Patent Law

Engineered

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

IEEE has issued its 2009 patent reform recommendations. First off, a better USPTO, but not expanding their rule-making authority. Clarify software as patentable. And then they get woolly. "Consider alternatives to patent protection." Where they lament patent pendency. "Address recoveries for infringement." Their "recoveries" position sounds like they know nothing about damages or the Georgia-Pacific factors.

This lackluster position paper is typical of IEEE efforts.

As a long-standing member of IEEE, there's not much good to say about them. Practically everything about IEEE is rather half-assed, most especially their web site, which would offer a valuable source of prior art, if their search engine was decent, and they had half the sense the ACM had in making publications accessible, rather than trying to nickel-and-dime members for articles. In prior art search, I find more IEEE articles through Google Scholar than I do through IEEE.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on January 29, 2009 (boomark / email).