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: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:10PM
As long as there is not a disincentive to file shit lawsuits, it will be the jerk with the most gall (and money) that will prevail.
Luckily, Congress Expected to Pass Anti-Patent Troll Legislation This Session [rollcall.com]
Now that Harry Reid is on the way out, this thing--which has bipartisan support--should finally get a vote (and will likely pass).
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by arslan on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:59PM
There's always people who would want to game the system, no matter what it is. There's no way to come up with a completely perfect system. Best is to start with something and refine it as we see problems. Even when you get to a state where its near optimum, time changes things and you'll have to revisit it again.
So I kinda agree that its the system that is problematic. Has it been continually refined to keep up with change?
I don't know about this anti-patent troll act, but the way I see it is the really rich and powerful today (most big conglomerates) seems to only get slap on the wrist no matter what laws they break anyway, so this isn't gonna curb that end of the spectrum. Sure it'll discourage small time patent trolls, but will it also discourage small time actual patent cases?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 04 2015, @01:01AM
Best is to start with something and refine it as we see problems. Even when you get to a state where its near optimum, time changes things and you'll have to revisit it again.
Great approach for a software development project.
Not so great for legislation. Stability and fairness are two things you need law, and throwing it all back on the fire every few years to roast it a little more never leads to stability, and often leads to loopholes for special interests.
gewg_ expects the current bill to pass, but his own link shows there is serious opposition from moneyed interests and their man Coons from Delaware is really working to undo improvements past in recent years.
Here is a guide to the key Patent reform bills [patentprogress.org]
HR 9, is the one gewg_'s link was talking about. It really does NOT address vague promises.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 04 2015, @01:04AM
I meant vague patents.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday May 04 2015, @03:04AM
No one is saying to iterate it as frequent as a software project, laws should be revise as time changes. Patent and privacy laws drafted pre-digital era is a good example of why laws should evolve with the times. Plugging gaps rather than taking a step back and looking at what cause the gap is a waste of everybody's time.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday May 04 2015, @07:06PM
Can you point to any such laws that were actually invalidated due to new technology? Because it seems generally the problems stem from iourts/legislators/law enforcement pretending that laws simply don't apply to new technology. Like when they pretend the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to searching your phone, because......it has Internets!
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:36AM
IANAL, so it is a matter of opinion of course, but you can also google for it. Here's a few articles where other's have noted the need to revise laws for the digital age.
For example if you google for "revising laws for the digital age" [cornell.edu]
A book about it here [cap-press.com].
If you're American, which I'm not. This whole debate about meta-data collection skirting privacy laws (or one of the ammenmends in the US constitution?) is really brought about because the digital age brought with it new concepts that have yet to be formally adapted.
I'm sure there are lots of other examples.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @04:46AM
I LIKE TO SUX PENIS
_the gueg_ / i CAN'T be bothered to log in
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gravis on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:15PM
having exclusive access to a technology for five years is plenty of time to make back your investment and short enough that it won't completely stunt the growth of any particular market. patents are crap to start with but this seems like a fair compromise between the infinity patents they want and doing away with patents completely.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:16PM
Just do away with this ridiculous and greedy system of bullshit already, would you?
The solution is dead simple: kill it.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Tork on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:43PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Touché) by Nerdfest on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:51PM
That's what's happening already. The little guy really can't afford to fight them in court anyway.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Monday May 04 2015, @12:59AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 04 2015, @01:12AM
A few simple fixes to the system will correct that. Tearing the system down will make it worse.
One would hope so. But some fixes may not be so simple. We are probably free to tinker with the duration.
There is also this whole problem of Amending the Constitution. But those who want to tear every thing down and just eliminate patents all together probably wouldn't let a little obstacle like a Constitution get in their way.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday May 04 2015, @02:32AM
I agree, but I don't think the fixes are that simple. The real trick would be getting rid of the vagueness, which is how it's supposed to be anyway.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Monday May 04 2015, @04:04AM
What a joke.
Who exactly are making these "little fixes" and what is their motivation?
Face it, the system is broken because the system administering it is broken. Unless you fix the actual problem you are just deluding yourself.
The real pain in the arse is how this broken system is being forcefully exported around the world...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 04 2015, @04:38AM
I agree. Abolish patents, and copyright. At heart, these are systems that default to "no", in order to prevent loss. Such systems are all too attractive. I think there've been a number of psychological studies which show that most people will pass up a chance at a huge gain, in order to avoid a small loss. We're so afraid that the the little guy will be ripped off, have his work "stolen", that we do far more violence to everyone to head off that possibility. It seems not to matter that every year, thousands die of curable diseases all for the sake of drug patents.
We can fairly compensate artists and scientists, without copyrights or patents. Pay inventors and authors through crowdfunding, awards, and other forms of patronage.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 04 2015, @04:57AM
We can fairly compensate artists and scientists, without copyrights or patents. Pay inventors and authors through crowdfunding, awards, and other forms of patronage.
Chuckle. Yup that will work.
One company I'm familiar with Spends up to a billion dollars [ycharts.com] per Quarter on Research and Development. Crowd source that!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 04 2015, @01:55PM
Patronage does work. It is working right now. It worked well in the past, and now with so much better communication technology, we can do it much better, make it accessible to everyone, not just rich nobles. It was not copyright nor patents that funded most classical music, nor most scientific work. It was patronage. The entire college and university system is founded on patronage. Are you such a strong believer in copyrights and patents? And DRM, do you believe in that too? Whether or not you think patronage can't work, you have to admit that the copyright and patent system is definitely not working well. Perhaps it can be reformed, but I doubt that. One of the many problems is that the copyright and patent system has been turned upsidedown. Instead of protecting the little guy, it helps big organizations squash them. Instead of promoting progress, it hinders progress. Patronage doesn't have to be perfect, it only has to be better than copyright and patents, a pretty low bar.
As for your anecdote, should Gilead actually be considered a patron of science and scientists? In that link, there's a short write up at the bottom in which investors are urged to think about whether research should be considered an expense or an investment. But there's no mention of how many patents they have. Why? Patents are too hard to value? No doubt Gilead has thousands. They feel they have to play the patent game too, defensively patent everything they can. Or, is it that patents are not that important for figuring out what shares of Gilead should be worth?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 04 2015, @06:48PM
It worked in the past, because there was nothing better. Matching one rich guy with one struggling artist. (And the rich guy owned the work).
I repeat my challenge: Crowdsource a billion dollars a quarter.
I picked just one small company doing drug research. Surely you can muster all the world's enthusiasm and clamoring for patronage and come up with a billion dollars in three months. I'm not expecting you to fund all the R&D done in the US in a single quarter by every company for years in advance. Just one company, just one time, just a demonstrator. In return, I'm sure you could cause the resultant patents to be placed in the public domain.
You clearly have not a single clue about the scale of the problem at hand.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 04 2015, @05:32AM
That must be why lotteries are hugely unpopular … oh, wait …
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 04 2015, @03:34PM
Ok, I didn't get the mechanism correct. Nevertheless, the copyright and patent systems appeal to the human anxiety to avoid loss. The supportive thinking that backs copyrights and patents is mostly negative: Stop theft. Stop thieves, big and little, from unfairly profiting from others' hard work. Every unauthorized copy is a lost sale.
The system is also too individualistic, elevates the mythical lone inventor to hero status, as if inventions happen best in a vacuum, and there was no community of scientists and explorers who collectively figured out hundreds of little pieces of big puzzles, no shoulders of giants to stand on. Another negative aspect is taking the attitude that it is more important to avoid and stop the naysayers who think it can't be done, and the entrenched interests, the "giants standing on your shoulders", who don't want to be disrupted and who will play dirty and stop progress if they are given an opportunity to do so, if it seems to them that will help maintain their hegemony.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 04 2015, @05:29AM
Probably what would need to get fixed is the court system. A court system where you cannot get your right because you cannot afford it is not worthy of the label "justice".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday May 03 2015, @11:12PM
Very funny, you can pull your tongue out of your cheek now.
Either that or show me the army of "little guys" everyone keeps referring to - because I have not seen them anywhere in any of this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BK on Sunday May 03 2015, @11:40PM
Mod parent up.
The little guy has almost no hope in the current system, with or without reform. The Samsungs and Foxcons, and by extension the Apples and the Microsofts own all of the manufacturing capacity. Even if the little guy could get his product made, it's even money that imitations would reach the shelves first.
The only for the little guy to make any money is to sell out to the trolls.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @12:53AM
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday May 04 2015, @04:55AM
The little guy invents a device and six months later a cheaper clone of it comes along and is sold at a loss until the originator goes caput.
Wrong. Here's what happens:
A little guy thinks he invents something great. He's wrong of course, because he is stupid and there isn't anything you can invent that isn't trivial to someone smarter than you. But anyway he gets a patent on it. Then he sells it to someone else (maybe a legal firm, maybe a large company).
Then another little sees a product that is overpriced and badly designed, so he makes a better one and starts selling it. Then the large legal firm comes in and accuses the little guy of being so stupid that he couldn't have designed what someone else was somehow able to design.
Then the big guy takes the little guy to court and destroys him. And we end up paying hundreds of dollars for otherwise cheap consumer electronics.
That is the patent system, and it is inevitable. Yes, the very concept of patents is flawed, and the entire system should be torn down. It is nothing more than a way to destroy competition and it sacrificing good engineering to do it.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 04 2015, @05:38AM
That part is nonsense. Unlike copyright, with patents it is completely irrelevant if you came yourself up with the infringing invention. So saying that you infringe isn't a claim that you didn't think of it yourself. It just says that someone else already invented it earlier and patented it. No more, no less.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday May 04 2015, @06:25AM
Yes, it is *legally* irrelevant. But the point of patents is to protect innovative ideas. If someone else makes the same design, then in common language the innovativeness of your design is doubtful, regardless of the legal definition. And in common terms, you haven't "infringed" on anything: you didn't even know a patent exists, there is no philosophical (mens rea) justification to allow the patent holder's prosecution.
The whole point is that the law is broken and inevitably so.
The entire system stinks and is not ever fixable because it is based on a fairy tale concept of "innovative". The story says "the primary problem is the patent system makes it too easy to get broad, vague patents" but doesn't deal with the fact that any standard at least subjective, and really is unjustified in any characterization.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday May 04 2015, @06:53AM
No, that's the propaganda. Patents were invented for a completely different goal: To make innovative ideas public. The problem patents were designed to solve was people keeping inventions secret. The deal was: You publish your inventions, and in return you get a limited-time monopoly on it. That's why the requirement of the patent is that you describe it accurately enough that anyone in the field can build it.
Also note: Invention, not innovation. Patents were not meant to be given for mere innovations, only for actual inventions.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday May 04 2015, @12:02AM
"Just do away with this ridiculous and greedy system of bullshit already, would you?"
Are you talking about multi-state lotteries again?
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Monday May 04 2015, @01:01AM
I am talking about a lot of things actually. I was intentionally crass and obscure...seems to have worked based on the moderation score. :)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by KiloByte on Monday May 04 2015, @02:32AM
Already, according to the law, software patents are invalid, being nothing but a form of math. Too bad, judges don't see it that way. This is the best way to fix.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Sunday May 03 2015, @10:17PM
There has always been a simple solution to both the problem of single companies amassing large patent portfolios to stifle competition and patent trolls: require a product to be being actively sold by the patent holder for the patent to be valid. So many of these patents are preemptive: individuals or companies come up with patents to ideas that they think might exist in the future for the express idea of either selling the patent to a patent hoarder or troll.
As far as broad patents go, the solution is similar: parts of the patent that aren't implemented in the product are void.
Unfortunately, as far as vagary goes, the patent system is designed to allow vague patents. Copyright is designed to protect against identical and nearly identical copies, patents are designed to protect against competition (a limited term monopoly to encourage sharing of knowledge). I see nothing wrong with allowing vague patents to an extent. I also think the only fix should be adding the word "reasonable" into a few key parts of the laws governing patents and issue guidelines to justice system for what is and isn't reasonably vague.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @12:17AM
PEOPLE kill industries... with patents
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @02:07PM
Come on, stop hiding behind scapegoats. Patents will always be vague because technology evolves in unforeseenable ways.-Ignacio Agulló