A Patent Overhaul Required?

By Mark Evans
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Is it time to overhaul the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office? The disputes between Research in Motion and NTP and, most recently, Google and Rates Technology Inc. demonstrate there is a serious problem in balancing the rights of patent holders and the rights of innovators. When the USPTO issues broad-based patents such as the ones held by NTP, it can literally give the patent holder a license to print money. Look at RIM, which developed its Blackberry technology without knowledge of the NTP patents. As RIM has unfortunately discovered, the NTP patents are so broad - they encompass the transmission of mobile e-mail - it has become difficult for RIM to demonstrate its technology is not infringing on the NTP patents but simply innovating in their wake. Google is about to discover the same problem with Rates Technology, which claims it holds key patents for VOIP, which have allowed it to solicit licenses from more than 700 companies. NTP and Rates have every right to go after companies that infringe on their patents but they have the ability to do so because the USPTO has given them enormous - and arguably unfair - latitude.

We Say: It’s time to take a good, hard look at how the USPTO operates and whether it should be granting broadly-based patents that potentially stifle innovation.

For more information on the Google-Rates dispute, click here.