First post for this week - Patent Reform

White House announced that they are proceeding with the patent reform. They intend to stop the patent troll by improving the design and methods of the system. It's stated that they intend to help creators and inventors to focus more on the product itself than the patent litigation that they might be involved in. It will be interesting if anything changes at all due to this action by the White House.

So here are the current process listed below.
Help for patent troll victims- They created websites to help consumers and businesses to make them understand the letter they get from the people who sue them. This is currently launched.
More Transparency - They implemented draft rules that will help enhance competition, facilitate faster technology transfer. And they also want to hide abusive actions and tactics by many. They want patent owners to accurately update record before they are involved in proceedings before the USPTO.
Higher Quality Patents- Implemented training programs to helps its examiners examine functional claims to check claims are valid and consistently enforced.
Outreach and Research- Engaging stakeholders to provide input on high tech patent issues and polices.
Exclusion Order Enforcement- Review of process and standard utilized during exclusion order enforcement activities.

And lastly, these are the additional things that White House announced yesterday(2/20).

Crowd sourcing prior art- To create new ways for people to help share the technical information needed to determine if an invention is truly original or not.
Training for patent examiners- A program to help patent examiners keep up with fast changing tech fields.
Pro bono legal help- provide resource for inventors and small business who lack legal representation.

Copying directly from pantentlyo, this is what was stated.
"In his State of the Union address, President Obama set an ambitious agenda to make 2014 a year of   action. As part of that commitment, and recognizing that innovation is the lifeblood of our economy, the Administration today is announcing major progress on a series of initiatives designed to combat patent trolls and further strengthen our patent system and foster innovation; issuing new executive actions to build on these efforts; and renewing its call on Congress to finish the job by passing common-sense patent reform legislation."

http://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/02/white-patent-reform.html






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