EFF, PubPat Each Seeking Some Patent Sanity 201
AbstracTus writes "According to Wired, The Electronic Frontier Foundation is trying to get the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to re-examine 10 patents that were selected from public submissions. We slashdotters often curse patents that should have been rejected, but are not. Do you think that the EFF can have any influence on the U.S. Patent Office? Are there other actions that are more likely to work?" And sharkb8 writes "The Public Patent Foundation is searching for
people with experience in all technical fields to help examine patents. This is the perfect chance for attorneys, law students, and geeks in general to do some pro bono work. PubPat is the group that recently
challenged one of Microsoft's FAT patents."
Finally... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps some sanity at last? (Score:1, Interesting)
Money can't buy happiness... (Score:5, Interesting)
Face it, patents are screwy because certain large companies profit from that screwyness. It creates a world in which only the big dogs can play, because only the big dogs have the legal teams to field.
Reform Tort law. The patent system will fix itself.
Patents Profiting (Score:2, Interesting)
1) buy small company that has a few loosely worded patents
2) begin campaign of lawsuits and harrasment against legitimate businesses that didn't think they needed to patent a process used by everybody
3) Profit!!!
you can't tell which side of the argument I'm on can you..?
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Heck, look at Nortel. They just announced that they are selling off their factories to focus on research. Not that they weren't making money. They weren't making enough money.
Can someone please explain this to me. If you are making a profit, you are making a profit. Money in hand. Mula. Black ink. Why a company can't simultaneously produce goods and research new ones is beyond me. Of course there are other companies that try to make everything from razor blades to condom testing equipment to cruise missile navigation systems. That seems like more of a stretch.
More wool over your eyes (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the inventor is not "pro-business"
But the majority of patents filed are not coming from independent inventors. They're coming from businesses either to try and take claim of some recent "innovation" (double-clicking or pushing a button) or as defensive patents. Patent fees prevent a significant number of indie inventors from getting patents, and they often go through businesses for funding, giving them a controlling force in the patent. Even where I work, a patent might be associated with my name, but it's very clear that the company would like to assume ownership of it.
By definition, inventions are novel and non-obvious
If that's true, then I'd say that the majority of patents today are not for "inventions", then. And that's just wrong.
tackling IP patents from a different angle (Score:5, Interesting)
I propose a different approach. Recognize the inherit difference between an intangible IP and a normal tangible product patent, and severely limit the patent exclusivity time limit with any that are IP. Make it a totally separate "class"of patent. Drop it down to two years, then that's it, in the public domain. Make it retroactive as well.
Re:Did anyone here actually read the article? (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, embarrassing a government employee almost always guarantees that you will get shafted somehow. There are just too many ways for them to "get even" with people who interfere in their little "kingdoms."
Congress has to change the law - they are the ultimate caretakes of Patent and Copyright law. And Congress is beholden to a few major copyright holders (Disney, anyone?) and major corporations who WANT the status quo. Think Microsoft is going to encourage Congress to change? Or any of the IP pseudo-companies?The problem is that it's hard to get the electorate interested in this problem, and unless the masses start chasing Congress-critters with placards (or worse), things aren't going to change.
Re:Money can't buy happiness... (Score:4, Interesting)
I had lunch recently with some corporate patent attorneys. They do not like the current system. They complain about the same problems as Slashdotters, plus a few more.
Their objections:
o USPTO issues patents too freely
o Once issued, courts assume patents are valid and it's too hard to convince them otherwise
o Awards in patent cases don't correspond to real economic damages
o Patents last much longer than the useful lifetime of computer technology.
o The system was designed to work with mechanical inventions.
o The court system puts decisions in the hands of people who lack the background to understand the issues, as opposed to the "person skilled in the art".
o Everything builds on what came before and patents jam up that process.
o Patents today can deter innovation because nobody can be sure whether a random jury will think their work infringes. The attorneys knew of a field where work has ground to a halt because of one litigious company.
EFF's afraid of patent enforcement? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) "The EFF is worried that Acacia, which has already sued several large communications companies, is unfairly targeting small audio- and video-streaming websites."
5) "...said the EFF is afraid Ideaflood may try to go after LiveJournal members."
7) "The EFF is afraid Test Central will use its patent to scare off distance-learning organizations."
8) "But Nintendo is being a big bully."
And so on. Now, don't get me wrong. Some of those patents look dangerous to me, given the overly-vague and broad descriptions, but revoking a patent simply because a company is "a big bully" is ridiculous. What would be the point of having a patent if you couldn't use it? Furthermore, just because a technology is extremely useful (read: Kill App) doesn't mean it belongs in the pubic domain.
Let's consider #3 for a moment, Acceris Communication's voice over IP technology patent. Assuming it's much more specific than the article suggests, why should they not be able to benefit from creating that particular VOIP technology? So what if lots of people use it? Isn't that the whole point? Create a killer app, then sell it for tons of money. Then when the patent expires other people can copy it.
There's no mention of prior art anywhere in the article, which is a whole other argument. I mean, if I suddenly patented the wheel, for example, and started suing everyone who had ever used a certain geometrically shaped object, then I could see you having a case.
System's broken? Use the system! (Score:2, Interesting)
If you can transform the PTO into a national lottery for millions of little people, with the courts clogged with drawing the winners, and big business bankrolling the prizes, then the system might get fixed. Might.
On another front, the U.S. has signed plenty of treaties promising free trade. Can you argue that the PTO's cluelessness is, in effect, just another form of government subsidy for U.S. companies and/or a red-tape barrier to imports - and thus is a violation of a treaty? Can you find a foreign government eager for an excuse to yell "no fair!" and slap a retaliatory tariff on politically sensitive U.S.-made goods? Take a good look at the recent fuss over protecting the U.S. steel industry - Uncle Sam was forced to back down, eat crow, and change his rules.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Because then your profit per employee is only $7,50. If you sell off the factory your profit per employee shoots up to $10,00. Why this is important is beyond me, but some people on Wall Street seem to think it is (ie. "Gross Margins").
Requiring working example ... won't work (Score:3, Interesting)
How about a nano-machine, I can just see the examiner with a plastic baggie and a scanning electron microscope
Or perhaps a deadly biological agent.
Or a killer computer virus (where software patents are allowed).
Or a brain implant.
It'd make life interesting for patent examiners I guess.
Re:Requiring working example ... won't work (Score:3, Interesting)
Build the engine or a small-scale version and have the patent examiner measure the force it creates. Either conduct this test in a vacuum room or demonstrate from theoretical standpoint that the engine does not depend on pushing against air (or simply have it raise a hundred kilograms and demonstrate that there is no noticeable wind - that pretty much proves the matter too).
In the specific case of solar sail, it can be proven that sunlight indeed causes a force on whatever surface it strikes by measuring this force. Thus the principle of the solar sail is indeed a working one.
If it isn't the very principle of solar sailing but a new material for sail construction you're patenting, then it should be easy to demonstrate the qualities of this matter by having the patent examiner examine a piece of it. If it's a new way of rigging the sail, or a new way of handling the sail, or whatever, then it should be relatively simple to demonstrate the advantages, using a scaled model in a wind tunnel if all else fails.
If you cannot demonstrate that your idea works, then you have no way of knowing it works, and neither does anyone else. That means that you don't have invention, you have speculation. Why should speculation be patentable ?
On the other hand, maybe you should be able to get a temporary patent on speculation, which would protect an unproven idea untill you've proven it right or wrong or untill a certain amount of time has elapsed ? After that time (1-5 years ?), the temporary patent would go away; but if anyone developed the thing to patentable state and then patented and used it, they would owe you as royalties half their net income - this is intended to encourage companies to fund your research to gain good licensing terms, instead of just waiting...
Please note, thought, that I'm against patenting solar sails in general as opposed to a certain solar sail arrangement in particular. Blanket patents discourage competition, and that slows down progress. This is bad.
If the nanomachine doesn't do something measurable, then it is pretty poor invention :). More importantly, it cannot be shown to work, which makes it speculation as described above.
Lab rat, weed, insect, or whatever the thing was supposed to kill. If you developed the thing to kill humans, then not getting a patent is the least of the bad things that should happen to you.
A couple of computers, connected with a wire (or by moving diskettes between them or however the virus is supposed to spread).
A living creature with the implant installed.
At least untill the IP parasites would get tired and go plague some other field with their legal blackmail.