Comments on: Friday food for thought: The changing scope of ‘patent reform’ http://unitedstates.promotetheprogress.com/friday-food-for-thought-the-changing-scope-of-patent-reform/580/ Still clinging to first-to-invent Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:27:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: bk http://unitedstates.promotetheprogress.com/friday-food-for-thought-the-changing-scope-of-patent-reform/580/#comment-134 bk Mon, 25 Sep 2006 13:19:04 +0000 http://unitedstates.promotetheprogress.com/friday-food-for-thought-the-changing-scope-of-patent-reform/580/#comment-134 There's an easy way to resolve this concern about the dissolution of the unitary patent system: ask your Congressman to eliminate software and business method patents. It's hard/impossible to argue that software and business methods should recieve the same protection as drugs, innovative materials, or other inventions that require innovation in the physical realm. We're seeing that with "patent trolls", all of whom work in software and business methods, in Microsoft's lobbyists who are butting heads with all the traditional patent lobbyists, and now in the USPTO, which is listening to its constituents in the software industry as well as its traditional constituents. A strong unitary system and a system that covers all conceivable human invention is simply an impossibility. So here are your choices: --a watered-down unitary system where patents approach certificates of merit --an untested and unprecedented multi-tiered system --a system that excludes software/business methods from patentabilty. There’s an easy way to resolve this concern about the dissolution of the unitary patent system: ask your Congressman to eliminate software and business method patents.

It’s hard/impossible to argue that software and business methods should recieve the same protection as drugs, innovative materials, or other inventions that require innovation in the physical realm. We’re seeing that with “patent trolls”, all of whom work in software and business methods, in Microsoft’s lobbyists who are butting heads with all the traditional patent lobbyists, and now in the USPTO, which is listening to its constituents in the software industry as well as its traditional constituents.

A strong unitary system and a system that covers all conceivable human invention is simply an impossibility. So here are your choices:

–a watered-down unitary system where patents approach certificates of merit
–an untested and unprecedented multi-tiered system
–a system that excludes software/business methods from patentabilty.

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