Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

•  

  

  Anonymous of Course, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 2:37pm

  
  

  It's progress

  I like it. It IS progress and positive feedback
  to the responsible Representatives is in order.
  
  When the dog finally lies down on command
  you don't tell him you're disappointed because
  he didn't roll over as well.
  
  Give the nice politicians a cookie.. err I mean
  encouraging comment.

   

  [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

•  

  

  PhysicsGuy, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 4:11pm

  
  

  so...

  basically, mike, you're the environmentalists of the patent world. you bitch and moan about something and when someone attempts to do something it's never enough. lovely.

   

  [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

•  

  

  vapiddreamer, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 6:03pm

  
  

  for once I have to agree with PhysicsGuy

  This is a potentially HUGE step in the right direction. You do seem to expect some magical overnight destruction/transformation of a system that has been being built up for a very long time. That's not how the real world works. And when it is the way that it ends up working, the results usually as many or more problems than the original.

   

  [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

•  

  

  Gregory Bloom, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 6:57pm

  
  

  Obviousness Bounty

  To really reform things, they should require patent applicants to post an obviousness bounty. Then let a bunch of college students read the claims for the patent and brainstorm for a couple of hours on possible inventions that would satisfy those claims. If the college students come up with the same solution that's being patented, they keep the bounty, the patent is denied, and all the brainstorms are entered into a huge "prior art" repository. I mean, if all it takes is a bull session of a few college students to come up with the idea, there's not really what you'd call a "spark of genius" worth protecting, is there?

   

  [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

•  

  

  |333173|3|_||3, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 7:18pm

  
  

  RTFP

  He said that it did not fix the central problems, but that it was not a bad thing (as in saying that someong is good, but not wonderful)

   

  [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

•  

  

  Ex-PTO Employee, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 8:09pm

  
  

  Buy a new Eight Ball

  Seriously, when I worked there, examiner's used them to grant patents.
  
  What do you expect? Does anyone really expect much quality on something when you one have a few hours per case? No exaggeration, my case load was ~ 8 hours per one case. Can't do much in that amount of time.
  
  Time for reform in this office is LONG overdue.

   

  [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

•  

  

  mjr1007, Feb 1st, 2007 @ 9:08pm

  
  

  A different perspective.

  How can anyone think that laws about IP from a preindustrial age could possibly work in the information age. Sheer madness.
  
  Public review from people who would like to use the new idea would uniformly be negative. Of course it's obvious, that way I can use the idea without having to license it.
  
  It's just replacing one bad idea with another.
  
  The right approach is to have open licensing. All manufactures paid a fixed percentage to license all the IP in their products. Since they have to make the payment and all manufactures do there is no incentive to sue. The IP holders can bicker amoung themselves to see what share goes to who.
  
  When an important patent expires the goverment get's that share as a tax.
  
  Clean and simple, no muss no fuss. Of course it's unrealistic since it looks forward and not backwards as lawyers often do.
  
  mjr1007

   

  [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

Add Your Comment