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Patent Reform Bill Unable To Clean Up Patent Mess
First to submit writes "Ars Technica analyzes the Patent Reform Act that has passed the House and is being debated in the Senate. Unfortunately for those longing for real, meaningful patent reform, the bill comes up short in some significant ways. 'Despite the heated rhetoric on both sides, it is unclear if the legislation will do much to fix the most serious flaws in the patent system. A series of appeals court rulings in the 1990s greatly expanded patentable subject matter, making patents on software, business methods, and other abstract concepts unambiguously legal for the first time.'"
... it is kind of hard to legislate common sense.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
In other words, Ars Technica finds this reform patently absurd?
All is not lost in this set. Both proposed laws present a definite improvement over the current system so they should be passed. Once that's done we can all start moving on to the harder problems.
It's a step in the right direction rather than a complete fix.
I'm sure it's a debate between those in bed with the defensive patent holders and those spooning the offensive patent holders. They dare not make the bill too radical and wake any sleeping giants.
Seems to be that patent trolls have to stick to jurisdictions they have a significant presence in, and can't go to courts that have been sympathetic to plaintiffs in patent cases. This isn't much of a reform to me. What about stopping these common sense patents and business model patents. Until that happens this is just a motion of appeasement, not a real solution to the problems.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
I confess to being totally ignorant of how patents affect most industries, but it seems to me that the real problem with patents in IT is the fact that they grant such long protection for products with such short shelf lives. Several years ago, I tried to explain that to my congresscritter at the time, but he couldn't grok how his argument that we need to protect IT because it is so rapid at innovation actually is an argument AGAINST many aspects of strong IP law as they apply to IT-related products. For example, granting 17 years or more of protection to a video codec means that you own it for its natural life, plus 5-10 years in many cases.
IMO, patents should cover the schematics of a product, not the ideas that went into the product. A car maker should be able to patent the final design of their latest product, but there should be nothing stopping someone from looking at it, and extending it in some meaningful direction without compensating them. All innovation is, after all, built on someone else's ideas.
Watered down legislation such as this is clearly the result of the massive influx of dollars into the pockets of our politicians via the industries who thrive on ridiculous structures like the US Patent Office. Until we force our representatives to get off that teet we are foolish to expect anything less.
Nothing says goodbye like a tax.
It is not true that the map of freedom will be complete
with the erasure of the last invidious border
when it remains for us to chart the attractors of thunder
and delineate the arrhythmias of drought
to reveal the molecular dialects of forest and savanna
as rich as a thousand human tongues
and to comprehend the deepest history of our passions
ancient beyond mythology's reach
So I declare that no corporation holds a monopoly on numbers
no patent can encompass zero and one
no nation has sovereignty over adenine and guanine
no empire rules the quantum waves
And there must be room for all at the celebration of understanding
for there is a truth which cannot be bought or sold
imposed by force, resisted
or escaped.
Greg Egan as Muteba Kazadi
Huh? The solution to patent and copyright problems is infinitely broad and permanent patents and copyright?
I don't see why they can't just write a law establishing that you own your ideas
How on earth can someone "own" an idea? Better yet, why would you think it's a good idea to try to pretend that someone owns an idea?
Patents and copyrights are intended to prevent people from free-loading off of the work of others
That fundamental misunderstanding is part of many of the problems we are seeing with the patent system today: patents exist to give you the first stab at exploiting your ideas. The notion that once someone has an idea it's theirs and no one can ever use it again is just plain ridiculous.
sic transit gloria mundi
Some real consideration should be given to getting rid of patents altogether. Really, do they serve any real usefulness other than the stuff of Big Corporate Sticks? It's way too expensive for the little guy to get a patent; still even more expensive for the little guy to defend his patent against VBCs that have deep pockets.
But, seriously, what would happen to the marketplace if patents were to be thrown out tomorrow? Would innovation cease? I don't think so. It would change for sure, but it may actually change for the better, giving the Little Guy an edge, a leg up, since he would not fear being crushed out of financial existence by VBCs.
Really, I don't know how the patent examiners could possibly be knowledgeable about all the various areas of mathematics, science, and technology that has grown exponentially since patents were created.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
reverse engineering is the basis of the computer industry. if compaq had not reverse engineered the original IBM pc bios there would never have been a commodity PC industry. which would have greatly slowed the pace of computer uptake. so basically one software patent could have stopped the entire PC market from happening.
My keyboads not woking popely.
Translation: we will never see useful patent reform because it is not in the best interests of the entrenched powers. You're probably right, unfortunately. That's why representative democracy doesn't work. If you really want to remove the tyranny of the aristocracy, there's only one way to do it: a direct democracy. Of course, then you get the tyranny of the majority. Not sure which is worse. Either way, a significant percentage of people get screwed.
The only form of government that really prevents tyranny, ironically, is a benevolent dictatorship by someone who is not only incorruptible, but also both intelligent and caring. Of course, reliably finding such a dictator has proven difficult; throughout all of this planet's history, there have only been maybe two or three who meet even those three basic criteria... and therein lies the fundamental problem: people are still subject to their animal nature to some degree, as much as we would like to believe otherwise.
I'd honestly kind of like to create a government based on the "tyranny of the informed"---a direct democracy in which everyone votes every Saturday. At the beginning of the day, everyone gets to see a list of issues and what time their debates and voting will be held electronically via web browsers. People interested in that issue will vote on it and people uninterested will not. For the most part, this will tend to largely create a voting pool that is self-selecting for the most competent people to decide on a given issue. It will also largely negate the effect of political parties since the role of the representatives will not be making the decisions themselves.
The basic design is as follows: during the week, the representatives caucus and agree on which fifteen issues will be presented for a given Saturday vote. They decide who will speak for each side of each of the debate. Each side will have fifteen minutes to divide among their members. Each side uses that time to present the issue from their perspective. The public votes for ten minutes. Then, the next issue is presented, and so on. If there are more than two options (e.g. choose option A, option B, or neither), then there may be more than two positions. If there are a lot of these, you might end up having to tackle fewer issues that week to keep the total time under twelve hours, but the basic principle still applies.
In addition to the self selection, voters should also be required to show an awareness of all sides of each issue. Representatives of each side of the issue would write ten questions to determine whether or not a given voter understands every side of the issues. The questions must have a provably factual answer, though they may include questions about one side's opinion, e.g. "The Pro side believes that this DHMO legislation is a good idea because A. water is bad for you, B. they were bought off by Coca-Cola, C. they are opposed to the salt industry." They may not attempt to present opinion as fact, and either side may contest a question on these grounds, in which case a 2/3rds majority vote of the representatives is needed for the question to be allowed on the ballot. In a private session on Friday, these details will be hammered out and voted upon by the representatives. The three questions from each side with the greatest amount of support will be included on the ballot.
Any vote from a voter who gets fewer than 70% correct answers on these questions will not be counted. This will exclude the votes of people who lack enough of a fundamental understanding of the issues to make an informed decision. More to the point, however, this will also discourage grandstanding and encourage the representatives to inform the voters about the relevant facts that support their position. If they fail to adequately present those facts during their speeches, voters who might side with their position will not g
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
By the way, I have a patent on this form of government. :-D Just kidding.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It sounds to me like you're saying you'd like the people in charge to know what they're doing. Which, in the case of a representative democracy, means you'd like the people who vote to know what they're doing.
People who know what they're doing seems to be the prerequisite to doing anything right. I'm not so sure even a tyranny would work, because if the tyrant knew what he was doing, he'd know that absolute power corrupts absolutely and would divest himself of it immediately.
Good, honest people can make a bad system work pretty well, but bad and corrupt people will make short work of even the best system.
It was copyrighted not patented thus the need for the cleanroom design.
My keyboads not woking popely.
Patents and copyrights are intended to prevent people from free-loading off of the work of others
This statement is factually false. Go and read the US Constitution if you want to know what patents and copyrights are actually intended to accomplish.
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