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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."
Okay, let's say Microsoft decides to sue Linus Torvalds over its FAT filesystem patent. In the present system, the court would assess the damages based on the value of the entire operating system. With this, the court would have to determine what the FAT filesystem is worth. Considering it is no longer the default filesystem for any still-in-production Microsoft product, and it's already been implemented by countless vendors (digital cameras, anybody? Mac OS X? Be OS? OS/2?) and Microsoft hasn't sued any of them, the court would probably find that the FAT filesystem isn't worth much to Microsoft, because it doesn't give them a competitive advantage.
How's that for an example?
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As a small inventor, I hated the idea of First to File because I was worried that corrupt individuals or companies could quickly patent my invention submissions. But that is easily solved by requiring a NDA before showing anyone your invention. Before, when it was First to Invent, there were more problems. For example, I could patent something and someone could claim they invented it first and manufacture fake logs or a fake journal showing they invented it first. Also don't forget, false witnesses who could swear up and down they saw the other guy working on the invention for years. Now I am in favor of the new way. I can protect my ideas easily by just keeping my mouth shut until I fill out a provisional patent application. I think it will be good for the little guy.
So if you write FOSS, and some big company sues you for patent infrigement.
If Big Co. wins they get their worth. (lots of money)
If mr. Hobbyist wins he gets his worth. (nothing, since his software is free)
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
If you are a corporation and you apply for patents, then I do not see how "first to file" makes it any worse. (most corps file patent apps as fast as they can anyway).
If you are not a corporation (e.g an open source developer) and instead of filing a patent application, you just disclose your invention, then, "first to file" rule automatically disqualifies everyone else who might otherwise claim that they invented it before you did...
Basically, if I understand correctly, "first to file" removes a lot of uncertainty over who did what first. And as you can guess, the only beneficiary of such uncertainty are lawyers.
It's a collective agreement to slowly disarm themselves
Exactly. The only way to win at Prisoner's Dilemma is to change the rules.
No it's not. We just need property tax on this so called intellectual property. We let the "owner" decide it's value. If they claim it is worth a billion dollars, then they pay property taxes on a billion dollars worth of property each year. If they say it is worth $10 to reduce there taxes, then that is what it is worth in the courtroom.
The beauty is it would work with copyright as well.