Getting A Patent Just Got Harder

[babylonsister]

http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/30/scotus-patent-microsoft-biz-wash-cx_bw_0430scotus.html

Getting A Patent Just Got Harder
Brian Wingfield, 04.30.07, 4:30 PM ET

WASHINGTON -

The U.S. Supreme Court has just made it more difficult to obtain a patent, providing a boon to many technology firms and other companies that are often accused of patent infringement.

In a decision that could have far-reaching implications in the realm of intellectual property, the justices on Monday unanimously overturned an appellate court's decision, ruling that the test for determining whether an invention is "obvious"--and thus not patentable--is too rigid. In other words, the court said that there needs to be a fairly high standard for patentability.

In a separate decision, the court ruled 7-1 that Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) didn't infringe upon a patent held by AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ) when it allowed foreign computer makers to copy and sell master disks of the Windows operating system. The case essentially means that U.S. patent law does not apply overseas and that firms selling products patented in the U.S. must obtain a patent in each country where the patented item is sold.

The decisions by the court seem to indicate a growing trend in favor of companies that are frequently targeted for infringing on the patents of others. Last year, in a case involving eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ), the court granted patent infringers more wiggle room against injunctions.

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[tech3149]

1. Getting a patent hasn't been easy or cheap for quite some time.

A friend and former co-worker had worked for more than two decades developing a speaker design that could put the audio industry on it's back unless they could understand and incorporate the concepts. This guy was a normal working stiff with very little in the way of assets and no serious education beyond HS. What he did have was one of the best analytical minds I've ever worked with and a "critical ear" that made me feel like I was deaf. He cashed out all his retirement funds and mortgaged himself to hell and back to submit the patent and the maintenance fees after it was to the point of being a viable final product. The company we worked for could have supported the efforts decimated any competition they had. Beyond that, they could have grown their business into a multi-billion dollar operation. Unfortunately, he got involved with some opportunist's that played him for the fool most working people can be. So many years later, he's still dirt poor and just trying to pay the bills.

All those big named companies that were approached to get the design on the market had one of two problems. Either they were corrupt and wanted some form of payback or the engineers were from the NIH (not invented here)philosophy. Another problem was that "formally educated" engineers couldn't deal with ideas that disagreed with concepts they had been taught in these formal institutions.

If you're at all interested in this subject and curious about the ideas, check out patent # 4,881,617. I ponied up a few grand to buy prototypes #001 and 002 and have another pair that I don't have a need for. If you'd like to check them out, let me know.

I can understand the need for tight regulation of patent protocols, but the way it's run now is definitely biased to those that have more resources.