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Legislation To Overhaul US Patent System
FutureDomain sends us to a PC World report on the filing yesterday of legislation to overhaul the US patent system completely. The US has the only system worldwide that tries to ascertain who first invented a thing — everywhere else the criterion is who filed first, and the new legislation would bring the US into line. Identical bills were introduced in both the House and the Senate by, in each case, bipartisan sponsors. The corporate roster of backers includes Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, and nearly everyone else. From the article: "The provisions of the Patent Reform Act would... restrict damages that patent holders can receive for infringement lawsuits, create a new procedure to challenge the validity of a patent after it has been granted, and boost resources for the US Patent and Trademark Office."
This only magnifies the problem with the existing system where only the big guys can AFFORD to file patents and actually enforce them.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Judging from the article this does nothing to limit the "Doing something that everybody has been doing for years ... over the Internet"; "Doing something that everybody has been doing for years ... wirelessly" kind of patents.
Or the "Get a bunch of specialists in a room and ask them 'How would you solve problem X' and then patent the solutions" approach to "innovation".
Not to mention that the change from a "Prior-art has precedence" system to a "First to patent wins" one means the anybody that has loads of ideas but no money to patent them will loose against "Big corp with loadsa money for whom the costs of filling a patent are short change".
Couple this with the ability to patent business methods (whether encoded as a software/hardware mix or not) and you'll see things like "selling ice-cream on a beach" being patented.
The real revolution would be dropping patents for business methods (software encoded or not) altogether.
The fact that BSA is for it (read: the big boys in the software world), should be ringing alarm bells in everybodies minds.
Certainly, since your claimed expertise isn't technology, I'll repeat this again. IBM has had a monopoly for over 50 years in the mainframe business. There was an anti-trust case taken by the U.S. government back in the 1950's IIRC against them. Contrary to popular myth, the mainframe business is very much alive and well, and in Q4 last year, it was their largest growth segment.
I say "almost all" because there's a small startup which is selling mainframe-class computers which runs IBMs software directly. IBM didn't like this, so they filed a Software Patent lawsuit against the company.
The company is called "Platform Solutions", and they are apparently using Linux to achieve their emulation.
So, in short, IBM has filed a Software Patent lawsuit against a Linux company. Here's some Press Coverage:
"IBM's decision to sue Platform Solutions is another indication that the company is becoming more aggressive about defending its intellectual property in an effort to extract more revenue from its extensive patent trove."
IBM has a VERY long history of patent abuse in the mainframe business; software patents are only the latest variation on a theme. Please check Wikipedia if you want to learn more about the Consent Decree that IBM had to operate under until possibly recently.
"Actually, some of the reform these guys have proposed and the briefs they have written for SCOTUS cases have been in favor of things that would REDUCE the number of patents."
Prove it (but you can't). The standard argument is that first-to-file INCREASES the number of patents, since large companies find it easier to generate more patents than small companies do.
"First to invent is a mess."
And First-to-file stifles innovation. It is pure pork for the big companies. The patent system was supposed to be about encouraging innovation, not stifling it. I agree the whole system needs to be redone. But First-to-file is neither necessary nor sufficient to bring about the changes that are needed.
"Um, working prototype is currently a requirement FOR ALL PATENTS. You do not patent an idea, you patent an invention"
Really? Do you mean all those patent trolls who never ship any product have a working prototype? I'm a little surprised to hear this claim from a supposed Patent Attorney. I can think of several Troll companies which don't have a working product. This is usually their standard operating procedure.
A copy of the prototype binary and source code ought to be a part of any current Software Patent, IMHO.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
True, so here's a solution: tie patents to individuals rather than corporations. Make them non-transferable, and make corporations ineligible for owning patents (and throw out the rest of the archaic, railroad-boss-purchased "corporate personhood" bullshit while we're at it).
Then perhaps the patent system can return to the way it was when it was designed.