From phm@a2e.de  Thu Aug  2 11:58:02 2001
From: phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 12:58:02 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Patents] law dot com articles
In-Reply-To: <002c01c11b3d$ef87e460$b5e087d9@oemcomputer>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0108021248560.24323-100000@mulix.oas.a2e.de>

> Actually the series of articles at law.com on patents
> has a lot of useful info and figures on the state of play
> within the patent system as a whole.
>
> What is interesting to me is that its not just software that
> seems to be suffering but the patent system as a whole.

When the Intel people claim about "science fiction patents" or the like,
that would belong to "software".  A patent claim to "walking on the moon"
is arguably a software patent (algorithm patent, abstract functionality
patent) in the sense that it violates the "technical invention" standard
by failing to disclose a teaching on how to use controllable natural
forces to directly achieve a causally overseeable effect.

> I note that the U.S. patent office has had its funding
> cut substantially - "undermining its ability to regulate the
> patent system."

I think this is not exact.
The US patent office, like the German Patent Office but unlike the
European Patent Office, submits its earnings to the state.
Things might become even worse if they were allowed to operate like a
company that can increase its profits by handing out more patents,
as the EPO is doing.

> Large multi-nationals will be able to implement a denial
> of service attack not unlike the internets ping flooding
> (where a server is unable to cope with demand just by
> people sending data to it) by simply applying for as
> many patents as possible.
>
> Im just wondering if anyone else thinks there should be
> some sort of limit on the number of patents a company
> (or group of companies) can file within a specific time
> period ??

You are joking, I hope.
The obvious response to this kind of phenomenon would be to abolish the
examination procedure, as FR and AU have done.

Another might be to reaffirm the requirement of technical invention.
These articles don't tell us how many patents that would eliminate, but if
"science fiction patents" are the problem -- and indeed these are optimal
for the DoS attack you describe, because anyone can think them up
quickly without need for experimenting -- then the requirement that there
be a technical invention would really solve it.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                           http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	      http://swpat.ffii.org/
80000 signatures against software patents         http://www.noepatents.org/



