reform

WASHINGTON--Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress on Tuesday introduced a patent reform bill (PDF) that aims to pick up where previous patent reform efforts left off.

The controversial provisions of the legislation will be subject to serious debate and may very well be altered before the bill is passed, the bill's co-sponsors said Tuesday. Nevertheless, they said, they are confident the legislation--some form of which has gone before Congress three times over the last five years--will finally pass this year.

"This is the Congress and this is the year bipartisan patent reform should be enacted," said Senate … Read more

Members of the U.S. Congress plan to introduce a pair of patent reform bills on Tuesday, lending stronger support to a complicated political topic that has failed to win congressional approval in previous years.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and former chair Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), along with House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and ranking minority member Lamar Smith (R-Texas), will discuss the reforms they see as necessary at a Capitol Hill press conference Tuesday.

The Patent Reform Act of 2007, a bill that would have introduced sweeping changes to the U.S. patent system, passed in the House … Read more

There are many opposing viewpoints on the issue of patent reform, but at least one thing can be agreed upon: patent law is complicated.

Comprehensive patent reform will likely have to take a multifaceted approach, including reform of patent office procedures and the litigation process. A bill introduced this week, however, takes a focused approach to patent reform by aiming to make the subject less confusing for judges.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) reintroduced legislation this week that would start a 10-year pilot program to educate district judges on patent issues. Judges from courts that meet … Read more

Technology firms are often hampered by patent disputes, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office called into question last week a patent that had the potential to disrupt the habits of millions of Internet users.

The PTO rejected all 20 patent claims over Internet subdomains held by a company called Hoshiko, which were used to bully sites like LiveJournal and Freehomepage.com and pursue litigation against larger companies like Google. The idea behind how to manage subdomains--domains hosted within larger domains, such as news.cnet.com--is too obvious to patent, the PTO ruled after the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation … Read more

Google is part of a group of tech heavyweights going on the offensive against the threat of patent-infringement lawsuits, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site Sunday evening.

The group, which calls itself the Allied Security Trust, plans to buy up key intellectual property before it is obtained by parties that might use it against them, the newspaper reported. Joining Google in the group are Verizon Communications, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, and Hewlett-Packard, among others.

Each company will pay about $250,000 to join and then put about $5 million into escrow for future patent purchases, the newspaper reported, … Read more

After years of heated debate and lobbying, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and was scheduled for a Senate vote this session, has been taken off the Senate's calendar. It can be revived, but its momentum has effectively fizzled.

Apparently, the Senate has better things to do with its time.

At this point, I don't wish to rehash the issues of, or my viewpoint on, the Patent Reform Act. Besides, as I've said, both sides in the debate were after only their own self-interests. Such is life in a capitalist society. (I think that's a good thing.)

What does fascinate me, though, are the strange alliances the debate over patent reform created. The Coalition for Patent Fairness--a group of more than 150 high-tech and financial-services companies that included Adobe Systems, Apple, Cisco Systems, eBay, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, News Corp., Oracle, SAP, Time Warner, and virtually all the big banks--supported and lobbied heavily for the bill. … Read more

Editor's note: This story was updated at 3:25 p.m. PDT to add a response from the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which represents large software, hardware, and Internet companies. ARLINGTON, Va.--A handful of patent lawyers on Friday beat up on large technology companies lobbying for a U.S. patent system revamp, arguing that their efforts could discourage start-ups, prompt foreign competitors to rip off inventions, and tear apart the economy more generally.

There weren't any Silicon Valley interests directly represented during this panel discussion at a conference here hosted by the American Bar Association's intellectual-property … Read more

Creative Commons, the nonprofit dedicated to reforming copyright in the digital age, said Tuesday it has received a $4 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The money will bolster Creative Commons' five-year financial plan, which has also seen support or pledges of support from Google, Mozilla, Red Hat, and the Omidyar Network.

Out of the $4 million from the Hewlett Foundation, $2.5 million will go to the main Creative Commons organization over the next five years, and the remaining $1.5 million will go to its CCLearn education project.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Lessig, the organization's founder, … Read more

I've written before about the Supreme Court's landmark patent-reform case, KSR v. Teleflex [PDF]. It appears that this case has been having its desired effect, according to the Wall Street Journal (Subscription req'd):… Read more