US Senate Targets Patent Trolls 56
New submitter jeffkoch writes: Last year, the United States Senate failed to pass bipartisan legislation to combat patent trolls when it was killed by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Congressional-insider newspaper Roll Call reports today that, "Knowing Reid would no longer control the Senate's legislative schedule in 2015, staff for John Cornyn, (a Republican from Texas), and Charles E. Schumer, (a Democrat from New York)", began work in February to assemble a new bill and to build support among fellow members of the Senate. Patent law is usually not a partisan issue, and President Barack Obama has called for getting an overhaul to his desk on several occasions including in his 2014 State of the Union speech. The last overhaul of United States patent law, the America Invents Act, took several years to be developed. The U.S. Congress is likely to act on the proposed legislation before they recess in August. "Patent trolls are taking a system meant to drive innovation and instead using it to stifle job-creating businesses around the country. Main Street stores, tech startups and more are being smothered by the abuse that is all too common in our patent system, and it's time for that to end," Schumer said in a statement. "This bipartisan bill shifts the legal burden back onto those who would abuse the patent system in order to make a quick buck at the expense of businesses that are playing by the rules."
One thing I can say about John Cornyn - (Score:2)
Sheila Jackson Lee saves him from being the most embarrassing rep from Texas, meaning, yes you can get lower.
(at least he's getting this one right)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Really? If you don't think Gohmert is embarrassing then maybe you need to sit at the kids table for a while. Gohmert has me convinced that the House of Representatives is just a massive program for the mentally challenged to get jobs.
Shelia Jackson Lee is horrible, but Gohmert isn't fit for ANY job.
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But, are they winning elections? It seems that's all you have to do, and then just sign whatever is put on your desk.
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The fact we've covered all of these bases and not even mentioned how embarrassing Jason "Don't Record the Police" Villalba is really says something about how bad Republicrats are in general.....
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Don't forget my favorite democrat of all. Nancy "We have to pass it to find out what's in it!" Pelosi. My nomination for the most ignorant cunt anywhere, not just in the house of ill repu...er....house of representatives. Stupidity is a bipartisan issue.
Re: One thing I can say about John Cornyn - (Score:3)
Nah. Truly ignorant cunts (your word) quote that line without ever realizing that it doesn't mean what they want it to mean. That is ignorance in the true meaning of the word.
And also use sexist "insults" because they are threatened by females, but always deny that.
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I use insults to be insulting. Why else would I use an insult you dolt? I used it to describe her as I see her. I heard it when she spouted that and it meant exactly what she said. Trying to twist it after the fact so it doesn't mean what she said is silly and useless. No one is buying your bullshit. I'm not a fan of many politicians on either side of the aisle but Nancy is in a league of her own.
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CUNT: "Can't Understand Normal Thinking"
Not a particularly sexist word by definition, it just applies more to the female sex more often than not.
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Fortunately you can't blame her on Texas.
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There have been some interesting characters from Texas on both sides of the aisle. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Texas though. I spent a few months on a base near San Antonio many years ago and loved the area. Although I wasn't that crazy about Lackland. :)
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I hadn't kept up with Gohmert all that much. I did some homework on him last night and this morning.
Not near the level of stupid as Sheila Jackson Lee.
400 year old constitution, talking about North and South Vietnam and their place in the world of politics, says she's a freed slave, wants TSA on buses, not to mention outright racist rants and abuse of her own office staff. Gohmert screwed up on the balanced budget amendment, said some hilarious things about caribou, and has made some other screw ups, but
And.. (Score:2)
..the lobbyists descend like vultures and kill the bill in 3....2....1....
Re:And.. (Score:5, Insightful)
But the lobbyists on BOTH sides will descend and americans only get to grab the popcorn and watch to see whose corporate money wins.
American "democracy" in action....
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Corporations is people!
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..the lobbyists descend like vultures and kill the bill in 3....2....1....
Probably not; who do you think actually wrote the bill?
Of course, what you think the bill is meant to do and what the bill actually accomplishes may be worlds apart.
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This is true. Usually "patent reform" in my mind means taking power away from corporations.
If you're a corporate cheerleader then I am guessing this isn't considered reform, even if it means getting patents to move back towards their original intent.
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Oh, and oblig. https://images.duckduckgo.com/... [duckduckgo.com]
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Re:And.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The likely outcome (Score:5, Interesting)
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More likely that nothing changes in my opinion. Society in the US is on brittle ice in many areas. More abuse by oligarchy may push things enough to break the ice, and people in power don't want that to happen. Contrary to the popular opinion, the people in power are not stupid and did not get into power by accident. They are actually very intelligent and well informed for the most part.
No change means that the people currently afforded protection, like IBM/Microsoft/Oracle/etc..., still have their idea
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On the other hand, large corporations life off buying smaller innovative companies, and those are being replaced and killed off by the patent trolls.
And those patent trolls on other hand aren't as nearly as useful to buy out as they don't actually invent anything.
My fellow peons. (Score:1)
Patent law is usually not a partisan issue, ...
Whenever something is not a partisan issue, that means the political class is all in favor of it. Ask yourself "why" they are in favor of it.
See, my fellow peons, when the political class gets in line for an issue that means we, the people are going to get fucked. Stop voting for your guy because you're afraid the "otherside" will win.
Let's have a binary sort of politicians.
Vote for your guy. Go ahead.
If he fails. Vote against him in the next election even if it means voting for the party you detest.
I
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Your theory is great -- except that's what has been done for generations in Canadian politics, and the result hasn't been all that much better than in the US; it just took slightly longer for the same laws to get passed. On the plus side, it *has* resulted in 3 viable political parties instead of a homogeneous political landscape with two token parties plopped on top. But that means that when you vote for "one of the other guys" driving policy for the country will actually *change* during the next term.
Overly-wide interpretations (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest problem appears to be allowing wide interpretations of patents and ignoring what would be obviousness in the eyes of most practitioners. Here are some suggestions:
1) A jury-like panel of practitioners to judge obviousness.
2) Spell out that merely emulating common physical actions or behaviors should not be patentable, only specific algorithms of such emulation.
3) Reject the mere combining of existing ideas unless the combining is judged non-obvious (#1).
4) Limiting the percentage of revenue a medium or large company can receive from patent royalties.
5) An independent quality review board to make sure approved patents are not overly broad. They'd randomly sample patents.
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It should, perhaps, be noted that a lot of things are obvious AFTER they've been invented.
NO doubt there are some that were also obvious before they were invented too, but it's by no means the same set of things....
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Obviousness can be graded on a scale. True, things seem more obvious once you figure out how they work, but we need some way to obtain an informed judgement call.
Perhaps require a relatively high percentage of the panel/jury to agree it's "obvious" to counter hindsight bias.
A tricky case may be one like Robert Kearns' windshield wiper patent. Solid state electronics (SSE) was relatively new at the time, but those who knew SEE well considered his technique fairly obvious, and that seems to be the consensus t
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There's that, but there's also the question of how small a percentage of those "skilled in the art" should need to consider something obvious before someone is granted a monopoly on it? To me it seems that this percentage should clearly be much less than 1% if there are 1000 skilled practitioners of the art. If there are more than 10,000 practitioners it should clearly be less than 0.1%. This would require an unwieldy jury size.
So I propose that if there is an independent invention of the same invention
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The biggest problem appears to be allowing wide interpretations of patents and ignoring what would be obviousness in the eyes of most practitioners. Here are some suggestions:
1) A jury-like panel of practitioners to judge obviousness.
2) Spell out that merely emulating common physical actions or behaviors should not be patentable, only specific algorithms of such emulation.
3) Reject the mere combining of existing ideas unless the combining is judged non-obvious (#1).
4) Limiting the percentage of revenue a medium or large company can receive from patent royalties.
5) An independent quality review board to make sure approved patents are not overly broad. They'd randomly sample patents.
These are good suggestions... Such that many of them are already implemented:
1) Before applications are allowed, they're judged by the Examiner and the Examiner's Supervisor (and, in the case of lower tier Examiners, also a Primary Examiner). It's a small jury, but still is one.
2) That's currently the rule - if something has been done before, it can't be patented. So, Apple's slide to unlock patent can't just claim "sliding to unlock" or "emulating a bathroom door-style sliding lock". Instead, it claims t
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I am thinking of practitioners in the field, not career Patent Office workers.
Regarding the Apple slide-lock patent, my understanding is it's the result of jurors' feelings and impressions, and not based on issues of emulating existing physical objects. (But I'm not a lawyer, so don't quote me.)
I recommend an organization independent of USPTO.
Sen. Reid didn't kill it; filibuster threats did (Score:5, Informative)
Sen. Reid said that the reason they didn't bring it to a floor vote is that Senators from both parties had made it clear they would filibuster the bill, so there would be no vote.
There were some good reasons for the resistance. Some of the compromises made in the Senate to the bill last year were a gift to large companies because it would limit the rights of those seeking redress for patent infringement.
Even Sen. Leahy, the bill's primary sponsor in the Senate admitted that. He said,
Source [thehill.com]
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And Sen. Reid is a known opportunist liar. Remember when he said on the Senate floor that he had been given information about how Mitt Romney wasn't paying taxes. When called on it recently, he all but admitted he was lying in order to get Obama reelected.
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When it comes to stuff like this, it's better to go straight to the source, rather than repeat things you've heard.
Senator Reid did not "all but admit" to lying. Take a look at the actual interview [cnn.com], starting at 2:45 in the video:
There is no admission of deceit, just an admission that it was politically motivated.
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Hence the "all but admitted". He admitted that the ends justified the means.
Additionally, there was never any actual proof or facts found that Romney didn't pay taxes...
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No, what he said is nowhere near an admission of deceit. It was a declaration that what he said, both about Mr. Romney's taxes, and the Koch brothers, help re-elect President Obama, nothing more.
Just because no proof ever came to light doesn't mean Sen. Reid wasn't told that by someone he trusted. Remember, even at the time Sen. Reid was clear he had no definitive proof, just a person's claim.
"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain, but obviously he ca
Honestly... (Score:2)
And Sen. Reid is a known opportunist liar.
To be fair, this pretty much describes 95% of the elected critters on Capitol Hill. By using the title "Senator" the rest of your statement was pretty much redundant.
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So over the last week the GOP has bills to make the EPA only regulate based on publicly available science that can be peer reviewed and they are "anti-science".
They now propose a bill to stop patent trolls and are now "big business and anti-little guy".
Now its pointed out how H. Reid refused to do anything and he is the victim of the GOP.
How idiotic are we supposed to be? Seems CLEARLY like one party is trying to improve things and the other is the party of no and false blame for not acting.
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You are assuming that the parties are monolithic blocks, which is incorrect. Many of them will grandstand on an issue that is not supported by their party if they think it will help their reelection, and some will do it for ideological reasons even if their party is on the opposite side.
BOTH parties are trying to centralize control. Both parties are trying to do what different constituencies want. And both are actually more interested in supporting the goals of unspoken backers. Neither of them puts the
Seems like I've seen this before... (Score:2)
Vice Versa (Score:4, Insightful)
Does anyone else care to bet that any bill coming out of the Senate to curb "patent trolls" is going to end up extending patents even longer and basically making the patent system even worse? Does anyone believe that the result of this legislation will be patent law that does a better job of encouraging innovation?
John Cornyn and Chuck Schumer are two of the biggest corporatists in the Senate. They're not looking to make the patent system work better for anyone but their donors. I don't trust them to do anything good when it comes to intellectual property laws.
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Does anyone else care to bet that any bill coming out of the Senate to curb "patent trolls" is going to end up extending patents even longer and basically making the patent system even worse?
Guaranteed they don't get longer. Patent term hasn't been extended since 1861*. Unlike copyright, where you've got big copyright owners with tons of money lobbying on one side vs. poor pirates on the other, and BMG and Sony have no interest in using each others' copyrighted works, in patents, everyone may want longer term for their own stuff, but shorter term for their competitors'. So, like if Microsoft started lobbying for longer patent term, Apple and Google would lobby against them. And vice versa.
*It
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Thank you for straightening me out on the length of patents.
My objection still stands on the grounds that John Cornyn and Chuck Schumer can only be up to no good. Both are bought and paid for by people who don't care a whit for encouraging innovation or improving the IP laws for the benefit of consumers.
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Thank you for straightening me out on the length of patents.
My objection still stands on the grounds that John Cornyn and Chuck Schumer can only be up to no good. Both are bought and paid for by people who don't care a whit for encouraging innovation or improving the IP laws for the benefit of consumers.
Absolutely. I should've been more clear that I was only objecting to the length part. :)
One of the main things they need (Score:1)
It seems to me that the big thing they need to to remove the 'use' restriction on patents.
That is, you can use a patented technology, you just can't sell anything that uses it. This would require someone that claims they own a patent regarding WiFi, for instance, to sue those making/selling the routers, not individuals/small businesses buying them.
US Senate Targets Patent Trolls (Score:2)
US Senate Targets Patent Trolls with ads soliciting campaign contributions.
- FTFY
TPP will let patent trolls go global (Score:1)
Fun fact, a corporation in Malaysia will be able to force your US State to rescind a lawsuit filed against a Malaysian owned patent troll.
Think about it.
Are you feeling like a Serf yet?
Wrong. Serfs had more rights than you do.
Good Law -> (Score:1)
US Senate Targets Patent Trolls (Score:2)