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US Shutdown Is Good News For Patent Trolls
judgecorp writes "It's just a sidebar on the US government shutdown but, while agencies including NASA and NIST are displaying blank websites, the US Patent and Trademark Office is running as normal because its funding is guaranteed by the US Constitution. Thus, patent trolls can continue to file bogus business patents, while the FTC is closed and can't combat them, and the Department of Justice can't handle appeals and enforcement."
You'd expect a big story about this on Groklaw, with great insights, backgrounds etc. Too bad Pamela closed her site.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
It also seems like there are less insightful comments since the shutdown, officers gone fishing?
is that why they took down SilkRoad before the government collapsed?
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
It takes years to get a patent out of the USPTO, so filing an application now won't make a lick of difference unless the shutdown lasts well past the next election. Plus, the FTC and the DOJ have never had any involvement with getting patents from the USPTO. Only the DoD does (because the DoD can issue secrecy orders that keep a patent application a secret.)
The Members of the House were elected by the People. The People are the Real Terrorists(tm).
It is sad how bad the editors are at their job. Just a quick glance at the linked article will find the full quote included therein:
And reading the full quote, we see that the OP completely 1) misread 2) misunderstood what they were being told. Did the OP intentionally misread the article, or was the OP a total idiot? We don't know the answer to that question.
EXACTLY!
The reason the Patent Office is open is because they are self-funding not because it's funding is guaranteed. It, also, makes money for the government. There however is only a limited amount of time they can remain open until reserve funds run out and it shuts down.
This is just an example of Washington Monument Syndrome , wherein the government (or a branch of it), when faced with budget cuts, first shuts down whatever site or service will cause the most uproar. Never mind the graft, never mind the mountains of wasteful spending, just cut funding to fire departments, schools, police, whatever will get noticed and inspire outrage the fastest. The idea is to apply pressure to the taxpayers, the budget office, the ways and means committee, or whoever else is capable of deciding that they should get more money. They do this every single time.
It's exactly the same as a petulant child who, upon being told that he can only have two pieces of candy instead of five, holds his breath and stomps his feet in an effort to reverse the decision. And it's equally mature.
In the Westminster system the same dead locked funding scenario is called a "double dissolution". It's a constitutional trigger for a general election, the theory being that if the government of the day can't get their agenda funded by a hostile senate, then we pick a new government/senate that can at least keep the fucking lights on. What's the point of electing a bunch of public servants if they stubbornly insist on derailing the delivery of public services?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
In other democracies, it's an uncommon but perfectly legitimate thing that a member of parliament can write a motion to send the government home.
It's called a "Vote of No Confidence". *IF* that vote passes, the government falls.
The reason why it's uncommon is as follows: that MP or political party is saying "We must disregard the will of the majority of the people who elected this government. we don't care about our jobs and the jobs of the other parliamentarians we currently have. This issue is so important that we are willing to overrule everything to ensure the government can't enact this law: "over our dead bodies". If that means that the people won't trust us anymore and stop voting for us for 12 years, so be it. This issue is more important than us being ever re-elected again."
IOW, it's a good thing that this mechanism exists to contain excesses, but in a normal democracy it has a price
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Numerous problems with this story:
1. PTO isn't open because its "funding is guaranteed by the Constitution". The Constitution merely authorizes Congress to establish a PTO. The office is open because it doesn't rely on government funding; it's funded by application fees.
2. Given that the patent process takes years, having the FTC down for a few days won't have any effect. That is assuming that the FTC even has any role in patent approval/validation, which I don't think is true.
3. The federal courts and much of the DoJ are not closed... plus having them shut down for a few days won't have any effect on patents.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Long time slashdot lurker, first post. To disclose my bias: I'm a patent attorney, but I'm also a long time EFF supporter and member. This article is a bit disingenuous or wrong. The Constitution does not guarantee funding to the Patent Office. Instead, at best, Article 1 section 1 clause 8 says that Congress shall have the power to grant limited monopolies to inventors to further the progress of arts and sciences. A patent is only granted to someone who files an application, pays $$$$$ fees, invents something new (never been done before), is not obvious, and teaches the public fully how to make and use the invention. The fees are so much for filing and prosecuting an application that the Patent Office is the ONLY branch of government that is self-sufficient needing no taxpayer moneys and instead they generate such a surplus that the extra cash goes to other branches to help them operate. The quid pro quo from patent filings is awesome for the republic (not withstanding non-practicing entity trolls). We, the people, get $$$$ massive filing, prosecution, and maintenance fees, attorney fees, a full public disclosure of the technology such that once the patent expires (or if it doesn't issue as is often the case, the public is free to use the technology. Therefore, the patent office isn't shut down because it's actually generating revenue and it's accepting new disclosures from around the world. If we shut down then we wouldn't know e.g. Taiwan's latest greatest encryption protocol; China's new nuclear process; Russia's new oil exploration method... Our patent office is NOT the enemy. Far from it. They maintain a fully public accessible website of over 9 MILLION Patents fully text searchable; MILLIONS of published applications that didn't become patents (maybe not new or non-obvious enough or didn't comply with formalities)....MILLIONS of design patents... all free all available for the public - Aaron, may he read in peace, would approve. Our founding fathers realized it was essential for us to be dominant in the innovation and technology field that's why it's in the Constitution. Just wanted to toss my two cents in. IMHO.
Article:
The USPTO, for example, is established in the US Constitution, and has its own funding that doesn’t depend on annual Congressional appropriations to the extent that some others do.
See, Subby, it's not that the funding is guaranteed by the Constitution, but that the funding comes from its own fees rather than Congressional allotment. Consider, the very same clause in the Constitution that establishes the Patent Office also establishes the Copyright Office... And yet, the Copyright Office is closed. The difference is that it only costs $35 to register a copyright, and costs upwards of $3000 in fees to get a patent.