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MSNBC Looks At Patent Abusers' Victims 231

Posted by timothy from the does-the-uspto-count-as-a-conspirator dept.
Camel Pilot writes "Patent claims have reached a new low when "inventor" Witold Ziarno sued the American Red Cross for using the web to accept donations. This MSNBC article discusses this case and how it was beat using web archives and prior art! Also Pangia Intellectual Property has given up hope on extracting fees from small e-commerce websites for its supposedly patent on e-commerce. The only problem with the PanIP case is that they got away without having to pay for the legal fees for the defense in an obvious abuse of the system." (See this previous post for more on PanIP's dropped case.)
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MSNBC Looks At Patent Abusers' Victims More

MSNBC Looks At Patent Abusers' Victims

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  • Leech (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:23AM (#9038936)
    I hope the Red Cross sues the dude and demands blood for repayment.

  • no conscience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:25AM (#9038945)
    what does it take to chase a charity for alleged patent abuse. How does he sleep at night?

    • Re:no conscience (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thryllkill ( 52874 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:37AM (#9038974) Homepage Journal
      What I don't get is people who are shocked at how low other humans will go for money. Like no one ever tried to take advantage of do gooders before.

    • Re:no conscience (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:39AM (#9038978)
      what does it take to chase a charity for alleged patent abuse. How does he sleep at night?

      Probally the same malfuction that gets the RIAA to request license fees from the Girlscouts to sing *puff the magic dragon*.

      In reality, a charity isn't immune to license fees. It's good PR and good on your taxes to donate the license fees, but you are not required to do so. I wouldn't blame anyone for charging the Red Cross for legit license fees. I would however blame the US patent system for allowing jarheads to patent trivial things like donations on a god damned website, as if this is a new and unique idea.
      • blame the US patent system for allowing jarheads to patent trivial

        As a former US Marine I am appalled at your use of the word JarHead in a sentance with these scum, I will overlook any uses such as "We should send in the JarHeads to bomb these 419ers into atoms!"

      • Re:no conscience (Score:5, Informative)

        by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @11:52AM (#9041046)
        Probally the same malfuction that gets the RIAA to request license fees from the Girlscouts to sing *puff the magic dragon*.

        The RIAA does no such thing. Performance royalties for that song are collected by ASCAP on behalf of Pepamar Music Corp. You want to blame somebody, lay them blame on them.

        Remember, RIAA = RECORDING Industry Association of America. Unless the Scouts are marketing CDs of their campfire singalongs, the RIAA has no involvement.

        Please, people -- KNOW what you're talking about before you post.

    • Re:no conscience (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:40AM (#9038980)
      Next I hear he's going after charities which don't comply with the GPL!

    • Re:no conscience (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ratamacue ( 593855 )
      what does it take to chase a charity for alleged patent abuse

      How about an overly complex, ambiguous, highly exploitable system of law? (in other words, big government)

      • Re:no conscience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jkabbe ( 631234 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @10:20AM (#9040034)
        How about an overly complex, ambiguous, highly exploitable system of law? (in other words, big government)

        For the record, the patent system is not ambiguous. It is true that patents that are ambiguous or overly broad can slip through the system. But the system itself is well defined.

        And it may not have occurred to you but every system is exploitable, just in a different way. If there weren't patent protections, people would be stealing legitimate inventions willy-nilly.

        • Re:no conscience (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Kardamon ( 54123 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @10:49AM (#9040305)
          If there weren't patent protections, people would be stealing legitimate inventions willy-nilly.

          If there were no patents, nobody would even think of calling it "stealing"...

          • Re:no conscience (Score:4, Insightful)

            by jkabbe ( 631234 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @10:52AM (#9040339)
            And if there were no concept of the ownership of physical property no one would ever think of calling it "stealing" either.

            Did you have some point to make?

            • Re:no conscience (Score:4, Interesting)

              by trezor ( 555230 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @11:39AM (#9040907) Homepage

              As a lot of people futilely have tried to explain to people like you before, stealing a physical item is in it's very nature different than coming up with an idea someone may or may not have had before you did.

              Not to be rude, but I sometimes I wonder if the people unable to see this difference get a rise out of accusing others of theft....

              Btw. It's called "patent infridgement", not theft. This also applies to copyright violations. Please correct yourself.

              But anyway, since people somehow have been allowed to "own" ideas/thoughtpatterns/whateveridontcare, the term stealing is really, well, a steal.

              I mean, just who likes thieves?

              • Btw. It's called "patent infridgement", not theft. This also applies to copyright violations. Please correct yourself.

                I'd rather correct you.
                1. It's "infringement"
                2. We were discussing a scenario where patents did not exist. Therefore the correct term could not possibly be patent infringement.

                If you look up criminal laws you will see that "stealing" is not listed among them either. I think the term would be "larceny."

                And if we're talking in a generic sense then the concept of "stealing" as "taking w
          • If there were no patents, nobody would even think of calling it "stealing"...
            And if there were no patents, nobody would even think of making the investment to invent anything anyway, so there would be nothing to "steal" or "infringe" or whatever and dweebs in their mothers' basements wouldn't have any computers to get to Slashdot and complain about it.
    • How does he sleep at night?

      On a big pile of money, surrounded by beautiful women.

  • Very strange (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thing2b ( 683741 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:27AM (#9038948) Homepage
    "...saying he had patented the electronic process by which the donations were made. Ziarno demanded a licensing fee from the non-profit agency for infringing on his patent, which he applied for in 1993 -- before most people had even heard of the World Wide Web."

    This seams strange (in 1993?). For some reason, I do not think I understand US patents.

    • Re:Very strange (Score:5, Insightful)

      by inode_buddha ( 576844 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:30AM (#9038954) Journal
      There is a difference between the date applied for and the date granted - often measured in years. None of those facts alters the poor ethics of suing a charity (for purposes of the current discussion).

    • Re:Very strange (Score:5, Informative)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:44AM (#9038993)
      very strange indeed since many of us were doing electronic purchases and donations on BBS systems with our 1200 baud modems a tad bit earlier than 1993
    • It's really interesting to read about this on the same day that our local newspaper's top article is on the way that marketing costs eat up the bulk of donations to many charities.

  • Maybe this is where tort reform should start (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:33AM (#9038962)

    If the patent holder loses it's case in court, it's forced to pay the legal fees of the defendant.

    Oh yes, they get kicked in the nuts afterwords.

    Also, the patent office needs to be held accountable as well. Maybe they could fire the examiner that issued the patent.

    I'm not saying that this is the difinitive answer, just some ideas to change things for the better.

    • Re:Maybe this is where tort reform should start (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:40AM (#9038981)
      The Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

      Loser pays is a great idea.

      These lawyers are playing the lottery. Without "loser pays", the tickets are all free.

      • Re:Maybe this is where tort reform should start (Score:4, Informative)

        by Mycroft_VIII ( 572950 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:56AM (#9039023) Journal
        I don't get it. How does loser pays make change this. unless of course the a lawyer is himself the plaintif/defendand.
        Loser pays just re-structures who pays the leagle bills, not whether they exist.
        I suppose it would make a difference if the looser was so poor he couldn't pay, that would reduce the number of poor people who could sue to those with a case iron clad enough a lawyer felt he could count on winning. But other than that I don't see your logic.

        Mycroft

        • Re:Maybe this is where tort reform should start (Score:5, Insightful)

          by FrYGuY101 ( 770432 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:03AM (#9039045) Journal
          It means that you couldn't go around sueing people to extort settlement fees out of them, just because the cost of fighting would be greater...
        • I don't get what it is you don't get. In a loser pays system, patent holders are less likely to pursue litigation in situations where there is little chance of them coming out on top, as they have to pay both their own AND the defendants legal fees. Right now, assuming they can afford their own, they can just spam lawsuits *cough* SCO *cough* and pray some of them stick. Hell, even if loser pays doesn't discourage frivolous litigation, at least it provides some financial protection to the guy getting sue
          • Clearly I took the post from a different angle. the original post seemed to be talking about lawyers not wanting to get into litigation anymore unless they shure thier side wins because of who pays. That seemed a non-sequiter outside of the sub-case where the looser was unable to pay.
            While looser pays puts pressure on potential initiators of lawsuits to be shure they have a good case first, it's little pressure on the lawyers. They get paid in any event unless the looser can't pay.
            Looser pays has a
          • "Loser Pays" systems typically include other safeguards that prevent the obvious abuses that come to mind.

            The fees that the loser pays the winner are usually determined by a fee schedule that is downright niggardly according to U.S. standards. That means the winner does not get all of his legal expenses back, particularly if he elects to hire a particularly expensive lawyer, delay matters, and so on.

            An example of another safegaurd is the practice in New Zealand of holding a trial on successive days, inclu

      • Re:Maybe this is where tort reform should start (Score:5, Informative)

        by GrassMunk ( 677765 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @09:06AM (#9039425)
        Problem with loser pays ( like here in canada ) is that you can never win a court battle against a large corporation. ( Well that and the fact that our lawyers cant get a certain % of your winnings and they have to be paid pretty much up front. ) But if you go to sue Bell Canada ( aka Verizon North ) and you loose, guess whos in debt because Bell threw 10-15 lawyers at the problem. Looser pays is a good idea but it can have its drawbacks.
        • IANAL, but I believe that's why, instead of a system where the loser of any case is automatically hit with the legal fees, only the losers that additionally are ruled to have brought a *frivolous* case that attempts to abuse the system should have to pay the cost.

    • Re:Maybe this is where tort reform should start (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:56AM (#9039020)
      > ... Also, the patent office needs to be held accountable as well. Maybe they could fire the examiner that issued the patent.

      That's a #%$@$ dumb idea.

      You want to hold the patent OFFICE to account by firing the patent EXAMINER? How would you feel if your boss told you to do something, then fired you for doing it?

      First step is to provide the patent examiners with the resources and guidance to properly examine each patent, then sack the boss of the patent office if things don't improve.

      • Better yet, why not just close the patent office and repeal the patent laws? Save taxpayers money and everyone a lot of aggravation.

        • That's fine. As long as you don't mind nobody ever inventing anything that requires a significant amount of research and development. How could an inventor justify spending a lot of time and money on some high tech device only to have people rip it off and start making generic version of it as soon as it hits the market? There would be no return on investment possible. The majority of patents are filed to protect legitimate inventions, not just to shake people down for money from using obvious ideas.

    • Re:Maybe this is where tort reform should start (Score:5, Insightful)

      by skifreak87 ( 532830 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:59AM (#9039030)
      A lot of stuff isn't so cut and dry though. Especially w/ the speed at which technology moves now, something can become commonplace very quickly and maybe not seem patentable when 6 months ago no one had ever even conceived of it and it was a great new idea worthy of a patent.

      We also have the unintended consequences. Your proposal, which I agree with in many cases, discourages companies from trying to defend their IP. What if a small firm tries to attack M$ or a huge corporation. Suppose they lose. Suppose M$ also had 10 lawyers working on the case, w/ a combined total of 500 man-hours billing out at $300 an hour. Now your small firm trying to defend a patent is now out $150k in legal expenses because that's what this big corporation spent. If our system was perfect this might be ok. But even if your patent should be upheld w/ 99% probability, is it worth it to challenge if in that 1% chance of failure you would owe a very substantial sum/portion of your small firm's income?

      The issue as I see it is that a patent should require some sort of innovation, if it's something that anyone can easily dream up (such as one-click ) it doesn't deserve a patent just because you filed your application first and we're having too many of those sorts of patents. A patent is supposed to grand a temporary monopoly in exchange for sharing your idea/design w/ the world. If the idea/design could EASILY be thought up by any group of computer scientists sitting in a room, it shouldn't get a patent. Problem: requires patent examiners to spend more time examining patents when they're already backlogged.

      Good to see some mainstream press address the issue of frivolous patents that exist.
      • If something is commonplace and obvious only a short 6 months after, is it then really worthy of a patent? Methinks patents were to ensure that your inventions are legally "yours alone" to exploit financially for a limited amount of time. But only because it's your invention, after all!

        Now, if your "invention" turns out to be nothing more than a fairly good prediction at what's inevitably to come, should it then be considered "yours" at all? IMHO: Definitely not.

      • Loser pays is the only way to avoid what I call "threat sueing" that you guys in the US have.

        Your basic problem with it seems to be the possible discrepancy in the amount spent. To solve this, look at the way the courts in other countries work. In Norway for example, there are spending rules and guidlines on what exactly the loser is liable to pay. If Microsoft want to spent 10million on lawyers, then they can, and if they win then maybe they'll be re-imbursed for reasonable costs of about 100 grand.

        The

    • Re:Maybe this is where tort reform should start (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If the patent office is not prepared to be held ultimately responsable, they have no place granting patents. The system is broken and needs fixing, forcing financial liability for patents held invalid on the USPTO would make them research applications like they are supposed to be doing.
      • "...forcing financial liability for patents held invalid on the USPTO...."

        That just means the taxpayers pay for the show. You can't inflict pain on a corporation or a government, because they just pass it through in their prices. The only sensible objective is to remove the source of the problem, and that source is either a broken procedure or a worker who doesn't follow an unbroken procedure.
    • "If the patent holder loses it's case in court, it's forced to pay the legal fees of the defendant."

      Pay the legal fees? How about automatically turning the case around into a criminal fraud, barratry, racketeering and extortion case instead?

      Money isnt quite enough to deter these kinds of people.
    • Also, the patent office needs to be held accountable as well. Maybe they could fire the examiner that issued the patent.

      Because smart people who make mistakes never learn anything right?

      Maybe a 3 strikes and they are out rule though...

      Alex
    • Also, the patent office needs to be held accountable as well. Maybe they could fire the examiner that issued the patent.

      Yes, this would be a great way to reduce the patent examination backlog -- by giving patent examiners increased personal liability, there's bound to be an influx of intelligent people eager to work for the patent office!

      I'M BEING SARCASTIC.

  • Screw patents (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:37AM (#9038971)

    The main argument behind patents is that without them, nobody would have motivation to come up with new ideas and no research and development would be done.

    I say bullshit.

    Patents are holding developments back. If you have an idea for a better mousetrap build it and sell it. If someone else copies your idea then you'll just have to improve it, or find a way to make it cheaper than them, or whatever. You'll have to act quicker to make money on your ideas, and innovate faster. I think that's a good thing.

    • Re:Screw patents (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thing2b ( 683741 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:41AM (#9038983) Homepage
      I think that the speed that the patent office takes holding developments back. Personally I would like to see patents recevied and processed within a month and all small time I.T. patents expire in 5 years.

    • Wrong (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:45AM (#9038998)
      The main argument behind patents is that without them, nobody would have motivation to come up with new ideas and no research and development would be done.

      The actual argument for patents is that, without patents, people who use new inventions and innovations would waste huge amounts of effort keeping their discoveries secret from the competition.

      The patent process is designed to encourage inventors to publish their ideas so that other people can build off of them. And after a number of years, the patent expires, and anyone can use the work for free.

    • Re:Screw patents (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cdavies ( 769941 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:46AM (#9038999) Homepage
      Oh come on, just because a few people abuse patents you think they should be abolished?

      Your idea is merely a recipe for the rich getting richer. John Q. Inventor invents a new improved foo, then Big Foo Corp. comes along and reverse engineers his foo, and begins manufacturing them on a scale poor old John can never compete with. Economies of scale ensure the small business can never win.

      So John either has the option of going honourably bankrupt, or of selling his idea to Big Foo Corp. in the first place to save them the reverse engineering costs. Either way, its a waste of his time.

      Patents work. Its just that the US patent office is incredibly lax in investigating patent applications. This is easily solved by means of a massive cash injection. Though god knows where tha t money will come from.... (Further rant on republican fiscal policy clipped)

      • Re:Screw patents (Score:5, Insightful)

        by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:49AM (#9039008)
        John Q. Inventor invents a new improved foo, then Big Foo Corp. comes along and reverse engineers his foo, and begins manufacturing them on a scale poor old John can never compete with.

        As opposed to, John Q Inventor invents a new improved foo, and finds that some aspect of his invention is already patented by Big Foo Corp...

        Take a look at who files patents and how benefits from them. (Hint - it's not John).

        • Re:Screw patents (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @10:03AM (#9039897) Journal
          Take a look at who files patents and how benefits from them. (Hint - it's not John).

          Take a look at who is spending billions of dollars and employing millions of people trying to invent things worth patenting. (Hint - it's not John).

          Yes, large companies file a lot of patents. Some of them are bogus--we all read Slashdot. Perhaps it would be appropriate to reconsider the scope of what can be patented (*cough* software *cough*). Most patents are meaningful, and legitimately advance science and technology. Individuals and corporations that see fit to carry out this reseach are deservedly rewarded.

      • Re:Screw patents (Score:2, Insightful)

        by javajoe99 ( 471731 )
        What the real beef is not abolishing of all patents, just the concept of "business methods". This is a rather new concept in patent law in the US.

        Court ruling critical Critics blame a sluggish, understaffed federal patent office for the current litigation. Until the 1990s, the patent office generally didn't grant patents for software. A 1998 federal court ruling cleared the way for "business methods" patents.

        there is the real problem, in not an invention, and doesnt even follow the spirit of patent law

    • Re:Screw patents (Score:5, Insightful)

      by __aagctu1952 ( 768423 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:48AM (#9039005)
      Getting rid of patents altogether isn't the answer - the mousetrap analogy only works for low-R&D items. High/extreme R&D cost industries like medicine and aerospace on the other hand would simply collapse, or at least stop innovating with a no-patent system (it would create an entire system of free riders [wikipedia.org]). Instead, we should get rid of bad patents. Sticking "on the web" at the end of an existing invention or trivial implementation is not, I repeat not patent-worthy.
      We should start with a working patent review process and go from there...

    • Re:Screw patents (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 16K Ram Pack ( 690082 )
      There's an argument that says that people won't invent things without patents. Well, considering that people come up with ideas, which are then copied, it kinda invalidates that.

      In some areas, though (such as medicines or very high tech research), patents are valuable. People might not spend the millions on drug research if the research was then given away to competitors. Being first to market would not be enough.

      These utterly obvious patents, like "donations on the web" should be removed, though.

      • Re:Screw patents (Score:2, Insightful)

        by t_allardyce ( 48447 )
        What if someone patents the only cure for cancer? (or something along those lines). Maybe the developement of major lifesaving drugs should be left to an international body, and drug companies barred from patenting it (they can sell it without paying any royalties but if its a very important drug they cannot patent it)?

        What about patenting new geneticly engineered species? Thats pretty obviously stupid and is going to lead to allot of abuse.
      • These utterly obvious patents, like "donations on the web" should be removed, though.

        That's the problem I have with it. I can't think of a way to legally define a patent at "utterly obvious". But there are indeed examples a-plenty where people or companies that aren't even "inventors" arrive at the same conclusion. Is there a way to prove that subsequent inventors haven't directly copied an idea from an existing patent-holder? Is that even possible? Maybe, but the system doesn't take this into account the
        • I protest that further patents based on online shopping or online money transactions are invalid. There should be no patentable material there; Not if you click once instead of twice, not if the recipient is a charity, not if the transaction is linked to some other action, not if you buy widgets instead of sprockets, not if you do your transaction on a Sunday in your underwear.

          I couldn't agree more. The rash of web patents is a clear failure to see computer technology for what it is: a truly multi-purpos

    • Yes, but how would we keep selling crappy products to everyone if that was the case?

      Oh, wait...

    • Re:Screw patents (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation AT gmail DOT com> on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:59AM (#9039034) Journal
      That's all well and good for internet inventions where somebody slaps a cookie and a database together and you suddenly have 1-Click payments. But what about in the real world where companies can spend billions building a better "mousetrap" as it were? Have a team of 50 people doing R&D, with an average cost of a conservative $200,000 per year for each employee to cover salaries, benefits, overhead, materials, etc... and suddenly you've spend $10M for one year of R&D. If you're developing something really high-tech, you might put 5 years into it. So it's a $50M R&D bill at the end.

      But that's okay, you've gone and built some new technology... maybe a better medical scanner or something. You expect to be able to sell 1,000 of these scanners to high-end facilities in a 10 year period, and each one costs you $25,000 in materials and engineering costs. Factoring in your R&D cost, each scanner had $50,000 worth of R&D invested into it. So you need to charge $75,000 just to break even and make no profit. So factoring in profit as well as marketing, insurance, and legal fees, etc. you'll likely charge maybe $200,000 for each one.

      Along comes some other company with only 2 employees, they purchase your scanner, reverse engineer it, send it to China and have a couple thousand manufactured costing them $25,000 each. Subsequently, they release it into the market for only $50,000 because they didn't have to invest the additional $50,000 per unit in a major R&D program. Too bad the company investing in all that R&D couldn't protect their invention from copycats.

      For trivial e-mousetraps, yeah... the Ayn Rand compete-at-all-costs-and-screw-government-interfer ence approach would serve you well I guess. But for any non-trivial mousetraps, patents protect those who invest the time and money into developing them.
      • Note that I'm not necessarily disagreeing here but a couple of things should be pointed out.

        1) Company B would have to sell the item for at least $150,000 assuming that their manufacturing costs are no less than yours. If their manufacturing costs are lower than that's your fault. They still need to charge that $125,000 you tacked on for "profit,marketing,insurance, and legal fees,etc."

        2) All other things being equal, without patents your R&D costs would be lower as you would save on the monopoly pric
      • Before patents are available, people still invent new stuff, they just try to make thing secret. Then someone thinks that patents are better than making people keep things secret, so we have patents now. Things have changed so much, I think we should reconsider the problem: is having patents better than letting people keep things secret? Patents may be a good idea, but it is very hard to implement correctly --- it is hard to decide what is patentable, hard to specify a good term for patents in each field

    • Re:Screw patents (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mblase ( 200735 )
      Patents are holding developments back. If you have an idea for a better mousetrap build it and sell it. If someone else copies your idea then you'll just have to improve it, or find a way to make it cheaper than them, or whatever.

      In your scenario, if I invented a better mousetrap, I could never make money on it because all the big-factory mousetrap manufacturers could just copy my idea without paying me a single cent and proceed to sell it wherever they'd like.

      In other words, there'd be no incentive for
    • > I say bullshit.

      In return. You seem to have no experience or evidence to back up your assertion. On the contrary, I've spoken to mature (40-50+) career patent attorney's who tell me that contrary to what you would think, a lot of innovation actually comes from people trying to work _around_ existing patents. In doing so, they discover new and novel ways and so on - something that would not happen if they were able to (commercially) use existing technology.

      Come back when you have more than just a loud-

  • But... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DuranDuran ( 252246 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:43AM (#9038991)

    I know this may sound like a troll, but it isn't. If the US legal system is so good, shouldn't the American Red Cross win in the end?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:48AM (#9039004)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nacturation ( 646836 )
        The US legal system isn't so good. If it worked as it should then companies would not be scared into declaring that 'coffee is hot' or 'cape does not enable wearer to fly' in order to avoid getting sued. If the legal system worked then cases based on things that obvious wouldn't even be brought up.

        I think the legal system works just fine. It's all the stupid people that end up going through the legal system that are the problem.

        • If the system allows for "stupid people" to sue for all things of silly things that pure, common sence should tell them (like, for instance, that putting on a cape do not give you the power to fly), then I have to logicaly conclude that the system is not working fine.
          Maybe a pre-screener prosess should be added to each case? Something like: IF case = goes.against.common.sence THEN DISMISS (I know, I'm not good at writing psudocode - but I suck at regular code too). With this simple step added, the US legal

        • Re:But... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Scarblac ( 122480 )

          I think the legal system works just fine. It's all the stupid people that end up going through the legal system that are the problem.

          Don't forget the people who don't go through the system because they can't afford it, so they have to settle a case that they should have won.

  • Charity should not matter (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mst76 ( 629405 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:44AM (#9038994)
    The question is whether the patent itself is valid or not. If this was a genuinely innovative patented process that Red Cross violated, would it matter whether they're a charity or not?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:59AM (#9039032)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Charity should not matter (Score:5, Interesting)

      by odano ( 735445 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:01AM (#9039037)
      The article is really more for shock value than anything else. This has gone on for a long time, but when you see something like this "Man sues red cross for trying to accept donations" it jumps out at you. I don't think the fact that it is a charity matters, The main issue is how stupid it makes the patent system out to be.

      However, my grandfather used to work at the patent office, and still is a practicing patent attorney (at age 90), and will defend to the death the needs of patents. He is incredibly conservative and an old engineer who was in the army during WW2 and then went to a steady job at GE. The main issue is that people like him are controlling the importance of patents, and from prior experience debating with him, he has no understanding of the new type of intellectual property and the new needs of the patent system. Sadly, since people like him are the ones making the decisions, I doubt the patent system will change in the near future.
    • If a valid patent were involved, then it would make a difference.
      Instead of being an crooked uber slimeball, this guy would meerly be a bit slimy.

      Though the red cross is not an ideal charity, they have a 50% overhead (if you donate $100, only $50 will reach the needy). I would (and have showed up twice to do so) give blood though, they are currently the best charity in that regards by far.

      Mycroft

  • Spam Patent (Score:5, Funny)

    by l0ungeb0y ( 442022 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:45AM (#9038995) Homepage Journal
    I'm surprised that no one has filed suit claiming ownership of a patent which describes the mechanisms of email based spam.

    You'd think with the DoJ and corporate suits out and about, someone would be trying to cash out on their chips. ...of course claiming ownership of spam would not be too handy for your image, but if you're a patently litigious batage image probably isn't a 10th as important as the payola.

    In fact, a spam patent is probably the one item I wouldn't mind seeing used and abused through the legal system.
    Yeah... hypocrosy, but it's the thought that counts right?

    Right? :P

    • I'm surprised that no one has filed suit claiming ownership of a patent which describes the mechanisms of email based spam.

      No, the smart money would have been in filing a patent on something described in the article:

      "... the practice of first suing small companies to win settlements that would then be used to finance lawsuits against larger litigants with bigger legal budgets."

      Being able to sue anyone who's trying to sue someone else for infringement of an idiotic intellectual-property patent... now ther

  • Question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @07:57AM (#9039025)

    There are lots of clever people here on Slashdot. I have a question.

    Has anyone here filed a patent for an invention (as an individual, not for their employers or a university) from which they now profit?

    My belief is that the vast majority of patents are issued to, and profit, large companies. Or am I wrong, and there are hundreds of garage inventors out there profiting from their patents? Anyone?

    • Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)

      by Hettch ( 692387 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:01AM (#9039041)
      My dad was looking to apply for a patent on something a few years ago. The problem is that it was something like $2000 just to apply! This is why they are mainly granted to big companies, because the have the monetary backing.
      • Patents are mostly the domain of the corporation, unfortunately. Although they cover different types and aspects of IP, copyright's belong to the small guys as well as the big corporations.

        • Re:Question (Score:3, Informative)

          by jkabbe ( 631234 )
          The good news is that the new bill that just passed the Senate would decrease the costs for a small inventor to apply for a patent. Currently the Small Entity Status gives you a 50% discount. If filed electronically, a Small Entity can get a 75% discount with the new bill.

      • Got a great idea that you want to patent but don't have $2000 to file a patent application? This is what venture capitalists are for.

        If you can't get a VC to give you $2K for it, your invention probably isn't worth patenting.

    • An answer of sorts (Score:3, Insightful)

      by xyote ( 598794 )
      There is a whole services for inventors industry out there that would like you to believe the answer is yes. But in reality, individuals making money from their patents is more the exception than the rule. That's because even if you can afford the $20K or so to do a patent, you still have to get people to recognise you have a better mousetrap, which can be difficult (remember patents must be non-obvious). You also have to be able to find infringement and prosecute infringment cases. Hugely expensive, an

    • Re:Question (Score:3, Informative)

      by BCW2 ( 168187 )
      I have an uncle that went through the whole process, it was a bitch. But, he had a good idea and is making some money now. Beats the heck out of farming! Check out www.cleanfunnel.com/

  • Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wolfbone ( 668810 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:17AM (#9039088)

    "Something can be simple, but we shouldn't be deceived by this," said Jack Slobodin, another patent attorney. "If no one has done it before or thought of it, it deserves a patent. Like the paper clip, or the Post-it note." And the inventor deserves compensation, Slobodin said."

    Protecting the rights of inventors is a necessary part of the research and investment fields, said Slobodin.

    Otherwise, he said, there would be little incentive for taking risks: "The inventor should have a key to the courthouse. There's a long, sordid history of big companies stealing the work of private inventors."

    The same old hopelessly flawed logic and a very good example of it: To make paperclips available to the World, which is what you are expected to do in return for the exclusive rights to profit from doing so, you need to invest in a paperclip factory, it's workforce, distribution network and all the other expenses associated with manufacturing investment. There lies the risk - a very great financial risk and rightly addressed by the patent system. If you consider an equivalently simple software or business method idea, where is that risk now? Just what exactly is it that needs to be protected? The only investment risk that needs to be protected in this case is the investment in the patent application itself and the litigation expenses required to extort money from legitimate and honest businesses and organisations.

    Just who do the legislators think they're protecting when they engineer a system that enables worthless parasites like PanIP to persecute small businesses and others even to gratuitously attack charities?

  • Idea? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:22AM (#9039115) Journal
    Why not directly base a patent on the ammount of R&D done and some 'market time' value: eg a stupid web patent such as donations on the net which obviously took someone back in the early days of the net all of 3 minutes to figure out would have a very low 'R&D value' and a very low chance of being granted or upheld aditionally the internet/computing industry moves very fast, so the patent would only be granted for say 1 or 2 years if it was granted at all.

    If a company had spent 5 years and billions in R&D of an innovative new type of engine it would get a high R&D value (dont ask me how thats calculated :P ) and because the car industry moves abit slower (lots of people still drive cars from the 90's) it would get a value of say 8 years and the R&D value would be taken into consideration in upholding its patents and charging royalties.

    The patent system is to give incentive and it does that by giving just enough time for someone to use a patent as an advantage before its open to everyone.

    • Re:Idea? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lfourrier ( 209630 )
      the fact that a company spend a lot of money on something does not prove in itself it is innovative.

      There are numerous case of companies getting patent in order to justify their costs, not because their creations are worthy of a patent.

      You can have a lot of people procrastinating for years, and when the boss ask what have you done ?, they run for patent applications for obvious ideas. But just because they spent money is no reason to award them the patents.

      It is like programmers : They are some who are e

  • Losing LAWYER pays (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WCMI92 ( 592436 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:43AM (#9039282) Homepage
    I think loser pays is a good idea, but some other things need to be added as well:

    1. An agency will be set up to oversee the state Bar... They will track how many frivilous suits a laywer is involved in and sanction attorneys who, say, take 5 of them to court that get tossed or they lose invoking loser pays. Sanctions should include suspensions and eventual disbarment.

    2. Loser pays should only be invoked under these circumstances:

    1. The loser reprsesents a corporation
    2. The loser has means (more than a $5 million net worth) in the case of it being an individual.

    Loser pays should be up to the judge, as a sanction against a party filing and PURSUING a frivilous claim, wasting the court's time.

    3. The losing lawyer should have to forefit all fees to the WINNING party if loser pays is invoked.

    4. A defendant should never be subject to loser pays, only the initiator.

    5. Contingency fees should be subject to a 75% tax.

    6. Judges should have greater lattitude in disposing of frivilous cases out of hand, INCLUDING forcing the plantiff to show sufficient evidence in initial discovery to show cause for there to be a valid claim for trial (think SCO here). This should be based on the theroy that if you DONT ALREADY HAVE EVIDENCE TO TRY SOMEONE, you don't belong in court!

    These proposals aren't perfect, but they'd help.

    • Re:Losing LAWYER pays (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )
      1. An agency will be set up to oversee the state Bar... They will track how many frivilous suits a laywer is involved in and sanction attorneys who, say, take 5 of them to court that get tossed or they lose invoking loser pays. Sanctions should include suspensions and eventual disbarment.

      The state bars already do this to a certain extent. And judges are given wide latitude to do whatever they want to lawyers who argue before them.

      3. The losing lawyer should have to forefit all fees to the WINNING part
    • Loser pays should only be invoked under these circumstances:
      1. The loser reprsesents a corporation
      2. The loser has means (more than a $5 million net worth) in the case of it being an individual.

      Why should people with net worth up to five million dollars get a free pass? A lot of frivolous lawsuits are launched by people of relatively modest means. The television commmercials for personal injury firms aren't targeting people with millions in net worth--they're targeting working stiffs: trying to lure

    • 2. Loser pays should only be invoked under these circumstances:

      1. The loser reprsesents a corporation

      It is possible to get reimbursed for your reasonable legal expenses in the event that you win the lawsuit. I don't know how typical this is, but it does happen.

      3. The losing lawyer should have to forefit all fees to the WINNING party if loser pays is invoked.

      Typically, the losing initiating lawyer simply doesn't make any money. That's what "contingency" means.

      4. A defendant should never be subject

  • Agreed that some patent reform is due (Score:5, Interesting)

    by werdna ( 39029 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @08:46AM (#9039310) Journal
    I agree that patent reform is due, at least in two areas evident in this example:
    1. attorney fees. There are insufficient disincentives to "roll the dice and sue anyway" in cases where noninfringement or invalidity are clear; the attorney fee awards in such cases are too rarely awarded; and

    2. invalidity standard. While the presumption of valiidty is very sound public policy in view of the elaborate examination process of the USPTO, the presumption relies upon the demonstrably false proposition that the PTO examined all relevant art. Clearly they do not. The presumption should be relaxed from "clear and convincing" to "preponderance of the evidencee" when a defendant raises "new" art creating a substantial new question of patentability (the standard for granting reexamination). A patentee in such a case has the choice of testing the validity of new art before the PTO on reexamination, where he may amend his claims to exclude the new art, or before a judge and jury, where he may not. It creates, I think, exactly the right incentives -- pay a reexam fee BEFORE bringing forcing some sucker defendant to defend the patent -- the risk of failure is to lose a patent you might not have to have lost.


      1. Accordingly, it is my view that prosecuting a case against art raising a substantial new question of patentability and losing, or in view of representations that the accused device is without a particular element (not merely a question of what the claim means, the meaning must be clear and the thing must not have it), and losing, should be sufficient grounds for an award of fees. Moreover, if art is asserted against a claim that raises a substantial new question of patentability, the art should be tested under a relaxed presumption of validity: the defendant still bears the burden to show invalidity, but only by a preponderance of the evidence.

        If we want to limit the scope of this, we could limit this analysis to process (method) and product-by-process claims, the type of claims most likely to be subject to undiscovered or hard-to-discover "surprise" art.

        The virtue of this approach is that a patentee's incentive to use the "stomp-for-nuisance-value" technique is significantly diminished. A defendant actually can harm the patentee to some extent for overreaching, while pretty much maintaining the plaintiff's proper edge in cases where the plaintiff is supposed to win.

  • How about this... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Phil John ( 576633 ) <philNO@SPAMwebstarsltd.com> on Monday May 03, 2004 @09:48AM (#9039734)

    ...hold the Federal Patent Office liable for any and all patents. If they grant it and it later turns out there was prior art the patent holder can sue them for their lawyers fees, patent filing fee and any other expenses incurred because of the office's incompetence.

    Maybe then we'd see an end to overly broad and obvious patents.

    In order to balance things out the patent office would be able to send a patent back much more easily if they felt it was either overly broad, obvious or was just written in such a confusing way that the overworked patent examiners cannot understand what all the little letters on the page mean.

    • There must be a basis why a patent is rejected. The examiner must have enough time to establish that basis. It's not as if examiners are afraid to reject claims. They do it all the time. But there has to be a supportable reason behind the rejection.

      Holding someone accountable without giving them the means to meet the standard is just foolhardy (*cough*No Child Left Behind*cough*).
  • Isn't funny that MSnbc would run a story about patent abuse.

  • The Patent Office Needs Culpability (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Xesdeeni ( 308293 ) on Monday May 03, 2004 @10:53AM (#9040351)
    When is some company that gets screwed by the incompetence of the Patent Office going to sue them for the damages they cause?

    Xesdeeni

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