How to Fix U.S. Patents 471
Frisky070802 writes "IEEE Spectrum has an interesting article on how to fix the U.S. patent system. It starts with an example of how broken the system is, with Smuckers suing a small company for crustless PB&J. It has a great overview of how the system has evolved and how much it favors the big patent holders, and suggests 3 specific fixes: 'create incentives and opportunities for parties to challenge the novelty and nonobviousness of an invention before the PTO grants a patent,' examine the important patents meticulously; don't waste effort on the unimportant ones that can be ousted early, and for examining prior art, use judges and special masters rather than uninformed juries."
Aha! (Score:2, Funny)
Reduce patent lengths (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Aha! (Score:2, Flamebait)
Drug dealers are the scum of the earth. Prison is too good for them. MHO of course.
Re:Aha! (Score:2, Insightful)
Drug dealers are the scum of the earth. Prison is too good for them. MHO of course.
Yes. Most of the drug dealers I have met are nice people who take great personal risks to provide people with freedom of choice. They make a nice profit at it, but still, if it weren't for them our freedom to alter our minds would be lost forever. There are some nasty violent characters in the business, but if they commit assault, they should be tried fo
Re:Aha! (Score:3, Funny)
Ice? I didn't know that frozen water is considered a hard drug.
adult consent (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:adult consent (Score:3, Funny)
Re:adult consent (Score:3, Insightful)
Since most people think that option (a) is unacceptable, we are left with (b) -- and so our money goes to bail out the drug addicts. Therefore, it is our business, and we have the prerogativ
Re:adult consent (Score:4, Insightful)
Lack of education about effects of mixing things. - Because we're too busy trying to convince our kids of all the evils that we don't bother teaching real facts. Abstinence-only does not work in sex ed, and it doesn't work in drug ed. People are doing it no matter what, so the best approach is to reduce the harm that may come. And when you lie to people so much about drugs, they stop believing it when you're telling the truth.
Contaminated doses and/or doses in unknown amounts. - When you buy something on the street, you have no idea how much of what is in it unless you take your stuff to a lab before doing it. This causes a very large percent of overdoses. If people inject a solution they KNOW is 10mg/ml, they're not going to accidently inject around 150mg that's required to OD. Not to mention the much lower safety margin and wildly inaccurate dosing of fentanyls that make up for shortages in actual heroin supplies.
and I think it's quite obvious prohibition does a piss poor job of accomplishing real results in harm reduction.
Re:Aha! (Score:2, Insightful)
Why are they the scum of the earth? They are people that see a high-risk, high reward market. Why is it high-risk/high reward? Because it's illegal to sell drugs. They choose to sell drugs because they perceive the reward to be worth the risk.
If you let people make their own decisions about what they can and can't ingest (especially those things that occur in nature, as opposed to some of the current things our wonderful pharma-corps are peddling), and m
Re:Aha! (Score:3, Insightful)
Nicotine is the most deadly drug (LD50/ED50); the LD50 of smoking pot is so incredibly high it has not been reliably established.
You are FAR more likely (percentage) to die from causes relating to smoking nicotine than smoking pot (in fact, more like then with ANY drug habit, including crack and heroin).
So yeah, pot contains carcinogens, probably as many in raw amounts as cigarettes, but the damage and addictiveness make it
schizophrenia, depression, unemployment... (Score:3, Informative)
This New Scientist article [newscientist.com] discusses the evidence for a link between regular pot use and schizophrenia. There is also a possibly a link between pot and depression, but it's hard to tell because regular dope smokers often fail at education and end up unemployed - not exactly a great outcome either.
Re:Aha! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Aha! (Score:5, Insightful)
without offence,
e
Re:Is state-sponsored treatment cheaper? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see you see the big picture... (Score:3, Insightful)
And what about that warm, fuzzy feeling feeling mercenaries call killing? I'm a pacifist, but I recognize the value in snuffing out an addict's existence. It's a good investment and our species' success is a testament to that survival strat
Re:Aha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Drug dealers barely even mention a nod, particular those truly "non-violent" ones.
Re:Aha! (Score:3, Insightful)
popping a tire
Not one but four, and it's not a big deal to you because you're the one who has to pay for it.
they probably became homeless when the developers paid off the city and took away their homes to build your condos.
Nice try, but these condos we built in 1986 on a vacant lot. And, BTW, this isn't some girl, but a 37 year old WHITE woman, so don't even try to play the race card.
Obviously this woman needed help, nice to know her neighbors that live in the same building would rather lock her u
Re:Aha! (Score:2)
We'd start jailing illegal immigrants, most likely.
Re:Aha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some may argue about non-violent drug users being dangerous on some level. But honestly: which do you think is more dangerous: a pot smoking hippie or anyone who just came out of maximum security prison? In general, being gang raped and subject to chronic violence tends to make a man more dangerous. Why would we want to apply a "solution" like that to someone who isn't violent in the first place?
I am strongly for the legalization of marijuana. I donate to NORML regularly. I've never smoked pot in my life.
Cheers.
PS - Another point nobody seems to like is that our prisons have become torture chambers. Sure, it's not our guards doing the torturing (usually) but they turn a blind eye. I don't have much sympathy for violent criminals, but again, we're processing these people to likely become more violent. This is stupid.
Re:Aha! (Score:3, Insightful)
1 - Fines/Fees/Suspension of specific rights/privilages: This is what we allready use for the enforcement of traffic violations etc. This can be used to deal with people who make stupid decisions but aren't a real threat to anyone. Consuming a drug that society terms "illegal" would be well covered by this.
2 - Community Service/More seve
Re:Aha! (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, put down the pipe, and embrace alcohol! It's legal, so it must be better.
Re:Aha! (Score:3, Funny)
We're so well off in the USA we can even afford to have two standards. ;-)
Re:Aha! (Score:3, Funny)
And the chances... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And the chances... (Score:5, Insightful)
This only works for a short time, once a country sees it is getting screwed by the process, it just ignores patent law. It's in everybody's interest to have a system that is ligitimate and encourages inovation, and not blocking patents.
Re:And the chances... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And the chances... (Score:2, Interesting)
Individuals, on the other hand, especially those without financial assets, can blithely ignore patents. To me, they don't exist. If I see a good idea, I'll use it. The big guys don't worry about scumbag
Re:And the chances... (Score:3, Informative)
One way to fix this is with the "patent pending" status that was (and perhaps still is) used in some countries. A pending patent has this standing for a year and can be challenged relatively easily diring this stage. However, there are so many patents being issued in the states that this process just breaks down.
Re:And the chances... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's more of a problem with the Corporate/NeoCon climate: everything for me, right now, damn the future and damn the consequences. Boot the NeoCons, and hell, you might see environmental reform too. Most Americans, SUVs and Atkins aside, wouldn't wilfully screw other countries, and would like to see our domestic businesses thrive on its own accord so that somebody can eat besides Joe Millionaire. They've just fallen for the NeoCon's trap of hiding behind God.
Re:And the chances... (Score:2)
Most Americans, SUVs and Atkins aside, wouldn't wilfully screw other countries
Actually, I'm perfectly content screwing other states, and they're perfectly content screwing us back... why would foreign nation
Re:And the chances... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And the chances... (Score:5, Interesting)
Europe has the same problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Europe has the same problem (Score:2, Interesting)
It starts with M.
Re:Europe has the same problem (Score:2)
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, David Boies, acting on behalf of Darl McBride, has filed three suits against IEEE for infringement of patents #13,371,337 #3,133,731,337, and #8,013,580,135, "Method for fixing the US Patent System", "Method for Borking a Patent System", and "Method for Subtly Implying That Every Idea In The World Is Mine, All Mine", respectively.
Another idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, they are anticompetitive and aid MONOPOLY. If we want monopolies, do it the right way and institute Communism already. Governement-endorsed monopolies in a free-market system are bad. That's why Linux beats 'doze.
Re:Another idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, it's been proven that patents hinder competition, but they don't hinder innovation.
Re:Correction (Score:5, Interesting)
If I understand the history correctly (and, admittedly, I may very well not), even this isn't quite accurate.
What I understood the patent process to be for was to be an alternative to "trade secrets". The protection of the inventor was the "payment" that the inventor got, not the purpose of the patent. The purpose was to ensure that the patented idea DID become available to the public for study and future innovation from. (So, yes, the first part of your post is exactly correct...)
It seems like it's more recent to look at the patent monopoly as an "entitlement" and a marketing gimmick ("Patented" copper bracelet with magic healing powers - if it's patented it MUST be good, right?) rather than half of a societal bargain. It's gone from being "Well, okay, if you can assure me I won't be punished as a result, I'll go ahead and let the public know the details of my trade secret" to "HA! In your face! I OWN this idea now! And there's nothing you can do about it! HA HA HA HA HA!"
Re:Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Scrap the patent system entirely. A couple of centuries ago, the way to produce a gold or purple coloured ink was a valuable secret. People could be wealthy by keeping such a secret. The patent system was a useful method of getting them to reveal their secrets. Nowadays, we have gas chromatographs, scanning electron microscopes and lots of clever hackers. Reverse engineering is possible in a way that was not feasible in Newton's time. We no longer need to grant patents to learn secrets. It is time that we abandoned this farce.
Re:Another idea (Score:2)
Yeah, i'm a communistico-idealistico fool
Motion supported, here are my reasons. (Score:2)
However, even if you used such a definition of "inventiveness", there is no way one can actually implement it. So patents just cannot be granted but on a whim; patent examiners are not as much to blame is the impossibilit
Re:Another idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Without patents, company C will never disclose what is in drug D, hence stopping future research down related veins. (And thus preventing improvements down that avenue.) Furthermore, other companies will find out what drug D is made out of and then sell it generically. Company C is screwed because it had spent all the money doing the research; it can't compete on marketing, etc., against the companies that are free-loading. Future drug companies will do no research.
People say that we should make all research government-funded. Right. Government-regulation has been such a boon, right?
Not all monopolies are bad.
Re:Another idea (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah. What we need are competing power wire systems! I want a forest of wire strung about my city, darnit!
Re:Another idea (Score:2)
move your dumb ass to NW China and don't fuck it up for me
What's so special about north west china?
Re:Another idea (Score:2)
Something like 2/3 of the world's DVD players are manufactured there in rip-off factories that violate mountains of international intellectual property laws, then they dump these players on the international market that doesn't care where they came from.
Don't quote me on the numbers, but the situation there is that they live in an IP-law wild west and profit from the non-US, non-Europe, non-Japan markets.
Re:Another idea (Score:3, Insightful)
So how is that different from what's already happening in the US?
Dear Slashdotter (Score:5, Interesting)
You have engaged in the following logical fallacy:
False Dichotomy
By stating that one cannot be against patents unless they are a communist.
A patent is a rule that states that I can't do certain things with my property and labour. for example: make a sealed crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sell it to a willing customer. Absent the patent, this is legal. But the patent system, a collective body of rules limiting the forms of commerce I may engage in with my customers using my property and my labour, states that this is illegal behaviour unless I first acquire a licence from the patent holder. This is therefore a restraint of free market economics, as a third party may now use state coercion to enforce an unnatural monopoly that interferes with the voluntary exchange of goods and services. Therefore the state has been granted more power to direct my labor and capital.
You can certainly disagree with the previous paragraph, and I have a few issues with it myself, but it is an anti-patent statement that is certainly not communist, as it holds paramount the individual right of ownership of capital and labour. If memory serves, communists aren't big fans of that.
Fixing it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't you just love to see a Slashdot article saying "Microsoft lose 50,000 patents due to false claims"?
Re:Fixing it... (Score:3, Insightful)
That is called "invalidating a patent" and it is the first thing your lawyers do when you are sued for infringement.
Guess what a patent is worth outside of a courtroom? $0. Guess what a flimsy patent is worth inside a courtroom? $0. The only patent that's worth anything is that which can withstan
Re:Fixing it... (Score:5, Informative)
That's BS. A lot of small companies will settle a patent dispute even when the patent they have allegedly infringed is a flimsy one, especially if the requested licensing fees are substantially lower than the cost of going to court and getting the patent invalidated. Result: $$$ for the patent holder of a flimsy patent, without setting foot in the courtroom.
The gerbil shirt (Score:2)
I want one, and I'd be prepared to pay a premium to the legal monopoly/patent holder to get one.
Interesting ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
First, create incentives and opportunities for parties to challenge the novelty and nonobviousness of an invention before the PTO grants a patent.
Prior art 'bounty hunters' and adding some common sense to the patent process sound like great ideas. Too bad they'll never be implemented, due to expensive lobbying efforts by those who stand to lose the most (i.e. the megacorps).
~Philly
Re:Interesting ideas (Score:2)
Prior art 'bounty hunters' and adding some common sense to the patent process sound like great ideas. Too bad they'll never be implemented, due to expensive lobbying efforts by those who stand to lose the most (i.e. the megacorps). ~Philly
The problem with this would be the purported "independence" of the bounty hunters. The last thing you want in a system lik
Re:Interesting ideas (Score:2)
Also, the recently signed omnibus spending bill has changed the fee schedule for the USPTO so that you now have to pay separate fees for searching. Don't quote me on this, but I believe this is in preparation for the USPTO to split the task of searching away from examining, so that professional searchers to the search and examiners do the analysis and apply the legal issues to the case. Much bet
Do something about it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Get a job at the USPTO as a patent master. [uspto.gov]
Re:Do something about it... (Score:3, Insightful)
"I am going to make a difference...from the inside! I will be different to all the other patent people - I will care!"
*time passes*
"What do you mean I am under my patent acceptance quota? I take time and issue them properly..."
*time passes*
"...but I really don't think we should be...yes sir..."
*time passes*
"[beep] Accepted [beep] Aceepted [beep] Accepted"
Sorry, I had to. You sounded like the plot from a bad 80's movie. You must have missed the bit w
Never change (Score:5, Insightful)
My .sig says it all... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you've described the problem exactly. People have gotten used to being too lazy.
People love to whine, but don't want to do anything about problems. I think that's one of the reasons corporations can get away with being so irresponsible - nobody will bother to change their habits no matter what they do, so they don't even need to consider changing their business practices until they're sued. And maybe not even then, because lazy "consumers" will continue to shovel money at them rather than go through the mental effort of taking their business elsewhere.
The issue of the infamous "McDonald's(tm) Hot Coffee" lawsuit came up peripherally on a Groklaw post recently, and the ensuing discussion of the real facts of the case pointed out a few facts that aren't commonly mentioned, like the fact that apparently this McDonald's(tm) had been getting complaints about the coffee being too hot for some time.
If they'd been getting all of those complaints, why didn't McDonald's(tm) quit serving the coffee too hot? Because listening to complaints doesn't cost anything, and evidently people kept coming and paying them for the overheated coffee ANYWAY. If people were willing to continue buying the coffee even after complaining about it, it must not be all that important, right?...(I would have sworn I'd read elsewhere that the plaintiff in that case got coffee from this place "every morning".)
Of course, since the laziness of "consumers" means most corporations have what amounts to a virtual "willingly captive" audience, there's not much point in trying to compete with them, and that means the "not-dangerously-hot coffee and fast food" place down the street will end up going out of business, and those few of us who would actually bother to take our business elsewhere end up not having anywhere else to take it TO. Yes, people's laziness doesn't just hurt themselves...
Even the WORD "consumer" implies this - the "consumer" is nothing more than a metaphorical digestive tract. Corporations offer "goods" and the "consumer" just gobbles them down, whatever they are, and produces economic fertilizer as a result, and that's all that's important about them. Yes, I consider the word to be an insult.
Yeah, I know, I'm ranting. I'll stop now.
Oh! (Score:5, Funny)
This is actually easy to fix... (Score:5, Funny)
Won't work... (Score:5, Funny)
The sharks will just carry them safely back to shore. ("Professional Courtesy".)
Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
The system DOES need to change, but let's make sure that we change to a better system, not just a different one.
LK
Re:Problem (Score:2)
Only one problem. (Score:4, Interesting)
Some hurdles don't have to cost anything. Erecting the right hurdles and leveling the wrong ones is what needs to happen. Money is the wrong hurdle, because everyone pays taxes and deserves a fair hearing. Using the process as a "revenue center" is an outrage. Quality hurdles, and I don't mean grammar and spelling, are what we need.
The summary sounds like a well thought out and careful plan. Challenges of bogus patents are good for everyone and can be carried out by anyone practicing in any field. The quality is what I would expect from the IEEE.
I have only one problem, the requirement of "use judges and special masters." That's what we are supposed to have now. Picking them from industry could cement the current big company lock and make things much worse. The government is already supposed to be knowledgable and careful in it's grant of exclusive franchises. A mechanism to get useful information to the people who are actually making the calls is a great idea. Finding and hiring experts from every field is impractical. Granting expert power to "recognized experts" from big companies with conflicts of interest is a recipe for disaster.
Pocket Judges (Score:2)
Quickest answer: (Score:2)
Great Idea! (Score:2)
Statute of limitation on patent infringement suits (Score:3, Informative)
A Subtle Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
The case workers in the US Patent Office are under the gun to make certain quotas. Failure to make the quota for one quarter will put you under probation. Screw up again in a certain time frame and you're gone. The threat of losing the job is an incentive to rush along with little regard for the absurdity of the patent.
Increased fees at the USPTO (Score:3, Informative)
This basically means that it got a lot more expensive to file patents in the US. It's not uncommon for patent applications to have 100 or more claims. Filing fees are lower if you file electronically, but e-filing is a pain (it's not through standalone application, it's through a bloated Word macro that converts things to XML). The USPTO has long griped that it does not get to keep all of the money collected by fees, and methinks that this is another way to generate revenue by the government.
My solution: (Score:2)
Much easier - "the toe test" (Score:2)
We need to go to the "toe test".
Thus, you can patent "A device for playing back recorded movies...." since you can drop that on your toe.
You cannot patent "A method for playing back recorded movies..." as you cannot drop "a method" on your toe.
Make it more like getting planning permission (Score:2)
Patent opposition procedures are no silver bullet (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of people in the States seem to think that European-style opposition procedures, where private companies can challenge patent applications before the PTO grants them, are some sort of magic solution to the patent mess.
They aren't, at least not by themseves. Opposition procedures can help, but Europe still grants its share of daft patents.
More worryingly, the number of oppositions at the EPO has been steadily falling over the last ten years, though there is no evidence that EPO quality is improving. Instead, companies seem to be deciding that it's simply not cost-effective to put in the resources to do the EPO's job for it. If you're the size of Canon(Europe) for example (who I've heard this argument from), you've got a pretty good arsenal of your own patents you can hope to counter-sue or cross-licence with, and if the bad patent does come to court, you have the resources to fight it at that stage.
The people the worst patents really impact are SMEs, who have to settle, because they can't afford to fight them.
Re:Patent opposition procedures are no silver bull (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if it does have an effect, all it does is give the patenter an opportunity to craft their claims to carefully avoid the prior art while still being annoying.
For this reason, patent lawyers will often tell you *not* to challenge a patent applicati
OO! idea! (Score:2, Interesting)
Then somebody (either one of the
What is an important patent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't possibly work (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally think the patent system is too heavy-weight. A patent should be nothing more than a claim, and it should be granted immediately without review. If you need to protect your invention, you go to court, and point to your claim. At that point, prior art and prior patents are finally investigated. If your patent is useless, it's stamped Common Knowledge, and becomes free. If solid, then you win the case.
As I understand it, this is mostly the way the patent system works now. So what's the problem?
Re:Can't possibly work (Score:2)
ObRTFA: the article points out that the USPTO is actually a US government profit center which contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the treasury (above and beyond funding its own employees).
Simple Fix (Score:2)
Alternately, patent a system for forming a political party. Sue all others.
With a name like Smuckers... (Score:2)
clear and convincing evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Simply reversing this standard might be good: someone who wants to obtain a 20-year monopoly should have to present clear and convincing evidence that the idea he is seeking protection for is novel, useful, and can be reproducibly implemented based on the patent application. If he can't make a clear and convincing argument, then the patent should be found invalid by default.
Furthermore, patents should be found valid and invalid not claim-by-claim, but all-or-nothing. That way, applicants for patents have themselves a strong incentive only to claim what is actually novel and useful. Right now, almost every patent has claims in it that are ridiculously broad, that create unwarranted uncertainty and risk for competitors, and that courts need to spend enormous amounts of resources whittling down.
I think those two changes alone would do wonders for the patent system. But the IEEE suggestions are also welcome.
If you can't beat them... (Score:3, Funny)
Crustless PB&J? (Score:5, Funny)
And to think, David Carradine does this in Kill Bill, v. 2. I wouldn't have gone to see that movie if I knew it had a scene that displayed such contempt for the law!
Re:Crustless PB&J? (Score:4, Funny)
No. Read the patent. [uspto.gov] It's actually a pretty clever design (though probably not original). The bread is crimped around the edge so the sandwich can stay for some time without danger of leaking. The jelly is surrounded by the sticky peanut butter, which both prevents jelly leaks and helps hold the edges of the bread together.
It looks like this (with bread slices at the top):
<PBJJJJJJPB>
\PBPBPBPBPB/
Patents assigned only to Individuals (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Since inventors are people, how about restricting the assignee to people only.
2) Make all payments to the assignee and or inventor a matter of public record.
3) Make it illegal to withhold license of patents to individuals or corporations willing to pay more than the current maximum amount stated in public record.
(Wordy example):
So Joe Inventor creates a widget for Company Z. Joe would be the inventor and some other person is (maybe even Joe) will be the assignee. Z Company will license the ability to make widgets by paying $1000 to the assignee. The $1000 is posted as a mater of public record. Now anyone or any company can pay $1001 to the assignee and have a license to produce the widgets.
A market effect of an open auction etc..
Patent system gone awry! (Score:3, Insightful)
Patent problems in the world of GaN (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless someone comes up with something creative, GaN device technology will be hampered by the proliferation of minor patents.
This is even in the absence of dumb patents (like one click shopping) - these are patents for serious semiconductor work. In this case, stronger patent protections are hampering progress (to no one's benefit) rather than facilitating it.
Computerization (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Create a dictionary of all words used in applying for a patent. This is rather obvious because a good spell checker is needed anyway. But this goes beyond that. It allocates a unique id number to each of the document's words. This allows you to reduce the overall size of the document quite a bit. (After all, if you use a four byte word that gives you around four billion words and the largest dictionary only has a couple hundred thousand words in it.) Legal jargon usually uses more than four letters in a word and thus the document would be smaller overall.
2. A second dictionary of terms which are equal to each other. This dictionary would grow over time. Basically, things like "flashlight", "Light emitting device", "a device with a lamp in it which projects a beam", and "hand held light device" are all the same or similar. Thus, when a term which is unrecognized comes up in a document it can be added to one of the lists and from then on it is associated with that term. (And yeah, they should be able to add, remove, etc... from the list.)
3. The program should have already scanned all previous patents and created the above two dictionaries. Then when a new patent comes through (since they have to be submitted electronically now anyways) it is passed through the program which determines how closely a given document comes to other patents. Note that this is different from "are the sentences the same" or "are the sentences in the same order". The program should not care what order anything appears in - just do a search like Google and find how many words are the same or similar (remember they could replace all words of "flashlight" with "hand held light emitting device" via word processor).
3a. Since the patent system is divided up into various areas (ie: Games, Construction, etc...) the program should scan across all boundaries to ensure that something from one area is not now being patented in another area.
3b. All entries should be listed (just like with Google) in a descending order of revelance. So a patent which was given out in, say 1816 (The Stirling Engine) isn't re-patented as "The Audacious Engine" simply because all of the places where it says "Engine" in the orginal patent are replaced by "a non-internal combustion device".
4. All applied for patents should be kept on file so they too can be checked against. Notes on why the patent was denied should also be kept on file so they can be referred back to.
People may say we can't do this. Google has to handle over a billion web pages yet it can do it in a matter of a few seconds. There are only a couple million patents. The PTO should be able to handle this really easily. Hire the guys from Google to set things up. (And no - I don't work for Google.)
As for graphical pictures showing how something works - it depends. There are software packages which can compare one item/picture to another but all it would take is to accidentally send the picture reversed, rotated slightly so it looks different, use different colors, shades, shadows, etc.... You can look for similarities but that is about it.
In any event - it is nice that the powers that be are trying to fix the problem (or at least suggest changes) but it would be more realistic to try to automate the whole process so the patents can be throw out faster and faster. Which is why both good and bad patents are needed and both should have their own set of dictionaries. You need the bad patents in there as a way to say "Hey! Here are examples of why you can't have a patent!" Further, the bad patents could be used just like the good ones to show how someone tried once before to get something pas
Short Expiration w/ Expensive Renewal (Score:4, Insightful)
Maintenance fees (Score:3, Informative)
U.S. patents already have such maintenance fees [uspto.gov], and large corporate holders of patents still pay them.
No mention of triple damages (Score:3, Insightful)
But it completely left out the biggest, IMHO, problem with the patent system: triple damage for "knowingly infringing." This one policy (not sure if it's in the law, or a court precedent) simply has to go before any reform based on competitors will work.
As it is, every IP lawyer tells every engineer to go out of their way not to learn about competitors patents. And certainly don't write down that you know. And abso-friggin-lutely don't let the patent lawyer know that you know. Because if there's proof, boom! triple damages. Regardless of whether you also "knew" that there was prior art, that your company already had a patent that covered the same thing, that the patent was invalid, or that it was obvious to a skilled practitioner of the art.
Overturning this one aspect of the patent system would let tech companies actively monitor their competitors patents, get valuable technical details out of them, and challenge the patents *before* infringement suits are brought by the holders. It would curb the worst of the submarine patents because companies would *know* when someone patents a standard (esp one being developed) without being forced to turn a blind eye to avoid tripling their liability later.
Only issue patents to individuals. (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, I think it might help to shorten the duration of patents. Technology moves too fast these days for long patents and a lot of cases would never make it to court because they would have been past the statute of limitations. And they should not permit software patents.
How to fix US patents (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason to have a patent system is to encourage the inventors to promote and freely disclose their inventions, rather than keeping them to themselves. Not to protect inventors rights, or anything like that.
Adopt "Loser pays" policy (Score:3, Interesting)
Almost the entire rest of this planet enforces such a policy. Currently no matter how week the case is, the defending party has to effort their lawyers and won't be compensated even when they win the case.
Of course it won't happen, because lawyers make a lot of money from these lawsuites and also from deals like "if you lose you do not have to pay me, but if we win I get X % of the proceedings" (where X is usually > 40%).
Lawyers are also powerful in this country, and - really - who cares about whether the law is actually fair. So, personally, I do not expect to see any change at all.
This maybe off-topic, but does anybody remember the 10bn Deutschmark (about $5bn at that time) lawsuit against German companies for forcing Jewish prisoners into slave-like work during WW-II? As nobel as the cause is, guess who got the first 600 million of the paid money, before a single victim saw a dime...
If you guessed "The Lawyers", you would be correct.
Not a problem, I don't think (Score:3, Informative)
If you buy one of these people's gizzmos to store Linux then this is OK. If you manufactured an equivalent gizzmo and tried to sell thet then that would not be OK.
Re:Proof of copyright laws selectively applied (Score:2)