How Lobby Groups Rejected the Canadian Government's Plan To Combat Patent Trolls 57
An anonymous reader writes Michael Geist reports
that according to documents
recently obtained under the Access to Information Act, the Canadian
government quietly proposed a series
of reforms to combat patent trolls including new prohibitions
on demand letters, powers to the courts to stop patent forum
shopping, and giving competition authorities the ability to deal
with patent troll anti-competitive activity. The problem? Business
lobby groups warned against the "unintended consequences" of patent
reforms.
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You happily take the product of our astounding invention rates, while shitting all over the process.
You, and Europe, and the rest of the world should be more like us, not the other way around.
7 billion people churning out inventions at the same rate as the 320 million in the US would be magnificent for increasing the quality and length of life.
Anything else is literally mass-murderous.
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A huge amount of the patents approved in the US boil down to "a system and methodology for doing something well known, but with a (computer|cell phone|tablet)". They're crap patents.
You're not innovating,
Yes, we are! We have increased efficiency! Used to be that one had to actually invent something useful, but we've found a way to go around all that, going directly from "something already done often, and by many" to "magic computer pixie dust, nyeh!" in one step.
It is the nature of capitalism to do the least possible to get the most profit. Reduce effort to zero and
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7 billion people churning out inventions at the same rate as the 320 million in the US would be magnificent for increasing the quality and length of life.
yeah fuck the 3-4 billion of them to self occupied with simply surviving. lazy pieces of shit amirite
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I was thinking more along the lines of torches and pitchforks.
Unintended Consquences (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Unintended Consquences (Score:5, Informative)
Corporate donations for federal elections are prohibited by law in Canada, and individual contributions to political parties (including donations to registered candidates for a political party) are limited to $1200 per year.
That being said, Canada's current ruling party has violated campaign financing rules in the past (see: In and Out scandal.)
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That being said, Canada's current ruling party has violated campaign financing rules in the past (see: In and Out scandal.)
See also : Del Mastro, though he's actually getting charged, 5 years after the fact.
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Two bits of detail here:
1) It was his own money he spent, not corporate donations. Which is still a no no. I think the deal was he spent about 20k of his own money over the limited cap, and tried to hide the fact.
2) "getting" charged? So far as I am aware, there has been no consequences as yet (other than Harper throwing him under the bus as quick as could be). Anyway I will believe it when I see any results from it. My money is it gets dragged out long enough until no one knows or cares about it anymore, t
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1. It's both actually. His cousin was charged earlier this month with funnelling corporate money to his campaign, using employees as straw donors. [nationalpost.com]
2. Yes, he was charged last year [nationalpost.com], though I haven't heard anything since the charges were laid.
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Wow, even more crooked than I thought...
and yet since being changed, is he in jail? Has he paid a fine? Has their been any consequence whatsoever? Is he still an MP? How is it one can cheat to get elected, then somehow stay elected?
As I said I'll wait and see, but I see the most likely result being it will be dragged out until it is no longer in the public eye, and he might pay some token fine or something.
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We still have the revolving door, especially with this government and the oil industry.
Not the same (Score:1)
The troll problem is far less pronounced in Canada because of differences in how litigation works. It's much easier to sue someone in the US without fear of consequence or cost (besides your own legal fees and time).
"Please keep up all barriers to competition" (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course established businesses want to keep the current patent situation - they're already big enough to fight patent trolls if they want to.
They want those patent trolls around to eat smaller competition that can't afford the fight.
Simple solution ... (Score:1)
Kill all the fucking lobbyists.
I'm tired of rich corporations having more say in government than citizens.
Kill the fucking lobbyists. Kill the people who pay for the lobbyists. Smack all politicians who meet with lobbyists about the head with a large stick.
Corporate douchebag motherfuckers are ruining the world to maximize their own profits, while screwing the rest of us over.
Fucking worthless parasites.
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A world where government runs roughshod over corporate centers of wealth (alternate power centers in memespeak) will continue to grow at the behest of The People until they do away with these alternate centers completely.
Then you get dictatorship or communism, neither of which can hold a candle to freedom with capitalism-as-corollary of freedom.
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You don't necessarily get dictatorship or communism (whatever you mean by that). Bureaucracy is probably more likely, with all meaningful decisions made by people you never heard of who are angry with their boss.
Please note that this is a prediction based upon all major power being held by the government, and doesn't have any prediction about the ostensible form of the government, which may be any form of authoritarianism. This includes dictatorships, but it also included democracies. It's more a predict
Probably the wrong way to fight it anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Probably the wrong way to fight it anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is, what is prior art? It's highly subjective and as such, the law is complicated.
There is no reforming the current system. We need an entirely new system. As is, an inventor has basically no change to win. If he invents something, lawyers find a way to subtly change it to produce it without permission. Likewise, if they have something patented they again get lawyers to find a way to change it and extend that patent into perpetuity.
Patents should be rare. Almost everything should be covered by short term copyright and trade secrets. Patents should only cover truly new and innovative tech. Smartphones are battery powered computers... there shouldn't be anything in them that's patentable. A new form of Fusion reactor? Ok... that's patent. I'd even propose that someone applying for a patent should have to get a court to approve the patent before it being granted.
Re:Probably the wrong way to fight it anyway (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is, what is prior art? It's highly subjective and as such, the law is complicated.
It's anything in the art that was published or available to the public prior to the filing date of the application. There's nothing subjective at all about it. The Model T is prior art for the Tesla Roadster. UNIVAC is prior art for the Macbook Pro.
What you seem to be referring to is anticipatory prior art - that is, art that includes every element of a claimed invention. But even that is not subjective - either it describes the claimed features or it doesn't.
What you really want to be referring to is "what is obvious?" And that's a little more subjective, but not as highly subjective as you think - under the current law, if no one reference describes everything in the claimed invention, nothing anticipates it or it is "new", but if a combination of references teach everything in it, then it's obvious. So, if the invention claims "A+B+C" and one piece of art teaches A+B and the the other teaches C, then A+B+C is obvious. That's not very subjective at all.
There is no reforming the current system. We need an entirely new system. As is, an inventor has basically no change to win. If he invents something, lawyers find a way to subtly change it to produce it without permission.
In other words, lawyers (or other engineers) find a way to invent around it. The public ends up with two ways to accomplish the same thing. Innovation is increased. Hooray!
Likewise, if they have something patented they again get lawyers to find a way to change it and extend that patent into perpetuity.
In other words, lawyers (or the inventor) find a way to invent around it, or come up with an improvement. The public ends up with two ways to accomplish the same thing, or a better way to accomplish the thing. Innovation is increased. Hooray!
Patents should be rare. Almost everything should be covered by short term copyright and trade secrets. Patents should only cover truly new and innovative tech. Smartphones are battery powered computers... there shouldn't be anything in them that's patentable.
What about the better batteries? What about wireless charging, fast charging, new battery management techniques that extend battery life, etc.? What about new transmission and data compression techniques that make that new smart phone able to communicate ten times faster, over ten times the distance, as the old model?
A new form of Fusion reactor? Ok... that's patent. I'd even propose that someone applying for a patent should have to get a court to approve the patent before it being granted.
But let's say we go with your suggestion... No patents since they'd be way too expensive if you have to go through an entire trial just to get exclusivity before you even start making your product. Instead, "short term copyright and trade secrets".
Well, copyright doesn't apply to that smart phone, because when your competitor makes one, they're making a new one, not copying yours. In fact, copyright only really works when you're copying the exact thing - rip a DVD of Harry Potter and you've committed copyright infringement. Film the Mockbuster production Larry Kotter, and you haven't. Dream Heights isn't an infringement of Tiny Tower. GIMP isn't an infringement of Photoshop. A Nissan Leaf isn't an infringement of a Toyota Prius. As a result, copyright doesn't work when people care about the implementation, but not the exact thing. It's fine for movies and music and books, but not for software or hardware.
So, we turn to trade secrets. Great, now you have to sign a contract with every piece of software or hardware you buy. And those contracts can last a lot longer than the limited term of a patent - they can be lifetime contracts. Don't like it, don't buy the software or hardware - but without patents, every
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When a certain drug, whose active ingredients were asprin and something else, had its patents about to run out the maker "invented" a new durg that was the same except that the replaced asprin with aceteminophen. Patented that. and then withdrew the original from the market.
Unfortunately for me, I react well to asprin, and aceteminophen doesn't do a thing for me. But the other version was no longer available.
*I* did not find this an improvement, or an increase in innovation. Or anything else desireable.
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When a certain drug, whose active ingredients were asprin and something else, had its patents about to run out the maker "invented" a new durg that was the same except that the replaced asprin with aceteminophen. Patented that. and then withdrew the original from the market.
Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid or 2-(acetyloxy)benzoic acid. Acetaminophen is N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethanamide. It's an entirely different chemical. They didn't "invent" a new drug - they actually did invent a new drug.
And as you note, the two have different effects. Acetaminophen can be particularly bad for livers in high doses.
And finally, your timeline is off [wikipedia.org]. The patents on aspirin expired in 1917. Acetaminophen was released in 1956. Aspirin was widely available at that time, with many different ma
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When a certain drug, whose active ingredients were asprin and something else, had its patents about to run out the maker "invented" a new durg that was the same except that the replaced asprin with aceteminophen. Patented that. and then withdrew the original from the market.
Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid or 2-(acetyloxy)benzoic acid. Acetaminophen is N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethanamide. It's an entirely different chemical. They didn't "invent" a new drug - they actually did invent a new drug.
And as you note, the two have different effects. Acetaminophen can be particularly bad for livers in high doses.
And finally, your timeline is off [wikipedia.org]. The patents on aspirin expired in 1917. Acetaminophen was released in 1956. Aspirin was widely available at that time, with many different manufacturers competing.
lol I have never seen a post dismantled like that... nice job!
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More often it's a patent on the "all new time-release capsule version of Medication A". Essentially the same stuff, packaged differently. The stuff's not new, the packaging's not new, but putting the stuff in the packaging gets awarded a new 20 year monopoly. The worst case I've read of for this was when asthma inhalers were forced to be reformulated to take out ozone-depleting propellants. So they used a new propellant and got a new monopoly, and a cheap, established medication became very expensive ag
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The patent was not on aspirin, it was on combining aspirin with another drug.
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It wasn't a patent on asprin, it was a patent on asprin + ? . Later it was a patent on aceteminophen + ? (the same ?).
I don't remember what the ? was, and since the new formulation didn't do me any good I no longer take it.
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Truly sorry about that, but I don't see how patent reform would solve your problem. The way I see it, your problem is that they "withdrew the original from the market". Not that they invented a slightly different version. They may have done it because it enabled them to charge more for the newer drug sold for the same purpose, but you can't force a company to make what you want. Without the original patent, they may not have ever been able to sell either drug anyway.
Drug combinations are a strange beast tha
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So, if the invention claims "A+B+C" and one piece of art teaches A+B and the the other teaches C, then A+B+C is obvious. That's not very subjective at all.
I disagree here. Sometimes the non-obvious part is that C can be combined with A+B in a useful manner in the first place.
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So, if the invention claims "A+B+C" and one piece of art teaches A+B and the the other teaches C, then A+B+C is obvious. That's not very subjective at all.
I disagree here. Sometimes the non-obvious part is that C can be combined with A+B in a useful manner in the first place.
That's actually the counter-argument: reference 1 teaches A+B, reference 2 teaches C, so they're obvious? No, because combining them is a biatch and raises additional problems, or combining them is unforeseeable because they're so widely different that they result in an unpredictable result, etc., etc. :)
That argument generally works better on the pharmaceutical side, where some benzene ring with a hydroxil component may be beneficial if it hangs off the first carbon, really beneficial if it hangs off the
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Combining A+B and C may not be easy, but it is obvious. This is actually the main problem I see with software patents: idea C is "with a computer", and A+B is some existing invention. Newspapers - on a computer! Alarm clocks - on a computer! Bank transactions - on a computer! Sure it was hard to program them. It's still obvious. But if securing the bank transactions requires new innovations in security technology to glue the pieces together, those innovations could merit patent D. Does not and should not pr
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Combining A+B and C may not be easy, but it is obvious. This is actually the main problem I see with software patents: idea C is "with a computer", and A+B is some existing invention. Newspapers - on a computer! Alarm clocks - on a computer! Bank transactions - on a computer! Sure it was hard to program them. It's still obvious. But if securing the bank transactions requires new innovations in security technology to glue the pieces together, those innovations could merit patent D. Does not and should not prevent anybody else from making their own secure bank transactions with a different security method because somebody got an A+B+C patent covering the obvious part.
Definitely, and that should be the answer to those:
"Alarm clock, on a computer!"
"That's obvious. Alarm clocks and computers both exist."
"But this was difficult because [intricate problem that's different with computer clocks] and we had to do [intricate solution]."
"Then put that in the patent claims."
Good patent examiners currently do that, but there's a bunch of terrible stuff out there.
Really not understanding your point about pharmaceuticals. How is the benzene ring different from "including a library or function in a program [which] should have an absolutely predictable result"?
Combine a program and a library and even before hitting compile, you should be able to tell exactly what the result
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Posting a few examples of obvious combinations does not preclude the existence of non-obvious combinations. Especially if you expand your definition of patents to all patents rather than being limited to software patents (which have a very poor history of failing the obviousness claim even if you ignore all of the "X on a computer but otherwise unchanged"-type patents.)
And yes. Including a library in a program should have a predictable result. The part that could potentially be non-obvious is deciding to
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What "uninteded consequences" ? (Score:2)
Are these concerns listed anywhere? I don't want to assume they're unreasonable or far-fetched without having seen them. Or is "unintended consequences" about as much details as was given during lobbying?
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Are these concerns listed anywhere? I don't want to assume they're unreasonable or far-fetched without having seen them. Or is "unintended consequences" about as much details as was given during lobbying?
Unintended consequence: if you support what they're lobbying against, you may find yourself receiving less campaign contributions when you're up for re-election.
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Not in Canada where corporations are not allowed to contribute and people are limited to around $1200. More likely "wouldn't want an accidental leak of where your money came from would you" or "do you expect a nice well paying job after you leave office?"
pdf mentions a couple of things (Score:5, Interesting)
The pdf linked in the article mentions a few points. The following is my understanding of what they said. It doesn't represent my opinion.
The commenters generally agreed that patent trolling isn't currently a big problem in Canada. Canadian companies are affected more by US trolls, because the Canadian system already handles it pretty well. Therefore "don't fix it if it ain't broke". Any change will have good and bad consequences, and Canada doesn't need much good consequences.
Universities were given as an example of institutions which do real, valuable research and development, but don't manufacture products. They license their technology, so they are non-practicing entities. How do you legally distinguish a research institution and a company who licenses the results of that work vs a troll?
I happen to know that the vast majority of trolling is done by four companies. Hundreds of thousands of people have patents. The challenge is to target those four needles in a very large haystack. When you're targeting a needle in a haystack, and want to destroy the needle (troll) without harming the hay (inventors etc) you want to use precision tools.
The transcript doesn’t show a lot of push-ba (Score:3)
IMHO, These are far too rational for Mr Moore to get past cabinet, as they might be seen as desirable regulation. The politics of the day is to avoid regulating (ie, policing) industry.
They're directly applicable to copyright trolling, by the way, and quite a good idea. I'll suggest that.
--dave
heaven forbid! (Score:2)
We can't have people give their input on legislation that would affect them! When our legislators are having second thoughts, it must obviously because they are all corrupt! Only publicly financed non-profits and academics should ever be able to comment on legislation!
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Actually under this government, if a non-profit negatively comments on legislation, they get audited by the Canada Revenue Service. Shit a bird watchers society wrote a minister about bee colony collapse, the answer they got back was that since they were being political, they were going to get audited.
What was again the textbook example of terrorism? (Score:2)
Something about wanting to influence politics by force or threat of force... something like that...