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Analyzing Congress's Multiple Approaches To Patent Reform
ectoman writes "Patent reform is becoming an unavoidable issue — and the United States Congress is taking note. But the scope and scale of the problem have prompted multiple legislative solutions, and keeping track of them all can be rather difficult. Mark Bohannon, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Global Public Policy at Red Hat, provides an overview of four important legislative actions currently under consideration, offering clear and concise analysis of their goals and provisions. He also assesses their potential impacts. 'Given the widening attacks by PAEs [Patent Assertion Entities],' Bohannon concludes, 'it is essential that Congress work to produce meaningful legislation on at least the issues identified above in order to begin to stem the tide.'"
Patents should be readable and understandable to people with typical proficiency in the industry or science under question. Now, maybe some of the specifics of the invention may require more expertise, but the parts of interest to business managers should be written to be understood.
As an example, think of 3D systems patenting stereo lithography 25 years ago. They would have no problem stating what their invention was, why it is unique and non-obvious, etc. It's only when you have a trollish type invention that you have to write it in a language so that even an expert in the field would have trouble figuring out what the claims are, or make so many claims that nobody would bother reading it all (comparable to the "terms of use" and "user's agreements" drafted by lawyers for banking and software products).