Businesses split on merits of overhauling #patent process

But even as the office passed that milestone, by its own estimate 700,000 patent applications lay awaiting review.

The U.S. patent system has changed little since 1952, and supporters of legislation to overhaul it say that the measure could create high-paying jobs and protect U.S. businesses' advantage in high-tech and other industries. Both houses of Congress back versions of the America Invents Act, which would bring the U.S. patent system closer in line with other countries, and President Barack Obama has held up patent restructuring as a bipartisan issue, an increasingly rare creature in Washington.

But with the Senate expected to hold a final vote on the bill early next month, many inventors and small businesses worry that it would give big companies an unfair leg up.

#USPTO ’s Future Budget

Fee-Retention Unlikely: The #Senate and #House of Representatives have each passed #patent reform measures, and the two bills are remarkably similar. The arguably greatest difference between the two is that the Senate Bill (S. 23) includes a substantial guarantee that the USPTO will be able to actually spend the money that it collects in user-fees. The House Bill (H.R. 1249) does not include that guarantee. At this point, it appears most likely that the House Bill will be accepted in the Senate and that the PTO will be left without any budgetary protections from the congressional appropriations process.

The #patent system isn’t broken — we are

There is a fundamental problem with patents in the United States.

It is us.

By that I mean all of us: the companies and people who directly interact with the patent system, the media that reports on those interactions, the analysts and experts who inform the media, and finally the large, active, and vocal readership that we try and service with our reporting. As a group, we have accepted and let lie the lazy conventional wisdom that the patent system is broken beyond repair, a relic of a previous time that has been obsoleted by the rapid pace of technical innovation, particularly in software, and that it should perhaps be scrapped altogether.

Blame #Congress, Not #Apple, for Patent Woes

Apple is mixed up in all kinds of patent issues. As a result, the company has been accused of unfairly trying to kill Google’s #Android platform, and of being a “patent troll.”

But such criticism is misplaced. First, the accusations are false. Second, the real blame should be reserved for the US Congress, which has the power to fix our broken patent system, but year after year fails to do so.

Problem #Patent Trolls Inspire New #Legislation

The increase in patent litigation has moved #Congress to consider legislation to stem the practices of "patent trolls:" individuals and companies that use patents to license revenue from other companies or to file-patent infringement lawsuits -- rather than to build and sell products using the patented inventions. Several other changes to U.S. patent law are also under consideration.

Patent trolls' aims are not to further innovation in products or services. Instead, they hold a patent, much like a stock investment, until it can be licensed to another company that is developing a similar product using the patented technology. Or, if a competing product actually comes to market, patent trolls file infringement lawsuits in the hopes of cashing in on their patent investment. 

Patent trolls have been an especially difficult problem for companies to manage. They are reminiscent of cyber-squatters who bought up Internet domain names during the dot-com boom, and, because of patent trolls' behavior, patent-infringement legislation is growing at an incredible pace. In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (where many of patent-infringement lawsuits are initiated), filings in 2010 increased by 20 percent compared to 2009.

http://uspolitics.einnews.com/247pr/228082 

The Spoilsmen: How #Congress Corrupted #Patent Reform

When legislators first introduced a patent bill in 2005, they designed it to lower the costs of lawsuits burdening Internet and software companies. Lured by the big, juicy settlements to be won by suing huge companies for intellectual property theft, an entire industry had emerged around patent chasing alone. These so-called "patent trolls" don't produce any goods. Instead, they secure unclaimed patents for ideas in use and try to cash out in court.

Trolls file hundreds of lawsuits a year over "low quality" patents -- lobbyist legal jargon for the questionable or downright bizarre patents routinely granted by the understaffed Patent and Trademark Office. In recent years, patents have been approved for products including a wheeled flower pot (patent No. 7,908,942), the crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich (patent No. 6,004,596), a decorative box that can be placed in a casket (No. 7,908,942) and an accounting scheme that helps people dodge taxes by moving stock options around (No. 6,567,790). Once approved by the patent office, it's difficult and costly to overturn the patent in courts, which grant significant deference to the office's decisions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/patent-reform-congress_n_906278.html?view=print 

Politicians and Pundits Make Some Noise About Patent Reform

Politicians and Pundits Make Some Noise About Patent Reform:

"According to an article in The Hill that ran on August 2, soon after both houses of Congress had passed debt ceiling legislation, 'Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said Tuesday that the first jobs bill to move after the recess will be the patent reform legislation.' The bill is one of many expected to come before Congress under the mantle of job creation: 'Reid and bill sponsor Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said the bill, which speeds patent applications, is expected to create 200,000 jobs.'"

If you want to see more jobs created – change #patent laws

I’m not talking about a new company that had an idea that someone beat us to. No sir. I’m talking about companies that have been doing business the same way for years that are getting hit by patent trolls . These aren’t operating companies that are trying to protect their business. These are companies that aggregate patents and raise capital for the sole purpose of suing companies and extorting money from them.

It’s bad for my little companies. It’s horrific for bigger companies. It’s so bad that  major tech companies are  buying big collections of patents not because they want to own the intellectual property but rather because they want the ability to respond to patent lawsuits with a lawsuit of their own. It’s like playing a game of thermo nuclear war. If all sides have “nuclear patents” they can respond to patent litigation with equal force . In other words, if you have enough “nuclear patents” no one will sue you for patent infringement because you have enough power to respond in kind. Its crazy and costing this country jobs.

Google just bid $900mm to buy a patent collection. Those patents ended up being sold for $4.5BILLION dollars .  That is money that for could have  gone to job creation.

http://blogmaverick.com/2011/08/06/if-you-want-to-see-more-jobs-created-change-patent-laws/