decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
Can it be reformed? | 478 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
How to reform the US Patent Office
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 07 2012 @ 11:06 AM EDT
Perhaps there ought to be something regarding pending patents, ie the period
between publication and granting.

eg 11. Until the patent is granted, it is deemed to be invalid, however, should
it be granted, it is deemed to have been valid since it was published.

This period is a grey area, as during it the patent is in a state of being like
Schroedinger's Cat - it is both valid and invalid and only on the grant/refusal
date is the box opened and the state of the Cat (patent) made known.

What recourse to licences made (if found invalid) and infringements made (if
found valid) is something with which I cannot decide.

Also, re 6:

I should have noted that a patent applicant can apply for re-exam, etc. Once
all re-exams are over and the patent is still not valid, or if the monopoly
period from the filing date runs out before the re-exams are finished then the
patent enters the public domain as of the filing date.

The point about filing, and publishing dates is that your monopoly period is
calculated from the filing date (when you've said you've got a novel invention,
but only effective from the [last] publication date when it is made public.

If you've done your patent application properly, you would be happy to publish
your invention when you file it and this would be the effective start of the
patent, and you would get the longest period possible of licensing ability;
should you delay publication or need to make corrections, then you don't deserve
the full monopoly period as you were not willing to make the details public as
soon as possible so that they could enhance the "sciences", or hadn't
got it right in the first place - you lose time of monopoly protection as a
punishment of not having it ready; which could be very costly as someone could
publish your invention between you filing and it being published (by the USPTO)
and so be prior art that causes the patent application to fail.

The point of patents are that they are a government granted monopoly in return
for disclosing [completely, clearly and exactly] to the public; if you want to
try and keep it a trade secret, then you lose out to others who are willing.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Can it be reformed?
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 07 2012 @ 01:18 PM EDT
The published track record does not indicate to me that it is salvageable.
Anybody hold out any hope?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

How to reform the US Patent Office
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 07 2012 @ 08:02 PM EDT
As I understand it, the purpose of a patent is to provide protection in exchange
for the revelation of a novel idea.

Let's say that I as a software developer wanted to do the 'right' thing
according to the pro-patent advocates. I have a problem I can't solve, I should
be able to search the patents, find one that gives me a solution I am looking
for, strike a deal with with the patent holder, then use the patent to implement
a solution.

First question - is there a tool where I can search the patents based on
keywords about my problem to find patents that may hold a solution? It is
important that I be able to search on the parameters of the problem, not the
solution. After all, I don't have a solution yet, which is why I am doing the
search in the first place.

Second, has anyone ever seen a software patent written in a manner that one
could actually use to assist in building a solution? The ones I have seen are
designed to cast the net so wide they are next to useless.

Unless both of these requirements are met and met well, then the system is not
able to provide the service it is intended to provide. If something is that
broken, why not dump it?

Regarding prior art, why just *prior* art? One of the criteria for a patent is
that it must be for something that is not obvious to someone skilled in the art.
If a developer was able to recreate a design covered by a patent independently
and without reference to that patent, one could argue that the invention was in
fact obvious and the patent could be challenged. If a lot of developers were
able to recreate a design covered by a patent independently and without
reference to the patent, surely the patent should be toast!

It seems to me that the entire system is to set traps for other developers to
become ensnared should they come up with the same solution. In fact, the more
obvious the patented solution, the more valuable the patent. Where is the value
in a patent no one else has thought of?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )