🚀 go-pugleaf

hollaar@ursa18.cs.utah.edu (Lee Hollaar) writes:

>The Comptons patent was broad, but certainly didn't cover all multimedia
>or the concept of multimedia.  But it's an example of how the patent
>system can correct its mistakes without expensive litigation

But what kind of example is it?  Many thousands of software patents
have been granted in the past few years, but only two (Compton's, and
the patent on advertising in software) have gone through the particular
kind of correction that you describe.  And what seems to be happening
is that the Patent Office is responding to political uproar about
particular patents, rather than issuing patents irrespective of politics.

Even software patent proponents should be uneasy about the misuse of
the patent system that these two examples imply.  And software patent
opponents should not gloat much about these two examples, because one
must still rely on expensive litigation and threats of the same for
legal defenses against the vast majority of software patents.

>(Others can request reexamination by submitting prior art ...

If you are serious about fighting a patent, requesting reexamination is
usually a mistake, because as a practical matter it can have a harmful
effect in subsequent litigation.  You're usually better off spending
the money to go straight to a judge than trying against odds to get a
patent examiner to admit to a mistake.

>I'm told that ... nobody submitted prior art to the patent office as a basis
>for the reexamination.

The people who were serious about fighting that patent knew that
submitting prior art directly to the USPTO would have been a mistake,