Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google Chase 'Got Milk?' Patents 250
theodp writes "Among the new iOS 5 features is Reminders, which Apple explains this way: 'Say you need to remember to pick up milk during your next grocery trip. Since Reminders can be location based, you'll get an alert as soon as you pull into the supermarket parking lot.' But does Reminders infringe on a newly-granted patent to Amazon for Location Aware Reminders, which covers the use of location based reminders to remind a user 'to purchase certain items such as, for example, as milk, bread, and eggs'? Or could Reminders run afoul of Google's new patent for Geocoding Personal Information, which covers triggering a voice reminder or making a computing device vibrate when a user approaches a location if 'one of the user's events is a task to pick up milk and bread'? Not to be left out of the 'Got Milk?' patent race, Apple also has a patent pending for Computer Systems and Methods for Collecting, Associating, and/or Retrieving Data, which covers providing a reminder to a user whose 'to do' list includes 'get milk' when the user's location matches 'a store that sells the item "milk."' (Continues, below.)
theodp continues: "That should not be confused with Microsoft's pending patent for Geographic Reminders, which allows users to specify reminders such as 'pick up milk if I am within a ten minutes drive of any grocery store.' That all four tech giants chose to pursue remember-the-milk patents — and the USPTO is considering and granting them — is all the more remarkable considering that Microsoft suggested location-based reminders were obvious in a 2005 patent filing, which informed the USPTO that 'a conventional reminder application may give the user relevant information at a given location, such as 'You're near a grocery store, and you need milk at home.' So much for that immediate patent quality improvement promised by the America Invents Act!"
And another useful technology is ripped apart (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And another useful technology is ripped apart (Score:5, Interesting)
Why are you blaming the lawyers? (Score:5, Insightful)
This behavior is perpetrated by the corporate executives who don't want any businesses to be able to compete. The lawyers are gun, but the executives are the hand that fires it.
Re:Why are you blaming the lawyers? (Score:5, Insightful)
A more useful question would be "how can we prevent this in the future?". There is no shortage of unscrupulous lawyers and corporate executives. As long as the patent system exists in it's current form someone will abuse it. The only way to prevent abuses like this is to change the patent laws.
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The problem is that we expect people who are paid to create profits and shareholder value to not use the laws to the maximum allowed extent to achieve those goals. The problem is with the laws and who is making them. Yes, to a certain extent, it would help if we could simply get all executives to agree to not be assholes voluntarily, but that's unlikely to happen.
At this point, I think the concepts that we are using when we create and enforce patents need a serious update to deal with both the innovation
Re:Why are you blaming the lawyers? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the problem is that under the "obviousness" and overbroadness standards, 99% of the patents of the past 20 years probably should not have been granted, but the patent office is overwhelmed and incompetent in equal measure.
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Who voted the politicians into power? You and me.
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That, or they accept the position to work at the company that decides to pull the trigger. I think that both of your points are valid and can peacefully coexist.
After all, you still need the right gun... The one that will do the job.
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Just wait until the first lawsuit when someone is driving down the freeway, is distracted by their phone going off with a reminder, and gets into a crash.
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But of course, development tools and computer programming that is usable by ordinary mortals is apparently in the same folder as food for the poor, equal wages and general fair conduct that no one with influence is willing to do.
Re:And another useful technology is ripped apart (Score:4, Informative)
I offer up Tasker as potential prior-art. It does a lot more than remind based on geo-location, but that is one potential application of the tool.
http://tasker.dinglisch.net/ [dinglisch.net]
Re:And another useful technology is ripped apart (Score:4, Informative)
For those who religiously doesn't RTF anything linked on /., here's the excerpt from the act [gpo.gov].
``Sec. 102. Conditions for patentability; novelty
``(a) Novelty; Prior Art.--A person shall be entitled to a patent
unless--
``(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a
printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise
available to the public before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention; or
``(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued
under section 151, or in an application for patent published or
deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or
application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was
effectively filed before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention.
``(b) Exceptions.--
``(1) Disclosures made 1 year or less before the effective
filing date of the claimed invention.--A disclosure made 1 year
or less before the effective filing date of a claimed invention
shall not be prior art to the claimed invention under subsection
(a)(1) if--
``(A) the disclosure was made by the inventor or
joint inventor or by another who obtained the subject
matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the
inventor or a joint inventor; or
``(B) the subject matter disclosed had, before such
disclosure, been publicly disclosed by the inventor or a
joint inventor or another who obtained the subject
matter disclosed directly or indirectly from the
inventor or a joint inventor.
I.e. "If it was published or used in any form before - patent's no go, unless the one publishing/using was inventor - then he has a year to patent it", which should encourage publishing inventions early.
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for the end suer to figure out, .
Such an appropriate typo, I love it.
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Most people don't know how to use most of the features of their phone, their computer and probably their car's radio. That was one of the reasons Microsoft developed the much hated ribbon. Apple has understood this for a while and so designs stuff to "just work", or more accurately "do it for you". That seems fairly reasonable to me, it saves having to set up a location for that task if the phone just knows that milk is bought in shops so it should remind you when you get to one.
I am a programmer but my mem
Re:And another useful technology is ripped apart (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I was thinking the opposite might happen.
The court might just line them up and bitch slap the whole lot of them.
If a whole bunch of people come up with the same invention at roughly the same time it becomes the perfect definition of TRIVIAL AND OBVIOUS.
Once you have bricks generally available in the market place, you can't patent the brick outhouse.
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I guess the invention of the telephone probably should have fallen in the same boat then, with Bell submitting his application just a few hours ahead of Elisha Gray.
Re:And another useful technology is ripped apart (Score:4, Interesting)
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Once you have bricks generally available in the market place, you can't patent the brick outhouse.
True, but you probably can prevent other people from selling their own brick outhouses while you drag them though the courts, during which time you have the market to yourself. It works best in the tech world where a delay of a year can be worth billions and the few million on legal fees are easy to justify.
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Some guy patented the truncated tetrahedron as a way of creating lockable paved driveways. The shape will prevent the bricks from moving out of place.
Though there is prior art in the form of Inca/Aztec hill cities, who built walls using stones with trapezoidal edges. Same principle, but used to stop earthquakes from demolishing structures.
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Inventions are the result of needs. Needs are the result of the current economic and technological landscape.
So, at any given moment, most of the world's inventors are experiencing the same set of needs at the same time, and hence tend to produce the same inventions at the same time.
The race to the patent office is common, with people winning by sometimes very narrow margins.
But there are also OTHER legal requirements beyond just being first, not the least of which is non-obviousness. [wikipedia.org] See also KSR vs TeleFlex [wikipedia.org].
The mere fact that there are multiple solutions appearing nearly simultaneously suggests that the application is OBVIOUS, just as using bricks to build an outhouse.
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I wish the slashdot crowd would stop bashing the lawyers whenever a story about patents, trademarks, copyright, etc is published. How are the corporate lawyers to blame for this? If the legal system makes it possible for commercial actors to compete using patent lawsuits, the other actors are bound to do the same in self defence. It's economically rational.
Right, because lawyers never push the envelope.
There is no law that can't be stretched just a little. Then a little more.
Its impossible to write a law so comprehensive that no one can find a way to weasel more out of than was intended.
Instead of finding the line, and backing away from it, lawyers see their job as finding the line and stepping over it just a tiny bit.
Then a tiny bit more. Soon its Katy bar the door, with a whole body of court decisions to back them up.
Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
So tell them now, level the field... and prevent all that wasted effort.
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
...I don't know who exactly, needs to step in and say "YOU DID NOT INVENT REMINDING PEOPLE TO DO STUFF!" and prevent these companies from spending (wasting) money and time on winning the patent... prevent all that wasted effort.
Yes, but whoever it is that might step in and stop the madness, remember, they likely are lawyers themselves, or sons of lawyers, or otherwise deeply connected to the legal profession. Effort is not wasted when it leads to remuneration of yourself, your family, or your colleagues.
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I imagine the number of federal politicians (President, Vice President, Representatives, and Senators) that have not been a lawyer (or involved in law) at some point is very, very small. The only one that comes to mind is Ron Paul, who is a medical doctor. (Incidentally, the only reason I remember this is because of all the reading I've done on him over the years and I was surprised to find that he's a doctor and not a lawyer.)
Supreme Court justices obviously don't count as they were all lawyers at some poi
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This, and I think a patent like this misses the point. This is a patent on doing something, not on a method for doing something. A morally defensible patent needs to define a particular, specific method for accomplishing a goal. Furthermore, that method itself needs to be non-obvious to an expert who has been asked to achieve that goal.
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"...I don't know who exactly..."
The 'who', ultimately, is we.
Enough already with the pinhead greed-borne stupid motherfucking patent ideas. It's beyond insane. Just recent stories concerning rounded corners, swiping or flicking one's finger on a surface, ingesting water not helping to prevent dehydration, performance royalties for campfire songs or Happy Birthday, patenting the Web, are enough to destroy the equanimity of a rock. Enough.
"It's wasted money that could better go into R&D, for example."
E
Location-based reminders? (Score:5, Interesting)
How exactly does one get a patent on location-based reminders? I know I'm not the only one who has considered that idea and the actual implementation should be fairly straightforward (when you consider that APIs and hardware required for it all exist, hell even if you go the "IN THE CLOUD" route it would be relatively easy to figure out (Track position constantly, periodic "pings" to "The Cloud" that pass along your approximate coordinates, in return you get a JSON/XML reply with any nearby reminder positions which are cached locally, if/when you are close enough to a reminder position your device reminds you, new reminders are automagically submitted to the same "Cloud server", for local storage you just skip "The Cloud" and store everything locally)).
Re:Location-based reminders? (Score:5, Insightful)
How exactly does one get a patent on location-based reminders? I know I'm not the only one who has considered that idea and the actual implementation should be fairly straightforward (when you consider that APIs and hardware required for it all exist, hell even if you go the "IN THE CLOUD" route it would be relatively easy to figure out (Track position constantly, periodic "pings" to "The Cloud" that pass along your approximate coordinates, in return you get a JSON/XML reply with any nearby reminder positions which are cached locally, if/when you are close enough to a reminder position your device reminds you, new reminders are automagically submitted to the same "Cloud server", for local storage you just skip "The Cloud" and store everything locally)).
The whole concept of "obvious to a person skilled in the art" has been ground into the dirt for 20+ years now.
Re:Location-based reminders? (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole concept of "obvious to a person skilled in the art" has been ground into the dirt for 20+ years now.
Yup. Before it was patenting X, "on the Internet". Now it's patenting X, "on the mobile".
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Don't forget X "on the cloud"
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Re:Location-based reminders? (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the things that has me curious...
I have a Garmin Edge bike computer, which I got back in 2006. I can create courses on this and have it notify me of important things along the route (eg, "slow down", "right turn"). This seems like it's the same concept. Even though it has nothing to do with milk, could this be shown as prior art?
Heck, I would think any Navigation application could be shown as prior art, as it reminds you to turn right or left.
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We're all peasants anyway (Score:4, Informative)
Re:We're all peasants anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
You shouldn't ignore the stupidity of the patent system any more than we should ignore a burglar who only targets the opposite of your gender. Sure, you may not be directly effected directly, but it affects society.
Patent trolls stifle innovation, make the development of new products more expensive and have a negative effect on us all, even if it's only an indirect effect.
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Sure, you can innovate all you want. But if you try to make a living by selling those innovations and run into someone who bought a stupidly obvious patent that should never have been granted, prepare to be bankrupted by the legal system that you suggested we simply ignore since we're all criminals anyway.
And don't think that being in another country will protect you. Every developed country on the planet has a patent system. It won't necessarily be an American who rips you a new one.
And saying that "the
I have a good idea (Score:2)
Grab the Patent Lawyers and get them to Battle Royale fight to the death over the patent.
It'll be almost as much as fair and the world could use a few less of them.
Re:I have a good idea (Score:5, Funny)
I know a Surinamese citizen who is kind of proud of their 1982 "kill a few lawyers" coup, they said it went pretty well for the rest of the country:
http://www.worldrover.com/history/suriname_history.html [worldrover.com]
Good God... (Score:5, Informative)
So now a location-based reminder is a fucking patentable thing? What's next, a patent on something that remembers phone numbers for you?
This shit has got to stop...
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Don't Worry ! (Score:2)
. I'm going to take out a patent on Claim 1. Executing logic and probability calculations in a computing machine,
Claim 2. Representing objects or aspects of reality, and in particular physical objects in spatiotemporal situation-types using binary numeric symbols. and
Claim 3. Applying the logic and probability calculations of claim 1. to the symbolic representations o claim 2 in order to have the computing machine discover significant associations between physical objects of different types in different ste
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So now a location-based reminder is a fucking patentable thing? What's next, a patent on something that remembers phone numbers for you?
I think next, they will figure out that simply reminding you to buy milk when you are near a store isn't very smart. You buy the milk, then it sits in your car while you go to work. When you get back out of work, you see the milk is spoiled. Next, the patent will be for "location based reminders that remind you to buy milk when you are on your way home and you are near a store that is within 30 minutes of your house ". I work 38 miles from home - which in the morning is a 40 minute drive and on the way h
just obvious human logic (Score:3)
Re:just obvious human logic (Score:5, Interesting)
Location aware reminders do too. Geominder for S60 phones was released years before the first iPhone.
Re:just obvious human logic (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, but the devil is usually in the details.
After all, we can pretty much say that any satnav is prior art. You tell it to give you a reminder when you're near your destination and lo and behold, when you're near it it does indeed inform you that you have arrived at the location.
The question is how, exactly, the patent applications are phrased and what, exactly, they cover. From the summary, for example, the Google one just covers a spoken voice and/or vibration.. in theory that would mean it doesn't cover a text and/or image reminder.. if that is the case it may even have been to specifically avoid a patent that covers the text or image implementation.
That to the common man they're practically the same thing, and even if they weren't, are all obvious.. doesn't matter to the patent office.
I feel for the guy working at the U.S. one who answered questions on Slashdot a long time back.. I doubt any of his frustrations have been addressed.. it only got worse.
Of course it's no better in Europe; http://yro.slashdot.org/story/02/08/09/0012208/peek-into-european-patent-examining-cancelled [slashdot.org]
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You are absolutely correct... the details of the patent claims (and supporting specification) are very important.
However, the selection of the examiner is also extremely important.
I won't be surprised if one of these patents is issued in a first action allowance, even if another (perhaps even narrower) receives a final rejection.
Some companies even submit multiple applications with minor tweaks to the abstract so that they go into different branches of art.
When the first examiner allows the patent, you aba
Patent Reform (Score:2)
I'd like to say I hope that we get some kind of patent reform which fixes all of this, but to be honest I don't understand it well enough to state with any confidence what needs to happen. IANAPL. Can someone who is shed some light on what would need to happen for this quagmire to end?
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The large companies have to stop making money using this magical method.
Then they'll call the lobbyists off and the government can finally obey like the good puppets they are.
So unless there's a nuclear war, society collapses, or zombies rise up - probably never.
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For the publicly traded companies to stop doing this, it has to stop helping boost stock shares. That means stockholders have to learn that a company doesn't become more attractive just because it patented something, but only if that patent will actually make the company a profit.
These are the same stockholders who will sell a very profitable company short because some metric says to always sell whenever employment costs in that industry have risen to over 18% or so of total operating costs, then invest in
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The problem is that it does. Look at what happened to Sun. It had some very nice patents. So obviously people wanted it - for the patents of course. That made it attractive, because you could use that sort of stuff to bully other companies into giving you a cut over the mobile technologies.
Re:Patent Reform (Score:4, Insightful)
Can someone who is shed some light on what would need to happen for this quagmire to end?
A gradually increasing restriction on granting new silly, obvious patents. A gradual raising of the bar in what it takes to defend a patent successfully.
The real problem is: any shock to the status quo will make the people with money nervous, they'll feel uncertain about the future and less confident in predicting how they are going to turn their giant pile of cash into a more giant pile of cash, and in the face of that uncertainty, they'll just sit on their piles and watch them shrink slowly instead of putting the money at risk (in use).
Patents are a big part of that security blanket for investors, it makes them feel warm and fuzzy knowing how they can strike back at other kids who might try to steal their lunch money, it's kind of like that line "God created man, but Mr. Smith & Wesson made all men equal." A smaller version of nuclear detente'. If you have access to a sufficient nuclear arsenal of patents, you can go up against much larger companies and hold your own with a threat of mutual annihilation.
I put part of the blame on the .com bubble - investors were feeling all warm and fuzzy then, and the patent office was helping them feel that way by granting them patents on whatever they wanted. Change the rules quickly, and you'll have negative economic consequences.
You forgot to get X patent is what I really need. (Score:2)
I don't need a reminder on what to get, I need a reminder on what I forgot to get. Let's say I'm baking bread and I put down that I need flour. However, I forgot that used up my yeast when I last baked two weeks ago and I forgot to put that down on my list. The "you forgot to get" feature would look at my past purchasing history and tell me, hey you might want to check if you have enough yeast since you last purchased yeast 6 months ago. Maybe even it could see if a phone is currently located in the
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Re:You forgot to get X patent is what I really nee (Score:5, Interesting)
The more interesting data mining is currently implemented as trade secrets. Apparently, the credit card companies can predict [thedailybeast.com], with 99% accuracy, if you are going to get a divorce within the next two years.
They could do useful little tricks like reminding you about the yeast at the checkout counter, but that would be creepy to most people and not as profitable for the company with the data.
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Note that Visa flat-out denied it. Which is unusual; usually there's a mealy-mouthed denial or a refusal to admit or deny it.
Also, the banks don't usually know what you bought, only where you bought it. This makes such precision a little harder. That's why there's 'loyalty cards'.
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The denial I read said "Visa does not track marital status" blah blah blah, o.k. Visa may not, but the credit reporting bureaus used by the banks which issue Visa cards sure as hell do. And, I get a statement at the end of the year that breaks down my purchases into food, fuel, entertainment, etc. I find it hard to believe that nobody is tracking any of that data at a higher level of granularity than they are reporting it back to me... maybe not, maybe I'm just paranoid, but I know that 25 years ago, mana
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I don't need a reminder on what to get, I need a reminder on what I forgot to get. Let's say I'm baking bread and I put down that I need flour. However, I forgot that used up my yeast when I last baked two weeks ago and I forgot to put that down on my list. The "you forgot to get" feature would look at my past purchasing history and tell me, hey you might want to check if you have enough yeast since you last purchased yeast 6 months ago. Maybe even it could see if a phone is currently located in the house where you live, is one of your families phones and send a text message asking them to check and see if there is any yeast in the cupboard.
With regard to your use case, if you used a recipe and it was in an application on your device, you could track the usage and know exactly how much you had left. Exapanding that a bit, use the bar code, scanned by the camera on the device, to record which brand you use. Cross reference that with a coupon management application to determine who has the best price today and add it to a shopping list, tagged with the geolocation of the store. The coupons are scanned and tagged to determine if they are store
Time for this to all end. (Score:2)
Maybe it's just me, but, (Score:4, Informative)
possible fix (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now, you can patent anything, and if you can get it past the USPTO, you're a winner: you can collect royalties as long as you keep your demands below what it would cost to strike down your patent. There is almost no risk or downside (at worst, you lose what you paid for getting the patent, maybe $10k).
Since lawyers are ultimately driving this, maybe we can fix it by giving lawyers an incentive: create laws that allow companies to be sued for damages if they obtain patents if they should reasonably have known about prior art. This might restore some balance to the patent system, and companies would think twice about filing bad patents if they incur potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in liability.
All of them are so similar (Score:2)
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It's more likely that they will approve ALL of them with the theory of "let the courts sort it out." The end result of which is that the big companies continue as business as usual, but any smaller company that tries to implement a similar thing will find themselves quickly on the wrong end of a patent infringement suit from one of the big players. Of course that's par for the course right now, the primary purpose of patents shifted from protecting innovation to stifling it years ago.
Of course your version
Height of invention. (Score:3)
Excuse me. The idea to combine geographic positions with specific messages to the user is *not new*.
Re:Height of invention. (Score:5, Insightful)
Turn Left 5 miles.
I'm almost bald, but.... (Score:3, Funny)
... it makes my (remaining) hair hurt just thinking about how stupid this "patent race" is becoming.
-- john
Useless USPTO again (Score:5, Insightful)
And the only reason that this hasn't been patented in the past is that nobody honestly believed that the USPTO could be so freaking stupid. Boy did we underestimate THAT...
Prior art (Score:4, Funny)
Some billboards are art. Pretty sure they're location based too.
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that'stit
Make obvious patent filings result in a fine.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Any time an exceedingly obvious patent is filed by a company, it should be immediately placed in the public domain, and the company that filed it should be forced to pay royalties to the government. Not only would this reduce the amount of stupid patent filings and court battles, it would get our national debt paid off within a year or two.
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All These Location Based Patents (Score:5, Informative)
So if you're looking for prior art to go patent busting on these big companies, a good place to start would be in the wearable computer projects in the 90's. A lot of these guys published in the journal of the ACM, too. Apple, Google and Amazon think their balls are all shiny and they're doing something new, but they're not.
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> Apple, Google and Amazon think their balls are all shiny and they're doing something new, but they're not.
You know, they probably don't even think they're doing something new. They're counting on us believing them when they tell us they're doing something new.
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Are not going to run into trouble, since the patent system is out of control.
FTFY
That's it! (Score:2)
I'm turning GPS off right now!
Cross License to keep Plebes Out (Score:2)
Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon will likely eventually just cross license each other and keep the wannabes out, at least for the U.S. market (don't know about foreign patents issued).
I see a lot of bitching with respect to patents, but without patents we would not have seen the 19th & 20th century rise of the U.S. in mechanical and electrical and electronic invention.
A society where everything is kept a Trade Secret means that few people are willing to disclose or trade information. Patents only gi
You assume there is a secret (Score:2)
You assume there is a trade secret which is worthy to be disclosed.
This is not the case when there are 100.000s of equally able engineers and software developers.
Also this is not the case when the patent is generalized so much in order to earn more money that it is hard to detect any implementation apart from the idea.
Re:Cross License to keep Plebes Out (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that many patents these days are so broad as to not include any way of implementing what they describe (which means they are no better than a trade secret) AND the "limited time" isn't even applicable anymore when you realize just how long that time frame is and how fast the technology is progressing.
I'm not an expert on patents in the 19th and early 20th centuries to know for certain if they did in fact encourage invention at that time or not (I suspect it was really a bit of a mixed bag). But I am quite certain that by the end of the 20th century and in the early 21st century they do no such thing, and in fact actively stifle innovation to large degree. At this point there is no way to invent ANYTHING without running afoul of one patent or another. Even something new and novel that nobody has ever even dreamed of is likely to run afoul of one patent or another on the shape of it's case, the method of powering it, or the user interface to run it (among other ridiculous things).
Patents today are badly broken. They protect mega-corps at the expense of small time inventors. they protect exactly the people who need it least against those who would require it the most. It's time they were abolished, or at the very least, subjected to a MAJOR overhaul.
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Maybe it would have been the 18th and 19th century rise instead. Sewing machines, steam engines, and digital computers -- three important inventions delayed in development for years over patent wars.
Method? (Score:3)
I thought patents were based on the method and not the product/service in and of itself. Everyone could implement their method slightly differently (that's the trick part) and be scot-free.
This should be allowed (Score:2)
Assuming it will point out the closest gun store on the way to the patent attorney's office.
Patents are fucking ridiculous. (Score:2)
How do you patent what basically is a fucking grocery store shopping list that has been used for ever?
How do you patent what every family has been doing for years? Which is simply calling to remind their child, their wife, their husband... to pick up some eggs and milk.
This fucking world needs to hurl itself into the sun.
"America Invents Act" (Score:2)
Takes effect on the Ides of March, 2012. For new filings after date. Those new filings will start to come out of the Patent Office mill around 2017. Most professionals in the patent field (including me) don't think the new law will change patent practice much.
Like many others in my field, I prefer to call it by its original name, the "Smith-Leahy Act," since it, disappointingly, doesn't provide meaningful improvement in "inventing."
Prior Art (Score:2)
Um, I think Roast Beef and Ray Smuckles have prior art on this.
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=05082002 [achewood.com]
http://achewood.com/eggsmilk.php [achewood.com]
T-Jeff would be so pissed (Score:2)
If the nation's first patent officer, Thomas Jefferson, knew what his beloved system has been turned into, he'd have abandoned the idea entirely, I believe.
He even turned himself down for patents and he was the guy who approved patents!
He also believed that the more important any technical or scientific advance was for society, the shorter the patent should last. If we had followed his original intent, everything in the iPhone would already be public domain.
I looked into writing this stuff a decade ago. (Score:2)
I take BART into work and sometimes got a ride home, and sometimes I'd forget to pick up my car. So , I realised that location based alarms were a technically feasable feature using GPS units or the newer cellphones that were location aware - so you'd be able to setup reminders to pick up your car when the bay bridge was crossed, or pick up milk when you entered a supermarket.
Back then there was no iPhone and getting the location info on most phones was just too much trouble so I abandoned the idea after a
Turn all of it off (Score:2)
simpleminded (Score:2)
It's understandable that all those product-designer types also want to have some kind of IP protection, but can't they just go and play in some different playground?
Fuck software and business patents (Score:2)
Honestly, this shit is ruining the industry
Dumb patent of an unhelpful idea (Score:2)
Maybe it's different for you guys, but generally we know when we need to go to the grocery store. We use this innovative tool - we like to call it a "grocery list" - to which we add an item when we run out of it. Then, when we go to the grocery store, we take said "grocery list" with us and purchase the items contained therein. Note that we expressly do not limit ourselves to purchasing only the items on the list.
If we haven't gone to the grocery store recently, it's almost certainly due to our schedules ra
Pior Art... (Score:2)
.. they are called mothers, wives, and girlfriends...
"Got milk" is just shortened from "Honey, did you remember to pick up some milk"...
Implementation. (Score:4, Insightful)
I see no problem with three companies having patents for location aware reminders, remember patents are supposed to protect an implementation. To use a car analogy, how many patents are their for carburetors.
The problem stems from overly broad patents. It breaks down to "I have a patent for location aware reminders now no one else can do it." is bad, while "I have a patent for doing location aware reminders in this way." is good;.
Re:Ahhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone discovered you can make money much easier if you suffocate the competition using the law than producing better products.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't take it anymore! What has become of this planet?
Please do not confuse USA with the rest of the world!
Re:Ahhhh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Forget "skilled in the art" even lay people found this obvious! I remember many years ago thinking that if my GPS knew where I was it would seem logical that it could also tell me what to do when I was there. Later I was frustrated that my PDA had calendar, to-do list, and GPS, and yet had no way of combining the three of them. I'm technologically inclined, but I'm certainly not "skilled in the art" of making phones/GPSs/PDAs/etc.
Re: (Score:3)