House Passes Patent Overhaul Bill

narramissic writes "ITworld reports that the House of Representatives has passed a bill that promises to overhaul the US patent system. 'The Patent Reform Act, supported by several large tech vendors including Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp., would allow courts to change they way they assess damages in patent infringement cases. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent; the bill would allow, but not require, courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece."

Comments

Re:First to File

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I correct in assuming that the first-to-file system would remove the value of prior art in invalidating a patent? No, you are quite incorrect. Prior art invalidates patents the world over. First-to-file just changes how priority is determined in the absence of published prior art. With first to file, the first person to go to the patent office wins. With first to invent, a costly discovery excercise investigating lab notebooks and whatnot is undertaken.

If anything prior art is weaker in america, because "inventors" could relatively easily manufacture fraudulent records purporting to predate any published prior art, and first-to-invent will give them priority, whereas in the rest of the world, it's simple: if the invention was published before you filed for a patent, you have lost by prior art.

From the rest of the world's perspective, the american first-to-invent system is just considered mad, and europeans regularly accuse american defence companies of pulling that sort of shit.

Re:Reform == good. First to file == bad.

[k_187]

No, lets say you come up with something cool. After the first date that you reduce your invention to practice, you have one year to file it with USPTO (assuming no other circumstances). If Big Company X comes along during that period, and creates the same invention, and files before you; your claim of invention will take precedent. However, under a first to file system, in the above scenario; you're screwed. Prior art will still invalidate a patent (although it will arguably not come up during prosecution under first to file). First to file puts extra emphasis on filing as soon as possible.

Re:I don't know about you but..

[joranbelar]

I thought the only winning move was not to play?

Re:patent trolls

[Freedom Bug]

> All US universities are patent trolls...

I'm not sure whether you were trying to be sarcastic or not.

But yes, many universities are patent trolls, and pretty egregious ones at that. They take public money (and student's tuition) to perform research, and then extort those who try to use it (and whose tax dollars paid for it). They profess to be in the business of disseminating knowledge, and then lock it behind paywalls. They should be in the best position to understand "standing on the shoulder of giants" but instead they insist that nobody can stand on theirs (unless you pay).