Apple Patents Using Apps During Calls

bizwriter writes "Apple has had quite a week in patents for the iPhone, and it's only Tuesday. First was the victory at the International Trade Commission over HTC. And now there's a shiny new patent on switching to an app during a live phone call (#8,082,523). There may be non-infringing ways of doing something similar, but they probably will be clumsy in comparison."

Comments

Economics of the Patent Office

[Scowler]

Our US Patent Office is economically incentivized to approve patent applications, regardless of their merits. If a patent review officer approves a patent application, that means revenue rolling into the institution as the patent is granted and registered. If the patent application is denied, that means outgoing $ as the applicant may litigate the matter and/or appeal.

If our "forward"-thinking Congress really wants to do something about patent reform, they should change the economic model of our patent office, such that the funding of the office is neutral in regards to whether patent applications are approved or denied.

Re:Economics of the Patent Office

[Scowler]

Just to follow up, a few ideas that I wish Congress would consider...

#1 Force more patent application appeals into arbitration, and away from the court system. Make the applicant pay for the cost of the arbitrator.

#2 Change the accounting model. Proceeds from granted patent applications should NOT count as revenue towards the patent office and its continued operations, but should directly go into the US treasury.

#3 Provide a formal process for taking into account newly found prior art for patents already granted, including an arbitration process that has the power to revoke such patent. The arbitrator should show some deference to the granted patent, of course, and the cost of such a process should fall squarely on whichever entity is trying to get the patent erased from existence. This would, however, provide us all a way to quantify how well all the attorneys and lawyers involved in a patent application are doing: how many times have they had a patent revoked due to lazy research and missing prior art?

Re:Economics of the Patent Office

[Nethemas the Great]

How about changes the duration of patents from 20 years to 2 years. When these damn things stop looking like assets on a balance sheet companies will move on to other forms of mischief and we can get on with the job of innovation.

Re:Economics of the Patent Office

[green1]

To be perfectly honest, I'd abolish them altogether. I honestly do not believe they are necessary for innovation. I believe that people will still make the "better mousetrap" without being able to patent it simply so that they can make money selling it. First to market is often worth a lot.

As for the benefit of documenting your invention in the patent for when it becomes public domain, that pretty much vanished years ago anyway, and even if not, reverse engineering is often more reliable than reading the patent document anyway.

I'm going to end this right now

[symbolset]

A method, comprising: at a portable electronic device...

All of these software patents require a device to instantiate. So sell a mobile phone that downloads on activation all of the OS and user experience. The device on sale doesn't violate the patents because it doesn't include the feature, and the software download that includes the feature doesn't either because the patent requires a device and the software doesn't include a device.

Problem solved. Maybe I should patent that - but I won't.