Patent reform bill unable to clean up patent mess (ars technica) [LWN.net]

ars technica takes a detailed look at the patent reform bill currently being considered in the U.S. Congress and comes away unimpressed. "Although the legislation includes provisions that are likely to moderately reduce the toll that patents take on high-tech innovation, none of the proposals address the fundamental problems that have cropped up in recent years. Opponents of software patents, in particular, will find the provisions of the Patent Reform Act underwhelming. Their best hope is that the Supreme Court tackles the issue in the coming years. If that doesn't happen, then they will likely need to wait for the situation to deteriorate further before there will be sufficient political will for serious reforms."

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Patent reform bill unable to clean up patent mess (ars technica)

Posted Mar 26, 2008 15:24 UTC (Wed) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

I'm not impressed, either. The U.S. has become a haven for the wealthy to manipulate the legal system to enable them to be lazy and get rich. The very innovation and proliferation of new ideas and thoughts that the U.S. Constitution was designed to foster and protect, has instead been distorted and mis-interpreted to serve only those who know how to play the system.

As an American, I personally find this disgusting.

It may end up cementing software patents?

Posted Mar 26, 2008 15:50 UTC (Wed) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

The worrying thing is, as Gregory Aharonian pointed out, if the Congress makes laws mentioning
software patents or even excluding certain areas from the scope of algorithm patentability,
this implicitly means that patents are to be allowed on software in general.  The exception
proves the rule.  Are there such problems with this Bill?

It may end up cementing software patents?

Posted Mar 26, 2008 16:10 UTC (Wed) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

The courts have said that software patents are allowed and I think previous laws already say
it also. Even if this law were not to, it would not remove the fact that Software Patents are
considered viable in the USA and many countries with treaties with the USA. Heck they are even
legal in 'part' in the EU (they just allowed a patent on particular methods in syslog).
Probably the only place they aren't legal these days are in the minds of us who consider it
ridiculous.

Meanwhile in Europe

Posted Mar 27, 2008 20:06 UTC (Thu) by Tobu (subscriber, #24111) [Link]

The European patent office (the EPO) is certainly lax and does not reject applications for software patents. Nevertheless, these are explicitly non-patentable since 1973. Recent attempts to modify the law backfired, re-affirming the illegality of software patents.

Timeline - The fight goes on