Anne Broache at CNET News writes about the disagreements among the small and large companies over reforming the patent system link here. The big companies think it is a broken system, primarily because of the patent trolls which sit on questionable patents and extort money with the threat of litigation. The small venture firms oppose radical changes for adding uncertainty to the validity of issued patents. These differences emerged at U.S. House of Representatives Small Business Committee hearings on patents and a bill is expected to be introduced in both houses of Congress soon.

What the big companies propose is a less expensive alternative to litigation in order to review the validity of issued patents in a "post-grant opposition" process.

We will see what emerges. Several previous stabs at patent "reform" have expired for lack of support.

I missed this when it first came out. The US Patent and Trademark Office reports it has issued its first patent under an accelerated procedure link here. The Office writes that the first patent under its accelerated examination program that began in August 2006, for a printer ink gauge, was filed with the USPTO on September 29, 2006, and was awarded to Brother International, Ltd. on March 13, 2007. Average review time for applications in the ink cartridge technology area is 25.4 months. This patent issued in 6 months, a time savings of 18 months for the patent holder.

To be eligible for accelerated examination, applicants are required to provide specific information, known as an examiner support document, so the USPTO can issue a final decision by the examiner within 12 months on whether their application for a patent will be granted.

Inventions that are new, useful, non-obvious, and accompanied by a written description disclosing how to make and use it, are presumed to be patentable. To reject an application, the USPTO must show that the invention is obvious or not new ("prior art").

Normally, applicants have to disclose to the USPTO relevant prior art of which they are aware but are not required to search for it. For accelerated examination, they must search for prior art, submit all prior art that is closest to their invention, and explain what the prior art teaches and how their invention is different.

They must state how their invention is useful and show how the written description supports the claimed invention. Only a limited number of claims is allowed in each application and the time for responding to most USPTO communications is shortened.

This and the peer review process (recently described here) presumably will improve the quality of patents issued. However, there is a good bit of skepticism among those of us at Against Monopoly who see the USPTO as overwhelmed and under the strong influence of existing patent holders and big business.

Keep an eye peeled.

Mike at Techdirt tells us that the Patent Peer Review System (about which we reported earlier) is up and taking applications for patent reviews and for those who wish to qualify as public or outside reviewers, all in the interest of tapping public knowledge about the appropriateness of granting a particular patent in view of prior art or obviousness link here. The Peer Review site is at link here and has a lot of additional information.

The Associated Press reports that there is concern over infringement fears from participating in the reviews link here, but Beth Noveck, the program's director, insists deliberate infringement laws apply to patents, not applications. She is a professor and director of New York Law School's Institute for Information Law & Policy, which is running the project. An initial test starts tomorrow and it is hoped to have the system fully up by June 1. For some early comment, see link here

Lawrence Lessig writes that the Viacom-YouTube suit is the result of judicial interference in a matter of law that Congress had already decided link here. It injected the courts into what everyone thought was settled law the safe-harbor provision of the DMCA through the use of take-down requests when it entered the Grokster case twenty months ago. That decision expanded liability under the Copyright Act to cover wrongfully providing technology that induces copyright infringement. The similarity of the Viacom-YouTube case seems pretty clear. Lessig expects the case to be long and expensive for the public. The alternative is a move by the Congress to reassert its authority over copyright as laid out in the Constitution.

Joe Nocera discusses the suit by Viacom against YouTube and its owner, Google, for copyright infringement link here. It is a pretty good run down, but main-stream-media's requirement for balance forces it to avoid a clear conclusion that YouTube has complied with the take-down requests from Viacom as provided in the DMCA-–and instead seems to leave the case up to the discretion of the judge. That allows Nocera to conclude that there will be a compromise. But it seems to me that the only way that Viacom can win is to get the DCMA changed and that may be their real objective.

The Newshour with Jim Lehrer had an interesting interview about Viacom's suit against YouTube. The interview with Cardoso Law School Professor Susan Crawford pretty much shredded Viacom's case, pointing out that the safe harbor or take-down provision of the DMCA thoroughly protected YouTube and its owner, Google. Conjectures to explain why Viacom sued seem unconvincing at this point. Anyway, give it a listen link here. She is one articulate lawyer-professor.

One of the unforeseen problems of having a single textbook on a subject, provided by the government, surfaces in this story from Korea link here. When the education ministry tried to publish a new economics text for middle and high school, financed jointly with the Federation of Korean Industries, a big business association, the unions protested and the ministry removed its support. The draft clearly was critical of unions. Business, on the other hand, complained "that the current textbook is hostile to businesses, and emphasizes enterprises' social responsibility too much."

Monopoly isn't good for textbooks since trying to find a solution acceptable to all parties is unlikely to succeed or to be dull or both. Trying to write texts by the Wiki formula may fail for the same reason.

Greg Mankiw link here points us to Joe Stiglitz' piece on Prizes vs Patents link here. Mankiw argues that prizes aren't so great, as they will require taxes, presumptively distortionary, and the prize awarding committee is composed of fallible humans. The argument gets ideological, particularly in the comments at Mankiw's site where some have a dreamy view of patents costs, but like most things in life, there are tradeoffs and the best choice isn't always clear initially. There ought to be room for both.

This website has long advocated digitizing books and making them available on line, at either low prices or free. I would be curious to know if that happens very often. I stumbled on one, the Wiley - Ubuntu Linux Bible at link here.

It is also available from Wiley for $39.33 in hard copy. I think it may be available as a free download for only a limited period of time. The book comes with a CD but Ubuntu will mail you one for free or you can download it, burn a CD and then install it.

This move by the Ubuntu distribution to promote the use of its linux-based operating system reflects an interesting business model, one in which sale of the software is secondary and primary is the sale of follow-on services. But it all depends on the spread of linux, which has had an uphill battle with Microsoft.

Korea's eduction ministry announced plans to greatly expand its use of digital textbooks in public schools, going from the current 14, all in math for grades 5 and 6, to 100 by 2011 in all subjects link here. "Digital textbooks have many advantages, like multi-media functions such as videos instead of printed illustrations," a ministry official said. Studies there show that students pay more attention to lessons when they use digital textbooks, he added.