Patent Trolling

Patent Trolling

Non-practicing entities (NPEs) are the more formal names for patent trolls, companies who's incomes rely solely on licensing and litigation from patents; these companies "often [have] no hand in creating" the patents they own. Appearances of patent trolls seems to be becoming ever more ubiquitous in today's tech news. Not surprisingly, this is due to the sudden increase of patent trolling companies. In fact, according to a recent study by Robin Feldman, a law professor and patent-law expert, the number of patent troll companies has doubled in the last five years and as a result, the percentages of patent suits making to the courts has increased from "22% in 2007 to 40% in 2011." This jump is phenomenal and demonstrates the power these newly formed companies have on the industry and market. Although the general public views patent trolling negatively, Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures, a very well know "patent trolling" company, defends the system by saying that the market is "immature" and that "enforcing patents is no more wrong than investing in preferred stock." Nathan continues to defend this practice of business by suggesting that this is simply a capitalistic system in which "people compete" and are driven by the "set of incentives that go around patents." Even though Nathan makes some reasonably valid points, I think that the patent trolling is an inherently unethical and counter-progressive business practice. Even Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, says that patents are "a pain in the ass and it's overhead," agree that the system is broken.

Consumers, innovators, and even the government are angered by the deliberate misuse of the patent system by patent trolls. These companies play an unfair game that benefit no one but themselves: they increase prices of consumer products through licensing and settlements, they hinder innovation, and threaten the integrity of our patent system. Last year, the America Invents Act was passed that opened over 500 patent suits to investigation and added new rules, among them included making it more difficult for "patent monitizers to file complaints against several defendants at once." Many attempts have been made slow the patent trolling business, and one recent attempt aims to improve the patent system as a whole. This new attempt uses crowdsourcing and will the topic of next week's blog post.

What are you opinions on patent trolls? Do you think they are justified? Do you agree with Nathan Myhrovld's views?

Sources

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121011/09581320679/dark-patent-troll-rises-now-40-all-patent-litigation.shtml

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/30/intellectual-ventures-nathan-myhrvold-defends-patent-trolling/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303292204577514782932390996.html

Patent Harmonization

Patent Harmonization

Last week I talked about international patents and how it is particularly difficult for both companies and individuals to have their patents enforced and honored the same way around the world. I want to thank Sam for bringing the idea of patent harmonization to my attention because patent harmonization is an important part of international patenting that I should have mentioned but never came across in my research.

To reiterate what I talked about last week, one of the major problems with patents nowadays is how international patents are handled. Because each country has differing patent policies, regulations, enforcement, and judicial systems, it is makes filing a patent extremely difficult because rules are not consistent throughout the world. Factors like eligibility, industrial applicability (what is considered "useful"), previous inventions, novelty, obviousness, and frame-of-reference contribute to the differences in patentability throughout the world.

In order to address this, patent harmonization attempts to unify patent laws through treaties and policy agreements. One of the first efforts of patent harmonization was the Paris Convention of 1884 which every industrialized nation except of Taiwan signed. The treaty "allows an inventor in a signatory country to file an application in his or her home country first and then file corresponding applications within one year in any other signatory country." The filing date in of the patent in another country must the first filing date in the home country. This gives time to inventors to ensure that they have the opportunity to file for patents in other countries in a timely manner. Another important treaty was the Patent Cooperation Treaty which directly dealt with the patent prosecutions and laid out standards for prosecution procedures. The significance was that enforcement of patent laws were a step closer to be uniform throughout. Other patent harmonization efforts in history included the World Trade Organization's Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, General Agreements on Tariff and Trade (GATT) patent agreements, North American Free Trade Agreement, and more recently, the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999. The European Union has also created several of their own policies as well as has formed the European Patent Office.

I think that patent harmonization is an invaluable aspect of our patent system today. Our world is becoming increasingly connected, and each year international relationships grow even further. So with the growing number of innovations each year, it is critical that we form a unified patenting system so that people around the world will continue to be motivated to invent new things. What do you think of patent harmonization? Are they any disadvantages?

Source article: http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/archive/mdd/v04/i01/html/patents.html

International Patents

International Patents

As technology pushes the boundaries of innovation everyday, companies and people will constantly be looking for ways to protect their inventions and intellectual property from others. Patents an essential part of this process, and it is important that the patent holders get their inventions protected not just in their own country but worldwide as well. It would not make sense to only have a patent be protected in a particular region because someone else in the world could simply take the idea that was made public and benefit from it.

One of the major problems with patents is that patent laws are not completely uniform in all parts of the world. As former USPTO chief states, "the solution to the US's patent problems are international." Some lawsuits of patent infringements are won in other countries while others are lost is the result of differing legal systems, legal precedences, and judges in different parts of the world. The same also applies for how verdicts are handled as well. For example, in the United Kingdom, Apple lost the lawsuit battle that attempted to claim that Samsung infringed on Apple's patents. As a result, the U.K. courts ordered Apple to post an apology letter on their website for one month stated that Samsung did not infringe on Apple's patents. In the U.S., if Apple had lost the battle, the courts likely would not have ordered this kind of penalty against Apple.

Having such discrepancies in patents laws throughout the world makes it particularly difficult for companies and individuals to enforce their patents. Even if they can enforce a patent in country it does not mean they can expect the same enforcement in another. Cost is also another factor because companies have to pay litigation and lawyers costs for each individual country; which as you can imagine adds up.

Fortunately, for the most part, there are certain basic international patent and treaty laws in place that allow countries to at least recognize patents from different countries. However, there is nothing that enforces how a judicial system in each country handles litigations. Do you think that there should be a stricter international patent system? Do you think such a system is even possible? Should countries recognize each others' precedences?

Original Article: http://www.iam-magazine.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=6c951952-adfe-4185-a446-7ab8e7b5e2d9