The Mind Trap

The Top 10 Misconceptions Of Life-Science Patents

Wisconsin Technology Network: This is for people wanting to file patents...

Supreme Court Agrees To Look Into Patent Obviousness

TechDirt: "The Supreme Court has actually agreed to hear the KSR v. Teleflex case that questions what's the standard for "obviousness" in awarding patents." Techdirt has a good post on why this is important, so I won't repeat it...

Microsoft Loses Office Patent Appeal

InformationWeek: The Guatamalan suing Microsoft for patent infringement has had another victory -- Microsoft lost a federal appeal. There's some dispute over the amount payable though, with the original ruling at $6.1 million and an escrow account MS was ordered to start to cover sales of additional infringing products holding $65 million. The Guatamalan wants a bigger slice of that...

EC Public Patent Hearing

Forbes: "The European Commission said it will hold a public hearing on July 12 on a future patent policy for the EU."

Nintendo Receives Patent For "Instant Messaging Service"

Geek.com: It seems Nintendo has received a patent (that was filed in 2000) that would "let gamers send messages and share user accounts and buddy lists across different Nintendo systems". I'm not sure whether it's specific to Nintendo, but it seems to be something that's currently widespread...

JPEG Patent Rejected

Groklaw: After a review by the US Patent and Trademark Office Forgent's patent on the JPEG compression format has been ruled invalid, after the Public Patent Foundation brought a swath of prior art to the attention of USPTO. Forgent can still respond, but it doesn't have much hope... (via Digital Copyright Canada)

Dilbert On Patents

Scott Adams introduced the Laywerpult approach to patent negotiations...the whole set of comics -- from development to "we-own-your-mind" to rehiring is worth reading, if you've managed to miss it...If you don't get the newspaper you can have Dilbert sent straight to your inbox.
Check the Lawyerpult out here.

Tech Firms To Lobby For Patent Litigation Reform

ZDNet: Some heavy-hitting US tech firms are banding together to lobby for the way patent litigation is handled. Sure, patent trolls are a big problem, but the real issue is the way patents are awarded. Intel, Cisco and HP are happy with the patent process because it gives them a lot of patents, and therefore a lot of power. The same system gives companies/individuals who get patents but never use them the same power, which the big tech companies don't like. But rather than fix the system they want to change the problem...

A Brief History Of The 3G Patent Spat

Euro2Day: For a while now Nokia has led the charge of arguing that Qualcomm is overcharging for its 3G patents..."They say that Qualcomm's share of WCDMA IP is lower than for CDMA2000, while its royalty rates are the same. Qualcomm disputes this, but offers no alternative analysis. Financial metrics suggest massively excessive returns. Qualcomm's IP division's operating margins are over 90 per cent. It is entitled to an economic return on its high risk investment. However, IP operating profits of about $2.4bn this year compare embarrassingly well to cumulative research and development spend of $4.6bn over the past decade."

USPTO To Trial Peer-Review For Patents

The Peer To Patent Project: "The USPTO has created a partnership with academia and the private sector to launch an online, peer review pilot project that seeks to ensure that patent examiners will have improved access to all available prior art during the patent examination process."
As for me, I think the peer-review thing is a good idea, as long as it's intended to bring issues to the attention of the examiner. The prior art issue is easy.

As for "obviousness", that can be pretty easy too. Using a hypothetical example, if someone tried to patent the idea of ordering music from a mobile phone and paying for it by credit card it should fail under the "obviousness" clause because its just transfering a common online PC practice to mobile phones. It's an obvious thing to do.

I think the same thing applies to Apple's recent patent, which involves people bookmarking a song on a website from their mobile for later downloading. If that's all there is to the patent it should be rejected (bearing in mind I haven't read the patent so it may have an innovation I'm unaware of).

This is via TechDirt, which has some fairly vitriolic comments from someone who clearly doesn't want the patent problem to improve.