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Patentdone
If a patent application is filed and the filing fees are paid, it could be ...
Patentdone
There are as many as more than 700,000 applications piled up in the USPTO and it ...
Opinions divided on patent reform impact
Rick Merritt
6/24/2011 5:36 PM EDT
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Large electronics companies generally praised and individual inventors criticized the patent reforms passed yesterday by the U.S, House of Representatives. Congress still has to complete the legislation which is expected to have moderate impact across a diverse range of issues.
"A lot of people have put a lot of effort over the last ten years in this and our view is the House bill improved on the Senate bill passed earlier this year," said David Simon, associate general counsel for intellectual property policy at Intel.
"I don’t think we will change our strategy for acquiring patents [due to the reforms], but we expect with fewer unjustifiable patents in the market we will not have defend ourselves as frequently as we do today," said Manny Schecter, IBM's chief patent counsel.
"While a bill was passed, it was not a bill about invention, [it] was a bill about influence, ignorance and indifference, much like the bills that led to the financial collapse and the great recession," said Steve Perlman, a serial entrepreneur who waited eight years for a patent fundamental to one of his startups.
Congress must reconcile differences in House and Senate legislation before sending a final bill to President Obama who has signaled he will sign it. It's not clear how long that will take or what items might get changed in the process.
"People have been working on this a long time so there's a good chance it will get passed, but with the debt ceiling issue out there it could take time," said Allen Baum, a patent attorney and managing shareholder at Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione.
One of the most controversial provisions of the bill was its move from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file system to harmonize with most other patent offices around the world. Individual inventors such as Perlman warned the move would spark a rush to the patent office in which big companies would have an advantage.
"Going to first-to-file won't have a material impact on our patent application strategy," said Schecter of IBM which has been awarded the most U.S. patents every year for the last 18 years. "We won't file more or less because of it, and we won't change the way we process our apps because of it," he said.
Both IBM and Intel noted only about 70 out of nearly a million patents a year go into so-called interference disputes at the patent office about which was the first to invent.
Patent attorney Baum said he believes companies will explore how they can file applications more quickly. "Large companies with more resources will be advantaged, but the current system disadvantages little guys anyway," Baum said.
Today "it's hard for small companies and garage inventors to keep the kind of records needed to show they are first to invent, it's very expensive to conduct an interference hearing and little guys tend to lose them," Baum explained.
The harmonization is expected to help major patent offices share more work, such as prior art searches. It is also expected to simplify the job of companies who must apply for patents and sell products globally.
The harmonization is only partial. The U.S. is still unique in having a one-year grace period in which inventors can disclose their inventions—to potential investors, for example—before they have to apply for a patent.
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Sheetal.Pandey
6/26/2011 10:10 PM EDT
Well this is a very confusing topic as always atleast for me. Not sure why the patent issues always get stuck with national politics. It should be an science and technology/art domain.
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Dave.Dykstra
6/27/2011 1:10 AM EDT
And, of course, there will always be disagreement about what patent reform is the right reform. But I think almost everyone agrees that the current system needs to be changed. Just about any change would be an improvement and this certainly looks like it has a number of improvements for small companies and individuals.
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Simon7382
6/27/2011 6:36 PM EDT
We have to look at the final bill when it passed both houses. But, from what I have heard so far, this bill offers very few improvements for small companies and individual inventors and is heavily tilted toward the interests of behemoths like Intel and IBM. If so this is the wrong kind of bill, if the goal is to further and improve our innovation processes as a nation.
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goafrit
6/29/2011 6:11 AM EDT
This is the most difficult aspect of engineering. You create things and lawyers make billions out of it. Sometimes I do not know the one to choose. Leave patents and get lawyers out of this. But Congress full of lawyers seem to keep them in bsuiness more.
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Patentdone
8/25/2011 12:56 AM EDT
There are as many as more than 700,000 applications piled up in the USPTO and it usually takes as long as almost 3 years to grant a patent.
Also, there are inventors who are individuals and could not afford the high amount of the government fees although there are some discounts or tradeoffs.
These difficulties will get even more huge after the change from the first-to-invent system to the first-to-file system. Because an inventor have to file an application as soon as possible to protect his ideas.
There is a suggestion made attemped to solve this problem. The method discussed as follows may be called as Revoked-but-Not-Terminated(RNT).
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Patentdone
8/25/2011 12:57 AM EDT
If a patent application is filed and the filing fees are paid, it could be revoked but not terminated within the period of its life, say, 20 years from the filing date. If a patent is granted, it could be revoked but not terminated. In turn, the appicant or patentee should give a step back. His intellectual rights are not protected during the period being revoked. Anyone may utilize the invention during that period without paying the roylty fees at any time.
For example, if an inventor has filed an application and paid the filing fees, but he does not find a buyer and does not have an examination until 5 years later from the filing date, then the application is revoked during this period, anyone may utilize the invention freely during those 5 years and do not have to pay anything even after the patent is granted.
If the patent is issued 6 years later from the filing date, and tends to not sell well, the patentee may not pay the maintenance fees. And the patent is roylty free until the patentee paid 7.5 years after grant when he sees the patent tends to sell well.
As a result, many of the applications shall find it out that it is not in a hurry to be examined at all. Thus the patent office will free tension geatly and it will take much quicker speed to examine the applications really in a hurry.
Also, for one especially an indepent inventor who could not afford the patent fees, he could wait until he has sold out his invention to start an exmination.
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