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Lawmakers Take Another Shot At Patent Reform

Posted by timothy on from the but-I-thought-of-it-first dept.

narramissic writes "Patent reform legislation was introduced yesterday (PDF), which, if it passes, would be the first major overhaul of US patent law in more than 50 years. (It should be noted that the new legislation is very similar to the Patent Reform Act of 2007, which died on the Senate floor last year.) The legislation would bring US patent law in line with global laws, and introduce 'reasonable royalty' provisions, which change the way damages are calculated and would reduce the likelihood of massive payouts for some patent holders. Representatives from Google, HP and Intel were quick to say that the changes would cut down on frivolous patent lawsuits. But the Innovation Alliance, a group representing patent-holders that oppose the legislation, said that it would 'devalue all patents, invite infringement — including from companies in China, India and other countries — and generate more litigation that will further strain the courts.'"

3 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Huh? by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...it would 'devalue all patents, invite infringement -- including from companies in China, India and other countries...

    Pardon my ignorance, but even if that is true does it matter? These countries, especially China, have a long history of not respecting patents and they don't look set to change that attitude.

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  2. Innovation Alliance == Patent Trolls by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Innovation Alliance, which opposes these patent reforms, include some of the best and brightest in patent/IP trolling. One prominent company is the Canopy Partners, which is famous for its previous ownership of The SCO Group and Tessera, which is suing everyone in the wireless industry right now.

    --
    My blog
  3. Re:Are you kidding me? by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't need luck - it happened at my last job. We used to make an OBD2 car code scanner.

    The Chinese would buy them, disassemble them, reverse engineer them, and then sell clones. Not just patent infringement but blatant theft of IP. They'd copy our units even down to the bugs.

    And there are loads of patents in this particular product space. I worked on a team that wrote about half of them.

    Good enough?

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    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.