Copyright for that stuff works just fine.
The reason they want patents on intangibles is because they have delibarately gone about destroying the tangibles manufacturing base inside the US. so they need something else to replace it to sell. They aren't finished yet with the eradication of domestic manufacturing, but I could easily see a time where not much beyond military hardware is manufactured here. And maybe not even a lot of that. The big (mostly international now) arms companies don't care, they just want their expensive stuff used up as fast as possible so it can be replaced. Ka-ching! ka-ching! Rake in the dough! There's too much financial incentive to keep a slew of smaller and medium sized wars going for it *not* to happen.
Like everything in life, the way to have good patents that are fair is to have good and fair patent experts who review each case. I agree with the parent, at least with prior art there is some benefit to the small inventor, but ideally you just need somebody who isn't a moron approving or rejecting the patents.
That should squish all those bothersome 'prior art' protests. Now you really CAN patent air and charge everybody fifty cents to breath; just beat God to the filing office.
Doesn't take long to follow the money on this one, does it? Next step is for Microsoft to patent every program existing on a FOSS system the day after this passes.
I've never seen anything decent from Hatch. If he's a sponsor, something is wrong with this bill. I may not know what it is, but something is wrong.
Never forget that Hatch is one of the names lending support to SCO. (Not the senator, but his son.) Trust something from him like you would trust a standard MicroSoft contract.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This seems to help the politicians out. I don't mean by directing money to their coffers, although I am sure that will be a result as well, but by minimizing the public view of patent issues. Most people in the public don't understand the issues with patents, and it only gets their attention when they may lose an important service, such as Blackberry. These rules will reduce litigation and public awareness of patent issues. This helps the politicians, since they can then focus on important things, like restricting video games.
Your American law system gets more complicated by the day..
:-)
most responses I read here are of the form "I can't actually see anything wrong with this law, but if Orrin Hatch sponsors it, it must be evil"
Well.. tighten your tinfoil hats..
What if the law is actually a genuine attempt to mitigate the effects of the current U.S. patent mess,
but it is especially sponsored by sen. Hatch so that it *will* be shot down *anyway*?
(do I get extra karma points for paranoid thinking now?)
PS. If it's a good law I hope it passes, and I'm not even American, so go figure.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
I am a second year law student, and by fortuitous accident, I've had the opportunity to sit in on some high level meetings regarding new PTO changes. Generally, I believe IP is too strong and could probably get on board with eliminating business method and software patents, although there is convincing evidence that these aren't as harmful as people think. (e.g. patent analysis by C.S. Professors and "good" people in the industry finding that software patents have very little effect except in helping small companies who want to get bought out.)
The responses to this article demonstrate all that is wrong with slashdot. Knee-jerk reactions based on who is involved without understanding the underlying issues at all. I'll address them one by one.
Eliminate patents - Are you insane? How would new drugs be created? Do you not understand the R&D process at all? It takes a decade for a drug to get from conception through clinicals. What would happen if at the end of that process, some competitor could make it for the cost of production? No new drugs.
Prior art - This has nothing to do with prior art. If you try to patent something that was anticipated, you won't get the patent. This is even more true after these changes and the recent structural improvements at the PTO. Indeed, the public will have the opportunity to submit prior art and will be able to go argue with the PTO even after issuance. Isn't this what you wanted? All that first to file does is streamline the system and clear up a lot of the mess involving interferences. It is used by most other countries for a reason.
Trolls - I assure you, the people behind this bill, primarily the PTO under John Dudas, think about this problem all the time. Trolls are the one thing that almost everyone in the system, from OSS to companies to the small inventors, universally do not want. Overall, this bill helps this problem by only awarding small damages for a tiny infringing part of complex systems. This combined with the recent ruling allowing courts to use equity in awarding damages might do much to curb the troll problem.
Constitution - I noted an extremely low uid blabbing about the constitution. This doesn't award an invention to someone who is not the inventor. If you didn't invent it and there is prior art, you're out of luck. What it does is resolve annoying problems like "inventor X conceived on this date. 2 days later inventor Y conceived independently. inventor X took 1 year to reduce to practice, but inventor Y only took 8 months and filed first."
Overall, it is incredibly presumptuous to believe that after thinking about it for a few minutes in your spare time, you can actually have an intelligent position on the entire field of patent law. This system hangs on complex economic analysis, and there is money on both sides. That is, companies both want patents and want patents to expire and not clog the system so that they can use those inventions. This means that the end result is extremely efficient over time. Primary problems with the patent system:
1) The PTO is underfunded and hasn't been able to hire enough examiners or train them well enough to issue good patents. Finally congress is letting them keep all of their fees, so they are *doubling* the number of examiners by 2011 and jump starting the training programs.
2) New technology doesn't fit into the old model. Academia and the industry are working to solve this one, and it's getting better. You can't get a patent for "X, on the internet!" anymore, and even though some of those are still on the books (e.g. Amazon one-click), they aren't really enforceable.
3) Trolls. This is a complicated problem that has yet to be solved because it would be difficult to do so without hurting the small inventors who need to sell their patents to larger companies to exploit them. It's easier than you think for small inventors to get patents (and even easier under the new system), but the PTO can't change the fact that those inventors don't have factor
Then the second person gets the patent, and sues the first person and the actual inventor is screwed.
Hmm, then Amazon would really have screwed everyone with its one click patent. I'd bet big corporations are really into this.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
I would actually argue that first-to-file has very strong "theory" justifications, in addition to being far simpler to administer. Consider two people who invent the same invention. The first "invents" first, but keeps it a secret. She is slow to work out all of the details (to "reduce to practice" in patent parlance), to turn it into a commercial product (or else she would run into section 102 statutory bars against later filing her patent), or of course, to file the patent. Perhaps she has problems with finding the time or the necessary funding; perhaps she is simply lazy. (Of course, she can't be too lazy. The law requires that she be "diligent" in reducing to practice and in filing a patent, or else she loses out to the later inventor who is diligent and files first.)
The second inventor invents the same thing two month later. She did actually invent it entirely independantly of the first inventor, or else she can't get the patent under either first-to-invent or first-to-file. The first inventor, remember, has kept the details of the invention secret. Inventor two works hard to reduce to practice and promptly files a patent. She also quickly brings the product to market, all while inventor one is dawdling.
Who deserves the patent? I would say inventor two. Of what use are inventor one's efforts to anyone? Sure she "invented" the thing first, but why would I want to reward people who invent quickly, but then just sit on their inventions? Of course, you can come up with other stories that might shift the argument one way or the other. The point is that there is a value to having people make their inventions public quickly (so that others become aware of the idea, so that others know that a particular problem no longer needs to be solved, and so that others become aware that a patent is likely to cover a particular area in the future), and filing a patent does this, as patent applications generally are published 18 months after filing. (The patent reform proposals would increase the number of applications that must be published after 18 months, by the way.)
This isn't about making it easier to process new patents quicker. Relatively few patent applications become involved in "interferences," two or more inventors attempting to patent the same invention. Where this change would make the biggest change is in the courts, where inventors claiming the same invention fight it out or where patent defendants try to invalidate a patent based upon a later filing that was arguably invented first. These court cases are pretty messy. First, the question of when an "invention" is made is often not clear cut. Years can pass between when you first get the idea to try something and when you know it works and have worked out the messy details. When during this period does "invention" occur? Second, these questions often are very difficult to prove, since much of the relevant work goes on largely within the mind of the inventor.
Perhaps the bigger reason for the change, however, has to do with international harmonization. Every country on the planet other than the U.S. has switched to first-to-file. If further harmonization of patent laws is to occur, the U.S. is clearly going to have to switch as well. What the U.S. hopes to get as quid pro quo, however, is a switch by Europe to allow a "grace period" between when you publish details about your invention and when you must file the patent. Current European law says that if you make your invention public before you file, you lose the right to file the patent. The U.S. lets you file up to a year after you make your invention public. Japan gives you six months and is otherwise a bit more restrictive than the U.S. The lack of a grace period in Europe means that inventors interested in the worldwide market e
This is Senate Resolution 3818, for those interested in actually reading the bill. For some reason, TFA fails to disclose this.
The Fire of Genius claims to have a copy in pdf.
Capitalism rewards enterprise, not inventiveness.
Capital rewards those who already have capital. That was the whole revolutionary idea behind it... use money to make money. While the "grow the pie" aspect of that is all fine and dandy in theory, in practice the problem that underlies both a patent-laden and patent-less capitalist economy is that the big guy (he who already has wealth) can use what he's already got to keep the little guy from getting anywhere.
Don't get me wrong, I'm highly against all sorts of "intellectual property" laws. There's no ethical justification behind applying force or coercion (which of course is what backs all laws) to control what information people are allowed to use. But the problems that both patents and copyright are trying to circumvent (trademarks are more of an anti-fraud thing really) are problems with raw, unadulterated capitalism. It seems to me that the proper solution to these problems is to patch the bugs in "pure" capitalism, rather than trying to apply ad-hoc solutions to particular economic problems like the funding of arts and sciences (which is theoretically what intellectual property right laws strive to do).
(And before some right-winger or anarcho-capitalist comes along and calls me a goddamned commie, please note that I'm not at all calling for the abolition of a free market economy, but rather for some of the sane checks and balances and caveats that the founders of what would come to be called capitalism, people like Smith and Locke, advocated all along).
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Let customers rely on copyrights et al, rather than on patents, for protection of software.
1. must be first to invent
2. must be first to file
3. must file within a year of invention
4. every day from invention to granting of the patent cuts the life by a week
5. if you mess up a date, you lose the patent and pay triple damages to any licence holders
6. if you mess up a date willfully, you go to jail
I think that would totally wipe out delaying tactics and many other forms of cheating.
Orrin Hatch is also a respected singer-composer and publisher with deep roots in Christian music. The Music of Senator Orrin Hatch. Orrin Hatch - LDS Musician, Composer/Senator Orrin Hatch.
I came here to say the exact same thing as hey!.
Throughout the course of history, there are examples of ideas whose time had come. Calculus is one of those, the radio is another. To the outsider they are incredibly complex and original, to the insider they are the natural progression of the art. Their worthiness seems larger due to the fact that they are culminating accomplishments in the field, but in reality the puzzle was already mostly completed by other people. History likes heros so we build up the big name scientists, and play down the others, when in fact accomplishment in science is a combination of being intelligent, hardworking, and being in the right place at the right time.
Furthermore, I think you are getting caught up on the terminology here. The purpose of patents are to encourage the advancement of science. Seeing as how calculus was created, by not only one but two mathematicians, without the existence of patents, then it is obvious that patents were not needed to promote it's development.
- First to file is virtually de facto now.
- It allows for a unified international filing system. The US might get concessions on the world stage in exchange for switching.
- PTO and inventors would save time and money, through much easier resolution of interferences.
- Patent prosecution goes faster.
- More certainty in who owns a patent. No danger of someone showing up years later and claiming priority.
Arguments against a switch:- First-to-file fosters premature, less cohesive inventions and applications.
- Small entities are disadvantaged in a race to the patent office, due to limited resources. First to invent gives them a way to file later and prove primacy.
- Theft of inventions is more likely to succeed under first-to-file.
- A switch provides fewer opportunities to explore commercial options prior to filing.
- PTO would be swamped by defensive filings.
Discuss amongst yourselves.This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
I will never understand how the US system works.
In the rest of the world, this is called bribes and is illeagal.
To my way of thinking, having a simple, objective challenge for "obviousness" is the most practical solution conceivable. Sure, people may perjure themselves. That's true under any patent system. But the game itself is much tougher, and therefore less attractive to unscrupulous people out to make a quick buck.
If it were possible to objectively define "obviousness", yes, then I agree that would be the most practical solution...
However, I believe that would be impossible at best.
Even within a single study, such as "Computer Engineering", what is obvious to one PhD holder is not obvious to another. For example, many of those who research microprocessor architecture will [understandably] have no concept of signal processing, communications, or electromagnetics. (These are all Computer Engineering). Worse, many truly novel breakthroughs are only obvious in hindsight.
In terms of fields, I think Computer Engineering is somewhat representative of the best-case scenario... It is a field where pretty much everything is completely defined by humans... (Reality is defined, not studided as in the sciences). I shudder to think what is 'obvious' in the bio-medical fields...
And there are always those in every field who have a remarkable ability to make the clearly obvious methods look totally obscure.
Defining obvious will not be easy.
MegaFeelgoodCorp or something, wants to create a new AIDS treatment
They medical corps are doing very well in coming out with new drugs to treat diseases all the time. In particular, AIDS has some interesting new treatments. But one thing to notice is that these are treatments, not cures. In other words, patients have to keep taking said treatment.
The holy grail for the medical industry would be something that fully inhibits, but does not kill the disease. This would be something that would allow people with AIDS to live a full life, and even possibly engage in sexual relations without infecting a partner, but always require treatment to keep the disease in remission.
Medicine in that respect hasn't changed in many ways... it's still much more profitable to "treat" a longterm illness than it is to cure it. YI fully agree that medical corps are investing lots of money in treating such diseases, I just wish they'd invest more in curing them (or even vaccinating, which is still a big profit item for them but more beneficial to the public at large).
My fear is that there will be some court case that invalidates things like sourceforge as prior art in order to "simplify" things because too many companies can't keep from getting sued. That would lead to companies pillaging ideas from the "public". One danger of "first to file" is the idea by certian people in the PTO, already starting to surface, that everything should be patented... so by not filing, they feel entitled to give it to somebody else. That's horribly dangerous for OSS because we don't generally issue patents.
It's not a problem for open source; if you've released code as open source that means it's been published, and no patent application filed on a later date could be granted covering any supposed invention in that code.
My problem is that this places even more burden on the market to 'argue it out' as to whether or not a patent application is valid, which is a problem because in practice it means the guys with lots of money (the big corporates) will basically always get to keep the patents, because how many "Joe OpenSourceDevelopers" can afford patent litigation to challenge a patent? I know this is already a problem, but this "reform" makes the problem even worse, because it takes the whole existing "let anything be patented by the USPTO and let the market argue it out" a step further.
If the innovation is really the greates thing since sliced bread, if marketed properly, it will give enough head start to the inventor to make back his money.
If the invention is just a gradual step or an idea that is pretty simple (even if unique), then it should rightly be copied, and the head start should be much shorter in regards to competition.
Most likely what would happen is that inventors with a good record would be hired by companies in order to solve problems and with their muscle put things quickly into the market.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It was completely unavoidable to come up with the correct material eventually.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Everything is obvious in hindsight. All invention procedes from the known to the unknown. An invention is nearly always the combination of two or more known things to produce something which was unknown and which has unexpected benefits.
What else could it be? The combination of two or more unknown things to produce a known thing?
Most of the abuses of the patent system would disapear if only individuals could own patents.
I also hope that with its passing we begin to see the demise of the patent system because a patent will no longer have significant meaning - it's just like an RTS game...first to the patent office (or first to attack) wins. We'll see the quality of patented things drop (though they're not particularly high now) and those people who invent things and get shafted too many times turn to alternate means of releasing their inventions.
I'm willing to bet that an inventor (note: not a money-grubber) is more interested in seeing their invention be used and adopted than to merely get a patent on it. With something like Creative Commons for tangible inventions I think we'd have a viable alternative to patents. Clearly, the existing rules for patents must still apply (non-obvious, useful, not overly broad, etc.) or too many vague patents will impeded innovation more than the current system.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
The root of the problem is the PTO's difficulties in hiring enough people and getting them to stay long enough to learn the job properly. This situation pushes the institutional culture in the direction of cranking out applications as fast (rather than as carefully) as possible.
I don't see anything in this "reform" that addresses this.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I don't know how prevalent this is overall, but it apparently does actually happen.
Samoan tribal healers getting paid for their help finding an AIDS drug
Wacky. AIDS isn't a disease you'd think to look for in traditional tribal knowledge, but truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
The problem is that the patent system tries to cover a wide range of conceptually different areas. Software is different from biogenetics that is different from mechanical devices, which are different from business methods, et cetera. While some business ventures need to be protected, others don't. In order to create progress, it might be necessary to allow patenting medicine. That does not necessarily apply for kitchen utensils or engine components or network protocols or how to drive nails into wood with a hard weight. Still, the patent system tries to make a broad sweep and sort all that in the same "If it is valuable, someone can own it" drawer. Ideally, we should branch the patent system into different varieties. This is already done in the instance of copyright, but we need more such definitions. Further, patents should generally be EXTREMELY limited in scope, and sparse.
if I tell you how to do something, then that becomes obvious to you how to do it. If you try to patent it, the obvious clause comes in to effect: there was no invention on your part because you already were told how to do it. If someone else came up, didn't tell you and you file after they released the information, it would still be obvious because it was thought of before you. With "first to invent", you can say "well, I actually thought of it ten years ago".
First to file does stuff you up if you invented it ten years ago but didn't get 'round to patenting it.