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European Software Patent Horror Gallery 88

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-thats-pretty-funny dept.
siggifiggi writes "Heise has a news-item about a list of trivial and stupid patents already granted in Europe. The list was created by the Association for the Promotion of a Free Informational Infrastructure." The best one is the patent on controlling one computer from another (which would technically include controlling your computer with a keyboard that had a microchip in it, to say nothing of telnet!
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European Software Patent Horror Gallery More

European Software Patent Horror Gallery

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  • Yes, this same methodology is the source of all stupid laws. Let them write any law they want, it'll be invalidated/overturned at the very first challange anyways. However, until it is, it's still a law and is to be obeyed, and it's suprisingly difficult and expensive for an average person to fight a law. And the more people cave in because it's simpler the stronger it becomes.

    So with patents, it's like this: let them patent anything they want, if it's a bad patent it'll be revoked when challanged. Problem is until such time it's still a patent and everyone has to do a search before they do anything to avoid infringing. And every person that opts to pay the fee rather than fight it (because it's easier and cheaper) makes the claim that much stronger.

  • I want to submit a patent for the following thing:
    an adminstrative entity, with no particular physical configuration, which accepts applications for things, ideas, methods, procedures, or any other random string of thoughts, and records what was registered as belonging to the registering party, granting them (the resistering party) rights to the intellectual property of the thing, idea, method, procedure, or string of random thoughts which was registered.
  • I could've sworn you said "sites like these should be neutered". You know, "nurtured" makes a lot more sense...
  • Einstein patented a fairly obvious
    fridge design. Don't know if he was
    such a good examiner but he abused
    the system like evryone else.
  • Because I think I can get one of those patents for myself. It will make me very wealthy.
    --
    Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
  • I am European and find this quite horrible but also full of possibilities. I think I will submit the following:

    Description: The patent covers the 'swap' operation, both on a primitive (type) as well as complex object level.

    Rationale: I will then be able to sue the pants off anyone making use of any sequence of instructions which will swap the values of 2 memory locations/areas. Just about every sorting routine and countless other applications use this, so I should now be able to retire ...

  • Please refrain from complaining about hypocrisy when it does not actually exist.
    Whoah, whoah, relax :) "If you thought..." - where did you see the hypocrisy? Did I actually STATE that the US is any better? Or worse? I live in the US, but I'm not trying to defend them--or Europe.

    Now that I reread it, I agree it's probably a poor choice of words; my general point was intended to be that this is pervasive around the world and in all subjects, not just technology.

    --bdj

  • What if I hunted up a really bleedin' fantastic lawyer, and got myself a patent on the process by which ridiculous gimmee patents on prior softare art are generated, filed, and/or approved?

  • And while I'm at it, I could patent the business model of generating dumb patents and suing larger companies without actually having any products of my own.. Oh yeah, baby.

  • Luckily the people who own the patent are trying to sue "the Internet", unfortunately their lawyers have not been able to find exactly who owns the Internet and therefore have been so far unable so sue anyone.
  • how about patenting the process of "Useing a text editing device to generate patents for the process of generating stupid lawsuits"????

    Or is that one allready done?
  • There it goes - from now on breathing is covered by my "All-mighty-kick-ass-Patent(tm)".
    As I am a nice person exhaling will be free and only inhaling will be patented so from now on you can exhale as much as you want but you will have to pay the "1-Person Breathing license". This license is a 1-user-1-life license to breath and is non transmissible between users. (Did we tell you that you'll be very sorry if we find you cheating on us? We hired the same land-sharks^Wlawyers Microsoft has!)
    You will be able to purchase multiuser-1-life packages for pets and other house animals but you will not use them for human consumption.
    A third way to license breathing is on a "Pay-as-you-go" basis which pretty much explains everything.

    Now - gimme yer' money or hold your breath! You have no right to breathe!

    In the next episode - Patent on Shitting(tm) - or in other words "Thou shall not shite!" :)

    --


  • its like a silly atm that gives you recipes instead of money. i think they should have it read the recipe out using john cleese's voice.
  • If you're not knowledgeable enough yourself to post on a story, how can you be knowledgeable enough to tell whether someone else's post is informative?

    I agree with you. I guess to better explain the way I feel, let's take something like Mozilla. I'm not personally an open-source zealot. I think the idea of multiple browsers & whatnot is a good idea, and a user-supported browser is a great idea... but I'm not a programmer. There is very little I can add to such a movement, so I tend to stay out of those discussions. (I don't like to post my "uninformed" opinions unless it seems really necessary) There are lots of stories that I *DO* relate with and respond to, and I obviously can't post AND moderate those kinds of discussions. So what I do is attempt to moderate interesting or informative posts in threads that aren't normally my cup of tea. It may mean that I occassionally mod something up that is undeserving, but I would rarely use the (+1 informative) rating unless I was reasonably informed myself. If something seems plausible or interesting and i don't have the experience to judge its inherent truthfulness, I'd mod it as "interesting". A well thought out post, even if it contains factual errors, may well spark a discussion that will lead to real answers.

    (I've already lost 4 karma points for this little thread, which just goes to show that some people are just plain idiots. MY TITLE says that the post is off-topic... why would anyone need a moderator (much less 4) to tell them that it was off-topic when I announced it myself?)


    -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)

  • Looks like someone beat you to it. This patent about A method for fulfilling requests of a web browser [espacenet.com] seems to be indicating any dynamically created web page.

    Oops.

    Someone should teach the patent guys about job security and self preservation.

    forge

  • I'm glad that idiocy and ineptitude are not limited to the U.S. patent office. Seems that the EU is equally lacking.

    Now, can anyone comment on what international treaties might force the imposition of these here and/or our gaffs there?

    - technik

  • Bagledog [bagledog.com] has a rather long list of strangem + entertaining patents held by those damn brits. :) also, there's a link to the australian house of "MY IDEA", another great site so far as strange patents go.
  • Specifically, there are patents on
    • multitasking
    • remote program execution
    • protected memory
    • pathname parsing
    • X windows ( I know, not really part of Unix, but... )
    I especially like pathname parsing. Alright, none of this unlicensed pathname parsing nonsense, we'll all have to start referring to files by inode number.
  • This report would be more useful if it included a prior art column.

    It does. That's the one on the left, written in German.

  • There's also a list [ffii.org] of 10.000 granted software patents + some statistics generated from them.
  • Oh yeah, well I patent a card that has a sticker which is removed automatically when it is opened. How's THAT for ease of use?
  • Seeing a list of silly patents like this just makes me feel like the system is so fcked up, that there is nothing anyone can do to fix it. How can you speak sense into the promoters of such a system? They actually believe that the patent system encourages innovation, and how could anyone convince someone like that, who believes in such dogma, that patents on software are a bigger problem than no software patents?

    I get the feeling that it would be the equivalent of arguing with fundamentalist Christians about evolution.
  • Yes. Stupid, but innovative. He can *have* that patent, so long as it doesn't cover, say, perfume-scented letters (for which there is prior art :).
  • I'm _not_ sure about this idea, but, I seem to remember an articel in a german since magazine, talking about patents. They where discusing wether or wether not some researchers are posting patents just to get more funding. If this is true, it may be a reason for some of the more stupid patents.

    A relationship on bad /.posts and Karma comes to my mind just now ...

    flame off
    --
  • Your point is quite obviously true. Patents does slow the technical evolution. But - and I personaly understand "thier" but - they argue, that it is an economical need to have patents granted, if you have to invest Billions in investigation and research projects. Well, anyone might argue: "Oh, why don't they do OpenGenetics, and donate Sequencer and all the BioTech equipement to some fellow researcher?" This is not as easy as it seems! There are hole countries, a lot of lives and soules involved in this kind of infrastructure. Since it is easy to reasable the rules-of-war in the Software corner (Since most factors are highly mobile). That does not mean it is as easy in the rest of the world.

    I do agree, please, no misunderstanding, that interlectual property should be mobile in any sense. But some fields need more time than others. It's good to show, that we want less patents, but we have to realize, that they won't go away for the next, say 30 years.

    flame off
    --
  • Ok, sorry to have snapped at you.

    --
  • If you thought only Europe issues stupid patents, you should read the Patents section every Monday in the NYT.

    I'm sorry, but where on earth did you get the idea that anyone considered the US Patent Office to be the pinnacle of intellectual achievement? This is, to my knowledge, one of the first /. articles covering stupid patents granted by a country other than the US.

    Please refrain from complaining about hypocrisy when it does not actually exist.

    --

  • And any episode with the borg in Star Trek (hive minds)
    The Death Star in Star Wars (small ships)
    The droid armies of Episode 1 (central computer)
    The Madness season, by C.S. Freidman (more hive minds)
    The Man-Kzin Wars (don't fight well collectively, no FTL drive)

    The list goes on and on.

    --

  • A trivial patent is like a gun.
    You could do alot of harm with it. Let's just hope that these stupid patents are in good hand. The comunity could create patents that do stupid things as well and try to find all stupid things that haven't been patented yet and patent them.
    Kinda like buying every gun on the market and making shure that no "crazed maniac" will have access to a gun.

  • Two word: selective enforcement.

    Let's say everything is patented. For the sake of argument, let's presume scratching you left ear with the right hand is patented. Now, everyone scratch his ear with the opposite hand every once in a while, but they don't go after these people.

    Now, someone starts to do things the big guns don't like (human rights campaigning for instance), so they wade through all recorded appearances of that person until they find an image of him scratching his left ear with the right hand. Boom, troublemaker is in jail.

    To get a little closer to current reality, s/scratch ear/having MP3 in your HD/.

  • Creating dynamic webpages by invoking a script: This seems to cover any webserver that processes HTML forms and invokes a program via a common gateway interface, such that this program returns a webpage.

    I may have seen this trick somewhere before.
    ___

  • Well if the internet has been patented, Al Gore must be making a killing...
  • I'm glad you're trying to make /. a better place. I am too, when I moderate. Like you, I mostly upmoderate.

    I see it this way: trolls have a virtually infinite capacity to post. Moderators have finite moderation points. So its better to upmoderate good posts (especially good AC posts, which I try to watch for) than to downmoderate the trolls.

    However, I have to take issue with one thing you said:

    When doing actual moderation, I look for stories that I wouldn't be interested/knowledgeble enough to post in... and then I look for informative or interesting posts.

    If you're not knowledgeable enough yourself to post on a story, how can you be knowledgeable enough to tell whether someone else's post is informative?

    Now, maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe you personally, in such a case, only upmod as informative those posts with links to outside sources. I just had to speak up because it's a pet peeve of mine--all too often I see posts with half-truths, misinformation, or outright falsehoods upmoderated as "Informative".

    I don't know if it's you personally or not. But as a general plea to moderators, please don't upmoderate posts as "Informative" unless you have some way of verifying yourself that the facts presented are accurate. (Links to an independent source, finding an independent source yourself, or having expertise yourself in that area.) If you don't you'll just make me (or some moderator who does have expertise in that area) cancel out your moderation with a "-1 Overrated" (since /. doesn't have "-1 Misinformative".)

  • Unfortunately, the USPTO does not publish patent applications until/unless they are granted. This is set to change sometime next year, I believe.
  • You mean like the Amiga keyboard's ROM, from ~15 years ago? :P

    http://www.blitzbasic.com/

  • Telnet is more basic than ssh and ssh isnt just for admin it supports ftp and you can tunnel stuff through it.
  • Sadly, most /.ers have absolutely no concept of what "prior art" means, legally. Whenever I see a patent story on /., I'm reminded of a room full of parrots, all squawking "Prior art, prior art" with absolutely no concept of what prior art actually is.

    Apparently you're in possession of an enlightened view of this subject that would benefit the SlashDot community. Unfortunately, you don't tell us what it is. Would you care to share with the squwakers your vision of 'prior art', or are you just here to shake your head, go "tsk tsk" and move on to criticize the next topic? If you're not going to follow through, why'd you even waste time posting this?

    Just so that I'm not equally guilty of adding to the bitch quotient without adding to the info quotient, here's the Black's Law Dictionary of prior art:

    ... anything in tangible form that may properly be relied on by patent office in patent cases in support of rejection on matter of substance, not form, of claim in pending appiication for patent.

  • Danka!

    bm :)-~

  • This report would be more useful if it included a prior art column. Examples may be easy to think of for the average geek, but it's not us that need convincing.

    Both the EPO and it's American cousin are administrated by Normal People(tm). We geeks often forget to make things plain for them.

    bm :)-~

  • The best one is the patent on controlling one computer from another (which would technically include controlling your computer with a keyboard that had a microchip in it, to say nothing of telnet!

    Now, if CmdrTaco was a real Linux zealot, then he'd say "ssh" instead of Telnet. Also notice how he forgot the closing parenthesis! Rob, you hypocrite! You always tell us to "Use the Preview Button!", and you forget to use it yourself!

  • You mean like the Amiga keyboard's ROM, from ~15 years ago?

    Well, the Amiga's keyboard actually had a little CPU (about as powerful as the C64's main processor) with an onboard ROM, but if you open up your PC/Mac keyboard today, you'll still find a keyboard processor chip. Without it, you'd need a cable with about 20 wires in it to connect your keyboard.
  • I challenge anyone who advocates software patents in the previous story to read this list of illegally granted patents and explain why a 20+ year exclusive ownership of a broad field of innovation is good.

  • The end of the Heise article states that at this time, trivial patents or ones with a broad claim are nearly impossible to enforce in court. Software patents are generally illegal, anyway.

    The danger, however, lies in the European Patent Office trying to get permission to issue software patents. They want more revenue for themselves - if I recall correctly, the EPO actually has a positive cash flow - they're not tax-sucking bureaucrats, they're money-sucking ones! And being allowed to issue patents on software and genetics/molecules would increase their revenue stream immensely. The patent office has no reason whatsoever to make sure that patents make sense in any way. They get the same fee, whether it's a stupid patent or a sensible one. Don't let them! Europeans, complain to your MEP!

  • Each country's patent office feels compelled to give every notion offered by one of their nationals the extreme benefit of the doubt for fear that some other country's PO will claim it for one of their own and somehow, however unlikely, it will prove to be of some value. Remember these are bureaucrats and their first rule is C.Y.A.
  • That is stupid.

    If the description is published in an internal document, there would be no proof that the document was actually created on the date that the company claims that it was, ala the following conversation:

    BRUCE - Hey. I have a great idea! Let's invent High Definition Television!

    JIM - But Bruce, High Definition Television already exists, someone else holds the patent.

    BRUCE - Aha! But we could put together a little business case that describes the technology in it's entirety and then back-date it for 1972! We would blow the HDTV patent out of the water due to prior art! Ha ha ha!

    JIM - My God! It just might work! You are a genius man!

  • Well, if you made such a database that was PART of the patent office, you might actually be able to make some progress.

    Of course, a better solution would be to get rid of the patent office all together.

    And just a quick reply to your sig:
    I voted for Harry Browne.

  • Shame on you for yelling at Taco here. People are not understanding what the implications of the patent thing is and so Taco puts up an informational link about it.

    Poo on you all. I adore it when the editorial staff does stuff like this which will encourage folks to get off their tushies and do something about something. There are thousands of people on here, many of whom should be taken seriously... this combo here integrate analysis, data, and a way to do action.

  • Aren't the criteria for granting a patent something like:

    Originality (i.e., no prior art)
    Non-obviousness
    It works

    The obviousness restriction was put in to prevent people from patenting things like "all inventions that use the principle that heavy things usually fall down."

    The problems seems to be that patent examiners are chosen because (a) Nothing is obvious to them, and (b) They wouldn't know prior art if it bit them on the ass. I recall that perpetual motion machines have occasionally been granted patents, so they're not always that diligent about seeing the invention work either.
  • I work in a heavily patented environment. If its not covered by a patent, then its either new and should be patented (according to the powers-that-be), or it falls under "prior art" and is free to be used. I think patents for very specific things can be good - it protects your ideas from being leached off of - BUT I really dislike patents with very borad claims - just to make other's lives miserable. Does this mean "Go patent everything specific"? No - it means patent if there is a real need to - not just for the sake of patenting. This is the curent problem - too many people thinking that they NEED patents - so they patents any stupid ass thing they think of, no matter how irrational it may be.

  • That's a bunch of BS... if a company only wants to protect themself and that is all, then all a company would have to do is publish the patent description in some internal conference, private to the company... at that point, the idea has been published and definitely qualifies as prior art... biutch...
  • Well, I agree with your reasoning, but that's what Intel does at the very least(they're doing it with ony of my ideas...) so it must be a standard thing...
  • Problem is: doing so costs time [not a big deal in the open source world] and MONEY. How many lawyers are reading Slashdot and would be willing to work for free to help you with the legal stuff? I am almost sure: there are not many ;-(
  • Yeah, the quality of European Patent clerks has gone way downhill since that one guy got an award for being someones relative. I could never figure that one out.
  • My favorite patent is Visualising a Process: [ffii.org] Visualise functions by graphically displaying their components, allowing iterations on the screen and creating a flow chart from these iterations.

    I guess that would make Doom for SysAdmins [slashdot.org] illegal in Europe. America will remain the leader in shotgun based process management!
    --
  • I like the one that patents multitasking [espacenet.com] the most.

    So, Linux and Windows NT (just to name two of them) must be violating this patent, right?

    It's publication date is 1995, March 22th. Okay, we can debate about which OS classifies as the first multitasking system - probably Multics which was 'invented' in 1965, 30 year earlier!

    (I am not sure that Multics is actually the first since I'm not that old yet ;)

  • This is good as it describes "How to read patent descriptions". It explains some parts of the patents. Unfortunately (for those in the US) this is European patents which are slightly different from US patents.

    This is also good as it shows how many dumb patents have been issued by the European office. My favorite so far is "controlling one computer by another", which they say telnet does. I think that this is the beginning of patent reform. Maybe this will open the eyes of the US, European, and Asian patent offices and make them realize that they are issuing patents on 20 year old technology and obvious technology.

    The biggest problem with the patent arena is that it is filled with laywers. If it were up to many technologists I think the ideas would be more likely open like the HTML, XML, IEEE, and RFC standards are. I know that I'd like to see much of these ideas open rather than closed.

    I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
    Flame away, I have a hose!

  • here's [espacenet.com] the direct link FYI. Ah, god bless Mac's URL embedding! :)

    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
  • Very good news from Europe!!
    On the FFII mailing list it has just been reported that the EPO Diplomatic Conference today voted unanimously to maintain the exception in Art 52.2c this time. This means that Europe will be still free of (pure) software patents.


    Unfortunately the Fight isn't over yet. The next round will be in European Union. It is therefore very important and urgent, if you consider software patents to be more harmful than useful, to send your opinion by email to:

    consultation@eurolinux.org

    as soon as possible and, in any case, before December 15th, 2000. You can write in the official language of any member country of the European Union.

    Ville

    My DeCSS archive:

  • Cool. The entire internet has been patented. Think how much that lawsuit could win them!
    Cisco's worth quite a bit these days.
  • Patents are a good thing to protect ones intellectual property. But I have a hard time believing that whoever owns the EU patent on hypertext preprocessing actually came up with the idea. If so, they're morons for allowing preprocessing to go on without collecting whatever royalties. Patents are not meant to give people rights over someone elses ideas for all of eternity, they're simply meant to give someone rights over their own ideas and creations. Patent squatting is rediculous, and getting patents just to have them even more so. To take out a patent and not actually use it in some ways devalues the entire idea of the patent. (Is the patent patented? Hmm...)
    ______
    everyone was born right-handed, only the greatest overcome it.
  • but the European Patent Office (EPO) has tried to bend this rule by saying that a computer program with a 'technical effect' is not a computer program 'as such'.

    I think the generic term you are looking for is "fraud".
  • You should be allowed to charge filers (And Granters) of patents like these with fraud, because that's really what it is.

    Problem is that as in the US criminal law tends to have a blind spot towards crimes commited by organisations. How does a system set up dealing with individuals handle a corporate entity? At some point, even in a civil action brought after the organisation has been "killed" the guilty people need to be identified.

    I bet people would research their patents a lot more thoroughly before submitting them if this was the case, and I bet the PTO would be a lot less likely to rubber stamp them through and let the courts settle things.

    Part of the problem appears to be patent examiners too eager to pass a patent. The point of the application should be to convince a skeptic. If the examiner is not convinced or dosn't understand the application then it should be dismissed. Maybe something like a criminal court is needed for examinging patents, rather than the current system.
  • Let them write any law they want, it'll be invalidated/overturned at the very first challange anyways. However, until it is, it's still a law and is to be obeyed, and it's suprisingly difficult and expensive for an average person to fight a law. And the more people cave in because it's simpler the stronger it becomes.

    Also you can't challange a law simply by objecting to a cop and taking the case to the highest court is a rather ticky job for a convicted criminal. In theory whilst the original trial judge might be obliged to dismiss the case (and find the prosecution in contempt) the chances of this happening are remote.
    Legally challenging a law is likely to be at least as hard as lobbying not to have it passed in the first place. Wonder how hard it is for a third party to get a patent application dismissed...
  • If you thought only Europe issues stupid patents, you should read the Patents section every Monday in the NYT. Many are disturbing, IMHO. Yesterday's is at http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/11/20/business/20 PATE.html [nytimes.com]; check out the second patent:
    Greeting cards already play music when opened; next, they will release an occasion-appropriate scent. Donald Spector, who lives in Union City, N.J., has patented a greeting card that emits an aroma.

    The card comes with a small port on its rear panel. The port is covered with a sticker; inside is a small, vented bag containing plastic beads that have been infused with a fragrance. The aroma escapes from the bag through the vent.

    A person who gets one of Mr. Spector's cards would open it, read the greeting and then peel off the sticker covering the port to release the scent of roses on Valentine's Day, chocolate cake on a birthday, or gingerbread, eggnog, or pine boughs at Christmas. Mr. Spector received patent 6,024,386.

    --bdj

  • Like... screenplays and novels!

    Patent 57. A plot device whereby invaders from space initiate an attack, but are destroyed due to a fatal susceptability.

    examples:
    War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells) [fourmilab.ch] (Earth germs)
    Independence Day (computer germs)
    Mars Attacks (country music)
  • Ok, so where is Mr. T. vs. Software patents?

    He needs to round up these jibber-jabberin' bozos, drive them in his very fast van to the coast and then throw them helluva far. He's tough.
  • And another on engineers. I will thus own all patents, and all engineers who might invent something patentable. Thus, I will have a monopoly (for which I am filing one of those neat new "business methodology" patents...) on all things (for which I will, by extension, have a patent)

  • These patent offices must really be dredging the bottom of the barrel.
  • Hey, I just got this swell idea: get a silly patent (say, the distribution of interactive data on a network) which could apply to anyone with a webserver.

    Then sue the patent office, claiming that their website infringes on your patent!

    --

  • I've got a few people I'd like to send a fart greeting card to. Now the trick is to get the scent to be released when they open the card...
  • It's usually cheaper to cave and pay the licensing fee than try to defend your claim in court and possibly lose. And if you take it to court, the company going after you is going to be much less likely to offer you a license if you lose. This is why Rambus has been so successful.

    The only way to defend yourself against this is to have your own portfolio of patents so that when they say "You're using telnet! We're going to sue you" you can say "Oh yeah? Well you're using printf, so we're going to sue you too!" Then you settle down into a cross licensing agreement so that you can use telnet and the other guy can use printf.

  • Or the free(speech) pcanywhere clone commonly known as Back Orifice 2000 [bo2k.com], released under GNU GPL by cDc Communications.
  • Method and apparatus for path name format conversion: Separation of pathnames into their components.

    If there's any item on this list that's a joke someone slipped by the examiners, this is it. The technical claim describes in excrutiating detail what's involved in "converting at least a portion of the ASCII path name... and sequentially writing said unparsed string, character by character, into said buffer..."

    I wonder what else is in my 1990 Turbo C++ "stdlib.h" library which is now a patent violation?

  • Ah hah!

    Patent 58. A plot device whereby the protagonist(s) is/are rescued from impending doom by unforseeable circumstances.

    I have patented the Deus Ex Machina! MPAA, you are MINE! MUAHAHAHA!!!!

    ---
  • I don't think they are really validated. In Europe, patents can only validated by a judge. A little example: you have a patent on 'telnet' and I am selling an telnet application. You can go to a court to let a judge prohibit this. On that occasion the judge will decide whether your patent is valid or not. Koen
  • Creating dynamic webpages by invoking a script

    CmdrTaco, expect a letter in the mail shortly from our lawyers.

  • Most of European companies and Universities get lots of funding from the european comission R&D projects. Every project consortium (formed by companies from several countries) are managed by an officer designated by the EC. Most of these officers force those companies and universities to do "exploitation" and "dissemination" activities in order to continue the funding.

    Of course, to them, a patent, even stupid ones, are excellent exploitation results. Most of the times, when commercialisation of the product becomes hard ro too expensive, a patent is a good way to justify the funding.

    I am not sure which one is evil, EC officers or european companies/universities...

  • Such things already exist. They're called "journals". (Actually, any public method of publication will do, but journals are the best.) The problem comes when the patent office doesn't adequately search these for prior art. If the patent office can't adequately search journals (and it's not as if databases of journal literature don't exist), what makes you think they could competently search any other database?
  • Wow, what a troll! So much misinformation packed into such a small space! Very few trolls can achieve this density of misinformation!

    1. WTF does this site have to do with first-to-file vs. first-to-invent? Are you claiming that if Europe was first-to-invent, none of these would have been granted? Poppycock. They're two orthogonal issues. After all, the US has plenty of stupid software patents despite being first-to-invent.

    2. The US constitution says nothing about whether the US patent system should be first-to-file or first-to-invent. Switching to first-to-file would not require a consitutional amendment.

    3. It's a common misconception that first-to-invent is better for small inventors. The flawed logic goes, "Well, large corps can write up a patent application faster than the individual inventor, so even if they invented something a few months later than the individual inventor, they can still get the application in first." That's true to an extent. What people fail to realize is that first-to-invent is even worse for the individual inventor. With first-to-file, if a large corp and an individual inventor have filed applications for the same invention, a court will simply look at the "date received" stamp on the application, and whoever has the earlier date wins. With first-to-invent, the individual inventor comes to court with his one mediocre patent lawyer, and the large corp comes to court with their dozens of crack attorneys, and each tries to prove that they "invented" this invention before the other. Who do you think will win?

    With first-to-file, yes, there's an advantage to being able to file quickly, but there's also not much room for legal wrangling if you weren't the first to file.

  • Does the EU have the concept of "prior art" as embodied in U.S. law? Many of the so-called 'patents' in the list would be invalidated under this test. Does the EU not recognize this, or is it just that the examiners don't realize that many of these concepts have actually been implemented and have been in use for years?
  • The whole thing could be solved by the registering of "unpatents". Allow companies and individuals to register technologies and idea in a way that simply sets up and official registry of "prior use." Then, make it simpler to register "prior use" then to register a patent. That would help take care of part of the problem.
  • Look.

    There is absolutely nothing wrong with a company taking out a patent on something that may appear outwardly to be "stupid."

    Many companies do this on a regular basis simply to ensure that no one else can get that patent and possibly prevent them from using the idea/technology.

    The problem arises when companies actually begin to try and enforce their "stupid" patents (can we say 'one-click shopping?'). It is at that point, when companies begin to enforce stupidity that we should go to the Courts and overturn such things.

    There. I feel better.

  • This drawing [espacenet.com] of one of the patents is absolutely hilarious (Acrobat format, click on the "Drawing" button)...

  • Not yet valid (Score:5)

    by Ed Avis ( 5917 ) <ed@membled.com> on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @09:33AM (#609348) Homepage

    It is very important to note that these patents represent threats to European software developers in the future, rather than things which have already happened.

    The European Patent Convention (EPC) specifically forbids [eurolinux.org] patents on computer programs, but the European Patent Office (EPO) has tried to bend this rule by saying that a computer program with a 'technical effect' is not a computer program 'as such'. This has allowed them to start granting patents on software even though software is clearly excluded by the EPC. So all the computer programs described in this patent horror gallery are considered by the EPO as not being computer programs 'as such'.

    However, not everyone agrees with this ingenious new definition. So 'software patents' as granted by the EPO are not necessarily enforceable. But what the EPO is now trying to do is to have the law changed so that they can happily grant software patents without the inconvenience of having to redefine terms used by existing laws. If software is made patentable, all the software patents granted will suddenly become enforceable and leave European companies open to attack.

    So it's not too late to do something about this. The European Commission is holding a publi c consultation [eu.int] asking for comments on whether the law should be changed, and many national patent offices are doing the same. (The EPO and EPC are not part of the European Union, but there is an overlapping membership and many countries are waiting for the Commission to make a recommendation.)

    Also sign EuroLinux's petition [eurolinux.org] which gives some links for more information about what I wrote above.

  • Thank God! (Score:5)

    by Bob McCown ( 8411 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @08:27AM (#609349)
    Thank God I live in the good old US of A, where we dont have this kind of problem with the patent office....uh...wait, nevermind...

  • Charge 'em with Fraud (Score:5)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @09:08AM (#609350) Homepage Journal
    You should be allowed to charge filers (And Granters) of patents like these with fraud, because that's really what it is. I bet people would research their patents a lot more thoroughly before submitting them if this was the case, and I bet the PTO would be a lot less likely to rubber stamp them through and let the courts settle things.

    Of course best of all is just not allowing patents on software (Or business processes.)

  • It's not only about article 52 ! (Score:5)

    by arnim ( 117833 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @08:56AM (#609351)
    Please note that the discussion is not only about article 52 (which prohibits patenting of programs) but also article 33. The basic proposal [european-p...office.org] (page 30) of the conference intends to change it in a way, that the EPO may itself change article 52!

    Bernhard Lang writes:

    is proposed by EPO, so that it can change the EPC (european patent convention, i.e. the very text under discussion) to put it in agreement with other international treaties. Agreement is of course what the EPO considers as agreement. For example, if EPC 52.2 modification does not pass, but EPC 33 does, EPO could decide that its interpretation of the TRIPS agreement requires to remove EPC 52.2 and allows patenting software, or what else. Given the past record of the EPO, their propensity to bend rules that have been fixed, you can guess what will happen if you give them the right to change the rules according to their own assessment of the situation.

    By the way, it is not clear that all countries are aware of what is hidden in the proposed modification of 33. More national lobbying and information has beenshould be done on that issue.

  • Hope for those learning English in Europe (Score:5)

    by AntiPasto ( 168263 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @08:21AM (#609352) Journal
    Quote: Interactive language learning: This covers all digital language learning systems that allow a user to compare his pronounciation of a selected piece of text to the right pronounciation.

    Okay class, lets say the phrase we just learned... "I dream of america where my underwear flap is not covered by five simultaneous patents, and where the drugs can come in generic form."

    Good class.

    ----

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