Lawmakers Take Another Shot At Patent Reform 154
narramissic writes "Patent reform legislation was introduced yesterday (PDF), which, if it passes, would be the first major overhaul of US patent law in more than 50 years. (It should be noted that the new legislation is very similar to the Patent Reform Act of 2007, which died on the Senate floor last year.) The legislation would bring US patent law in line with global laws, and introduce 'reasonable royalty' provisions, which change the way damages are calculated and would reduce the likelihood of massive payouts for some patent holders. Representatives from Google, HP and Intel were quick to say that the changes would cut down on frivolous patent lawsuits. But the Innovation Alliance, a group representing patent-holders that oppose the legislation, said that it would 'devalue all patents, invite infringement — including from companies in China, India and other countries — and generate more litigation that will further strain the courts.'"
Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
...it would 'devalue all patents, invite infringement -- including from companies in China, India and other countries...
Pardon my ignorance, but even if that is true does it matter? These countries, especially China, have a long history of not respecting patents and they don't look set to change that attitude.
Innovation Alliance == Patent Trolls (Score:5, Informative)
The Innovation Alliance, which opposes these patent reforms, include some of the best and brightest in patent/IP trolling [innovationalliance.net]. One prominent company is the Canopy Partners, which is famous for its previous ownership of The SCO Group and Tessera, which is suing everyone in the wireless industry right now.
Re:A good first step, but . . . (Score:3, Informative)
There are many ways outside of patents. Be the first to market. Be the best implementer. Be the most frequent innovator. Be most in touch with consumers. Generate the strongest brand. Solidify dominance, through branding, in a certain market segment.
Some of these actions require more resources than others, but there is almost always a way to do them well on the cheap . . . depending on how broad or how narrow your marketing plan is. The broader your targeted market, the more you're going to have to spend. Talk to a business/marketing consultant. Frankly, a good marketing plan is MUCH more valuable than a patent.
Re:Ridiculous arguments against, obvious need for. (Score:4, Informative)
Do you think the Chinese patent-infringing manufacturers care about US laws?
They do if they want to sell their wares here.
Re:NO, Faster-issued, shorter lifetime patents. (Score:4, Informative)
In pharma, it takes a long time after the patent is granted before you get your product onto the market, because you have to do lots of tests on it to satisfy the regulators that it is safe. Generally they have about five years of sales under patent before the generic manufacturers can move in.
If tech patents lasted 5 years, that would take us back to around the time WIndows XP SP2 was released. I think we could live with that.
Re:changes (Score:3, Informative)
You should look into what an "invention disclosure is"
http://www.patentapplications.net/disclosure/index.html [patentapplications.net]
I believe you can begin the patent process WAY before actually receiving a patent, and thereby protect yourself from people copying your product (in USA atlease) if/when you are given your notice of allow-ability.
Then if someone has decided to copy your product you can force them to stop, or license it to them and sit back and make money off of their work (because they are making money off of yours).
Re:Are you kidding me? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't need luck - it happened at my last job. We used to make an OBD2 car code scanner.
The Chinese would buy them, disassemble them, reverse engineer them, and then sell clones. Not just patent infringement but blatant theft of IP. They'd copy our units even down to the bugs.
And there are loads of patents in this particular product space. I worked on a team that wrote about half of them.
Good enough?
Re:changes (Score:4, Informative)
You do realize, don't you, that all the words Patent Pending [wikipedia.org] do is put people on notice that they may be liable for damages later, if and when the patent is granted? In the US, at least, the phrase has no legal effect whatsoever, and is only used as a warning that borrowing the idea now might lead to trouble later.
The JPEG patent is not trivial ... (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with the JPEG patent was it's non enforcement for all those years.
AFAICS the inventor in question was the first to combine RLE+VLC coding and the first to use zigzag scanning of DCT coefficients. Both pretty inventive steps for which I see no real prior art at the time. Nothing at the time could get anywhere close to his results.
Although I'm opposed to software patents in general, I think this one was more deserved than most.
Re:changes (Score:3, Informative)
It is not completely without legal ramifications. For instance, the very same Wiki entry you linked cites this:
35 U.S.C. 292 False marking.
(a) Whoever, without the consent of the patentee, marks upon, or affixes to, or uses in advertising in connection with anything made, used, offered for sale, or sold by such person within the United States, or imported by the person into the United States, the name or any imitation of the name of the patentee, the patent number, or the words "patent," "patentee," or the like, with the intent of counterfeiting or imitating the mark of the patentee, or of deceiving the public and inducing them to believe that the thing was made, offered for sale, sold, or imported into the United States by or with the consent of the patentee; or Whoever marks upon, or affixes to, or uses in advertising in connection with any unpatented article the word "patent" or any word or number importing the same is patented, for the purpose of deceiving the public; or Whoever marks upon, or affixes to, or uses in advertising in connection with any article the words "patent applied for," "patent pending," or any word importing that an application for patent has been made, when no application for patent has been made, or if made, is not pending, for the purpose of deceiving the public - Shall be fined not more than $500 for every such offense.
(b) Any person may sue for the penalty, in which event one-half shall go to the person suing and the other to the use of the United States.
In other words, marking products "Patent Pending" does not protect the patent applicant but if misused does result in up to $500 in fines per offense.
Re:NO, Faster-issued, shorter lifetime patents. (Score:4, Informative)
In pharma, you generally get 5 years of sales under patent.
In electronics/tech, you generally get 5-10 years before the tech is "stale." Unless you're like Intel or IBM or some other big company that can get their patent into the "root" of a tech standard and force everyone else to pay for the use of your patent. This is why Sony put DVD drives in the PS2 and Blu-Ray in the PS3, and spent tons of money pushing Blu-Ray on everyone: if they can get their stuff to be "the standard", then they stand to make a mint. They've also managed this with certain other technology (Beta, for instance, survived quite well in the TV production industry where quality mattered more than relative price).
In manufacturing/tech, you can sometimes have the full run of your patent to make money, either by being the "exclusive" provider or (again) by getting people to license it.
What's absurd isn't those limits, but the oddly strange "copyright" limits. If copyright terms were the same as the current patent terms, you'd see a lot less DRM and other foolish bullshit-crap being forced on consumers, because the primary reason for a lot of DRM (think, for example, printer cartridges [hojohnlee.com]) is to try to "copyright" [drmwatch.com] what should, at best, be covered under a patent.