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6 November 2016Patents

WIPR survey: Readers agree that US patent decisions will affect our ‘quality of life’

WIPR readers agree that US patent decisions in the software and biotechnology fields will eventually “breach the economy and our quality of life”.

On October 28, WIPR reported that a US lawyer said that patent decisions in the software and biotechnology fields will breach the US economy and quality of life.

James Hallenbeck, principal at Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner, spoke in a personal capacity on October 27 at the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s 2016 Annual Meeting.

He added: “To minimise these impacts, Congressional action is needed to bring the courts back within the intent of Congress dating back to the enactment of the Patent Act of 1952.”

Responding to WIPR’s recent survey, 60% of readers agreed with Hallenbeck’s sentiment about patent decisions.

One reader said: “The motivation to innovate, and the protections provided by patenting, are eroding. Why spend money on research and development if you can't protect it with patents?”

“We can't get decent claims in biotech. This will translate to lack of capital formation when the markets figure this out,” another reader added.

One reader disagreed, adding that this is “ridiculous hyperbole”.

They added: “There are major issues with the US patent system but they have almost nothing to do with recent patent decisions, which, although not necessarily the clearest, do appear to be largely correct.”

According to the reader, the two major problems with the current US patent system are that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been "issuing large numbers of substandard patents for years and that the cost of litigating patents in the US is absurdly high”.

They explained that both of these issues could be solved relatively easily by the introduction of a “higher quality” of examination at the USPTO by including good searches of foreign prior art and the introduction of “a small claims patent litigation system with limited costs".

For this week’s survey question, we ask: "Over the last month, we have reported that a number of brand owners such as Gucci, Adidas and Reebok have reported a “recent explosion of counterfeiting.  Do you believe that there has been a recent surge in fakes?"

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