Senate Passes Landmark Patent Reform Bill

Quoting:The Senate bill would transition the Patent Office to a so-called first-to-file system, bringing the U.S. system in line with the patent regimes of much of the rest of the world. The shift would confer patent rights on the first inventor or company to file an application, rather than the current first-to-invent system.

This is progress? What is wrong with this picture?

First to File brings "the U.S. system in line with the patent regimes of much of the rest of the world."

Finally the US changing it's laws to align with the laws of other countries rather than the usual standover tactics where the US forces other, usually smaller, countries to align their laws with those of the US.

This is indeed progress.

I was under the impression that first-to-file has always been the practice... And that it's a perversion that appears only in the US.

Doesn't "first to file" detach the invention even further from the reality of its moral basis?

I mean, if we decide that patents have the basis of "ownership of idea", then shouldn't the first to invent get the patent? Also, independent invention should become quite important.

Of course, first-to-file vs first-to-invent really has no basis if the basis of patents is "promoting progress". But in that case, a far more limited term of patent is really mandatory, and patent trolling and false marking is pretty repugnant.

I have to conclude that this "reform" is just window dressing.

> Doesn't "first to file" detach the invention even further from the reality of its moral basis?

Yes, because it erases "prior art" as a means to deny a patent.

So someone could patent "the wheel" under these new rules, unless there is already a patent on it.

> I have to conclude that this "reform" is just window dressing.

It's been my experience that any "reform" that isn't simply "repeal" is, just that, window dressing designed (and written) by the vested interests to help them, not the rest of humanity.

Apart from 'first to file', the article still left me wondering what is changing?

There's some part of the new bill which promised to make it easier to 'revert patent polution', which - in my own words - means making it easier to 'ungrant' patents which shouldn't ever have been granted in first place. So, to fix errors made by USPTO.

However, that part didn't make it. As USPTO is having too much work and AFAIK they're paid for the number of patents they grant - and not for the quality of their work - I wonder if anything will change at all. If so, the article doesn't mention it.

Just like 'buffer overflows' can be exploited, I think problems at USPTO will be exploited too.

You've hit the nail on the head. This isn't "reform" in any sense of the word, except maybe "minor change arrived at by long deliberation".

Too many highly wealthy vested interests in the USA game or exploit the US patent system. Also, large pharmaceutical companies and other monied businesses use the tax-payer funded patent enforcement to their own advantage.

No true "reform", in the sense of "making more rational or basing on evidence" will happen without an utter collapse of the patent system.

Quoting:Just like 'buffer overflows' can be exploited, I think problems at USPTO will be^W^Ware being exploited too.

FTFY.