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Patent 'Death Squad' System Upheld by US Supreme Court (bloomberg.com)
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld an administrative review system that has helped Google, Apple and other companies invalidate hundreds of issued patents. From a report: The justices, voting 7-2, said Tuesday a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review board that critics call a patent "death squad" wasn't unconstitutionally wielding powers that belong to the courts. Silicon Valley companies have used the system as a less-expensive way to ward off demands for royalties, particularly from patent owners derided as "trolls" because they don't use their patents to make products. Drugmakers and independent inventors complain that it unfairly upends what they thought were established property rights. "It came down to this: Is the patent office fixing its own mistakes or is the government taking property?" said Wayne Stacy, a patent lawyer with Baker Botts. "They came down on the side of the patent office fixing its own mistakes." The ruling caused shares to drop in companies whose main source of revenue -- their patents -- are under threat from challenges. VirnetX, which is trying to protect almost $1 billion in damages it won against Apple, dropped as much as 12 percent. The patent office has said its patents are invalid in a case currently before an appeals court.
If the patent shouldn't have been granted, then it isn't a taking of property because it was never properly instantiated as IP.
Maybe this addendum to the patent office operation is a bad idea, but that's a different issue. Write to your Congressman.
Here are some ideas;
1. If it is done without computers, migrating a process to computers is not patentable.
2. If it is done locally on a computer, distributing pieces over a network (internal to the computer or external, esp. over the Internet) is not patentable.
3. Doing something already being done, but now "Over the Internet!", is not patentable.
4. Creating a virtual machine similar to a real one is not patentable.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
A new process made it easier to invalidate patents by creating a process for the USPTO double check their homework when given money and evidence by a third party. Patent holders, particular trolls, cried like little babies about that, saying that the USPTO is stealing their property. The court ruled that it was never their property, because it was just double checking their homework.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
This makes it easier for anyone to invalidate a patent, since there are now two methods for doing so: the traditional and expensive method (through the courts) and the new method (asking the PTO to reconsider their grant).
Basically, all that's happened is that the PTO is now allowed to admit they make mistakes. It doesn't require the courts to decide that they've made one.