Nnews
Society | DOI: 10.1145/1400214.1400221
Leah Hoffmann
Damage control
The U.S. patent system is overdue for reform,
but what needs fixing, and how, is a matter of some dispute.
In 2006, FAcEd with the threat
of a court-ordered shutdown,
Research In Motion (RIM), the
Canadian manufacturer of
BlackBerry phones, reached a
settlement on a prolonged and vicious
patent dispute with Virginia-based
NTP. Although NTP’s threat of injunction was widely viewed as extortion in
the IT industry (the company neither
makes nor sells any products, and
its primary assets are the patents of
the late inventor Thomas Campana),
RIM nonetheless agreed to pay $612.5
million in a “full and final settlement
of all claims.”
That figure sparked both disbelief
and outrage among many members of
the IT industry. It also increased calls
for substantial legislative reform. Patent law in the U.S. has not been substantially updated since 1952, and is
frequently thought to be out of sync
with modern business practices. However, exactly what needs reforming,
and how, is a matter of some dispute.
photo Graph by simon hayter
Most companies and entrepreneurs
agree with the principles that underlie
the U.S. patent system, which fosters
innovation by granting inventors an
exclusive, though temporary, right to
their creations in exchange for sharing their work. But what constitutes a
patentable invention, and how should
it be protected? Critics complain that
American patents are too easy to file—
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO) grants tens of thousands
patents each year—and too easy to defend in expensive legal suits. (The NTP
patents that RIM was found to have infringed upon might never have been
granted in many countries.) Companies whose livelihoods depend on
revenue from patent licenses, on the
other hand, are loath to support anything that might weaken the value of
their portfolio. The Patent Reform Act
of 2007, a reform bill introduced by
Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Representatives
Howard Berman (D-CA) and Lamar
Smith (R-TX), stalled last April as legislators were unable to reconcile these
competing interests.
trolling for Dollars
It is impossible to make a piece of
electronic technology without relying on dozens, if not thousands, of
individually patented components.
In 2003, one computer hardware firm
told the U.S. Federal Trade Commis-
