Analyzing Congress's Multiple Approaches To Patent Reform 58
ectoman writes "Patent reform is becoming an unavoidable issue — and the United States Congress is taking note. But the scope and scale of the problem have prompted multiple legislative solutions, and keeping track of them all can be rather difficult. Mark Bohannon, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Global Public Policy at Red Hat, provides an overview of four important legislative actions currently under consideration, offering clear and concise analysis of their goals and provisions. He also assesses their potential impacts. 'Given the widening attacks by PAEs [Patent Assertion Entities],' Bohannon concludes, 'it is essential that Congress work to produce meaningful legislation on at least the issues identified above in order to begin to stem the tide.'"
Re:Their attempts to reform will last... (Score:0, Insightful)
Patents should be intelligible (Score:4, Insightful)
Patents should be readable and understandable to people with typical proficiency in the industry or science under question. Now, maybe some of the specifics of the invention may require more expertise, but the parts of interest to business managers should be written to be understood.
As an example, think of 3D systems patenting stereo lithography 25 years ago. They would have no problem stating what their invention was, why it is unique and non-obvious, etc. It's only when you have a trollish type invention that you have to write it in a language so that even an expert in the field would have trouble figuring out what the claims are, or make so many claims that nobody would bother reading it all (comparable to the "terms of use" and "user's agreements" drafted by lawyers for banking and software products).
Re:Be careful what you wish for. (Score:4, Insightful)
How about a non-profit endowed by public funds but supported by private investment? Let the manufacturers propose some of the research and even fund it but with the caveat that the result will be public domain. Then they can compete on quality and efficiency of production rather than by fiat.
We do already have something like this. The University system was made for it.
Re:Be careful what you wish for. (Score:4, Insightful)
What I find interesting is that every patent discussion always seems to be exalting the huge costs involved in patenting new drugs and why pharmaceutical companies must get some special protection for all of their effort.
All of this discussion seems to miss that there are millions of patents that are filed that have absolutely nothing to do with drug processing or manufacturing... many of which are causing a huge problem because they are overly broad and in some cases likely have outlived their usefulness. Frankly, I think all of the issues about helping the drug industries should be moved over to a completely separate law where the issues about pharmaceutical development can be dealt with separately from other kinds of patents. Trying to paint everything equally is exactly why this issue has blown up in the way it has... not to mention the gross expansion of patented concepts like "business method patents" and software patents.
I seriously doubt that millions of lives will be saved because of Amazon's 1-click shopping patent, and there are thousands if not millions of similar patents that will likely not matter worth a damn in terms of actually helping with the progress of technology and science.
Here is something else as food for thought: The supposed reason for granting patents is that information about the invention being patented is preserved for posterity through the patenting process. Having read more than my share of patent grants and the documentation provided to obtain a patent, there is absolutely nothing in the current process that would preserve any detail of a genuinely novel concept for posterity.... thus even the supposed rationale for why it is happening simply doesn't happen. Yes, somebody who has received a patent may publish details about their invention outside of the patent process that somebody skilled in the technology could recreate the concept, but it certainly isn't required. You can't possibly suggest that patent applications as they currently exist could possibly get that accomplished as well.
At best all they do is suggest that there might have been an invention that did something according to the claims.... but even that isn't true. Far too many patents simply violate the basic laws of physics like FTL communications or perpetual motion machines. Yes, patent examiners try to dismiss those kind of patents, but plenty slip through the cracks and get granted anyway. A patent doesn't even guarantee that the invention even works as promised or is even capable of being made.