Patent Reform Bill Passes Senate 368
First time accepted submitter nephorm writes "The Senate passed the first major overhaul of the nation's patent law in more than a half century by passing the America Invents Act. The legislation won overwhelming approval in an 89-9 vote. From the article: 'The America Invents Act switches the U.S. patent system from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file nation. It also sets up a new regime to review patents and gives the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more flexibility to set and spend fees paid for by inventors to get patents and businesses to register trademarks.'"
I'd like to take this time to patent.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'd like to take this time to patent.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to see the old "first to show the damned thing working" system come back. Ideas are one thing, but there's nothing like a working sample. No ambiguity if you can/can't show it, no pie-in-the-sky "inventions" that lay in wait in patent trolls' filing cabinets.
The people who have no resources to actually create their idea may be subject to someone else capitalizing on it, but I can see a robust VC or incubator lab market growing out of the need to show the device in action. Contracts would be between the idea person and the VC or lab and won't dirty up the patent system.
It doesn't matter what you would like to see (Score:4, Insightful)
What matters is what the aristocracy would like to see. Which is precisely what the America Invents Act delivers.
Ideas are valuable. Therefore, the aristocracy wants to control them. If this slows innovation down to a snail's pace, eliminates jobs, and weakens America's position as a world power, so be it.
And before anyone explains to me that offering patents creates an incentive to invent, just stop. Take a look at how patents are actually used in practice. They empower wealthy corporations to set up barriers-to-entry by making it so expensive to innovate that only the wealthy corporations can do it...and of course they do very little of it because the RnD is expensive and the enterprise too risky.
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Re:It doesn't matter what you would like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
>>In what way do patents, in ANY form, foster innovation?
I wouldn't bother going to the time and effort to bring a super cool new product (like, let's say, a hula hoop) to market if it was just going to get ripped off by a large corporation that has the resources to dump imitations at a loss until I go out of business.
The founding fathers understood this: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Sure, there have been inventions and discoveries in the past, but they've been faster and more impressive under our current patent regime than at any time before.
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You think? Surely the rate of truly groundbreaking invention and discovery was faster and more impressive a hundred years ago.
Re:It doesn't matter what you would like to see (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't a good first step. It's a step in the wrong direction. First to invent allows the entity who thought of it first to get the patent once they can afford to jump the huge financial barriers to patenting; First-to-file allows the entity with more money to get the patent. This hugely favors corporations over individuals. Which, of course, is why they did it.
And while patents may encourage (late, mostly useless) disclosure, I reject outright the idea that this is superior to requiring inventors throughout the economy because of a need to reinvent. Trade secret is not only superior for most inventions, it can last a lot longer; but on the other hand, if the invention is critical, it's worth re-inventing (and knowing it can be done, or what the goal is, is often more than enough, which ought to be a complete red flag that an idea isn't worthy of legal protection anyway.)
I think the barrier to a patent ought to be *huge*. You should be able to show that creating the invention required X resources only available with significant financial backing, and that patent ought to expire when it has recouped something like 2x that expenditure in gross receipts from its own sales, or if you fail to bring the idea physically to market within 1 year.
The current system is nothing but a mutual corporate and attorney blow job fest. The only thing it "fosters" is exclusion of the little guy from huge swaths of the economic creation game. But that is something it does extremely well.
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Most of what patents do is force inventors to document how their idea works.
Spoken like someone who has never tried to read a patent. Patents are deliberately written to be as vague as possible to keep as much trade secret protection as they can manage while still getting the monopoly. You can get away with being incredibly vague if you mention how someone sufficiently 'skilled in the art' would know what you are talking about often enough. Most patent examiners aren't skilled enough in the art themselves to really know if it is true. For practical purposes they get to have their c
How do you make a Stradivarius? (Score:3)
Nobody knows. It is a lost art.
You are an idiot.
Re:It doesn't matter what you would like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting. I just looked for information on a patent on the hula hoop and found this article [history.com] with this paragraph in it:
Hurray for patents then. Hurray for intellectual property in general. Stealing ideas from the public domain, staking an unfair claim on them, and profiting from day one.
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OTOH, taking an idea that was not at all available to most people for several reasons, and making the effort to bring it to the masses - should that not have a reward?
Absolutely, but manufacturing and selling something that is in the public domain be it hula hoop or pencils does not require an (invalid) patent. Patents do not help you manufacture or sell products, they only help you keep others from doing it as well.
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What kind of reward are you referring to? If you invent a superior product no one is stopping you from selling it. The real question is whether preventing others from selling it too is a net benefit or loss for society as a whole. Personally, I'm not sure, but I am sure that the current system is very, very broken. At the moment patents pretty much only benefit large companies with enough money to defend their patent in court. And even then, some Chinese company will still copy it. Anyone who only invents i
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The cost of reverse engineering is about the cost of development, and a copycat will never have quite the same understanding of a technology as an inventor, and will always be chasing technology that is out of date. A copycat only really succeeds with they offer some feature overlooked by the original (thus being innovative) or when they are more efficient in production. Either is beneficial to consumers. (plus the little guys will be fabbing their stuff via contract with a Chinese company anyways so it's
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Drugs. It takes about 8-10 years to get a drug from raw materials some scientist thinks might be effective in some way to an actual drug that you can take with some reasonable assurance it won't kill you. Most drugs take several billion dollars to produce. I tend to think you are not going to invest your $1billion on a promising drug only to have some generic knockoff kill your market before you get any chance of recovering your $1billion + some profit. And less than 1% of promising starts make it to the fi
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There are already provisions for this. For 99% of other stuff .. 20 years (actually up to 21) is far too long of a period to have a monopoly on something .. especially given how most things that are patented probably shouldnt have been granted a patent. For example in 1994 someone got a patent for putting HTML on CDROMS. That's right if you put an HTML file on a CD and distributed it you'd be in violation .. a company called Acacia did that.
Re:It doesn't matter what you would like to see (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck you! I do research and invent things.
I don't patent them, I publish them. And I don't do that for profit, but out of curiosity and interest.
This belief that people do things for material profit only is a cancer of the mind and needs to die. For the record, removing the incentive of work through higher taxes is a good thing: filters out the greedy bastards and lets through the passionate.
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This belief that people do things for material profit only is a cancer of the mind and needs to die. For the record, removing the incentive of work through higher taxes is a good thing: filters out the greedy bastards and lets through the passionate.
And my mod point expired today! I think this is absolutely correct and important. There is an underlying idea in the US (IDK about other countries) that is something is not profitable it's not worth doing, or that everything can be done for profit. It is destructive because it keeps the focus on individual gain rather than common good. I know about the tragedy of the commons, but the very idea of a "commons" is becoming quaint in American society.
Come on (Score:3)
Yes, certainly, but any idea that people should only do things for free is also a cancer and should die. There's nothing wrong with putting ideas and functional objects in the public domain, but there's also nothing wrong with deciding to monetize an idea or a functional object. Personally, I find the GPL distasteful and wrongheaded, but even so, I see nothing wrong with it either in the sense that choosing
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Note that according to your description, you are not working for profit but out of necessity. I would guess that paying you ten or twenty times your salary would not make you work ten or twenty times harder -- probably because unless you are a pathological slacker, you could not physically work ten times harder.
The profit motive is overrated. This does not mean that people are not motivated by it. Simply that it is not a magical force which makes people productive members of society. On the contrary. Moneta
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Look, read and understand this:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm [ucla.edu]
Patents do not and have never incentivised innovation. That's just a "lie to children" used as an excuse for their existence.
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To remove all incentive to innovate, you have to remove the market on which innovative products can be sold. Most innovation happens because it enables you to produce a better product, which can be sold for money. Patents are mostly irrelevant, or get in the way.
Re:I'd like to take this time to patent.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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yep, and if you do not posses the technology, resources, and/or, means to build it, then you will never invent it because as soon as you ask for my help in any of the above, i will develop it and patent it before you.
This first to patent is going to be awesome for the little guy.. Imagine all those open innovations where instead of showing it was described and talked about in a mag or something two years ago, I can take my implementation of it and lock it down good and tight with my first to be filed patent
Re:I'd like to take this time to patent.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst part is the patent lists the basic fundamental idea which you know is sound, simple and will work in the end once the obstacles are out of the way. And 98% of the work (and cost) is removing these obstacles, solving all the little caveats, to get it working.
Nuclear reactor? Trivial. Stack some radioactives, run water through them, blow the resulting steam at turbines. Easy-peasy. I can draw the schematics in 5 minutes and submit the patent application tomorrow. Now for details like stopping the core from overheating, dealing with pressures of thousands atmospheres, cooling tons of water per second before it returns into the system, stopping the radioactivity from leaking... Let someone take care of that and I'll just reap profits from my patent application.
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Yes, but this is moot. I don't care about building a nuclear reactor. I only care about reaping profits off those who build it. They can patent the pumps and the fountain, I don't care. I don't need the pumps or their patents. But they need MY patent to run the reactor, even though they understand it thousandfold better than I ever did.
Yes, the other guy was right - patenting warp drive... warp space, create hole between points, transport vehicle through hole. Easy-peasy. I don't care about your singularity
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I'll see you in court!
Re:I'd like to take this time to patent.... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, but this rant is just ignorance of how "first to file" actually works.
First to invent means, in theory, that you can build something, start selling it, and then file for patent. In practice, however, this allows big corporations to back-date an invention. There is no "chain of evidence" proving that you did, indeed, made the invention as far back as you claim you did.
With first to file, it is impossible to back-date an invention, as the one providing the time stamp is the (presumably reliable) patent office.
Now let's take the apocalyptic scenarios you describe and dissect them:
Now you could invent something, be using it and selling it for 10 years, and then Big Corporation file a $10,000+ patent and steal your invention and sue YOU for selling YOUR invention!
No, they can't. If you have been selling it on the market, it's prior art. No one can patent it. Even if that's not the case, first-to-file systems generally have "prior use" defenses. I cannot invalidate your patent by proving that I have been using it before you patented it, but I am exempt from licensing it from you.
since you can no longer prove "I've been using this for XX years!"
As far as I know, first to invent only goes back one year. That it the most you can back-date an invention. The load on the patent office will not change significantly.
But it will increase the filing process since they don't have to do any work, they don't have to figure out "Gee, does the wheel already exist? I swear this round thing looks familiar..." they can just do a quick search of their database and go "Nope don't find it here's your patent".
If it's published, it's prior art whether patented or not. If it's unpublished, then you can patent it. Nothing changes in that regard.
Shachar
Re:I'd like to take this time to patent.... (Score:4, Informative)
first-to-file systems generally have "prior use" defenses.
That does not appear to be the case in this new legislation, which I think is a serious problem. However, the legislation does call for the USPTO director to issue a report on prior use defenses in other countries. Maybe the report will prompt congress to add a prior use defense.
As far as I know, first to invent only goes back one year. That it the most you can back-date an invention.
Nope, you can backdate an invention as far as you have records for, though you might run the risk of having "abandoned" the invention if you invented it 10 years ago, sat on it, and only bothered to patent it recently.. The year requirement you're thinking of is probably related to the grace period, in which inventors can sell or publicly disclose their invention up to a year before filing a patent. That grace period appears to be preserved in the new legislation.
Re:I'd like to take this time to patent.... (Score:4, Informative)
" There is no "chain of evidence" proving that you did, indeed, made the invention as far back as you claim you did."
clearly you aren't an inventor, some I wish you would STFU.
There is always a chain of evidence, a stronger one for smarter inventors, but it's always there.
"As far as I know, first to invent only goes back one year. That it the most you can back-date an invention. The load on the patent office will not change significantly."
—A disclosure made 1 year or less before the effective filing date of a claimed invention shall not be prior art to the claimed invention under subsectio(a)(1) if— ‘‘(A) the disclosure was made by the inventor or joint inventor or by another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor; or
‘‘(B) the subject matter disclosed had, before such disclosure, been publicly disclosed by the inventor or a joint inventor or another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the inventor or a joint inventor.
http://judiciary.house.gov/issues/Patent%20Reform%20PDFS/112hr1249eh.pdf [house.gov]
I suggest you note 'coinventer'. In the context of the bill that also means ‘joint research agreement’
So a VC could literally steal your invention.
Plus, make a radical change in the current eco system poses a lot of other risks.
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no they couldn't sue you, yours would count as prior art.
Only if you published an explanation of how you did your product somewhere. Not that this is difficult, but everyone should understand that secretly using the invention is probably protected under a new term in this legislation, but will not invalidate the future patent. For this reason people should publish what the do.
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Re:I'd like to take this time to patent.... (Score:4, Informative)
One reason why individuals don't patent their inventions is because they can't afford the time and expenses.
A provisional for private and small entities only costs $110, and allows you to convert to full patent within a year. If you have an idea you want to show to big corporates, file for a provisional, and then show it to Big$$ with the heading "patent pending".
Shachar
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A provisional is written in plain English. No lawerieze required. I'm not sure about the average Joe, but someone who's capable of inventing something worth a patent should be able to describe it in a patent.
As for provisional not counting as prior art - as far as I know, that is total BS. IANAL, of course, but AFAIK, filing a provisional and then not following it through is enough to invalidate any patent that tries to block the same invention.
Shachar
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The first post. I didn't invent it, but I did get here first.
Crap! I came up with the idea first, but I'm just such a slow typist...
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No worry. Just file his idea with the patent office and he'll have to pay you for having had the idea before you.
What does all this mean for "prior art"?
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What does all this mean for "prior art"?
Nothing. The prior art rules are unaffected by first to file rules. Of course, IANAL, but, then again, neither is anyone else commenting on this thread.
Shachar
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If prior art is unaffected, then how can you ever have a "first to file" system? I mean; if person A invents something before person B files a patent application for that invention, shouldn't person A's invention be considered prior art?
Or more simply; if I publish an idea on my blog and some company takes that idea and patents it, does my blog entry count as prior art? Assuming nobody else thought of it first, I would obviously be first-to-invent but not first-to-file, and since there's no actual implement
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You have to publish it to be prior art.
Essentially what this means is that if two entities approach the patent office with the same patent which they've been developing in secret and haven't published any details about or released, instead of the patent office spending a crap load of time and money trying to work out which company "invented" the thing first for whatever value of "invented" you choose to have by wading through both entities reams of fraudulent information and vague hints, they just say "enti
Seems fitting (Score:2)
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Well played, Mauer!
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According to the new rules, that makes him the winner.
It's About Time (Score:2)
--Greg
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How will this deliver "fewer patents, but those that do get accepted are of higher quality"? It seems to me that it will do the exact opposite.
Supporters of the act contend that reforming the patent system will unlock innovation and produce jobs in an economy that is increasingly driven by intellectual property. Currently, there is a backlog of about 700,000 patents waiting for examination, and the next cellphone, incandescent lamp or miracle drug could be hidden in that pile, supporters said.
How, exactly will this "unlock innovation" and produce jobs? And, what the hell does "Currently, there is a backlog of about 700,000 patents waiting for examination and the next cellphone, incandescent lamp or miracle drug could be hidden in that pile, supporters said" mean, or add to the conversation? It's all smoke and mirrors -- and you cannot seem to see that, bu
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Supporters of the act contend that reforming the patent system will unlock innovation and produce jobs in an economy that is increasingly driven by intellectual property.
How, exactly will this "unlock innovation" and produce jobs?
It means that it creates jobs for the lawyers to litigate patent claims. It could mean nothing else.
The America Invents Act has just taken the patent system and made it more broken. Way to go, America!
Someone earlier said that it should be first to demonstrate an actual working invention who gets the patent and I wholeheartedly agree with them.
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The problem with this is that as inventions get more and more complex(we've run out of simple inventions for the most part at this point) the amount of money to get that working sample increases. This means that a person must go to either a bunch of VCs who will end up controlling the product, or a corporation. and since it's first to get working, there absolutely nothing stopping the corp/VCs from dumping the idea creator and getting it working through their own R&D.
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** choose your own invention.
The proposed changes to the system allow for patents that the "inventor" just dreams up and has no intentions of ever prototyping or producing.
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That way...if you invent a system for unaided human flight, you must say exactly how you would go about doing it. If you have no money, but a company sees your idea, they can license that patent from you. If it doesn't work, then oh well. But th
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It means that it creates jobs for the lawyers to litigate patent claims. It could mean nothing else.
That's why it's also known as "The Lawyer Employment Act"
Re:It's About Time (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL
The main difference this brings is that you cannot publish something prior to patenting it, as your own publishing can act as prior art, invalidating your own patent. This means that you cannot take something published, say "hey, this would actually make a nice patent", and go around and patent it. You'd be committing fraud when signing the piece of paper saying that, as far as you know, the invention is novel.
People here confuse "first to invent" with "prior art". If something is published, it is unpatentable, no matter which system you use. First to file encourages early filing, as if you keep things secret, someone else might file a patent (due to unrelated invention), and you'd be left with nothing. This means you need to either publish (and prevent everyone, yourself included, from monopolizing it) or patent it early (a provisional is fine, so small inventors can still participate, provided they can spare $110).
Under the current system, patents could surface quite late in the game. So long as you have some proof that the patent was in progress, you could wait until someone else published it, and then run off to the patent office and patent it. That makes no sense. The purpose (original one) of the patent system was to encourage inventors to publish their inventions.
Shachar
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The main difference this brings is that you cannot publish something prior to patenting it, as your own publishing can act as prior art, invalidating your own patent.
Not so. IIRC from law school, inventors get a year-long grace period after they publish their invention before they have to patent it or lose it.
In fact, this provision appears to be in the new legislation. From HR.1249:
"A disclosure made 1 year or less before the effective filing date of a claimed invention shall not be prior art to the claimed invention under subsection (a)(1) if:
(A) the disclosure was made by the inventor or joint inventor or by another who obtained the subject matter disclosed directl
Re:It's About Time (Score:4, Informative)
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Other than the first paragraph, about publishing before patenting, GP's post is insightful. You should stick with correcting/clarifying posts you disagree with, not slamming them.
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It actually encourages people like you, not moderating on that post, to come out with your ideas that either add to its validity or add additional information that disproves it, increasing the overall breadth of information. You performed that role.
That's awesome.
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Although there seem to be many CIP among these 20+, some of the patents bearing his name seem non-obvious. This is quite typical for someone really productive filing patent applications assigned to his employer (in that case, Microsoft). Maybe 10-20%?
I have 16 US patents in the field of circuit design, of which I'm really proud of exactly 2, as they are really good, non-obvious, breakthrough-type inventions. All others are meant to increase my employer's patent chest for either defensive or attack purposes.
It shouldn't be about who's first (Score:2)
It should be about what's best for the nation and the General Welfare.
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It should be about what's best for the nation and the General Welfare.
I suspect this is going to boil down to "Congress Screws the Little Guy, Again".
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It should be about what's best for the nation and the General Welfare.
You do realise how socialist you sound there?
That's anti american dream talk there, more likely to get your shot than elected.
You have to present it more like this:
It should be about allowing leaving room for other companies to be successful.
But that still seems far to socialist for a Democrat Candidate to risk even thinking.
No more prior art? (Score:2)
So this means the concept of prior art is moot?
It might not be so detrimental except that I imagine the legislation in question will not improve the quality of work of patent examiners who will continue rubber-stamp approval of obvious ideas.
I think it's especially repulsive that some well-known useful tool people have been using for years could suddenly become patented by a troll who had no involvement in its creation and would then have the legal standing to demand license fees of the community.
Shit sucks
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So this means the concept of prior art is moot?
No, it doesn't. To my mind, if publicly there is a prior art, then it's not something new, thus not an something that worth protecting by a temporary monopoly.
The prior art is "already there", why should one be granted a patent for something is already public?
Re:No more prior art? (Score:5, Informative)
So this means the concept of prior art is moot?
No.
It appears that the bill in question is H.R.1249 [loc.gov] (TFA doesn't actually specify which bill they're talking about - and there are several versions floating around congress). The text of the bill concerning prior art is:
‘‘ 102. Conditions for patentability; novelty
(a) NOVELTY; PRIOR ART.—A person shall be entitled to a patent unless—
(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention; or
(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention."
Thus, prior art under the new law would be anything that was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
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So this means the concept of prior art is moot?
That is correct: [politico.com] "The America Invents Act switches the U.S. patent system from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file nation.
You can invent and use and sell something all you want, but if you did not file a patent on it then someone else can file a patent and sue you for selling your own invention. Prior art no longer exists unless there was a patent for that prior art.
Re:No more prior art? (Score:4, Informative)
No, not true. If it already exists and is for sale, it cannot be patented by anyone, including the person who first put it up for sale. A patent application must be filed before a technology is made publicly available, or it is no longer patentable. That is already the case even under current patent law, and will not change.
However, if you have not quite made it to market and someone else comes up with the same idea and patents it while you are polishing up the edges, you're screwed, whereas before, you could at least ostensibly claim that you invented it first if your prototypes go back farther in time.
This is both good and bad. On the one hand, patent trolls who actually got as far as building a prototype but never marketing it or publishing it cannot use that as prior art to show that someone else's patent is invalid. On the other hand, it means that companies must file patents (or at least provisional applications) much earlier in the process and much more often to avoid the risk of a competitor coming up with the same idea and screwing them.
On the whole, this so-called reform is basically basically a wash except that it will cause an increase in patent filings (which makes it a net negative in my book). It does almost nothing to reduce the ability of patent trolls to prosper. It similarly does almost nothing to reduce the scope of software patents' ability to stifle innovation and bog down the industry in unnecessary lawsuits. All it really does is make the trial duration slightly shorter....
This is to patent reform what shooting someone in the backside with a shotgun is to discipline. Sure, it technically qualifies as discipline, but it's not the sort of discipline that actually improves behavior.
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A patent application must be filed before a technology is made publicly available, or it is no longer patentable. That is already the case even under current patent law, and will not change.
Sorry, not true. You have 1 year from public disclosure to patent the idea.
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Nope. If you were selling it, and can prove you were doing so to the public before the other guy filed the patent, you still win. Of course now you can't get the patent, but neither can they.
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China (and S. Korea too) are also using a first-to-file patent law system (and trademarks work the mostly same way too!, first-to-file) and there is a nightmare over there with competitors filing for patents and then blocking sales and exports of various products because they infringe their newly-granted patents or trademarks
patents in China
http://preview.tinyurl.com/Chinese-Patent-doc [tinyurl.com]
trademarks in China:
http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/pdfs/general/trade_mark_protection_China.pdf [ipaustralia.gov.au]
http://www.chinalawblog.com/20 [chinalawblog.com]
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Will it stop frivolous patents and patent wars? (Score:5, Insightful)
Supporters of the act contend that reforming the patent system will unlock innovation and produce jobs in an economy that is increasingly driven by intellectual property. Currently, there is a backlog of about 700,000 patents waiting for examination, and the next cellphone, incandescent lamp or miracle drug could be hidden in that pile, supporters said.
Looking the waste in the current smart-phone patent "compulsive wars", I think the bottleneck in invention (and job creation) is NOT in first-to-invent vs first-to-file (the current battle would have happened in both "first-to..." strategies). Look, Europe is driven by the "first-to-file" for quite a while: did this stop Apple to block Samsung tablets/phones (or whatever) in Germany?
I don't see how's this one a step forward in the "job creation" direction (not says that is not, just saying that I need some explanations. Somebody care to explain?).
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I don't see how's this one a step forward in the "job creation" direction (not says that is not, just saying that I need some explanations. Somebody care to explain?).
I'll jump on the 'i don't get it' bandwagon too.
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I don't see how's this one a step forward in the "job creation" direction (not says that is not, just saying that I need some explanations. Somebody care to explain?).
I'll jump on the 'i don't get it' bandwagon too.
Then I'll *patent* jumping on the 'i don't get it' bandwagon.
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I don't see how's this one a step forward in the "job creation" direction (not says that is not, just saying that I need some explanations. Somebody care to explain?).
I'll jump on the 'i don't get it' bandwagon too.
Then I'll *patent* jumping on the 'i don't get it' bandwagon.
Shit!
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Re:Will it stop frivolous patents and patent wars? (Score:4, Informative)
Did you patent every conceivable aspect of your invention? Will some slimy scum bag come in behind you and patent some trivial aspect of your product and then sue you?
If your product is on the market before the slimy scum bag files for a patent, he'll be rejected at the patent office, because your product is prior art. Every aspect of the product is prior art, whether it was patented or not. Under a first to file system, you can't sue someone (successfully) for patent infringement if their product was for sale to the public before you filed. Under a first to invent system, the slimy scum bag might win, if he actually invented the "trivial aspect of your product" before you did, plus various other conditions. Under the first to file system, that messy problem of proving who invented first is removed.
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If your product is on the market before the slimy scum bag files for a patent, he'll be rejected at the patent office, because your product is prior art. Every aspect of the product is prior art, whether it was patented or not. Under a first to file system, you can't sue someone (successfully) for patent infringement if their product was for sale to the public before you filed. Under a first to invent system, the slimy scum bag might win, if he actually invented the "trivial aspect of your product" before you did, plus various other conditions. Under the first to file system, that messy problem of proving who invented first is removed.
The above statement (parent), if true, is the most informative item I have read in this entire comment discussion.
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If your product is on the market before the slimy scum bag files for a patent, he'll be rejected at the patent office, because your product is prior art.
Assuming that they're doing their job, which conventional wisdom says they haven't been.[*] And still won't, unless the bill vastly increases the funding for patent examiners.
So now Mr. SSB will often get patents that he shouldn't, and it will take an army of lawyers to get them revoked.
[*] No affront intended. It's just that it's a lot more lucrative for qualified people to work in industry than at the Patent Office. (Again, this according to conventional wisdom.)
The job is easier now for all (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming that they're doing their job, which conventional wisdom says they haven't been.[*]
They have not been because it's been an almost impossible task to keep up.
The new bill helps in two ways:
1) Since you don't care anymore who thought of an idea first, you only need to see if the idea exists in the market or has already been filed to dismiss. Before even if someone filed earlier it COULD be they thought of it later... or the guy filing thought of the idea before the thing on the market arrived.
2) I'm weak on this point but basically it allows outside entities to contest bad patents instead of just the patent holder. Now the EFF and the FSF can go to down striking down the evil before us.
And still won't, unless the bill vastly increases the funding for patent examiners.
You know what? It actually DOES do that. Because now the patent office gets to keep application fees. They didn't before? Nope, went into the general pool to pay for the growing SS or a new airport in Nowhereville dedicated to the state senator.
It's just that it's a lot more lucrative for qualified people to work in industry than at the Patent Office.
Perhaps they can pay examiners more now that they get to keep application fees.
This is really a decent overhaul, better than we could expect from all the infighting and bickering going on.
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You need to be a little more precise than that. Even under first-to-invent, what you said there is generally true. The exception is when two companies were inventing the same idea at the same exact time, in an overlapping fashion. It is almost invariably not a "scumbag". That person has to somehow prove that he or she was inventing the same thing at th
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Silly engineer-type! You expect sentences to make sense?
Here's what normal people hear: blah blah blah job creation blah blah reform blah blah landmark legislation blah blah better future!
Sadly, people with this level of comprehension have a vote that counts just as much as yours. Welcome to America.
Brilliant! (Score:2)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:5, Informative)
And just how many international patents do you have to your name? I have 2 and I can tell you that first to invent is a PITA and penalizes small inventors. First to file places a stake in the ground that is not contestable. First to invent is open to intrepretation via courts and unless you have the resources and well documented evidence (such lab books where EACH PAGE is signed by two individuals) you will lose out.
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Mod parent up.
First to invent appeals to the notion that little guy inventors will get screwed over by big companies, because the big companies can afford to file patent applications quickly. This is sort of a short-sighted argument, though - because figuring out who invented first is a messy factual inquiry (can you prove you invented it in your garage? Are we supposed to just take your word that you had a working prototype years ago?), extensive, expensive litigation is necessary to pin down who invente
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...and unless you have the resources and well documented evidence (such lab books where EACH PAGE is signed by two individuals) you will lose out.
pssst, they sell pre-double signed lab books on eBay. Just make you buy them using prepaid credit cards and ship them to a PO box.
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The answer here is to simply get rid of patents and move on. Contrary to popular belief, patents are there to protect financial investment, nothing more. Ideas are cheap and rightly so. Investments on the other hand come from those with money, intending to exploit more. Patents arose in Britain as a way to grant government power to corporations on a tempo
Wait.. what? (Score:3)
Strongly resisting the temptation to whargarbl.
This act will only encourage patent trolling. It will increase the rates of industrial espionage in a country that is already struggling with cyber-crime.
The original inventors will have to become legal wizards in addition to their existing skillset.
Still, why should I care? I'm not American, and anything that stifles American invention can only be good for my country.... sooooo.... thanks America! Good job there!
Re:Wait.. what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not American
Then you should know that most of the world is first-to-file rather than first-to-invent. This does the opposite of what you claim: small inventors no longer have to worry about being taken to court and having to prove that they invented it first; now as long as there wasn't prior art, they're in the right.
Now if we can just do something about software patents, we might have a decent system.
Just a Tax Increase (Score:4, Insightful)
When Canada passed the exact same change 10 years ago (changing from first-to-invent to first-to-file) independent inventor applications dropped by 50% and have never recovered. This bill was pushed entirely by large corporations who don't want to pay the real innovators for their inventions.
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This is simply a tax on innovation.
No, it's a token fee that gets you a big, fat government entitlement, which you can then use as a club to stifle innovation.
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Now there are many things that are wrong with this bill, but it seems to me that your post can't be right and is self contradictory in a sense anyway.
Firstly: this is not a tax on innovation, it is a tax on patent filing. The two things are unrelated. If you innovate, then just publish your innovation on your web site or release it in a product and you don't need to patent.
Secondly, I believe this actually reduces fees for very small inventors, allowing 75% reductions for "micro entities". That means
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"Thirdly, you claim this will increase taxes because fees will increase by and then claim that applications will drop by 50%. That seems to me to be a 42.5% reduction in taxation (1 - (1.15 * 0.5 ))."
No, GP asserted that "independent inventor applications dropped by 50%", i.e., those from small non-corporate entities. Your calculation is missing a factor for what percentage of filings are from such small-scale inventors. I would guess that it's less than 15%.
First to file/first to invent seem tangenetial... (Score:2)
This is how 'I think' it works: (Score:4, Interesting)
It's actually very simple (Score:5, Insightful)
There seem to be a lot of people in this thread saying, "Oh no! Prior art is dead!"
All this actually means is that somebody can no longer invent (or CLAIM have invented) something and then KEEP IT A SECRET (not sell, publicly demonstrate, file for a patent, etc...) and then, later on, after somebody else files for the patent, say, "Hey! I invented that %d years ago!" Right now, it seems to be pretty common practice for corporations to attempt to 'manufacture evidence' of non-public prior art. It seems like this would simplify patent disputes.
President of OnLive responds to this bill, against (Score:5, Informative)
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Who to write to the house? Any solid research on how this stifles innovation? Any advice from the LITTLE PEOPLE that will be forced as lowly paid employees (if lucky to have a job)? How about writing to not so LITTLE people, those with influence over many other little people, like media and popular bloggers? Anything that can be done?
I was reading the article, and first to file means that only corporations with 3 patent lawyer as FTE can survive, if barely. All those small forms that need to sell their inve
Re:That's so useful... /sarcasm (Score:4, Insightful)
You should write your congress critter about it.
Here is how they voted [senate.gov]
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That looks terribly non-partisan.
I suppose that makes sense as both parties are for the lawyers, by the lawyers...
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It costs $110 to file a provisional patent application, not fifteen grand. If you can't afford to spend a hundred and ten bucks to protect your invention, it's probably not worth protecting.
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So now someone can invent something, but the first to file it gets all rights? how is that better??
example case: - it costs $15.000 to file a patent
If the guy could learn the algorithm from the small guy then that means the small guy published it. That will count as prior art. The guy who is willing to cheat and claim that he didn't learn that from prior art would be able to cheat worse in the current system.