

Financial services industry given special powers to fight patents - moondistance
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/in-a-bill-wall-street-shows-clout/

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mcherm
The comment I posted to NYTimes:

The motivation for this legislation actually passes the common sense test:
it's absurd that there is only one company in the country allowed to process
scanned checks. But a law that excuses the financial industry from business
method patents is not the correct solution.

Any industry can be subject to this kind of absurd restriction. Financial
services just happens to be the first industry where business method patents
were invented. Some industries, like programming, are even more heavily
affected.

The correct solution is to eliminate business method patents for EVERYONE.

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sedev
This makes the cynical parts of my brain howl with laughter. Apparently
problems with the law aren't __real __problems until they inconvenience rich
white financiers!

I mean, if they end up throwing out business-method patents, I'm all for it,
but it's very sad that this is yet another political problem whose legislative
resolution will be completely unrelated to the merits of the issue. One would
prefer a resolution where the best arguments, not the deepest pockets, win an
argument.

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xrandr
Don't be fooled by the current hate towards wall street (not that they don't
deserve it). As far as I can tell this legislation would actually be a good
thing.

Just read the part of the bill in question at
<http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h1249/show>. I didn't see anything
specific to the financial industry in there. Even assuming some nefarious
special interest bankrolled the provision (section 18), it still sounds
sensible to me. I think it just makes it easier to challenge "business method"
patents. As far as I'm concerned the whole notion of a business method patent
is utterly idiotic and counterproductive, economically speaking. So making it
easier to challenge business method patents sounds sensible to me.

Seems that this news is being spun against wall street by a concerted lobbying
effort: "Not surprisingly, the ever-aggressive plaintiff's bar is bankrolling
a major lobbying effort to strip Section 18 from the Senate-passed reform bill
when it comes up for a vote on the House floor."
[http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-
blog/judicial/168087-stopp...](http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-
blog/judicial/168087-stopping-the-patent-troll-scam)

Reuters has a shorter piece in favor of the provision.
[http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/07/05/bringing-
se...](http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/07/05/bringing-sense-to-
business-method-patents/)

~~~
asmithmd1
No, there is no spin needed - this ONLY applies to the financial industry. You
didn't read far enough:

(d) Definition- (1) IN GENERAL- For purposes of this section, the term
‘covered business method patent’ means a patent that claims a method or
corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations
used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or
service, except that the term does not include patents for technological
inventions.

------
lucasjung
So the financial industry will get a "second chance" to subject business-
practice patents to review and possibly get them invalidated. The author and
most of the people he quotes are concerned about level of influence that Wall
Street has demonstrated over Congress in this case (a concern that I share),
but a re-review of business-practice patents seems like a good thing to me. My
biggest complaint would be the narrow scope: why limit it to the financial
industry? Why not allow a system-wide audit of all business-practice patents,
and software patents too?

~~~
Maro
> Why not allow a system-wide audit of all business-practice patents, and
> software patents too

I don't think they have that kind of manpower.

~~~
Symmetry
This bill doesn't require that the government audit the financial industry
business patents, but rather lets the financial industry lawyers challenge the
patents in court (currently patents have a presumption of validity that would
prevent this in many cases). So it would be Google and Microsoft's lawyers
that would be doing this.

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sixtofour
So when will SV companies get together and lobby as a group for software
patent review?

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sek
I don't know how US politics works, but how can this slip trough without
public outrage? I read a lot about things like the birth certificate and
abortion. I always thought this is just in the media because your population
is more diverse.

Here in Germany Merkel and Ackermann (Deutsche Bank) had one dinner together
and there was public outrage and questions from the opposition.

~~~
sehugg
The difference is that in Germany you have at least one party that is not
completely in the pocket of the financial industry. We do not.

------
Natsu
Why fight against this? Just remove the limiter and apply it to all patents.
Especially software patents.

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gwern
Apparently what is good for the goose is not good for the gander...

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joe_the_user
The crocodile tears of this article are just disgusting. "Wall Street throwing
its weight around" against the biggest entity that is demonstrably _more_
parasitic and demonstrably _more_ unproductive of jobs or well-being for
average American; the greasy, blood fattened lamprey's of the intellectual
property mafia.

Even as this stands, if it passes, I suspect it will be a very good thing -
the thin-edge of a wedge. A situation where "no patent is safe" should inspire
... fewer patents.

