US Patent Office Proposes Rule To Make It Much Harder To Kill Bad Patents (techdirt.com) 110
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: So, this is bad. Over the last few years, we've written plenty about the so-called "inter partes review" or "IPR" that came into being about a decade ago as part of the "America Invents Act," which was the first major change to the patent system in decades. For much of the first decade of the 2000s, patent trolls were running wild and creating a massive tax on innovation. There were so many stories of people (mostly lawyers) getting vague and broad patents that they never had any intention of commercializing, then waiting for someone to come along and build something actually useful and innovative... and then shaking them down with the threat of patent litigation. The IPR process, while not perfect, was at least an important tool in pushing back on some of the worst of the worst patents. In its most basic form, the IPR process allows nearly anyone to challenge a bad patent and have the special Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) review the patent to determine if it should have been granted in the first place. Given that a bad patent can completely stifle innovation for decades this seems like the very least that the Patent Office should offer to try to get rid of innovation-killing bad patents.
However, patent trolls absolutely loathe the IPR process for fairly obvious reasons. It kills their terrible patents. The entire IPR process has been challenged over and over again and (thankfully) the Supreme Court said that it's perfectly fine for the Patent Office to review granted patents to see if they made a mistake. But, of course, that never stops the patent trolls. They've complained to Congress. And, now, it seems that the Patent Office itself is trying to help them out. Recently, the USPTO announced a possible change to the IPR process that would basically lead to limiting who can actually challenge bad patents, and which patents could be challenged.
The wording of the proposed changes seems to be written in a manner to be as confusing as possible. But there are a few different elements to the proposal. One part would limit who can bring challenges to patents under the IPR system, utilizing the power of the director to do a "discretionary denial." For example, it would say that "certain for-profit entities" are not allowed to bring challenges. Why? That's not clear. [...] But the more worrisome change is this one: "Recognizing the important role the USPTO plays in encouraging and protecting innovation by individual inventors, startups, and under-resourced innovators who are working to bring their ideas to market, the Office is considering limiting the impact of AIA post-grant proceedings on such entities by denying institution when certain conditions are met." Basically, if a patent holder is designated as an "individual inventor, startup" or "under-resourced innovator" then their patents are protected from the IPR process. But, as anyone studying this space well knows, patent trolls often present themselves as all three of those things (even though it's quite frequently not at all true). [...] And, again, none of this should matter. A bad patent is a bad patent. Why should the USPTO create different rules that protect bad patents? If the patent is legit, it will survive the IPR process. The Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a response to the proposed changes: "The U.S. Patent Office has proposed new rules about who can challenge wrongly granted patents. If the rules become official, they will offer new protections to patent trolls. Challenging patents will become far more onerous, and impossible for some. The new rules could stop organizations like EFF, which used this process to fight the Personal Audio 'podcasting patent,' from filing patent challenges altogether."
The digital rights group added: "If these rules were in force, it's not clear that EFF would have been able to protect the podcasting community by fighting, and ultimately winning, a patent challenge against Personal Audio LLC. Personal Audio claimed to be an inventor-owned company that was ready to charge patent royalties against podcasters large and small. EFF crowd-funded a patent challenge and took out the Personal Audio patent after a 5-year legal battle (that included a full IPR process and multiple appeals)."
However, patent trolls absolutely loathe the IPR process for fairly obvious reasons. It kills their terrible patents. The entire IPR process has been challenged over and over again and (thankfully) the Supreme Court said that it's perfectly fine for the Patent Office to review granted patents to see if they made a mistake. But, of course, that never stops the patent trolls. They've complained to Congress. And, now, it seems that the Patent Office itself is trying to help them out. Recently, the USPTO announced a possible change to the IPR process that would basically lead to limiting who can actually challenge bad patents, and which patents could be challenged.
The wording of the proposed changes seems to be written in a manner to be as confusing as possible. But there are a few different elements to the proposal. One part would limit who can bring challenges to patents under the IPR system, utilizing the power of the director to do a "discretionary denial." For example, it would say that "certain for-profit entities" are not allowed to bring challenges. Why? That's not clear. [...] But the more worrisome change is this one: "Recognizing the important role the USPTO plays in encouraging and protecting innovation by individual inventors, startups, and under-resourced innovators who are working to bring their ideas to market, the Office is considering limiting the impact of AIA post-grant proceedings on such entities by denying institution when certain conditions are met." Basically, if a patent holder is designated as an "individual inventor, startup" or "under-resourced innovator" then their patents are protected from the IPR process. But, as anyone studying this space well knows, patent trolls often present themselves as all three of those things (even though it's quite frequently not at all true). [...] And, again, none of this should matter. A bad patent is a bad patent. Why should the USPTO create different rules that protect bad patents? If the patent is legit, it will survive the IPR process. The Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a response to the proposed changes: "The U.S. Patent Office has proposed new rules about who can challenge wrongly granted patents. If the rules become official, they will offer new protections to patent trolls. Challenging patents will become far more onerous, and impossible for some. The new rules could stop organizations like EFF, which used this process to fight the Personal Audio 'podcasting patent,' from filing patent challenges altogether."
The digital rights group added: "If these rules were in force, it's not clear that EFF would have been able to protect the podcasting community by fighting, and ultimately winning, a patent challenge against Personal Audio LLC. Personal Audio claimed to be an inventor-owned company that was ready to charge patent royalties against podcasters large and small. EFF crowd-funded a patent challenge and took out the Personal Audio patent after a 5-year legal battle (that included a full IPR process and multiple appeals)."
patent office does not care (Score:2)
The patent office is understaffed and overwhelmed. The patent office only cares to do its job, it does not care about the quality of your work (the patent). The less work the better.
Maybe a different way to look at it, not that I agree with this but I could see the point of view, if you are the umpire do you want the fans being able to question your calls?
Re: (Score:2)
Why would they reject patents if they only get paid for the ones they accept?
The patent office is a place where they print their own money and this is just more of the same.
Re:patent office does not care (Score:5, Informative)
What's your reference for the PTO only getting paid for accepted patents?
That is patently untrue. (Hah)
They charge filing fees. To everyone. As a government agency, the staff are salaried and the org runs on tax dollars. The PTO is not a government profit center. There are no staff bonuses for accepting patents.
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They earn a lot more from accepted patents than from rejected ones.
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The filing fee is the filing fee. What other fee are you talking about?
maintenance fees (Score:2)
Is your ignorance genuine?
You really don't know about other fees connected with patents?
If so: please avoid discussions about patents.
If not: please stop manipulating discussions.
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Yes, I do. Are you ignorant? You think the random examiners pocket those fees or get bonuses for issuing bad patents?
They do not. The money goes back to the federal budget not into anyone's back pocket. The examiners have zero incentive to issue bad patents.
I hope you've learned something today.
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This discussion has derailed somehow.
Joce640k claimed:
"They earn a lot more from accepted patents than from rejected ones."
Your reply was: ...which begs the question of whether you really don't know about other fees.
"The filing fee is the filing fee. What other fee are you talking about?"
Because Joce640k is 100% right. As I wrote elsewhere, the USPTO has 52% of revenues from maintenance fees.
BTW, your claim "The money goes back to the federal budget" is wrong.
The USPTO doesn't generate any surpluses - by la
52% of revenue from maintenance fees (Score:2)
not ONLY paid for the ones they accept - but MOSTLY. :-)
In 2022, the USPTO had 52% of fee revenues from maintenance ones and 25% from application fees.
So, overall, the parent conveys the correct message while your post is patently misleading
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Yup and where does all that money go? Back into the federal budget. They have zero incentive, as stated a few times, to grant bad patents for money.
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"where does all that money go? Back into the federal budget"
Please, stop spreading this nonsense. The USPTO has nothing to do with the federal budget.
Re: patent office does not care (Score:2)
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every amendment costs the client money, every RCE costs the client money. there's way more money to be made in rejecting an application over and over again and getting more and more narrowing amendments out of the applicant before finally allowing the case
Re: patent office does not care (Score:1)
Ban Patents (Score:1, Redundant)
Patents should be banned altogether.
it's an obsolete concept that only stops innovation.
Ban Patents - and replace them with...? (Score:2)
What alternative would you propose?
Re: (Score:1)
None.. You should NOT be able to own an idea or concept.
Re: Ban Patents - and replace them with...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace them with competition (Score:1)
Nope.
Sharing improves innovation.
Competition improves innovation.
Faster to market wins.
Capitalism.
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"Sharing improves innovation."
So in your first argument, you confirm the foundation of the patent system: in exchange for the exclusive right to use your invention, you disclose it.
Yes, sharing improves innovation - and this exactly is the key reason patents are needed :-)
Patent = Obsolete. (Score:2)
Not any more.
In today's world, patent only block competition with patent trolls, bullshit patent hoarding corps, high fees, and much too long protection times.
Patents are Obsolete.
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That's the stuff you see in the news. But under this media blanket the patent system still fulfills its role in helping people capitalize on investment in research and development.
Re:Patent = Obsolete. (Score:4, Insightful)
You're talking to someone who has never invented anything worthy of a patent.
Those are the folks who want free access to steal the ideas others have spent years of their lives and lots of money working to create.
He also doesn't understand his beloved capitalism. He thinks someone who has sunk costs to invent can sell a product competitively against someone who came along later who does not have to recover costs to invent.
The entire point of the exclusivity period is to allow the inventor to recover their costs and reward them for contributing to the world's knowledge. He thinks there will be more inventing and sharing when inventors lose money and can't compete against clones of their own ideas. He doesn't understand basic human nature.
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Hmm. Wrong. I wrote 4 patents.
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How many of your 4 patents were issued?
I've worked on several patent filings and the infringement lawsuits. That doesn't mean I invented anything worth a patent. In fact, despite having helped to write a few patents, I didn't actually invent or contribute to the actual inventing.
So, we've both not invented anything.
Either way you still fail to understand capitalism and hUman nature and economics.
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All 4 were issued, of course. My company would not go the trouble for a non-patentable idea, or a wonky patent.
Cool for you.
But even, patents are hopelessly futile today.
Re:Replace them with competition (Score:5, Interesting)
"Sharing improves innovation."
So in your first argument, you confirm the foundation of the patent system: in exchange for the exclusive right to use your invention, you disclose it.
Yes, sharing improves innovation - and this exactly is the key reason patents are needed :-)
Except that most patents no longer disclose enough to reproduce the invention [duke.edu]. Most of the patents have been engineered by lawyers to be as unreadable as possible, making them unintelligible to people skilled in the art, and intelligible only to patent lawyers (if that). Additionally, a shocking number of patents tell nothing about how key parts of some process work, relegating them to nothing more than a patent on the idea of doing some particular thing.
For software patents, nothing short of source code (granted into the public domain) is actually adequate. And for hardware patents, you need schematics, scale CAD diagrams, etc. Otherwise the patents are useless in terms of promoting knowledge, and are nothing more than a monopoly grant with no upside to society.
Patents, at least as currently implemented, are not needed. The lack of enforcement of reproducibility has reduced them to that state, and is the reason why patent trolls exist. If I can't hand a patent application to someone of average skill in a particular area, ask them to summarize it, and get back something plausible in a couple of hours, the patent should be rejected. That's the level of readability that should be required before a patent should be considered. Otherwise, the patent examiners are likely to not understand it, either, and the whole process just becomes a rubber stamp, with the courts doing the patent office's job. It is an entirely dysfunctional system, and it needs to either be massively rethought or abolished entirely.
as currently implemented (Score:2)
"Patents, at least as currently implemented, are not needed"
Except for the "at least" part, I completely agree.
I mean, patents are needed - but processes around them got fundamentally flawed (in the US more than here in Europe).
"That's the level of readability that should be required before a patent should be considered."
I couldn't agree more.
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Why are we citing a law professor whose technical background is in biotech?
That was literally just the first article I found from someone in the field of law talking about the problem. I think anybody who has ever read any of the various dubious patents that have been the subject of Slashdot articles would agree that there's a problem, though.
Tons of biotech applications ABSOLUTELY disclose enough, as they disclose the relevant sequence in its entirety. Doesn't it seem very conspicuous that he'd fail to mention this?
Not particularly, no. That's like someone writing an article about rapidly increasing numbers of people breaking the speed limit, and someone else asking if it is conspicuous that the article author doesn't mention that a bunch of people ob
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The problem is, patents these days don't disclose the actual information needed to help with innovation. In the early days, patents had to include actual blueprints and often a working model, whereas now just a vague description of a process is all that is needed, with none of the details that are needed to implement it. This means that you are not actually sharing the invention, and anyone who wants to legitimately use your invention and further improve on it, is not able to do so.
If I were American, I'd
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>> feudalism because technical knowledge would be hoarded by the wealthy
You cannot hoard knowledge in today's world. Impossibol.
Also, hoarding brings no profit.
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So you think trade secrets should not be legal?
If an employee takes the formula for Coke to a competitor, the Coke corporation should have no recourse because "reasons" and Coke corporation wasn't making a profit hoarding that formula's knowledge anyway?
You're not serious.
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Trade secrets is the opposite of a patent.
Those are needed. But difficult to keep.
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What's, the formula for Coca Cola?
It's a trade secret going back many decades (no, I'm not going to bother checking exactly how,long).
Why don't you know it? Because anyone who stole it would be fucked.
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it's water, sugar, caffeine, and caramel. No patent included.
Re: Ban Patents - and replace them with...? (Score:4, Insightful)
China technically has strict intellectual property laws, but since they're not enforced they don't really matter. So we can look at China as an example of how this might play out. Things like branding, patents, and copyright are mechanisms which allow smaller organizations to compete against larger ones. Without them, the only things left are manufacturing and logistics. Transportation, distribution, etc.
So there's a little bit of room there for a small organization which could specialize in something very esoteric, but there's no reward for innovation. Whatever resources that someone might put into development will put that person or organization at a competitive disadvantage when another company duplicates the results of that development without spending resources. And logistics tend to greatly favor economies of scale, so small companies can't compete.
Re: Ban Patents - and replace them with...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most tech companies don't even let their engineers go near the patent database - so they can avoid triple damages for wilful infringement if they're found to have stepped on some BS patent somewhere.
I think you have a really idealised view of how the patent system works in practice. While I believe there should be some kind of intellectual property protection (the most obvious case is pharmaceutical development), the way the patent system works right now is basically just a type of mafia protection racket for legitimate innovators.
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"...how the patent system works in practice"
Sure, it's horrible.
But the problem lies in how poorly are patent applications evaluated, not in the principle of "exclusivity in exchange for publication".
Yes, changes are needed.
For example, 20 years seems like too long (why have a uniform length of protection, btw?).
But screaming "Ban patents" is stupid, sorry.
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Nope. It's not.
Countries without effective patent system innovate much faster.
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Which countries are those who are leaders of innovation?
Please say China so we can all point and laugh.
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HAHAHAHAHA. Nope.
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Ok, thanks, so there are no innovative countries that don't have a real patent system.
That was informative, thank you.
Re: Ban Patents - and replace them with...? (Score:1)
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Patent system is not a robust IP system.
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That stifles innovation more than you think. We'll end up back in feudalism because technical knowledge would be hoarded by the wealthy. The idea behind a patent is a temporary monopoly for publically disclosing how to make your invention so others learn and improve on it. It's the precursors to open source and wikipedia. The patent databases are one of the most important compendiums of knowledge in human history.
I think patents, much like copyright, have been over-extended by the corporatocracy to the point where it's almost become a de-facto form of feudalism. It wasn't indie authors that pushed to extend copyright, and it wasn't the actual innovators / inventors that pushed to make patents forever and ever fuck you's to anyone wishing to use the underlying technology to build something better in the future.
It'd be neat to think at some point we could have a rational discussion about where these concepts need to a
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"You should NOT be able to own an idea or concept."
True - neither ideas nor concepts are patentable.
Sure, the USPTO sometimes breaks this rule, but let's not confuse exceptions/poor work with a system.
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patentability (Score:2)
no, a mere idea is not patentable.
You must transform it into a tangible invention - and that concrete embodiment of your idea is what you can obtain a patent for. Of course, if additional requirements are met (novelty, non-obviousness, utility).
"They don't grant a patent on 'this specific piece of machinery right here'"
Sure, the requirement for a prototype has been dropped since 1880. But the principle of utility remains and thus ideas are not patentable.
"Every patent is an idea or concept."
Nope.
(Probably,
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"Saying that a patent requires some level of specific utility merely confines it to a certain subset of ideas."
Sure, this is exactly how the law (United States Code Title 35) limits patentability: "A claimed invention must be useful or have a utility that is specific, substantial and credible."
So what exactly is your issue with the parent post?
On a side note, Slashdot should also serve educational purposes, so let me clarify:
patenting "'blue widget using..." would mean that that technical solution can be fr
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But without the security of a patent why would anyone be willing to put energy and resources into developing something new?
Who's going to pay for R&D?
Say, you have worked 10 years on an innovative product. You have poured a lot of money into it for those 10 years. You go to market and a big multinational just takes your product and copies it. Floods the market because they have vastly bigger production facilities. You now can't recuperate the investments you made over 10 years and you now have a huge de
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Who's going to stop a multinational from stepping over your patent anyway if they want to you? Sure you could sue but by the time you manage to get out of legal proceedings you will probably be broke.
People developed new things before patents, and will still do so in the attempt. I am not necessarily against all patients as such but the current system is so broken that I think we would probably be better off with no patents or copyright at all.
From here https://www.uspto.gov/web/offi... [uspto.gov] there where 352,049
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We have gone ridiculous, its to the point that it is significantly stifling innovation not helping it.
While i think this is true i don't think you should throw away the whole system without replacing it.
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The purpose of patents is not to hide ideas or concepts; the purpose is to encourage publication and use of patents It does this by granting a *temporary* exclusive right to the idea. Before patents, people would hide their inventions for fear that someone would copy it. Innovation was slowed because making use of the new idea meant staying secret, swearing assistants to secrecy; inventions could remain secret for generations, horded by families or guilds. After he patent period is over then everyone can
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The current patent duration is really not long, it's just that the pace of technology has increased tremendously, and a 5 year old invention might be seen as obsolete.
I would disagree, and the reason why is in your statement, the pace of advancement has increased, stopping people from innovating based on the original invention well after the useful life of the original idea has been exhausted. The sooner the rest of the world can improve on the original invention the better, while allowing for a REASONABLE compensation for the original inventor.
what's "reasonable compensation"? (Score:2)
you can never set a reasonable compensation. (Who will decide it? Based on what?)
Any attempt to do so will bring you to communism / planned economy.
You Mean Ban Lawyers (Score:2)
Re:patent office does not care (Score:5, Insightful)
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The legalese seems to dominate the effort rather than the innovation. It is essentially formulaic and you just need to establish cited patents and claim innovation on the delta.
The "chilling effect" of patents means that a higher standard of review is really required, but the system has gotten too big for itself.
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In theory the patent officers reviewing patent applications are sufficiently experienced in their field to determine if the patent application represents a new idea in the field. They have lots of time and huge databases they can search of both prior patent and publicly available things such as industry magazines and so on.
If they're not doing a good job then hire more, train the ones already there and set a higher bar. Bad patents should be filtered up front not after being issued doing a contentious pos
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Since we have our actual experts doing real work and not reviewing the work of others, what the patent office really does is solve for uniqueness. They solve for 'novel' by checking for similar words in other patents and public info. If you have a unique set of words you can get a patent. The patent office is not making a judgement call on whether your patent is good or useful. The patent office is not a court, we have actual courts for that.
Re:patent office does not care (Score:5, Insightful)
The patent office is understaffed and overwhelmed.
This is the typical American way. Is a public service understaffed and overwhelmed? Let's NOT staff them and help them get whelmed. Rather, try to hack your way around it, preferable with some flashy "new" thing and wonder why not-fixing-the-problem still doesn't work.
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Is the patent office even a service most Americans even want?
You go ahead and get Congress to give the patent office more money, we'll stand by. And when the money does not show up for more patent office staff, what do you propose?
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If you look at the backlash to Congress doing exactly that for the IRS, you can see there is no way to win. And that pays for itself several times over just catching more of the most obvious cheaters.
Americans want the patent office. Or at least most of the benefits of it, including a market for new products where you have a better chance to recoup R&D. People will go bankrupt trying to create new things if they can be immediately undercut on price by people who didn't do the research.
Luckily, the pa
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FYI, the USPTO is financed solely via fees.
They get zero taxpayer dollars.
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In this case, understaffing is probably not the only problem. But yes, understaffing is caused by budget slashing without thinking about consequences.
In this case, though, it seems way too easy to waste their time. In theory, a bad patent can suddenly be challenged by 200 or a million people all at once under the bad rules. Great, right? Gets rid of the bad patent faster. Except you have to process paperwork for 200 or a million challenges. We are probably at a point where the USPTO spends more resour
That's Some Serious Sensationalism EFF (Score:2, Interesting)
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These are the purposes of patents.
1. Marketing to investors and consumers.
2. List as an asset (normally patents are worth only a little)
3. IP protection.
When you do a patent you also normally don't know if someone else has tried to patent what you are doing already anyway, even though you have come up with it does not mean it is not devel
huh? (Score:1)
Re: huh? (Score:1)
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That's a hell of a whataboutism. How about you show some examples of major companies doing that. We can point to countless examples of patent trolls being taken down by the IPR process which has actually benefit the very small startups you claim need protecting from this process. So by all means, show us those poor poor startups shaken down by Apple / Google, and we can tit for tat until someone runs out of examples and use that to determine the net benefit of the process.
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Indeed, mostly what big corps do is steal something then tie up a small inventor in court until they're bankrupt or die of old age.
Re: That's Some Serious Sensationalism EFF (Score:1)
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The average cost of an IPR is around $450k.
The average cost of a patent lawsuit is $3.5 million.
Which venue do you think the small startup can afford more easily when the patent trolls come calling?
Basic Background Information (Score:5, Informative)
The USPTO is part of the Department of Commerce. The goal of the Department of Commerce is to regulate commerce. Like all regulatory agencies, it has been captured by the entities it nominally regulates -- gigantic corporations
IPR is not just a weapon against patent trolls. It is a weapon against everyone holding a commercially valuable patent as well. Rather than go through the absurd time and expense to actually litigate a patent they might be infringing, Microsoft can now simply file for IPR against IBM's patent. They can succinctly state their grounds and have the USPTO decide.
Bigtime patent litigation is a bit of a farcical circus in terms of procedure. First the parties go through a Markman Hearing, where the meaning of claims language is argued and decided. This preliminary hearing has been likened to 'a trial before the trial' in that the most important facts about the patent itself are settled. The trial-in-chief is largely about the parties' behavior and the scientific field in general. It is settled by jury, and juries are worthless in the patent sphere... 54% of verdicts are overturned on appeal. So every verdict related to an important patent gets appealed... The real crux of the matter happens before a special appeals court specializing in patent cases - the CAFC or Federal Circuit for short. It's extremely expensive and time-consuming to get to the CAFC, which is the only chance a litigant (traditionally) has of getting a decision by someone with a clue
IPR short circuits all that. It allows much smaller and less powerful entities to challenge the 800 pound gorillas of the world. The Microsofts and Monsantos don't like this. And they are the entities that very much dictate policy to the Department of Commerce.
Re:Basic Background Information (Score:4, Insightful)
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I've found the examiners are sufficient to perform their role. They don't need to be bleeding edge researchers, only to know enough to check various databases for pre existing art. It's not a high bar.
But yes they do get too many cases to spend enough time on each one so have a tendency to let some silly stuff through.
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Oops, I forgot about the Bayer Acquisition. You have a point about the examination in chief (and so does the other guy who replied to you). I've heard that different Art Units have totally different expectations and metrics. But yeah, the daily reality of being a PTO examiner is akin to a pinball game... the goal being to maximize score, not necessarily do a good/thorough job.
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Well Monsanto does not exist anymore, which tells you about the fate of 800-pound gorillas in a blue whale world.
Just because Monsanto is wholly owned by Bayer and is no longer trading shares on the open market, that does NOT imply that Monsanto no longer exists. Ok, yeah, we can say that you technically told the truth. Technically. The same systems and structures exist regardless of what they are called. Monsanto did not die, it morphed. Likely to get rid of the trillions of dollars of potential liability lawsuits. Rather like the contracting companies that serviced the US military in Iraq. Most of them have changed
I Patent useing the letter "E" in ecom business (Score:2)
I Patent useing the letter "E" in ecom business.
My fee $0.00020 per use.
Luckily th3 l3tt3r "3" is brok3n in my k3yboard (Score:3)
So no royaliti3s for you filthy patent troll!
I only got su3d by 3com now for trad3mark infring3m3nts.
Legitimate inventors hurt by IPR? (Score:3)
So, are there any cases of the IPR being used to stifle real innovation rather than just trolling?
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What about legitimate innovations in troling? ;)
Please don't get your legal news from TechDirt (Score:3)
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Re:Please don't get your legal news from TechDirt (Score:4, Interesting)
The question is, is the change necessary? The EFF directs to USPTO’s statistics, which say that 1083 patents were challenged in 2022, 350 (32%) were at least partially invalidated, of which 132 were fully invalidated. These percentages also hold for all patents challenged since the process was instituted (8,578 in all until 2022).
In 2022 the USPTO granted 382,559 patents (out of 646,855 patent applications).
The number of patent disputes with this system seems rather small on one hand and to have a pretty decent success in invalidating patents. If there's need to change the system, it's certainly not apparent from these statistics.
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Only when it works... (Score:3)
How about only allowing a patent when you can exhibit a working example? It should not be possible to patent an idea, and thereby take profit from someone who later makes it possible.
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Because that is impractical.
I invent a new way to build a cpu. Do I have to build a fab for a billion dollars to produce it for a patent? And a new cpu looks just like an old cpu. What purpose will providing a sample do?
Or it could be a new material for tires. Is the PTO going to chemically analyze a sample?
Or I design a bed that prevents back pain. Is the PTO examiner going to sleep on my bed for 6 weeks to try it out?
dropped in 1880 (Score:2)
Until 1880, showing a prototype had been a requirement.
But it has been dropped as some innovations are hard to physically demonstrate.
Corruption (Score:3)
protecting individual inventors is a good idea (Score:2)
from TFA
"Basically, if a patent holder is designated as an âoeindividual inventor, startupâ or âoeunder-resourced innovatorâ then their patents are protected from the IPR process."
Right now under IPR, the individual inventor can get crushed by others who can file IPRs to harass them. Many don't have the money to hire attorneys to defend them, or the knowledge to do so themselves.
There remain other methods to cancel truly bad patents.
Perhaps these protections should disappear once the p
Target the trolls (Score:2)
This is IMHO, total bullsh*t, a waste of time, and quite frankly a major cave to the patent troll lawyer lobby. What they should be doing is requiring that a patent be commercialized. IPR should also make it easy for any challenger to refer a reviewer to prior art that wasn't patented.
How I responded to the proposed rule (Score:2)
Here's the comment that I posted to regulations.gov:
The USPTO's own statistics for fiscal year 2022 show that 1083 patents were challenged and 350 (~32%) were at least partially invalidated. In that year 382,559 patents were granted out of 646,855 patent applications.
It looks like the number of patents challenged by the current system isn't that large and the success rate is quite high.
This brings into question the necessity of making changes to the system. However, if such changes are desired anyway, it's