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

Nice idea

[Xeth]

But is there anything that can even remotely approximate this? How much does a touch screen matter for the iPhone? What is such an estimate based on? I realize it's optional, but I'm having a hard time thinking of any situation that is really fair. Identically sized corporations, with similar market testing, and a market loaded with finely-grained differences in features? Even still, I think there's a great deal of random speculation.

While I respect intentions to reform the patent system, I suppose my more cynical side should've known that it'd be either evil or botched. I guess the latter is better than the former.

Re:Nice idea

[timmarhy]

Huh? this is perfect, imagine this was applied to the stupid ass 1 click patent. Lets see how much is that extra click worth? oh nothing. no money for patent troll.

Re:Nice idea

[dgatwood]

This is a good start, but it's a band-aid for a gaping head wound.... Passing a law guaranteeing the right to challenge obvious patents out of court would be a much more useful thing. Then, we could have a patent watchdog group (e.g. the EFF) working to significantly reduce the number of junk patents. Passing a law reducing patent terms in technology-related fields to five years would be another great improvement. A patent lasting two decades in computing is like a patent lasting two centuries in most other fields. It really borders on the absurd....

But this... this bill should not pass. It's a very bad bill. With this bill, existing players can still bludgeon the little guy with their often bogus patents and usually nobody will even notice or care. The only way to truly show how broken the patent system is to actually have an impact on big businesses, and those patent trolls are the only thing that can annoy big business enough to have a chance at real reform that would actually increase innovation. Stopping the patent trolls will thus make it harder to get legitimate reform, and in my mind, that's a bad thing.

Re:Nice idea

[c]

> Okay, let's say Microsoft decides to sue Linus Torvalds over its FAT filesystem patent.

Most likely, Linus goes bankrupt during the opening motion practice and/or is forced to settle. The court never gets around to calculating damages.

Messing with the damage formula only benefits large corporations who, up until now, were looking at damages in the hundreds of millions and weren't overly concerned by hundreds of thousands in court costs. Patent trolls won't get as much money, and everyone else is still screwed as soon as the lawsuit is filed.

c.

I don't know about you but..

[mombodog]

I think us little guys just got screwed. "supported by several large tech vendors including Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp" Nevermind, we have always been screwed. ;-)

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

[daeg]

They support it because inevitably their huge products will, at some point, infringe on some ridiculous patent owned by anyone, big or little guy. It's a collective agreement to slowly disarm themselves against themselves. It's a win for everyone -- a step in the right direction. Lawyers will be MUCH more careful to accept infringement lawsuits on a percentage-of-winnings basis.

So Say I'm Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... so if I am M$ and decide if that paying out limited patent infringements penalties for technology I like is a "cost of doing business" Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Thanks a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

"Large tech vendors have been pushing for patent reform for close to five years. The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the Business Software Alliance, and the Computing Technology Industry Association, all praised the House for passing the bill."

"The bill also sets into motion a change in the way patents are awarded, from the first-to-invent system unique to the U.S. to the first-to-file system used by the rest of the world."

Polotition logic: Something must be done. This is something, lets do it.

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

[ishmalius]

Changing the system from first to invent to first to file will only help incumbents who already have patent attorneys on staff. The original intention of patents, to give the innovator a head start in business, will be lost.

Re:Thank you, Conservatives!!!

[OrangeTide]

The Democrats have been in office for less than a year, and they've already accomplished more than ten years of conservatives being in charge.

But we're still in Iraq, didn't they promised to get us out?

Also Democrats still score highest overall on pork-barrel spending, but we could debate if that is corruption or not.

Also most Republicans are not conservatives. Nonconservative is not the same as conservative, if it was there wouldn't be a different word for it.

(I think it's the safe to assume that posting as AC combined with your politically charged comments means you are a troll)

Big Companies Must Pay Big Bucks for IP Violations

[HermMunster]

If you don't make the big companies pay big dollars for the IP violations then they will simply take advantage of all the smaller guys. Small money is all it takes to kill a small company so big companies stealing from a small company harms it not only in the reduced funds necessary to protect itself in court but harms to company's future potential. Small companies violating big companies patents hardly impact them in the same way. A big company stealing from a small company could kill the small company but a small company stealing from a big company generally has a much lighter impact on them.

This is just sad to see big companies trying to take advantage of the system this way. What needs to happen is that they need to focus on protecting the small guy and you don't do so by limiting what they can get in defense of their IP. This simply allows the big dog to tear up the little dogs in a fight.

This is bad news, not good news.

Has to go to the Senate

[tyrione]

And it is here in the US Senate that concerns with this first-to-file, regardless of intent to ever invent, versus first-to-invent will have conditions set on it to make such a valid patent.

We all know the patent system is broken with the dawning of the Information Age. However, this first-to-file, on the surface, doesn't appear to keep companies from filing frivolous patents with no intention of ever producing an invention.

The patent system should be set to promote diverse competition and may the winner best their competition through competition and not anti-competitive legal maneuvers.

Re:Big Companies Must Pay Big Bucks for IP Violati

[Verteiron]

That was my first thought as well. This bill basically means that the big guys will pay less, and the little guys will still go bankrupt trying to defend against patent claims.

poor

[selfdiscipline]

Although your example would apparently benefit Linux and therefore is a positive case scenario, you've overlooked the gist of the problem.

> "isn't worth much to Microsoft".

Maybe it's not, but you're stating the value in wishy-washy terms. The good thing about assessing damages on the value of a full product is that you have a concrete value (price of product * products distributed). A laywer may argue that, since an OS is rather pointless without a filesystem, it's a VERY valuable piece of the OS, and, assuming that FAT is the third most common filesystem in linux installations (I have no idea, really) it would be big damages.

Valuing intellectual property is an insanely difficult prospect, with the only good approximation being what the market will buy. Take that away and you're left with pure speculation.

Re:poor

[Anonymous Coward]

This idea sounds reasonable at first until you realize it would completely shut "the little guy" out of having (and enforcing patents on) any technological breakthroughs.

Imagine you are a startup and you come up with something that is going to revolutionize the entire market. It's worth billions but you obviously can't claim that it's worth billions because, until you get to market, you can't afford the taxes. What that means is that you have to devalue your patent and large companies can infringe on it with no real fear because any lawsuit damages you could bring against them would be far FAR less than the profit they would make by stealing your idea.

The idea is sound for big business vs. big business but, it's the worst possible solution for small companies or individual inventors.

Re:poor

[KDR_11k]

Not only that but what about not-for-profit IP like freeware, home movies or writing that's not being sold? A GPL project relies on copyright to enforce the GPL, they'd need to be able to claim damages high enough to scare a big company off but they don't have or make any money that could pay the IP tax. Someone who's writing stories as a hobby or in order to possibly become an author later won't be able to keep any protection on his works that may become important later on (e.g. the first novels describing a universe that is later used in a huge selling book but can't be protected because it was written without a budget).

real reform would be...

[blakieto]

Real reform would to to return to the requirement for a working version of the patent to be submitted with one's patent application. Currently, one can patent an intended innovation before it has been implemented. Researching through awarded patents yields many things that are not yet possible - like Sony's patent for controlling a video game with your thoughts. Now, because of that patent and Sony owning the IP space, any would be innovators in that field are discouraged from seeking a solution in that area.

Re:Wait a minute

[stratjakt]

First thing you need to realize is, mr hobbyist isn't filing patents for something he's giving away for free - that's utter nonsense. The point of a patent is to secure profit for yourself, and it can be a fairly pricey process to go through. You, like most of slashdot, confuse patent, copyright and trademark. So substitute "mr small businessman motivated by profit" for "mr hobbyist".

If big co. uses your product, say for 1/4 of the function of their system, and sell it for 100 monetary units per widget, rather than you suing them and claiming the full 100 per widget sold, they can try and argue you only deserve 25 bucks. The judge or arbiter will decide, in the end - that's what those court things are for.

It works both ways, so it could prevent the utter destruction of some really innovative start ups, as we've seen recently, by "big co" demanding 100% of all their profits + 1, and represents a *good* shift towards sanity in the growing patent cold war. It could save someone like Vonage from being smacked out of existence by the established players.