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Actually it is patent law that's messed up. US patent law, anyway. It's not that patents shouldn't exist, of course they should in some form. And I disagree t

by jbjohns 18y ago

Actually it is patent law that's messed up. US patent law, anyway. It's not that patents shouldn't exist, of course they should in some form. And I disagree that the problem is with the examiners. People always say that more money needs to be invested to have specialists from every field doing the examining, but this is a waste of time. The point of the patent office is to deal with merging new technologies and fields, by definition they will always be behind. The best thing would be to simply lower the cost of invalidating a patent. For example, in the UK anyone can challenge a patent without having to go to court. Just forward your prior art evidence to the patent office and when it is verified the patent becomes invalid. I know of cases where individuals have gotten patents invalidated for things didn't compete with their business or affect them in any way. They challenged the patent just on the grounds that it was false (i.e. the owner of the patent didn't invent the idea). The mistake the US makes is this idea that everything has to be proved/disproved by the court system. That's way to expensive and way too much trouble for things like patents. There are so many laws, patents and so on that shouldn't exist, but do because no one has been willing to challenge it in court to get it thrown out.

GHFigs 18y ago
Yes, the system makes it very easy to do something that should be hard (patent trolling), and very hard to do something that should be easy (invalidating bad patents).
anamax 18y ago
> For example, in the UK anyone can challenge a patent without having to go to court. As can anyone in the US. One of the procedures is a petition for reexamination. The US patent system has problems, but if you're going to suggest changes, it's good form to know how it actually works.
- jbjohns 18y ago
  If it's just as easy why doesn't it happen? From what I've seen, companies seem to only challenge patents in court.
  - brl 18y ago
    Well, it does happen sometimes. It's very cheap and easy to file a patent reexamination. You just need to dig up some prior art, pay about $2000 and you're good to go. You can even do this as a defense against an infringement allegation and if you're lucky the court will suspend proceedings pending the outcome of the reexamination. The hard part is knowing in advance what frivolous bullshit patent the trolls are going to throw at you.
  - anamax 18y ago
    > If it's just as easy why doesn't it happen? From what I've seen, companies seem to only challenge patents in court. Why do you think that what you see of the US patent system is representative of how it works? If you're relying on news, you don't have a chance. News is almost always a conflict account, typically written by someone who doesn't understand the system. When a patent holder sues someone, that's a court case. At that point, the sued may well file a reexamination request, but they're also likely to make an in-court invalidation request. (The RIM case has some interesting twists having to do with the combination of these factors.) You'll hear about the latter but the former isn't part of the case. FWIW, there are some fairly prominent reexamination cases that folks who follow the US patent system would be aware of. One is Amazon's one-click patent.

by jbjohns 18y ago

GHFigs 18y ago

Yes, the system makes it very easy to do something that should be hard (patent trolling), and very hard to do something that should be easy (invalidating bad patents).

anamax 18y ago

> For example, in the UK anyone can challenge a patent without having to go to court. As can anyone in the US. One of the procedures is a petition for reexamination. The US patent system has problems, but if you're going to suggest changes, it's good form to know how it actually works.

jbjohns 18y ago
If it's just as easy why doesn't it happen? From what I've seen, companies seem to only challenge patents in court.
- brl 18y ago
  Well, it does happen sometimes. It's very cheap and easy to file a patent reexamination. You just need to dig up some prior art, pay about $2000 and you're good to go. You can even do this as a defense against an infringement allegation and if you're lucky the court will suspend proceedings pending the outcome of the reexamination. The hard part is knowing in advance what frivolous bullshit patent the trolls are going to throw at you.
- anamax 18y ago
  > If it's just as easy why doesn't it happen? From what I've seen, companies seem to only challenge patents in court. Why do you think that what you see of the US patent system is representative of how it works? If you're relying on news, you don't have a chance. News is almost always a conflict account, typically written by someone who doesn't understand the system. When a patent holder sues someone, that's a court case. At that point, the sued may well file a reexamination request, but they're also likely to make an in-court invalidation request. (The RIM case has some interesting twists having to do with the combination of these factors.) You'll hear about the latter but the former isn't part of the case. FWIW, there are some fairly prominent reexamination cases that folks who follow the US patent system would be aware of. One is Amazon's one-click patent.