The US patent system is under fire from all sides. While open sourcers hate it just for existing and for granting philosophically distasteful tech monopolies to giant companies, big business attacks it for being too slow and backlogged, while other businesses claim that it awards patents too easily and broadly.

The giant organisation admits that it is in trouble: Commissioner for Patents John Doll told OUT-LAW Radio that if he closed the doors to new patent applications tomorrow it would be two and a half years before the current backlog is cleared.

What to do? Well the US Patents and Trademarks Office (USPTO) has taken a bold step. Kind of. It has embraced the mania of the day, the theory of the wisdom of crowds, and will attempt to harness all of our knowledge to help improve the quality of patents.

The new scheme relates to prior art, which is the name given to evidence that a patent application is not new, that someone had invented or patented something similar in the past.

The USPTO has signed up to a scheme invented at the New York Law School which throws open the search for prior art to the world. You can now look at a patent application online and submit anything you know of that would count as prior art and invalidate the patent application.

This is a fantastic idea, solving a number of problems. It reduces the workload of, and pressure on, beleaguered patent examiners by providing them with relevant, free information. It increases the likelihood that patent hoodwinkers will be caught, which in turn reduces future patent litigation, an expensive and time consuming process that has been the death knell of many a fine company.
Best of all, it does it in an open, transparent way which involves the technological community and gives them both responsibility and credit for the smooth operation of the system, while allowing the USPTO to stay firmly in charge.

There is, though, a problem. When I said that the USPTO has embraced the scheme, that was a lie. Their's is more of the kind of half-hug you give awkwardly at parties when you don't know someone that well.

They have signed up to the system, but only on a 12-month pilot, which is fair enough, and only for those who opt into the system.

There is a legal snag, you see. Third parties are barred by law from submitting prior art to the USPTO, except for in a very short window early on in the process. So participants in the trial have to waive their right not to have prior art submitted by other people.

Imagine that you are a wily inventor or purchaser of the rights to technology looking to slip in a quick patent application to put your proto-business on sound footing. You know that your application is maybe a little too broad, or a little too close to an existing one. But there are millions of patents out there and only one examiner with just 17 or 18 hours allocated to your application. What are the chances of them finding that one little patent from 20 years ago?

Are you going to sign up to the Peer-to-Patent system? No chance.

So the plan is a good one, and could radically improve the quality of an under-fire patent system. But if the full programme adopts the same mealy-mouthed approach and allows patent applicants to opt out, it will wither and die as only the least controversial applications will pass through its filtering system.

This project is designed for the controversial, the sneaky and the dishonest. Everyone's application should be forced through the system, otherwise it is a waste of the wisdom of an already tetchy crowd.

Like a trigger-happy tourist, Google has shot almost every street in five US cities and added its pictures to what might be the world's biggest holiday album. But if Google ever starts shooting the streets of Europe, courts here could fight back.

Google Maps Street View is the latest service from the search giant. Vehicles with multi-lens cameras travelled the streets of San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami and snapped everything in their paths. The images were uploaded to Google Maps and now, when you're looking at a location in Google Maps that has been photographed, you can see the pictures. If you live in a featured city and you've been passed by a Google van or a car from its partner, Immersive Media, the cameras probably saw you too.

Privacy fears were first raised by New Yorker Mary Kalin-Casey. She told the Boing Boing blog that, when trying out Street View, she recognised her cat, Monty, through the window of her own home. She said that the experience made her shake (though she'd have more cause for alarm if the camera captured her Georgian silverware).

If you are caught on camera and complain to Google, Google will remove the pics. But that may not be enough for Europe's courts.

Our data protection regime lets us take holiday snaps, even of strangers, provided we're doing so for private purposes. But if we're taking snaps for commercial use, where individuals are identifiable, there is no such exemption. We need to notify the subjects, and that's hard for Google to do. Even a loudspeaker on top of the camera cars ("Hi, it's Google here, say 'cheese' everybody!") might not suffice.

The law sets extra requirements for so-called sensitive personal data: it demands explicit consent, not just notification. That means when taking pictures of someone leaving a church or sexual health clinic - which could reveal a religious belief or an illness - camera cars might need to pull over and start picking up signatures.

It's not just those who are identifiable and caught in the act that can give Google a tough time. We Europeans could ask Google to ensure that no picture of us appears in Google Maps in the first place.
The nature of this rule varies across Europe, but in the UK we have a right to prevent the display of an image that would cause substantial distress. All we have to do is send an email to Google asking that it does not display a picture of us: "Dear Google, I think your camera caught me in Hyde Park this lunch time canoodling with my wife's best friend. Please make sure I can't be seen in Google Maps because this may cause me substantial distress. I've attached a picture of what I look like." If Google refuses or ignores you, you can go to the Information Commissioner and ask him to enforce the right. If there's damage and distress, you can sue.

Street View on the streets of London? The risks are clear, but few would bet against Google giving it a shot.

Not content with taking action against Google, Belgium's French language newspapers have targeted search engine Yahoo! for copyright infringement. The Copiepresse group, which represents French-language newspapers in Belgium, claims that Yahoo! is violating copyright laws by giving internet users access to archived newspaper articles. It is demanding that Yahoo! stops publishing articles from Belgian newspapers, without first obtaining authorisation.

The challenge to Yahoo! comes hot on the heels of Copiepresse's initial success running the same arguments against Google. In September 2006 Copiepresse obtained a judgment imposing a daily fine of €500,000 against Google unless it removed links to the offending articles. Interestingly, however, Google did not defend the original action, so we now are awaiting the decision from its subsequent appeal.

If Google's appeal fails and Copiepresse succeed against Yahoo! we may see a number of other news groups taking similar action which could potentially change the way network communications provides us with access to the news.   

January 1 2007 finally saw the implementation of the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive in the UK. From July this year manufacturers of electrical goods will be required to meet the end-of-life environmental costs of dealing with their own products, and there are stiff penalties for businesses disposing of WEEE in breach of the regulatory regime.

Most manufacturers have already started to take steps to offset the associated costs of dealing with WEEE - indeed analyst Gartner has estimated that the new law could eventually add £60 to the price of computers, as customers pay the end-of-life costs upfront. Manufacters can also shift liability for dealing with WEEE onto customers - the regulations allow for the parties to expressly agree that the customer will foot the bill rather than the manufacturer. This has seen a number of manufacturers, particularly at an enterprise level, revisiting their standard contract terms.

On the customer side of the fence, however, things aren't quite as developed. Computing this week reported that a quarter of IT directors are unaware of the impact WEEE will have on their business, and 75 per cent of IT staff are unaware of their own duties under WEEE. Could be time to start running crash courses in WEEE for your procurement and IT teams.

It was all a bit disappointing really. Andrew Gowers, the former FT editor was commissioned to undertake an independent review of intellectual property law in the UK. His 150-page report contained few surprises.

Gowers wants a private copying exception written into copyright law. That was expected and will find no opposition from the UK music industry. Currently, copying from your own CD to your hard drive and MP3 player is infringement, though the music industry turns a blind eye.

What is more controversial is that Gowers sees no need for an accompanying copyright levy. In many other countries, private copying is allowed but compensated by a tax on blank media. Copyright is the bedrock of the software industry, and any changes need to be watched carefully. The European Copyright Directive says member states can choose to forbid private copying or allow it – provided there is fair compensation for right holders. Gowers believes that compensation can be won another way – by adding it to the cost of CDs. Perhaps not the best idea given the imminent demise of the CD!

He also wants the EU's Copyright Directive amended to allow for an exception for creative, transformative or derivative works, provided this does not conflict with the normal exploitation of the original work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rights holder. Where permissions are required, he acknowledges the hassle of having to obtain rights from different bodies and suggests 'Encouraging a cross-licensing agreement between collecting societies could be highly beneficial to users.' This could also 'benefit rights holders if the simpler process encourages licensees to take up more licences.'

Gowers likes the UK's current patent system. He describes it as "well balanced" and says trade marks are affordable. But they can take between six and nine months to be granted. He wants a fast-track route 'for firms that require protection more quickly in order to start building up their brand.' This premium-rate service would allow trade marks to be examined and accepted within 10 days of the application being filed. Once the application is accepted it can be published and thereafter the standard three-month opposition period would begin.

Gowers is no fan of the US approach to patenting business methods. He suggests tweaking our current system but no overhaul. He saw no reason to lift the current ban on patenting 'computer programs as such' – but he did not address the problem of defining this term in a consistent way. Perhaps avoiding controversy rather than address what are real issues in the software world? Competition online is global after all.

Improvements that can and should be made include a fast-track process for obtaining a patent. This already exists, Gowers noted, but few inventors use it. His report concludes that the system should be improved (though few details are offered on how to do this – which is not terribly helpful). It is perhaps an indication of the nature of the report that the there is a proposal that the Patent Office change its name to the UK Intellectual Property Office.

Perhaps what is surprising is that there we are surprised at all. The question of intellectual property (IP) ownership is always going to be controversial. However the source of the fundamental structure of most intellectual property rights is to be found in International Treaties or European Directives. There is in fact little that the UK government can do to change IP law.

What it could do is address the fundamental problem of enforcement of IP rights. There is no point in a small company (or indeed a larger company) having a registered trade mark or patent when they cannot afford to enforce those rights. Even large corporates dread a patent dispute on account of cost, delay and uncertainty. Too often sheer financial muscle will determine a dispute, rather than the IP rights. He suggests changes to the procedures in place in England and Wales (Scotland seems to have been forgotten). But it is essentially more of the same. So why not have a fast track (as in 60 days) dispute resolution process. It works in other industries. The reaction from industry will probably be 'You call that fast...?' The reaction from lawyers - watch this space!