Administration Seeks Overhaul of Patent System
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The Bush administration wants to reform the nationâs patent system by requiring better information from inventors and allowing public scrutiny of applications.
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Republican senators are trying to delay a bill that would overhaul the U.S. patent system.
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The U.S. needs to overhaul its education system to encourage innovation and focus more federal funding on high-risk research to maintain a competitive edge over other nations, according to a report endorsed by leading U.S. companies and universities.
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Still handing out daft patents, though The US patent system is set for a thorough review, according to reports, with the aim of improving the quality of patents awarded, and thus reducing the number of patent lawsuits.â¦
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As reforms trickle in, the telecom industry is still subject to patent abuse.
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(InfoWorld) - The House Committee on the Judiciary approved far-reaching legislation to reform the nation's patent system Wednesday. The Patent Reform Act of 2007 largely reflects the IT sector's lobbying effort to curtail lengthy, expensive patent infringement lawsuits, but Wednesday's committee deliberations centered on finding compromises acceptable to opponents â namely the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, manufacturers, and large research universities â so that the bill could win approval. Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., described the current patent system as inefficient, bogged down by inappropriate litigation rules, unreliably funded, and resulting in patents of "questionable quality."Â  The bill would make it harder to secure a patent and easier for rivals to challenge one, and it would change how courts determine an infringed patent's value.Â  However, the version approved by the committee does not go as far on any of those fronts as the IT industry would have liked, and continued negotiations are underway. "Needless to say, our journey has been rugged," Conyers said, urging members to pass the bill out of committee. "We meet here today with the realization that we haven't finished the discussions. The meetings have gone on almost endlessly in some people's minds because compromises are necessary." The proposal Conyers brought forward addresses two of the most controversial provisions under discussion:Â  How courts determine the damages paid to patent holders by infringers and whether challengers are allowed to review patents after they've been granted. Assessing damages Calling the damages provision the most complex issue, the bill's original sponsor, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., said that allowing judges to determine damages by assessing the value of a component within an invention that was infringed â rather than the value of the entire product â would correct "bizarre and wrong-headed trends" in patent litigation.Â  Originally, the bill mandated that courts calculate damages by such an "apportionment" formula, which the IT industry largely supported.Â  However, the committee agreed to give judges the discretion to decide whether damages should be determined by apportionment, by the market value of the entire invention, or by other means.Â  Several committee members, including Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., said they would like to see further refinement of the provision because Congress canât predict the consequences of the apportionment analysis. "It would be important to give the court flexibility," Feeney said, adding that the bill could unduly diminish the value of some patents.Â  "We are in a whole new world of uncertainty." Promoting higher quality patents In a move that would make it easier to challenge a patent without going through costly litigation â and simultaneously make it harder for inventors to secure patents â the bill allows the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to review patents after they've been granted. In response to concerns raised by research universities and others, however, it limits the timeframe for such review. The legislation also makes it harder to secure a patent by giving third parties more opportunity to submit information to the PTO during the application process to ensure that only innovative inventions are patented.Â  The bill moves the patent system from a "first-to-invent" to a "first-to-file" system, but in another nod to large universities, the committee clarified a grace period on filing patent applications for inventors who disclose or publish inventions in advance of seeking a patent. Discouraging excessive litigation In an attempt to reduce abuses in patent litigation and discourage frivolous cases from being filed and non-frivolous cases from being unnecessarily drawn out, two other provisions were heavily debated and amended before the bill was approved: The ability of alleged infringers to charge patent holders with "inequitable conduct," and the patent holder's flexibility in selecting a venue for a case. Currently, alleged infringers can argue that a patent is invalid on the grounds that the holder did not sufficiently disclose information about an invention and thereby engaged in inequitable conduct. The often-used tactic is widely seen as a way to divert attention from the merits of the patent itself.Â  The bill narrows the circumstances under which this defense could be used and gives courts a range of options to remedy such conduct when it is found.Â  In an effort to curb forum shopping, the bill restricts patent holders to four options when choosing a venue to file a suit in.Â  However, the bill provides leeway for individual inventors, universities, and "micro entities" to bring patent cases where they reside. Noting that members of Congress cannot predict the consequences of the sweeping reform legislation, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, proposed requiring the PTO to conduct periodic studies of the impact of the most controversial provisions.Â  The proposal was enthusiastically approved. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to continue deliberating its version of the patent reform legislation Thursday.
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Patent debate may be taken out of hands of elected politicians under new measure, Parliament groups say.
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U.S. technology vendors submitted five patent applications for last Friday's launch of a Web site that allows the public to review proposals before patents are granted. Less than a week later, the public had submitted claims of previous inventions that could invalidate each one.
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The government is about to start opening up the process of reviewing patents to the modern font of wisdom: the Internet.
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(InfoWorld) - Innovation may be tough to define, but the best way to encourage it is to get rid of industry regulations and trade barriers, a group of IT-focused analysts said Wednesday. The U.S. must do a better job of encouraging innovation, said panelists at an ACT (Association for Competitive Technology) forum. But the speakers didn't all agree on how to accomplish that goal. Despite many U.S. lawmakers recently trumpeting their innovation agendas, the problem is that no one has a good way to define and copy innovation, said Veronique de Rugy, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "We know what it does, but we don't know what it is." ACT, an advocacy group representing small and medium-sized IT vendors, released a report on Wednesday calling for the U.S. government to embrace three policies to promote innovation: robust intellectual property protection, market-based international trade, and minimal competition regulation. Countries enacting those three policies, including the U.S., have created the best environments for innovation in the IT industry and other sectors, said Steve DelBianco, ACT's vice president for public policy. DelBianco decried efforts in other countries to block imports of U.S. technology. Countries like France and Norway,Â which have complained about how Apple has tied its iTunes music download service to its iPod player, are attempting to regulate an innovative service for the benefit of a handful of local vendors, he said. Many countries are looking for ways to cultivate innovation, he said. "The answers they seek will not be found in protectionism and centralized industrial policy, but in creating an environment that rewards innovations and embraces competition," he added. While ACT called on governments to take a deregulatory approach to trade and competition, it asked the U.S. and other governments to take action to protect its members' intellectual property. One major problem is the U.S. government doesn't see the large picture when other countries act to stifle U.S. products, said Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank. The U.S. reacts in a piecemeal fashion with trade complaints, but it doesn't seem to recognize that tariffs may be part of a national policy against U.S. products, he said. During a recent visit to India, Atkinson told IT leaders there that they depend on the U.S. to fuel their outsourcing industry, but the country maintained the second highest tariff worldwide on the import of U.S. computers. Indian leaders disputed Atkinson's numbers. Atkinson suggested the U.S. government shouldÂ take more action in pointing out such trade imbalances. "I think we're falling asleep at the switch in the U.S.," he said.
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WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration plans to revamp how it handles safety issues with the stents, pacemakers, implantable defibrillators and other medical devices it regulates.
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In Europe, industry leaders, government officials and others debate whether patents would hinder or cultivate innovation.
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Represantatives from Texas Instruments and AmberWave Systems say proposed legislation goes too far in overhauling the patent system.
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If reform is the right word Today, some of the biggest names in high-tech have their eyes on the nation's capital, where lawmakers are babbling about an overhaul of the U.S. patent system.â¦
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The Justice Department is urging federal courts to make fundamental changes in access to electronic court files.
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Industry organizations see opposition to patent reform legislation and step up the debate.
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It's time for Congress to fix problems with the patent system, Intel's general counsel says.