So.. it's a change from "The patent is yours.. unless somebody comes along with a convincing story about how they thought of it before you and just didn't tell anyone" to "The patent is yours"<p>I don't understand the negative slant this article is trying to put on it. Other than the same kind of knee-jerk "Change is bad!" that you see every time Facebook changes its page layout, what's the problem with this?
Previous thread, which includes comments from a patent lawyer.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5211221" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5211221</a><p>Long story short: this change is not a big deal.<p>Especially useful comment:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5212111" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5212111</a>
So what happens when someone patents your company's established trade secrets and then wants to charge your company to use its own internally developed technology?
Does this mean that some entrepreneur can invent something, start building in stealth mode, and one of his employees can patent it, quit and sue him in a year? :P