Software Patent Reform Stalls Thanks To IBM and Microsoft Lobbying 239
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington post reports on the progress of a piece of legislation many hoped would address the glut of meaningless software patents used as weapons by patent trolls. Unfortunately, the provision that would have helped the USPTO nix these patents has been nixed itself. The article credits IBM, Microsoft, and other companies with huge patent portfolios for the change, citing an 'aggressive lobbying campaign' that apparently succeeded. Quoting: 'A September letter signed by IBM, Microsoft and several dozen other firms made the case against expanding the program. The proposal, they wrote, "could harm U.S. innovators by unnecessarily undermining the rights of patent holders. Subjecting data processing patents to the CBM program would create uncertainty and risk that discourage investment in any number of fields where we should be trying to spur continued innovation." ... Last week, IBM escalated its campaign against expanding the CBM program. An IBM spokesman told Politico, "While we support what Mr. Goodlatte's trying to do on trolls, if the CBM is included, we'd be forced to oppose the bill." Insiders say the campaign against the CBM provisions of the Goodlatte bill has succeeded. The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a markup of the legislation Wednesday, and Goodlatte will introduce a "manager's amendment" to remove the CBM language from his own bill. IBM hailed that change in a Monday letter to Goodlatte.'"
Money again... (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA: An IBM spokesman told Politico, "While we support what Mr. Goodlatte's trying to do on trolls, if the CBM is included, we'd be forced to oppose the bill."
What about the hundreds of thousands of small developers who support it?
Do they get a "vote", too ... or is it only the people who are rich enough to bribe senators?
Re:Money again... (Score:5, Insightful)
If money is equal to speech then guess who as more speech than you.
Re:Money again... (Score:5, Informative)
If money is equal to speech then guess who as more speech than you.
Now now, all Americans are equal. Some are just more equal than others
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Four legs good two legs bad
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Don't like money in politics? Don't vote for politicians who are easily bribed.
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Libertarians won't outnumber Republicrats (Score:2)
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Is there another kind of politician?
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It isn't though.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/12/us-usa-colorado-election-idUSBRE98B01620130912 [reuters.com]
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Actually, I think IBM, Microsoft, and other companies are trying to make the argument that money causes innovation.
Oh the lies we tell ourselves...
I think you meant to say "money crushes innovation"
Fixed it for you.
Re:Money again... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is not the rich spending their money trying to influence policy, that is to be expected, similar to how we expect a prisoner to attempt escape if left unguarded. Human nature and all that bullshit. The problem is that it is possible to spend money to influence policy. Politicians who were not so easily bribed would secure an equal voice for any citizen, no matter their luck/skill in other things.
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People talk out of one side of their mouths that elections are the definitive voice of the people, and then complain out the other side that they don't like the outcomes. Money isn't the problem, people are. Governments have been allowed to accrue extraordinary powers in the name of "helping" people, but those powers can be turned to any purpose. Any power you grant to the government is one that your opponents can use against you.
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Everybody imagines a perfect world governed by himself. The problem is that statistically, you're guaranteed to be one of the ones suffering in another guy's perfect world.
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Yeah, but it seems less objectionable to suffer under the will of the majority than under the will of the oligarchs.
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A majority has no more understanding of, nor tolerance for, my best interests than a group of oligarchs. How I am governed matters; who is doing the governing is irrelevant except insofar as it determines the how.
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Everybody imagines a perfect world governed by himself.
Speak for yourself. Personally, I envision an (inevitably) imperfect, but free, world governed by no one. Because, as you say, once you've decided in favor of government there's nothing to say that you'll get the government you want. Others can govern you just as readily as you can govern them.
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There's a name for a system where only the rich get the ear of the politicians...
> The definition of a liberal is someone who doesn't care what the law is, as long as it is mandatory
You're responding to someone criticizing a ruling of the SCOTUS, which has force of law and therefore by definition mandatory. Your point?
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You're responding to someone criticizing a ruling of the SCOTUS, which has force of law and therefore by definition mandatory. Your point?
The SCOTUS ruling in question was a rarity in that it actually limited the power of government to tell people what they could or couldn't communicate. It was a win for freedom, and I cheer it. Any time the government says "we forbid the forbidding of freedom of speech" I'm OK with that being mandatory. Now back to you, sir -- your point?
Re:Money again... (Score:5, Insightful)
"So what if rich companies can communicate more widely than you?"
The "so what" is that they have a darned good whack at drowning out all voices but their own. Inherently undemocratic.
Money as speech seems, to me, to be taking us closer and closer to an authoritarian system.
"I have a suspicion that you want to see some rich people or corporations censored because you disagree with their message. That is not OK."
Agreement is not the issue, their message is not better than anyone else's, and does not deserve amplification.
I don't think that rich people, nor corporations ( who I think should be entirely outside of politics ), nor trade unions, nor teachers unions nor any organization deserve amplification.
You start with "That's a nice little oversimplification of the issue..." then have to go with:
"The definition of a liberal is someone who doesn't care what the law is, as long as it is mandatory..."
( an oversimplification )
Sigh. Is that really all there is to liberals? It is just as un-dimensional ( and inflammatory ) to say "The definition of a conservative is 'I got mine, up yours'".
Which I know not to be true of all or most, only true of some subset.
Here sits a liberal who detests nanny states, censors and undue controls.
And I do care what the law is, but also that the law be fair and fairly applied and reasonable.
( some control seems to be required, and I would argue both sides want controls, it is just a matter of who and what is to be controlled... )
For me, liberalism is caring more about people than institutions ( corporations, powerful people's , states, etc ).
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It's called "crony capitalism." The system had been growing for a long time, but was only publicly exposed with the financial crisis of 2008.
"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked." - Warren Buffett
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"So what if rich companies can communicate more widely than you?"
The "so what" is that they have a darned good whack at drowning out all voices but their own. Inherently undemocratic.
You mean, the way things were before widespread Internet access and personal web sites?
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I mean the way things are right now.
If I have a political opinion, manage to host it, I wont have advertising dollars to get word out aside from my site. /dev/null
I wont have much ability to cross link. Opponents of my opinion with money will likely manage to drown me out and make sure I am not cross linked much outside of small time "looks like you got quite a conspiracy going there" sites.
They can also SEO my site into
And if they really dont like it, DDOS my site, buy the hosting company, or other shenan
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The "so what" is that they have a darned good whack at drowning out all voices but their own. Inherently undemocratic. Money as speech seems, to me, to be taking us closer and closer to an authoritarian system.
So if there actually are enough people/organizations with opposing views they need to band together to have those views heard. When the people making the decisions about running the country are confronted by a bunch of huge corporations that employ hundreds of thousands of people, have hundreds of thousands of citizens as shareholders and contribute billions to the economy say "this will be bad for us" it obviously needs to be countered with an even greater economical argument by a considerable amount of ci
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"You can't make every YouTube video a viral hit. You can't make every citizen equally wealthy and influential. All you will do is undermine democracy by censoring some people. Communism causes more problems than it solves, news at 11."
When did I say I wanted to? Not asking for Communism, asking for actual democracy not plutocracy.
"The cool thing about a free democracy is that neither you nor the government gets to decide who "deserves amplification". If the speaker spends his own money to get his message o
Re:Money again... (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is not so short or sweet.
Take the item from today's main page, IBM and MS oppose a part of a bill.
Say for the sake of argument that I and another developer friend support that bill.
4 "persons" involved, but my voice and my friend's voice is rendered inconsequential by IBM and MS's voice.
Why is that OK?
What I want is not censorship of their voice ( they should be able to voice their opinion, as individuals, not as a company ), what I want is to eliminate the censorship of *my* voice. I want their opinion and mine to be able to be evaluated on the opinion's merits, not on the contents of their wallet versus my wallet.
When my voice is drowned out by theirs, how can you argue we have democracy?
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Take the item from today's main page, IBM and MS oppose a part of a bill.
Say for the sake of argument that I and another developer friend support that bill.
4 "persons" involved, but my voice and my friend's voice is rendered inconsequential by IBM and MS's voice.
Why is that OK?
Look at it from the perspective of those running the country, IBM and MS support the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of their employees, they contribute billions to the economy and have hundreds of thousands of shareholders which includes active traders, long term investors and retirement funds. It isn't 4 "persons" involved because corporations are not people, but they are often representative of many people.
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"Look at it from the perspective of those running the country,"
I am in the USA, and that is supposed to be the citizenry.
"IBM and MS support the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of their employees, they contribute billions to the economy and have hundreds of thousands of shareholders which includes active traders, long term investors and retirement funds. It isn't 4 "persons" involved because corporations are not people, but they are often representative of many people"
It should not be about the money,
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I am in the USA, and that is supposed to be the citizenry.
No it is supposed to be the people you have elected to represent the citizenry, obviously you aren't going to a referendum on every single issue.
It should not be about the money, it should be about democracy. Sustaining and maintaining and defending it. We are selling it a bit at a time.
What are you selling? And to whom? And for what? If people's livelihood didn't depend on money then obviously people wouldn't care so much about it.
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"No it is supposed to be the people you have elected to represent the citizenry, obviously you aren't going to a referendum on every single issue.'
Yes, but they are supposed to be answerable to the citizenry in terms of getting voted out of office
"What are you selling? And to whom? And for what? If people's livelihood didn't depend on money then obviously people wouldn't care so much about it"
Democratic institutions in this Republic.
Yes, people's livelihoods depend on money, in the main, and it is something
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What I want is not censorship of their voice ( they should be able to voice their opinion, as individuals, not as a company )
So you do want to censor them as a company. One person putting up a political sign in his yard is OK, but two people working together to do it, and you will demand that they stop. Honey, I'm afraid that would be censorship.
what I want is to eliminate the censorship of *my* voice.
What would be really nice is if some people would stop whining that others have more money than they do.
I want their opinion and mine to be able to be evaluated on the opinion's merits, not on the contents of their wallet versus my wallet. When my voice is drowned out by theirs, how can you argue we have democracy?
Because democracy doesn't mean that everybody has the same reach and visibility of their communications. You're just whining because you want to censor some other peoples' political
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"So you do want to censor them as a company. One person putting up a political sign in his yard is OK, but two people working together to do it, and you will demand that they stop. Honey, I'm afraid that would be censorship."
I do not see why a corporation should have any input into the political process.
The people in the corporation, of course, and they do.
I don't see it as censorship, they ( the people in the corporation ) can say what they want.
I do not think they should have additional influence.
I don't
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Your business belongs to you.
IBM, for example, belongs to many many shareholders. Are their political interests being well represented by IBM?
I would hazard not.
No, I'm not interested in cutting anyone down.
There is not real way to amplify the little people. I want to de-amplify the large. Then they wont drown out others.
And ideas don't come from businesses, they come from the people within a business, and there is *nothing* preventing that from happening.
Except businesses.
Yes, democracies can oppress mi
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And shame on you for that.
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That's the Citizen's United ruling. Just wait until the SCOTUS rules on McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission
Then the politicians will be completely up for sale.
Scalia's argument sarcastic comment about finance reform:
I'm glad he's looking out for the 98% that will
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Making statements is fine, however paying off officials is not. even if it is legal payoffs like massive campaign contributions.
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SCOTUS decided that 1) campaign contributions are free speech and must be protected (not limited) and 2) corporations in this regard, as in many others, are considered to have the same protection as individual citizens.
The idea of limiting contributions is to prevent corruption, the buying of influence in the political process. In a democracy (democratic republic) worthy of the name, representation should be proportional to head count, not bank account or family name. Otherwise it is a plutocracy or aristoc
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1. If by "buying favour" you just mean spending money to communicate a message, then it shouldn't be censored. Speech should never be censored without a really good reason.
No, I'm pretty sure I meant what I said, spending money to buy politicians, aka corruption.
2. Here in the USA we spell it "favor".
Good for you, I guess. I'm not a native English speaker and have a British spell checker apparently. Let's sidestep this thorny dispute and call it corruption.
3. The idea that corporations are people is not disastrous, it is simply true. Corporations are neither owned nor run by robots. You seem to be trying to make corporations be run and de-facto owned by the government, which is more worthy of Cuba or Venezuela than the USA.
It's simply "true"? I'm not even sure what that means. That they're not robots doesn't mean they are people. I'm not suggesting that governments run corporations, rather I'm suggesting that the opposite seems to be happening.
4. Mr. Goodlatte is not an IBM executive, he is actually a member of Congress. ...A-a-a-and you have egg on your face.
Ah, yes, my bad, as they say. I was s
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The definition of a liberal is someone who doesn't care what the law is, as long as it is mandatory. Nanny states, government censors and controls. Ew, yuck.
liberal
/lib()rl/
adjective
adjective: liberal
1.
open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.
"they have more liberal views toward marriage and divorce than some people"
favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms.
"liberal citizenship laws"synonyms: tolerant, unprejudiced, unbigoted, broad-minded, open-minded, enlightened; Morepermissive, free, free and easy, easygoing, libertarian, indulgent, lenient
"the values of a liberal society"
antonyms: narrow-mi
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LittleOlMe 12:51 PM EST What actually killed it, and most every other good idea, is a lack of public funding for all federal elections.
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Surely you know the Golden Rule?
The Golden Rule: The ones with the Gold make the Rules.
Simple, really.
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is it only the people who are rich enough to bribe senators?
Rhetorical question, right?
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What about hundreds of millions of consumers. They ultimately pay every cent of those junk patent fees, they pay the inflated prices on products as a result of anti-competitive junk patents and they pay for low quality product because high quality products are kept out of the market by junk patents. What is truly sick, is the money is being stolen out of consumers pockets to pay for the political campaign corruption, in order to steal more money out of consumers pockets. We are the ones paying to make it e
Re:Money again... (Score:5, Insightful)
My favorite part about patent reform is that eventually it's going to pass, and all the small developers will run out and invent shit... and then promptly have it all ripped off by megacorps who make billions on their ideas, and the myopic developers go bankrupt.
If your 'idea' can be 'ripped off' that easily, it sure as heck doesn't deserve a government-granted monopoly.
Re:Money again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Money again... (Score:5, Insightful)
And one of the reasons patents exist is to encourage companies to reveal enough information so that somebody can implement it after the patent expires.
The problem is that patents neither reveal enough useful information nor expire when they could (theoretically) have been useful.
Re:Money again... (Score:4, Insightful)
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"If your 'idea' can be 'ripped off' that easily, it sure as heck doesn't deserve a government-granted monopoly"
When one side has lots of money, and the other is struggling to make payroll, the idea becomes pretty easy to rip off.
See Stac Doublespace for one example.
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I don't believe the current patent system is the best of all possible systems.
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In innovative idea is frequently one which is obvious in hindsight. A friend of mine in Korea grew up with a bathroom which connected to the house, but it was essentially a detached room with no shared heating. For ventilation it had a simple fan mounted in the window, used only when needed because electricity was expensive. In winter this meant the bathroom got very cold and he hated having to
Choice of underdamped system to represent edges (Score:2)
So is Apple's bounce animation patent, which is just an animated implementation of the step response of an underdamped second order linear system which has been known about for centuries.
The novel part might have been the application of an underdamped second order linear system to the task of representing the edge of a scrollable area. User interfaces in the prior art had typically done so numerically (0% or 100%) or by having a box in a scroll bar reach the start or end of a range.
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His idea is obvious in hindsight, but nobody had thought of it in the 50+ years they'd been using electric fans for ventilation. It's like learning something new in school - once you'd seen it work and gotten your mind past the assumption that the blades in a fan need to be fixed, it's dirt easy to understand and replicate even if you've never seen any internal schematics. Because of poor patent protection in Asia, there were Chinese knockoffs being sold within a year.
It seems to me there are two schools of thought. One is that people have an inherent right to ideas they invent. That's the American dream - to rise from poverty and get rich.
The other is that patents are there to help society, period. In this case, it seems that without patent protection, society was better off with these Chinese knockoffs you mention - let the most competitive production facility win. If he had spent ten years and lots of development resources researching how to build this, there may be a
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Patents do not protect small inventors. Small inventors do not have the millions of dollars it takes to deal with a patent suit (on either side) in court. They will always run out of money before IBM does. They also typically cannot devote the necessary man-years to the task.
Until that changes, the small inventor is better off if there are no patents at all. True, they're still screwed, but they're not quite as screwed.
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The French had a system during the 1800's, where f a person had an idea that would be of benefit to the country at large, he or she would be given an state pension in exchange for sharing that knowledge. The benefits of having the whole country know about something like automated punch-card loom weaving meant that the entire country could be taken out of poverty through knowledge, and the person would have a secure retirement.
The patent system in the USA and UK granted a person the right to collect royaltie
Re:Money again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I listen to a bunch of ne'er-do-wells in the face of people who actually know how to generate money (ie, know how to generate tax dollars)?
Don't know about Microsoft and IBM, but don't most big companies these days do everything they can to avoid 'generating tax dollars'?
My guess (Score:5, Funny)
Is that the same Washington Post ... (Score:3, Informative)
... that's owned by Jeff "One Click" Bezos?
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I don't think the One Click patent is the problem here. That one is at least clearly written and actually used by the company. It's the intentionally obfuscated and overly general patents that serve no practical purpose to the holder that bog the economy down.
Where the guilt is (Score:4, Insightful)
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The good part about this is that it makes a very nice list of who not to buy from. Of course, that doesn't help us with organizations like "Patent Office Professional Association", although I'm sure there's no conflict of interest there.
Re:Where the guilt is (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, and if you use the word "stealing" instead of "make infringing copies", that makes the latter sound a lot worse. But here on Slashdot, you're not allowed to do that, yet it's A-OK to redefine other words for our own feel-good* purposes, apparently?
MAFIAA bribery (or "lobbying") resulted in corporations "stealing from the public domain". And they have managed to re-defined "fair use" as "DMCA violations". But you keep using whatever terms makes you feel good about that.
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Let's say you hold a patent on something.
I build that something, with my own time and materials.
Now you get to steal it from me, in the name of your patent.
And you have the nerve to tell me I stole it from you?
Microsoft and IBM (Score:5, Funny)
obligatory reference to Disney vs Copyright terms (Score:2)
Same shit, different property.
For those who are interested (Score:5, Informative)
CBM means "Covered Business Method (patent)"
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Entrenched "Innovators" (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ok, then, if IBM and Microsoft want to do that, fine.
But I'm not going to have any sympathy when a patent troll takes them for $4 billion on a clearly bogus patent because the system is broken.
All or nothing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: "We love the absurd and unfair amount of power that the broken patent system gives us over any and all future start-ups and rivals, and will oppose any legislation that doesn't maintain the status quo."
No - see the summary:
An IBM spokesman told Politico, "While we support what Mr. Goodlatte's trying to do on trolls, if the CBM is included, we'd be forced to oppose the bill."
The proper translation is "yes, we want to stop the troll problem, but this nuclear option you've got goes too far. We like all of your other proposals." Just because you don't like 5% of a proposal doesn't mean you necessarily hate 100% of the proposal.
Lobbying should be made illegal (Score:2)
A company is, in theory, like a person so it should not have more power than a normal citizen : Lobbying should be considered the same as bribing : ILLEGAL.
The first amendment says lobbying is a right. (Score:2)
People in companies have as much right to ask the government to do things differently, to make things better for their own interests, as everybody else does.
How would you make lobbying illegal? Throw people in jail for talking to their congressman?
Same old same old (Score:3)
The whole world being held back for the benefit of the few. It will be the defining characteristic of this period in history.
In Soviet Amerika people have no rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to serfdom, comrade!
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Communism was quite literally the system that replaced serfdom in Russia.
You need to wake up and do something about it! (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people on this forum are IT related, and I do not need to explain how software patents in particular hinder the ability to innovate in the field.
Only the US has terror histories regarding patent trolls and patent dicksizing contests between software companies, which in no way help you be better, faster, and, I would even say more profitable (Lawyers being the only ones profiting out of this)
There is no room for software start ups because of this. Everything that could be patented already is (and a lot that shouldn't is too).
Here, in software patent free world, it's so much better. Whatever you can think of you can do it, and even if you cannot find a solution, you can google for it, code it, and that's it. No lawyers or burocracies needed.
This is a clear situation of the big fish creating rules to eat the small fish. Is that the world you want to live in?
(the same could be applied to the rest of patents, and even things outside patents like equality and justice, but I will stay out of it to keep on topic)
So here we have an example of our crossroads... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, our choices are apparently either:
- an overbearing nanny state in which the government makes all the decisions, or
- a weak state in which the corporations make all the decisions.
Great. That really illustrates why frustrated people turn to Caesarism, and faith in a single strong personality given despotic powers to "fix the mess".
Unfortunately, while you might get lucky and ACTUALLY get a Gaius Marius or someone genuinely interested in the general well-being of the people and nation, *rarely* is that ever sustainable to whomever inherits (earns/steals/etc) that power next....(Marius himself - in pursuit of very-much-needed reforms - could arguably be blamed for turning the Republic into the Empire)
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A govenrments only real power is the threat of violence (through incarceration and other means to enforce laws). Having a government that's unable to enforce the laws it makes, would be the equivalency to having anarchy.
And if there's no government to enforce laws, then who would be making those corporations accountable? If you have a practical answer to this question, you'll have solved most of mankind's problems
What you're proposing would result in countries like Nigeria, where there's a puppet regime, st
CBM is not the answer. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm strongly in favor of patent reform, but CBM is not the answer. CBM allows a subset of patents to be challenged administratively on a fast-track, without having to go to court. That hurts the patent trolls, but it hurts anybody without a phalanx of lawyers even more.
Real patent reform has three key parts:
1. Fix "obviousness." The courts didn't like the examiner affirmatively finding that something was obvious so turn it around and require the applicant to justify why anyone of average skill seeking the same result would not have found the same method. Require the examiner to affirmatively find that it isn't obvious. No justification = no patent.
If anybody asked to do X would have tried your approach and X itself doesn't supply the genius either then no patent should be granted. Nor should a minor tweak on something you or somebody else already invented receive a patent. There are too many "routine inventions" receiving patents.
2. A person of average skill in the art should be able to implement the technology from the contents in the patent. Start rejecting packets where that isn't true. Vague or stilted language in the application = no patent.
3. Patent duration should be from application, not from the grant. Effective protection starts with the application. You can't sue anybody until after the grant, but no one dares use the tech unless they're sure the patent won't be granted. That's been abused by delaying the final grant for years or even a decade.
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Real patent reform has three key parts:
1. Fix "obviousness." The courts didn't like the examiner affirmatively finding that something was obvious so turn it around and require the applicant to justify why anyone of average skill seeking the same result would not have found the same method. Require the examiner to affirmatively find that it isn't obvious. No justification = no patent.
Unfortunately, I think you're asking someone to prove a logical negative: the applicant has to prove that something isn't obvious by showing... what, exactly? Definitive proof that no one has ever thought of the something?
2. A person of average skill in the art should be able to implement the technology from the contents in the patent. Start rejecting packets where that isn't true. Vague or stilted language in the application = no patent.
3. Patent duration should be from application, not from the grant. Effective protection starts with the application. You can't sue anybody until after the grant, but no one dares use the tech unless they're sure the patent won't be granted. That's been abused by delaying the final grant for years or even a decade.
These are both good suggestions, and, of course, they're already in the statutes. 35 USC 112 requires that the patent have a written description that enables one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention. And patent term is calculated as 20 years from filing (or 20 years f
What "obvious" means. (Score:5, Informative)
1. Fix "obviousness."
Unfortunately, I think you're asking someone to prove a logical negative: the applicant has to prove that something isn't obvious by showing... what, exactly?
I hold six patents, and a few times I've had to prove obviousness to an examiner. The gold standard of obviousness is showing that others tried hard to solve the problem and failed. Sometimes, on problems where others have beaten their heads against the wall and there are failed products and projects in the field, you can point the examiner at prior art which shows obviousness. I was the first person to build a ragdoll physics system which could handle the hard cases. Back in the 1990s, early ragdoll systems tended to have characters flying off in random directions, sometimes with the body parts detaching. (Some physics engines still do that, which is lame, because, fifteen years later, several solutions besides mine are known now.) By pointing to previous failures that extended up to and past my patent application date, I was able to demonstrate non-obviousness.
"Obvious" does not mean "obvious in hindsight".
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I've read some of the software patents. I have better than average skill in the art and I couldn't implement the software described from *any* of them. Not. A. Single. One.
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I've read some of the software patents. I have better than average skill in the art and I couldn't implement the software described from *any* of them. Not. A. Single. One.
They all include flow charts... Are you saying you couldn't write a program if you were given a flow chart?
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That's why I used the word "justify" and not the word "prove."
Right now the presumption is that if a half-hearted and formulaic search turns up no prior art then the invention is novel. I want to turn that on its head: the invention is presumed obvious until you explain why it isn't in terms folks in your field agree with. Who are the people in your field and why aren't they half a step behind you?
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That's why I used the word "justify" and not the word "prove."
Right now the presumption is that if a half-hearted and formulaic search turns up no prior art then the invention is novel. I want to turn that on its head: the invention is presumed obvious until you explain why it isn't in terms folks in your field agree with. Who are the people in your field and why aren't they half a step behind you?
Most applications will have something like that in the background and summary - the background says "here's what most folks in the field think, and here's a problem they've run into" and the summary is "here's how we solved it and why we're so cool".
Now, you can (and rightfully should) be skeptical of such an explanation, since the applicant is going to be biased in their own favor, but if you're not just going to plug your ears and say "I'm not going to believe you", you have to have some sort of objectiv
Groklaw dead (Score:2)
IBM throws off its inhbitions.
Why there are patent trolls (Score:5, Informative)
The patent troll industry exists because, in the last decade, it's become much tougher for inventors to enforce patent rights. Four changes in law did this:
Because of those changes, enforcing a single patent is no longer financially feasible in most cases. A big patent portfolio is needed. You either have to be a big patent holder like IBM or Google, or you have to deal with a company that aggregates patents to monetize them. This created the "patent troll" industry.
HR 3309 is an anti-inventor act, designed to make it more expensive to enforce a patent. After the removal of the "covered business method" patent section, patents are as strong as ever. You just have to be richer to enforce them. That's why this is supported by Google, Facebook, etc.
The current Senate bill on patent trolls, S.1720, the "Patent Transparency and Improvements Act of 2013" is much more narrowly focused than HR 3309. It has most of the anti-trolling provisions, but not loser-pays fee shifting. (Loser-pays means if a little guy sues a big company, they can get stuck with the big guy's big-law legal bills. That's a killer.) Instead, S.1720 has a study for a patent small claims court for small patent cases to get litigation costs down. That could work.
Re:Human nature? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's probably because most large corporations are run by sociopaths. Sociopaths, because they have no empathy or conscience, are more easily able to rise to the top of power structures (if they're smart; the stupid ones become criminals and go to prison), so most of our political and corporate leaders are sociopaths. And since they have no conscience, they don't give a shit about anyone else except maybe immediate family, and happily use their power to try to fuck over everyone else for their own gain.
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Stupid people are easily conned and led. That doesn't make them sociopaths, only gullible and stupid (and also probably lazy, apathetic, etc., all common human failings).
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Is it simply human nature to attempt to dick over everyone else if you become unfathomably rich?
No. Becoming unfathomably rich usually requires being willing to dick over everyone else.
Re:Human nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, usually anyway. HeLa cells are like those asshole billionaires who ruin a country and then move before the depression ruins them.
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Corporations are duty-bound to maximize revenue for their investors. If the laws permits them to behave in a particular way, they are entitled to behave that way.
Every corporations now is building up defensive patent portfolios because they have all at some time or another being sued by patent trolls, either when they were small companies or because they saw another company being sued.