Legalizing Theft
The last post discussed an article in Fortune Small Business on the problems at the US Patent Office and some of the proposals out there to fix them. One of the proposals is to change the patent protection from first to invent to first to file -- meaning you could invent something first, but if someone else files a patent application before you, they get the rights.
There's a lot of controversy about this -- the article seems to say that larger businesses are generally for this change while smaller companies are against it (the reason being, larger companies can more easily beat smaller companies to the patent office because they have greater resources).
The latest issue of Fortune Small Business contains a letter from Lynn Sky (owner of Blue Sky Gallery) that asks the question: if we change the law from first to invent to first to file, then "aren't we simply legalizing theft?"
Good question.
There's a lot of controversy about this -- the article seems to say that larger businesses are generally for this change while smaller companies are against it (the reason being, larger companies can more easily beat smaller companies to the patent office because they have greater resources).
The latest issue of Fortune Small Business contains a letter from Lynn Sky (owner of Blue Sky Gallery) that asks the question: if we change the law from first to invent to first to file, then "aren't we simply legalizing theft?"
Good question.
1 Comments:
Microsoft is behind the push for some of the patent stuff.
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