Apple and Microsoft team up to slow patent reform

Tech giants like Apple and Microsoft have pushed for reform of the US patent system after being involved in a multitude of legal actions over patents, but now they're pushing to slow reform. Apple and Microsoft are teaming up with Ford Motor Company, DuPont, General Electric, Pfizer, and IBM for the Partnership for american Innovation, which aims to convince members of the United States Congress to dial back some of their proposals on patent reform in order to protect their own patents.

Reuters reports that the group is worried that the laws that Congress is considering to handle the patent trolls problem will hurt their own businesses. A quick look at the membership confirms the thought that the companies in question are particularly concerned about moves to make software and biotechnology unpatentable.

The push in Congress to reform the patent system has been growing, often at the behest of these very companies after they've come under fire in multi-million-dollar (and multi-billion-dollar) patent suits from companies that merely hold patents they've acquired from elsewhere, having neither created the patent or produced any products that use it.

Most everybody agrees that reform is needed in the patent system to address modern inventions and business practices, but there's little agreement on how exactly the reforms should look. Hopefully a consensus meet-in-the-middle solution can be found that helps to spur on innovation while protecting the innovators. We're no patent law experts, and we doubt many of you are either, but where do you think patent reform should go?

Source: Reuters