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Timothy B. Lee writes at Vox that the PATENT Act is focused on dealing with patent trolls: fly-by-night companies that get rich by exploiting flaws in the way the courts handle patent lawsuits. If trolls are the primary problem with the patent system, then the PATENT Act will go a long way toward fixing it. But according to Lee patent trolls aren't the primary problem with the patent system. They're just the problem Congress is willing to fix. The primary problem is the patent system makes it too easy to get broad, vague patents, and the litigation process is tilted too far toward plaintiffs. But because so many big companies make so much money off of this system, few in Congress are willing to consider broader reforms.
A modern example is Microsoft, which has more than 40,000 patents and reportedly earns billions of dollars per year in patent licensing revenues from companies selling Android phones. That's not because Google was caught copying Microsoft's Windows Phone software (which has never been very popular with consumers). Rather, it's because low standards for patents — especially in software — have allowed Microsoft to amass a huge number of patents on routine characteristics of mobile operating systems. Microsoft's patent arsenal has become so huge that it's effectively impossible to create a mobile operating system without infringing some of them. And so Microsoft can demand that smaller, more innovative companies pay them off.
But according to Lee there is hope that the courts may help. The most important decision might have been last year's Alice v. CLS Bank ruling, which addressed the patentability of software for the first time. Lower courts are still working out the exact implications of that decision, but the ruling led to the destruction of a dozen software patents within three months. It's likely to destroy hundreds more in the future. "Over the last decade, the high court has handed down a series of opinions that have very slowly corrected the law's pro-patent tilt," writes Lee. "The pro-patent laws that produced today's patent litigation crisis were developed by the courts over a 25-year period, from about 1980 to 2005. Since 2005, the Supreme Court has been working to restore balance to the patent system, but it could take another decade or more for them to complete their work."
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 04 2015, @01:41AM
You need to take another look at what things can really be patented and how vague they can actually be. We had this discussion just a week or so ago.
Start here: http://www.uspto.gov/help/patent-help [uspto.gov] Scroll down to "How do I know if my invention is patentable?"
You can't patent vague Ideas. Your invention has to be plausible, must actually work, must be useful, and must be described in enough detail to be able to be manufactured by someone skilled in the field.
The patent system is absolutely NOT designed to allow vague patents, even thought some have crept in over the years.
Vague patents are largely a thing of the past. (post alice and post KSR/teleflex)
STRETCHED patents are what we see too often today. (Someone will patent a device to sort gravel by stone size and then try to apply that to the field of medicine or computer technology.)
Secondly...
As to requiring something actively sold by the patent holder, I might not be in a position to start a huge manufacturing firm to make something I patented. That doesn't mean I deserve nothing. I might license some company to make it, and share some of the profit on license fees and royalties. If you don't allow that, you've made things WORSE. Under your plan only rich people and large corporations could have patents!! Thanks a lot fella! Who's side are you on anyway?
There may be a way around that, by requiring something to be produced using a patent within some fixed amount of time. Either by the holder or a licensee. If Licensed, the terms and costs must be public. (After all it was a PUBLIC Patent you used to license it.) This would stop Microsoft and their secret licensing deals. Also, once you license something you should be required to issue licenses to all comers at or below the previously published prices and terms.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 04 2015, @05:44AM
More importantly, any clause that you don't get your money back if the patent is later found to be invalid should not be allowed. Anyone licensing a patent that was later found invalid should be required to pay back any money they got for licensing it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.