US Senator introduces 'Patent Abuse Reduction Act'

Re: A step in the right direction

Real substantial reform is always more difficult than nibbling at the edges.

Re: A step in the right direction

I would like to see a use-it-or-lose-it clause in patent laws and different standards applied to individuals and businesses. What I would like to see is if I, as a person, patent something then as long as the patent is in my name than it is good for the rest of my life. But if a business patents something, it must be use that patent and the patent expires after 10 years. Then I would establish a patent court. This court would be staffed with judges educated in different fields. If a patent claim is credible enough to reach the court, then the court would look at the claim without participation from either party. If a company is found violating a patent, then the court will set a fair and reasonable royalty payment. After this judgment, a corporation can sue another corporation for knowingly violating patents and then, and only then, can a corporation seek past royalties. Nobody will be allowed to use a patent to stop a product from being produced and nobody will be able to stop someone else from using their patent. If a business was found in patent court of stonewalling a request to use a patent, then that patent is nullified.

That is what I like about this law, it does not assume the person using the process to do something is in the right.

And it does not assume that the patent holder is a troll.

It lets the trial take place with almost the current rules, and then the looser pays. That encourages the party that would eventually loose out, the wrong doer, to settle out of court to reduce lawyers fees.

Re: no working prototype to support the application, no frakking patent.

While I emotionally concur with your impulse, given that it was once required to do just that, I think there are practical reasons outside of the law. IIRC the patent office was running into storage issues related to processing patents when the requirement was still in place.

Perhaps a better place to start would be requiring that the patent clerks examining a given application need to have an engineering degree directly related to the patent request at hand.

And I'd personally like to see some patent categories (business process would be top of my list) eliminated. Not so big on software patents as I think they actually make more sense than software copyrights in most instances (OS/word processors/spreadsheets seem more machine like while Everquest seems more copyright), but concur that having both is a recipe for disaster.

Re: first step

That is true, there needs to be legislation banning patents on trivial ideas, and setting a higher bar for trivial ideas.

Also for copyrights, the limits that allowed the Disney Empire to be built should be put back in place. The Disney Empire got those limits removed after they had their empire and those limits need to be put back.

Copyrights are important because if patents are weakened trolls will start looking to copyrights, like rounded corners.

Re: This sounds good

This doesn't work! Big, evil corporation outsources patent trolling to a non-practicing entity or to a shell company who has no revenue. If the troll loses there will be no money left to pay and the big evil-doers will be shielded. See the Microsoft-Nokia-Mosaid triangle.

Re: tax intellectual property!

I've seen this proposed before, for dealing with all types of property - i.e. copyright and trademark as well. Its a fine idea, but the republicans will not consider any sort of new tax, unless it was paired with getting rid of an old tax. That is, dumping the corporate income tax. That can't pass because the democrats won't stand for it! And so it goes...