FOSS Community Can Combat Bad Patents 58
An anonymous reader lets us know about a new initiative designed to help shield the open source software community from threats posed by patent trolls. The initiative, called Linux Defenders (the website is slated to go live tomorrow, Dec. 9), is sponsored by a consortium of technology companies including IBM. "The most novel feature of the new program... will be its call to independent open source software developers all over the world to start submitting their new software inventions to Linux Defenders... so that the group's attorneys and engineers can, for no charge, help shape, structure, and document the invention in the form of a 'defensive publication.' Linux Defenders will then also see to it that the publication, duly attributing authorship of the invention to the developer who submitted it, is filed on the IP.com Web site, a database used by the US Patent and Trademark Office and other patent examiners throughout the world when they are trying to determine whether a proposed patent is truly novel..."
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Hey, I patented posting anonymously. You owe me $500 in damages!
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I patentey owing! You owe me $500 for every dollar you owe anyone!
Including me!
MUHAHAHAHAHAAA *slashes AC with tentacles*
Does this count as prior art? (Score:5, Interesting)
When a patent is under examination, others can submit examples of prior art. However, if they do and the patent is subsequently granted, the patent cannot be challenged in court on the basis of that prior art. That's why nobody does it -- they assume the examiners are idiots and prefer to take their shot in court instead. So - does this website count the same way? If so, it might not be such a great idea...
Re:Does this count as prior art? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of this initiative is to get information about innovations that exist in the wild and document it ("publish" it for statutory purposes) -- and make it easy for examiners to locate it if they want to.
This is about creating prior art that will serve as a bar under 35 USC 102(a). Examiners may find it, or they may not, but if nothing else, the publication will be sitting there for someone to assert in litigation / reexamination -- and quite possibly able to invalidate a bad patent.
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There is only one efficient initiative and it is legislative reforms.
I would recommend to donate to the FFII [ffii.org].
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I don't know about that.
How "efficient" has legislative reform been so far? How close are we to invalidating business method patents, or software algo patents?
Efficiency means that in the real world something gets done with the near minimal energy required to produce some desired output range. Since patent laws have not been reformed, despite the tremendous energy that has been put forth already to do so, I question the efficiency of the approach.
I do not question that it is a "better" method than nibblin
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Efficiency means that you invest and have real impact and direct your investments to the archilles heel.
"Since patent laws have not been reformed, despite the tremendous energy that has been put forth already to do so, I question the efficiency of the approach."
This is true for the US, basically because the analysis of the patent critics is premature. The patent system is technocratic and shielded against intervention. If you get your community trapped in the most trivial defense nets, no progress can be ac
Re:Does this count as prior art? (Score:5, Informative)
Where are you getting these restrictions on prior art from?
There may be a rebuttable presumption of validity if you want to apply the same piece of prior art in the same way as it was used earlier on in the prosecution history, but there is nothing preventing you from using it court. Think about it: it would be fundamentally unfair to not allow someone to use something as evidence in court simply because it was brought up in an earlier ex parte proceeding.
As for the "nobody does it"--do you know the different in cost difference between a third party submission versus an infringement suit in court? We are talking thousands versus millions of dollars here.
There are certainly plenty of reasons why someone would prefer to take an issue to the courts, but sitting on a clear, obvious piece of prior art is not one of them. Of course, patent trolls are the exception to this rule.
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No, in litigation, the court is supposed to review all relevant prior art, including that which the Examiner already reviewed. The court will learn why the examiner thought the reference didn't make the invention unpatentable, but have you ever read something written by a patent examiner? Maybe it's just my field of electronics, but if their argument is anything more than incomprehensible gibberish, it's almost always a ridiculously stupid and irrelevant argument. The court certainly has the power to rul
Why does it have be just Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
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The same reason a single hospital cannot cure everyone, limited resources.
IBM: the Linux Knight (Score:5, Informative)
So, Linux deserves most of the resources for defending against patent trolls.
Here, again, we see the steady hand of IBM. It has been the central company in bringing Linux into the mainstream.
Before IBM announced its decision to deploy Linux on IBM servers, Linux was just a niche application used by brilliant scientists and engineers. In 2000, IBM changed the computing landscape by officially supporting Linux and deploying it across its entire range of servers [linuxplanet.com]. If IBM backed Linux, then the business community would try it. IBM was willing to sign contracts guaranteeing the reliability of Linux.
Linux is now the only Unix-ish operating system in many financial and engineering firms.
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Linux is now the only Unix-ish operating system in many financial and engineering firms.
I don't think "many" is a word for the financial and engineering firms.
I work for a large Avionics company that employs over 20,000 people. Currently Linux is used for some engineering desktops and some compute farm clusters. Alot of development relies on Solaris of all different versions. Most of the servers are either Solaris or HP-UX. All of the financial stuff, the most critical, is run on AIX.
Large corporations and firms rely on pay for support from vendors for their hardware and operating systems. Red
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Linux is not an operating system.
GNU is an operating system, and Linux is its most used kernel.
Most development targets GNU, specifically glibc and stuff.
Without Linux, we would have other kernels, and porting would not even be necessary in some cases.
Without GNU, everything would have to be rewritten, at least, for BSD.
Sounds Doubtful (Score:2)
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I agree. I like the idea, but this sounds dangerous, and this is NOT because I see nothing related to FSF or other already existing groups. Why should anyone just trust these people?
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So you have no problem releasing your software to the whole world, but this group is not allowed to see the idea you manifested in the code?
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Its the help shape part that is concerning. Free software must be just that, it can not be shaped by anything but the community.
I could be mistaken here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I could be mistaken here (Score:5, Insightful)
Because this isn't intended to fight that form of patent trolling. This is intended to combat the type of patent trolling where large established companies file frivolous patent infringement lawsuits against small rivals in order to stifle competition and ensure profitability.
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So I guess it's a way of saying that you're not confident you could pay to win a legal battle against a large established company who goes patent trolling?
Nice. Now being inventive is effectively taxed by the presence of bigger fish. Way to go, patent law.
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Um, welcome to decades ago? This shit isn't exactly new.
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Microsoft is behind this one. Yup. They think they can act. // End sarcasm
However, I will not allow that idea to escape me.
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Linux kernel violates 235 of Micro$oft patents. It's a fact.
http://www.google.com/search?q=linux+violates+patents [google.com]
Yeah but (Score:1, Offtopic)
can the FOSS Community Combat Bad Parents?
FOSS Community Can Combat Bad Patents?
What is a Bad Patent anyway? Slip the clerk a $100 bill to change the date stamp to the 1980's and claim everyone else stole from your patent?
I would rather think it would be something like trying to patent a FOSS name like "Linux" as a "trademark" and not a patent.
The cost of filing a patent is expensive, so when a FOSS invents something, someone else patents their work as their own, now that would be a bad patent. Can some FOS
Re:Yeah but (Score:5, Informative)
What is a Bad Patent anyway?
A patent that should not have been issued in the first place.
For example, patents are supposed to be for unique ideas. Prior art (someone else built something similar first) proves that the idea isn't so unique. But the patent might be granted anyways, for some reason.
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> I would rather think it would be something like trying to patent a FOSS name like "Linux" as a "trademark" and not a patent.
Errrr ... the name "Linux" is a trademark. The trademark belongs to an individual called Linux Torvalds.
http://www.linuxmark.org/ [linuxmark.org]
If you were to fork the codebase, change it without going through kernel.org , and you then decided to distribute it, then according to copyright law you can only do so with permissions given to you by the copyright holders.
The copyright holders have set
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A bad software patent is a patent on software.
The way to solve the problem is reform of substantive patent law. In other words, donate to the FFII [ffii.org]
Trademarks are different from patents.
Something similar (Score:2)
How is this different from the USPTO Peer-to-Patent [peertopatent.org] initiative?
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The peer2patent initiative is run by the USPTO and sponsored by IBM.
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Peer-to-peer is reactive - you help fight one specific patent under review. This new initiative is PROACTIVE - you help provide info that could keep many patents from being issued in the first place.
Permalink (Score:5, Informative)
open patents solutions. (Score:2)
This is funny, only a few days ago I was talking about with some friends about the patent problem.
We got the idea that the solution was to make
public patents license which does for patent-rights as the gpl does for copyrights.
We made a facebook group to devlop our idea
you may join it if you like.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=39345211199 [facebook.com]
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It's really funny you should say that and not recognize what the GPLv3 does in this area. It still hinges on a company actually distributing GPLv3 code, after which they cannot assert patent claims against the users they just gave the code.
It also helps null the Novell-Microsoft deal by making any GPLv3 software Novell or Microsoft distribute perfectly free to use by any other distribution as well. The partnership can't use the work of FOSS developers against them any more.
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No, the PPL is for every type of patentable technology not only software.
It will be designed to do the same for inventions as the GPL did for software.
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Very well, since you clearly have legal expertise I won't dismiss your ideas, but take care not to confuse patent law with copyright law. Perhaps there's a good reason there's no such general patent license.
Re:open patents solutions. (Score:5, Informative)
In the United States, you are not required to register with the Copyright office to secure the rights to your work, although it can help. You hold the rights upon completing the work. You can distribute work to which you own copyright while attaching conditions to its reproduction. The theory behind many open source licenses is that if a company decides to use software distributed under such a license, it can be required to stop.
To assert patent rights in the United States, you must have a patent issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The ONLY legal mechanism to prevent private parties with whom you have no other contractual obligation from making, using, and selling your invention without your authorization is to obtain patent from the USPTO.
The best you can do in the public domain is disseminate defensive publications; that is, you can provide prior art so that companies cannot patent your invention. But if you do not also get a patent on the invention, those same companies are still free to use your invention without attribution.
Corporations can have binding contracts with one another that allow them to cross-license patents. Unless someone in the "open patents solution" is willing to foot the bill to file for and prosecute patents, and then provide a limited license under which they may be made, used, and sold, this idea cannot get traction.
Bad start (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe that wasn't the best place for open discussion on a topic designed to fight proprietary strangeholds.
BountyQuest Redux? (Score:5, Informative)
Apart from paying less to hunters and charging less to clients, how is IBM addressing these problems?
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The problem with all these services and all discussions about patents on slashdot is that finding prior art is not as easy as it looks. Amongst other things it has to be published, it has to be published at the right time and here is the bit where most prior art falls down it has to be enabling.
To be enabling, the prior art has to teach the same feature/ method/ process/ or whatever as stated in the claims and in light of the description. It is no good looking at the title and making assumptions about how t
Bad parents? (Score:5, Funny)
Rule #1 : vendors lending legal support (Score:4, Funny)
What now? Let me tell you what now. IBM will call a coupla hard, case-hittin' lawyers, who'll go to work on the trolls here with a combination of prior art and counter suits.
IP.com ? (Score:4, Funny)
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IBM? (Score:1, Funny)
Getting IBM to help you defend your patent is like getting a wolf help you defend your chickens....
It's a trap! (Score:1, Redundant)
Patent Reform?
I find it more likely they're going to exam your work, patent it, then sue you for infringment.
The irony of IBM being involved. (Score:3, Funny)
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it rather ironic that IBM, holder of the how-to-split-your-dinner-bill patent, is co-sponsoring a project to protect us from bad patents?
Hey Pot, the Kettle called while you were out. He left a message mumbling something about WTF...
Wrong solution (Score:2)
Well intentioned, but this solution is fundamentally wrong.
The only thing that can really fix the problem is a modification to legislation surrounding patents, as well as clearer guidelines to patent examiners and stronger/any penalties for trolls. The above proposed puts the onus on OSS to file tonnes of stuff that should be considered obvious, simply to avoid predatory patent lawyers. In other words, innovation is still hampered.