The Story Behind Recent Patent Reform

rmstar writes "In an article titled 'The Spoilsmen: How Congress Corrupted Patent Reform,' Huffington Post reporter Zach Carter takes a look at the story behind the recent patent reform effort. It is an interesting and scary account of just how broken the legislative process is when it comes to intellectual property."

Comments

...when it comes to intellectual property.

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

Like it stops there?

Re:...when it comes to intellectual property.

[cpt kangarooski]

No, you can own tangible things, like a share in a company, or a debt someone owes to you.

I think you're confusing intangibility with non-rivalry. If something is non-rivalrous, it means that multiple people can possess the whole of it without lessening the possession of anyone else. An idea is not rivalrous because if Alice tells her idea to Bob, she doesn't lose it, but rather they now both have it.

Re:...when it comes to intellectual property.

[hey!]

Sorry, but how is the Tea Party involved in this story, or are you just spewing rhetoric everywhere?

OK, so you didn't read the article. At issue is an anti-patent troll provision in the bill which only applies to banks, and makes it easy for them to challenge stupid patents. A company that holds a patent on transmitting check numbers over the Internet (I am not kidding) lobbied Tea Party leaders and launched an astroturf campaign targeted at Tea Party members and depicting the provisions as "another bank bailout" (I am not kidding).

As a result, the normally pro-bank Republican party was split, with Tea Party affiliated congressman voting against the anti-patent troll language.

The Democrats are also split on this provision, and the situation there is equally squalid but more complicated. On one side are the Democrats with ties tot he financial industry, of course. On the other are the proverbial strange bedfellows: those with ties to the patent trolls and their lobbyists, and those with ties to high tech industries opposed to patent trolls but afraid that a special provision for the financial industry would weaken a future bid to get the same deal for themselves.

This all takes place in the context of a longer term fight between High Tech and Big Pharma, which is a bit like the TMBG song "Particle Man". High Tech doesn't like the status quo because it makes it difficult if not impossible to create a product like a smartphone without tripping over some crazy patent. Big Pharma, which doesn't have this problem (it sells and patents molecules), likes the status quo. They had a fight and Pharma won, so finance stepped in to get the things High Tech wanted, but only for themselves so they wouldn't have to fight Pharma too.

That in turn takes place in the context of international trade treaties the US has signed that aren't very consistently observed, but give a convenient monkey wrench to throw into the reform works for anyone who prefers the status quo. Despite this, the banking industry was able to get its reforms (which are reasonable except that they only apply to the banks) passed in the Senate, only for the Tea Party to split the Republican support in the House.

So to conclude: across the board reform targeting stupid patents is blocked by Big Pharma. Industry targeted reform is difficult to pass because of treaty obligations, and High Tech doesn't have the clout to make it happen. The banks had enough clout to get industry specific reform into a bill, but where shot down by Tea Partiers who were sold a framing of the issue by the patent trolls that was even dumber than the patents the trolls wanted protected.

The upshot is that the only patent "reform" we're going to get is to make the system more favorable to large companies and less favorable to small ones. Apparently that's the one thing all our legislators can agree upon.

Re:...when it comes to intellectual property.

[bky1701]

Ownership of ideas is ludicrous. Enforcement of such ownership is censorship, plain and simple. No one should be behind this kind of thing.

I have said it before, and I think people got the wrong message, but I will say it again: eventually we will look back on copyright and patents like we now do on slavery. Slavery, too, was an important part of our economy, which was utterly immoral, and many understood it was wrong. Slavery just happens to have been a LOT worse. However, it will happen to copyright/patents, too. Then we can get on with society without their shackles.

scary?

[Jodka]

It is a... scary account of just how broken the legislative process is...

Scary? You think that is scary? No, this is scary.

Pathetic.

[MaWeiTao]

Wow... That article has left me aghast, but I'd be lying if I said I was surprised.

What really surprises me is that anyone can remain loyal to either party. But I know what the mindset is for most people; "my guy might be bad, but at least he's not as bad as the other guy." So while people continue to delude themselves politicians keep screwing everyone.

By reveling in their own ignorance Americans have abrogated their responsibility to politicians, sometimes intentionally sometimes not. And when that happens the government starts making decisions for us, and inevitably they're going to do what's in their own best interests. So we get stuck with crap.

And the sad thing is that patent reform should be a no-brainer for anyone, regardless of political ideology. I mean, even a staunch believer in the free market should fully support the revocation of most patents. If a corporation can't remain competitive without the government stepping in to protect every little idea they come up with then they deserve to fail.

Re:Pathetic.

[bioster]

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!

Re:Pathetic.

[dkleinsc]

Or as the late great Douglas Adams put it:

"I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further
grinding, "take me to your Lizard."

Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.

"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard
might get in. Got any gin?"

IP == Immoral Property

[Dog-Cow]

I can not see a moral, nor ethical, reason for honoring IP laws in the US. I've held this view for a while, but articles such as this simply reinforce the idea. Every citizen has a moral obligation to ignore laws which have been bought and paid for by corporations. Every single politician in Washington has accepted bribes and they have made sure that the Supreme Court allows them under the name "campaign contributions". The entire system is corrupt and no longer has a mandate to govern.

We only need 10 percent

[paulsnx2]

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2011/07/minority_rules.php Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals.

So all we have to do is educate 10 percent of the population and make them understand patents are bad.

It gives me hope.

Re:The end of the article is particularly chilling

[Mindcontrolled]

To be honest, if I look at the decisions of the chambers of appeal of the EPO, I don't see them influenced heavily by the language of TRIPS. They frankly don't give a shit. Drug patents have been allowed in all industrialized nations before, and frankly, the are legitimate, given the massive development costs these days.

From my European perspective, the main problem in the US is not patent law as such, but a insane litigation system, inflicting costs on small-time guys that they just can't bear, thereby opening to door for patent troll blackmailing. The litigation costs in Germany, for example differ by orders of magnitude. I have seen cases go to the highest German court with total costs in the low five figures - that's an amount a small business on the edge of technology can bear, we are not talking millions here.

So why not a Patent 2.0 system?

[Ear Phantom]

Grandfather it in like this: if you file a patent by the rules of Patent 2.0, then you can no longer sue or be sued using the Patent 1.0 system. Furthermore, you have to abandon all existing Patent 1.0 lawsuits. In exchange, any Patent 1.0 lawsuits filed against your organization are void.

How much would that level the playing field?

Simple Corporate Reform

[MountainLogic]

There is a very simple way to reduce corporation's back room influence on congress. Only allow companies to register as limited liability entity if they give up some of their personhood rights, including making campaign contributions. There, I fixed democracy for you. Go check out corporate personhood if you need more details on how twisted this has become.