In the United States, there is a possibility of more complex and expensive to bring suspicious patents in the field of software. With a instruction dated 28 February, the US Patent Office (USPTO) already has a difficult access to a review process for commercial security claims. It is about the so-called Inter-Parts Review (IPR). This control mechanism created by the Congress enables the public to include unstable patents through a USPTO Tribunal, without classic, often without million-without legal proceedings.
If authority This step Do not undo, “Bad patent is protected from more accurate examination and patent trolls are encouraged”, Smash the Electronic Frontier Foundation of American Citizens’ Rights Organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Hedge funds and large corporations will also “use the same weaker commercial property rights as a weapon against small companies and developers”. This will affect the economy and society on a large scale.
“The USPTO gives more than 300,000 patent grants annually, but many of them should not have been provided,” EFF explains. The patented auditers apply an average of about 20 hours per application and often hide the art status. In addition, he passed the registration which were very broad or unclear. For example, “Sham patent landed on basic ideas-as podcast, online shopping cars or online advertising-in court’s reputation” and often have to deal with there in examples.
Fear of sabotage of testing process
According to the EFF, the MLA established the internal second test process in 2012 to solve this problem. The IPR enables everyone to combat the validity of a patent depending on the status of art. This is done in front of special judges of the USPTO. There, experts can check if a vocational right to security was given properly. Success “faster, cheaper and often more fair than a fight before a federal court.”
The workers complain that the patent office now wants to vandalize this process. Memo encourages the responsible patent trial and appeal board (PTAT) to reject the hearing of the IPR case for procedural reasons, even if the controversial patent is likely to be invalid. Therefore internal candidates should grow roughly rapidly In case of Apple vs. If a decent legal proceedings are running in parallel, make a comeback and do not treat further. However, the EFF evaluates as evidence of the latter that “the validity of a patent must be examined”.
At the same time, the American Senate has a draft for a strong act. Its purpose is to ban IPR claims to those and companies that have been directly threatened or prosecuted due to patents. Non-profit and membership-based outfits such as Unified Patents, Linux Foundation or EFF should no longer contribute, although in 2013 they brought down the podcasting patent.
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