Congress Tackles Patent Reform

nadamsieee writes "Wired's Luke O'Brian recently reported about Congress' latest attempt to reform the patent system. In the article O'Brian tells of how 'witnesses at Thursday's hearing painted a bleak picture of that system. Adam Jaffe, a Brandeis University professor and author of a book on the subject, described the system as 'out of whack.' Instead of 'the engine of innovation,' the patent has become 'the sand in the gears,' he said, citing widespread fears of litigation. The House Oversight Committee website has more details. How would you fix the patent system?"

Comments

Require source code as enablement

[radarjd]

One of the requirements of a patent filing is that the inventioned be "enabled" by the specification in the patent 35 USC 112. I have always thought an interesting way of handling business method / software patents would be to require any patent which requires a computer include the actual code needed to enable the invention.

This gives us several benefits: 1) it's more analogous to a physical invention where all the parts have to be described in detail; 2) the source code to enable an invention would be free and public knowledge at the expiration of the patent; and 3) it's useful for others to understand exactly what the inventor is trying to claim as part of his patent. The public would benefit from a better description of the invention, competitors could determine exactly what a patent is supposed to do, and the patentor would not have to face the specter of business method or software patents being eliminated in their entirety (which I'm sure more than a few people will call for).