While the rest of the world is looking at the daft patent
rulings that are coming out of the US, a Microsoft lawyer thinks that it would
be better if the whole world did it that way.
Microsoft's Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez is
calling for the creation of a global patent system to make it easier and faster
for corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights around the
world. Writing in his
blog, he said that a backlog of patent applications internationally
was needed to tackle the 3.5 million pending patent applications around the
world--including around 750,000 in the US.
He said that everything was global and it was time for a
world patent that is derived from a single application, examined and
prosecuted
by a single examining authority and litigated before a single judicial
body. Guiterrez said that a harmonised, global patent system
would resolve many of the criticisms leveled at national patent systems
over
unmanageable backlogs and long waiting periods.
However Microsoft might find that the rest of the world
is a little more sensible about software patents. There is a move in the EU to remove software
from the list of things that could be subject to patents. The UK Pirate Party, also opposed to the current patent
system, and has put reform of the process at the center of its campaign for the
next election.