[krschultz]

The author has the concept of a patent troll entirely backwards. The author is arguing that the trolls are people who have prior art to a patent and then come along and submarine legit patents after they have been issued. In the author's world, the victim is the patent holder who paid the money to get a patent.

In the real world, the patent trolls are the patent holders that don't actually use their patents, not the ones invalidating patents with prior art. This law only makes it worse, now the patent trolls don't even need to buy patents from legit inventors, they simply have to patent inventions before the inventors get around to it.

Before this you could keep good records of your work and be safe in the knowledge that if anyone patented your idea after you created it, you would at least have the prior art to prove you came up with it first. Now you must patent it in order to be safe. A troll can come along at any time and patent your idea and screw you out of your hardwork.

If I'm an un-employed patent lawyer, why don't I just sit around reading tech news all day and patent every un-patented startup idea that comes up and sue the companies for their VC money?

[cube13]

>Before this you could keep good records of your work and be safe in the knowledge that if anyone patented your idea after you created it, you would at least have the prior art to prove you came up with it first. Now you must patent it in order to be safe. A troll can come along at any time and patent your idea and screw you out of your hardwork.

This is only true if you apply for the patent at a later date, without publicly releasing the invention or giving out any details. In a first-to-invent case, you would have a prior art argument if you applied for the patent after the other party. However, if you don't ever bother patenting or releasing the invention, you do not have any protections in either a first-to-file or first-to-invent system. Those rules only apply when two patents for the same invention are applied for around the same time.

If you release the invention as a product, and someone files for the patent after you released it, that is a clear prior art case, and they should lose the patent.

[maratd]

> If you release the invention as a product, and someone files for the patent after you released it, that is a clear prior art case, and they should lose the patent.

Releasing a product does not constitute prior art. The invention must be documented and you must explain its use, in a public forum. Today, most inventions play supporting roles in the background. They are rarely seen or heard or documented.

In our current system, you have some protections as you can demonstrate that you are indeed the first to invent by using your product as evidence and you can publish your work down the road, if it becomes an issue. In the new system, nobody cares. He who files first wins.

[cube13]

>In our current system, you have some protections as you can demonstrate that you are indeed the first to invent by using your product as evidence and you can publish your work down the road, if it becomes an issue. In the new system, nobody cares. He who files first wins.

You have protections only if you apply for a patent. You do not have those protections if you do not. That has not changed. The only thing that has changed is what is used to grant two similar patents that are submitted around the same time. In the current case, it's the nebulous "invention date". In the new system, it's whoever files first.

[brlewis]

If I'm an un-employed patent lawyer, why don't I just sit around reading tech news all day and patent every un-patented startup idea that comes up and sue the companies for their VC money?

In theory, there are two reasons why you can't do this: (1) Patents don't cover abstract ideas, but specific embodiments of them. And (2) if you could patent an idea, that idea being written up in tech news would constitute prior art.

In practice, nothing's stopping you from doing this. The patent system and patent law are only vaguely related beasts.