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US Senate Targets Patent Trolls
New submitter jeffkoch writes: Last year, the United States Senate failed to pass bipartisan legislation to combat patent trolls when it was killed by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Congressional-insider newspaper Roll Call reports today that, "Knowing Reid would no longer control the Senate's legislative schedule in 2015, staff for John Cornyn, (a Republican from Texas), and Charles E. Schumer, (a Democrat from New York)", began work in February to assemble a new bill and to build support among fellow members of the Senate. Patent law is usually not a partisan issue, and President Barack Obama has called for getting an overhaul to his desk on several occasions including in his 2014 State of the Union speech. The last overhaul of United States patent law, the America Invents Act, took several years to be developed. The U.S. Congress is likely to act on the proposed legislation before they recess in August. "Patent trolls are taking a system meant to drive innovation and instead using it to stifle job-creating businesses around the country. Main Street stores, tech startups and more are being smothered by the abuse that is all too common in our patent system, and it's time for that to end," Schumer said in a statement. "This bipartisan bill shifts the legal burden back onto those who would abuse the patent system in order to make a quick buck at the expense of businesses that are playing by the rules."
Large corporations will gain protection from patent trolls and small legitimate patent holders.
The biggest problem appears to be allowing wide interpretations of patents and ignoring what would be obviousness in the eyes of most practitioners. Here are some suggestions:
1) A jury-like panel of practitioners to judge obviousness.
2) Spell out that merely emulating common physical actions or behaviors should not be patentable, only specific algorithms of such emulation.
3) Reject the mere combining of existing ideas unless the combining is judged non-obvious (#1).
4) Limiting the percentage of revenue a medium or large company can receive from patent royalties.
5) An independent quality review board to make sure approved patents are not overly broad. They'd randomly sample patents.
Table-ized A.I.
I saw a pro-patent commercial just a few minutes ago on a news site. The absurdity of the message caught me. "Inventors will top inventing if the patent laws are weakened". What an utter load of horseshit. How about we return those patents to 1789 rules and let the cards fall.
When it comes to stuff like this, it's better to go straight to the source, rather than repeat things you've heard.
Senator Reid did not "all but admit" to lying. Take a look at the actual interview, starting at 2:45 in the video:
There is no admission of deceit, just an admission that it was politically motivated.