Bryar Takes On Patents And Their Friends 110
Jack Bryar's column over at Andover News comes out swinging; not at software patent holders themselves, but at the convoluted, corruptable machine of the USPTO. Bryar points out, among other things, that "the time available to Patent Office employees to process, review and approve a patent application -- an application which may run to hundreds of pages and be highly technical in nature -- has been reduced to less than eight man-hours." (Raise your hand if you think that's adequate.) Interesting, and mostly unflattering, information, too, about Patent Office head Todd Dickenson, and the changes which he's ushered in, or ignored.
Cry me a river... (Score:1)
Re:An SEP Field around here? (Score:1)
This effects you because, in the course of a normal day, you may infringe on dozens of patents which never should have been granted in the first place -- and not even know that you are doing it! Some day your ass may be on the line, and years of your work may suddenly be invalidated by the threat of a lawsuit that you never saw coming. Remember LZW?
Link to the article (Score:2)
http://www.andovernews.com/cgi-bin/news_column.pl
Why doesn't this story carry the article link rather than a link to the top of "Andover News"? That isn't the normal approach for articles at Yahoo, NYTimes, etc.
Just don't patent anything (Score:2)
Now wait a second! (Score:2)
That said, of course you are also right that the patent system is equally screwed. The problem would be improved by work on either end, corporate abuses or patent insanities. I sincerely hope people don't decide to just push for patent reform and let corporations go on, answerable to no law, entities vastly overwhelming the individuals (even those that make up the corporation). On the other hand, I certainly hope nobody guns for the corporations and ignores the patent office!
Re:USPTO Bottom Line yielding bottom feeders? (Score:1)
How about using the person's height? It's about as good a benchmark for evaluating their work...
Free Market vs. Capitalism (Score:1)
Re:Analogue dialogue (Score:1)
Current-differencing amplifiers, tweaked and biased properly, null out a lot of that noise, IIRC. High quality (film) resistors , tantalum caps for bypassing the chip power leads, careful choice of freq response of your signal-carrying caps (polyester or mylar - NEVER ceramic or electrolytic!) and good quality wire and solder, if that's what you're using for interconnects, can help too.
Just my
Re:A Suggestion to /.ers (Score:2)
Actually, save yourself the stamp and just call. Every representative except Senators likely answer their own phones. The benefit over a letter is that the call becomes Q&A rather than just a rant, and you're guaranteed a captive audience. Just make sure you know the issue in some depth.
I once called my rep to ask him to support a bill to add slot machines to the local racetrack, only to find that he authored the damn bill. Still, he liked hearing that people supported his bill, and he told me so once he'd stopped laughing.
Re:Link to the article (Score:2)
corrected link; media interest (Score:2)
It's interesting .. the media really helped take the message of free software and open source to the masses (in a suitably diluted, palatable form); now they're going after the Patents Office.
This is good news ... having journalists crawling all over you is the next worst thing to hordes of enraged lawyers smelling blood.
Slash to the rescue! (Score:1)
--
An SEP Field around here? (Score:1)
We're discussing this like a couple of lawyers would enthusiastically discuss their latest injunctions over a cup of hot joe in the morning. I'm not a lawyer.. infact I hate the law and try to avoid it whenever possible. My hobby/job/most-enjoyable-recreational-activity is to put servers together, network them, and then make them do nifty stuff for me. The fact that somebody patented technology for using wormholes or one-click shopping is completely irrelevant to me. Let the lawyers go bash it out - but leave me alone!
Please explain to me why we're getting so worked up about it. Open Source / Free Software does NOT need patents. We design a program/device and release it to the public. If somebody goes off and patents it after that point, we just point to our reference model and say 2 magic words: "prior art", and the problem disappears. Is it also not true that we as a community in general work around patented stupidities on a daily basis without much ado?
Patents are dead and useless... who cares if Amazon patents the one-click shopping model? I'll just use java-script to create a hover-over-this-button shopping setup. Somebody patents the knife and fork? I'll use chopsticks then. Somebody patents the CPU? I'll grab my soldering gun and make an analog computer out of op amps and transistors with a level of parallelism unknown previous to this. The point is that we can move so fast and so far forward that by the time they can say a program this community created is in violation of patent X we've already likely devised a completely new system that makes that system antiquidated!
Stop worrying about the world of patents and just hack code - eventually they won't have any money left because they'll have spent it all purchasing and defending antiquidated patents. Let the system die of it's own excesses.
Re:An SEP Field around here? (Score:1)
I know that doesn't make much sense, but I'm not an EE yet either. ;) Essentially it will have a large bandwidth pipe going in (analog) and punch through a series of op-amps to invert the signals and then will be filtered by a DSP to produce an intelligible signal (ie, digital) to be handed back to the memory manager to decide what to do with this. The interesting thing is that I plan on making it so that you can 'bounce' a signal back through the integer unit with a different op (instruction) several times. This would make it possible for me to rapidly do several computations without memory delays. I also want to make it an async processor.. that is to say that what goes in first may not be what comes out first. There's some cutting edge researching being done on this that I hope I can adapt once I know more.
For now, it's largely a pipe dream, but I am working on it.. hopefully in about 2 years I'll have a prototype VLSI to interface to a regular computer and do some /real/ work with it.
This all, of course, assumes that I can figure out how to make the circuits in the first place, heh.
Why pay for downloading a patent in PDF format? (Score:3)
----
Re:Patent Pending (Score:1)
Re:Finally... (Score:1)
Mark me down for off-topic if you like, but there are already too many people who post without reading up on the issue at hand...
Re:USPTO Bottom Line yielding bottom feeders? (Score:1)
God forbid their managers should have to evaluate their work and use judgement.
Yeah, Sheesh to you... (Score:1)
Re:Yeah, Sheesh to you... (Score:1)
And I'm rewarded handsomely! I proudly fuel
the corporate machine.... get a job, you'll love it.
Finally... (Score:5)
In a more "on-topic" light, I'm glad that Bryar had the guts to point out that the number one thing wrong with the patent system today is that the inmates have effectively taken over the asylum; it makes you long for the days when the nation's entire body of patent examiners were three members of the Cabinet who met a couple times a year. If I were to propose a fix for what's broken with the patent system, it would go something like: (1) Only legitimate innovation is patentable. Patent inspectors have to either deny a patent, or produce (and attach to the patent) a written description of why the patent is valid. and (2) Patents are valid for exactly TWO product lifecycles within a particular industry. Thus, software patents might last three years, while the term for pharmaceutical patents might be extended out to seventy. Yes, I know this second part is basically what Jeff Bezos said in his reply to Tim O'Reilly -- he was right. You can't abolish software patents entirely, there really is legitimate innovation (new techniques in wavelet compression, anyone?) in software that is and should remain patentable.
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
Re:Patent Pending (Score:2)
How about using the system against itself? :)
Let's patent the business method "Patent something obvious and/or ridiculous and sue anyone who dares doing the same thing" (we'll probably need to formulate it in a little less obvious way or it'll be rejected
Then, we'll wait for a company like Amazon to sue someone over a ridiculous patent and sue them. Since "There is no defense based on the notion that a so-called patent is absurd or covers an obvious activity or business practice," how could Amazon defend its case?
If the defendant successfully invalidates our patent, it should be a precedent for invaliding their owns patents.
Either way, we win :)
Just my 0.02 Euro
Re:Those numbers are not correct. (Score:2)
send flames > /dev/null
yes patent examiners have no time (Score:5)
I was a patent examiner, and hated it. Yeah it is great to see the new tech that is in dev, but there s no time to savor anything. I should mention that the amount of time that you have to work on your applications goes down as you go up in grade and get promoted. When I was a GS7 I had about 16 hours per application, and when I got promoted to GS9 I had about 12 to 14. I know that some people there were happy about remaining a particular grade as that was all they could handle.
The USPTO is one of the few goverment agencies that has quotas, that are that strict. They are also one of the few that actually make a profit, like the post office. Your taxes do not pay for a patent examiners income, it is payed through the patent application fees and patent maintenance fees. It can cost one thousands to get a patent.
I personally think that the only solution is to privitize the USPTO and make it gov regulated. One of the current problems they have is that they do not have enough examiners and Billy Clinton boy decidede that he would take money from teh USPTO to help balance the budget. Several millions of dollars that could have gone back into the USPTO to better train some of there examiners.
One last thing. Some of the examiners do a search if they find something great if they do not they allow it and figure that they can get soreted out in court. It is a screwed up system that desperately needs repair.
send flames > /dev/null
VA Stock (Score:2)
This is to be expected. The initial reaction of the market to VA's IPO could only have been described as (with apologies to Greenspan) irrational exuberance. The only reason they had such a huge first day run-up was because the market thinks Linux is nifty. After it starts to occur to people that in a lot of ways, VA looks suspicously like any [gateway.com] other [corporate-ir.net] OEM [quote.com], they'll start to wonder why they threw all that money at it in the first place.
Re:Is there a good database for all patents? (Score:4)
The real problem is... (Score:2)
Just more newspeak BS from the bandits of internet and technology.
The real problem is the USPTO. Agreed. (Score:3)
Bruce Lehman.
Lehman was the USPTO head at the time, took some heat for the decision, and even held public hearings (one on each US coast) to 'discuss' whether software patents should be allowed.
What a sham.
By the time I arrived to present at the west coast hearing (one day affair), it was clear that Lehman had already made his decision to allow them (even though he supposedly was there to hear both sides of the issue). What a considerate and professional fella.
Oh, he and his fellow lawyers.
There were no non-lawyers on the panel. The audience was roughly half lawyers (left hand side of the room) and software professional (right hand side of the room). That was about the break down of the audience.
The lawyers smelled deep pockets of money (Lehman included), career mother lode as it were.
The software professionals wanted the freedom to write and think unfettered and unencumbered by software patents (and any system of governmentally institutionalized artificial monopoly). Software is about writing and thinking. If you can't patent writing (that's what copyright is for) and you certainly shouldn't be able to patent thinking (right? though that's what software patents essentially do!), then you certainly shouldn't be able to patent software.
Nevertheless, Lehman decided in favor of the software industry subsidizing the legal profession involuntarily through software patents.
I remember some of the convoluted and conflicting remarks Lehman made while I was waiting to present (the USPTO in their consummate professionalism and organizational prowess had forgotten to schedule my presentation, so I went last). At one point Lehman suggested that the USPTO would not be weakening the software industry by taking the best and the brightest but only those from about the 90th (if I recall correctly) percentile. Therefore, according to him, the intellectual cost to the software industry would be negligible.
No kidding! Why would anyone with half a creative iota of software design work for the USPTO?
On the other hand, Lehman claimed that the USPTO would certainly understand what to patent and what not to patent as unique. However, when queried about how to check patent validity, Lehman would have no answer (unsolvable, unautomatable problem).
Everything about software patents was and is a catch-22.
The (perhaps ill-conceived) notion of patents was to provide a method for an inventor to maintain a property of his idea until finding a means to produce the idea for profit. Monopolies are illegal, but patents were supposed to provide incentive enough for innovation to outweigh the evils inherent in monopolies (that was the idea anyway).
Where's the difficulty in manufacturing (copying) software?
There is no difficulty. Software does not even approach the model where inventors don't have the means to produce their product ideas (remember, patents were invented in the 18th century, before the industrial revolution, so manufacturing capability was scarce). If you can copy a diskette (or download off the internet), you know how to manufacture software on your computer.
So, just the idea of software patents is wrong.
Lehman was told so. His lawyer panel was told so. His half lawyer (cheerleaders) were told so. He decide to bolster his legal industry's "customer base" (think: tax base) anyhow. Lehman was either phenomenally unclear on the concept (which I prefer to think) or very keen on expanding his profession's market base (which the cynic in me suspects was the case even if Lehman wasn't bright enough to know what he was doing).
The real answer should be to purge software patents from the legal and software industies.
-=-
To be clear, Lehman was in charge of the USPTO (US Patent and *Trademark* Office) at the very time when trademark domain names (i.e., squatter properties) were all the rage. Now that's an issue that the USPTO could and should have responded to immediately and with prejudice.
Instead, Lehman did nothing on the obvious (trademark violations) but created a whole new morass of patent law (software patents).
Congress did not create software patents. Lehman created software patents by rubber stamping the idea and setting precedent. He didn't do his job on trademarks (the USPTO didn't address this issue until nearly a decade later, I believe) but went out of his way to create an infinitely growing bureacracy.
The bottom line: Bruce Lehman may be bad, the new guy may be worse, but the person who hired/appointed them truly lacked leadership.
My nagging question is how does one become head of the USPTO (appointed? elected? random lottery from ladder climbing lawyers?)? The person hiring these people is unclear on the concept of making society healthy and productive. They have hired incredibly pig-headed and self-serving bureacrats. Lehman may be bad, but the person who hired him is truly a culprit as well.
The blind leading the blind.
I wish I had more good things to say about software patents, but I don't. Once they became official with Lehman's very public and official rubber stamp, they have and will only become worse.
Caveat emptor.
The sooner they're purged, the better.
= Joe =
A Suggestion to /.ers (Score:3)
http://www.andovernews.com/cgi-bin/news_column.pl? 533
Secondly, I would suggest that every US voter sends the above URL to every politician that he votes for, with a suggestion that his rep read the story. End your polite message with, "I shall be watching your response to this situation with some interest."
Votes are what count to an office holder. It's the best way for an individual to influence a politician.
Re:The real problem is...idiots (Score:1)
1) State Street said there is no absolute reason why a method can't be patented. This wasn't shocking. It was well reasoned and thought ought---barring the implications. The court might have thought that the patent office would continue to offer the same level of scrutiny, and everything would have been ok. Not the epitome of Solomnic wisdom, but not bad.
2) Many lawyers (most I have spoken to) hate the excessive patents. They have to do what their clients want. That is why they are hired.
3) Go read up on Howard Coble. He has tried to make copyright protection of databases work well for businesses and consumers. Databases will need some sort of protection. After all, If I set my computer to download the entire LEXIS database, and then offer it for free, why would useful information aggregators exist.
4) Absurdity (or obviousness) are defenses, always. No new rule would add it because it is already there. Uggh
5) Saying "everyone says" is not acceptable journalism. At least quote someone, as there are obviously lots of them out there.
I agree with teh idea--there are problems. This, however, is not the way to fix them.
Also, I think everyone needs to realize that many of the changes being considered are required because of the WTO. I like the WTO, and I would prefer free trade worldwide, but the European patent system is horrid--easy for lawayers, but bad for everyone else. Many of the proposed changes are there to mesh our system with teh worldwide agreements, and these are mostly bad ideas. It would be nice to read this somewhere, and discuss the relevant advantages and disadvantages. Maybe even talk about what a patent system should be, and how it should work.
ps. go look up what declaratory judgement means. Research is tricky, I know, but really, it will be worth your while. I want to become rich, then get a law degree and go after everyone in the business with declaratory judgements. Who's with me?
huh? (Score:1)
You might mean a tax, so that every patented item gets taxed extra. Well, the point of patents is to encourage innovation, not discourage it.
So what you advocate is, in short, no patents. It has been tried, and failed miserably. Look up the history of drug development in India.
Finally, you can improve a patented idea. That is why patents require disclosure. THAT IS WHY THERE ARE PATENTS.
6 Steps to patent relevence (Score:1)
2. Microsoft uses obvious idea in killer app
3. Enthusiasts create open-source clone of killer app for Linux.
4. Microsoft sues enthusiasts into smoking crater
5. More enthusiasts create open-source version of killer app that does not use patented idea and is, therefore, not interoperable with Microsoft version.
6. Only enthusiats use it, and it withers on the vine.
Re:Purpose vs. practice of intellectual property (Score:1)
(There are some differences, of course. Under the OPL, companies and programmers never have to pay a per-program or per-unit royalty, although they may be required to submit some of their own patents, as well as IP that acts similarly to patents--User-interface copyrights, some trade dress protections, not restrict reverse engineering, etc.--I'd like the license to help solve some potential UCITA and DMCA problems too. Also, I've separated out the requirements on submitting IP via Options of the license from using IP from the Pools of the license, which makes things easier to understand even with 7 Options and 7 Pools. For instance, there's the for-free-software-use "Pool F", and the for-proprietary-use you-can-use-these-patents-if-you-license-all-your software-patents-too "Pool 3".)
New York Times Magazine (Score:3)
Re:An SEP Field around here? (Score:1)
Except that while you're using your new system, MegaCorps are keeping you in court over the violation they claim against your previous system. They want your company, your wages, and your house as punitive damages. Anything you have left over, they'll get next year when they patent your new system.
Meanwhile, people are patenting business models...so after you invent your new gizmo, you'll have to invent a new way of selling it. Sure, you're a master techie, but are you also a master economist, ergonomist, and graphic designer?
And some kooks are patenting speculative things that they could not possibly have built (FTL communications, anyone?), but as soon as you invent it for them they'll own it. Expect them to thank you with a subpoena: They'll want your company, your wages, and your house, too.
You cannot hide from patent problems behind the Open Source movement. Corporations will sue and destroy your leaders and coders when they establish patents on your previous work. They will try to outflank you and patent things and procedures you haven't invented yet. Plus they're making money off of your creative genius, and they will beat you into submission to keep your legitimate claims from upsetting their profit margins. If none of this bothers you, you're the most terminally mellow techie I've ever seen.
Re:New York Times Magazine (Score:1)
The real problem is...clueless people. (Score:2)
This guy is writing from the "making it up as he goes" department. The truth is far more interesting.
Unless you are counting in Yen, the answer is never -- not in any jurisdiction. A patent application (including search and opinion) typically costs between $2,500 and $15,000 depending upon the art and the lawyer drafting the app. In an extraordinary case (or genetics-related invention), perhaps as much as $25,000. Now that's steep bread indeed, but this guy clearly has never priced or paid for a patent in his life.
What you missed is that . . . (Score:2)
What you didn't mention . . . (Score:2)
Read the new regs . . . (Score:2)
In view of recent case law, examiners must now write up reasons for allowance to accompany a notice of allowability.
Dead solid perfect. (Score:2)
The vast majority of patents are under 10 pages printed (including drawing sheets). Typically this is approximately 15-25 pages of double-spaced text. The 8 hours is an average figure, while the multi-hundred page application is an extraordinary case. Most ultra-long applications comprise repetive claim structures, claiming the same invention in ten or so different ways.
In short, he exaggerates ridiculously.
Re:Purpose vs. practice of intellectual property (Score:2)
I don't disagree with this proposition as a "shoulda'" argument. See my proposal for patent reform based upon the presumption of validity when a defendant raises new art not considered by an examiner. [slashdot.org]
That being said, the Constitutional argument is hopeless. On Article I, Section 8 cases, courts defer so long as Congress can proffer a "rational basis" for the statute's constitutionality. Further, even if the bill were unauthorized by the Patent and Copyright Clause, Congress can always rely on the Commerce Clause (also in Article I, Section 8), which grants plenary rights to regulate interstate commerce.
Re:can a DoS attack be used to fight patents?? (Score:2)
It would cost about $400.00 per application. Probably too expensive to effectively flood things. Also, each application must be accompanied by an oath sworn under threat of perjury that the applicant is the inventor. Thus, a fair amount of original thought and effort needs to go into each application, or the Solicitor might start fighting back with threats of criminal action.
Old news & Bad Statistics / a real solution (Score:3)
A validity search typically requires far more resources, on the order of $10K-$50K or more. In litigation scenarios, a six figure search bill is not suprisingly uncommon. Since the corpus of prior art is virtually infinite in scope, one can spend as much as you want and still not have considered all the relevant art.
Congress made a determination to balance the quality of a patent search against the cost of access to the patent system. And for most art areas, this balancing is adequate.
Now as to the rhetoric. While an average eight hours are spent on examination, this does not mean that eight hours only will be spent on a multi-hundred page document. The number of huge applications are a small fraction, and even for large applications (at least in the software arts), they are large because of the multiplicity of claims (most of which are similar, and the patterns to which are obvious) filed as a result of recent case law. His remark that they are highly technical ignores that examiners only review applications in their particular area of expertise.
In short, it is perhaps most polite simply to note that Bryar was using his statistics improvidently.
Now, that being said, I for one acknowledge and agree that a novelty search is inadequate for certain art areas, in particular the software arts and methods of doing business. Too many patents are issuing when the best art had not been considered.
The real harm from this is that once the stamp is impressed on the deed, the claims are cloaked in a virtually impossible to overcome presumption of validity, even when killer art is available. The jury is instructed that unless "clear and convincing evidence" of invalidity is offered, they must find for the plaintiff. In practice, juries always find some doubt, and find the patent valid.
This is wrong and unjust, particularly when a defendant raised art that: (i) was not considered by the examiner; and (ii) which raises a substantial new question of patentability.
I have a proposal for legislation presently being considered in various fora, which I think may adequately strike more fairly the balance between keeping the scope and costs of examination in check, while protecting the marketplace. For prior art that fits the preceding two criteria, reduce the standard of evidence to that of a mere preponderance of the evidence. If the art is new, let the court consider it without enhanced evidentiary requirements, and thus let the plaintiff go to court at his or her own risk.
For more detail on the proposed reforms, check out this memorandum [rr.com].
Jack Bryar's Credibility (Score:1)
For example, he says that "Over the last couple of years the US patent system has been managed by Todd Dickinson," and blames much of the mismanagement on Dickinson. Now, according to the USPTO site, Todd Dickinson was confirmed as Commissioner November 1999, a mere four months ago. Dickinson worked at the PTO since 1998, but only as a deputy commissioner. Before that, it was Bruce Lehman who was screwing up the patent office.
Mr. Bryar states that "the time available to Patent Office employees to process, review and approve a patent application -- an application which may run to hundreds of pages and be highly technical in nature -- has been reduced to less than eight man-hours." As has been pointed out, the eight hour examination time applies only to experienced Examiners (who have been at the PTO 5+ years). As has also been pointed out, most patent applications are not hundreds of pages, but rather tens. Plus, Examiners examine patents in a narrow area, and are generally quite familiar with the art in the area. They generally can look at the figures, glance through the specification, and read the claims. I do agree that eight hours is low, and there should be a factor for patent complexity.
Mr. Bryar also states that "Among these are a new type of patent, not for traditional inventions, but for new "business models." In 1998 the Patent Office and the Clinton Administration bungled their response to a lawsuit brought by State Street Bank, which decided to extend its patent claims against Signature Financial to include State Street's "business methods." But if you actually bother to read the State Street case, you will find that business methods have always been patentable. And, not only that, but Amazon's famed 1-Click patent is a SOFTWARE patent, not a business method patent. After all, Amazon describes a software method, with execution steps. This is not a business method. So, blaming all the problems on business method patents is disingenuous.
Mr. Bryar further states that "But last year's legislation, the so-called Inventors Protection Act, made matters worse. The act contained nothing to restrain spurious "business model" patents" If he had read the act, he would have noticed that there is a new defense to Business Method patents, that of First to Invent. If the person being sued invented first, he or she is protected from the patent. Admittedly not a very strong protection, but it exists.
The assertion that "As amended, Section 155 now provides companies with an almost unchecked ability to claim protection on unsubstantiated, unapproved "provisional" patents and to tie up other firms in court with compensation claims." Is simply incorrect as well. First, you can only sue when the patent has already issued, not when it's still provisional or unapproved. Second, you can only collect for the time when the patent was pending if your claims are virtually identical to those published. This is highly unlikely in the real word.
Then, Mr. Bryar states that "I went through the act line by line. There is no defense based on the notion that a so-called patent is absurd or covers an obvious activity or business practice." Of course, I expect even Mr. Bryar is aware of that "obviousness" is a bar to obtaining a patent, under 35 U.S.C. 103. I think this is supposed to be hyperbole. A patent that is absurd can be obtained, of course. But then, back in the 1950's the transistor was thought to be quite absurd... as was the mouse when it was first shown.
I agree that we have to address the issues in the Patent Office, primarily by hiring more competent people, who know software. A better resource of prior art software would also be helpful. But Mr. Bryar's sweeping statements that are on their face incorrect do not help his mission.
Action = words (Score:1)
I agree, forward the news item to your US Senator and US Congressmember. And, please include your name, address, and phone, or their spam-screening software will ignore it.
Remember, they work for you, and this whole patent mess is their job to fix.
Re:An SEP Field around here? (Score:5)
I'd have thought this was obvious. Do you really need it spelled out for you? Every time someone files a patent they are in essence telling you, "This thing you may not build without our consent." Sometimes that is appropriate, if, for instance, the patent holder spent a lot of time and money inventing the thing being patented, but more and more frequently the thing being patented is either bleeding obvious, or else so broad that it covers not only the patent holder's invention, but also a whole bunch of other things that he didn't invent. All of this translates to shutting you (yes, you) out of the market. (Isn't it amusing how everybody flaps their lips about how wonderful the "free market" is; yet, nobody actually wants to compete in it?)
Let's use one of your own examples:
But of course your solution is complete baloney because if your analog processor were so superior you would have invented it without having been forced into it by someone else's patent. For a company to patent their own revolutionary CPU design is reasonable; a patent that covers any CPU that someone else may invent subsequently is way out of line. And for a slightly sillier example you say:
But, what if somebody patents "the use of man made utensils to facilitate ingestion of foodstuffs"? Will you then just eat with your hands?
Burying our heads in the sand is not the answer. If we "stop worrying" and "just hack code", we could well find a cadre of lawyers at our doors telling us that we no longer have the right to hack code unless we pay up to some bozo who has gone and patented whatever we happen to work on. If that happens, far from "dying of its own excesses", the system will perpetuate itself as large companies that can afford to patent everything under the sun enjoy a legalized monopoly on writing software.
Re:An SEP Field around here? (Score:2)
But I'm assuming you'd be pretty pissed off if MegaCorp Inc. calls you up one day and says you can no longer pursue your hobbies because they have a patent on "Putting computer equipment together".
"I'll just use java-script to create a hover-over-this-button shopping setup. Somebody patents the knife and fork? I'll use chopsticks then. Somebody patents the CPU? I'll grab my soldering gun and make an analog computer out of op amps and transistors with a level of parallelism unknown previous to this."
Not everybody wants to jump on MegaCorp's command, though. I don't really want to be forced to use chopsticks or solder my own CPUs. Big Business provides a very real danger of stifling and extinguishing innovation, on the net, or wherever.
Re:An SEP Field around here? (Score:4)
I think you fail to get the point - innovation is a path to find the BEST way to do something, not just the latest and greatest. If the "best" way suddenly becomes the private property of one commercial company, then even if you find something almost as good, you are still at a disadvantage. Amazon's "one click" patent isn't just for "one click" - they claim that ANY shopping cart method that stores the customer's details so the user can just commit their order, regardless of if they click a button, ring a bell or use voice recognition to shout "make it so!" from the other side of the room.
Overturning a patent once granted is a slow, expensive process with courts automagically giving patent-owners restraining orders on request that could completely destroy your income just when you need it to PAY the lawyers you have to hire...
What it comes down to is that patents, particularly software patents, are being given out by people with insufficient time to evaluate them, even if they HAD the skills to do so, which they don't.
--
Patent Pending (Score:2)
And therein, my friends, lies the rub. As much as we cry and scream and wail about the lack of fairness in the distribution of patents, there is nothing currently in place that restricts these companies from filing for patents for the most stupid of things. I knew that rock bottom had been hit when I looked at my phone bill and it read "patent pending" at the bottom.
And why should companies restrict themselves? Isn't capitalism all about dog eat dog, and who can screw the opposition out of the most money? So why should they care about who will be affected when they apply for a patent for using red text on their billing form instead of blue?
And at this point, isn't it a little redundant to say that there are some serious issues in how things are run down at the patent office? I mean, seriously, what did they think would happen when they began rewarding employess for the number of patents they processed?
I guess one question is what will happen to the idiotic patents that have already been processed? Will there be some massive review, or will there be a long cleansing period where patents are reviewed as the time limit on them expires?
speaking of improving patent law... (Score:2)
This would allow the market forces to determine the value of the product, as well as the value of the patent.
Also, the tax percentage could vary for different patents. It could be determined, within reason, by the patent holder. Consider: If Amazon patented 1-click under this system, no one would use it, because using the 1-click would mean their book would cost more. Thus we instantly see that the 1-click ordering is really of little value to the consumer (who votes most honestly and realistically with his pocketbook), and Amazon would probably have chosen not to patent such a thing under a patent tax system.
Re:Hogwash. (Score:2)
Currently, companies own the rights to what they have patented. Under what I described, they own no such rights. They simply get rewarded if the technology in their patent ever gets used. However, any individual or company is free to develop products based on the patent without having to arrange a license agreement with the patent holder. Thus, all ideas are owned by the public, and market forces would determine the cost and value of any resulting products.
The patent tax would be applied like a sales tax on any products that use a patent. The money from this tax goes to the patent holder. That is the sole benefit of owning the patent.
Under today's system, companies are not forced to license their patent to others, and are free to hold onto the monopoly themselves, or worse, can simply prevent any product being developed with the patent. And companies with the monopoly can essentially charge whatever price they want for their product (unless the gov. sets price controls - ugh).
Re:huh? (Score:2)
No, not pointless - that's the point.
the point of patents is to encourage innovation, not discourage it
Exactly. Thus, receiving the patent tax revenue is the incentive both to a)innovate and b)disclose your invention and patent it.
I find it odd that the "Hogwash" poster complained that my patent tax idea was no different from what we currently have (hello? There's no patent tax - there are only patent monopolies), and now you are responding saying my idea is in effect the same as having NO patents. I guess it would be too much to ask that people would actually think about what they read.
Re:An SEP Field around here? (Score:1)
If you perform a->d inside your cpu, its going to
be dog slow (since it sounds like there will be an a->d inside your ALU).
Re:An SEP Field around here? (Score:2)
No hacking in the US to clone products into the free software area (because of DCMA).
Why we (and this includes those of us outside the US) should worry about this:
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Note, I agree that the only valid cover any software should have is copyright.
Re:Finally... (Score:1)
So what? Patents (in the US) are not, and never have been, about "fairness", which is what this sentance suggests to me. The reason the US constitution allows patents is to encourage and accelerate the passage of proprietory knowledge into the public domain. Limited protection is viewed as a means to this end, not as some moral duty to the inventor. There really are two views on patents, one being that the inventor deserves to reap the fruits of his (and let's face it, the powers that be almost certainly think, and mean, "his") labours. The other is that inventors/corporations will not release their secrets unless they get something in return. In the case of patents, that "something" is a government mandated and enforced monopoly. The second view is the constitutional view. Before we try to correct the problems of a system, we really should decide what we are trying to achieve. After all, if you don't know what you want, you almost certainly won't get it.
(Please note, the above views and opinions are just that, IANAL, IMHO, TLA, TTFN...)
Re:The real problem is... (Score:4)
Try this thought experiment: if no law enforcement agency in the country arrested or prosecuted anyone for murder, would you say that "the real problem is all these murderers"?? Or would you say the real problem is that the government is not doing its job?? It would be the latter of course, and it's the same with patents.
It's ironic that the patent system has become so corrupted that it has exactly the opposite of its intended effect. Not only is the inventor no longer protected by the system, she has actually become a victim of it, by being forced to defend her true innovation from the feeding frenzy of IP lawyers and their spurious patents. Open source inventors are especially vulnerable, because participating in the patent process in any way will cost you six or seven figures, which open source developers rarely have. This is why Linux IPOs are a good thing - so companies like Red Hat and VA Linux can hire patent attorneys to defend open source when necessary. OTOH, they also present a target for patent sharks to attack. One of the best defenses against a patent lawsuit is not having any money!
Of course, the real inventors these days have all signed over their entire brains to the companies they work for... but once in a rare while, they are actually rewarded for their effort. Usually not though, especially in Silicon Valley, where the vulture capitalists and the lawyers have perfected the art of the screw. The SF Chronicle ran a pretty good series [sfgate.com] on that topic recently.
Re:Purpose vs. practice of intellectual property (Score:1)
Mark, I believe we've exchanged these comments before, the last time patents came up. Since I like to post links to relevant sites, I have bookmarked yours this time to have them handy in the future. Obviously, you have put a great deal more thought into your proposal than I did into my off the cuff remarks, although I believe that our intentions are quite similar. I want to recommend to anyone who is interested in the idea of open source patents to check out Mark's www.openpatents.org [openpatents.org] web site and specifically his Open Patent License [openpatents.org].
Request to moderators. Moderate up the comment I am replying to rather than my. His ideas are worthy of a wider audience.
Re:Purpose vs. practice of intellectual property (Score:1)
Purpose vs. practice of intellectual property (Score:2)
This should look vaguely familiar to the US readers of Slashdot because I am quoting the Constitution of the United States of America [nara.gov]. I submit that granting the exclusive right to a discovery to the first person or corporation to file a patent application without regard to a prior use of that discovery is a violation of this simple statement. Let me be blunt. The letter of this clause should invalidate patents when prior art can be demonstrated. To the extent that that does not happen, the intent "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is violated.
The people applying for such patents may be legitimately unaware of the prior art. It is a big world and people are doing a lot of interesting things. Furthermore, even if the US Patent Office dedicated a man-year to each application, some cases of prior art would get missed. I don't have a problem with that. And I don't have a problem with limiting the amount of time that is spent reviewing individual patent applications, although 8 hours seems meager at best. But when prior art is clearly demonstrated, the patent should be invalidated, or its scope reduced.
With the goal of stream-lining the patent process the Patent Office has created a necessity to file for patents. Anyone who doesn't runs the risk that their discoveries, no matter how obvious or trivial, will be patented, and they will be denied free use of them. The patent system in this country today would allow someone to rediscover today something that I am already doing, get a patent, and demand royalties from me. And proving prior art doesn't work as a defense. Why? It is expensive and unreliable. What does? Cross-licensing of patent portfolios. The costs are predictable and the results are exactly what is desired: a quid pro quo license of patents after inadvertent violation has been discovered.
I agree with Richard Stallman about the Amazon patent [gnu.org], but unlike him I don't place the blame on Amazon. They have done what is necessary to survive in the current legal climate. The law, and its implementation, need changing. Patents should be restricted to their original purpose.
It is high time for the free software community to try an experiment with a Free Patent. It will be licensed for free to all end-users. For free software projects the only requirement to license it is to file a notice that you are using it with the patent holder and include some boilerplate text acknowledging the patent in your license. Commercial use requires the same notices and a small fee on a per program rather than per unit basis, plus some additional terms concerning licensing of that company's patent portfolio for use in free software. This could create a system in which defensive patents are used only defensively, to prevent anyone else from patenting an idea and using the patent against you. That sounds utterly absurd.
Who are you... (Score:2)
numb
Re:USPTO Bottom Line yielding bottom feeders? (Score:1)
Todd Dickinson (Score:1)
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offi ces/com/admin/index.html [uspto.gov].
Some of the more interesting tidbits that are there include the fact that he was the Chief Counsel for Intellectual Property and
Technology at Sun Company, as well as serving as counsel for Chevron.
You should care because... (Score:1)
Sounds interesting (OT) (Score:1)
Is there a good database for all patents? (Score:2)
Generally can a patent be contested in some manner? Is there a standard appeals process for unfair patents?
Not 1 to 6mil, but... (Score:2)
Right now I'm working through D01 - Edible Products/Miscellaneous/Knotted donut bone [ibm.com].
You are so right! (Score:1)
It went away. Yay, you should patent this approach!
Keep bitching, never act man! (Score:1)
Yeah, and I'm highly offended by aboriginals because they don't know a lot about computers! Don't educate them, bitch!
Esperandi
GRR
Well this is news... (Score:1)
But seriously again, how could the patent office be fixed? There's not too many people who's dream is to read through patent submissions all day e'er' day (as Outkast would say). They need more people, less stupid patent requests, and (better?) divisions into patent areas. Now that companies are getting onto the Net at full force, it seems they're making the Net into just another arm of the corporate labyrinth.
Eruantalon
Slashdot == new info for patent reviewers (Score:1)
Maybe the Open Source community, with its highly experienced, capable, and authoritative body of professionals, could be a valuable resource to the Patent Office in its admitted difficulties of finding prior art and learning how the profession judges "obvious" vs. "non-obvious" (brilliant hack) ideas.
Perhaps Andover should diversify into a patent forum. Or maybe patent reviewers should just read Slashdot.
Patent information (Score:1)
Re:USPTO Bottom Line yielding bottom feeders? (Score:1)
(Though this one incentivizes to preferentially deny potentially valuable patents.)
Artificial Imposed Scarcity? (Score:1)
This being the case... could we not say that the abuse of the patent system is merely an effort by established (old school) business to impose artificial scarcity where, in reality, there is none?
They realize that the best way to make money is by profiting from the scarcity of resources... and due to this... the Internet must be divied up and made scarce, or no one will be able to maximize profit.
Too bad their old school ways of doing things just don't quite fit in too well with the reality of the present; these actions must be stopped.
--
Life Imitates Satire? (Score:1)
It must be hard to write good satire when the world constantly catches up with last year's joke...
By the way, don't tell anyone, but I own eight cats and I like to entertain them with a laser pointer; they love to chase the little dot around. Little did I know that in so doing I was violating U.S. Patent 5,443,036 [ibm.com]...
Re:A Suggestion to /.ers (Score:3)
Good intention but bad execution. Forwarding a link to a rep is probably the fastest way to get the email deleted especially since most reps don't even read their email (that's what aides are for). A better idea is to print out the article accompanied with a typed and signed letter. Or even better just summarize the article in a letter (of course reference it) and send it to the rep. Both of these would get a better response than simply forwarding a link or sending a very long email (cut N paste job). Emails just make it look like you can't take the effort to type, print and post a letter which probably means you probably can't take the time to vote either.
SF novel using "Patent Rustlers" (Score:1)
An even older story (name escapes me) involved a team that invented time travel (or something), patented it, then sat back and waited for someone else to reinvent it, commercialize it, planning on then emerging from under a rock to try and claim the income stream.
Hello - can anyone say "amazoning!"?.
Re:USPTO Bottom Line yielding bottom feeders? (Score:2)
Right on.
I find it fascinating that such practices still exist where *judgement* is so critical. Has everyone forgotten that Congress had a collective fit not so long ago about a similar situation at the IRS? Paying attention to production numbers caused employees to fail to discharge their duty to the public fairly. Instead, employees were busy just racking up dollars collected or taxpayers audited; fairness and insightful analysis got thrown out the window in some cases. So what happened? Public hearings, much press coverage, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and donning of hair shirts, that's what. Eventually, laws got changed and those abuses were knocked down.
The fact that most of the abuses didn't actually exist and we're now finding out that it's not good to structure the tax law so that tax collectors are afraid to collect tax is beside the point, here. The lesson where the USPTO is concerned is that only a broad-based public perception of harm to innocent individuals can produce the sort of anecdotal sound bites that get laws changed. We need to find some people whose lives have been ruined by this crap and start trotting them out in front of the evening news cameras. This may not be the intellectually honest approach we'd like to see, but since when has a reasoned explanation of the harm caused by a law, government entity, or silly regulation sufficed to get the situation changed over the objection of moneyed interests? No time I can think of.
We need poster children. Anybody have any nominations?
Not Somebody-Else's-Problem... (Score:3)
Please explain to me why we're getting so worked up about it. Open Source / Free Software does NOT need patents. We design a program/device and release it to the public. If somebody goes off and patents it after that point, we just point to our reference model and say 2 magic words: "prior art", and the problem disappears.
We wish this were true. But it's not. Prior art can be used to demonstrate that a patent application is not valid. To overturn an existing patent on the basis of prior art will often require time in court - simply appealing to the USPTO is not enough. How many open source developers are prepared to spend lots of money fighting off patents which have been erroneously granted? Even the EFF has limited funds - don't think that we can always leave this to the EFF to cover us.
Patent reform, and a USPTO which doesn't view numbers of patents granted as a basis for productivity payments to the patent officials, is needed, badly. Just because you believe that the wolf howling outside your window won't eat you doesn't mean you shouldn't try and shut the doors.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:Finally... (Score:2)
And to the home page, too, not to the story, so you get to read all the banner ads. Grr.
In other Andover-related news, the stock of the parent company, VA Linux [stockmaster.com], dropped below 100 for the first time today. This continues the screaming dive from the high of 320 only last December. How low can it go?
Re:Finally... (Score:1)
Patents + Lawyers etc. (Score:1)
Paraphrasing.
Longshanks says if we cant kick them out we will breed them out
In essence the corporations are doing the same to us little guys. If they cannot outright take away rights they will do it slowly and erode us in many areas at once so that one day you wake up and you own and have nothing.
USPTO Bottom Line yielding bottom feeders? (Score:3)
I agree but... (Score:4)
I totally agree with this argument. The USPTO is overloaded and has made some high profile errors lately. One piece of good news, is that they are using technology as well as they can to streamline the patent review process. But their is no way around good old common sense being applied to these applications and that takes time. Agreed.
However, soundbites like the one in the teaser for this article, can really misstate the situation. An application may run to hundreds of pages. Maybe most are only 10! Does anyone know the average? Patent Office employees get 8 hours to process, review, and approve a patent application. I bet you'd get really good at it after the first few thousand. I've seen bio papers peer reviewed in about that time.
Anyway...most regular Slashdot readers seem to have enough critical thinking skills to ignore this kind of slanted journalism and make their own conclusions. That's what makes our moderation and rating system work. Hey...maybe you could patent it and license it back to the USPTO for patent review.
can a DoS attack be used to fight patents?? (Score:1)
Re:USPTO Bottom Line yielding bottom feeders? (Score:1)
And how should the USPTO objectively quantify "thoroughness of patent review" for purposes of employee productivity? Perhaps allow time based on length of application? Pages per week covered? They need some sort of objective metric, after all.
Re:yes patent examiners have no time (Score:1)
This is troubling; it definitely makes one wonder about the incentives for the patent office. As near as I can tell it means there is money in accepting almost any patent application, and no money in rejection.
Self-supporting works for the US Post Office largely because the payments are based on serving those it's supposed to serve anyway. The payment scheme for the USPTO seems to imply its goal is to exclusively serve holders (or desired holders) of intellectual property, rather than serving society at large.
If the USPTO is going to have to completely pay its own bills, then it needs to be financially accountable to non-patent holders as well. Perhaps require them to pay the legal fees for a successful patent challenge?
Patent the Patent Process (Score:1)
Re:USPTO Bottom Line yielding bottom feeders? (Score:1)
8 hours is enough time .. (Score:1)
Sheesh... (Score:1)
"Agh. 500 pages before 4pm.. Heck, I'll just recommend this - noone will notice.. "
Scary.
Re:Well this is news... (Score:1)
Well, to start with, the patent office is understaffed. Job turnover is high, and employees aren't paid all that well. Patent checkers check that all the boxes are checked and the forms are filled out, not that the idea is original or even possible. A friend of mine, fresh out of college, called the patent office asking about employment opportunities, and left her name & address. The next week, she recieved a job offer, no interview or anything. That's sad.
What needs to be done is: