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Patent Reform Bill Passes Senate
First time accepted submitter nephorm writes "The Senate passed the first major overhaul of the nation's patent law in more than a half century by passing the America Invents Act. The legislation won overwhelming approval in an 89-9 vote. From the article: 'The America Invents Act switches the U.S. patent system from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file nation. It also sets up a new regime to review patents and gives the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more flexibility to set and spend fees paid for by inventors to get patents and businesses to register trademarks.'"
The first post. I didn't invent it, but I did get here first.
--Greg
These types of reforms aren't actually going to help the patent industry get any better. If anything, this act is going to cause even more disputes if the House passes it. The disputes would be based on, "I don't make anything, but I have a patent on this." And under this new law, they would actually have a valid argument. What we really need is a better patent system that accounts for modern times, not one that allows Patent trolls to troll even more.
"They see me trollin'... They hatin'" would really apply there... -.-
Sorry...I own the method of "approval in an 89-9 vote" patent.
It should be about what's best for the nation and the General Welfare.
So this means the concept of prior art is moot?
It might not be so detrimental except that I imagine the legislation in question will not improve the quality of work of patent examiners who will continue rubber-stamp approval of obvious ideas.
I think it's especially repulsive that some well-known useful tool people have been using for years could suddenly become patented by a troll who had no involvement in its creation and would then have the legal standing to demand license fees of the community.
Shit sucks.
Supporters of the act contend that reforming the patent system will unlock innovation and produce jobs in an economy that is increasingly driven by intellectual property. Currently, there is a backlog of about 700,000 patents waiting for examination, and the next cellphone, incandescent lamp or miracle drug could be hidden in that pile, supporters said.
Looking the waste in the current smart-phone patent "compulsive wars", I think the bottleneck in invention (and job creation) is NOT in first-to-invent vs first-to-file (the current battle would have happened in both "first-to..." strategies). Look, Europe is driven by the "first-to-file" for quite a while: did this stop Apple to block Samsung tablets/phones (or whatever) in Germany?
I don't see how's this one a step forward in the "job creation" direction (not says that is not, just saying that I need some explanations. Somebody care to explain?).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
This its sure to allow the big guys to stifle innovation in so many ways. They would patent your eyeballs if possible in order to prevent the visitation of other web sites.
See title! There's nothing more to say.
Great idea: throw away the one good reform to ever hit the US patent office; that is, ending the race to the patent office with the first-to-invent system.
This is a bad plan. They can just push in their cronies' work and claim that they were the first to file. They can also assign higher fees or more favorable fees to those who are unsympathetic or sympathetic to the current administration, respectively.
What matters is what the aristocracy would like to see. Which is precisely what the America Invents Act delivers.
Ideas are valuable. Therefore, the aristocracy wants to control them. If this slows innovation down to a snail's pace, eliminates jobs, and weakens America's position as a world power, so be it.
And before anyone explains to me that offering patents creates an incentive to invent, just stop. Take a look at how patents are actually used in practice. They empower wealthy corporations to set up barriers-to-entry by making it so expensive to innovate that only the wealthy corporations can do it...and of course they do very little of it because the RnD is expensive and the enterprise too risky.
This is reform?
Strongly resisting the temptation to whargarbl.
This act will only encourage patent trolling. It will increase the rates of industrial espionage in a country that is already struggling with cyber-crime.
The original inventors will have to become legal wizards in addition to their existing skillset.
Still, why should I care? I'm not American, and anything that stifles American invention can only be good for my country.... sooooo.... thanks America! Good job there!
When Canada passed the exact same change 10 years ago (changing from first-to-invent to first-to-file) independent inventor applications dropped by 50% and have never recovered. This bill was pushed entirely by large corporations who don't want to pay the real innovators for their inventions.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
what can I say way to kick a dieing economy while its down
lets stifle every independent thinker in the country and reward the trolls of the world
and further more I am guessing I will soon have to pay every time I post something somewhere
because that combination of letters that makes up the word I use it patented and so is the whole dam
alphabet.
this only furthers my want to use open source products from both software and hardware worlds at least there
the people actually care about that they make
peacefully watching from my own messed up country just to the north
...to the issue, compared to how long the patent lasts. I believe creative destruction is good. If you can build a better mousetrap, I will gladly buy it. If you need lawyers to protect your product, you don't have a product.
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
So now someone can invent something, but the first to file it gets all rights? how is that better??
example case:
- it costs $15.000 to file a patent
1. small guy invents something (e.g algorithm)
2. small guy doesnt has $15.000 to file the patent, and his not sure yet if his invention is worth it
3. small guy tries to make some money with the invention (u know like, creating google, facebook)
4. before the small guy has enough money to file patent, a patent troll sees the potential and files the patent
5. patent troll sues small guy
Assuming that they're doing their job, which conventional wisdom says they haven't been.[*]
They have not been because it's been an almost impossible task to keep up.
The new bill helps in two ways:
1) Since you don't care anymore who thought of an idea first, you only need to see if the idea exists in the market or has already been filed to dismiss. Before even if someone filed earlier it COULD be they thought of it later... or the guy filing thought of the idea before the thing on the market arrived.
2) I'm weak on this point but basically it allows outside entities to contest bad patents instead of just the patent holder. Now the EFF and the FSF can go to down striking down the evil before us.
And still won't, unless the bill vastly increases the funding for patent examiners.
You know what? It actually DOES do that. Because now the patent office gets to keep application fees. They didn't before? Nope, went into the general pool to pay for the growing SS or a new airport in Nowhereville dedicated to the state senator.
It's just that it's a lot more lucrative for qualified people to work in industry than at the Patent Office.
Perhaps they can pay examiners more now that they get to keep application fees.
This is really a decent overhaul, better than we could expect from all the infighting and bickering going on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I remember the idea of "first to file" (FTF) being explained to me in the past, although I don't rember where or whom. Basically, FTF doesn't trump prior art. If someone invents something before you patent it, the patent is invalid. This doesn't change. One of the big litigation problems with "first to invent" (FTI) over FTF is that, when two companies claim the rights to have invented something first, it take a HUGE amount of digging, research, and legal discovery to figure out. Especially when companies keep secrets and have long R&D periods; it's a tangled mess to figure out the exact timeline that grants patent ownership to one company or another. With FTF, you don't have this problem, because its blatantly obvious who filed first, and prior art is easier to prove in court. IANAL, so correct me if I'm wrong!
In a country built on the concept of being punishing several races of people who had the audacity to occupy our land before we discovered it, it only seems right that now we punish people for thinking of things before we did too.
Still crying yourself to sleep each night in your creepy black turtleneck jammies over Android destroying your piece of shit iPhone in sales?
Or Apple getting the shit kicked out of themselves now after trying to play Patent Troll?
There seem to be a lot of people in this thread saying, "Oh no! Prior art is dead!"
All this actually means is that somebody can no longer invent (or CLAIM have invented) something and then KEEP IT A SECRET (not sell, publicly demonstrate, file for a patent, etc...) and then, later on, after somebody else files for the patent, say, "Hey! I invented that %d years ago!" Right now, it seems to be pretty common practice for corporations to attempt to 'manufacture evidence' of non-public prior art. It seems like this would simplify patent disputes.
Its time to file baby! It doesn't matter if it doesn't exist yet, all you need do is file paper and sit back! As soon as some smarty-pants actually invents something close to what you have legal title to, you can claim (and get) ownership! Their work becomes your profit. Don't stop at one, file thousands and thousands of patents! Go hard, and let your imagination carry you! Be ambiguous and general, and your patent can cover several, perhaps even a dozen actual inventions. You will get them all! Time to go to the science fiction bookstore, read any of the contraptions listed, and file! Is this patent system stupid? Absolutely! Will it kill innovation in the US? Guaranteed! Since the new millennium, many have speculated that it ended the 'American Century'. This has been hotly debated on /. and other places. With the DMCA, unlimited copyright term extensions, the export of American jobs --particularly to China--, software patents and now this change in the US patent system, the end of the American Century is assured. The whole 'too big to fail' stuff, and the profound shift to the right of the US electorate will destroy the US utterly.
A patent lasts 20 years, we're not talking copyright here...
Of course, when it comes to technology, 20 years is an eternity but mousetraps haven't changed that much in recent years.
It should be about what's best for the nation and the General Welfare.
You do realise how socialist you sound there?
I was looking for the punchline, 'cause that had to be a joke, and then none came. So, please hit up Google, search the phrase "promote the general welfare" and then search the phrase "Abraham Lincoln better to remain silent."
The whole exercise should be quite enlightening for you.
Steve Perlman, President & CEO, Rearden, OnLive and MOVA wrote a detailed letter to Senator Diane Feinstein, voicing his extreme disapproval of this bill. It's a good read: (PDF) http://www.rearden.com/public/110301-Steve_Perlman_S.23_Letter_to_Senator_Feinstein.pdf
Corporations in the USA used to be only temporary. It is *they* who are doing most of the patent wars.
Abolish corporations and we get patents worked out and we get our democracy back
-
I have applied for ink, paint and writing
Could we reduce the cost of a patent by giving back some of the patent money if someone can show a working prototype within 6 months of the filing? or perhaps charge them more if they can't show a prototype? Would this reduce the number of patent trolls?
So now that first to file wins, does that mean that prior art is no longer meaningful for new patents? Sure, they were doing it before me, but they didn't file, did they?
So? You're happy with the current situation then? Where the only thing that counts is the money made instead of the patients cured? Where natural products are actively fought by the industry? Where the "ethical commission" is actually provided by the manufacturer himself?
Don't make me laugh. Medicine manufacturers should be forbidden to do their own research if that means that the results are "protected" from the public. Have the research done by independent institutions funded by the government. Spend the money on the research, not on enriching manufacturers.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I Ain't No Asshole Lawyer
Now microsoft can crank out bogo-patents at an even more furious rate. No doubt there are thousands of innovations that have never been patented. This is especially true in foss. From now on, if a Linux developer invents something, but cannot afford to patent that idea. Microsoft can steal the idea, and use that idea to sue Linux makers. From now on, using a keyboard to type code, or using a dotted "i" will be patented Microsoft "inventions."
As a researcher trying to submit patents, I can tell you the whole system is fucked up. The standards for submitting patents are too low, protections are too weak, lawsuits are too common, costs are too high...It's already a rigged game. Large corporations can patent the same thing as a small company and then sue the small company out of business.
I don't know what this new bill does (too much hype surrounding it and the bill itself is written in legalese), but it doesn't seem to address any of the points that would be needed to fix the patent system to protect the inventor instead of encouraging lawsuits and protecting large corporations.
I wonder if the republicans will block this anti-hollywood bill passed by democrats. What a strange turn of events.
Large companies build huge portfolios of vague patents. Perhaps that shouldn't be allowed, but it is the norm and that isn't changing.
So the small inventor, his own patent in-hand, gets sued for patent infringement, possibly by more than one big company. The legal fees alone shut him down, whether or not the patents have any merit.
First-to-file only makes this situation worse for small inventors.
Your statements are about how things should work in theory. The reality is much more sinister.
Yes, certainly, but any idea that people should only do things for free is also a cancer and should die. There's nothing wrong with putting ideas and functional objects in the public domain, but there's also nothing wrong with deciding to monetize an idea or a functional object. Personally, I find the GPL distasteful and wrongheaded, but even so, I see nothing wrong with it either in the sense that choosing it as a way to go is just fine if you like it. When you birth an idea, it should be yours to decide what to do with. Period. Ideas can have enormous value; people who claim any kind of automatic ownership of other people's ideas when they didn't contribute to the thing's genesis are simply pickpockets. If the idea is given to them by the inventor, that's something completely different.
I pop out the occasional public domain project and/or enhancement, but I also do commercial projects in the hardware and software realms, because I find I have this peculiar need to eat and cower within shelter from time to time, and I've noticed the same curious problems with the rest of my family.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You can patent putting a different face on a person with a computer?
The system really is broken.
This explains that what is in the constitution is overall intended to promote general welfare; it doesn't mean that what's in the document can be ignored by the government if some contrary idea promotes the general welfare. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who are very confused about this.
Legitimately authorized federal (and to a large extent, state) use of power is fairly clearly specified by the enumerated powers, the bill of rights, and the various amendments to all of the foregoing. Any exercise of power not so enumerated, or explicitly restricted, is illegitimate action of government wildly out of control. Practical examples of this abound - obvious rights violations, blatantly ex post facto laws, outright usurpation of powers not granted, sophist re-interpretations of otherwise clearly stated limits, etc.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
So, essentially, what he is saying is that 'under first-to-file, the inventor has to patent every invention instead of just the useful ones, because it takes time to figure out which ones are useful'.
Well, here in South Korea, the patent law is first-to-file, but the inventor may publish it, and STILL can file the patent within six month since being published. Have a nice idea? publish it, and for the next six month, you have the exclusive right to file the patent of the idea on the publication (of course, as long as the publication itself doesn't have any prior art). If you found out that it is a bad idea, just don't bother filing a patent and still, nobody else will be able to file one since the publication itself will count as prior art.
Plus, here in Korea, we have 50% discounts for small businesses, independent inventors, universities, students, etc. (read: anybody without a deep pocket). The last patent I got here (which was filed three months after being published on an international conference paper) cost something like $2.5K including the cost of hiring a patent attorney.
You may have invented something, and you may be the first to show up, but big corporations have shortcuts available to them, you wait and see for yourself.
As soon as they learn what you are trying to get a patent on, their shortcuts will enable them to take your invention and get it filed first.
"Those ideas become "lost art" and the rest of society loses out"
Really. If they are lost, how do you know? You don't?
Thought so.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
The concept of prior art wasn't enforced under the old law. There is no indication that it will be enforced under the new law, either. So it is moot, but not because of the change in the law. It is moot because of the lack-of-change in the enforcement.
Not that it makes much difference, since rich corporations had little trouble laying claim to inventions regardless of prior art, but this really kills the individual inventor. Publishing anything before you have enough money for extremely expensive patent lawyers, searches, and fees, and you can be sure that someone rich will file first and own your patent.
I'm inventing a P2P patent-sharing app.
No, actually you can't. But you can patent a specific technique for doing so.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The FTF system would create additional incentive for corporations to spy on people and to surreptitiously farm them for ideas. Those that have the resources for spying on a large scale (hint: the same entities that have legal departments) would consolidate their power.
Nobody knows. It is a lost art.
You are an idiot.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Somebody thinks it is worth doing.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Patenting is so dang complicated, I have no idea how to interpret this. I have noticed the number of patent lawsuits between technology companies has become absolutely gargantuan these last many years. I hope this change is good for consumers. I'm skeptical consumer interests were given priority consideration in crafting the legislation.
I'd image this change should be a real boon for industrial espionage from say...China.
Ill just make some technical drawings of whatever and patent them.. So what if they 'really work', when someone finally does make a working version then I sue them... Great reform..
Senator Maria Cantwell: "This is not a patent reform bill. This is a big corporation patent give away that tramples on the rights of small inventors."
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
Patents were designed to protect the little guy, not cater to the huge mega corporations that are now using them to fight wars. If you could not afford to mass produce something inventive you could still make it and profit from your efforts.
Things have gone from bad to another form of bad. Now the little guy that just does know his way around a patent office could start the process and get trumped by the highly efficient corporations who see their work, finishes and patents key parts before they can find who to even call to patent their product. Thus the little guy does all of the work, and the big corporation swoops in and takes all of the benefits.
I don't have a clean solution, right now there is almost nothing protecting the little guys and it fades both as a result of new policies and advanced technology. The only real hope is open patent systems, shorter patents should also be implemented while we are at it.
No matter how many idiotic republicans waiving their false promises, corporations are bad for economic growth, anyone that looks through historical economic records could easily see this, look at the baby boomer era, when ma and pa shops flourished.
If we want to get the economy back on track, we need to focus on the small to mid sized companies and make patents, taxes, and benefits help them instead of mega corporations making billions, if not, we may as well wait for the collapse and rebuild phase of our civilization.
You hire a patent lawyer if you have something that is worth patenting. That is, something you intend to make money from. If lawyer cost > revenue from patent, you have a crappy invention, so why patent it? Patents are about protecting marketability. If your idea isn't marketable, why bother?
Also from the new bill:
NOVELTY; PRIOR ART.—A person shall be entitled to a patent unless— ‘‘(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention;
So all you have to do is do as Shachar suggests. File your provisional and then print it somewhere public. I would imagine a classified ad in a newspaper would suffice. That neatly meets "described in a printed publication" and only sets you back a few bucks. BigCorp won't be able to yoink your invention out from under you.
IANAL, and welcome corrections if I'm wrong.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I am somewhat inclined to agree. I don't think outright abolishing corporations is necessarily a good idea, but they have far too many powers and protections. They need held to far higher standards than individuals, and their owners and directors need to be held legally responsible for all the actions of the corporation, not just a tiny fraction of them. That said, abolishing corporations would probably just make life more complicated and not solve the underlying issue, that money = power. Democracy cannot exist if money buys votes.
Great Intellect...
The letter presents way too eloquent a case. No way will any of *our* senators listen to rational rhetoric like that. Their brains would literally melt.
God, I hope I'm wrong!
Social Credit would solve everything...
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The US senate was immediately sued by Patent Adventures for infringment upon it's recently purchased patent "Method for determining non-losing concepts by digital yes/no responses."
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Thanks for sharing. As a patent attorney that is dreading the first-to-file aspect of the bill, this sums up nicely the reasons why. I dread whipping out a patent application every time a client invents something. The current one year grace period is extremely helpful because it gives them time to crystalize a worthwhile invention and pursue only quality applications.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Frederick J. Ryan Jr. is the President and CEO of politico.com. Used to work for Reagan and currently "serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation"
If you want to look for someone who has been fighting for patent reform from the beginning; look no further than Senator Al Franken. He applauds the passage of the bill and most programmers I know are FOR this bill; not against. I thought /. was news for nerds.
http://franken.senate.gov/?p=hot_topic&id=1369
In memory of Don Costar,
He would not have wanted this to bill to pass. He believed in the first to invent rather than the first to file. He passed away just a month ago.
http://www.doncostar.com/
Don Costar 1923-2011
Respectfully,
NIA Member at Large
Senator Maria Cantwell may have said it best: "This is not a patent reform bill. This is a big corporation patent give away that tramples on the rights of small inventors." It's certainly a shame that Sen. Coburn's amendment (ending fee diversion by Congress) didn't stand a chance. But considering the current political climate, I suppose it's not surprising.