USPTO & Copyright Office Seek Public Comments

The Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are seeking comments on the topic of facillitating access to copyrighted works for “blind or persons with other disabilities.”  These comments are thought to be in connection with a forthcoming meeting of the standing Standing Committee on Copyright and Related rights of the WIPO.

Those that are interested are urged to submit a comment on the topics outlined in the supplementary information section of the Federal Register notice.  Comments are due April 21, 2009, with reply comments due May 4, 2009.

In addition, there will be a public meeting on May 18, 2009, at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.  The process for submitting requests to attend, or to participate in the meeting, will be published on www.copyright.gov no later than April 8.

Research Team: Patent System Needs Reform

The pros and cons of the current patent system have often made people wonder if the system is in need of some type of overhaul.  According to an international research team, not only does the system need overhaul, it should be reformed to reflect more of a free market system.

As reported on swissinfo.ch, a team of researchers found that a market economy, where inventors buy and sell shares of the key elements of their discoveries, beats the winner-take-all patent system.  The market economy system increased the number of beneficiaries, as well as driving up new levels of collaboration and development.

The researchers fault the current patent system, because it only rewards the prize to the winner, or whoever submits the idea first.  Anyone who submits the idea second or third walks away empty handed.  Therefore, many are discouraged from filing for patents because they simply believe that someone else has already beaten them to the punch.

The researchers drew these conclusions from a series of “rucksack” experiments, where participants were given a large number of items as well as a bag that could not possibly hold all of the items.  The participants were supposed to figure out how to maximize the number of items that could fit into the bag.  One set of participants  was to figure out the problem by using a system similar to patents, where the reward was only awarded to the first individual that could work out the solution. 

The other group was to solve the problem by using a free-market system, where participants were encouraged to buy and sell securities attributed to each item.  The researchers found that even in the free-market group the initial inventor held an advantage, but it also gave “the second and third person a chance to profit from their work as well.”  Furthermore, the free-market group also led to numerous people trying different ideas each time the game was played.

While the patent system does need reform, this research is hardly the information that would be needed to change the current patent system.  The results are interesting but it should be taken with a grain of salt.  Although the current system has its faults, it does discourage the stealing of ideas while also turning an intangible invention into a tangible asset.  The patent system is far from perfect, but would radically changing the system really solve all the problems?

Global Economy Decreasing Trademark Filings

The current economic recession isn’t just impacting patent and trademark filings in the United States, new data has surfaced that shows its slowing the rest of the world’s trademark filings as well.  According to Forbes.com, international filings with the World Intellectual Property Organization increased 5.3% last year.  But, there was a marked slow down in the second half of 2008.

The U.N. intellectual property’s director-general, Francis Gurry, said the following:

Trademarks in general concern new products or new enterprises and in conditions of economic recession you get less of both those two things.  We are experiencing the continuation of that slowdown in the course of this year.

Some more facts from the U.N. intellectual property agency reveal that German companies filed the most trademarks last year, increasing their applications by 2%.  French companies came in second, while U.S. firms came in third even though filings were down 1.5% from the previous year.