US patent programme must be compulsory to work, says project leader
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Opt-in won't work for Peer to Patent project A pioneering project aimed at improving the quality of patents in the US must be made compulsory if it is to work, according to the project's manager. Currently the pilot project is only voluntary.â¦
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Some tech groups are beginning to worry that major IT industry priorities, including patent reform, may lose out to other priorities in the U.S. Congress this year.
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Scientists and consumer groups say current patents are hindering research in a field that holds great medical promise.
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Proposed patent reform legislation would kill the value of patents and allow the theft of U.S. intellectual property, a group of inventors says.
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A top U.S. official urged India to tighten its laws to protect intellectual property rights and ensure that sensitive information stays out of the hands of tech-savvy criminals.
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A group representing technology industry chief executives on Tuesday warned that the Bush administration has failed to follow through on its two-year-old strategy for protecting the nation&#39;s
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft presented oral arguments Wednesday before the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-year-old patent lawsuit filed by AT&T whose outcome could require U.S. software companies to pay fines for patent-infringing software assembled in other countries. At issue in the case is how the court will interpret an obscure section of U.S. patent law, Section 271F, which says that if a U.S. company makes product components in the U.S and supplies them to companies overseas -- and the products assembled from those components result in patent infringements -- the company must pay patent damages for products assembled overseas as well as those made stateside. AT&T originally filed the case in federal court in New York in 2001 claiming that Microsoft infringed on one of its patents for digitally coding and decoding speech in its Windows OS. AT&T set out to recover damages not only from copies of Windows manufactured in the U.S., but also those made in other countries from the master disk of Windows that was sent to those countries and used to assemble computers with the OS installed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in July 2005 upheld a lower-court ruling that Microsoft is liable to pay fines for foreign sales of patent-infringing software even if it was originally created in the U.S. In court Wednesday, Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, argued Microsoft's case, which claims that the patent law was aimed at closing a loophole that allowed companies to manufacture all of the components of patented inventions in the U.S., but avoid patent liability by assembling those U.S.-made components in other countries. "We believe this law was applied improperly by the lower court to find liability based solely on computers manufactured overseas," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement. "A U.S. patent was never meant to apply to conduct that takes place entirely abroad." Therefore, Microsoft is asking that the Surpeme Court reverse the lower-court ruling. In a statement, Abha Divine, president and CEO of AT&T Knowledge Ventures, said the company believes that all U.S.-based sources of innovation, including the software development community, can benefit from patent laws that allow for "appropriate and fair" protection of all new inventions and technologies. The outcome of the case will depend on how the Supreme Court interprets the words "components" and "supplies" in the law, said John E. Daniel, partner in law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel's Intellectual Property Department in New York. "Some people have a concern that [the lower court ruling] seems to be beyond what was intended," he said. "When [Congress] passed the legislation,Â it was thinking of making physical components, not software. The comeback is, 'What's the difference?' You still make copies, and Microsoft makes money based on people selling those copies." Microsoft has had some unusual allies in this case, such as its former nemesis the U.S. government and competitor Yahoo, both of whom have filed briefs in support of the vendor's argument. Companies fear that a precedent may be set that will potentially cost U.S. software companies millions of dollars in fines. There is also a concern that U.S. companies will take their research and development offshore to avoid fines, Daniel said.
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Legal costs associated with resolving software patent disputes will double if the European Union ratifies proposals to introduce US-style intellectual property laws, an industry group has warned.
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(InfoWorld) - Patent reform legislation before the U.S. Congress would kill the value of patents and allow companies from other countries to steal U.S. intellectual property, a group of inventors said Thursday. About 20 inventors and U.S. company executives, visiting Washington, D.C., encouraged Congress to defeatÂ the Patent Reform Act, a version of which passed the House of Representatives earlier this month. The Senate has not yet voted on its version of the bill. The legislation "will weaken the patent system," said Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the AutoSyringe. "It will devalue patents. It will be a disincentive for people to invest in the future." Several large tech vendors, including Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco, support the legislation, which would allow courts to change they way they assess damages in patent infringement cases. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent, and the legislation would allow courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. The legislation would also allow a new way to challenge patents after they've been granted. Supporters say the bill is needed because patent infringement lawsuits have gotten out of hand. It's too easy for patent holders to sue and collect huge damage awards when a small piece of a tech product is found to infringe, supporters argue. Microsoft this month praised the House passage of the legislation, saying lawmakers voted to "support American innovation and to preserve incentives for progress." But Peter Volanakis, president and COO of Corning, said the legislation would be an invitation for its competitors in Asia to repeatedly challenge his company's patents. "This encourages infringement, plain and simple," he said. "It is much easier to infringe patents with this legislation." The patent reform legislation would also "undermine" Corning's ability to invest in new products, Volanakis added. Steve Perlman, inventor of WebTV and lead developer of Apple's QuickTime, said he was surprised to learn of the legislation when he read of the House passage of the bill. As he's begun to contact lawmakers about his opposition to the legislation, their staffers are "stunned" to hear of tech startups that are opposed to the bill, Perlman said. Small inventors and startups were mostly ignored during hearings on the bill, Perlman added. One of the goals of the bill is to harmonize U.S. patent laws with the rest of the world. But the U.S. now has the best environment for startups and entrepreneurs, Perlman said. "I don't want to have the startup economy they have," he said. "I want the one we have." Perlman, founder and CEO of Rearden, and Kamen, founder of DEKA Research & Development, both said changes to the U.S. patent system are needed. But the legislation largely doesn't address the real needs -- more patent examiners and more money for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, they said. Perlman has a patent he applied for five years ago still awaiting examination, he said. "Let's first make the system we've got today work the way it's supposed to work," Perlman said. Congress should also wait to see the effects of a May 2006 Supreme Court ruling, in which justices overturned the long-held practice of issuing injunctions against infringing products in nearly all patent cases, Perlman said. That ruling should have a large effect on so-called patent trolls, he said. "There already has been a huge change" in U.S. patent law because of the Supreme Court ruling, he said.
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Standard &amp; Poor&#39;s Equity Research said Research In Motion (nasdaq: RIMM - news - people ) &quot;is potentially at risk for patent infringement in the case against NTP Inc.
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It's time for Congress to fix problems with the patent system, Intel's general counsel says.
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Why bother? Analysis The "Participation Age" has revealed a brand new aspect to patent lawsuits - Executive Spew Dot Oh.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called on the U.S. Congress toÂ raise the cap on skilled-worker visas, saying the county's economic future was at stake. Gates, testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he'd prefer that "unlimited" numbers of highly skilled foreign workers be allowed into the U.S., although he acknowledged that might not be politically feasible. Right now,Â the controversial H-1B program, which tech vendors and other companies use to hire foreign workers, has an annual cap of 65,000 people a year, and the cap is typically reached in the first couple of months the applications are available. "We have to welcome the great minds of this world, not drive them out of this country," Gates said, repeating his earlier calls for a higher H-1B cap. "These employees are vital to American competitiveness. We should encourage them to become permanent U.S. residents; they provide the nation economic growth, alongside America's native-born talent." Several U.S. tech companies have recently said they have hundreds of unfilled jobs because they can't find qualified workers. Gates also repeated two other themes he said are necessary for the U.S. to continue to compete in a global economy: He called on Congress to improve the U.S. education system and increase government spending on research and development. Without those three changes, the U.S. is at risk of losing its economic power and high standard of living, he said. "When I reflect on the state of American competitiveness today, my immediate feeling of pride is mixed with great anxiety," he said. "The challenges confronting America's global competitiveness and technological leadership are among the greatest we have faced on our lifetime." This generation of U.S. residents is too often living off the innovations of the past, he said. He called for "courageous" leadership to fix failing U.S. high schools, find more money for research, and welcome more immigrants. Few senators challenged Gates' position on foreign-worker visas, instead asking questions about Gates' ideas on improving education, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation'sÂ funding of experimental high-school programs. U.S.-based tech worker groups such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA) have opposed a higher H-1B cap, arguing that companies use the program to hire foreign workers for less money than unemployed U.S. workers would receive. Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, said he heard different stories from industries and workers during forums on the economy in his state last month. "Time and time again, local businesses told me that they just could not find the engineers or the computer scientists they needed to run their businesses," he said. "At the same time, skilled workers in my state are watching their jobs move overseas, not because foreign workers are more qualified, but because U.S. companies can get away with paying poverty wages to workers in other countries." Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who often votes with Democrats, also questioned the effect of outsourcing. U.S. companies can hire overseas engineers at a "fraction of the cost" of U.S. engineers, he said. The free trade agreements that allow easy outsourcing benefits the U.S., Gates answered. The U.S. tech industry is able to grow by being able to sell products all over the world, he said. "The demand worldwide for highly qualified engineers is going to guarantee them all jobs wherever they are located," Gates said. "The IT industry, I guarantee you, will be in the United States as long as we can get these people to come to the United States." Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, said he agreed that Congress needed to raise the H-1B cap. He asked if an annual cap of 300,000 would be appropriate. "It'd be a fantastic improvement," Gate said. "My basic view is we should welcome as many of these people as we can get."
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Patent cross-licence deal cover all but cutting-edge techs
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The Software Freedom Law Center says the "junk patent" threatens open-source projects. The holder says it's willing to deal--but the group asks too much.
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SAN FRANCISCO - Three prominent open source software developers, including Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, have issued a statement urging the European Union Council to reject proposed legislation that would codify the practice of granting software patents in the E.U.
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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¦