CCIA Supports Patent Reform, Warns of Self-Interested Patent Institutions

File Under: News, 2007, Copyright

Jun 6, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Congress should discount criticism of patent reform emanating from the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, The Computer & Communications Industry Association said today.

“CCIA strongly supports the reform legislation,” CCIA President and CEO Ed Black said. “Real reform requires changing not just symptoms but also causes, including agencies responsible for problems with the operation of the patent system.  As many have observed, patent institutions have their own, self-interested perspectives on the patent system.”

(CCIA's entire statement on PTO and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit can be found here: <http://www.ccianet.org/docs/patent/CCIA_Statement_on_CAFC_and_PTO.pdf>)

Evidence of the PTO’s excessive enthusiasm for low patent standards has been evident at least since the nineties, when it decided its main objective was “to help customers get patents.” Even today, when patents are widely acknowledged to be too easily granted, internal PTO incentives encourage examiners to award patents.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has expanded its authority as well as the role and scope of patents, thus causing many of the problems Congress is now trying to address. Established by Congress in 1982 to bring greater uniformity to patent jurisprudence, the Court has upset the traditional balance within the patent system by making patents too easy to get and too easy to assert. The Court has turned patent rights into weapons against competition rather than shields against free-riding imitators.  The Court’s controversial jurisprudence has finally caused the Supreme Court itself to intervene and reverse this specialized court on several, vitally important issues over the last two years.

Yet, despite the Federal Circuit’s reversals before the high court, Chief Judge Michel defends the court’s increasingly suspect rules. Michel recently asserted that the reform bills’ language regarding apportionment of damages and interlocutory appeals of claims interpretation would burden the rest of the court system.  CCIA disagrees. “The irony is that both problems are of the Federal Circuit’s making,” CCIA’s Black said.