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White House Announces Reforms Targeting Patent Trolls
andy1307 writes "According to Politico (and, paywalled, at The Wall Street Journal), the White House on Tuesday [released] plans to announce a set of executive actions President Barack Obama will take that are aimed at reining in certain patent-holding firms, known as 'patent trolls' to their detractors, amid concerns that the firms are abusing the patent system and disrupting competition. The plan includes five executive actions and seven legislative recommendations. They include requiring patent holders and applicants to disclose who really owns and controls the patent, changing how fees are awarded to the prevailing parties in patent litigation, and protecting consumers with better protections against being sued for patent infringement."
Do these measures address arguably the most fundamental problem: too many things are patentable in the US and patents are awarded too easily in the first place?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"Reining", not "reigning". Think horses, not kings.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
The you clearly haven't read the law.
Section 271 of Title 35:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
The "uses" part covers customers who have bought the infringing product. It is not common to go after the customers but it is legal and there are examples.
This is indeed one aspect of the many problems with our patent system,. Another is the corporate strategy, initiated over a decade ago, which has virtually eliminated the interaction between innovative small firms and larger firms with the need for innovation and the deep pockets required to drive innovative products to market. After my small firm was purchased in 2000, I was ordered to inform all engineers that it would be a major (i.e. firing) violation of corporate policy if they let themselves become aware of the intellectual property of any other firm. I was told that this had recently been adopted as corporate policy by most major firms as a brilliant defense against the feared "triple damages" awards for patent infringement. Corporate policy explicitly banning any effort to learn about other firms' patents currently eliminates any possibility of a court awarding triple damages - even if patent infringement were proven. Since most innovative small firms lack the financial resources needed to take on a multi-year legal battle, even if they were able to show infringement on their patent, this new corporate policy amounted to a free pass for large wealthy firms to simply steal innovations from innovative small firms. The worst thing that could happen would be that the small firm won in court, at which point the worst-case punishment would be to pay 'damages' - which are defined as simply the amount that the stealing firm would have had to pay had they properly licensed the patents from the small firm in the first place. While this is considered a brilliant legal strategy, it is a disastrous national policy for technological innovation. It virtually eliminates the financial incentive for small firms to invest in innovation, by providing carte blanche for larger firms to simply steal that innovation; the logical large firm strategy in this case is to never discuss intellectual property with any small firm - simply steal it and defy them to take you to court. We do indeed need to make war on patent trolls, but even more importantly, we need to make war on patent thieves - by punishing deliberate ignorance of patent theft with large penalties. If it is proven that infringement occurred, and that the infringing firm had a policy of deliberate ignorance, the damage award should be at least tripled. Or - we should start letting speeders go free if they claim ignorance of the speed limit because they chose to deliberately avert their eyes every time a speed limit sign came near.