UK patent office ponders fast-tracking patents and trade marks
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Considers Gowers Review recommendations The UK Intellectual Property Office has launched a public consultation (pdf) on proposals to introduce a fast-track system for patent and trade mark applications. The plan builds on a suggestion made in the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property.â¦
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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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Last week, the US Patent and Trademark Office announced its official support of a Web site whose purpose will be to encourage citizens to assess the validity of patent applications for themselves, and issue challenges where necessary.  The notice gives the go-ahead to a New York Law School project to build an open-source-like patent review community.
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(InfoWorld) - European Commissioner Charlie McCreevy set out his plan for a single approach to patents across the European Union on Thursday, ahead of an Oct. 12 vote on the matter in the European Parliament, winning plaudits from some erstwhile opponents. Previous attempts to introduce European legislation on patents, or to extend existing legislation to encompass software, haveÂ met stiff opposition. McCreevy spelled out his two-track approach in a speech to the Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday. His ultimate goal is a single patent system across the E.U., but he is also pushing for improvements to the existing patent regime, governed by the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich. The EPO sees two problems with the existing regime: the lack of a single jurisdiction for patents in Europe, and the prohibitive costs involved in translating the patents into all European languages. Its answer to the jurisdiction question is the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), which many opponents of patents for software-related inventions abhor. The EPLA would create one patent court for patent disputes in all countries that are members of the EPO, which include all 25 E.U. member states except Malta. In his speech on Thursday, McCreevy appeared to take some of the EPLA opponents' concerns to heart. "I recognize there are legitimate doubts and concerns" about the EPLA, he told members of the Parliament. Florian Mueller, coordinator of a lobby group opposed to software patents, welcomed the Commissioner's approach. Mueller's group helpedÂ defeat a proposed European directiveÂ last year that could have enabled patenting of software. "During that long debate about the software patent directive, our concerns were always ridiculed by the Commission, making us out to be paranoid. Times seem to have changed," he said in a blog posting Friday. "McCreevy conceded that the proposed European Patent Litigation Agreement leaves a lot to be desired in its present form," he added. Mueller, along with many other critics of Europe's patent regime from the open-source and free software communities, and members of the European Parliament from four mainstream political parties, believe that the plans for an EPLA will simply duplicate the approach to patenting championed by the EPO. This regime has granted numerous software-related patents and is considered to be much more lax in the way it hands out patent monopolies than the national patent offices in individual European countries. Opponents of the EPO object to the fact that the EPO would select judges from within its own ranks to preside over disputes, as they believe this will spread what they call the lax attitude to software patents to all EPO countries. At a hearing in July hosted by the European Commission, EPO president Alain Pompidou called for the swift ratification of the EPLA, which remains a draft agreement. "The draft European Patent Litigation Agreement must be submitted to an intergovernmental conference as soon as possible," Pompidou said then. While McCreevy appeared to favor taking divergent views into account, he did stress the need for the EPLA in his speech. Mueller took issue with that in his blog, pointing out that patent disputes rarely involve more than one country at a time. National patent courts are, therefore, sufficient to deal with the vast bulk of cases, he said. "I don't mean to say that it's a perfect state of affairs if a company may have to enforce one and the same patent in more than one country at a time. But the current practice of sue-in-one-settle-in-all works quite well. About two-thirds of all E.U. patent infringement litigation takes place in Germany [about 900 cases per year], and in many of those cases the parties settle the dispute for the remaining European countries after a ruling or settlement in the first country in which they fight it out in court. That's pragmatic," he said. The European Parliament will vote on whether to support McCreevy's approach to patents on Oct. 12.
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Peer-to-Patent's exposure of prior art will weed out patents that would likely face challenges down the line.
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(InfoWorld) - Five consumer groups have given their support to legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system, saying the bill would create fairer penalties for infringement. The Patent Reform Act of 2007 could come before the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote as soon as this week despiteÂ objections from some labor unions, small inventors, and some small tech vendors. The bill, backed by several large tech vendors, also found support from Consumer Federation of America, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Knowledge Ecology International, Public Knowledge, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "Numerous flaws have emerged within the current patent system that can foster poor quality patents and invite uncertainty that inflates the risk and cost of litigation, especially in the areas of software and online services," the consumer advocacy groups said in a Friday letter to congressional leaders. The groups support two controversial sections of the bill that allow for a new way to challenge patents after they've been granted and change the way patent awards are calculated based on apportionment of damages. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent, but supporters of the bills want Congress to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. The apportionment provision would "encourage courts to limit damages for infringement so that they bear some relationship to the actual value of the damage to the patent owner," the groups said. The bill's post-grant review process would allow challenges within a year of a patent being granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. "This provision would provide a comparatively inexpensive and quick means to ensure the validity of issues patents before litigation becomes necessary," the groups said. Tech vendors, including Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco, have argued that the USPTO often approves questionable patents and that it's too easy for patent holders to sue, collect huge damages, and shut down product lines that have a small infringing piece. But since late July, three labor unions, including the giant AFL-CIO, have written letters to congressional leaders raising objections to the patent-reform legislation. The United Steelworkers letter said nearly 70 percent of patents filed in the U.S. come from manufacturing firms. "These bills would allow an endless loop of legal challenges after patents are awarded that will make it more difficult for U.S. patent holders to prevail against frivolous challenges," the letter said. The Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, whose members include Motorola, SanDisk, and Texas Instruments, has also opposed the legislation. "We believe a number of senators and members of Congress ... have expressed concerns with the bill and a desire to further work on the bill," coalition spokesman Bill Mashek, said earlier this month. The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved its own version of the Patent Reform Act, and that bill is awaiting action in the full Senate.
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Firms finalize a quick settlement in a patent infringement claim over VoIP technology.
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The patent office sided with the Public Patent Foundation, which argued that several examples of so-called &quot;prior art&quot; were in existence when Microsoft sought to patent FAT.
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NEW DELHI: The government has met the December 31 deadline for complying with its commitment to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on patent law by promulgating an ordinance to extend products patents to pharma, food and chemicals.
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Government regulators now look to approve as quickly as possible medicines whose benefits exceed their risks.
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Patent cross-licence deal cover all but cutting-edge techs
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This patent, as well as others, could yield information about company's plans for a "Gphone."
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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is ready to hear from lawyers from Microsoft and AT&T as it considers a long-running patent dispute between the industry giants.
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Blog: The companies are about to face off in a federal appeals court over their ongoing patent dispute.
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A U.K. foundation gathers testimony from British businesses and coders opposed to software patents.
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Opens up playing field/can of worms Technology firms will be able to patent software programs following a High Court decision on Friday that could see the UK having closer ties with Europe when it comes to the handling of computer-related inventions.â¦
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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will re-examine patents covering embryonic stem cell discoveries made by University of Wisconsin researchers.