

Senators to Debate Patent Bill - marcusbooster
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/business/28patent.html

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noonespecial
I'm not generally a negative person but given recent circumstances, I've got
to ask _"Is this how it goes now?! Does every meaningful reform get hijacked
by special interests so that instead of fixing the suck, we get more of what
made us need reform in the first place? Seriously?!"_

Sorry for that rant, it just seems so damn frustrating what with the health-
care debacle and now this.

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danenania
"Is this how it goes now?! Does every meaningful reform get hijacked by
special interests so that instead of fixing the suck, we get more of what made
us need reform in the first place? Seriously?!"

Yes, thanks to basic economic incentives. You'd think we would start to figure
this pattern out eventually, but nope, we just keep asking for new programs
and committees and regulations and laws and create juicy target after juicy
target and then we're _shocked_ when corporations and politicians join forces
to pick them off one by one.

Even if we go for something like national healthcare due to pragmatism and
expediency, we should do so with the full knowledge that the best we can get
out of it is a corporate crony controlled nation healthcare system--it may be
significantly better than what we have, but it will still be sucky and corrupt
because we aren't going to make structural progress until we face the
structural flaws, both in our particular model of government and in government
as an institution.

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Rariel
"“The current system is just bizarre,” he said of the first-to-invent rule.
“Imagine parking your car in a metered space, then someone else comes up and
says they had priority for that space and they have your car towed. Under the
new system, if you are the first to pull in and pay your fee, you can park
there and no one else can claim it’s their space.” "

Wow. What a horrible analogy. Completely off base.

This bill is very radical, but there has been a call for reform for some time.
I think this is the wrong way to go. The first person to reduce an idea to
practice should still be the first person to get a patent. Making a mad dash
to file @ the USPTO shouldn't be the way you decide who gets the rights to an
_idea_. The decision should turn on who came up with that idea first.

My 2 cents.

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tbrownaw
But if multiple people (or groups) actually come up with it around the same
time, shouldn't that demonstrate rather clearly that it's too obvious to go
handing out a monopoly on?

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prodigal_erik
I wish more people would remember that a patent is supposed to be compensation
for publishing, because that's supposed to be a win for society over having an
invention live and die as a trade secret. But there is no market force
ensuring the price of licensing a patent is less than the cost of having each
competitor in the industry independently re-create the invention. Too often
it's just rent-seeking on the straightforward solution any skilled
practitioner would have reached, once they got around to considering the
problem.

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Rariel
How is it compensation for publishing? Publishing what? you mean the actual
patent?

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prodigal_erik
Yeah, the patent itself is _quid pro quo_ , not just a windfall for the
patentee. That's why it (theoretically) has to describe the best mode for
practicing the invention, in enough detail that anyone skilled in the art can
understand and use it. It's also why prior art only counts if it was published
somewhere.

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woan
If you thought our patent system couldn't get any worse especially when it
comes to software patents, we get this...

The wrong kind of reform. As the article indicates, it's clear that it makes a
deeply flawed system in favor of large companies and patent trolls even more
so.

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jessriedel
I am concerned that this will give large companies with experience filing
patents a big advantage over small businesses and independent inventors, but
naively this seems like it _suppresses_ patent trolling. Right now, if A
invents an idea before B, A can wait until B files the patent, develops a
product, and then A can file. Since A invented before, he trumps B's patent,
and now can extort money from B (since B has invested in product development
which is dependent on the patent). In a first-to-file scheme, patent-holders
can be confident that their intellectual property won't be taken.

~~~
noonespecial
The real question is this in "first to file": How does this affect so called
intellectual "property" entering the public domain by choice of the inventor?

If inventor A invents something useful and foundational and open-sources it
because he feels it benefits all mankind, can some greedy turd patent it later
and yank it back out of the public domain because he was "first to file"?

Currently all I have to do is invent the thing and publish it and it becomes
prior art, no need to file anything because I'm first to invent and I proved
it by publishing. Under this new system do I have to file first and pay for it
before I can declare it public domain?

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SoftwareMaven
I doubt the prior art requirements would change. Today, you can't (in theory)
get a patent if prior art exists. If Inventor A open sources the invention,
prior art is pretty easy to prove.

The bigger issue is that, unless the patent office happens to notice Inventor
A's work while process the patent, which, of course, is no different than it
is today.

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cduan
There's actually a whole lot more to this patent reform bill than the article
lets on. Here is an article listing the proposals:

[http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/02/patent-reform-act-
of...](http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/02/patent-reform-act-of-2011-an-
overview.html)

I'm particularly interested in the new third-party challenge procedures, which
would let people submit arguments during patent examination and then oppose
patents on any grounds after they issue (for example, you could contest the
patent at the Patent Office for being vague; right now you can only do that in
court).

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Rariel
Yes, that is also huge. Overall I am so disappointed with this attempt that
will likely become law.

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elehack
If the bill was just what the Times is portraying it to be, it does sound
terrible. However, the poorly-written article seems to grossly misrepresent
the bill in favor of a scare story. Reading the bill summary and Patently-O's
run-down, there are some points of concern, but in general it looks like a net
positive. Simplified and enhanced third-party prior art and review procedures
sound like a huge win.

Bill summary here: <http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s112-23>

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jaekwon
vote up if you want to live in a world with no patents whatsoever.

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gabrielroth
Oh, is that how we're setting policy now?

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dexen
You mean, by voting and manifesting support or opposition to bill proposals?

