Today the Internet lost a vanguard in the form of Geocities, at one point a dominant player in web-hosting and one of the first sites to offer the service to individuals on a massive scale and for free.  Utilizing a unique “neighborhood” design, users would be assigned to a particular sub-section depending on the focus of their site (such as “Petsburgh” for sites focusing on pets, or “HotSprings” for health and fitness).  It was a pioneer in bringing the power of personal expression and discourse ubiquitous to the Internet the masses, in large part because it made the creation process so simple.

Though it is often forgotten today with services such as WordPress, Blogger, MySpace, and other sites providing simple webpage templates, but  in Geocities’s infancy back in the mid-90s you needed to know at least a workable amount of HTML to create a page and maintain it.  Geocities was one of the first sites that offered a simple site generator that required minimal knowledge of HTML, and made it simple to add such “cool” features as a visitor counter, guestbook (a forbearer to comments sections today), and various HTML/text effects.  Sure, that sometimes resulted in some pretty awful looking pages, but it still helped to break down a massive wall blocking individuals from venturing onto the information superhighway (the go-to buzzword at the time).  Today this level of streamlining is expected, but back then it was a godsend for those wanting to dip their toes into the digital stream without first having to don waders.  In fact, it is fair to say that sites like MySpace, Friendster, and much of social media owe at least part of their existence to the pre-fabricated little ‘burbs that sprung out from Geocities.

As one analyst put it, “[i]t was was the first proof that you could have something really popular and still not make any money on the internet.“  Of course, this inability to generate sustainable revenue was a major reason why the service was discontinued by Yahoo!, which had been underperforming in recent quarters and needed to streamline its business somewhat.  Coupled with a shift in how people express themselves on the Internet – “ shifting away from isolated Web pages [and instead using] social-networking sites such as Facebook, with built-in features for creating a profile, staying in touch with contacts, and maintaining at least a little privacy,” it seemed that Geocities’s days were numbered.

Of course, with any passing, there are tributes to past glory as well as those who look to cull some message or greater meaning from its end.  In my opinion, Geocities ultimate demise was due to the same factor most sites wrestle with – they could not sufficiently monetize the immense traffic they received effectively.  Sure, Geocities adopted the tried-and-true banner ads, and I’m sure that generated revenue to a point.  But successful advertising on the web is elusive, and I have my doubts that it will ever be a viable option for sustaining a large hosting service like Geocities, Blogspot,  or Facebook.  Of course, people will point to Google as an example of a company profiting from ads, but Google is an extremely unique case – they are a leader in so many facets of the Internet (searching, email, blog hosting, etc.) and are so diverse in their holdings that they almost “had” to make money.  Their dominant position, though, is unique to them alone, and by its nature could never be duplicated by other companies.

It will be interesting to see if the next generation of user-generated service companies such as Facebook and Youtube find a way become profitable based on their users; my guess is that Geocities’s failings had less to do with its own inability to evolve or poor management as it did with the realities of the Internet, where paying for services sometimes seems sacrilegious.

But as for Geocities, I’ll miss it.  Back in high school, I actually used them to host an early web page shortly after I learned how to “code” in HTML.  I have no idea what happened to that site, but it was certainly fun to lay claim to a small plot of cyberspace for my very own.  Plus, as someone with precious little artistic talent, it was somewhat liberating to design a page that looked unique, if not a bit cool.  So R.I.P. Geocities, and hopefully people won’t ever forget how pioneering it was to have an address CollegePark.

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Finally sat down and read the amicus brief [pdf] filed by Red Hat in the In Re Bilski case.  In it, Red Hat argues that software patents “do not always promote innovation, and they may substantially hinder it.”  They note that the software industry matured and thrived without software patents, and quote Dr. Knuth at Stanford University, who said that “I strongly believe that the recent trend to patenting algorithms is of benefit only to a very small number of attorneys and inventors, while it is seriously harmful to the vast majority of people who want to do useful things with computers.”  Red Hat argues that the Federal Circuit decision [pdf] holding that software patents should be restricted to those algorithms “tied to a particular machine or apparatus.”  In effect, they are arguing that the legal world has turned its back on the teachings of Benson and Diehr, which required algorithms to be tied to tangible machines or transformative processes, and have instead adopted the more murky State Street Bank outlook that a patent is valid if the practical application “produces a useful, concrete and tangible result.”  Red Hat notes that software developers enjoy a robust amount of protection under copyright law, and that software patents create a world in which small-time developers are squeezed out by litigious trolls and patent war chests held as a defensive measure by large corporations.

Now, I do I agree with Red Hat that software patenting certainly needs to be reigned in somewhat; it does seem strange that Amazon can obtain a patent on 1-click purchases or that a company can make blanket claims to streaming audio and video with incredibly nebulous claims.  And I will concede that software patents do lend themselves to patent trolling in ways that mechanical and biological patents do not, chief amongst them the fact that quite a few early-issued ones were granted with overly broad terms.  Finally, the success of open-source software has shown that developers and companies can, and will, innovate without the presumed impetus provided by strong patent protection.

At the same time, though, I think there is some overreaction to the inevitable growing pains that software patents have gone through over the years.  While mechanical and chemical patents have existed for hundreds of years, software patents are significantly younger than the Baby Boomers.  This is still a young field, one that has been undergoing a significant examination and maturation since the 1970s.  Inevitably, there have been setbacks and poor decisions, and some of these missteps have led to unnecessary litigation that has stymied innovation, at least temporarily.  At the same time, though, I think it is too early to just dismiss software patents as wholly unnecessary and a pox on innovation, because I think they still can serve as a tool for growth in the industry if properly monitored.  For while the industry certainly matured somewhat during the 60′s and 70′s, it has also taken immense steps forward in the age of software patents.

Because the arguments I hear most often against software patents seem to focus far more on the inferior quality of issued patents rather than the value of patents in general.  I think all will admit that bad patents, in any discipline, need to be eradicated; but to dismiss all patents because of a few bad examples is the equivalent to throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

Can Patents Level the Playing Field?

A key argument made supporting software patents is that it helps to level the playing field, especially as it relates to small companies and single inventors, because it provides a tangible manifestation of algorithms that, by their nature, are more fluid and commutable than other technologies.  By allowing an inventor to identify his/her novel invention and clearly articulate its metes and bounds to the world, he/she is afforded at least some protection from others “stealing” or otherwise using this invention without proper recognition and (I assume) financial compensation.

For example, small-time company A has invented a novel way to compress video and transmit it over a network connection with far greater efficiency than the current competition.  Now, they may try to license the technology to others, and during this process a major tech company such as Microsoft, Google, or Apple may catch wind of it and, based on some hint or revelation provided by this exposure, create a competing technology that is similar to company A’s technology.  Under current patent law, if company A filed a patent application for the technology and properly described the utility and novel elements of the technology, they would be entitled to some protections against this major tech company’s integration of company A’s novel technology.  And from a pragmatic sense, this works – company A put in the effort and R&D to create this improvement, and it would seemingly be unfair to allow this hard work to go for naught because a major player in the field joined the party late.

Because while I do not have much experience working in the tech industry, what little I have has shown the industry to be very Darwinian – large companies feast upon smaller companies and inventors specifically because they cannot adequately protect themselves.  Company A may be able to mount an offense via public relations on blogs and sue someone over a breach of confidentiality, but without patents the major tech company will release its own software and, because of its significant market advantage, dominate the competition even though they may not have been responsible for the innovation.  Sometimes the strong survive not because they are the best, but simply because they are able to leverage their size/knowledge/experience/resources to a degree that its competitors cannot.  But with a valid patent, the small inventors and innovators are able to level the playing field immensely, taking advantage of a system designed to protect the creators and expose their inventions to society at large.

But What About Copyrights?

One of the chief arguments made by Red Hat and other opponents of software patents is that software designers already receive adequate protection under current copyright law.  To an extent, I agree with them – copyright law forbids the exact copying (and some limited “equivalence”) of code without authorization.  This provides some protection for the inventor from direct copying by a competitor, and provides adequate remedies for violations at least on the small scale.  And unlike software patents, the rights conveyed by a copyright exist as soon as the code is recorded on a tangible medium, with further public registration an option but not a necessity.  No messy paperwork, no major fees, and some certainty that your innovation will not go unnoticed.

At the same time, though, copyright always felt like a round hole into which software was jammed into.  At its core, copyright law was intended to protect literary, artistic, and musical works – tangible works that by their nature can only take a single form.  If you significantly change the elements of a copyrighted work, the result is a wholly new and unique copyrightable work, not necessarily bound to the earlier work.  In other words, Moby Dick is only Moby Dick in the way Melville wrote it – the arrangement of words in a particular order that are embodied in the novel.  Take those same words and jumble them up, and you have another original work, but it is not Moby Dick.  Sure, there are a bundle of exclusive rights for a copyright holder that grant him/her some protections against unauthorized duplication and piracy, but by their nature that are less expansive than those granted by patents.

By its nature, though, software does not lend itself to a single permutation.  Though this is highly simplistic, while loops and for loops often do the exact same thing, yet can appear markedly different depending on how they are implemented.  Image rendering algorithms  can have significantly different processing times depending on the order in which they perform a certain set of shared steps, making one significantly more attractive than another to a particular customer.  The same really could not be said for a novel or a song – place the refrain of a song before the intro and it wouldn’t make much sense, nor would splicing chapters of a novel together in an illogical order.  While the value of most copyrighted works is in the expression of the work on a tangible medium, software’s value is derived far more from the ideas behind it, the innovation in the outlook and the fresh perspective and improvements they provide over the current guard.  Yet copyright protection doesn’t usually extend out to the mental ether – it is rooted in the crumpled pages and sheet music, the framed canvases and the blueprints.  Copyright is like a lasso; at first it might seem expansive and wide-ranging, but pull on it a bit and it ultimately captures only the tangible object it is wrapped around.

So if copyright can best be described as a tight lasso, patents are more like a free-flowing net.  While patents are not perfect, they cast a wider net over an invention, capturing at least some of this novel thinking beyond what is submitted as the best mode or manifestation of the idea.  True, this net needs to be further inspected and refined to make sure that it does not capture more than it should, but it does provide far more protection for the “essence” of an invention than copyright, protection that I suspect most inventors would rather retain at least initially.

Can Open-Source and Patent Law Co-Exist?

The success of the open-source movement is indisputable; I am currently writing this post using Firefox on a system running Ubuntu while listening to music with Songbird.  Some of the best programs available today are open-source, and the community has proven to be far more robust and innovative than I think even its greatest proponents ever imagined.  It has also shown to be a very adaptive movement, adroitly dealing with legal issues through community-based decisions such as the GPL.  It has fostered innovation and has shown to be a viable competitor in virtually every arena, from operating systems to gaming, and all without the use of software patents or proprietary software.

At the same time, open source is not a purely altruistic movement.  Red Hat, for example, generates millions of dollars a year in income through its various products and services.  Many companies that provide “free” software generate income through maintenance, training, and other services that, arguably, are as profit-driven as those from industry “behemoths” such as Apple, IBM, and Microsoft.  Even those companies and individuals who provide their expertise to the open-source movement without any demand for direct compensation usually expect to benefit in a variety of non-monetary ways, such as increased market presence, prestige, and recognition.  And it is a safe bet that if someone were to benefit from the use of their code or innovation without proper attribution or recognition, many of them would feel betrayed and take measures to remedy it.

I guess that is my point – open-source and the proprietary/patent software worlds are profoundly different on some levels and remarkably similar on others.  They will likely never be fully reconciled, and that is perfectly fine.  But can only one survive, or can both co-exist provided that they limit their interactions?

Red Hat argues that “[a] separate but related problem  faces all software developers—that of the impossibility of patent clearance, or determining whether there are existing patents that may be said to read on a new product.”   By allowing software patents, you are creating a world in which innovators are constantly at the mercy of some unknown patent being hoarded by a patent troll, to be used as a crude ax at a moment’s notice to eviscerate the innovator.  And to an extent, I understand why this must be troubling to small companies and single inventors – your work is independent of this patent, yet you are held subject to it even if you had no knowledge of its existence before your were served with the lawsuit.

But I think the argument here goes more to a bad patent than the notion of a patent.  Companies and inventors alike hate bad software patents, those patents which are incredibly broad and poorly-written, claiming far-reaching technologies without providing adequate description and disclosure.  That I understand, and I think the patent system is slowly eliminating these mistakes while correcting the flaws that allowed them to exist in the first place.  At the same time, though, the patent system also provides a level of protection for these smaller companies otherwise unavailable in the industry.  And for all the complaints that software lawsuits are exploding, litigation exists across all disciplines, and the uptick in recent years probably has more to do with the relative immaturity of the art compared to other, more established disciplines, where there are more precedents clearly-defined stakes.  Given time, I suspect that litigation will subside and fall more in line with other fields.

What I think is oftentimes lost in the debate over software patents is that for every party “losing” out because a patent exists covering their technology, there is a party whose rights are being protected for the work they put into it.  Sure, this “race to the office” is a major shortcoming of the current patent system, but no system is perfect.  Red Hat argues that software patents make it impossible to perform a complete search of the prior art – try performing a similar search over just copyrights, which do not require registration and receive virtually not scrutiny or vetting.  At some point, you just have to keep innovating and hope that you are the first to truly innovate.  And if there is a patent that covers your current invention, do what most companies do when they run into a competing patent – design and innovate around it.  In crowded arts this might be difficult, but it is possible.  Companies make billions of dollars by innovating around what is known, and my guess is that some of these innovations would never have been considered without the current state of the art being codified in some USPTO filings.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think that software patents are not going to disappear from the landscape, though they will likely be further massaged and augmented by decisions like In Re Bilski and cases that have not even been filed.  While I recognize that there are flaws to the current patent system, it also provides a substantial number of benefits both to inventors and society in general.  To cast it aside at this point would be premature, and may very well have a detrimental impact on innovation going forward.

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Skype Lawsuit

I meant to write about this article in the NY Times last week, but it kind of fell through the cracks.  It sounds as if the creators of Skype , the leading web-based phone service, are none too happy with how eBay, the previous licensee (and effective owner of the Skype brand), was altering their code, and thus have filed a suit against them for violation of their license agreement.  Well, technically the lawsuit is between Skype and JoltID, but JoltID is merely the holding company for the technology originally designed for use in Skype.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  The source of the disagreement is certainly not novel – inventors generally like to retain a fair bit of control over their products even if they ostensibly cut ties with it.  But with the rapid proliferation of VoIP technologies being peddled by both web-based and service providers such as phone and cable companies, it is somewhat strange that either side would really be fighting over the technology.  Sure, the Skype name still carries some cache, but it only generated about $170 million in revenue for the last quarter [PDF], and doesn’t look to be a cash cow anytime soon.  Furthermore, a quick search of Google patents did not unearth any patented technology by the original Skype inventors, so this doesn’t seem to be an issue of potential market interference/restriction.  So I am interested to see how this case plays out; if it truly concerns a licensing violation, or if it is merely a power play by inventors looking to capture lightning in the bottle a second time with the same technology.

Brief College Football Analysis

As an alumni of both the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, I oftentimes find my whole Saturday dominated by that seasonal spectacle known as college football. Most weekends, UM and/or MSU play some (relatively) inconsequential opponent (looking at you, Indiana or Montana State), and my attention can wander to any number of things (Internet, my wife, walking my dog, eating, etc.). Yet, every once and a while you have a weekend list this past one, when you are reminded just how exciting college football can be, and how sometimes you may take it a bit too seriously for your own help.

Poor Sparty

In the early game, Michigan State was stunned by Central Michigan at home, 29-27.  Now, that alone is not an immense shocker – CMU is expected to compete for the MAC crown, and their starting quarterback Dan LeFevour set the career yardage record for the conference in the game against MSU.  At the same time, though, MSU was ahead for almost the entire game , only to give up a late touchdown pass with 30 seconds less.  Then, somewhat inexplicably, CMU went for a 2-point conversion and the win, leading to a pass out of bounds and, seemingly, the end of the game.  Sure, CMU could try to recover an onside kick, but those rarely work, especially when the other team clearly knew it was coming.  So CMU lined up the kick, MSU trotted out the hands team, and everything seemed academic at that point – CMU would kick some dribbler toward the sideline, there would be a crush of players converging on the ball, and MSU would either recover it or the ball would skip harmlessly out of bounds.

So what happened?  The CMU kicker put some wicked spin on the ball, it took the perfect hop, and CMU recovered.  Of course, they still had 25 or so yards to go to get into viable field goal range, and only about 20+ seconds to do it.  Somehow, LeFevour and CMU was able to move the ball down the field to set up a 47-yard field goal attempt for the win, but the kicker missed it to the right.  So game over? Nope – an MSU player had jumped offsides, resulting in the double whammy of giving CMU another kick AND moving them 5 yards closer. At this point, it should be pretty obvious what happened (I wouldn’t have wasted this much time writing about a 1-point MSU win). The kick was thisclose to missing but slipped through the uprights, and CMU recorded a season-defining win while MSU’s inflated preseason hype looks even more ridiculous than it originally did.

Unfortunately, these types of losses seem to be the norm for State.  I have been an unabashed UM fan since I was a little kid, but as an alumni I still want MSU to win and be competitive.  But outside of the Pearles era and the few years Nick Saban stuck around, MSU has been a struggling program most of my life.  During Bobby Williams’ tenure, the team featured top-notch talent (including record-setting WR Charles Rogers and RB T.J. Duckett) but consistently underperformed.  Then under John L. Smith’s rein (which largely coincided with my time at MSU law school), the team self-destructed so consistently that I rarely checked game scores after the second week in October, presuming that the team would find a way to blow any game there were in.

But Mark Dantonio was supposed to be different.  Not only did he lead MSU to two straight bowl games, but he was the type of coach he instilled discipline and accountability in his teams, traits that have seemingly always been missing with the Spartans.  They have always had decent enough talent – not necessarily dominant recruiting classes, but in that mid-range level trending upward.  A good coach can certainly win with that talent, and consistent winners recruit better, creating a positive feedback loop that can create nationally-ranked programs out of schools like Utah and Boise St.

But watching this game, I saw the same demons that have plagued MSU in the past rear their ugly heads again.  They had more penalties than CMU (given, only by 2, but as mentioned above, one was at a pretty inopportune time), and were outgained by over 100 yards by a team that only recorded 182 total yards the week before against a pretty mediocre Arizona.  The offense was immensely predictable in the second half, and while the defense at times looked good at times, they also let CMU march down the field at times virtually unencumbered by things like QB pressure and receiver coverage.  It was a disappointing loss for the team, but on a greater level it exposed the team for perhaps what it is – a second-tier team in the Big 10, one relegated to the random New Years Day bowl games in Florida or Texas sandwiched between some 5-7 seasons.  I’m sure Spartan fans wish that wasn’t the case, but the team’s play certainly is trending toward that being a reality moreso than ascension into the upper-echelon of the conference and the national rankings.

Go Blue

In the afternoon game between UM and Notre Dame, you had two teams seeking redemption.  UM, coming off a horrendous 3-9 season the year before (the worst in school history), was also stinging from an inflammatory and dubious story about practice tactics by the Free Press.  While a season-opening win against Western Michigan had helped to soothe the pain a bit, everyone knew that the Notre Dame game would be the true barometer for this team.

Notre Dame, of course, had its own demons it was trying to extricate.  Just two years ago it too had suffered through a 3-9 season, and last year struggled to a 7-6 record while the media and fans were calling for head coach Charlie Weiss’s head.  Yet, this year was supposed to be different – uber-QB Jimmy Clausen was playing behind a solid offensive line, and the team had two top-notch WRs in Golden Tate and Michael Floyd.  The defense was improved, and at least one (potentially biased) pundit was calling Notre Dame a dark horse National Championship contender.  So spirits were high in South Bend as the Irish traveled to Ann Arbor.  Plus, when you have two of the top-3 winningest programs in college football history, there’s a chance for something special.

So what happened?  Well, one of the most exciting and nerve-wracking games I’ve ever witnessed.  Michigan’s true freshman QB Tate Forcier played well beyond his years, accounting for 3 touchdowns (2 passing, 1 rushing), including the game-winning pass to Greg Mathews with 11 seconds left in the game after Notre Dame erased a double-digit lead for the Wolverines heading into the 4th quarter.  Clausen played quite well himself, throwing for 3 TDs and generally looking like one of the best QBs in the country.  That said, he still looked rattled whenever UM was able to get pressure on him, but to ND’s credit they were able to give Clausen enough time on most of his passes.  Both defenses played well at times but were clearly no match for the offenses, and both running games were surprisingly efficient (especially Notre Dame’s) given the fact ND’s usual focus on passing and the fact UM’s top back Brandon Minor was still recovering from an injury that sidelined him for the past few weeks.

Without waxing poetic or wading too deep into the sea of hyperbole, I think this UM team may go down as one of the most exciting and “fun” to watch in recent memory.  That doesn’t mean I think they’ll be one of the best – I figured 7-6 or 8-5 with a bowl win at the beginning of the season – but Coach Rich Rodriguez’s offense looks to finally be clicking with Forcier and fellow freshman QB Denard Robinson at the helm, and the team is young enough that they should consistently improve as the season progresses.  Plus, the Big 10 looks to be down a bit this year, with Ohio State and Penn State the clear favorites followed by a bunch of mediocre teams.  It is not inconceivable that UM would emerge with the third-best record in the conference at season’s end, a dramatic turn-around and a clear springboard to a return to national relevance in 2010 and beyond.

But that’s getting a bit ahead of myself.  Last weekend’s game was one for the ages, and one that I hope fans won’t soon forget.  For all the bashing of this team and its head coach since he stepped on campus, this team is clearly make strides toward being the type of team that consistently challenges for national championships and Big 10 titles, and that is the standard UM fans have come to expect (even if the reality has been that outside of the 1997 season, the team has been a good-but-not-great program for decades).  I’ve always had faith that Coach Rodriguez was a good hire for this program after Lloyd Carr; I’m just happy to start seeing the benefits of that faith on the field and off.

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Just stumbled upon this article on CNET that points to an interesting blog post by Horacio Gutierrez, an attorney at Microsoft.  In it, he calls for a global patent system to help address a myriad of issues currently plaguing the profession, including:

And certainly there is evidence that something needs to be done – witness the 3.5 million pending patent applications worldwide and the ongoing litigation over “bad” patents that can easily wrack up costs in the millions.  So there clearly is a fair argument to be made for some type of reform, though to what level depends on who you talk to.

On one hand, it is hard to disagree with those who decry the state of the patent system and point out some of its structural flaws; clearly, when pendencies for first office actions in the U.S. average nearly 3 years and you have tens of thousands of lawsuits filed last year in the US, it is hard to ignore the clamoring for reform.  I mean, look at this pendency graph:

Image courtesy of IPWatchdog.com

I’ve been on rides at Cedar Point with more gradual increases.

But if history has taught us one thing, it is that reform is never easy.  True, we are not talking about reform as sweeping (at least to extent it affects the “average” person on a daily basis) as the New Deal or as contentious as health care reform, but the fact remains that once you start trying to alter an established system, even one with major structural deficiencies, people tend to come out swinging.

I do think that a global patent system is a viable option that should be explored by world leaders, but the seismic shift some influential nations would have to make in their views on IP in order for it to work are quite daunting.  Nations like China and India are notorious for taking a rather lax view on IP protection and enforcement, positions that clearly are at odds with America’s penchant for strong protection and strict, if sometimes draconian, enforcement.  For a global patent system to work, it would require negotiations and compromises from these disparate parties on a variety of issues.

For countries with lax IP laws, such as China and India, the major thrust would be to “beef up” their enforcement aspects while also codifying what is patentable subject matter and what is not.  I admit to not be a scholar on foreign patent systems, but the key argument I have heard proffered again and again is that enforcement is so lax that you are better to either (a) not even enter the market, or (b) concede that infringement will occur and just try to capitalize on your initial splash.  For a global system to work, one must be confident that protection of his/her patent will be identical in São Paulo, Shanghai, Mumbai, London, and New York.  That level of enforcement would be a major hurdle to overcome in some of these countries, and my guess is that even at its best,it would lack the teeth some other countries would expect.

America and the EPO would likely have to accept looser rules regarding enforcement and subject matter viability, conceding a fair bit on issues such as drug enforcement/generics and the scope of software patents.  Term limits would likely be cut down from 20 years to something closer to 13-14 years, or perhaps a sliding scale depending on the classification of the technology (e.g. 5 years for software, 10 years for mechanical, 14 years for biotech).  Plus, the number of exceptions granted against patent enforcement would likely expand, with entities such as universities, government agencies, and non-profit inventors likely being given “passes” on usage of patent technologies for a variety of purposes.  It would be a different world for these countries, a step back in terms of overall enforcement but a clear improvement in terms of global scope and uniformity.

Of course, my opinions are only addressing the issue on a macro level – country to country.  Internally, all of these countries would likely need to rectify their own national views on IP protection, which features its own set of issues and hurdles to overcome.

Ultimately, my guess is that any global patent system would somewhat mirror that of the PCT – a standardized application process that would then allow applicants to enter the “national” stage of member nations.  These member nations, though, would be working from the same base set of rules and requirements, though they would have some leeway to account for various cultural discrepancies or enforcement mechanisms.  Examination would largely be uniform, and would be subject to a series of tribunal review panels to remedy disagreements, similar to those that exist in most countries.  As for enforcement, patent holders would be able to bring suit either in the offending nation’s courts or various global tribunals, but in either context a single set of rules would be in place.  That way, a patent holder in one country would not need to concern himself with the vagaries of the offender’s local laws, which can be a major roadblock to enforcement.

Overall, I think that reform is necessary and possible, but it would require a deal of patience and compromise both nationally and internationally.  I’m all for change to be made; I’m a little dubious on whether people are willing to accept the cost such change would entail.

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