Patent Law

Con Man

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), Senate Judiciary Chairman, attempts to sew a silk purse from a sow's ear with proposed patent legislation, disingenuously spinning in Business Week that it gives "ingenuity freer rein." "It has been more than 50 years since Congress significantly updated the patent system." In truth, Leahy wants to go backwards, before the 1946 Patent Act, when apportionment of damages was so wrecking the patent system that the Patent Commissioner at the time called it "one of the sorest spots in the enforcement of the law in the United States."

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) retorts:

Contrary to its title, the patent legislation now going through the Senate is not reform, but instead changes the law to benefit a narrow sector of the electronics industry, and trial lawyers. It does not maintain protection for the innovators and inventors but instead undermines their position against foreign and domestic infringers.

The legislation... dramatically elongates the process of obtaining clear-cut patent rights. It would open up the opportunity for deep-pocketed corporations to challenge a patent even after it has been issued. This never-ending process obviously helps the big guy by making the little guy much more vulnerable. It makes the system even more complicated and even more expensive than it now is.

Large electronics and foreign corporations will be better able to thwart inventors trying to establish and enforce their patent rights, a boon to the infringers and thieves and a disaster for individual inventors and small companies, as well as the universities and the pharmaceutical and the biotech industries.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on April 30, 2009 (boomark / email).