Obama: Government Halfway on Patent Reform

[zakislam]

Entrepreneurs need more protection against those who try to "extort" them.

Obama: Government Halfway on Patent Reform : Read more

 

[Guest]

:How are you?

:...

 

[Estix]

Mark my words: What starts as 'patent reform'will just end up as another SOPA.

 

[Memnarchon]

[citation][nom]Estix[/nom]Mark my words: What starts as 'patent reform'will just end up as another SOPA.[/citation]
What patents have to do with SOPA? oO
But I see what you are trying to say...

 

[classzero]

[citation][nom]ankit0x1[/nom]he is clueless[/citation]
and half the nation elected him.

 

[excella1221]

Let's be positive, people.
This is better than nothing, at least it's a start.

 

[susyque747]

I see it's another executive oder from the dictator wannabe. Probably signed it by auto-pen from the golf coarse. All hail the liar chief king wannabe Obama Hussein.

 

[greghome]

[citation][nom]classzero[/nom]and half the nation elected him.[/citation]

Half the nation doesn't even understand Evolution, but claims it's just some false myth

 

[SteelCity1981]

So the patent office has gone backwards now you don't actually have to invent something to patent it you can just draw a diagram of something and get a patent for it without actually doing anything else.

 

[Soda-88]

Great, if it stops idiotic patents like recent slide-to-unlock.

 

[alvine]

I better start drawing stuff..

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

I'm glad Obama recognises there's a problem with the patent system but hasn't be made it much worse by switching us to a first to file system? Doesn't that mean that the sort of people who are cyber squatters can just extort money from inventors. By the way, when is trademark law going to be updated to prevent cyber squatting? What I mean is people who find out a product or company name and then register ownership of the website name before the trademark holder can. That should not be allowed under trademark law; whoever owns the trademark should automatically own the website name. Now we are going to have jerks who find out about an inventor's invention and then will just register ownership of that invention before the inventor can. That's not fair and not right after the inventor worked so hard that some idiot jerk can just swoop in and own their invention without doing any work really and just take the inventor's money and put them into debt. This is certainly not good for scientific advancement; but a big win for Luddites I suppose. I'm getting the feeling that lawmakers are largely idiots and too slow and old and hope computers will just go away soon.

 

[LORD_ORION]

[citation][nom]IndignantSkeptic[/nom]I'm glad Obama recognises there's a problem with the patent system but hasn't be made it much worse by switching us to a first to file system? Doesn't that mean that the sort of people who are cyber squatters can just extort money from inventors. By the way, when is trademark law going to be updated to prevent cyber squatting? What I mean is people who find out a product or company name and then register ownership of the website name before the trademark holder can. That should not be allowed under trademark law; whoever owns the trademark should automatically own the website name. Now we are going to have jerks who find out about an inventor's invention and then will just register ownership of that invention before the inventor can. That's not fair and not right after the inventor worked so hard that some idiot jerk can just swoop in and own their invention without doing any work really and just take the inventor's money and put them into debt. This is certainly not good for scientific advancement; but a big win for Luddites I suppose. I'm getting the feeling that lawmakers are largely idiots and too slow and old and hope computers will just go away soon.[/citation]

Exactly what I was thinking, "first to file" as a fix to the patent problem is double speak. Companies with large legal resources can now look back at previous and obvious works actually implemented by others, and file a patent on them.

 

[uglynerdman]

now there is no more room for justice left even in invention in America. If a company steals my designs then it doesnt matter because they filed first.

 

[ethanolson]

Here's what I'd push for:
1. Throw out all the obvious patents
2. All patent submissions that appear like a logical evolution of current technology should get a round of "prove it" questions and a time to respond to support the uniqueness
3. Throw out the unsubstantiated ones
4. Grant a theoretical patent (i.e. where invention has not yet been realized) for no more than 7 years
5. Throw out the fruitless ones
6. Allow a patent extension/modification upon successful invention
7. Extensions can be granted up to a maximum of 20 years if the filing-to-invention time period is accounted for
8. Information technology and data patent extensions should never last more than 7 years anyway
9. Electromechanical patent extensions should last no more than 11 years
10. Mechanical and physics-technology patent extensions should last no more than 15 years
11. Patent trolls should be banished to the Palmyra or Johnston Atolls.

 

[InvalidError]

[citation][nom]uglynerdman[/nom]now there is no more room for justice left even in invention in America. If a company steals my designs then it doesnt matter because they filed first.[/citation]
Even worse: with a first-to-file system, it means if an inventor spouts off random new ideas he is exploring to determine whether or not they are worth patenting and someone catches wind of any of them, the real inventor gets screwed.

"First-to-file" basically requires that people start patenting stuff before putting any real work in it or risk getting screwed, which means it promotes filing more patents for minor or stupid things just-in-case.

A REAL patent reform should focus on improving the QUALITY of patents, culling the vast volume of stupid/obvious/trivial patents that are the root cause of most unnecessary lawsuits and concerns.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]greghome[/nom]Half the nation doesn't even understand Evolution, but claims it's just some false myth[/citation]
The half of the nation that doesn't believe in evolution is also the half that voted Romney

 

[john15v16]

@ankit0x1, susyque747, classzero -

Ok so you don't like president Obama, that's fine, it's a free country. But stick to the issues and the facts. The facts are that the current abuse of our patent system is due to a majority republican controlled congress (109th and 110th) under the Bush administration... I'm neither Democrat nor Republican but it's obvious that Obama is simply attempting to, yet again, fix the mess the previous republican majority put us in...

Their should be rules against under-aged minors on Toms forums...

 

[greghome]

[citation][nom]athulajp[/nom]The half of the nation that doesn't believe in evolution is also the half that voted Romney[/citation]

and people wonder why do Europeans look at Americans funny

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]greghome[/nom]and people wonder why do Europeans look at Americans funny[/citation]
Because on top of just having a lot of mormons, they think that overprivileged, unexperienced greedy mormons are qualified to run for office.

 

[Wisecracker]

It's interesting in all these squabbles, no one has seen fit to comment on the statement that patent spending last year by both Apple and Google exceeded their spending on research and development of new products.

 

[millerm84]

I'm not going to apologize for the obvious flaws in a first-to-file system, but people seem to be missing the benefit. In the current system someone sees an idea that someone else has used (in the case of the company I work for a "Pay Bill" button; no joke) they file a patent and threaten to sue. Most people settle and purchase or lease the technology. First to file does nothing to help that situation. Where first to file has a benefit is those that choose to go to court. No longer is it a battle of who had the idea out first it's a simple check with the patent office to see who filed first and if the defendant is infringing or not.

It will lead to thousands and thousands of new patents each year for buttons, gestures, navigation concepts, and so on; but will make court appearances very quick. The President stated that it was about half done, I'd give it a1/4 of the way. The next step is to quicken and cheapen the patent process so smaller companies and individuals can protect their ideas and still have the money to invest in developing, marketing, and production of their product. All patents must have a prototype within 2-10 years to remain valid. The finial step is to give patent design a 21st century face lift. You should be able to patent code that performs a specific function, but not the function that your code performs (ie you can patent how your device detects a swipe but not swiping).

 

[hoofhearted]

"first to file". How in the Hell is this improvement? This will just allow companies with larges resources to patent every conceivable idea before it's invented.

 

[SAL-e]

Sorry Mr. Obama, but there are no problems with the patent system, the patent system is the problem. All problems that are linked the patent system are unintended consequence of the patent system.

If you learn a bit of history you will see that this method was tried in the past and have failed and led to frequent wars. Back then European kings awarded limited monopolies over different trades in order to benefit the society. This period was known as Mercantilism. [1]

Today we are granting 'limited monopolies' over ideas with same goal. It will fail just like Mercantilism has failed.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

 

[dgingeri]

He continued to state that he is committed to protecting individuals' privacy and their civil liberties, as well as keeping the Internet "open,"

So why is he doing the opposite?