© Jay Tamboli

Tech companies have been using patents law to launch all out warfare against one another in recent years, with many of the big players spending billions on these legal battles over the rights to pioneering ideas and inventions related to new mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

The US Court of Appeals is the exclusive venue for patent lawsuit appeals, but over the years it has developed a reputation for coming to decisions upholding many patents that are so broad it becomes difficult to tell what they actually cover. The 1990s was a big time for software patent approvals, and unlike with many other inventions these required only general descriptions rather than code or other specifics to show exactly how they worked. Similarly, these loose standards were also used in the patent approval process for certain business methods and technologies.

© Jay Tamboli

The U.S Congress is getting ready to release a new set of patent laws which would mean the first time the patent laws would be reformed in 60 years. The new patent laws, which come under the Bill known officially as the Leahy-Smith American Invents Act, is said to favour first-to-file patents. This is a variation from the existing patent laws which support a first-to-invent system. The new patent laws would also include a patent review system on post-grants.
The new patent laws have not received the acceptance of small businesses and independent investors as they fear that the expense and the complications of the new patent laws would put them at a disadvantage.

© Jay Tamboli

The app creators all over the world are facing problems dues to the patent laws in the U.S. These patent laws were made with the idea of keeping the intellectual property of people and companies safe from getting copied or stolen. But in the unfortunate turn of events, developers are not very sure about selling their apps in United States as they are scared of getting sued for infringement of the patent laws.
Many European developers had to pull their apps out of the U.S. market because of this. Simon Maddox, a developer from the United Kingdom, has removed all his apps from US app stores on both iOS and Android for fear of being sued by Lodsys, the company which has already sued a few iOS and Android developers which it says infringe its patent. This has become very problematic as developers are not selling their apps and the web is not growing, so to speak.
There have been requests from people and companies asking U.S. to change and better their patent laws. But strangely, changes in the patent laws were lobbied against by the companies getting sued now. USA will have to change its patent laws if it wants to remain at the forefront of technological development, otherwise the apps will just not go there.