US House Takes Up Major Overhaul of Patent System

Bookworm09 writes "The House took up the most far-reaching overhaul of the patent system in 60 years today, with a bill both parties say will make it easier for inventors to get their innovations to market and help put people back to work. Backed by Obama and business groups, the legislation aims to ease the lengthy backlog in patent applications, clean up some of the procedures that can lead to costly litigation and put the United States under the same filing system as the rest of the industrialized world."

Comments

"Backed by Obama and business groups..."

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

I'm sure this will work out well for small businesses.

Re:"Backed by Obama and business groups..."

[Rei]

As a small business owner myself, the funding changes will. The huge costs and absurd backlogs are easily handled by big businesses with their own legal departments and deep pockets for building up patent thickets and getting their patents expedited, but it's much harder for the small fish to get a piece.

To benefit small business owners versus big business owners, you need:
  * Lower filing/defense costs
  * Shorter backlogs
  * Greater tolerance for filing errors (a big established company is less likely to make them)
  * Stricter standards for review when it comes to originality, prior art, etc (as a general rule, small businesses thrive on radical changes, while big businesses thrive on incremental changes)

However, there are some things in there that they're proposing which will absolutely not help small businesses: switching from "first to invent" to "first to file", for one. Again, the deep pockets and legal departments of large corporations make getting "first to file" much easier for them. They're also getting rid of the one-year grace period after disclosure which, yeah, while it brings us into sync with the rest of the world, but was always a huge boon to small inventors (it really ought to be *longer*). The grace period gives you time to shop your idea around, determine whether there's a good business opportunity, raise investment, etc, and *then* file.

Yeah, but...

[Penguinisto]

...can we *please* kill off software patents while we're at it?

(I know, too much to ask, etc. Knowing Congress, they'll just make it all that much easier for patent trolls and big corps to plow through even the silliest patents now.)

Re:Yeah, but...

[TheRaven64]

Patenting something like the GIF encoding algorithm nowadays would be extremely difficult.

I was going to post a long reply to this, but I think I can sum it up with one letter and three numbers: H.264.

This is not good.

[gfxguy]

Being like the rest of the world is a nice mantra that people keep throwing around, but most of the rest of the world simplified the system by having a "first to file" system, meaning someone could steal your invention and file first, and you'd have NO recourse. If that's the way to reduce litigation, then I'm not all for it.

I'm not going to claim the U.S. is the best at everything, but just because the rest of the world does something doesn't make it better.

First to file is NOT BETTER than first to invent.

Not the kind of overhaul you're thinking

[sl4shd0rk]

"ease the lengthy backlog in patent applications, clean up some of the procedures that can lead to costly litigation and put the United States under the same filing system as the rest of the industrialized world."

IOW, same absurd shit, only faster, cheaper and standardized.

Re:Patent value-based system

[Teancum]

Here is my thought on a method to handle the awarding of patents:

Don't.

Yup. Simply outlaw the practice altogether and let trade secrets be the law of the land. By the time a product has gone through testing and has made it to the consumer, it is likely nearing the end of its useful life for patent protection anyway.

I consider patent legislation to be a failed social experiment whose time is nearing an end. No, I'm not really an anarchist and I do believe in the rule of law and even think there is a necessity for a legal system, but that patents tend to help those who don't need help and don't protect those that do. I also don't know of any way to reform the system sufficiently to be able to "protect the little guy" without screwing them over even more than they are, where being blunt that legal protection through patents doesn't work at all is likely the best advise you can give to a young aspiring inventor.

Having known many engineers and "inventors" in my lifetime, including some who sought protection through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, not a single one of them ever received in royalties any money more than the legal costs they spent trying to get the patent in the first place, assuming they got anything at all in the first place. At best all a patent has been useful for is a resume bullet point that might make the difference to get a job interview. I guess that counts for something, but it wouldn't be something I would necessarily be impressed with other than showing you actually do know how to work with lawyers.