OregonStartups.com News

Patent Reform Act Stalls in the Senate

According to CNET,

After years of heated debate and lobbying, the Patent Reform Act of 2007, which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and was scheduled for a Senate vote this session, has been taken off the Senate's calendar. It can be revived, but its momentum has effectively fizzled. Apparently, the Senate has better things to do with its time.

Iovation Awarded Patent

The Portland Business Journal reported today that Iovation received a U.S. patent for it's network security and fraud detection technology. They received a $10 million investment from Intel Capital last month.

Patent Reform from a Silicon Valley Perspective

As reported in SiliconValley.com:

It's no secret that the U.S. patent system is dysfunctional.

Weak patents are too easy to get and too hard to overturn. Litigation abuse is rampant, fueled by patent "trolls" who sue bigger companies for exorbitant damage payments or financial settlements. And an overloaded U.S. Patent and Trademark Office struggles to keep up with an explosion of patent applications and disputes.  Read more...

6 Years to get a Patent

Patents take a long time to get -- there's a very large backlog. You can read The Oregonian article from last Friday on patent delays on the OregonLive.com site.

Patent Reform Passes in the House

The Washing Post reported that the House approved the most comprehensive patent reform in half a century. Overall, big technology firms and financial services firms like many of the reforms, while drug companies and small investors don't.

Some of the changes: Guideliness for determining damages in patent infringement suits will tend to decrease the size of monetary damages; standards for determining whether a patent has bee willffully infringed upon (which leads to treble damages) are stricter; and the bill calls for patents to be awarded based on who files first rather than who invented first.

Next, the patent debate shifts to the Senate.

Recent Court Cases Bad News for Patent Trolls

A Technology Review article suggests that the recent court cases make injunctions less likely, and make obvious inventions harder to patent, all of which makes life harder for patent trolls.

Researchers conclude that for public companies, most patents don't pay off

A recent New York Times article explained why some researchers concluded that investing in patents often does not pay off for public companies.  One of the culprits: increasing patent litigation.

Biotech Worried about Recent Patent Cases

According to the San Jose Mercury News, a trade group has warned that California's biotechnology industry could be devastated by recent court decisions, pending federal legislation and other proposed changes to the way patents are protected.