Broken Patent System? Google, Apple Disagree

Whiney Mac Fanboy writes "The AlwaysOn Stanford Summit featured the panel discussion 'The Patent Crisis: Crossroads for the Business of Technology.' Speakers included patent lawyers from Google, IBM, and Apple. According to The Register, Google's and Apple's patent jocks had diametrically opposing views. Google's head of patents believes the system is in crisis: 'The Patent Office is overburdened,' she said. 'The volume of patents going in is huge. And the quality of patents coming out — it could be better.' But Apple's chief patent counsel said the US patent system was 'not broken' and 'not in crisis,' calling it 'the best in the world.'"

Comments

Re:It's Official: Apple & Google are Evil

[Vokkyt]

RTFA, not the summary, which is a poor one at that.

From TFA:

But he acknowledged that there was a "huge bubble" of patent assertions that needs to be scaled back. "The question with this bubble market, as with any bubble market, is 'Can we solve it without a crisis arising?'" he said.

Lutton believes that the key to fixing the country's patent problems lies with the courts, not the patent office. "Most patents issued are never litigated and never licensed," he said. "We need to focus on fixing the litigation system. That's most relevant."

The issue that Lutton takes with Google's stance is that it's destructive and costly, and basically calls for something else, without any real indication of what that else is. Apple certainly has had fun with patent whores in the past, but they usually come out on top or take care of the issue. Lutton wasn't saying that the patent system is absolutely perfect, that is, without flaws or error. What they did acknowledge is that given the alternative options in other parts of the world, it's best for them. Why is that so bad?

Re:Well, my respect for Apple just went down a not

[Heftklammerdosierer!]

From TFA:

Speaking alongside Lee, Apple's chief patent counsel, Chip Lutton, wouldn't go quite so far as his Google counterpart. He said the US patent system was "not broken" and that it was "not in crisis," calling it "the best in the world". But he acknowledged that there was a "huge bubble" of patent assertions that needs to be scaled back. "The question with this bubble market, as with any bubble market, is 'Can we solve it without a crisis arising?'" he said.

Useless

[Duncan3]

A patent will not stop China (who makes everything) from making copies of your product, because it's not the USA.
A Patent will not stop Microsoft from using your product, because they can pay more to lawyers then you can - which is how the "legal system" works.

How are patents helping the inventors exactly?

Re:Google is right...

[sheldon]

I knew a guy who went on to be a patent examiner.

As he explained it, they were instructed to be very lenient on accepting patents, because it was simply taken for granted that any complaints or problems would be handled in the courts.

That's the way businesses preferred it to be done, and perhaps that is Apple's position here.

Re:If it isn't done much yet, maybe there is a rea

[Jerry Coffin]

Is the judicial system really qualified to test for items such as obviousness in a technical field in order to dismissing a patent. For every witness that says it is obvious, I'm sure the opposing side will say it's not. Perhaps we should have a select group of technical judges just for this purpose.

Yes, both sides are usually going to find experts who will testify to what they want said -- and to at least some extent, both will usually be correct. Relatively few patents are granted for things quite as obvious as most people think -- but most aren't exactly blazing new trails into completely unexplored wilderness (so to speak) either. The most obvious patents are rarely used as the basis for a lawsuit in any case. A company that's going to try to make money off their patents wants to look invincible -- to the point that if they send you a letter saying they think you're infringing on their patents, the only reasonable reaction is to settle as quickly as possible. The last thing they want is to waste lots of time and money in court with a weak patent, only to lose the case because it's obvious, and (worse) end up looking weaker so anybody else they go after for the next ten years (or so) will fight back because they think there's a good chance of winning.

As far as obviousness goes, there's also been a fairly noticeable change in the US recently. The Supreme Court of the US (in the case of KSR v. Teleflex) recently ruled that the criteria that have been used by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit were basically flawed. The rules they had previously followed said that to show a patent was obvious, you basically needed to show where previous documents showed all the elements in the patent, and you needed to show some way in which a document suggested combining those elements into a single invention (e.g. if two elements were shown in separate documents, that a third document listed both of the first two in its bibliography).

In the KSR v. Teleflex decision, the Supreme Court ruled that it was not enough to show that the particular combination of elements you used hadn't been specifically suggested previously. Rather, you have to show that you got (for example) some result beyond what would be expected by combining those elements in that particular fashion. In case anybody cares, this ruling also discusses the criteria that had been used previously.

As far as there being a panel of judges specifically for looking at patents, that already exists: I already mentioned the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. This court works almost exclusively with patent cases. It was created for more or less the reasons you suggest.

Along with ruling on things like whether a particular patent is obvious, the CAFC attempts to create criteria that give the lower courts guidance in how to make that determination as well. In KSR v. Teleflex, the Supreme Court not only changed the final ruling, but (more importantly) said that the criteria that were previously in use needed to be changed. As such, this will have a considerable effect on the rulings of lower courts in patent cases, probably for years to come.

its really obvious...

[3seas]

allowing software to be patented is proof that it is broken.

Re:Google is right...

[PatrickMMoore]

You're absolutely right. When I was fresh outta college and working as an examiner, I would use whatever f***ed up logic that made my boss happy with my production numbers. I'm not proud of that fact, but it did make my life considerably better.

I am agreeing with you that the system is pretty jacked up and no longer encourages innovation (which is what it was meant for in the first place. Thomas Jefferson would probably be working for Google if he were alive today.

Misleading Title

[nicolastheadept]

That title is extremely misleading. The way its written it looks like its saying that Google and Apple disagree with the fact that the patent system is broken.

KSR v. Teleflex

[Jimb0v]

Patent system has already been fixed by the Supreme Court. They made it much easier for an examienr to merely state that they believe something is obvious.

Re:Urrgh!!!

[greenbird]

As for the small businesses you worked for, I'm sorry they got squished under the strong arm of bigger companies, but my question still stands; was the patent infringement legitimate?

Yeah, they stole truly innovative programming techniques like linked list. So they could either license this innovative technology for $x of they could fight the patent which would cost anywhere from $x to $5x. Oh and the cost for fighting would tend towards the higher since the case was filed in the patent friendliest court in the US, good old Marshall, Texas Just the fact of that patent being granted shows how broken the current patent system is.

What, do you want to wipe the patent slate clean and have everyone start from scratch? Well that would certainly suck. Should companies with X amount of patents have to give up all their patents and start anew with a one patent per year ruling? Doesn't sound fair to them, now does it.

No. They should have to give up the idiotic patents like the one above. Unfortunately the current system has fostered a climate where 1000's of such patents (I dare say the vast majority) are not only granted but prove profitable for the owners of the patents. The idea of patents was put in the US Constitutions, despite the reservations of most of the framers of the US Constitution, for the exclusive purpose of fostering competition. You need to show me how the current system is in any way fostering innovation because the examples of the current patent system stifling innovation are rife. Until you do that, to bad if some poor little company making money and/or destroying truly innovative companies loses their business model of blackmailing with idiotic patents. The reservations of the founding fathers have been proven more than valid. I'm sure they would be scribbling that little part out if they saw the system as it is today.

Seriously, if simply revising what seems to be an alright system for many companies (not just big companies, small ones as well profit from the patent system) is not enough, then what is the answer? How should it work?

You are completely clueless as to the purpose of the patent system. It's not there so some companies can profit from it. No shit some companies profit by being granted a monopoly. But they generally profit by stopping innovation. The whole point of the patent system is supposed to be to stimulate innovation. Until you grasp this fundamental point you'll never see how broken the current system is.

In fast moving tech fields granting monopolies do nothing but stifle innovation because the company holding the monopoly no longer has to innovate to compete.