Dean Kamen Awarded Patent For Robot Competition Rules 110
An anonymous reader writes "Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway and the founder of the FIRST Robotics Competition has been granted Patent 7,507,169, that describes one of the previous competitions. The main invention is a ranking system that ranks teams not only on their score, but their opponents' score, so teams are rewarded for helping their opponents score more. It is claimed that this ranking system promotes the made up phrases 'coopertition' and 'gracious professionalism.' It had three rejections, and even more appeals, before finally being accepted six years after the first application. While a majority of his 130 patents are for things related to his inventions, which are as diverse as medical equipment, unique uses for Stirling engines, and transportation, this one seems a little dubious. Dean opposes the Patent Reform Act of 2009, which would make it easier to overturn patents after they are granted."
Have a hammer... (Score:3, Funny)
If all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. Maybe Dean's been patenting too much stuff and needs a breather?
Re:Have a hammer... (Score:5, Funny)
Dear sir,
I am writing to you regarding a new matter that has been brought to my attention by my clients. In this particular matter our office represents Dean Kamen.
The use of the cliche "If all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail" in an electronic forum has been patented by our client in patent #8,219,493: "Use Of Hammer-Based Metaphors in Electronic Discussion". Your use of this phrase is in violation of United States patent law, and I request that you remove this content immediately.
I have a good faith belief, and in fact know for certain, that the posting of these works was not authorized by my clients, any agent of my clients, or the law.
Sincerely,
Herman J. Bloodsucker, Esq.
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Attorney at Law.
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Dear sir,
I am writing to you regarding a new matter that has been brought to my attention by my clients. In this particular matter our office represents Dean Kamen's evil twin brother.
The writing of cease and desist orders in an electronic form has been patented by our client in patent #9,219,493: "Use Of Cease And Desist Orders in Electronic Discussion". Your use of such a letter is in violation of United States patent law, and I request that you remove this content immediately.
I have a good faith belief,
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And somewhere an eager lawyer reads your comment and thinks: "Hmmm....!"
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I guess some positions would fail the test of obviousness... and I'd definitely would wanna be In the chair of the guy examining prior arts
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Dude thats gross, you want to sit on the lap of the guy who is watching videos of people having sex? I think I'll pass.
Re:Have a hammer... (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, a patent that no one on Slashdot would ever be sued for violating.
Patents on improving sex (Score:2, Troll)
imagine someone having a patent on sex
Sex has prior art: Adam + Eve = Cain. But various companies have patents on various devices and methods for improving sex, such as sildenafil citrate to increase blood flow to the penis, hypoallergenic synthetic condoms to block infectious agents, or intrauterine hormone capsules to prevent pregnancy.
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Don't talk about your mother like that. She'd be very upset if she found out you kids know.
He "opposes the patent reform act" (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the matter... he's afraid that after patenting too much obvious and frivolous stuff like robot competition rules, they'll start telling him... duhhhh, this is too obvious dude :) ?
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What's the matter... he's afraid that after patenting too much obvious and frivolous stuff like robot competition rules, they'll start telling him... duhhhh, this is too obvious dude :) ?
He's not afraid at all now that he's filed for a patent on the process of rejecting a patent. When it gets granted, you can be sure he won't license it to the USPO.
Re:He "opposes the patent reform act" (Score:4, Interesting)
Forget obviousness. Aren't patents supposed to have industrial application?
Huh? (Score:2)
Forget obviousness. Aren't patents supposed to have industrial application?
Since when? Patents are required to be useful, but that's it. Usefulness can extend to entertainment, or enhancing aesthetics, or anything else. Where did you get the idea that they had to have industrial application?
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That's the phrase used by the rest of the English-speaking world and the TRIPS agreement. In the words [209.85.229.132] of a USPTO patent attorney, "Industrial application is essentially the same as our utility standard set forth in 35 USC 101".
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That's the phrase used by the rest of the English-speaking world and the TRIPS agreement. In the words [209.85.229.132] of a USPTO patent attorney, "Industrial application is essentially the same as our utility standard set forth in 35 USC 101".
The utility standard in 35 USC 101 just means that it has to be useful for something... But, as I said, that can include use in entertainment. Simply put, the invention has to provide some benefit to the public [uspto.gov].
Dubious patent still. (Score:3, Interesting)
How would this compare or limit other sports like a team shooting match where individuals and teams have scores?
Then this patent mimics basic biology where individual and cooperative behavior is honored. Say a bacteria that reproduces wildly that's individual performance. Then that bacterial produces a toxin that helps other bacterial thrive by eliminating competition. That's team help.
I think the guy is just patent crazy and has a blank space on his honor wall.
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Not at all. The patent is extremely specific to a four+ robot competition.
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Thanks, sorry about the poor robots who will have to
spit out patent fees during the competition.
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Of course, that being said, this patent was focused towards competitive robotics, which is new enough that perfectly matching prior art is hard to find. However, it makes me wonder... Can I take an idea that is common knowledge and patent it in a new area? I can only see
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Not being a patent person, I suspect you bring up an excellent point. Is something ordinary in one circumstance (prior art too) patentable when its used in a new domain? I think not.
I think what we have here is a derivative patent. Here its derivative from a common domain.
Thanks, great thought!
Jim
Mod subject interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
"Dean opposes the Patent Reform Act of 2009, which would make it easier to overturn patents after they are granted" ... Just like the guy (Victor Hugo?) who brought to life copyright and its terms of death+ years, he was old and had a lot of writings and had 4 children ... lots to gain from copyright.
If Dean could patent his ego... (Score:5, Funny)
He'd be all set.
Sadly, neither irony nor sarcasm were used in the making of this post.
Re:If Dean could patent his ego... (Score:4, Funny)
Aye. When the Segway was debuted a few years back, all of the news stations (at least in the NYC area) were talking about the "transportation revolution". I was expecting flying cars or jetpacks, not something that looks like it was built by a Power Wheels engineer after an all-nighter.
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It only makes sense to spend the money on patenting something if there is a realistic possibility of other people infringing. When it comes to Dean's ego, I don't think anybody else is capable of infringing...
Wait, wait, wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
You cannot copyright a game, [copyright.gov] but you are allowed to patent the rules? For shame!
Re:Wait, wait, wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
You cannot copyright a game, [copyright.gov] but you are allowed to patent the rules?
Correct. If you want exclusive rights to functionality, a patent is the way to go. Nintendo has a U.S. patent on the rules of Dr. Mario and Tetris 2; Konami has one on Dance Dance Revolution. The Tetris Company has had trouble shutting down developers of Tetris clones such as Gnometris and LTris because Elorg never sought a patent on the game, only a copyright on the game program and those audiovisual elements not dictated by functionality [ivanhoffman.com].
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Dance Aerobics != prior art (Score:3, Informative)
Nintendo had the Power Pad [wikipedia.org] way before Dance Dance Revolution was even a twinkle in anybody's eye.
Konami engineers didn't invent the dance pad, but they did invent the use of "arrows", or marks that move in parallel tracks toward a receptor to direct the player to step on a corresponding sensor. Dance Aerobics (1987) didn't have arrows in the sense that DDR does.
Beatmania and Guitar Freaks (Score:2)
Isn't Guitar Hero & Rockband pretty much Dance Dance Revolution. But instead of a stomp pad you have instruments?
That means they're more like Konami's Beatmania, Guitar Freaks, and Drummania. Guitar Hero is licensed by Konami [gamasutra.com].
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You cannot copyright a game, [copyright.gov] but you are allowed to patent the rules? For shame!
You should probably read your link...
You cannot copyright an idea - you copyright an implementation. Patents are for ideas.
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No they aren't. They're for inventions.
freedom. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ideas should be free. The idea that one can own an idea is, I believe, an ill conceived principal.
Perhaps I should patent "patents".
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I've got a secret.
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Ideas should be free. The idea that one can own an idea is, I believe, an ill conceived principal.
An "ill conceived principal" that has existed for 2000 years and been codified in Western law for at least 500.
Perhaps your idealistic "ideas should be free" concept is the ill conceived one.
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The fact that an idea is old has no direct correlation on whether it is good or not.
Obligatory (Score:2)
[citation needed]
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[citation needed]
"encouragement was held out to all who should discover any new refinement in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent for the space of a year." - 500 BC.
Charles Anthon, A Classical Dictionary: Containing An Account Of The Principal Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors, And Intended To Elucidate All The Important Points Connected With The Geography, History, Biography, Mythology, And Fine Arts Of The Greeks And Romans Together With An Account Of Coins, Weights, And
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(emphasis mine).
Smart guys, those Greeks.
A patent for Robot Wars rules? (Score:1)
The famous Spaced clip [youtube.com]
We each get 100 points and you let me win by 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Alliances?
(I wish he'd licensed this to Dancing With The Stars!)
Bad Patent for a Bad Invention (Score:5, Interesting)
As a former FIRST competitor, I can say that the consensus of 99% of the students HATED the retarded attempts at enforcing sportsmanship by silly tricks like the winner gets the losers score x3 in qualifying points. Combined with a completely broken randomization system (they tried to maximize the time teams had to recuperate between rounds, but the result was same handful of teams were in the random "pool" to pull from every round.) ensured the top seeded teams for the playoffs was practically random. It also made for what in my opinion was the most humiliating thing, where the winning team would have their opponent soundly beat, and would stop scoring for themselves and start scoring for their opponents. Any scoring and ranking system that makes College Football look fair and accurate is so flawed it should probably be patented and buried deep just so no one else can copy it.
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It's interesting to see someone having the exact same memory. In my final year of High School, my FIRST team found itself on both sides of that humiliation. In different matches, we both had to score points for our opponents, and found our opponents scoring points for us.
As I see it, the most serious imbalance in FIRST are those of the sponsors. How can a public school team sponsored by local transport and engineering companies seriously compete against, say, a team sponsored by both Microsoft and D
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As a member of a FIRST team that barely scrapes by on funding and has one consistent professional engineer, and a few others that show up on occasion (+me, a college student), I don't agree with your conclusions. In our 3 years of existence the worst we have finished is reaching the semi-finals.
Also the current ranking algorithm uses the loser's score as a means of Strength of Schedule. It is a secondary ranking to points derived from WLT, 2 for a win, 1 for a tie, 0 for a loss. It is extremely difficult to
Condorcet (Score:3, Informative)
Also the current ranking algorithm uses the loser's score as a means of Strength of Schedule. It is a secondary ranking to points derived from WLT, 2 for a win, 1 for a tie, 0 for a loss. It is extremely difficult to find any other way to create a secondary ranking criteria because both your team members and opponents change throughout the competition.
There is one method of ranking similar to Condorcet method [wikipedia.org], where a result of X defeats Y is counted as a vote for X over Y. But Google appears to have the exclusive license on that [wikipedia.org].
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What irked me about the engineer mentors was when I would overhear them say "it's doing exactly what we designed it to do" and other bits like that. My team never finished very high, but we designed and built all of it by ourselves in our s
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Re:Bad Patent for a Bad Invention (Score:5, Interesting)
This seems to be an extension of the last 30 years of defective parenting techniques- specifically, everyone's a winner and no one loses.
The 'theory' have given us the latest, and most reviled, generation to enter the workplace: The 'millenials,' widely know for both a sense of entitlement and shirking individual responsibility for results.
Obviously it's not universal to everyone in that age group, but ask anyone who's been hiring for decades- all generations have their quirks. The latest are the worst.
Kamen's silly ideas in this area shows the limits of his otherwise able intellect.
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The latest are the worst.
The latest are always worst.
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The competition also isn't about the competition. It's about encouraging a bunch of students to get off their ass and go learn how to build a robot. The point isn't the competition, it's the learning.
You argume
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Ideally that's true, but in practice sponsoring companies with vast robotics experience will on average wipe the floor with everyone else.
That's not to say that FIRST is stupid. Students do learn something about robotics, but they'd learn a lot more with simpler tasks that don't require a large team to get anything done. Smaller tasks means smaller teams which means more individual contribution.
My experience with FIRST every year I was in high school went like this: A bunch of idiots from my school and a
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I think we all learned more from the mistakes we made then our successes anyways. There is value in failure too, as long as you recognize it. Some of the lessons I learned have served me well but are not taught in any book. For example, I learned the importance of humility to an engineer, when our sponsor's engineers overrule the objections of our machinist (who had over 50 years of experience in the field). It was a complete disaster, and when we reexamined the math we discovered the engineers had scre
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Get off my lawn!
That's just old codger talk. "Blah, the newest generation is the worst."
The 60's clearly produced the worst generation. They spread veneral disease like, well, a plague. They shirked more responsibility in Viet Nam than the millenials ever did. They decided that getting high was a good
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Isn't that the case for all values of latest as time goes on though? ;)
Imagine what the grandchildren of the millenials will be like!
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There was a lot of dissent about this year's rules, but to say that 99% of the participants have always hated the system is just asinine.
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I'm specifically speaking about the system from 6-7 years ago, when this patent was filed and hte system it describes. I was the student leader of our team and a driver at that time. Between the members of my team, the members of several teams we communicated with frequently throughout the build season (we shared designs for several basic components like motor mounts and drive trains etc. with other teams freely, and gave them advice on manufacturing them.) and all the other drivers and coaches I talked w
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but the result was same handful of teams were in the random "pool" to pull from every round
That's like me and jury duty EVERY YEAR. Wtf. Someone needs to look at the randomization code.
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Not new idea, see resistance points in rankings (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was programming reversi/othello programs ca. 1985-1989 I saw a phenomenon where in e.g. a field of 12 programs, and 6 games each program played, ranking by points was sometimes grossly unjust, so I decided to experiment with a matrix multiplication method where a matrix of results * vector of players strengths should give the player 's strength again and one could (hopefully) iteratively obtain the right values. This had the problem of some values converging to zero, but the idea was ok (strength from a certain iteration on gave the right intuitive results where players with higher scores could still be ranked lower because they mainly played lesser opponents. I never worked it out such that it always worked. The idea seemed (and still seems) right though.
Anyway, this sort of idea seems the same as Kamen's, namely that ones score gets higher the higher the opponents score. This is again obvious from thinking about a limited number of rounds, and thinking of resistance points, so I cannot understand why anyone should be able to patent this. It may not be obvious to a layman, but if you dive into ranking stuff, this idea is not an invention.
Then again, perhaps my idea in the 1980s was invention worthy
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Your method is really just a somewhat inefficient way of finding eigenvectors [wikipedia.org]. Eigenvectors make a lot of sense to use there, but you can be more efficient about the details of finding them. Looked at from that angle, it also becomes clear why your solution didn't always converge (and, in fact, why it *couldn't* always converge).
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Your method is really just a somewhat inefficient way of finding eigenvector
I knew about eigenvectors/values etc., what I'm describing is just one method of doing this, and I'm describing it in this way because it's probably the easiest way to convey the ideas behind it (which I think are trivial, but it's best to keep thing as simple as possible to describe it to people who may not have had this stuff in school or at university (in NL I already learnt this stuff in school). The real 'problem' was changing it (the idea/method) so it would always converge properly, which wouldn't be
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Sounds similar to a golf handicap [wikipedia.org]. That was invented (in a simpler form) in 1850.
That's PageRank (Score:3, Interesting)
I decided to experiment with a matrix multiplication method where a matrix of results * vector of players strengths should give the player 's strength again and one could (hopefully) iteratively obtain the right values.
Did you use or describe this method publicly prior to 1998? If so, what you did could help invalidate the PageRank patent [google.com].
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That's PageRank
Really? So I jest my idea might be worth a patent, and it was ;-)
I decided to experiment with a matrix multiplication method where a matrix of results * vector of players strengths should give the player 's strength again and one could (hopefully) iteratively obtain the right values.
Did you use or describe this method publicly prior to 1998? If so, what you did could help invalidate the PageRank patent [google.com].
Well, I did the following in 1988 (or perhaps early 1989): I went to visit someone I hadn't seen in a long time, and told him about some things that interested me such as programming Reversi/Othello. I took with me various docs including a page from HCC nieuwsbrief (dutch computer club magazine) about a tournament for Reversi programs (from 1987 IIRC, I still have the magazine so I can check and scan it so everyone can see why I thought normal
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Posting in possibly historic thread. :D
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He patented it in a very specific case. There were eight restrictions that all had to be met for his patent to be applicable. One was that it had to be a competition where 4+ robots were competing. Another was that it was that the teams were students.
In other words, the patent seems to be on "running the scoring system of FRIST" instead of "ranking based on opponents strength, as a principle."
Seems like a patent on math to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Systems like that (and proofs about them) are a corner of game theory. I guess since it lacks any proof of efficacy it's not valid math and is therefore patentable??
If so, that would mean that if someone mathematically proves (or disproves) that the system meets its goals, then it becomes a mathematical conjecture and therefore unpatentable!
I think I'm going to file a patent on game that achieves its goals if and only if P=NP.
Good But Hardly New (Score:5, Informative)
"It is claimed that this ranking system promotes the made up phrases 'coopertition' and 'gracious professionalism.'"
The ranking system is an excellent piece of game theory. In fact it's worth a Nobel prize. Specifically John Nash's. The system is based on the subset of the Nash Equilibrium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium [wikipedia.org] in which the players cooperate to maximize overall success. It was characterized in the 'nobody go for the blond' scene in "A Beautiful Mind". Despite suffering from schizophrenia, Nash managed to get across a novel concept that contradicted the basic tenets of economics without making up goofy names.
Re:Good But Hardly New (Score:5, Funny)
No, he just made up goofy people.
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That scene destoryed 1000 minds, precisly because that's not a Nash equilibrium. One should try to get the blonde, and the others should go for the brunettes.
Second, the ranking system is not an example of game theory. Game theory explains how to win inside the system; it doesn't define the system itself.
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The system is based on the subset of the Nash Equilibrium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium [wikipedia.org] in which the players cooperate to maximize overall success. It was characterized in the 'nobody go for the blond' scene in "A Beautiful Mind".
The movie was wrong. That is not a Nash Equilibrium. A Nash Equilibrium is where everyone knows everyone else's choices, and no one participant can improve his own result by changing his choice while the other participants do not change theirs. A strong equilibrium (versus a weak equilibrium) is where every participant will actually worsen his result if that participant changes his choice.
The movie was wrong because after everyone in the group has decided to go after a brunette, then any single partic
FIRST's G22 rule (Score:5, Informative)
As a student competitor in FIRST Robotics competition for the past three years, I have some experience with FIRST and its rules. What happened this year has made many question whether FIRST rewards winning or if it is just trying to design games where nobody's feelings get hurt.
This year's FRC game was called Lunacy. Two teams of three robots tried to score special balls in trailers pulled by opposing robots. Overall the game was well received in the FIRST community except for a certain rule. The rule in question stated that if one alliance doubled or tripled the opposing alliances score, they would lose a certain game piece (and therefore some ability to score) in their next match.
Some like that rule saying that it added strategy because blowing out the opponents would be counted productive. Also, those people said that the rule helped emphasize that running up the score is not in line with "Gracious Professionalism."
Most people, however, found "G22" to be quite stupid. The lack of reliable real-time scoring meant that the drivers and coaches would often not know what the score was, defeating any strategic depth it may have added. Furthermore, the concept that you can be punished for doing too well in competition was something many found ridiculous.
This whole incident has made me question whether FIRST Robotics can be considered a serious competitive game. Dean Kamen himself has urged competitors in FIRST to garner more media coverage for the competition. Until teams are no longer punished for doing too well, I don't think most media outlets or anyone else can take the competition too seriously.
MMORPG Prior Art (Score:1)
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Interesting (Score:2)
However, that scoring system seems really convoluted.
In France, there is a quite popular robotic competition, the French Cup of Robotics. In 1998 they extended it to become an European competition called Eurobot www.eurobot.org . Robots are smaller but autonomous.
This mean you have to get reliable sensors (beware of infrared sensors unde
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Of course, 20 seconds is never enough to actually do anything useful, so the only teams that bother with an auto mode are the teams that have experts in the area.
This guy just invented hot water (Score:2, Insightful)
Tie breaker using opponent score in tournament exists from a while.
SOS: Sum Of Opponents' Scores.
SODOS: Sum Of Defeated Opponents' Scores.
http://senseis.xmp.net/?TieBreaker [xmp.net]
So basically (Score:2)
he's patented how you make people help the competition? Seems like a pretty ironic patent.
Segue (Score:2)
The term "gracious professionalism" (Score:3, Insightful)
I've volunteered with FIRST every now and then when I'm able to.
The phrase "gracious professionalism" always struck me as both condescending to the contestants and unnecessary.
We have the perfectly good term "sportsmanship" which means pretty much the same thing. At various other robotics competitions (BattleBots, Robot Battles, etc.) nearly everyone I've met has been a good sport, and likeable too. Going on and on about "gracious professionalism" at the various official functions implies that the contestants are unable to figure it out on their own and thus need to have it drilled into their heads.
TMization: Patent to be applied for on mispellings (Score:1)
I want to patent the concept of mispelling and making up words. This patent will include both deliberate mispellings and makeups such as "coopertition" and confabulations which arise from the deep subconscious.
While some are aware of the term "Spoonerism", Spooner is long dead and not around to patent this. Since many of these are also associated with Trademarks, we could call it TMization.