Sunday, July 22, 2007

InternetNews screws up on "second window" of post-grant review

On July 20, InternetNews screwed up commentary on the "second window" of post-grant review:

The bill would also open a "second window" for reviewing patents once the U.S. Patent and Trademark (PTO) issue them by instituting a post-grant review in hopes of weeding our bad patents.

The term "second window" in patent reform has been used to denote a SECOND time period during which post-grant review could occur. In fact, the controversial "second window" provision was ELIMINATED from the House bill. Look at IPBiz post of July 18.

InternetNews also discussed words of Howard Berman:

House Judiciary Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) admitted the legislation was controversial and complex, but stressed the current patent system is "badly in need" of reform.

"Naturally, the magnitude of changes contemplated by this act has given pause to many users of the patent system, but fear of change is no reason not to fix the obviously serious problems in the patent system," Berman said.

Berman added that a number of "divergent interests" still be need to be addressed. He promised to continue working on the bill before it goes before the full House for a vote.

"Past attempts at achieving comprehensive patent reform have met with stiff resistance," Berman noted. "However, the time to reform the system is way past due."


There was no elaboration of the "obviously serious problems." While the "backlog" is a problem, there is no hint of how Berman's remedies will address this. And "patent quality" is NOT an obviously serious problem, as page 3 of the NAS/STEP report admits.

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