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Chip Firm Hit By 45-Year-Old Patent 375

Posted by timothy from the welcome-to-the-free-marketplace-of-ideas dept.
JPMH writes "The Register is reporting that a Taiwanese chip foundry is being sued over two chemistry patents, one over 45 years old. The patents at issue were filed in 1957 and 1964, but are still in force because they were not granted until 1987 and 1992 respectively. The first patent, 4,702,808, details an apparatus and method for initiating chemical reactions by focusing "radiant energy, such as a laser" onto streams of particles. The second patent, 5,131,941 also details an apparatus and method for initiating chemical reactions, but this time radiation is used to provide the energy kick needed to get the compounds to interact."
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Chip Firm Hit By 45-Year-Old Patent More

Chip Firm Hit By 45-Year-Old Patent

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  • With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:4, Funny)

    by DASHSL0T ( 634167 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:04PM (#6279805) Homepage
    Dear Engineers,

    Somebody power up one of the lasers and aim at the plaintiff's attorneys.

    Thank you,
    Geeks for Tort Reform

    --
    Closing Windows. Opening Eyes.
    Linux-Universe [linux-universe.com]
    • I noticed this oddball story this morning on the register. One thing I have to wonder, if it was such a great idea for a patent, why did it take so long to get a patent issued? Glitch, or curruptions?

      • Re:With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:5, Informative)

        by afidel ( 530433 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:37PM (#6281029)
        More like common practive before 1997(?) when patent extensions were fixed, basically by revising a small part of your patent you could extend the filing deadline by 5(?) years each time, so by continuously modifying the patent you could put of granting of the application until the underlying technology was widespread and then go after people who in good faith believed they were using unencumbered technology. This is no longer possible because of reforms put in place specifically to stop this tactic, now a patent if valid from 1 year from the filing date with a one time extension of several years for patents in certain situations.

    • Re:With a Friggin Deathgrip on Government (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:36PM (#6280098) Homepage
      Ever notice that most of those people who are in power are ex-lawyers?

      Ever notice that contract language has grown increasingly more complicated over the years, as a means of ensuring lawyer income?

      Ever notice the increase in responsibility-declaiming lawsuits over the years, as lawyers take any bullshit to court as a means of ensuring their income?

      Ever notice that judges are allowing more and more of these cases, as a means to ensure their continued employment?

      It's the slow death of a society, crushed by the weight of a useless population of lawyers who can only feed off the harm they cause to others.

      We want to save ourselves, we gotta fire up those frickin laser beams already. Time for some BBQ!
      • yeah yeah. it's the lawyers' fault. they're the evil money grubbers. and everyone else is just in it for the satisfaction of a job well done. oh wait no.

        what about those fancy shmancy computer programmers. they made it so we need to hire an entire technical staff to run our business. before the programmers shoved their computers onto everyone's desk, you didn't need an IT department. Just keep your records in trusty books. Paper filing. that's always been the best way to do things.

        and don't get m

    • Re:With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:46PM (#6280191)
      Why? The patents don't appear to be of the obvious "one-click shopping" [wired.com] type and the holders are initiating the action (rather than some company that bought the rights, a la PanIP [youmaybenext.com]). Clearly the work took a lot of research and specialized knowlegde, and the researchers were granted a patent for their work.

      Are you anti-patent in general or were you just exhibiting a typical slashdot knee-jerk response?
      • I'm anti people without a sense of humor.

        Be careful or I will release the Fembots. Wait till you see their knee-jerks.
        --
        Closing Windows. Opening Eyes.
        Linux-Universe [linux-universe.com]

      • Re:With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Iniating chemical reactions using outside energy IS obvious today.

        LASER was a novelty in 60s but it isn't anymore. Patents should be valid for a certain period after their _filing_ date instead of issue date.

      • Re:With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nihilogos ( 87025 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:21PM (#6280460)
        The idea would be obvious to a thoughtful undergraduate student. Actually *doing* it, on the other hand, is an impressive feat.

        That's what so frustrating about the US patent system. So many obvious ideas which require little though have been patented, and when someone puts an enormous amount of effort into actually *implementing* something they get sued. No frickin way did the engineers who built that particular part of the chip plant read that patent. And they get sued by someone who couldn't have implemented it in a million years.

        I read yesterday that when the physicist Richard Feynman was at Los Alamos working on the bomb he was approached by some government legal advisor who said that they should patent any ideas they might get. Feynman replied that couldn't possibly keep track of all the ideas that crossed his mind, let alone write patents on them. The legal beaver replied that "just let us know about them" so Feynman said "OK, how about a nuclear powered submarine, a nuclear rocket, a nuclear reactor ... ". A few weeks later the guy came back and said "Submarine is taken, but the rocket and some other ones are still free ... " I think someone eventually wrote up the "Nuclear Rocket" patent for him.

        Imagine that, someone had patented a nuclear powered submarine propulsion system before anyone had even exploded an atom bomb.

        The point is so many of these patents are granted to people who haven't implemented anything when all the work is in the implementation.

        • Re:With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:5, Informative)

          by drdale ( 677421 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:53PM (#6280701)
          Actually the way the Feynman story ends is pretty funny. The government advisor who had approached him got him to sign a contract selling his three patents to the government for $1 each; all of the other scientists signed the same contract. The government actually had no intention of actually paying the scientists any money; the $1 fee was just a legal formality. But Feynman insisted on getting his $3, and eventually the advisor paid him out of his own pocket. Feynman bought treats for all of the scientists with the money, and told them how he paid for it all. So then they all went to the advisor demanding their money!
          • So, the US Government gets a fleet of nuclear subs, and the scientist gets a lollipop?

        • Re:With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by e40 ( 448424 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:55PM (#6280715) Journal
          The idea would be obvious to a thoughtful undergraduate student. Actually *doing* it, on the other hand, is an impressive feat.

          Bingo! I've decided that the powers that be want to leave the patent system as is not because it fosters innovation, but because it feeds the American tendancy to want something for nothing (which is why Lotto is so popular here). What is (most) every American's dream? Strike it rich and retire, even though this means that if you are rich many other people will be poor. I'm no communist, but this strike it rich mentality is just absurd.

          I would like to live in a world where doing something is rewarded, rather than being the first to think of that something.

          • Strike it rich and retire, even though this means that if you are rich many other people will be poor. I'm no communist, but this strike it rich mentality is just absurd.

            Yeah, you're a communist. You think economies are zero-sum games.

            • Re:With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:4, Interesting)

              by kcbrown ( 7426 ) <slashdot@sysexperts.com> on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @02:32AM (#6282175)
              Yeah, you're a communist. You think economies are zero-sum games.

              I have no idea what one (communism) has to do with the other (whether or not the economy is a zero-sum game).

              But the global economy, at any rate, is a zero-sum game, with two exceptions:

              • changes in the population
              • changes in productivity (the amount of production generated by an individual in a period of time. So making people work longer hours does not increase productivity because they're spending more time in order to accomplish more work, whereas having them tend a machine that produces ten times what they could do by hand is an increase in productivity)

              After accounting for those two things, the global economy must be a zero-sum game because money is a direct representation of human production. Were this not the case, you wouldn't get inflation (an overall increase in the prices of goods) as a direct result of printing more money.

              Now, the individual local economies are not zero-sum games, but that is only because they have external inputs and outputs, such as foreign trade and foreign investment.

          • Re:With Friggin Laster Beams... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by kfg ( 145172 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @03:42AM (#6282372)
            "But isn't getting filthy rich the American dream?", I recently had someone ask me.

            Well, no, it isn't. The American Dream (tm) is to own your own property and to make your living from it so you don't have to hire yourself out as a servant.

            Somewhere along the line The American Dream has turned into the idea that you hire yourself out as a servant ( or you're a worthless bum) so that you have the proceeds to buy lottery tickets in the hopes of hitting it rich by chance.

            That isn't the American Dream, that's the American Nightmare.

            KFG
        • So many obvious ideas which require little though have been patented, and when someone puts an enormous amount of effort into actually *implementing* something they get sued.

          But you cannot patent an idea without an implementation. Try actually reading beyond the title of the patent (which is always very general) to see the actual body (which is always very specific).

          Imagine that, someone had patented a nuclear powered submarine propulsion system before anyone had even exploded an atom bomb.

          You do know
      • Because they used a loophole to keep there patents hovering and extend ther effective lifespan. It's a Legal loophole that nobody wants to close.

      • Those are what as known as submarine patents. The entity getting the patent purposely manipulated the patent process so that the patents were granted long after the application was filed, giving an effective patent lifetime far in excess of that normally granted by the patent system.

        Patents should be granted from the date of filing, not the date of issue. Submarine patents are a nasty abuse of the system.

  • I wonder if my "Collection and use of energy originating from a hydrogen based nuclear fussion reaction by radiation energy or via potential energy" would pass in the US?!

    Patent the world and I'll patent YOU!

  • In other news, (Score:5, Funny)

    by squidinkcalligraphy ( 558677 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:07PM (#6279839)
    General Motors is suing competing manufacturers of the so-called `horseless carriage' for infringing their patent 236635849, which specifies a way in which the `wheel' - a flat, cylindrical object - can be used for the motion and transportation of people and inanimate objects.
    • A flat cylinder, now there's a unique concept ;)
    • Also, Bobo the gorilla announced today that he is filing suit against mankind for infringing upon his patent on "A method of heating carbon-based molecules to cause combustion and generate energy." Bobo says that his ancestors filed the patent with the USPTO around the year one million BC, but the patent was not actually granted until 1998.

    • wrong patent number (Score:5, Funny)

      by CausticPuppy ( 82139 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:05PM (#6280336)
      Actually the wheel was patent #2, not #23663589.

      Patent #1, of course, was "a method of rapidly oxidizing combustible materials using concentrated heat and oxygen."

      And the "wheel" came before patent #3, which was "A method and appararatus for creating regular rectangular subdivisions of a yeast byproduct-enhanced grain based matrix."

      • Re:wrong patent number (Score:5, Funny)

        by red floyd ( 220712 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:21PM (#6280455)
        And the "wheel" came before patent #3, which was "A method and appararatus for creating regular rectangular subdivisions of a yeast byproduct-enhanced grain based matrix."

        Wow! That sounds like the neatest thing since sliced bread!

      • Re:wrong patent number (Score:5, Funny)

        by clem ( 5683 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:28PM (#6280506) Homepage
        So the #1 patent wasn't "business model where sexual favors are exchanged for goods or favors"?

        • Re:wrong patent number (Score:4, Funny)

          by cpuffer_hammer ( 31542 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:43PM (#6280635) Homepage
          No that was going to be #0 but it was not accepted out for being to obvious. Though the inventor claims that the examiner was biased by favors of the compaction. The inventor then set out to create an other legal structure to protect the concept. Patent #0 was eventually given to a non-human entry for a advanced system for range finding, high speed communication, and illumination based on invisible waves moving at C. Though though there was some debate about the vagueness of the application.
      • And the "wheel" came before patent #3, which was "A method and appararatus for creating regular rectangular subdivisions of a yeast byproduct-enhanced grain based matrix." When I first read this I was really puzzled, because I was imagining rectangular beer cans...

      • Wrong again (Score:3, Funny)

        by Bake ( 2609 )
        The wheel was patent #3,
        Fire was patent #2,

        #1 was "a method of pissing people off by way of allowing the filing of patent for ideas not yet implemented".

      • For those who care (Score:4, Informative)

        by Theatetus ( 521747 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @01:21AM (#6281877) Journal

        In case anyone is actually curious, US Patent #1 was issued to Samuel Hopkins in 1790 for a new apparatus and process to make potash.

        #2 was something about candles, and #3 was a flour mill

        The patent was signed by George Washington himself (government was much smaller back then; that same year, Washington and Hamilton personally reviewed the bids for the first ever Federal construction project, a lighthouse near Norfolk, VA).

      • A better story:

        Eureka! You've just invented time travel. But the awful truth is that you're not alone. In fact, scientists have been inventing time travel since 1814.

        But if you have a time machine, it really doesn't matter who invented it first. All that matters is who gets to the Patent Office first. And by "first" we mean on opening day. Because nothing suits a time machine like US Patent Number 1 [cheapass.com].

  • Oh My God... (Score:3, Redundant)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:08PM (#6279847) Journal
    We're talking about patents that were put in when? Since before the space race?

    How can it be make good business sense to have these patents still applicable now? Why the hell were they put in limbo for so damn long?

  • Old stuff (Score:4, Funny)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:10PM (#6279860) Homepage
    "being sued over two chemistry patents, one over 45 years old"

    Prior art that!

    • Re:Old stuff (Score:5, Funny)

      by kmahan ( 80459 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:33PM (#6280068)
      And in other news the reaction of lightning and amino acids has been patented. All life is being requested to "pay up or die."
    • The H-BOMB? It fits the patent pretty nicely, and is a clear prior art.

      • Re:Old stuff (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DarkMan ( 32280 )
        Unfortunatly, the H-bomb is not a chemical reaction, but rather a nuclear reaction. Thus, the patent does not apply.

        Secondly, if your looking for prior art, best start by reading the patent. It's quite specific about streams of matter, and intersecting those streams with radient energy. Thus, the H-bomb, even were it chemical, would be well off.

        You need to find stream of matter, and energy, inside a reaction vessel.
        • Unfortunatly, the H-bomb is not a chemical reaction, but rather a nuclear reaction. Thus, the patent does not apply.

          However, if you offered to do a live demonstration at the US Patent Office HQ, I'm sure that you could get a patent granted :-)

  • Amazing (Score:4, Funny)

    by tds67 ( 670584 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:11PM (#6279867)
    The second patent, 5,131,941 also details an apparatus and method for initiating chemical reactions, but this time radiation is used to provide the energy kick needed to get the compounds to interact."

    What? You mean Jiffy Pop popcorn wasn't the first one to patent this technique?

    • Re:Amazing (Score:5, Funny)

      by God! Awful 2 ( 631283 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:05PM (#6280330) Journal
      "The second patent, 5,131,941 also details an apparatus and method for initiating chemical reactions, but this time radiation is used to provide the energy kick needed to get the compounds to interact."

      What? You mean Jiffy Pop popcorn wasn't the first one to patent this technique?
      Jiffy Pop was merely improving on the prior art of "popping popcorn via a giant space laser, thus thwarting the evil professor's plans."

      -a

  • prosecution laches will hopefully kick in (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:11PM (#6279870)
    This may be a death rattle for Lemelson's submrine patents. The dead "inventor" recently had suits thrown out on this issue. Basically, under prosecution laches, they are charged with gaming the system deliberately or without any reasonable reason. Fortunately, this old trick is harder to perform now that patent terms run from the date of filing (with some possible adjustments) instead of date of issuance.
    • We had this discussion a week or two ago.

      Some people claimed that it would be advantageous to prohibit a person filing a patent, if they never would or could implement the invention of their own accord.

      To me that seems like a huge waste of resources. Sure, there are some people who will try to abuse the system. But others, people with bright minds that never quit dreaming up new concepts and technology, should not be forced to drearily forge out every invention they come up with. If that was the case, then the number of inventions any one person could come up with would be severely limited.

      A lot of concepts can be created out of thin air, but it takes a lot of research and feasibility studies before some major concepts can be implemented. A detailed patent is often representative of a lot of original work, and as such should be protected.

      Lemelson certainly was zealous about coming up with new ideas, and holding companies to patent law. He lost many cases, especially when the company was major and had infinite legal resources. But he did come up with many original ideas, and to a company with resources, buying rights can be a great deal. The inventor gets to eat, and the company has an original concept with major considerations worked out.

      This may not really be on-topic, but you seemed to have a lot of disdain for anyone who might have a lot of ideas but no resources to carry out those ideas.
      • Well what we really need isn't something that prohibits people from patenting somethign they can't impliment. IT's fine to be a pure designer and design something that only a big company can build. What we need is a patent system that can better check for obvious patents. If it is something that any random university student can come up with, it is obvious and should not be granted. Doesn't matter if it is hellishly complecated to implement, it matters if the process itself is unique and non-obvious.

        So und

  • Its Broke Fix it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:12PM (#6279880)
    Aside from the fact the Description of the patents makes them sound like a patent on FIRE and if its held up I want the wheel, isn't there enough out there to show our patent system is completely broken ?

    The primary purpose of the patent system seems to be allowing those that don't plan on developing technology, improving technology or doing any of the work needed to advance technology to practise legal extortion on those that do.

  • Ok, now I understand! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by downix ( 84795 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:13PM (#6279884) Homepage
    See, before the 1990's, patents took decades to be approved. They've now gone and made things work the other way, approving them too fast now.

    Can someone *PLEASE* find a happy medium between friggin fast and damned slow?
  • I understand how most people here reject the ideas of patents infringing development, and would automatically argue this is some "unjustice." But, this is a legitimate application of law. It seems this artice was biasly submitted knowing how a "45 year old patent" striking down current development would affect readers.

    Now, if patents do infact hurt productivity enough, it would be reasonable to augment/abandon patent laws. Nevertheless, one must keep in sight the nature of patent laws: protection of de
    • But, this is a legitimate application of law


      Hmmm, hardly so. If you read the descriptions, both patents can be applied to the act of lighting a fire with a match. Prior art, anyone?

      • If you read the descriptions, both patents can be applied to the act of lighting a fire with a match. Prior art, anyone?

        Descriptions have NOTHING to do with what the patent covers. If you want to figure that out, you have to look at the claims.

        IE.

        What is claimed is:

        1. A method for effecting a select high temperature reaction comprising:

        a) generating high temperature plasma radiation,

        b) directing said high temperature plasma radiation through a reaction zone,

        c) continuously flowing particles of matte
    • The ability, on the otherhand, to acquire a monopoly on an algorithm is demonstratedly detremental to innovation. There is a large body of software out there, for instance, that cannot implement functionality because of patent encumberance and the cost penalty incurred thereof.

      Monopoly grants, because this is what patents are, are dangerous for many reasons. Prior to when they were opened up to a "free for all" the purpose of patents was to provide a means for bringing into the public domain -- real invent

  • The patent system is broken beyond repair (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:17PM (#6279920)
    Here's how Syndia (and others) are able to keep their patents "on-hold" for an indefinite period until they see an opportunity to bash a company over the head with it.

    This quote is from Yale Office of Cooperative Research [yale.edu]

    One somewhat sneaky but perfectly acceptable way of using continuation applications is to make sure that the disclosure of an original patent application is always pending. Because an unlimited number of continuation applications may be filed, the only requirement being that at least one application in the chain of continuation applications is still pending, it is possible to keep a chain of patent applications alive for a long period of time. This is useful when a technology field is crowded and there are several competitors, and when it's not really certain exactly what the competitor will try to bring to market.

    • Rest of quote (Score:5, Informative)

      by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:19PM (#6279940)
      Competitors will often review the claims of an issued patent to determine how to make a competing product that does not infringe the patent, referred to as "designing around" a patent. In this case, the initial claims of the original patent may not be effective in maintaining the monopoly power of the patentee regarding the invention. By filing additional continuation applications whenever an existing patent application is to issue as a patent or whenever the prosecution of an existing patent application is to be terminated, an applicant can make sure that a continuation patent application claiming priority from the original application is always pending. Then, if a competing product is ever produced, the claims of the pending continuation application can be amended, or another continuation application can be filed, so that the claims clearly cover the competing product, ensuring that the product will infringe the new claims.

    • Re:The patent system is broken beyond repair (Score:5, Informative)

      by SquarePants ( 580774 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:25PM (#6280004)
      You can't do this anymore. Patents filed after 1995 run for 20 years from the date of FILING. There fore, the longer a patent is pending, the shorter its effective term. This practice, called "submarine patenting" was, in part, the reason. By the way, the inventor of thios patent, Jerry Lemelson, was famous for doing this (he is now dead)

  • Bread (Score:5, Funny)

    by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:21PM (#6279963) Journal
    So far we have patents for Fire and the Wheel.

    I'm going to claim the patent for Baked Bread.

    I guess the first company I'm going to SCO is McDonalds. They have untill Friday to stop making hamburger rolls. Otherwise I'm going to revoke their license.

    Then after I take out the big guy, I'm going to go after Wonder Bread [wonderbread.com].

    • I'm going to claim the patent for Baked Bread.

      Wow! That's the best idea since sliced.... err, never mind.

    • Re:Bread (Score:3, Funny)

      by muonzoo ( 106581 )

      Hmm...

      Then after I take out the big guy, I'm going to go after Wonder Bread.

      And how, exactly would Wonder Bread be infringing on a patent for baked bread?! Wouldn't it have to be bread?

      I mean ... look that that uniformity! [wonderbread.com] -- that cannot be real bread.

    • Grammar (Score:2, Funny)

      by Jimithing DMB ( 29796 )
      I guess the first company I'm going to SCO is McDonalds.

      You know, you should never verb a noun.

      :-)

  • This is "Evil" (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Taiwan should just fire the fricken' "lasers" anyways. Screw the patents
  • So they patented the use of a magnifying glass to start a fire.

  • Hrmm, how is this so? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pstreck ( 558593 ) * on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:30PM (#6280050)
    It was my understanding that U.S. patents were only applicable within the U.S. Can someone please clarify?

  • Thats a lot of Pending (Score:5, Informative)

    by m0rphm0nkey ( 616729 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:33PM (#6280077)
    I've been researching my own patent recently so this is interesting.

    Wow, so they managed to keep it pending for 40 or so years. Most impressive. I understand it's actually better to do it that way because once you patent the technology becomes available for reverse-engineering. I thought you could only keep it patent pending for about six years [123patent.com] though.

    It appears that you can but that the legal ground is a little shaky [findlaw.com]. Current jurisprudence appears to indicate that this'll get thrown unless unless the chip company caves and settles.
    • Current jurisprudence appears to indicate that this'll get thrown unless unless the chip company caves and settles.

      I'd be surprised to see them settle, since it's TSMC [tsmc.com], one of the biggest chip manufacturer in the world, their products are found in everything from computers to toasters...

      No, really, it looks like the plaintiff is trying to pull a SCO.

  • and in related news (Score:3, Funny)

    by curtlewis ( 662976 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:36PM (#6280101)
    Another patent infringement lawsuit has been filed by Wonder, Inc. against Orowheat and Kilpatrick's. Wonder alledges that the firms violate it's patent which covers presentation and packaging of bread products that have been uniformly cut into what they call "slices."

  • In SOVIET RUSSIA... (Score:3, Funny)

    by BJH ( 11355 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @08:52PM (#6280242)
    So, there's this Russian guy, and he like files this patent, and then, y'know, he's like told that it'll take 45 YEARS for the patent to come through, and so he, uh, asks the Patent Office if it'll be the morning or the afternoon, and they say "Why?", and, he like goes, "Well, I've got a whole bunch of LAWYERS coming round in the afternoon."

    Except he's not Russian, he's American. So I guess in CORPORATE AMERICA, lawyers patent YOU! ...and just about everything else.
  • Did they lose them under a filing cabinet or what? I thought there was a time limit between filing and granting ...

  • Jerome Lemelson "The Patent King" expose (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:13PM (#6280392)

    These patents were created by Jerome Lemelson "The Patent King" Fortune Magazine ran a very long article on his exploits two years ago [fortune.com]:

    It would be appealing to view Lemelson as part of the great American tradition of the small inventor battling the rapacious corporation. Certainly there have been plenty of people who have seen him in this light. The distinguished writer Tom Wolfe once hailed him as a "genius" in a laudatory article. Two of the most prestigious institutions in the country, MIT and the Smithsonian, have allied themselves with his name. To many small inventors, Lemelson is a figure of heroic proportions.

    Lemelson may well have been a genius: He earned 558 patents (some came after his death), which leaves him four places behind the inventore-di-tutti-inventori, Thomas Edison. But his was a different kind of brilliance altogether. In truth, his most lucrative patents were the product of a masterful exploitation of the patent system, and they created a huge legal web that to this day ensnares corporations. Critics--especially the many businesses he has sued--portray Lemelson as the anti-Edison. They contend that he never invented the key technologies for which he had the patents. Even one of Lemelson's former attorneys, Arthur Lieberman, questions whether Lemelson was an inventor in the layman's sense of the word. Rather, he says, Lemelson would figure out where an industry was headed--and then place a patent claim directly in its path. "In many cases, Lemelson didn't patent inventions," says Lieberman. "He invented patents."

    The Lemelson litigation and licensing program--which has been masterminded over the past dozen years by a wily lawyer named Gerald Hosier--is unprecedented in its size and scope, and has become the leading edge in a wave of patent litigation. Even as personal-injury and product-liability suits--the bane of most large corporations--have been declining, federal patent lawsuit filings have increased 60% since 1993.

    ***

    Lemelson would grind down the examiners by submitting "jumbo" applications that stretched to more than 100 pages. "There's no way that you could read an entire application in the case of the jumbo applications," says Miller. Not only were they huge, they could be incredibly vague; some patent examiners began referring to Lemelson as "Black Box Jerry" because of his tendency to offer sweeping notions with very little technical detail.

    And then there were the delays. Until that 1995 law changed the rules, a newly issued patent had a 17-year life span--during which time nobody was supposed to be able to use the idea without paying for it. But a patent application could be delayed through something called a "continuation." During that process, applicants were permitted to amend, modify, or add claims to their inventions. As long as the inventor could persuade an examiner that the new claims were consistent with the original specifications, he could even go so far as to incorporate somebody else's technology into his own patent application.

    Nobody ever sought continuations the way Lemelson did. Some of his applications had a half-dozen continuations, each of which could add years to the process. Sometimes Lemelson would be informed that one of his patents was about to be issued--and respond by filing a continuation, inexplicably creating another delay.

    But as any savvy patent practitioner knows, his action wasn't inexplicable at all. Consider: Lemelson first submitted some of his key technological patent applications in the mid-1950s. But thanks to all the delays--delays often triggered by Lemelson's continuations--many of them weren't issued until the '80s and '90s. By then, though, Lemelson had amended them to include real products that had come on the market--which he could claim to have invented because he had applied for the patent back in the '50s! And because the patent only took effect when it was i

  • Patent workaround (Score:3, Informative)

    by DarkMan ( 32280 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:15PM (#6280407) Journal
    Ok, firstly, please read the patent. It is not as trivial as it may appear from the few lines description.

    It doesn't strike me as earth shatteringly novel, but then, most patents never have. It's written in usual obfuscated patent speak, which doesn't help.

    The workaround: It is quite specific about collimated beams of radiation. So stick a lens in the way, de-collimate your beam, and the patent no longer applies.

    If you are putting the laser through a window, then a couple of lenses, to de-focus the beam, and then focus it in the reaction zone will do the trick.

    I'm not sure how this related to chip fabriacation, but I'm going to hazard a guess that it's in a CVD style deposition stage. The only time that precise focus would be needed is if your etching by laser onto a surface. In which case, you don't have a flow of matter.

    This will not work if you are reflecting a collimated beam around so that it crosses the reaction zone multiple times.

    Any fabiration engineers want to elucidate on where this patent might apply? Specifically, would a lens (I'm thinking of a power of around -1 uD) stop the system from working?

    However, working around the patent may be considered a tacit admission of it's validity, and thus is a tatic in opposition to the legal challenge.

  • prior art catch 22 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sabalon ( 1684 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:33PM (#6280553)
    Okay...so if the patent is 45 years old (1958) but was patented in 1987, I see a big catch-22.

    If the patent does not start until 1987, then anything doing this from before 1987 should now be prior art.

    If anything from before 1987 is not considered prior art because the patent was created in 1958, then the patent should be enforced from that date, not the 1987 date, and therefore expired.

    Oh...sorry Government and sense...my bad

  • How Did I Know Before I Even Looked? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Compulawyer ( 318018 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @09:37PM (#6280580)
    Somehow I knew who the inventor was on these patents before I even looked -- Jerome Lemelson. Lemelson is infamous in the patent world as the "king of the submarine patent." Back when Lemelson was active, he would file applications and delay prosecution until he had defendants to sue. He would then prosecute the patent and sue when it issued. Because patent applications are held confidential while pending, others using the technology claimed in Lemelson's patents would have no idea that the patents existed until issuance, thus the submarine analogy.

    These actions are almost universally seen by practitioners as abuses of the patent system, NOT as appropriate uses. Thankfully, in most instances current PTO procedure prevents these abuses. However, this type of prosecution tactic, even though it resulted in a patent issuing, still may not ultimately be successful because of a doctrine called "prosecution laches."

    Generally, the doctrine of laches applies to protect a defendant when a plaintiff has sat on its rights for too long. The doctrine of prosecution history laches, very simply put, states that a patentee who has delayed prosection for too long may not enforce its patent once it issues. I am not saying that this is the case here; that is for a court to decide. But I do feel the need to note that this doctrine was recently "revived" by courts after a long period during which the doctrine was never even discussed, much less applied.

    You may wonder who the patent holder was in the case that recently "revived" the doctrine of prosecution history laches. His name, I believe, is Jerome Lemelson.

  • The first patent is so broad it effects almost every laser initiated chemical reaction. 3d printers, "santa claus" machines (what are these called anyway?) a machine that uses a UV laser to harden a chemical to make 3d objects. I assume the printers use the same tech. Also laser seperators do this as does any chip making process that uses a laser.

  • Patenting Basic Physics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by femto ( 459605 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:06PM (#6280789) Homepage
    It's interesting to consider the implications of such a patent as we view the 'coherent radiation hitting a stream of particles' on a smaller and smaller scale. Four elements are mentioned in the patent:
    1. Matter/electron/atom enters interaction,
    2. Photon enters interaction,
    3. Electron absorbs photon,
    4. Matter/electron/atom leaves interaction
    Ultimately we seem to end up with a patent on quantum electrodynamics (electrons interacting with photons).

    Okay, you could probably use that argument on quite a few patents when you get down to the basic physics. It's interesting to ask how will patents deal with molecular/atomic nanotechnology. As manufacturing scales get smaller, and fewer particles are involved, will patenting a 'manufacturing method' turn into an attempt to patent basic chemical/physical processes?

  • Good Old Submarine Patents (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Artagel ( 114272 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:35PM (#6281019) Homepage
    This is an artifact of the old patent system. You had a patent from 17 years after the date of issue, therefore, keeping the thing barely alive on life support until the technology became worthwhile was a game. If either of these had issued, without continuations when applied for, they would have been worthless.

    Now, patents are timed 20 years from the date of filing. That means it is never good for the applicant to delay as far as term extension. (There may be other reasons, such as figuring out what you really want, to take your time.)

  • prior art (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 73939133 ( 676561 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @12:20AM (#6281626)
    You'd think people would at least check the Nobel prizes for prior art. This sort of stuff was the subject of work by Norrish and Porter around 1950, for which they received the Nobel prize in 1967 (together with Eigen). More info here [chemi.muni.cz].

  • This is a BLATENT misuse of patents! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Newer Guy ( 520108 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @12:57AM (#6281793)
    Those patents were applied for many, many years ago. Therefore, patent pending protection has been in affect for decades. The net result is to effectively extend patents by decades. This is wrong. The patent clock should be retroactive to the day the patent was filed, because the protection effectively is. These are extreme examples of that...but I've got to wonder how many other unexploded 'time bombs' like these are still out there.

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