Patent Attorney Breaks Down Impact of the America Invents Act

msmoriarty writes "As you probably heard, on Friday the Obama administration signed the America Invents Act, which changed our system to 'first to file.' Support for the bill itself was split in the tech industry: Microsoft and IBM (among others) supported the act, Google and Apple opposed it. Redmondmag asked a patent attorney to explain in detail the act and what impact he thinks it will have on the tech industry. According to him, there are still many open questions. From the article: 'The Act has not accomplished [first to file] harmonization in a straightforward or unambiguous way. For example, it is not clear whether a prior use or offer for sale of an invention by an inventor or joint inventor within a year of the date of filing would render the invention unpatentable.' He also said that the act clearly favors larger corporations, and he doubts it will speed up the patent process itself, which was one of its intended benefits."

Comments

Simple

[Mensa Babe]

Microsoft supported it, Google opposed it. What more proof do we need that this act is evil? Propably none and even if some then not much. Nevertheless the articles linked in this story even if not bad in content still may be quite hard to follow for anyone who hasn't got an opinion on this matter yet. You can find much more information in the Wikipedia article: Leahy-Smith America Invents Act and even more in the articles linked in the references. I strongly recommend reading it all because otherwise we risk to draw uneducated conclusions from the aspects of this story that may seem obvious but actually are not that obvious for anyone educated in the intellectual property law. Some of the implications of that act would be rather scary so we really need to take some time to fully research the subject and unlike the Redmondmag, the so called "independent voice of the Microsoft IT community", the Wikipedia is actually worth reading.

Re:Simple

[elsurexiste]

Microsoft supported it, Google opposed it. What more proof do we need that this act is evil?

OK

I strongly recommend reading it all because otherwise we risk to draw uneducated conclusions... we really need to take some time to fully research the subject...

If that's not ironic, I don't know what it is.

Re:Simple

[Desler]

IBM is now mostly a services company with little need for new patents.

And yet in 2009, they received 4900 patents and in 2010 they received nearly 5900 which is more than any other company. IBM has for 18 consecutive years held the #1 position in granted patents . Reality doesn't seem to march your assertion.

Re:Simple

[delt0r]

Considering that the rest of the world has had first to file since forever, i think you are wrong. The quality is no worse elsewhere than in the US.

Short version

[durrr]

We're all fucked.

"the act clearly favors larger corporations"

[Anonymous Coward]

"the act clearly favors larger corporations"

Well, duh! Isn't that the sole purpose of all acts and reforms? More advantages for larger corporations?

Re:"the act clearly favors larger corporations"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Anonymous Coward, I must request that you cease your class warfare immediately.

Strike all instances of "larger corporations" and replace them with "job creators" immediately.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Re:"the act clearly favors larger corporations"

[DCFusor]

Unfortunately, that does seem to be the case. Funny the cognitive dissonance when they mention how it's *small* companies that create most of the jobs and innovation. There is no way you can now break into the big boys club. They just patent everything they can, and while they hate each other -- they can cross-license at nominal or no cost. But a little guy with one patent who starts eating into their market share will always find they've patented about 10 obvious things they can use against him, as the days of anything being simple, covered by just one patent, are long gone. As durrr said above, we're all fucked.

Re:Worst thing for America

[Anonymous Coward]

The trolls could do that before. What they could do before, and could not do now, is pre-date the invention by 364 days, so that they could show priority over you. Of course that would be perjury, but the USPTO stopped prosecuting perjury on patent applications when they disbanded their enforcement division for budget reasons in 1974. No prosecutions since then.

Filing a patent on someone else's invention is still itself perjury. Now, we just have to get them to prosecute that.

Re:More political theater

[Jawnn]

Worse than that, since it's now "first to file" instead of "first to invent", technically it outright encourages patents on items that have been in the commons for years or even centuries, since if nobody has filed a patent on it yet, it doesn't matter who invented it, it's up for grabs and lawsuits.

Only if you have pockets deep enough to use the legal system to bully anyone who might challenge your patently weak patent. Challenges cost money. For Big Corp, Inc., that's usually chump change. Big Corp wins, citizen loses. Again.

Re:why favor large corporations?

[Baloroth]

But, unless he omitted something, the "submarine prior art" can't be used to invalidate a patent, nor to claim the patent for yourself. All it does is make you (or someone you sell the "trade secret" to), immune to being sued. I'm quite confused how that is a bad thing. It doesn't give as much incentive to publicize the technique, to be used by everyone after the patent period, but given the way patent law was before, that didn't really help before. Basically, it seems that this just makes a company, who doesn't publish their art, immune to patent suits, as long as they were using the art in question, but they cannot invalidate a patent someone else filed. Again, this is unles I am completely misreading what he said or he omitted a major point.

The only way this benefits large companies more than small companies is because large companies can afford to maintain and develop more such art. That is all. So basically it benefits large companies the same way as patent law in general does: they can maintain more of it. All in all, however, this (part of the) reform seems good, since trolls can't file for a patent afterwards and sue some company who was actually using it before them, but didn't publish it.