One step closer to a Single #European #Patent

Once a pipe dream, now potentially only two years from coming to fruition, the
prospects of a Single European Patent are more realistic than ever before.

The Single European Patent is essentially exactly what it says, a single patent
covering Europe. Specifically, a single patent application will confer patent
protection in 25 of the 27 member states making up the European Economic Area
(EEA). This includes the key European markets of the UK, France and Germany but
notably does not include Spain or Italy who have opted out at this time.

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.

Patent Baristas » Intellectual Property & Antitrust Issues: Market Power

So how does one bridge the gap between antitrust laws and patent laws? Is one to understand that patent laws are inherently monopolistic in nature? In which case, the Congressional intent in enacting the Sherman, Clayton and FTC Acts is questionable. Is it that patent laws are divest from the purview of antitrust laws or can they be viewed as two sides of the same coin- aiding and abetting one another in enhancing consumer welfare and promoting innovation? “[T]he aims and objectives of patent and antitrust laws may seem, at first glance, wholly at odds. However, the two bodies of law are actually complementary, as both are aimed at encouraging innovation, industry and competition.” Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America, Inc., 897 F.2d 1572, 1576. One may seek recourse to case laws, old and new, in addition to the various FTC reports in order to make sense of this conundrum.

Last week in #patents: #Apple, #Android and trolls oh my!

In the fluid smartphone market, this week it was reported that Apple became the top vendor for the first time claiming 19.1% in the second quarter of 2011 with Samsung claiming 16.2%. It was also reported that the iPhone had, indirectly, come to dominate not only the private consumer market but enterprise IT.

Android continues its astronomical growth, last week it was reported that Android accounted for 53% of all ad impressions and claiming 43% of the market share in the second quarter of 2011. Oracle asked the courts to force Google to reveal its Android revenue. Scott Daniels discussed Google's attempts to invalidate Oracle's patents being used in their Android battle. Google accused Microsoft of releasing its proprietary code.

Apple was sued by a possible LG shell company in Florida over the fast booting used in OSX. Florian Mueller suspects it's a preemptive strike in the patent proxy war surrounding Android, which has thus far spared LG but only because of their smaller market share.

Apple was granted additional important patents regarding its touch-screens, no doubt there will be little wait in their use in litigation against its competitors.

Following its success in Australia, Apple succeeded in blocking the release of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the European Union except the Netherlands where a different lawsuit is underway. Samsung is of course, appealing with a date set for August 25th. It was also reported that Apple is also targeting Motorola's Xoom tablet, escalating the the already chaotic Android legal battle.

With Apple and Microsofts success in impeding competitors products through litigation and licensing fees, it's not surprising that Motorola may be joining them in extracting such fees from other Android makers.

For a great overview of the Android battle with Microsoft I suggest the SeattlePI article Microsoft’s biggest mobile failure and success: Android.

HTC is opening to negotiating a deal with Apple, it all comes down to just how much Apple is going to charge in order to settle their numerous lawsuits and what if any, cross-licensing arrangements can be made. HTC continues its acquisitions, buying Beats Electronics, a high-end speaker and headphone maker cofounded by Dr. Dre and will begin using Beats' audio technology in its handsets.

Huawei Technologies accused rival Inter Digital of filing infringement claims against it to boost the value of its patents while courting bids from Google, Apple, and Samsung for them.

Android was also updated to allow its phones to rent movies.

Rovio and EA are urging the federal court to allow Apple to directly intervene in the patent-infringement case targeting iOS developers by Lodsys. Meanwhile Google's response, whose Android developers have also become a Lodsys target, is to seek the invalidation of Lodsys's patents, much to the consternation of Florian Mueller: Google risks alienating its Android developer community if it doesn't do more and quickly, to clear up all the litigation surrounding Android.

Cisco and Twitter joined a Linux patent protection pool, hopefully it's not as devious as Intellectual Ventures which announced a licences deal with LCD maker Chunghwa. Intellectual Ventures is also suing 100+ media companies.

Sony and LG settled their 3 year patent dispute over TV and Blu-ray technology with a cross-licensing arrangement.

Speculation about the iPhone5 and an iOS 5 powered iPad3 release date were abound, meanwhile rumors were spread that Windows Phone "Mango" will be released September 1st and Android's "Ice Cream Sandwich" will likely come at the end of 2011.

With the debt deal past them, Congress looks ready to pass some form of patent reform, whether it will do any good remains to be seen, but Mike Elgan is skeptical. News surfaced of possible legislation to curb the lawsuits generated by non-practicing entities or patent trolls.

Tim Richardson defended NPEs, explaining that software patents were just as sellable as anything else. Timothy Lee continued making the case for invalidating software patents and conducted a very enlightening discussion with Julian Sanchez on topics ranging from NPEs, software patents, and the charges against Aaron Swartz, if you've got 35 minutes I strongly suggest listening to it. Brad Feld, Martin Fowler, and Brian Kahin also make the case against software patents. Meanwhile, Nilay Patel defends the software patent system.

Pantently-O's Dennis Crouch got to the heart of patent reform: the statistics behind filings, litigation and the USPTO's budget and stats on patents and litigation.

Lawrence Higgins also has a great roundup of other patent news not covered here.

#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/

Time To Really Deal With The Broken Software #Patent System

I’ve been railing against software patents for a number of years. I believe software patents are an invalid construct – software shouldn’t be able to patented.

For a while, I felt like I was shouting alone in the wilderness. While a bunch of software engineers I know thought software patents were bogus, I had trouble getting anyone else to speak out against software patents. But that has changed. In the last few month the issue of software patents – and the fundamental issues with them – have started to be front and center in the discussion about innovation.

 http://www.businessinsider.com/time-to-really-deal-with-the-broken-software-patent-system-2011-8#ixzz1URzyLePq

Problem Patent Trolls Inspire New Legislation

Problem Patent Trolls Inspire New Legislation - U.S. Politics Today - News Media Monitoring:

"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 litigation 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.

In addition, new patent cases in the Eastern District outnumbered new filings in every other federal district. The total number of new defendants (3,879) marks a 70 percent increase from 2009 and is more than four times the next highest number for new defendants (884), in the District of Delaware.

The Federal Trade Commission recently issued a report indicating that patent trolls appear focused on hindering companies that have actually innovated rather than 'developing and transferring technology' themselves. It also notes that one of the primary problems exploited by patent trolls is the vagueness in patent applications. Some patents are intentionally vague and, as a result, often do not serve their purpose in giving notice about what the covers."

Could The Supreme Court Invalidate Software Patents?

Could The Supreme Court Invalidate Software Patents? | Techdirt:

Some folks claimed in response that Lee was advocating 'judicial activism,' and Scalia's hands were tied by the law itself. However, as Lee correctly retorts, the law does not explicitly say software patents are okay. In fact, the Supreme Court has ruled against such patents in the past. It's just that those rulings were a long time ago, and the lower courts (mainly CAFC) have chipped away at that over the past couple decades. Lee points out that in 1972, when the Supreme Court first rejected software patents in Gottschalk v. Benson, it invited Congress to change patent law if Congress intended for software to be patentable. Congress did nothing.