Court Says USPTO Can Change Patent Rules

bizwriter writes "Many large companies have been closely monitoring the Tafas v. Doll lawsuit over whether the US Patent and Trademark Office has the power to change the patent application process in significant ways, so as to restrict the scope of patents and the chances of getting one. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has finally spoken, with a split court ruling that the USPTO does have the necessary authority. The case stems from a court challenge to four new rules the USPTO put in place in 2007. A number of tech companies including Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Apple, and Intel have supported the rule changes, which would strengthen their positions and make it more difficult for small companies to create, protect, and bring to market disruptive technology. These companies didn't have it all their way, as the appeals court said that one of the four rules conflicts with existing patent law and sent the other three back to a lower court for further review. If the decision is sustained by a full review of all 12 Federal Circuit appeals judges, it could be a blow to biotech and pharmaceutical companies, which depend on being able to obtain large numbers of patents. Expect further appeals on this one, and for the only beneficiaries in the short run to be the lawyers."

Comments

Bias against big firms?

[bencoder]

"which would strengthen their positions and make it more difficult for small companies to create, protect, and bring to market disruptive technology."

What? There is nothing like this in the article itself. And how exactly does a limit of 5 unique patents per invention strengthen their positions? From my perspective patents only serve to stifle progress in this age of accelerating change. I can understand why they helped back when things moved slower, but that's not the case anymore.

Re:Bias against big firms?

[Theaetetus]

This pro-patent analysis seems very unreasonable in a time where patent lawsuits are mostly crazy monkey trials where an unproductive, greedy company seeks to prevent people from innovating by protecting things that have long become common knowledge or accepted practice.

Confirmation bias. We only ever hear about plane crashes, too.

Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it does help the larger IT companies more than smaller ones in the sense that the larger ones have the resources to submit more patents, but it only restricts the small ones (or anyone) from making lots of separate claims within each patent. This should make each individual patent easier to follow. That's good, right? You can still patent your small company's disruptive technology but you're effectively encouraged to focus on actually patenting that and not laying claim to everything under the sun and moon while you're doing it.

Re:This is a poor substitute

[langelgjm]

On the other hand, if Congress tries to rewrite it, every industry lobbyist will be pushing their own agenda at Congress. And I would tend to think that the USPTO has a better idea of what needs to be done in terms of reform than Congress.