Reforms are needed to improve the quality...
Reforms are needed to improve the quality of software-related patents that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) grants, Suzanne Michel, Google senior patent counsel, said Wednesday during a PTO-led forum. PTO held the forum as part of its “Software…
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Partnership,” an effort to gather industry input on ways to improve the quality of patents. Current patent examination practices and rules have resulted in “vague, overbroad and invalid” patents that have driven the boom in litigation abuse led by patent-assertion entities (PAEs), Michel said. Software and Internet-related patents are litigated eight times more often than others, and account for 85 percent of all PAE lawsuits, she said. The patent lawsuit abuse debate also returned to Capitol Hill Wednesday with the reintroduction of the Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes (SHIELD) Act. (See the separate report in this issue.) The “patentability” of software is an important issue for the Obama administration, the Commerce Department and PTO, said PTO General Counsel Bernie Knight. PTO is using the Software Partnership to “potentially come up with new guidelines” for software patent examination and improve the training of patent examiners, he said. PTO asked the industry to consider “how to more effectively ensure that the boundaries of a claim are clear so that the public can understand what subject matter is protected by the patent claim and the patent examiner can identify and apply the most pertinent prior art.” PTO also asked for industry input in advance of a planned request for comment on possible changes to the process of preparing a patent application before examination, as well as input on other issues the industry feels need to be addressed. The public and industry will be able to submit additional written comments to the PTO through March 15 (http://1.usa.gov/VY3tdR).