Patent system changes in the works?

It doesn't take the intellect of a US Senator to notice that there's something wrong with our patent system, but it looks like those Senators might finally do something about it. Nothing has even made it out of committee yet, so the actual passage of a patent reform bill still seems quite far off, but there is definite talk going on in Washington as to what patent reform would look like, and there seems to be enough common ground for some good to come of it. The leaders of an intellectual property panel within the Senate's Judiciary Committee had a hearing Tuesday to discuss ideas for new patent legislation, and it was well attended by panelists from tech, pharmaceutical, biotech, independent inventors, academics, and finance. There was plenty to say, and it seems most agree that there needs to be a new system to allow challenges to patents shortly after they're approved in order to avoid costly litigation later on. Tech and financial service companies are also pulling for a second "window" to allow them to dispute patents once a patent infringement suit is filed, something that would've probably aided RIM in their recent fight. Not everyone else is so hot about this idea, so we'll see if this makes it into the final legislation, but it seems any action towards reform would be helpful at this point, so we'll take what we can get.

[ECM @ May 24th 2006 5:15AM]

You may not like how the system works now but, I assure you, no good can come of this...

[Cloud @ May 24th 2006 6:17AM]

I sure hope this doesn't mean they will jack up the price on pattents because it's already ridiculus!

[Craig @ May 24th 2006 8:25AM]

i've got a great idea on how patents should be filed! i think i'll patent it. yeah...

[Michael @ May 24th 2006 8:32AM]

The reason so many bad patents are issued is because the patent offices budget is payed by the fees on patents. So there is an incentive to get as many patents approved as possible in order to keep the lights on. They need to get a bigger line item in the budget of the Commerce department. Then it wouldn't have to issue bad patents.

Here is a 2004 article on the budget of the patent office. I'm sure it's only gotten worse.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4788834/

[187 John Doe @ May 24th 2006 8:45AM]

I know what they could do. Stupid issuing idiotic patents. e.g. the one-click shopping cart by Amazon. Oh aren't they being sued for that by another patent which claims the same?

[George Crawford @ May 24th 2006 10:36AM]

I have to agree with #1 above., nothing good can come of this...

:) George

(PS: please dont tell me to go back to Slashdot since I am not welcome here :) )

[Matt @ May 24th 2006 10:49AM]

The patent system is at least 200 years old. It's already highly refined. It's not "broke", it's just that a lot of people (mostly people who don't own valuable patents) don't like the way it works. This isn't new.

That said, major changes risk upsetting a balance which has taken hundreds of years to hammer out. Any changes should be vetted by highly capable people.

Unfortunately, most of the people who could really help things have left the PTO to work in private practice, so that they can be paid better.

[anon @ May 24th 2006 12:04PM]

Can I patent their patent reform idea?

[T.H. @ May 24th 2006 2:39PM]

The patent system _is_ broke. When someone (Microsoft) can patent sending electrical signals through a body when it's freaking middle or at the latest high school science that the body can conduct electricity. It would seem obvious that sending data through the body is possible by using electricity low enough not to harm the body but strong enough to actually pass it to another device. Or how about the Amazon's one click patent. Or patenting push email just because it's over a wireless network as opposed to a wired network. Face it, the patent system is broken.

[Eric Merritt @ May 24th 2006 6:55PM]

I've filed several patents and the process seems smooth enough although the length of time for the PTO to look at an application is too long. It seems to me that if reform takes place, it should be in greasing the wheels of the system and somehow limiting patents to things that aren't painfully obvious or just shouldn't be patented like the examples above. Tough to draw the line, I know, but maybe they could just move the current line back a wee bit. Also, I'm for anything that helps reduce needless litigation.

[luc picard @ May 25th 2006 3:21AM]

Patent system good.... slow and expensive though
cool shit!

[Sam @ May 25th 2006 6:04AM]

A BETTER PATENT SYSTEM:

SHOULD NOT ALLOW TO PATENT:
1. General ideas.
2. Simple ideas (e.g obvious).
3. Descriptions of the world we live INCLUDING our human nature (e.g DNA descriptions).


SHOULD ALLOW TO PATENT:
1. a CLEVER WAY to implement a general idea (e.g the format, or the procedure) but WITHOUT including general ideas.
2. Another WAY to implement the same general idea if it is essentially different and offers a great advantage over the previous one.


With a system like this, each idea would contribute to the technological evolution encouraging other implementations but only if they are essentially better.

[John Commenter @ May 25th 2006 5:20PM]

I want to patent the idea of a criminally lame joke about patenting patenting or patenting the topic under discussion.

Oh, I'm sorry, that joke comes up about ten times in every patent thread on every forum or board in the world for the last ten years. Not new, I guess.

My options appear to be reduced. I'd instead like to patent the idea of a ubiquitous self-replicating worm and web-services filter that changes all such jokes into the classic Underpants Gnome meme, with patenting replacing one of the steps. This is also not new, and is not much better, except that underpants are inherently funny, and it is a well known fact that all discussions involving patents are improved by threadjacking to underpants.

[Sam @ May 26th 2006 2:27AM]

Uhmm... Sorry #13 John Commenter, bad number,

..you are not allowed to repeat the above jokes, I just patented them!

Also, I anylyzed your style (that you failed to claim as your own) and I'm in the process of patent pending it as a humor element for the virtual personality of an autonomous steam-bot that will say a joke to the enemy before termination, just for confusion! This will be good for defense purposes too! So please change style next time!