United States software patent reform has been weakened

A bill to reform the patent system in the United States has been watered down ahead of the vote. The law should make it easier for the US patent office to invalidate software patents.

The part of the bill that provides for easier deletion of software patents has been removed before the vote in the US House Judiciary Committee, so reports The Washington Post. According to the newspaper, the section was scrapped after a major lobbying campaign by major technology companies such as Microsoft and IBM.

By reforming the patent system, the US government wanted to make it more difficult for patent trolls to sue technology companies. In recent years, several companies have been set up with the sole purpose of making money from patents, something that is often done through lawsuits for alleged patent infringement. Many of these lawsuits are conducted in the United States.

In the United States, patents can be canceled using the so-called covered business method, which makes it possible to invalidate low-quality patents ‘quickly and effectively’. However, this is not possible for all types of patents. The covered business method should have been expanded through the bill, so that software patents also fall under it.

Microsoft has previously spoken openly against a reform of the patent system, saying that software patents should continue to exist in their current form. The US patent office USPTO has been working on reform for some time now.