Taking the Battle Against Patent Trolls To the Public 107
First time accepted submitter presspass writes "A group of technology and retail groups is beginning a national ad campaign targeting so-called patent trolls. The Internet Association, National Restaurant Association, National Retail Federation and Food Marketing Institute Patent trolls — a term known more among geeks than the general public — are about to be the target of a national ad campaign. Beginning Friday, a group of retail trade organizations is launching a radio and print campaign in 17 states. They want to raise awareness of a problem they say is draining resources from business and raising prices for consumers."
Surprising (Score:1)
"Williams notes that from the Government Accountability Office found that only 20 percent of patent litigation was brought by so-called trolls."
That frankly surprises me, I would've thought it was higher.
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20% is more than high enough when it comes to parasites.
And patent trolling doesn't just cost resources. It reduces options and choices the public get.
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The other 80% was Apple.
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Missing a period (Score:1)
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Didn't take the "you can't do anything about it so just bend over already" shills very long to show up, did it?
But that's patented! (Score:2)
Software a special case (Score:3, Insightful)
If you accept that mathematics is not patentable then
you must accept that computer programs are not patentable.
Regardless of what lawyers would like to believe; computers are machines
that read and utter mathematical expressions.
This particular patent problem is just another denial of scientific fact!
You should be able to patent a process that contains a computer
program but the program itself is out of bounds.
so there!
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You are correct, and that is exactly how software is patented. The algorithm itself not patentable.
The only things that are patentable are processes, machines, manufactures, or compositions of matter.
People patent processes. People patent machines that run those processes. People patent manufactures that consist of computer-readable storage media containing instructions to run those processes.
See http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/11-1301.Opinion.5-8-2013.1.PDF [uscourts.gov] for a good revi
Re:Software a special case (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in other words, patenting an algorithm is as simple as adding "on a computer" after it, thus making it a process.
It's not that simple. In Gottschalk v. Benson, the US Supreme Court considered a method for binary conversion, and said: "The mathematical formula involved here has no substantial practical application except in connection with a digital computer, which means that if the judgment below is affirmed, the patent would wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practical effect would be a patent on the algorithm itself."
The idea is that the patent claim must "add “significantly more” to the basic principle, with the result that the claim covers significantly less." If the patent claim is co-extensive with an unpatentable algorithm, the claim is not eligible for patent.
What "significantly more" means, and what it means for an invention to be coextensive with an unpatentable abstract idea (mathematical formula, or algorithm) are points under contention at the CAFC right now. I expect this to reach the Supreme Court for clarification in the near future.
but math *is* patentable. so we need a law (Score:2)
> If you accept that mathematics is not patentable then you must accept that computer programs are not patentable.
Ok. But since UK and USA courts have upheld patents on math, this mantra doesn't get us as far as people think.
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Software_is_math#Some_judges_say_math_is_patentable [swpat.org]
We need laws to exclude software from patentability. Like what New Zealand did last week (but with a bit of work we can write a better text).
Here's a page I'm in the process of writing:
* http://en.swpat.o [swpat.org]
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Both the US and the UK have laws that prohibits software patent. In the US the special court setup to deal with patents suits just decided it didn't agree with the law and has chosen to ignore it, the US patent office has since started accepting more and more software patents. The supreme court has indicated they would overturn the lower patent court's decision to ignore the ban on software patents, but so far no software patent case has gone all the way to supreme court.
developers receiving fines say they're real (Score:2)
If there's a law, and you interpret it as saying X, and the courts that are trying people interpret it as saying Y, then in all senses that matter, Y is the law.
I mean, I agree that the law prohibits software patents. But my opinion doesn't stop software developers from receiving fines and injunctions.
Until the US Supreme Court takes a software patent and throws it out the window, software patents are real and we need a law. It's also not certain that the Supreme Court would do what we hope. They could r
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Speech is simply patterns of sound waves, which are mathematical wave equations. Speech can be modeled mathematically just as easily as any computer program.
Also, a programming language is, as its name implies, a language, which is also what we call those sound waves we make.
Since we mostly agree that we should be able to copyright particularly creative things we say or write down in a spoken language, one could well argue that we should be able to do the same for particularly creative things we write in
New national motto (Score:2)
Can you say DCMA? Can you say takedown? I knew you could.
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America: Corrupt and Inefficient in the 21st Century
Can you say DCMA? Can you say takedown? I knew you could.
With the ability to eradicate dissent with the NDAA and comercially (i.e. Halliburton) operated drones.
FTFY
Just a thought (Score:4, Interesting)
Any thoughts on how the following rule would help the patent system?:
Make patents non transferable.
Now if you are working for a company, or with someone, patenet ownership can be split how ever initially agreed on (I'm a 5% owner of a patent from a pervious job), but this stops a single company, with no product, history, or karma backing it, from buying up bunched of patents and suing major companies trying to sell their product.
Re:Just a thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, how do I, as a poor inventor without the means to implement my invention, how would I be rewarded for revealing my invention to the world?
I would normally just sell the patent to an entity with the resources to actually develop the patent. If I can't transfer the patent, then I hold an exclusive right that I don't even have the resources to protect. I'll never cash in. I'd probably just keep the invention secret and not tell anyone.
However, if patents are transferable, like they are right now, I would have incentive to publish my invention in a patent in exchange for the exclusive right to make, sell, or use it. Then, I'd sell that right to somebody else who could bring it to market or have the legal resources to run a proper licencing scheme. I'd get rewarded for my invention. The public would get the knowledge of the invention. And the invention may be more likely to reach market.
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You'll hear this mantra a lot -- especially in software, but it's true everywhere: Ideas are worthless. Implementation is what matters.
Patents are a monopoly on an idea. Patent trolls use them to extort money from others who have done the hard work.
IMHO, you do not deserve compensation for coming up with an idea unless you also spend years building a worthwhile implementation. Patent filings should require a working implementation, and patents should only last 3-5 years (about twice as long as it takes to d
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IMHO, you do not deserve compensation for coming up with an idea unless you also spend years building a worthwhile implementation.
Patents don't reward the coming-up-with of an idea. They reward the disclosure of that idea.
and patents should only last 3-5 years (about twice as long as it takes to develop a competing implementation).
This is not universally true. It might take 10-12 years to clear the regulatory hurdles in the pharmaceutical industry.
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Then, how do I, as a poor inventor without the means to implement my invention, how would I be rewarded for revealing my invention to the world?
If you're poor you have no means of patenting your invention. Patents are damned expensive.
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If you didn't implement it, you didn't invent it.
I meant implement for mass market production. I may have the resources to build a working model, or a proof-of-concept, but not the resources to bring the invention to market.
If you didn't implement it, you didn't invent it.
That is not consistent with patent law.
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"Then, how do I, as a poor inventor without the means to implement my invention, how would I be rewarded for revealing my invention to the world?"
You license the right to use the protected invention. My father patented an improvement to a piece of mining equipment in the 1970s in Australia; I remember my mother doing the drawings for the patent application on the kitchen table. A couple of years later a large Japanese firm who made said equipment contacted him about it, and their lawyers and a lawyer my f
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I thought about this-
You'd do what a lot of startups do- take your patent, and solitic investor money for your startup company. I mean, you do care about your invention don't you? Do you want to actually try to bring it to market? So that means you need venture capital. Or in old school terms, you go to a bank, and pitch them your idea, and get a small business loan.
Disclosure, I don't really know how difficult this is to do these days; I work for a medium sized company.
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The problem is, they currently ARE NON-TRANSFERABLE.
They are issued to the inventor(s) and are completely owned by the inventor(s). The people named on the patents (who cannot be companies) own the patent permanently.
Instead, what happens is the inventor, as part of their employment contract, agrees to license the the company full exclusive use of the patent. Which means the company (that sponsored the patent)
Hie thee to an attorney (Score:1)
So... (Score:2)
Examine harder. The US has absurdly low thresholds for utility and prior use.
Layman Alert! (Score:1)
* 'Profit' does not include litigation.
Re:They're not trolls (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:They're not trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
Inventors are out of luck RIGHT NOW. Patent is just a piece of paper that gives you right to sue someone, but to sue someone big/important you need >$100K for lawyer fees.
Re:They're not trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think inventors who "don't have the mental and financial stamina to sue a big corporation for patent infringement" are going to get a good deal out of a patent troll company? They have the same characteristics as other corporations, except they're run by even more shady individuals than average.
The way the patent system is currently run makes it extremely hard for anyone but an expensive patent attorney to navigate too. Your fantasy inventor here is unlikely to get their patent in the first place. Instead it's big corporations who have the resources to file so many garbage patents that the rest of the world is bogged down navigating them, including the small scale inventors. Odds are the mythical lone wolf inventor will be sued into oblivion rather than sue someone else successfully.
Re:They're not trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
the rest of the world is bogged down navigating them
Yet at the same time we're incentivized not to navigate (research) the existing patents by the willful infringement rules. Not only does it make a mockery of the patent system as an avenue for "disclosure," but you're trapped between the rock of due diligence and the hard place of triple damages.
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You're so naÃve.
What the trolls do is circle you until yo're (financially) dead and then buy all your patents for cheap. From your bank, because at that point "your" assets ain't yours anymore.
Re: They're not trolls (Score:1, Insightful)
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but to sue someone big/important you need >$100K for lawyer fees.
And to litigate successfully, you need a hundred times as much (if not more). Ask Aureal.
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Good idea. Let's brainstorm on this a little!
How about requiring the applicant to submit a plan to monetize the patent either: a) as part of the initial patent application; or b) as a follow-up to an approved patent application before the patent is granted? I'm talking about some kind of business plan or letter of intent to sell a manifestation of the patent, not simply waiting for someone for the patent-holder to sue or license the patent to. Then if the patent-holder doesn't follow through with the busine
Re: They're not trolls (Score:2)
Its time to do like New Zealand. Software in NZ can't' be patented, only their product that is a commercial software (eg. Word processor) can have a patent. Algorithms cannot be patented.
Re:They're not trolls (Score:5, Informative)
Of course they are trolls. The definition of patent troll is clear cut:
a) Owns a patent
b) Didn't do the work personally
c) Doesn't make products using the patent.
Re:They're not trolls (Score:5, Informative)
The Constitutional rationale for patents is not monetisation, that's why:
[Article 1, Section 8:] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Now please inform us as to how patent trolls promote the progress of science and/or useful arts.
...
(Warning--Spoiler ahead:) They don't.
Re:They're not trolls (Score:4, Informative)
If the only way to monetise the invention is to sell it to a patent troll then it does not deserve any money.
The only way a patent troll makes money is if someone willing to actually make the thing has the same (usually pretty obvious) idea so the original 'invention' offered zero value to society.
Said as someone with a few patents ( http://www.patentmaps.com/inventor/Jocelyn_M_Earl_1.html [patentmaps.com] )
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Re:They're not trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
The language used in patent applications is extremely hard to decode. The idea that people might be mining for innovation by reading patents has to clear that hurdle. They need to make sense of that mess with less work than developing the same idea from scratch.
Back when patents were disclosing major technical advances, there was some evidence people were doing that. I re-read Portraits in Silicon [amazon.com] lately. One of the recurring themes among early computer researchers was the idea that they'd get a patent on some very fundamental and non-obvious technology. Could you reinvent the transistor faster than you could read about it its construction? Probably not.
But lately, there's a lot more evidence that people are concurrently discovering obvious advances that someone patented instead of that sort of thing. And even those old fundamental patents turn out to be not such a big deal after all. The actual history of the transistor [wikipedia.org] shows the concurrent development of its ideas as being really inevitable.
Concurrent discovery is far more likely than unique innovation. The patent system is burdening what turns out to be one of the most common situations seen in scientific advancement: that the next step to build on any innovation will be co-discovered by multiple researchers in parallel. This happens far more often than the fantasy of the lone inventor working in isolation to create something no one else thought of before.
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This is mostly an argument for raising the bar on the non-obviousness requirement.
However, even if concurrent discovery is common, that may only be because of the concurrent incentive to discovery. Any of the hard-working, innovative, inventors could come up with the invention. Each is being spurred on by the promise of the exclusive right waiting at the end of the tunnel. Just because one gets to the patent office before the other doesn't mean that the patent didn't provide the incentive to do the work.
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Drawing the line between obvious and less obvious may only be possible in a historical context. If you break down innovation into small enough pieces, each step always seems obvious given everything that came before. That's how the world advances: with a series of small steps that build into larger works. It's rare you can give someone an exclusive right to any one of those next steps without blocking some inevitable advance forward that comes next.
If there such a thing as non-obvious advances--the rich
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I'm not sure big Pharm is really a good example of an industry where patents are beneficial to society... There's a lot of patent abuse and absurdity in those industries too.
Is it that big of a difference between patenting something as new because it's "on a phone", vs "with a time release"?
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How do you know that "the only way a patent troll makes money is if someone willing to actually make the thing has the same idea"? Patents are published, so the person willing to implement the invention could have just read the published patent and decided they want to make it.
Most crap I've seen is intentionally written to be as confusing, obtuse and useless as possible. The last thing they want is competition or anyone in the patent office to understand what "circular transportation facilitation device" really means.
That is one of the mechanisms that patents promote the progress of science and useful arts: the public gives the inventor an exclusive right (which they can assign or licence), and the inventor gives the public his/her knowledge. It's a trade.
What is actually happening in the real world companies doing all the work implementing obvious aggregations of technology without any external help and getting randomly dinged by speculators who didn't do any of the "fucking work". Obvious ideas should be worthle
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Your comments would be given more weight , if you were not an AC. Perhaps thou are a shill?
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Do you think the moderation would be any different if I had logged in
Yes, when you're logged in your comments start at Normal: 2.
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Only if you choose to check the box adding the extra point.
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Poor Thinking:
Example
Idea for a product that requires 20 million to begin production yet offers billions in potential profits. The only problem is, I don't have the 5 million to build the factory, the 15 million for payroll and other business expenses plus the 5 million for the marketing to reach the target market. No patent gets filed, I don't make any money and the idea doesn't ever reach anyone else.
So sorry mr poor but although you had a great idea that could have saves millions of lives, you didn't hav
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You don't sell that product and you're not into fighting lawsuits, so without selling to a "patent troll", you can neither implement your invention nor monetize your invention.
First, the logic in your example is fallacious. "You don't sell that product" may a true statement, but there's nothing preventing you from selling the product other than your own unwillingness to do so. Your conclusion that "you can neither implement your invention nor monetize your invention" is false. "You're not into fighting lawsuits" is irrelevant since an improvement to a product does not give you the ability to sue someone making that product.
Second, a patent troll wouldn't buy your hypothetica
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The level of scrutiny that applies to patent legislation is the "rational basis" test. That is the lowest level of scrutiny that the Supreme Court applies. Basically, if the government can show that the legislation is rationally related to the purpose (promotion of the progress of the science and useful arts), it is within the scope of power enumerated in the constitution.
Article 1 Section 8 "empowers Congress to determine the intellectual property regimes that, overall, in that body’s judgment, wil
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In general, I agree that the patent system is broken and creates perverse incentives that undermine the intent of the system. Nevertheless, allow me to play devil's advocate here.
Developing a technology requires an investment of time and money and possibly other resources. That investment may result in an invention that is useful for the investor, or it might not pan out at all.
Patent trolls provide a marketpla
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Making the thing described in the patent is not a requirement, neither is being the original inventor. Selling and buying exclusive rights isn't unique to patents.
In addition, the clause I quoted above speaks of "securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"; so, if you please, also tell us how it provides justification for buying, selling, or otherwise assigning these rights to someone other than the originator.
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Congress has quite clearly failed.
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Congress has quite clearly failed.
Not really, thry're still in office and not in prison, they have their own non-Obabacare health plan for life, they're richer than sin considering their government paychecks, they have no term limits so they can continue this BS until they die with no legal repurcussions, how is that failure?
If you mean watching out for their voters interests rather than the special interests, reducing pork barrel politics to zero, limiting terms to two, divesting themselves of Swiss and Vatican secret bank accounts, then y
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they're richer than sin considering their government paychecks
No way, man. $174,000 [wikipedia.org] is hardly "richer than sin."
They are richer than sin, but it's because they constantly accept bribes (under various euphemisms) and rotate out to highly lucrative private sector positions bribing other politicians.
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Well there you have it. The exception to the "it takes one to know one" rule that proves the rule.
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Not totally true. The troll sees a product someone created but didn't patent and patents it himself.
Now why wouldn't someone patent an invention? Cost, time, hassle. Not everyone has the deep pockets to do it. And along comes the troll. If the law said that the troll could be sued if it could be found the product was already in production, that would be a welcome change.
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Of course they are trolls. The definition of patent troll is clear cut:
a) Owns a patent
b) Didn't do the work personally
c) Doesn't make products using the patent.
d) Lives under a bridge
e) Eats billygoats
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d) Lives under a bridge
"In the Bay Area, they're placing their truss in the bridge troll" [latimes.com]
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Patent trolls are EXTORTIONIST. They threaten you with a patent that you probably are NOT infringing on but the court fight to prove it will cost twice what they are asking to settle.
Easy to fix. Expose them and deny further patents, forever.
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Wikipedia disagrees with you. I'll take wikipedia's word before I'll take an AC's word.
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