Informação e conhecimento

Mudanças nas patentes

Patent challenges

Patent systems have come under increasing scrutiny in the digital world in the past year. This is particularly the case with the US patent system, as it provides the governance for much of the world’s patentable intellectual property. It is also a very old system, one that, according to research from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, was grounded in the principles of commercialising discoveries, rather than protecting the creative process surrounding innovation. Thus, many in the digital world see the proposed US Patent Reform Act of 2007 as a great legislative leap into the information age. The act, if passed, would limit the ability of litigants to claim patent infringements broadly, and would seek to switch to a “first to file” system more in line with global practice. As a result, however, this threatens to weaken the position of existing patent holders under the “first to invent” system, and as such has come under international criticism, most vocally from China.

Texto extraído do E-readness 2008. (Relatório produzido pela IBM sobre indicadores mundiais em TIC).