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USPTO Head: Current Patent Litigation Is 'Reasonable'
elashish14 writes "David Kappos, head of the USPTO, today provided a strong defense of the patent system, particularly in the mobile industry. In his address, he implored critics, 'Give the [America Invents Act] a chance to work.' He then went on to proclaim the 'absolutely breakneck pace' of innovation in the smartphone industry and that the U.S. patent system is 'the envy of the world,' though he was likely only referring to the envy of the world's lawyers. Perhaps the most laughable quote from his address: 'The explosion of litigation we are seeing is a reflection of how the patent system wires us for innovation.'"
of course the boss is gonna say everything is peachy...
David Kappos [fingers in ears], "Lalalalalalalala ... everything is fine ... lalalalalalalalala..."
Clearly determined to be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
... another Bureaucrat defending his corporately lobbied position.
Remember folks: government officials have an interest in securing and maintaining their department's funding, not (unless they're exceptional) in making progress.
This goes beyond 'regulatory capture', it's more like 'regulatory Stockholm Syndrome'
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The Ars Technica piece is very slanted, pulling quotes our of context. Here's the full text of the speech itself: http://www.uspto.gov/news/speeches/2012/kappos_CAP.jsp
For instance, compare these quotes, which give a very different perspective:
"But it is equally important that patent protection be properly tailored in scope, so that programmers can write code and engineers can design devices without fear of unfounded accusations of infringement. And we know that inconsistency in software patent issuance causes uncertainty in the marketplace and can cause threats of litigation that in turn can stifle innovation and deter new market entrants."
"Software experts have long observed that programming is incremental in nature, with modest improvements not worthy of patent protection. KSR gave us the ability to recognize this valid observation and incorporate it in our examination process."
"Should we just accept the problems, given the importance of the innovation and the illogic of discriminating against great technology that happens to be implemented in software? Of course not. The right point of inquiry is quality. By getting that right, we grant patents only for great algorithmic ideas worthy of protection, and not for everything else. This administration and its innovation agency understand that low-quality patents do no good for anyone. Low quality patents lead to disputes, uncertainty, and lost opportunity. Quality is central to our mission. All of this especially for software."
"One such initiative has already begun crowdsourcing searches for software prior art. It's called Ask Patents and is an online network hosted by Stack Exchange, where software experts engage in robust discussions of possible prior art for given applications, then submit the best prior art along with helpful commentary."
"You know, the history of software patents is not a perfect one, although things are improving. Some of the most troublesome patents have expired; others can be challenged with new post-grant proceedings; and newer patents are quantifiably clearer, and aligned with current legal standards."
"For those who feel more needs to be done, we encourage you to keep reaching out to us at the USPTO, as well as to other actors who also have an important role to play. The USPTO administers the laws, while Congress and the courts write the laws and interpret them, respectively. Working together, we can find the right balance for software patents. We can find a balance that ensures market certainty, encourages investment and research and product development, and guarantees that patents issued going forward are appropriately tailored."
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
china makes US patented stuff mostly on contract by US companies
Yet one could argue that China's current economic boom owes quite a bit to simply ignoring IP law. Much as the whole reason that New York City is today a major publishing center can be traced back to the 1800s and folks in the US simply ignoring IP law.
Emerging economies do best when they ignore the artificial barriers put in place by the current incumbents, not least as those barriers are often there solely to protect those incumbents. Comparing the patent-laden high-tech sector to the likely equally fast-paced yet patent-less fashion sector strongly suggests that patents and innovation are, at best, orthogonal.
Come on, the idiocy of some USPTO issued patents is not a matter of opinion. If you push neutrality over facts you're gonna have a bad time-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kappos
Only reason he likes the patent system, imo.
Be seeing you...
Personally I believe there are 2 sides to almost any story, including this one.
There is some evidence to suggest that any monopoly privilege grant, such as patents, will be expanded with time. The benefits to owning monopoly privileges are concentrated amongst the few owners, while the costs of being excluded are diffuse amongst the population at large. Under those conditions, the political incentive will be to expand monopoly rights, regardless of the current state of those rights. The reason is that it pays the benefactors to lobby congress, whereas it's a net loss to individuals to do so, even when they win.
Although it's in a different area, copyrights instead of patents, no doubt this explains why the copyright expiration has been repeatedly extended.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
On the other hand, the Patent system works well when viewed in its historical context. They have been a net benefit for innovation.
Actually, one of the most comprehensive studies on that topic (Fritz Machlup, An Economic Review of the Patent System) concluded more or less the opposite:
If one does not know whether a system "as a whole" (in contrast to certain features of it) is good or bad, the safest "policy conclusion" is to "muddle through" - either with it, if one has long lived with it, or without it, if one has lived without it. If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one. But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it. This last statement refers to a country such as the United States of America - not to a small country and not to a predominantly nonindustrial country, where a different weight of argument might well suggest another conclusion.
Similarly, the FTC Innovation report from 2003 was also far from unequivocally positive about patents, especially in the hardware/software fields. Or Jim Bessen's research, as presented (twice) at an FFII conference in 2004.
For example, there are many fewer patents lawsuits regarding Smart Phones than there were in the time the original telephone was invented.
That does not exemplify how patents have supposedly been a net benefit for innovation. Additionally, you are wrongly paraphrasing the article you refer to below. It only says that nowadays, per filed patent there are fewer lawsuits than there were in the days of the fixed telephone. From that it concludes that there is no problem with the volume of patent lawsuits.
I would argue that the reason for this is that patents are used in a very different way today compared to how they were used back then (there were much less large companies back then amassing patent war chests just for defensive purposes). Arguably, the standards for patentability were also higher back then, which means that actually going to court rather than only looking for the players you can convince to settle out of course was a much less risky business.
Here is a god article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2012/02/09/no-the-patent-system-is-not-broken/2/
While I appreciate that shooting the messenger by itself is not a very strong argument, that's an opinion piece by "the vice president and head of strategic acquisitions at Intellectual Ventures". That's patent troll central. Suing companies, or threatening to sue them, based on all kinds of patents is their bread and butter.
Moving on to substance, he's most definitely wrong when he claims that "Every major technological and industrial breakthrough in U.S. history [..] has been accompanied by exactly the same surge in patenting, patent trading, and patent litigation that we see today in the smartphone business". Do you remember the massive patent wars from the eighties and nineties that came with the personal computer revolution? No? Me neither. There were a few lawsuits (e.g. Stac vs Microsoft), but there most definitely was no surge like what we see today.
What we need is general legal reform so that disputes can be decided simply and inexpensively without Lawyers getting all the goodies.
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