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European Patent Agents Go On Strike To Complain About Pressure To Approve Bad
Patents

,----[ Quote ]
| One of the causes of so many bad patents getting approved lately is screwed
| up incentives in the patent system. For a while, the US had a de facto system
| where agents were pushed to approve a patent when in doubt. That's because
| they were judged on how many patents they went through -- and if they
| rejected a patent, the applicant could complain and ask for a review --
| meaning that the examiner would have to spend more time reviewing that same
| patent again, decreasing the number of patents they had gotten through,
| potentially harming their "stats." Thus, it's often easier to just "approve."
| And, of course, the Patent Office itself is usually fine with this, because
| that means more patent applications and more fees.
`----

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080923/1804402351.shtml

Where is the evidence to support EPO examiner union's claims?

,----[ Quote ]
| SUEPO needs to be completely transparent about its motivation, otherwise
| there will be a suspicion that patent quality is just being used as a tool to
| attract headlines. That, of course, is a very dangerous game. It can help to
| reinforce the claims that the patent system is not working. If you don’t
| believe me, just look at the enthusiastic coverage the strikes are receiving
| on anti-software patent websites.
|
| So, to sum up: SUEPO and Ms Jacobs might be right. But we will not know until
| they stop sloganeering and start to provide some proof. Until they do, I am
| going to continue to be critical of their actions.
`----

http://www.iam-magazine.com/blog/Det...f-431db4f17c90

Software Patent Links for 2008-09-20

,----[ Quote ]
| In particular, they identify software and business methods as an issue, and
| state that large companies are using the patent system to build thickets that
| effectively keep competitors out of markets. Jeff Wild states, “The report
| may be specific to one country, but there is a lot in it that decision makers
| in other parts of the world could find attractive and persuasive. All patent
| owners should think through the implications of that very carefully.� (tags:
| Software Patents)
`----

http://www.waltmire.com/blog/archive...ks-2008-09-20/


Recent:

Greens urge end to software patents

,----[ Quote ]
| Ms Turei, who called for greater use of open source and locally developed
| software, says excluding software from patents would ensure others could
| develop ideas. Software would still be protected against piracy by copyright
| law.
|
| The party has promised to investigate "the setup of free municipally owned
| wireless networks". Ms Turei says the cost needs to be researched, but the
| Government would "almost certainly" need to supply funding.
|
| Ms Turei says wider adoption of open source software would reduce costs and
| lead to investment in local IT businesses, which tend to lose out to dominant
| software companies such as Microsoft.
|
| "Monopolies have been allowed to form, stifling competition, consumer choice,
| and indigenous growth of the software industry in Aotearoa/New Zealand."
`----

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4668175a28.html


Just say no to software patents

,----[ Quote ]
| Why are software patents so odious? It has nothing to do with the patent
| system itself. The patent system is a generally good system whose benefits
| typically outweigh any problems that it creates. The problem with software
| patents comes from a failure on the part of people who are outside of the
| realm of software development to realize that software design and sales do
| not operate according to the same rules as other products. Software, if
| anything, is the quintessential exception to the patent system for products
| because the relationship that software has to hardware and between buyer and
| seller does not exist in pharmaceuticals and other patent-dependent
| industries.
|
| Software development rarely sees the labor and capital-intensive research
| that is done in industries like the pharmaceutical industry
`----

http://www.codemonkeyramblings.com/2...are-patent.php


Open Source Software and Patents: An Uneasy Journey of Discovery and
Understanding

,----[ Quote ]
| Over the past three months, I've been communicating at length with several
| leaders in the Open Source Software (OSS) community about how best to license
| software patents in a way that supports the goal of OSS developers, users,
| and distributors. I've learned a great deal along the way about the uneasy
| relationship between OSS and software patents.
|
| [...]
|
| I believe that by being open, honest and fair with the people in the OS
| communities, there will be no need for patent infringement litigation since
| developers and distributors will appreciate my position, realize that we're
| not "gangs of bandits," and act with integrity for a win-win relationship.
`----

http://curinghealthcare.blogspot.com...ts-uneasy.html


CAFC Judge Regrets Decisions That Resulted In Software Patents

,----[ Quote ]
| As the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) is considering the
| Bilski case, where it may finally push back on software and business model
| patents, it's interesting to hear one of CAFC's judges admit that he
| was "troubled by the unintended consequences" of the lawsuits (State Street
| and AT&T) that resulted in software and business model patents being
| effectively allowed.
`----

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080728/0236131808.shtml


Patents as property II: Rethinking SW patents?

,----[ Quote ]
| Patents as property was also front and center in the thoughts of one judge on
| the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the main appellate court for
| patent disputes in the US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager, speaking at a
| symposium at George Mason University, called for a “rethinking� of several
| aspects of patent law by returning to its origins in property law.
|
| According to the BNA, Plager “called for a renewed focus on setting
| recognizable patent ownership boundaries and on strengthening the notice
| function that patents are intended to serve. Such a reevaluation might
| require a reassessment of whether software and business methods are
| patentable subject matter, Plager said.
`----

http://www.researchoninnovation.org/WordPress/?p=103


Rethinking patent law

,----[ Quote ]
| Judge Plager writes that as a former law professor who taught property law
| for twenty-five years, he found our general thesis about analyzing patent law
| from a property law perspective “quite comfortable.� The book argues that
| many of the key institutional features and much of the economic performance
| (and many of the problems) of the patent system can be analyzed by treating
| patents as a property system. In his speech, Judge Plager suggested that this
| approach might require rethinking the patentability of software and business
| methods, doctrines of claim construction, patent scope and the doctrine of
| equivalents.
`----

http://www.researchoninnovation.org/WordPress/?p=104


FFIP Recommends: Research on Innovation and TIIP

,----[ Quote ]
| The block quote alone is amazing and extremely important due to the subject
| matter and the authority of US. Senior Judge S. Jay Plager. Â*This is the type
| of thing that should be promoted by End Software Patents, rethinking subject
| matter for software patents and business methods is essential if we are to
| save the patent system.
`----

http://freedomforip.org/2008/07/29/f...tion-and-tiip/


Judge Plager: Regrets "Unintended Consequences" of State Street

,----[ Quote ]
| [Plager] called for a renewed focus on setting recognizable patent ownership
| boundaries and on strengthening the notice function that patents are intended
| to serve. Such a reevaluation might require a reassessment of whether
| software and business methods are patentable subject matter, Plager said. It
| might lead to limiting a patent’s scope to what was known at the time of the
| application filing, and to an abandonment the doctrine of equivalents as a
| basis for patent infringement liability.
`----

http://271patent.blogspot.com/2008/0...nintended.html


Latha Jishnu: The mouse that bit Microsoft
PATENTLY ABSURD

,----[ Quote ]
| Here’s what Gates wrote in an office memorandum in 1991. “If people had
| understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were
| invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete
| standstill today. . . I feel certain that some large company will patent some
| obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm,
| application extension or other crucial technique.�
|
| This was the year after Microsoft launched Windows 3.0, the first of its new
| operating systems that would become hugely popular across the world. Yet,
| three years down the line, Microsoft had changed from a kitten that was
| content with copyright protection to an aggressive patents tiger. In 1991,
| Microsoft had filed fewer than 50 patent applications whereas last year it
| was awarded 1,637 patents, almost a 12 per cent increase in the number of
| patents it received in 2006. According to IFI Patent Intelligence, the rise
| in Microsoft’s patents portfolio bucked the general trend in 2007 when the
| number of patents issued by the US Patents and Trademark Office dipped by 10
| per cent. Apparently several thousand of the company’s filings are still
| pending.
|
| All this may prompt the reader to conclude that there is indeed a direct
| correlation between IPR and growth — and wealth — as the company claims. Not
| true, says Mark H Webbink, a US Supreme Court lawyer who is a recognised
| voice on IT issues. Charting the company’s revenues, R&D spending and patent
| filings from 1985 onwards, he shows that the spike in patent filings occurred
| long after the Microsoft “had become well established and was being
| investigated for its monopolistic practices�. Webbink contends that patents
| did not spur the launch and rapid growth of the mass market software
| industry. On the other hand, patents have become a threat to software
| innovation, he warns.
`----

http://www.business-standard.com/ind...?autono=330566


Critic of Software Patents Wins Nobel Prize in Economics

,----[ Quote ]
| doom writes "You've probably already heard that the Nobel Prize
| for Economics was given to three gents who were working on advances
| in mechanism design theory. What you may not have heard is what one
| of those recipients was using that theory to study: 'One recent
| subject of Professor Maskin's wide-ranging research has been on the
| value of software patents. He determined that software was a market
| where innovations tended to be sequential, in that they were built
| closely on the work of predecessors, and innovators could take many
| different paths to the same goal. In such markets, he said, patents
| might serve as a wall that inhibited innovation rather than
| stimulating progress.' Here's one of Maskin's papers on the
| subject: Sequential Innovation, Patents, limitation (pdf).
`----

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/...743/article.pl
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