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Stop Patent Trolls: Support the Innovation Act of 2015
- Ologn 11y agoI am starting to see ads against this bill from patent trolls. It's on the Congressional calendar right now. It has 27 cosponsors. Hopefully it will pass! The EFF link has a box where you can e-mail your congressional representative, if you live in the USA of course.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoWait, you can have ads against bills?
- giancarlostoro 11y agoThat is quite alarming to say the least. Political profiling through advertisements?
- Ologn 11y agoSure, here is one of their ads on Youtube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPF2gNfStg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPF2gNfStg ). The title video explains who the person is: "Keith McNally - Inventor, Online Ordering Software" If you click on the lower left link on the video, it takes you to a web page where they ask you to send a letter to your congressional representative urging them to kill House Resolution 9.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago"Inventor of Online Ordering Software". Really?
- chillacy 11y agoIn California I've noticed ads for and against propositions on TV and radio. That makes more sense since voters have direct control over CA propositions on the ballot, but I'm sure if you just have a ton of money you can deal with the abysmal conversion rate of a click sending their congressperson a letter or email
- rhino369 11y agoOf course. Why wouldn't you? Opposing a bill of congress has got to be the most clear cut free speech case there is.
- runn1ng 11y agoPatent trolls doing ads screaming against the bill tells me it will actually be pretty effective.
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- WildUtah 11y agoThis law would take the most effective tool against trolls and weaken it without providing any real relief for innovative small companies targeted by trolls. The post-grant review process is the only way patents get a serious review of their validity. The PTO actually takes printed references found by accused infringers that pay a five-digit fee as reviews the patent. It's essential because the original pre-grant review only allows a few hours of research and examiners are rewarded only for issuing patents so it's hard for one to be bad enough to be rejected. This bill would make it much harder to revoke patent claims by prohibiting the reasonable interpretation standard. It would also entitle trolls to demand new claims by making trivial adjustments in wording without any serious review so that winners who get bad patents revoked have to immediately face new bad patents. Meanwhile the loser pays provision is so weak that it provides no hope to small businesses and little to large ones. East Texas judges have already shown it won't apply in their courts. The pleading requirements have already been enacted by the Supreme Court this month. This bill has been so watered down that it's worse than the status quo. EFF should oppose it.
- throwawaykf05 11y ago> ... examiners are rewarded only for issuing patents... This is incorrect. They are "rewarded" for any kind of action on a pending patent, whether it's an allowance or a rejection. Last I checked, a majority of them gets rejected at least once. In some art units (i.e. field of technology) the rejection rates are actually pretty high.
- roarkjs 11y agoEFF seems to be making a habit of backing these worryingly pernicious bills.
- bitwize 11y agoThey are the most publicly visible electronic rights organization. It would make sense that they'd been compromised a long time ago.
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- Animats 11y agoStop the EFF before they kill innovation. HR 9 is overreaching. There are only a few real "patent trolls". The EFF has a list.[1] Only one law firm, Farney Daniels, has sent more than three demand letters. What HR 9 does is to make it possible to sue patent holders over and over until they're worn down and broke. It empowers rich infringing companies and lets them infringe patents at low risk. Worst case, they end up paying royalties, not being shut down. Background: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/238973-hr-9-crushes-innovation-killing-the-american-dream http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/238973-hr-... Activism: http://www.savetheinventor.com/take-action-now http://www.savetheinventor.com/take-action-now [1] https://trollingeffects.org/lawfirms https://trollingeffects.org/lawfirms
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- loup-vaillant 11y agoBah, the patent system as a whole is broken anyway. There are very few patents whose absence would have slowed down innovation. On the contrary, the presence of patents tend to slow down innovation. You want more innovation? Abolishing patents altogether is probably best. It won't "save the inventor", but it will certainly save the invention.
- Animats 11y agoWithout patents, companies use trade secrets more. That's worse. Then you never find out how they do it. Note how secretive Google and Apple have become. For a while, things could be reverse-engineered. That's getting harder; if important parts are in the cloud, you have no access to how they work and no right to reverse engineer. (More) Business method patents are pretty much gone, after the last revision of patent law. Uber can't patent their version of a taxi service. There are still old business method patents, but nobody is winning infringement cases with them. There was a more narrowly focused bill intended to prevent sending out demand letters in bulk. Not sure what happened to that one.
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- askmelater 11y agoMy two cents. A lot of these problems come from two clear areas, software and business methods implemented in software. It was not until recently that patents were allowed in these areas. I have never felt that there was any justification for that change, and I would not mind if all patents in those areas are thrown out. I do not support HR 9 it weakens protection for invention in all areas, tipping the balance to the big boys, since they repeatedly attack a small entities patents, without risking being found in infringement. I think if you exclude the software and business method patents, you might find that a lot of the so called "non practicing entities" are not trolls, but are small businesses that actually are developing technology.
- Animats 11y agoBusiness method patents haven't been much of an issue for a few years now, since the America Invents Act. However, they may make a comeback, because the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty requires signatory countries to allow them.
- sandworm101 11y ago>> not trolls, but are small businesses that actually are developing technology. While I admit that they are lots of such valid entities, by volume of lawsuits, most seem to be trolls who are developing nothing. Either they did so once upon a time (ie before the internet) or they have purchased some seemingly worthless patents for pennies and now wield them as if they were actual innovators rather than professional plaintiffs.
- sesutton 11y agoThe summary of the bill for those interested in what it actually does. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/9/summary/17 https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/9/su...
- dawnbreez 11y ago>Removes a provision that prohibits a patent from being deemed invalid based on novelty, prior art, or nonobvious subject matter solely because a defense is raised or established based on prior commercial use. This looks kinda troubling. I'm no lawyer, but it looks like this section makes it impossible to declare a patent dispute invalid due to innovation, i.e., you can be sued for infringement if you make a better mousetrap, even though you have demonstrably improved the design.
- noobermin 11y agoTo be very honest, whenever I see any political group supporting this or that bill, I have to roll my eyes. The thought that change could be wrought by this congress voting on anything when it is the congress that has enacted the least number of laws of any US congress in recent history[0] is one that is rooted in futility. It seems like those votes against obamacare, just political showmanship without the serious hope of getting anything really accomplished. The last major changes to law/goverment in this country have been either by the courts(gay marriage, citizens united) or executive action(draw down of the war on drugs). Has anything been done through congress in the last few years where it is supposed to originate? None I can think of other than a couple of standouts. We need to fix the election finance system. That is the first problem before we can think that anything can really be effected through congress, as it is supposed to be. [0] http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/congress-numbers-113658 http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/congress-numbers-11365...
- colejohnson66 11y agoThey passed the FREEDOM Act back in June instead of just ending the program by doing nothing. The one time that doing nothing would've been good, they did something... sigh
- chongli 11y agoWe need to fix the election finance system. That's attacking the symptoms without looking at the real problem. All of this political gridlock is baked into the system. Separation of powers, first-past-the-post, non-proportional representation, electoral redistricting carried out by the party in power (can you say conflict of interest?).
- noobermin 11y agoThe separation of powers is between divisions of government, not political parties. Also, once you fix campaign finance, you'll have people who will vote to representatives who will fix redistricting issues. Probably not a representative sample, but the recent Ohio elections showed that partisan gerrymandering is not popular. Once the electorate has representatives that need not worry about appeasing special interests, their will will be done.
- incepted 11y agoHow about maintaining software patents (which have merits) but making it so the only way to acquire a patent is to acquire the company that owns it? This would completely kill the patent troll business while adding value to startups that file innovative patents.
- tacos 11y agoThe only thing that would do is add the insignificant cost of forming an LLC to the cost of filing a patent. Also patent profiteering is typically based around licensing, not ownership.
- incepted 11y agoYou're missing my point. I'm not talking about filing a patent but acquiring an existing one. You should only be allowed to acquire an existing patent if you acquire the company that owns it.
- dllthomas 11y agoYou're missing the point. Given your rules, if you file a patent through a shell company spun up for the individual patent, then you can sell that company to the patent trolls just like you'd sell a patent these days. It would leave many existing patents that are not already held by patent trolls off limits to patent trolls, but it would not do anything for patents created after the rule goes into effect (because there is no sufficient reason not to create a shell corp and keep that flexibility, if you're already going through the expense and paperwork of filing a patent).
- rando289 11y ago"software patents (which have merits)". There are none.
- Eleutheria 11y agoStop Patents. Period. That would definitely be a cause to support.
- ebbv 11y agoDear EFF, I have been a big fan and even donated in the past but this bill is terrible, and you guys are making a habit of supporting the wrong bills.
- Zklsalue8 11y agoCalling people who try to enforce the patents they own trolls is a disgrace.
- rando289 11y agoNonsensical statement. There is no other kind of enforcement than that done in the interest of the patent owner.
- masonicb00m 11y ago"Patent trolls buy up patents and use them offensively against unsuspecting businesses—without creating or selling anything themselves." This sounds suspiciously like something software companies would argue, to retain the right to protect their turf with patents, while reducing their exposure to professional patent enforcers.
- nitin_flanker 11y agoPeople really are confused about patent trolls ans NPEs. An NPE is not a troll.
- m1sta_ 11y agoThe problem they are trying to solve will only really budge when we get an improved crowdsourced-based approach.
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