HP Patents 'Reminder Messages' (eff.org) 68
Daniel Nazer reports via the Electronic Frontier Foundation: On July 25, 2017, the Patent Office issued a patent to HP on reminder messages. Someone needs to remind the Patent Office to look at the real world before issuing patents. United States Patent No. 9,715,680 (the '680 patent) is titled "Reminder messages." While the patent application does suggest some minor tweaks to standard automated reminders, none of these supposed additions deserve patent protection. Although this claim uses some obscure language (like "non-transitory computer-readable storage medium" and "article data"), it describes a quite mundane process. The "article data" is simply additional information associated with an event. For example, "buy a cake" might be included with a birthday reminder. The patent also requires that this extra information be input via a "scanning operation" (e.g. scanning a QR code). The '680 patent comes from an application filed in July 2012. It is supposed to represent a non-obvious advance on technology that existed before that date. Of course, reminder messages were standard many years before the application was filed. And just a few minutes of research reveals that QR codes were already used to encode information for reminder messages. The Patent Office reviewed HP's application for years without ever considering any real-world products. Indeed, the examiner considered only patents and patent applications.
Re: No more software patents (Score:1)
Thank god we avoided this cesspool in the EU a decade ago.
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> Thank god we avoided this cesspool in the EU a decade ago.
Sorry, no.
This is regularly circumvented by your usual legal shell game. Programs "as such" are not patentable, while "CIIs" (aka "Computer-Implemented Inventions") are. Straight from the horse's mouth [epo.org]:
" Patents for computer-implemented inventions: how does society benefit?
Patents as an incentive for innovation
As technology advances and matures, computer-implemented inventions are used increasingly in all fields of technology. In many cases the
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"If you put several man-years into developing an algorithm, then it should be patentable"
You could merely be slow & lazy. No patent for you.
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Patents are there to discourage trade secrets. Features of your public product cannot be a trade secret by definition.
It all went to hell when design patents were thought up. Prior to that, patents were only on manufacturing techniques.
could this be a "First to File" snafu? (Score:3)
I was afraid of this kind of nonsense when the America Invents Act switched the US from "First to Invent" to "First to File" on March 16, 2013.
I guess if no one filed for a patent, *some* USPTO officers are interpreting applications preemptively as "the First to File". I'm hoping it's just a snafu, perhaps caused by the application bridging the transition between FtI to FtF.
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But you can't grant patents on tech that has been in public use for more than a year. And since MS Outlook has had this feature for decades, it's like patenting prior art. Might as well patent the wheel.
What I don't like (or don't understand) is why claims list non-novel stuff:
I just want claims to contain new ideas and innovations, not obvious
No. (Score:2)
I was afraid of this kind of nonsense when the America Invents Act switched the US from "First to Invent" to "First to File" on March 16, 2013.
I guess if no one filed for a patent, *some* USPTO officers are interpreting applications preemptively as "the First to File". I'm hoping it's just a snafu, perhaps caused by the application bridging the transition between FtI to FtF.
No, first-to-file has nothing whatsoever to do with that, nor are Examiners "interpreting applications preemptively as the 'first to file'. First to file does away with a practice called an interference, where two inventors separately file applications on the same exact invention, and there's a mini-trial held to determine which one really invented it first. Even slight differences in the invention, and there's no interference proceeding: as a result, they typically only occur when two inventors work togeth
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You're absolutely correct in that the First to File of the AIA has nothing to do with the types of publications that are available as prior art. (I speak as an attorney who spends all day, every day looking at patents). And you're right that interferences were expensive and time consuming. But the AIA has an even more important effect of preventing what is known as "swearing behind" prior art.
To "swear behind" a prior art reference means that the patentee submits a declaration that he or she in fact "con
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Please don't mistake Uncle Sam for US citizenry; you insult most people living in the US should you do this. US corporations have no shames and will push all edges until their hands (but preferably wallets) are slapped.
While the EU attempts to reign in corporate misbehavior, it also fails miserably.
And no, I didn't say I was anti-capitalist, only that corporations are charged to have no morals, and no conscience, only shareholder return. The corporate shield permits them to live not unlike warriors in the 1
Re:First to file (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, but USPTO switched over from first-to-invent to first-to-file, so now prior art is completely moot and anything, no matter how obvious, can be patented.
Well then, file a patent on filing patents then sue the patent office into oblivion.
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Sorry, but the govt long ago granted themselves immunity from patents.
Did they file a patent on it? File one for being immune to patents and fucking have them.
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>Ah, but USPTO switched over from first-to-invent to first-to-file, so now prior art is completely moot and anything, no matter how obvious, can be patented.
I see this repeated a lot on /., but I don't understand what they mean. Prior art still matters (assuming the patent office is being run competently, which is a separate matter). There's nothing in first-to-file that inherently invalidates prior art. Where are people getting this?
They're pulling this little pearl of wisdom from the same place as most other Internet "facts" -- out of their ass.
Re: First to file (Score:2, Informative)
That is 100% false. The law changing the system was the America Invents Act. The Wikipedia page on this says:
The law also expanded the definition of prior art used in determining patentability. Actions and prior art that bar patentability under the Act include public use, sales, publications, and other disclosures available to the public anywhere in the world as of the filing date, other than publications by the inventor within one year of filing (inventor's "publication-conditioned grace period"), whether or not a third party also files a patent application.
Prior art has NOT been eliminated.
Irresponsibility of the patent offices (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the problems in this story is that the patent offices are not responsible for the patents. If they grant a patent, they cash a yearly fee. If a patent is overthrown in justice, they keep the fees. They have no incentive to screen the applications properly.
One of the first measures to fix the issues would be to make them responsible: if a parent they granted gets overthrown in justice, they should refund all the fees, plus the cost of the prior art research that was obviously botched. That would give them the incentive to do their work.
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That's not a bad idea at all. However, the fees should not go to the applicant in order not to give them an incentive just to file bogus patents: They would not have much to lose should their patent be invalidated, but lots to gain. The fees might go to the successful challenger of the patent instead.
Yet, most of this is nothing more than a wet dream of justice. It's not as if patent reform anywhere in the world is probable.
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How do you find such people? And how do you keep them neutral and unbiased, given that you've created their own little fiefdom and almost certainly have conflicts of interest?
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Bull. Change what considerations an examiner should include when doing a search, change how much time they should spend on the search and pay them accordingly. Change what should be considered patentable. Those things could make a difference unlike your idea of economical revenge.
The patent system is fucked up, very few examiners fuck up though, it is a systematic problem rather than an individual one. Your proposal misses the distinction that courts and others can make different . But is the court more com
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Why would they care? The bureaucrats who make bad decisions are never going to pay for the cost of their bad decisions. If you impose fines on government departments, it's the tax payer that's going to pay for it in the end.
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Hit the patent issuers benefits somehow, bonuses are probably best. Have a 10 and 20 year bonus payout. You're expected to do 'n' patents a year, all patents you review go into the bonus pool. All patents you reject that are later granted and upheld remove double their count. All patents you grant that are held invalid remove 5 times their count. (Numbers adjustable, obviously) It also solves the issue of keeping patent folks on the job, something that's apparently a problem. You'd have to stay in the job 2
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One of the first measures to fix the issues would be to make them responsible: if a parent they granted gets overthrown in justice, they should refund all the fees, plus the cost of the prior art research that was obviously botched. That would give them the incentive to do their work.
There just aren't enough dollars at issue to incentivize that kind of change. A tiny fraction of issued patents are ever litigated in their lifetime, and very few of those litigated are held invalid. Even refunding fees for all challenged patents, regardless of outcome, would still be pocket change to the Patent Office.
Sets reminder to self: (Score:5, Interesting)
Avoid HP products.
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That's gonna cost you!
stop the presses! (Score:1)
Whoopee-doo (Score:5, Informative)
Responding to the Slashdot summary:
"non-transitory computer-readable storage medium" is a standard phrase used in patents to avoid a sec. 101 rejection on the basis that a software invention is transitory (thank you very much, Supreme Court".) It's used a lot.
This is more than a reminder message system. It's a system that associates that "article" with a message and delivers it at the same time. It doesn't strike me as much of an improvement over the prior art, but we are talking about something with a priority date of five years ago.
"And just a few minutes of research reveals that QR codes were already used to encode information for reminder messages." Do share with us that research, and perhaps we can agree...
"The Patent Office reviewed HP's application for years without ever considering any real-world products. Indeed, the examiner considered only patents and patent applications." Again, that's standard. They don't have a pile of application software they can run through to identify prior art. They do a search in documentation in databases convenient to the examiner.
If HP ever tries to enforce this thing, the respondent will no doubt find invalidating prior art. HP will probably choose not to enforce it, and merely use it to inflate their reports to stock holders.
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If HP ever tries to enforce this thing, the respondent will no doubt find invalidating prior art.
And will then also need to find a pile of cash to present that prior art in court.
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... and merely use it to inflate their reports to stock holders.
In other words to scam people. Thanks American Patent Guy!
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The summary is further wrong in that the "article" they are associating with the message specifically is referring to a physical article (e.g., a sweater). When you read the decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that essentially allowed this patent, it is clear that the "article" is "descriptive of an article to be procured, and [that] the article is associated with an event."
Yep, and yet the EFF's article states "The “article data” is simply additional information associated with an event." It sounds like they made the same mistake the Examiner did, and ignored the specification.
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"The Patent Office reviewed HP's application for years without ever considering any real-world products. Indeed, the examiner considered only patents and patent applications." Again, that's standard. They don't have a pile of application software they can run through to identify prior art. They do a search in documentation in databases convenient to the examiner.
So they routinely ignore their duty under the law and just do whatever isn't too much trouble for them?
If HP ever tries to enforce this thing, the respondent will no doubt find invalidating prior art.
It'll cost over a million dollars to get the patent invalidated. HP will sit on it until someone threatens their revenue by competing too effectively or they find themselves hard up for cash. Then they'll make sure to demand just a bit less than the cost to overturn the patent.
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Sorry, can't afford to follow the law isn't going to cut it. It doesn't for anyone else. If the fees won't cover actually checking for novelty and non-obviousness then they don't issue the patent.
20K will not be enough to make the troll go home. Possibly 20K each if there are many thousands of marks to hit up. All the 20K will get you is a comment that you can either give up now or get ready to spend a whole lot more. Or you could settle for 90% of a whole lot...
Don't believe it? Look how much the rounded c
Failure of the Patent System (Score:2)
Years? (Score:1)
The Patent Office reviewed HP's application for years...
No that didn't happen at all. They spent less than 24 hours total reviewing that patent application. They just didn't get to it for years.
The summary is clueless (Score:2)
"Non-transitory computer readable medium" means its a software claim. Since software is not a statutory class of invention, you pretend that they are patenting a storage medium, which just happens to carry out instructions to perform XYZ.
this is news? (Score:2)
"Indeed, the examiner considered only patents and patent applications."
This article could have been written 15 to 20 years ago, word for word except the details of the patent itself. The PTO ONLY looks at their own database. The basic requirements of checking for preexisting art, obviousness, etc, just beyond them. That's not their job. 1) they're not paid enough, 2) the PTO is "in the business of selling patents", according to a former head.
Look at it this way: if you pass a patent, you're done. You don
One of these days I'm patenting taking a shit. (Score:2)
Then all of you will owe me big time!
More seriously, I'm wondering if you could get the patent office to approve such a patent with the explicit goal of embarrassing the office and hopefully getting some of its grant happy officers fired.
"Common sense" (Score:3)
In addition to failing to consider real products, the Patent Office gives little weight to common sense and takes an extremely rigid approach to evaluating whether or not a patent application is obvious.
Yes, because of the constitutional requirement of due process: the Patent Office can't simply use gut feelings and hindsight, but have to support their conclusion that an invention is not new or is obvious with evidence in the form of prior art. You could just as validly complain that courts give little weight to common sense when judging someone to be guilty or not guilty, instead taking an extremely rigid approach that requires consideration of evidence, rather than whether the defendant "looks bad".
It's very easy to say, after the fact, that something is obvious. Most engineering students could diagram a simple internal combustion engine on a napkin. The question for the patent office is whether they can prove something to be obvious without relying on gut feelings and hindsight using information only found in the patent application. Sure, the "common sense" approach would be a lot faster, but so would finding defendants guilty because they aren't the "right" color.