

Senator Leahy on Bilski - "it's time for Congress to act" on patent reform - grellas
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/press_releases/release/?id=9577014F-32D2-41A8-B189-AC07D86CC336

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schwit
Follow the money:
[http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N0000...](http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00009918)

He gets lots of money from those that would benefit from broader patents.

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sammyo
If just the folks reading this forum were to write a snailmail letter to their
congressman it would likely have a significant effect. The value of a non-
form/non-crazy-rant letter is something like ntimes greater than an email, n
being somewhere over 50.

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anamax
"reform" is often code for "we didn't screw it up enough last time". Other
times it's code for "we're hungry and they haven't fed us recently".

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russell
Patent reform would be best, but just changing the incentive system would do a
world of good. IIRC the patent office is funded partly by fees, giving it
motivation to quickly grant patents. Declining patents throws a monkey wrench
into the revenue stream. Examiners get lower evaluations if they do too much
of this. Fix it by changing the funding, fining for denied claims. Give bonus
points to examiners who deny patents/claims.

Citations needed: jump in if you have fresher knowledge.

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lincolnq
Bonuses to deny claims? Doesn't that swing the incentives the opposite way? I
bet there are plenty of reasons somebody could come up with to deny any given
patent. But some of them are genuinely valuable inventions and deserve
protection. So I'm not sure this is the right path.

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russell
You are right of course. The trick is to move the incentives to get the
desired result. If the system is fundamentally chaotic, a simple tweak would
result in all claims being denied. Or 90% of all patents being denied would
probably not be a bad thing. If OTOH, the system is quasi-stable, correcting
the incentives would remove the aberrations. Incentives tend to push the
results to conform to incentives. But I also believe that it a fallacy to
expect predictable results from a social system, thereby contradicting my
above assertion.

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joe_the_user
Interesting how political language today often uses phrases like "it's time
act".

What this doesn't say is "act _how_?". Finally eliminate software patents?
Shore them up?

The announcement is remarkably opaque on either what he thinks of the issue of
software patents or what he intends to do about it.

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jsz0
I have nothing against Sen. Leahy personally but given the state of our
democracy I assume he means it's time for the lobbying bidding war to start so
we can figure out which corporations and interests get to write the new law.
He doesn't have any specifics because he hasn't been told what to do yet.

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randombit
Actually, he seems to have a firm position:

"Innovation has been impeded in recent years by a patent system that too often
grants low-quality patents with overly broad claims, which have been used by
opportunists to extort royalty fees from manufacturers — particularly in the
high-tech sector. The problem of low-quality patents is exacerbated by a
litigation system that yields unpredictable and often overcompensating damages
determinations, which divert investment and resources from innovation."

"This new legislation contains a combination of provisions that will improve
patent quality; will provide a more efficient mechanism for administratively
challenging the validity of patents; and will provide more discipline and
certainty in damages calculations and willfulness determinations. The patent
system relies on high-quality patents. Patents with overly broad claims or
inventions that are obvious and not truly novel impede innovation and unfairly
cast doubt on the validity of those that are high-quality."

From <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34722.html>

