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Inventors Protest Patent Reform Bill
narramissic writes "A group of inventors and U.S. company execs, among them Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the AutoSyringe, and Steve Perlman, inventor of WebTV and lead developer of Apple Inc.'s QuickTime, paid a visit to Washington to encourage Congress to defeat the Patent Reform Act. The inventors say the Act will weaken the patent system, devalue patents, and encourage infringement. A version of the act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this month, is supported by several large tech vendors including Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco. The big companies hope it will make it harder for patent holders to sue and collect huge damage awards when only a small piece of a tech product is found to infringe."
Those people protesting the patent reform aren't notably "inventors" so much as they're notably "incumbent patent holders". They are a group defined by holding patents themselves, under the existing broken system, and getting rich off it.
I really don't understand what effects this proposed tweak to the patent system will have. I expect no one really does: the system is so unjust and complicated that it needs to be ripped out by the roots and replaced by something simple that merely "promotes science and the useful arts", without infringing our rights to free expression (including copying) more than is absolutely necessary to protect essential commerce. But if these rich guys are protesting the tweak, which would reduce their own protection (and evidently increase the rights of the rest of us to invent freely, using other inventions), then it starts to look like the reform is at least worth trying. Because they're making their money off their monopolies under the current law, and didn't seem to be so motivated by its existing injustice as to protest the old way, or to propose a workable new regime that protects the rest of us as well as it's protected them.
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make install -not war
I strongly object to the part that awards the patent at "first to file" rather than "first to invent". I believe that the policy of "prior art" protects the small inventor. Somehow this change is being ignored in light of the "small detail" portion of the bill. Some of the awards are clearly out-of-hand. An inventor should be compensated for someone stealing his/her invention, and punitive damages are appropriate, but surely the remuneration award should be based on fair royalties, right? So if an an inventor discovers his $.30 invention is being used in someone's $30,000 machine, shouldn't the remunerative part of the award be based on fees due him from licensing the $.30 part? If he didn't invent the whole machine he shouldn't be entitled to all the accumulated royalties due the other contirbuting inventors.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
It's not at all obvious that the current patent balance (or one involving even greater patent protection) is the optimal one. It is obvious that no matter how you set the patent system, some people will not like it, and will experience a "disincentive to create." But that's hardly relevant: the proper balance is one which encourages the greatest innovation and progress overall. And, when analyzing the overall benefit to society, it should be noted that there are distinct advantages to allowing an idea to be used widely (perhaps even gratis), and to offer companies some assurance that their product will not be destroyed simply because of an obscure patent of questionable validity.
I must be missing something.. isn't WebTV just Web + TV?
Aren't these exactly the types of patents we DON'T want being granted?
Reminds me of the hamburger earmuffs, and the electric blanket mobile.
-- lol pwned
Given that it's impossible to ship a product without infringing on dozens of patents from big companies, at least one of which will refuse to negotiate reasonable licensing due to competitive considerations. What's not too like about the new rules? You get compensated for the fair value of your patent if someone uses your invention without license. If a BMW shop uses 1-click on their online website, do you really expect to get all the proceeds from their car sales as a reward?
These days, the USPTO hands out patents like candy. That obviously must stop.
The only meaningful patent reform bill is one which makes it much harder to get a patent. A patent is a monopoly on an invention. Today, the term "invention" is used so loosely that it's almost devoid of meaning -- you can get a patent on pretty much anything these days.
But the nature of a patent is such that it should be hard to get. So what should be required to accomplish that?
I think the most important requirement should be that the patent itself be publicly peer-reviewed. Some will argue that the downside is that if the patent isn't granted, then suddenly the invention will be made known to the world -- the inventor won't have the opportunity to keep it secret. To that, I say good! If you want the monopoly that getting a patent gives you, you should be forced to risk the possibility of losing control over your invention. This alone would eliminate most of the patent applications, and rightly so.
Additionally, the patent itself must be a technical document, not a legal document as it is now. It must provide the average practitioner in the field in question with all the information he needs to implement the invention. The patent can be rejected by the peer reviewers on this basis alone.
Right now, neither of those is required, and the results are predictable: nonsensical and/or trivial "inventions" are routinely granted patent status, and we're all worse off for it.
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First to file does not change what is prior art at all.
In both systems, prior art is more or less anything that is one year older than your patent filing date.
First to file vs first to invent only affects who would get an *otherwise valid* patent. It makes no more patents valid than were valid under a first to invent system.
In a first to invent system, if i file a patent, and you file a patent on the same thing, and both are otherwise valid (IE there is no prior art that invalidates it), the winner of the patent is the person who can prove they invented it first. Well, actually, it's much more complex than that, and the winner ends up being the person who can prove they have more money to spend on complex and intricate "interference" proceedings and appeals.
In a first to file system, if i file a patent, and you file a patent on the same thing, and both are otherwise valid, the winner of the patent is the person who filed first.
In *neither* system do you get a patent if there is prior art. The difference between the two systems is only in determining who will own a patent when two people claim the same thing.
Given that most small inventors don't have money to spend on interference proceedings (these often cost >100k), first to file helps them a lot.