Patent Reform Act Proposes Sweeping Changes 336
Geccie writes "CNet is reporting that Senators Patrick Leahy and Orin Hatch have proposed sweeping changes in the patent system in the form of the Patent Reform Act of 2006. Key features are the ability to challenge (postgrant opposition) with the Senate version being somewhat broader and better than the house version." From the article: "Specifically, it would shift to a 'first to file' method of awarding patents, which is already used in most foreign countries, instead of the existing 'first to invent' standard, which has been criticized as complicated to prove. Such a change has already earned backing from Jon Dudas, chief of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office."
How about eliminating patents (Score:2, Insightful)
A prediction... (Score:5, Insightful)
So What (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he'll just go broke when trying to compete with the large companies who wait for him to build something cool and then use their huge existing resources to cheaply mass produce his invention before he has a chance to make a dime off it. Not that either the existing or proposed system is "good", but yours would suck pretty bad, too.
First to file? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you do not want to patent, we got you ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Even people that uterly despise software patents will have no choice in the US.
On the other hand all countries that heavelly invest in public education under the idea that education should not be only for rich kids and insannely smart, but also for smart creative poor or just not so rich kids, should be happy to see anything happen that makes the US less interesting for creative minds.
And helps the ROI stay in the country that made the investment.
First to File (Score:4, Insightful)
If other countries want to do that, then that's up to them. I'm not going to tell them what to do. But not only is it a bad idea here, it is one that would be entirely unlawful. It's only in here due to a combination of laziness on the part of the PTO, since they could avoid having to run interference proceedings, and greed on the part of large, corporate inventors, since they can act more quickly than smaller inventors.
I haven't had a chance to look at the latest bill, but I doubt there's much good in it, if anything, if this is any indication.
The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It also called for limited terms to copyright, but we all know who won in eldred vs ashcroft (so instead of infinity, it's infinity - 1.. which only those educated in calculus or higher know is still infinity)
I learned through my history classes and especially current events not to count on the constitution shooting down unjust laws. I think that's one of the strengths of other developed western nations with less stringent constitutional protections.. the people have to stop it at the source actively because they cant count on the same kind of checks and balances.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Insightful)
And how is this in any way substantially different from someone who sets up a new kind of shop or service or method of selling product only to have their competitors, yes, compete and emulate their ideas? Capitalism rewards enterprise, not inventiveness. I have no sympathy whatsoever for inventors who sit around all day trying to get rich quick.
Patents don't work. It's that simple.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
There would still be more small inventors making products than there are now; the current patent system stifles the small inventor, who can't afford a huge patent search and who doesn't have a huge patent portfolio to cross-license with competitors.
Even if small inventors were worse off, society as a whole would be better off, which is the point of the patent system to begin with. If an invention really is useful, then it won't be lost.
Re:Prior Art? (Score:3, Insightful)
Suppose first to file allows prior art. In the case of the person filing the claim not being the inventor, there would be prior art from whomever was the inventor.
Re:"first to file" issues (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it all just a farce, then? Or perhaps they've just been going about it the wrong way, and we should handle diseases the same way we did when people had the lifespan of a fruitfly in a blender? It wasn't all that long ago.
First to file: who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
There are litterally hundreds of people who work on a product at any given point in its many testing phases, and all of these people draw salaries. Testing for products can take 10 or more years, and all of this gives no guarantee the product will succeed at the end.
If all of that work and expense could be done by one company, and any other company could snap it up w/o having to invest in that research, then who in their right mind would invest 10's or 100's of millions of dollars into producing a product when that basically means they're giving it to their competetors for free? Sometimes when the product is sufficiently narrow in scope, even with patents, on a successful drug, drug companies fail to recover their investment during the patent's lifetime.
There are many areas that the patent system is abused. It may even be abused to some extent in the pharmaceutical industry (there certainly are products that are less expensive than other products to research and produce, depending on the product's origin, intended use, and how smoothly it runs through trials), but it is absolutely necessary in order that companies like these (which are in the end for-profit companies with a legal obligation to their share holders; feel free to start your own not-for-profit pharmaceutical) can research and produce life saving drugs and treatments while remaining financially salient.
Re:Prior Art? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is always a complication that man can inject. To assume that going with first to file is going to fix the problems of the first to invent is pretending that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
Software is a big issue in this, as it is actually fraudelent to allow software patents. But to allow it also means that first to file will cause a land grab of patenting all sorts of things that originate in human thought but evolved little past writting it down.
There is a great deal that has been created in software which has never had a patent application filled out and sent in because the creator or writter of the work didn't want it patented. And maybe even if only to assure it stay free in use, they couldn't afford the
With software the issue of fraud is in application, otherwise software would be disallowed patentability. The proof that software is not patentable is only being avoided and by both sides of the software development industry, the proprietary and OSS, each having their own individual motives or incentives or vested interest to blind themselves of the provable facts of the nature of software.
To use an analogy or metaphor, mathmatics was complicated at one time thru the use of the roman numeral system. You could not do advanced math with it. Then came along the hindu arabic decimal system with its zero place holder that after 300 years of resistance and denial by the elite accountants , the general poopulation adopted the easier and more powerful tools of the decimal system, and has since gone on to go way way beyond the limitations of the roman numeral tools, to create whole new industries and economies that the roman numeral system simple was not capable of even conceiving.
Programming is the act of automating complexity, typically made of complexity automations that someone else did earlier. The human characteristic that set us above all other known creatures, which makes it our natural right to do, to build upon the works of those before us. The purpose of programming to to simplify the use of a complexity, to make it have an easier to use interface. and thru the use of easier to use interfaces more of use can put things together for ourselves.
But enters the fraud of software patents and the incentive to say "No you cannot use" (which is really all they patents are intended to be).
Add to this the first to file and what you have is a growing man made constraint as to your ability to apply your natural rights to create and improve you own ability and productivity which in turn contributes to an improved environment for us all. For even if you came up with something to help your dfaily tasks then someone else copuld file it and prevent you from using it via man made laws. Laws where all things are now no longer possible.
Abstraction Physics proves software is not patentable. But in a corrupt world, who wants to acknowledge that?
Re:The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahhh yes.. those "transportation bills".. that nasty transcontinental railroad, those disgusting wasteful interstates.. they were so horrible for our nation, we should never have paid for those..
yes, it's so much worse having a general safety net than allowing the gilded age to continue. We as a nation gave laizzaise faire a try for over a hundred years, and it resulted in a permanent heiristocracy and massive poverty, and finally the crash in 1929. You seem to be oblivious to the fact that corporate entities are just as prone to greed and corruption as the government, and while the government has checks in place the corporate world would not without government intervention.
that "dependent" class existed long before welfare.. welfare just keeps them from living out in the streets and freezing to death in winter, and labor legislation keeps people who work loyally with a company for decades from being tossed into the street the first time he gets a cold, or if a machine in the factory rips his arm off.
We as a nation have seen the inumanity and gross violations of human dignity which private entities perpetrate when unchecked, and we took steps in the 30's to straighten them out.
In short, i'm so glad uneducated extremists like yourself are not allowed into office, and are only allowed one vote.
Patent economics 101 (Score:3, Insightful)
a) Inventions are usefull, they are beneficial that's why there will always be a need for them with or without patents. The choice is not between patents and no innovation, the choice is between wether invention revenue will derive from a service model vs an invention control model.
b) When you have patnets that forces the market to center around invention controlls, when you don't have patnets that forces the market to center around invnetion services. So the notion that patents help small inventors, and incentivize invention is complete fraud.
c) Inventors are good at inventing things, big-business and government and lawyers are good at controlling things - patents do not help inventors. Patents help some large businesses, lawyers, governments, and anyone else who likes to control and deny other peoples liberties. They hurt inventors and do not promote innovation.
d) Patents are not a property right. Property rights exist because of natural scarcity, not because of human made scarsity. Slaves on the plantation were not a property right either. All the argument about incentive, business, commerce, and the wealth of America was crap back then and is now too.
e) Patents are a pure evil, and even genocidial. Those millions Africans who suffered and died of AIDS while pharmacuticals sued in the world court to forbid African nations from making generics - they suffered and died in the name of patetns. Those millions of people who died in auto accidents while patents held back air-bags and anti-lock breaks for 20 years - they suffered and died in the name of patents.
In sum, patents are a fraud, they are a lie, they harm inventors, they stiffle innovation, they are not property, they are anti free market, and they are evil to the point of genocide. We shouldn't be trying to reform them, we should be trying to kill them and hammer anyone else who dares try to impose them on us.
good idea (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason they want patents on intangibles is because they have delibarately gone about destroying the tangibles manufacturing base inside the US. so they need something else to replace it to sell. They aren't finished yet with the eradication of domestic manufacturing, but I could easily see a time where not much beyond military hardware is manufactured here. And maybe not even a lot of that. The big (mostly international now) arms companies don't care, they just want their expensive stuff used up as fast as possible so it can be replaced. Ka-ching! ka-ching! Rake in the dough! There's too much financial incentive to keep a slew of smaller and medium sized wars going for it *not* to happen.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What, you mean like Scalia, Thomas, and Alito did in Rumsfield vs. Hamdan in their dissent?
No, thanks! I'll take unconstitutional rulings over property rights over unconstitutional rules over whether or not the government can kidnap people, torture them, and then try them in unaccountable military tribunals where not only they and their attorney aren't allowed to see evidence against them. I'd rather lose my house to a scummy developer and a crooked city than my life and liberty to an unaccountable unitary executive (aka dictator).
I'm sorry, but as much as I hate, hate, hate the Kelo decision, it's nothing compared to the Constitutional mangling that conservative/authoritarian justices are in favor of.
Re:A prediction... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where it gets interesting when you bring up the theory under which patents are granted is that, at least in my opinion, the situation these different methods are meant to resolve shouldn't exist.
Patents supposedly reward invention, and a key aspect that distinguishes an invention from a mere design is non-obviousness. But what does it mean to be "non-obvious"? It's a subjective measure: what is obvious to an experienced designer is not at all obvious to a novice, or to a lawyer or to a patent examiner. We are basically granting government sanctioned monopolies on ideas based on the subjective opinions of non-qualified people.
What we need is an objective standard. Let me propose one:
If an idea is arrived at independently by two parties working on the same problem, the idea is, ipso facto, an obvious one.
Under that standard, it doesn't matter who "invented" first or who filed first: if two parties came up with the same thing without knowledge of relevant details of each others' work, then the idea is not worthy of a patent.
This would (a) invalidate most patents and (b) greatly increase (according to the law of supply and demand) the value of truly orginal ideas, which now compete with merely patentable ideas. In my view that'd amount to an unquestionably superior patent system.
Patents - More complicated than you think. (Score:1, Insightful)
The responses to this article demonstrate all that is wrong with slashdot. Knee-jerk reactions based on who is involved without understanding the underlying issues at all. I'll address them one by one.
Eliminate patents - Are you insane? How would new drugs be created? Do you not understand the R&D process at all? It takes a decade for a drug to get from conception through clinicals. What would happen if at the end of that process, some competitor could make it for the cost of production? No new drugs.
Prior art - This has nothing to do with prior art. If you try to patent something that was anticipated, you won't get the patent. This is even more true after these changes and the recent structural improvements at the PTO. Indeed, the public will have the opportunity to submit prior art and will be able to go argue with the PTO even after issuance. Isn't this what you wanted? All that first to file does is streamline the system and clear up a lot of the mess involving interferences. It is used by most other countries for a reason.
Trolls - I assure you, the people behind this bill, primarily the PTO under John Dudas, think about this problem all the time. Trolls are the one thing that almost everyone in the system, from OSS to companies to the small inventors, universally do not want. Overall, this bill helps this problem by only awarding small damages for a tiny infringing part of complex systems. This combined with the recent ruling allowing courts to use equity in awarding damages might do much to curb the troll problem.
Constitution - I noted an extremely low uid blabbing about the constitution. This doesn't award an invention to someone who is not the inventor. If you didn't invent it and there is prior art, you're out of luck. What it does is resolve annoying problems like "inventor X conceived on this date. 2 days later inventor Y conceived independently. inventor X took 1 year to reduce to practice, but inventor Y only took 8 months and filed first."
Overall, it is incredibly presumptuous to believe that after thinking about it for a few minutes in your spare time, you can actually have an intelligent position on the entire field of patent law. This system hangs on complex economic analysis, and there is money on both sides. That is, companies both want patents and want patents to expire and not clog the system so that they can use those inventions. This means that the end result is extremely efficient over time. Primary problems with the patent system:
1) The PTO is underfunded and hasn't been able to hire enough examiners or train them well enough to issue good patents. Finally congress is letting them keep all of their fees, so they are *doubling* the number of examiners by 2011 and jump starting the training programs.
2) New technology doesn't fit into the old model. Academia and the industry are working to solve this one, and it's getting better. You can't get a patent for "X, on the internet!" anymore, and even though some of those are still on the books (e.g. Amazon one-click), they aren't really enforceable.
3) Trolls. This is a complicated problem that has yet to be solved because it would be difficult to do so without hurting the small inventors who need to sell their patents to larger companies to exploit them. It's easier than you think for small inventors to get patents (and even easier under the new system), but the PTO can't change the fact that those inventors don't have factor
Re:The constitution also says may other things.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even though I'm not a libertarian, I'm reminded of one of their quotes. "Liberals want to be your mother, taking care of you, and protecting you. Conservatives want to be your father, controlling what you do, and enforcing their morality on you." This is why we get bi-paritsan bad ideas like the video game laws that have recently become popular.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, well, the pharmaceutical industry likes to repeat it a lot.
"Is this really true?"
No it isnt. The vast bulk of pharmaceutical spending is on administration, marketing and comparatively inefficient production. Not even a fifth of the average pharmcorp's spending is on R&D (take a look at their public filings some time).
That isnt to say pharmaceutical research is free, but it does mean this: we'd get _five times_ the current R&D if we paid for it outright. Or we could pay a fifth of what we're paying now and get the same amount of R&D and the same medicines. And that's being kind and assuming that R&D organizations that have been protected for a century are anywhere near market-optimum efficiency.
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about eliminating patents (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, it goes to the shareholders.
The purpose of these companies, first and foremost, is to make a profit.
Do we really want that as a society?
Do really want the price of a new drug be set based on what will make the company the most profit, rather than what will help the most people while still coving their costs?
Consider this hypotheitcal situation:
-Company invents a drug that can stall the advance of AIDS indefinately, so long as the drug is taken
-Company then invents a drug that can cure AIDS in one dose
-Beancounter sits down and realizes that treating the disease is way more profitable that curing it. Company decides to sit on the cure. They refuse to sell it to a single soul, regardless of price, because it would jeapodize a larger revenue stream.
-Society is deprived of this drug for the entire length of the patent term.
Is that really something the we as a society should allow to happen? Right now the above chain of events is both completely legal and incredibly unethical.