New York Times (March 30)
“In recent years, the government has too often given patent protection to inventions that do not represent real scientific advances.” With patent applications more than tripling during the past 20 years, many of the patents granted “appear to be overly broad and vague.” In an upcoming case, the Supreme Court will have a chance to narrow the scope of what’s patentable. “The Supreme Court should make clear that nobody should be allowed to claim a monopoly over an abstract idea.”
Tags: Abstract idea, Applications, Government, Inventions, Monopoly, Overly broad, Patent, Protection, Scientific advances, Supreme Court, U.S., Vague
The New York Times (December 1, 2013)
Theoretically “patents provide an incentive for inventors to generate new products and services by giving them a temporary monopoly on their creations.” Over little more than a decade, however, patent applications have more than tripled to 576,000 in 2012 and “the Patent and Trademark Office appears to have granted many that are overly broad or vague.” The result has been frivolous lawsuits filed by patent trolls. Currently proposed legislation in Congress will help reduce the frivolous lawsuits, but it doesn’t “directly address the underlying problem of vague and overbroad patents.”
Tags: Applications, Congress, Frivolous, Inventors, Lawsuits, Legislation, Overbroad, Patent and Trademark Office, Patent trolls, Patents, Vague
