IP uncertainty seems the order of the day
I blame the language of patents for one.
Skype is claiming a victory in one of the many IP suits that are plaguing the P2P phone company at the moment. Robert Miller, Skype's general counsel, said in a blog post the other day that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had ruled in favour of Skype and sort-of-ex-parent eBay, over a brace of patents asserted …
A company I used to work for got sued for infringement. The case was won on a summary judgement, as the patent was invalid (refiled too late). And the judge said that he had never seen so much prior art brought to court by a defendant.
The US patent office seems to have absolutely no clue about what they are doing. The patent examiners don't know any of the prior art, and they aren't making it clear to patent holders that their patent is invalid, so don't go and try to enforce an invalid patent on anybody.
I have seen patent case claims where an older patent was said to "infringe" on a later patent. How does that work?? Why are the patent office and the courts allowing crap like this to go on? I have no idea when all of this is going to get to a breaking point and it will get fixed.