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The patent office is about to make bad patents untouchable
- ttcbj 1y agoI am surprised this hasn't gotten more attention. I feel like HN used to love nothing more than complaining about patent trolls. Anyway, this article suggestions an action through regulation.gov which, based on the content of the page, seemed worth doing to me.
- yodon 1y agoFast and easy to take action on that page.
- cdaringe 1y agoSubmitted. We’re still here!
- lukan 1y ago"I feel like HN used to love nothing more than complaining about patent trolls." Lamenting that everything is about AI, seems to be the thing of today.
- pembrook 1y agoThe current internet zeitgeist is ironically anti-tech and pro AI doomer communism. Patent trolls hurt tech so thats now a good thing on new HN (now filled with normies like most tech companies these days). The enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing. Nobody has any real values or beliefs anymore. We’re all just swimming in vibes.
- HPsquared 1y agoAh, more IP sclerosis. Great.
- rdsubhas 1y agoThank you EFF.
- EarlKing 1y agoYou can thank them properly by submitting a comment on this matter and add your voice to the chorus so the proposed ruling gets shoved right back into the orifice it was pulled from.
- hiccuphippo 1y agoAnd this just after the USPTO gained some good karma for re-examining a bad patent from Nintendo in the Palworld vs Pokemon feud: https://www.sportskeeda.com/mmo/news-nintendo-vs-palworld-pokemon-s-patent-viability-reviewed-uspto-director-s-order https://www.sportskeeda.com/mmo/news-nintendo-vs-palworld-po...
- ortusdux 1y agoWho wants this? Is it just patent troll regulatory capture?
- greensoap 1y agoThere is a fairly vocal contingent of patent people on LinkedIn swearing this is good for the solo guy, the small independent inventor. But yes, it does feel like it will be trolls that are in favor -- maybe some pharma wants this.
- freejazz 1y agoAnything "good for trolls" is good for the "small guy" because anything that's not "good for trolls" is good for the "big guy" and anything good for the "big guy" is not good for the "small guy"
- voakbasda 1y agoExcept patent trolls, do not strictly go after big guys. In fact, quite the opposite. They first go after little guys who cannot afford to defend themselves, and - after racking up a series of victories - only then do they go after the big guys. Patent trolls are bad for everyone.
- freejazz 1y agoI did not state that "patent trolls" "strictly" go after "big guys"
- shmerl 1y agoAll patent aggressors I'd guess, especially with a big pile of patents they weaponize.
- jibal 1y agoPeople who are paying for it to happen ... which is the standard mode of operation for this administration. This is just one of many such disasters they are generating.
- WhyUVoteGarbage 1y agoThe deadline for comments was November 17.
- iamnothere 1y agoIt’s December 2 as explained in the article and the page on regulations.gov. Where do you see Nov 17?
- johnea 1y agoVia the link in the article to: Revision to Rules of Practice Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/10/17/2025-19580/revision-to-rules-of-practice-before-the-patent-trial-and-appeal-board https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/10/17/2025-19... It would be nice to have some confirmation, but I'm assuming there was an extension. Given that EFF and the comment form at regulations.gov cite Dec 2nd. In any case, I'm filing my comment now, and encouraging others to do so as well. Anyone who's ever been through any kind of patent process should understand just how egregious this is...
- greensoap 1y agoThere was an extension. I don't have link handy, but an extra 15 days were provided.
- adrianmonk 1y agoAfter you click the "SUBMIT A PUBLIC COMMENT" button (on the page you linked), you then see a message that says, "Comments are due 12/02/2025 at 11:59 pm EST." I think a better UI design would be to show that info before you press the button, but my main point is that they are apparently still accepting comments.
- dcassett 1y agoAs of now the web page indicates "Comment Period Ends: 12 Days"
- DiabloD3 1y agoI submitted a comment on Regulation.gov, and if any of you actually give a shit about tech, I suggest you do it too.
- pazimzadeh 1y agoregulations.gov
- DiabloD3 1y agoRight, can't fix a typo this late. HN really needs to extend that window a bit.
- tclancy 1y agoRemember when the FCC had one of these for Internet independence and it got completely astroturfed? Sadly, I can’t be bothered to add a comment there because I assume the site will be overwhelmed by posts for the proposed laws by very concerned homemakers from all over America.
- pdonis 1y agoI submitted a comment.
- tptacek 1y agoAm I crazy or was there a strategy reason that inter partes review at USPTO was disfavored over trial? Like the legal standards are easier for the patentholder at USPTO or something like that?
- greensoap 1y agoCost -- it is way cheaper to use IPR and avoid discovery associated with the other factors that happen at trial. Speed, the PTO is generally faster.
- sthu11182 1y agoThe reality is that you get multiple bites at the apple. You challenge at trial and in an IPR. Lose both, challenge with an EPR and appeal the trial. IPRs were initially created to simplify trial and cost, but once the estoppel provisions were determined not to have much teeth, it just became something you did because there was no downside.
- pclmulqdq 1y agoIt's not really about cost for most people who really like the IPR. It's a way to get a second chance to invalidate a patent and a way to drag out litigation. The cost of an IPR is actually not that much less than the cost of invalidation during a trial (although it saves you on other discovery because you can often stay the trial during your IPR), but it's a second invalidation path you can take at the same time.
- dmoy 1y agoUSPTO doesn't really have the budget or even often the expertise/depth. > Like the legal standards are easier for the patentholder at USPTO or something like that? It is much easier to get a patent than it is to use that patent successfully in legal proceedings. The bar that you have to clear to get it through the USPTO has never been particularly high. So this is kinda, if you squint at it a little, just writing down what the status quo already is. (As sibling mentions - if it did work, of course it's way cheaper to nip it in the bud earlier. You just can't really guarantee that you'll get enough expert eyes to get a reasonable decision out of the USPTO) I would have to ask more to be able to explain more, but that's how things have been explained to me growing up.
- senderista 1y agoUm, the public comment form lists first and last name as required fields (with address and phone number optional), then at the bottom includes this warning: "Do not submit personally identifiable information through this form."
- mrandish 1y agoThe form will accept "Anonymous" for first, last. It would be nice if it actually said this...
- jibal 1y agoUm, the point is to not associate personal information with your name, which would make that information "personally identifiable".
- dcassett 1y agoThe form gives the option to identify as an individual, an organization, or anonymous, and below the selections gives this note: "Note: If you choose to identify as Anonymous, the option to enter your email address for submission confirmation is not available."
- alliao 1y agohonestly i think the whole patent framework is quite literally ready for the dumpster. the spirit of a patent is quite worthy, but the execution over the years has been pretty piss poor and I think the bad is almost out weighing the good; perhaps we only heard about the bad bits. Surely readers of hacker news can chime in good parts of patent? living off fruits of of your knowledge labour and earning that sweet sweet patent licencing fees into the sunset days of leisure?
- iamnothere 1y agoMost small inventors/innovators don’t benefit. In recent times it’s mostly been good for large companies who can afford to hoard patent portfolios, for defense against other large companies and to crush potential upstarts. Everyone complaining about the smartphone duopoly should look here for a big reason why there are no meaningful competitors. From the perspective of policy makers, the biggest advantage of the modern patent system was to give US companies a leg up over foreign competitors, as we had the largest patent portfolios, better R&D, and legal frameworks we could use to our advantage. But this no longer works, as our biggest competitor understandably decided this wasn’t a fair bargain and has ignored IP rules to their own benefit. (Why nobody saw this coming is a mystery.) IMHO most patents now harm the economy more than they help.
- pclmulqdq 1y agoI have been one of the small inventors who wrote patents and ultimately sold them to a company that makes most of its money suing over patents. Patents are a form of business insurance you can get on expensive R&D work. When you go into the market to sell your products, your marketing material and the function of your product naturally leaks how it works. Motivated competitors can then reverse-engineer what you did or otherwise figure out how to enter the market that you revealed was valuable. If they do it by actually out-innovating you, your patents don't really protect you, but if they just take what you're doing, the patent is there so you can claim the fruits of your labor regardless. In general, you cash in on this insurance contract by either contracting with lawyers to sue the infringers (usually on contingency or with litigation financing to remove the cash cost) or by selling your patent portfolio to someone who will sue the infringers. In return for this insurance contract, you have to publicly disclose the details of your inventions in a way that a motivated party can read and understand (it's patentese, not English, but you can decipher it if you know the language). It also frees you up to publish internal details through other fora like scientific journals because this disclosure becomes pure upside (raising your company's reputation) rather than making you balance that upside against the downside of revealing information. Google is a good example of a firm that does a lot of balancing there: they publish a lot of their old, antiquated work while keeping the new stuff secret because it's mostly software and software is mostly unpatentable. In electrical engineering, small companies are much more likely to publish a lot more details on their newest devices because their devices are usually patented. On HN, people mostly think about software patents. Many of these are stupid patents, and almost all of them have been invalidated through a decision called Alice Corp. vs CLS Bank. The digital shopping cart is one of these patents that Alice invalidated. By value, most patent litigation is about drugs, and after that you have things like computer hardware. The patent system really isn't for the HN crowd, and it really doesn't make sense for these software patents to be a thing - there's usually no expensive R&D to insure, and you have to write your patent before finding out if you have PMF.
- kregasaurusrex 1y agoBefore I discovered HN (of which I'm on daily), I was a frequent reader of Groklaw[0]- a site primarily devoted to covering the fragile intersection of the technology sector and legal system; where the two are often at odds with one another. We're more than a decade beyond it's voluntary closure after the Snowden revelations and it's left a large void on substantive coverage of these issues. The site was the blog of an anonymous tech reporter named Pamela Jones that did detailed deep-dives into the parties & issues involved in high-profile lawsuits between tech companies, like Apple vs. Samsung on the issue of design patents for rounded corners, over what have often been patents containing broad language that resulted in hindrances to innovation ranging from being unwilling to license to extortion of revenue streams for entire product lines. Part of why I find the technology industry to be continually interesting is its desire to innovate instead of litigate- there needs to be a check on bad faith actors whose goal is capture of a niche through regulatory means instead of fair competition; else we get these cases relegated to the infamous eastern district of Texas which has historically played favor towards non-practicing patent trolls. I'll be submitting my comment and suggest others do the same. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groklaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groklaw
- kregasaurusrex 1y agoOh dear. Its digital tombstone has been relegated to be adware for crypto gambling.
- TrackerFF 1y agoI don't remember the exact name for this marketing strategy, but that's how some of the black- and grey hat marketers made millions upon millions the past decades. One marketer I know made his fortune (as in tens of millions) buying up dead sites, often for dissolved companies / organizations / etc., kept the design somewhat relevant to said entities, but filled the site with ads and referral links to gambling sites / credit cards / etc. And as seen with Groklaw, it still works. Whenever I see some old semi-popular website call it quits, it just takes a couple of months until it becomes a landing or referral page for something crypto.
- FpUser 1y agoI believe that by now patents have transformed from a tool to protect little guy and encourage research and creativity to a dick wielded by big corps to stall the rest of the world. If it was up to me I would probably eliminate patent enforcements against small entities completely. If they grow over some certain size then sure, let 2 big gorillas fight each other
- zzo38computer 1y agoI think it would be better to abolish patents entirely, but maybe that could potentially be another alternative way.
- alliao 1y agoI guess the fear is always then we suddenly would have a lot of little guy conjured up from thin air
- silexia 1y agoThis is critically important and I filed a comment on behalf of my 250 full time employees at Coalition Technologies. We have been harassed by patent trolls and it is a nightmare.
- zoobab 1y agoWell, that's what happen when you apply patents to software. There are large corporations (IBM, Qualcomm, Nokia, etc...) lobbying Congress and the Senate to restore software patents via the PERA bill, while the lobbying from small and medium software companies is very low.
- karlkloss 1y agoDid you notice that LFP batteries became more prevalent and much cheaper recently? That's because some key patents expired. The same thing happened with 3D printing a while ago. It only took off after the patents expired. Patents are a pest. They're just another mechanism to pump money from below to above.
- mschuster91 1y ago> Patents are a pest. They're just another mechanism to pump money from below to above. Patents are a way to make sure inventors are getting compensated for their R&D work and risk. I do agree with your observation though - IMHO, the "exclusivity" period of a patent should last five years, and for the 15 years after that, patent holders should be mandated to license out their patent at reasonable pricing.
- ktallett 1y agoShould the way they get compensated not be by creating a useful output with said development?
- williamcotton 1y agoAnd everyone has access to the capital to do so? Or the business acumen?
- williamcotton 1y agoIf you want the patent holders to lose, NPEs or otherwise, then you want to fight through litigation and not the incredibly high bar set by the IPR. IPRs are expensive, time consuming and difficult. I've mainly seen them used strategically to encourage the court to grant a stay. Continuing litigation by focusing on invalidity contentions in response to infringement contentions is a better path forward. A successful IPR will most likely need multiple forms of prior art. Each prior art must cover every independent and dependent claim of the patent in question, either through anticipation or combined obviousness. Typical infringement contentions will not cover every claim and are therefore easier to defend.
- My_Name 1y agoSo... If you were a patent troll, you would get a friendly party to file a complaint that you know you will win, then nobody will ever be able to challenge your patent again?
- freejazz 1y agoNo
- ralferoo 1y agoThe real problem is just that patents are way too long for software. Long patents make sense for things in a slow changing industry. If it takes 10 years in pharma for research and another 5 years to pass trials, then 20 years of protection seems reasonable to recoup the investment. But for software, I'd argue that most patents are granted on things that are pretty obvious, and in many cases, I'd suspect probably writing up the patent takes longer than actually coming up with the idea and implementation. Certainly, if an engineer is churning out multiple patents a year, then I don't think it's likely that they have enough value to society to warrant issuing a patent for. Let's not even forget the original motivation for patents, which was to increase knowledge sharing so that companies didn't keep their technology secret, and conferring an advantage on companies who chose to share their methods for others to copy and build upon. That's clearly a totally different outcome to when patent trolls are suing people for accidentally infringing a patent they didn't even know existed.
- throwuxiytayq 1y agoSoftware patents shouldn't be a thing, period. 99% of modern software is complete shit, deserves no "my idea" protection, and will definitely not get any better with a higher barrier to competition. The real innovation these days is to make software that is usable, performant, and actually fucking works - and barely any company has the motivation and technical capability to achieve that. And when they do, as rare as that is, that simply cannot be copied.
- dathinab 1y agoanother problem is - measuring how well a patent office works by how many patents they grant (their purpose is to reject bad patents, it's 100% the opposite of the metrics often used) - a standard where patents are often written with the most obtuse complex language as multi layered onions, instead of clear straight forward language - no relevant consequences for most companies systematically deceiving the patent office about what they actually try to patent using artificial complex language, systematically fail to do the research into prior art and "happen" to overlook all prior art all the time - patents require a certain level of innovation _in the aspects they patent_, but in practice patent offices rarely do enforce this. A solution anyone can trivially find if they run into similar "normal" problems isn't innovation. The abstract concept of applying a concept from IRL onto games (or similar) isn't innovation. A minor tweak(1) or trivial re-combinations of existing patents isn't innovation either. etc. etc. - the patent office tends to be severely under-stocked, especially in context of AI making it easier to mass generate nonsense patents and non-clear-straight-forward language being the norm - allowing people to not (relevantly) use their patent and still sue others for using it (which is directly harming innovation and really shouldn't be allowed) - allowing absurd prices for usage permissions of patents (outside of certain especially fundamental/core patents, forgot how they are called), everyone should be able to buy _any_ patents usage right for a _reasonable_ price. Patents are for making sure companies doing innovation can re-coupe their investments, not for preventing marked competition and enforcing quasi-monopolies (1): Like a minor tweak which doesn't require tons of research, don't make a fundamental difference etc. Like think
- anon3654648 1y agoCould someone make an LLM that is only trained up to the day before a patent was filed, then ask it to solve the problem at hand. Hopefully it would come up with the patented idea and thus 'prove' it is obvious and thus not able to be patented. Then you could make different vintage LLMs and basically spam them at trolls to invalidate the patents. ...just a thought from a lurker
- mlinksva 11mo agoI've had approximately the same thought, to different but complementary ends "More generally (not covered in this question) perhaps this could also be a fun way to interrogate the tech tree, e.g., what could have been discovered given the data at a given cutoff, how early or late certain advancements came, etc." https://manifold.markets/MikeLinksvayer/llm-trained-on-data-from-1900-comes https://manifold.markets/MikeLinksvayer/llm-trained-on-data-... Would love to see it!
- freejazz 1y agoIPR's are generally used by Big Tech companies and I have no idea how EFF's position could be construed as in the interest of the general public at all.