Intellectual Property Law

Patent Reform Dayplanner.

By thomason

Instead of devoting time to reading legislative rumblings about patent reform bills, or perusing lenghty studies about ‘bad’ patents and scumsucker patent plaintiffs, or searching for some common threads among all the amicus and public-interests commentaries about patent reform, it seems a better use of time to propose some radically simple change to the patent paradigm.  Here it is.

Stop using words in applications and patents.  Replace that with visuals and videos showing how to make and use the invention, visuals to show how the claimed invention is an advance over the prior art, and require visuals, drawings and charts to claim the invention.

Just think, the Markman issues, the defenses of enablement, best mode and written description would fall away.  Isn’t that what the CAFC spends most of its time with?  All patents would be based on something akin to 112P6, such as a visual plus function claims, or that, melded with the design patent practice where the depiction sets the limits of the patent.  For business methods, or internet building blocks, the application would have to have more detailed flowcharts and stated business rules.

It’s the words that have overtaken the technology, and patents without words would negate many of the present areas of controversy and calls for reform.

Full post as published by ISinIP on March 03, 2008 (boomark / email).