Newegg: (patent) Troll Hunter

Why doesn't the USPTO revise tech patent lifespans to something reasonable and relevant given the relatively short use of tech-related inventions? (Laser disc anyone?)

cool reading, especially the last paragraph.

Ars Technica rocks; I might have happened upon this later today. Great read. Thanks for posting.

ultrajonny5 said:   Javi2 said:   Why doesn't the USPTO revise tech patent lifespans to something reasonable and relevant given the relatively short use of tech-related inventions? (Laser disc anyone?)

Way out of the USPTO's control, talk to Congress. That's something that would need to happen through legislation. Since the AIA just passed, I don't think that Congress will be interested in going right back to change the laws once again.

besides, some will say patents are too short. e.g., drug companies only have a fairly short time to sell patented medicines before they go generic because of time consuming studies and several rounds of clinical trials plus lengthy FDA review after their patents.

Lee Cheng said: Screw them. Seriously, screw them. You can quote me on that.

frugalpete said:   
besides, some will say patents are too short. e.g., drug companies only have a fairly short time to sell patented medicines before they go generic because of time consuming studies and several rounds of clinical trials plus lengthy FDA review after their patents.

That is at least partially a separate issue. The US Patent would be on the composition of matter, while the FDA exclusivity is different and related to actual specifics of the drug. Patent term is not equivalent to exclusivity. The FDA's website does a decent job explaining some of the differences.

I am shopping my next PC build on Newegg now, and intend to use the shopping cart to celebrate Lee Cheng's victories. Whatever they're paying him, he deserves a great big raise. Thanks Lee!

sgogo said:   Javi2 said:   Why doesn't the USPTO revise tech patent lifespans to something reasonable and relevant given the relatively short use of tech-related inventions? (Laser disc anyone?)

I would argue the patent legnth is too short.

I have patents, and they cost a bundle. Then, the date starts not at the time you are awarded the patent, but from when you first file. It sometimes takes 5-6 years to get the patent awarded.

The real problem here (and in many patent battles) is the lack of competence of the patent examiners. They are either super difficult and deny patents without good reason, or are super easy and award patents with insufficient research.

By the way, I am talking about awarding the "claims" in the patents, not the actual patent... These are tough to word properly and it is critical to exclude prior art (like the compuserve stuff in this article).

SteveG I imagine it's very difficult to find enough patent examiners who are both competent in IP law and the technical details of so many different topics. I also see a major challenge with some of these trials being conducted in front of a jury full of lay people.

That said, I think there are certain IP practices anyone with common sense can tell is ridiculous, like the one described in this article.

Yuyak said:   I imagine it's very difficult to find enough patent examiners who are both competent in IP law and the technical details of so many different topics. I also see a major challenge with some of these trials being conducted in front of a jury full of lay people.

That said, I think there are certain IP practices anyone with common sense can tell is ridiculous, like the one described in this article.

Well, there are over 8,000 patent examiners now and each works in only a single field. In certain fields, most or all examiners have a PhD in that field (not that it qualifies them to know what goes on in industry). Basically no examiners are competent in IP law. They just know the USPTO regulations. It's not the easiest job, but unfortunately the incentives still encourage bad behavior. Examiners are graded and given bonuses based on a "production" count system that encourages them to examine applications in the least possible amount of time and then are rarely criticized as long as they reject an application, so horrible nonsense rejections are commonplace. I don't know how to explain horrible allowances, since most (bad) Examiners are terrified of them and allowances are subject to significant oversight. I think it's just that Examiners only really look at other patents to determine what is new and not obvious, but a lot of the relevant prior work in fields like software is in non-patent literature, like this Compuerve document used in the linked case.

Things are getting better recently, but they are still pretty bad. To discourage Examiners from making applicants request more examination time over and over and milking the resulting production points, the USPTO reduced the production points awarded each time around. Unfortunately, the result is that Examiners now refuse to work on cases that have gone around a couple times, so applicants are forced to wait years in between responses from the Examiner, which is incredibly frustrating because there is nothing you can do about it short of spending thousands of dollars on an accelerated continuation application.

Excellent story. Shows how beneficial companies can be when they are run by principled people, who have morals. Most people at the top no longer care for their people, product, society and in some cases their company's profit. They are whores concerned about their paycheck. Would love to see some rationalization of these outrageous salaries being paid, while the company and it's stock is tanking.

+1,000 internet points to Newegg.

I read some where that US is only place that grant patent on business process. The joke as i read it, is someone should get a patent on Patent Trolling then sue all trolls for violating the patent.