Amid a growing debate over patents that stake out broad claims for basic methods of doing business on the Web, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is expected Wednesday to unveil an overhaul of the way it examines applications and awards patents for many online practices.

The patent office plans to add more checks and require a broader search of past practices and inventions. The changes follow criticism that some patents may choke off innovation in electronic commerce by granting exclusive rights to practices that aren't unique or new.

The criticism is part of a larger dispute over what role, if any, patents should play in shaping the future of the Internet. Critics have assailed broad patents granted for basic Web techniques, such as Amazon.com Inc.'s patent on a "one-click" ordering process and Priceline.com Inc.'s patent on its practice of having shoppers propose the price at which they are willing to purchase merchandise.

Q. Todd Dickinson, commissioner of the patent office, said that "appropriate questions have been raised" about the office's resources for examining Web patents. He said he plans to add several steps to improve the review process for applications for computerized "business method" patents, the most hotly contested area. The patent office will add a new layer of review by a second, more senior examiner to such applications and will double the number that get a final quality check at the end of the process.

Examiners reviewing applications in the business-method area will have to follow new requirements. They will have to search online databases to check that an idea is truly innovative. The patent office also will propose certain other adjustments that take into account recent court decisions. "We want to heighten the scrutiny that patents in this area get," Mr. Dickinson said in an interview. "We do a good job, and we want to do an even better job."

Inventing the Internet?

Some milestones in the history of Web patents.

July 1998: Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruling confirms that computerized 'business methods' can be patented.

August 1998: Priceline.com awarded a patent on 'reverse' auctions, a process in which shoppers offer to buy goods from merchants who meet their proposed price.

September 1999: Amazon.com granted patent for its 'one-click' process for Internet purchases.

October 1999: Amazon.com sues Barnesandnoble.com for allegedly infringing on its patent.

March 2000: Amazon.com chief executive Jeff Bezos calls for broad changes in the patent process for Internet practices.

A 1998 federal court decision reaffirmed the legality of patenting computerized business practices. Many of these patents offer broad protections to methods that are at the heart of Internet commerce. As a result, the patents make potent weapons for patent holders to wield against competitors.

For example, in a federal suit filed in Seattle last year, Amazon.com accused rival Barnes & Noble.com Inc. of "willfully infringing" on a patented ordering system that allows customers to buy things with a single mouse click. Barnes & Noble.com has called the suit "completely without merit." In December, the Seattle court issued a preliminary injunction barring Barnes & Noble.com from using the system. The patent office's new procedures aren't expected to have a direct effect on patents already granted.

Under fire for his company's suit, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos has proposed a sharp reduction in the duration of Internet-related patent rights, which, like all other patents, are good for 20 years from application. Such a reduction would require Congressional or court action, as well as negotiation of new international intellectual-property pacts.

In the meantime, the patent office is moving to address more immediate questions about the review process. One concern is whether the government has accepted some patents that were too general, and given protection to technology ideas that weren't new or exclusive.

If so, a possible explanation may be that the office lacks comprehensive information extending back to the start of the computer age. Many software applications and other computer practices were never patented, partly because companies hoped to keep them trade secrets.

In one patent case from 1993, a company called Compton New Media won a patent for software combining text, audio and video in a multimedia compact disk. The patent office agreed to take a second look at the patent after high-tech professionals said the technology was already in use.

"If you make these decisions without adequate data, you run the very real risk of issuing patents on things that were already invented, or patents that are far broader than they should be," said Roland J. Cole, executive director of the Software Patent Institute, an industry-funded group that is building a database of older computer-science information.

Mr. Dickinson said he is trying to improve cooperation between technology industries and the patent office, including creating a comprehensive database of innovations. This summer he plans to invite technology leaders to a round-table discussion of the patent office's work on software and other computer-related issues. In addition, he said, he hopes to set up regular meetings between the patent office and industry.

Simply announcing the changes may have an effect, if companies fear the closer scrutiny. "It likely will increase the quality of reviews," said James G. Gatto, a former patent examiner who is now an intellectual-property attorney at Hunton & Williams, a Washington law firm. In addition, "it could help stem the tide of applications they receive in this area" of Internet business practices, he said.

(074db819ec% subtitle %074db819ec)

U.S. Will Give Web Patents
More Scrutiny Under New Plan

Inventing the Internet?

(074db819ec% subtitle %074db819ec)

U.S. Will Give Web Patents More Scrutiny Under New Plan

Inventing the Internet?

U.S. Will Give Web Patents
More Scrutiny Under New Plan