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« European Parliament Approves Enhanced Cooperation Procedure to Create Unified EP Patent System | Main | Biotech/Pharma Docket »

March 02, 2011

Comments

Have you bought the movie rights?

Dear Bob:

Yes. I'm thinking of calling it "Watching Paint Dry - The Movie" or maybe just "Quorum Call." Sausage-making at its finest.

Thanks for the comment.

The amendments make this appear to be quite the circus.

Heaven help us if this mess passes.

There are only two reasons why a company will be sued for false marking on the basis of expired patents: (1) either they intentionally falsely marked their product for purposes of deceiving the public or (2) a registered patent attorney whose responsibility it was to advise his client of the approach of the patent’s expiration and the need to proactively plan for the cessation of product marking on the expiration date committed malpractice by failing to so act.

We need a qui tam statute that allows any person to sue such malpracticing patent attorneys and split the recovery with their clients when those clients are just too blind to see who is responsible for their legal woes.

Dear Stop:

So long as 1) a letter in the attorney's file informing the client of the expiry is a complete defense and 2) clients are willing to pay for this service, no problem. But we should be very careful about ascribing liability under circumstances where it doesn't apply - patent counsel don't control changing manufacturing dies, etc.

"This is intended to avoid the implication from Bilski v. Kappos (2010), where the Supreme Court interpreted Congress's 1999 enactment of a prior-user right that only applied against business-method patents as implying that business methods qualify as patentable subject matter under § 101, which was enacted in 1793."

God that is hilarious.

"The amendment passed on a vote of 97-2. Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Amy Klobucher (D-MN) spoke in favor of the bill and the Manager's Amendment, with neither exhibiting any particular understanding of the issues."

Lulz.

I told you man. Our lawlmakers are not much more than ill-informed popular people. The two people that voted against it are probably just as ill-informed and have no clue why they were votiing against it.

I wonder which senators voted against?

"(When the Senate gets through with this bill, there may not be much left.)"

Seriously. I was kind of looking forward to FItF but just the funding stuff would be nice as well.

Kevin-

Thanks for laying things out so clearly about how they are legislating on the fly and what they have decided so far, as Leahy and et al seem to be just making this up as they go along, with apparently little regard for how it all fits together. The proponents were whining pretty loudly this morning about how the Feinstein amendment to remove the FTF portion of the S. 23 bill would make it nearly useless and amounted to a *poison pill* for the S. 23 legislation. I could have told them that it was worse than useless several days ago! Unfortunately the Feinstein amendment failed, much to my regret. Even if this hacked up mess gets passed in the Senate, they will probably find it very difficult to get the newly Republican House to agree on much of anything when it comes conference time. Just say No to *Patent Reform*, as this is the worst possible time to get legislation like this Wrong.

Regards,
Stan~

"This is intended to avoid the implication from Bilski v. Kappos (2010), where the Supreme Court interpreted Congress's 1999 enactment of a prior-user right that only applied against business-method patents as implying that business methods qualify as patentable subject matter under § 101, which was enacted in 1793."

This is horrible language to pass into law.

Not that it ATTEMPTS to outlaw business method patents, because it does not - but precisely BECAUSE it does not outlaw business method patents, but rather merely insinuates that THIS SECTION does not create an ADDITIONAL inference of congressional support for business method patents. This bill does nothing to the basis on which the Supreme Court ruled, and by doing nothing to THAT basis, also creates a countervailing inference that business method patents ARE patentable subject matter.

The U.S. Supreme Court has HELD that congress intended that business method patents ARE patentable subject matter. The writer of this amendment either does not understand that, or, well, does not understand that. By ONLY insinuating that THIS particular passage does not create an indication as to patentability THAT ALREADY NOW EXISTS, the bill only creates confusion and abdicates the legislative function of clear law making.

Small entities have been given far too little voice on this bill when one considers that they rely far more heavily on the patent system than large firms who can control their markets by their size alone. Yet small entities create the lion's share of new jobs. According to recent studies by the Kauffman Foundation and economists at the U.S. Census Bureau, “startups aren’t everything when it comes to job growth. They’re the only thing.” Congress is rushing headlong into disaster. This bill is a wholesale slaughter of US jobs.

“Patent reform”

Just because they call it “reform” doesn’t mean it is. Patent reform is a fraud on America.

Please see http://truereform.piausa.org/ for a different/opposing view on patent reform.
http://docs.piausa.org/2011PatentReform/

"This bill does nothing to the basis on which the Supreme Court ruled, and by doing nothing to THAT basis, also creates a countervailing inference that business method patents ARE patentable subject matter."

For the moment. Have patience my friend. This is the government we're talking about.

"First Inventor to File"? What about the entire section that allows for "Filing by Other Than Inventor"?

Sure looks like a huge loophole to allow Corporations to file for patents... with or without the inventor's knowledge or permission (even if the inventor is dead).

This bill is a mess... typical of the poorly thought out laws created by legislators that do not understand the business or the issues.

If the backlog of 750,000 patents is the issue slowing innovation and creating new jobs then provide the resources to start issueing those patents. Moving the ability to get patents from the Inventor to Corporations does nothing to solve that problem.

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