Slashdot Mirror

Bzzzt! Not true
http://www.bpmlegal.com/patqa.html#1

It's just that it kind of goes against the grain of the industry right now, parts people sort of don't like him as I'm sure you can understand

I understand the horse wagon industry didn't like the people who started manufacturing automobiles at the end of the 19th century.

the protections or legal climate or something just isn't there

Yes, they tried this against automobiles.

Every time an inventor complains that the existing industry is holding him back it means his invention isn't really that good.

Making for personal use and research is protected.

I don't believe it is

Brown & Michaels Frequently Asked Questions on PATENTS says: "It [A patent] is a right to stop others from making, using or selling - any one of these. Thus, even if an infringer were to make the invention in a foreign country, he could not sell it in the USA. Similarly, it is still an infringement if the invention is made in this country but exported immediately, or if a person buys the invention overseas and uses it in the USA for their own use - there is no "personal use" exception for patent infringement.

ehow.com says: "Fair Use with Patent Law
There is no equivalent law for patents to the U.S. fair use clause which applies to copyright. Other countries have a patent law with similar applications, but there is no provision that allows a general exemption from liability when using a patent without obtaining a license from the patent holder.

It is a right to stop others from making, using or selling - any one of these. Thus, even if an infringer were to make the invention in a foreign country, he could not sell it in the USA. Similarly, it is still an infringement if the invention is made in this country but exported immediately, or if a person buys the invention overseas and uses it in the USA for their own use - there is no "personal use" exception for patent infringement.

And see here:

There is no equivalent law for patents to the U.S. fair use clause which applies to copyright. Other countries have a patent law with similar applications, but there is no provision that allows a general exemption from liability when using a patent without obtaining a license from the patent holder.

from a speech which he gave before Congress:

http://www.bpmlegal.com/cotwain.html

William

George Selden did.

http://www.bpmlegal.com/wpogo.html Gas powered pogo, I'm sure that sounded like a good idea at the time, I mean what could possibly go wrong?

The few times a US patent interested me enough to try to read it I found I could read the claims and still not figure out what they were claiming.
This page explains how claims are structured. The complete explanation on reading patents starts here.

Yes, it has been pointed out often enough that the claims matter. But if people need explaining THAT they have to read the claims then it stands to reason that they need an explanation on HOW to read the claims as well.

One of the things that I didn't understand automagically the first time I read a patent was that the function of the mix of broader and narrower claims is. What is it exactly that they're claiming? The idea is that broader claims yield a bigger base for calculating royalties but have a smaller chance of being awarded by a court. If you don't know that then patents can be pretty confusing.

So if you feel the need to give people a clue about reading patents you'd be much more effective if you pointed to a resource like the one I linked to above.

The few times a US patent interested me enough to try to read it I found I could read the claims and still not figure out what they were claiming.
This page explains how claims are structured. The complete explanation on reading patents starts here.

Yes, it has been pointed out often enough that the claims matter. But if people need explaining THAT they have to read the claims then it stands to reason that they need an explanation on HOW to read the claims as well.

One of the things that I didn't understand automagically the first time I read a patent was that the function of the mix of broader and narrower claims is. What is it exactly that they're claiming? The idea is that broader claims yield a bigger base for calculating royalties but have a smaller chance of being awarded by a court. If you don't know that then patents can be pretty confusing.

So if you feel the need to give people a clue about reading patents you'd be much more effective if you pointed to a resource like the one I linked to above.

Okay, here's what happens (generally speaking):

1. You file your application. You have to pay a filing fee, an examination fee, and a search fee. If you file more than 3 independent and/or 20 total claims, you pay an additional fee.
2. At 18 months after filing, the application is published in accordance with our international treaty obligations (unless you request that it not be published and you file a statement indicating that you won't file the same application overseas). At this point, you have to pay a publication fee.
3. The PTO eventually examines the application and sends you an Office action. Usually, this will be a rejection, and the first rejection is always non-final.
4. You respond to the Office action, either presenting arguments as to why the examiner is wrong, or amending the claims. You have a three-month time limit to file a response, but you can buy up to three more months if you need to.
5. The PTO considers your response and examines any amended claims. If the examiner maintains the original rejections, or if all new rejections were necessitated by the amendment to the claims, then the next Office action is final. If the examiner went too far with the rejection or if the amended claims are allowable, the next action will probably either be another non-final rejection (go back to step 4 at that point) or a notice of allowance.
6. You can file another response after a final action, but unless your response places the application in condition for allowance, you will receive an advisory action indicating that the clock is still ticking for you. Alternatively, you can file a notice of appeal (with a fee), followed by an appeal brief (with a fee), and have your appeal heard by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (an internal group at the USPTO which handles the first level of appeals of examiner decisions).
7. If you choose not to appeal, and you want to keep your application in the running, you would then need to file a Request for Continued Examination (with a fee). An RCE is generally filed with amended claims (and at this point, you would go back to step 3 to have the amended claims examined).

At some point, either you abandon your application, usually by not responding within the time limit, or you get a Notice of Allowance. Upon allowance, you must pay an issue fee in order to actually get a patent.

There are very few cases where any fees are refundable. Certainly, the filing fee is nonrefundable, and the search fee is nonrefundable once an examiner has conducted a search. There are a few cases where a fee that was paid improperly can be applied to future expenses in the same application.

This page lists various fees involved in patent prosecution at the USPTO.

It doesn't matter whether or not authors think copyright law is fair. Mark Twain thought anything short of infinite copyright was immoral. But it's not up to the authors to decide that; they can hate the length of copyright as much as car manufacturers hate mileage standards, and it shouldn't have any bearing on how the question is decided.

Henry Ford spent a not inconsiderable sum invalidating the patents of one George B. Selden, whom many auto manufacturers simply paid off just to be rid of him. Ford correctly foresaw the legal and financial troubles that would pursue him were he to simply pay off Selden, and beat him even though it meant spending a sizeable amount of money and despite the fact that there was only a year left on the patent at the time Ford finally won in appeals court.

I wonder what else Xandros has sold out! I thought they had a good distribution. Thanks, but no thanks. I will stick with people who have integrity and honesty - Fedora and RHEL.

See also: http://www.bpmlegal.com/wselden.html.

His argument is basically a rehash of Mark Twain's http://www.bpmlegal.com/twain.html. It's ideas are nearly as antiquated. It's insistence that the removal of copyright only benefits the publishers, and Booksamillions of the world belays a fundamental misunderstanding of the ease in which Intellectual property can be reproduced in the digital age. If I want to read a book in the public domain, I don't buy it marked up from some corporation. I download it legally for free. If the book industry ever figured out digital distribution the value of public domain works would fall completely for the public and would not benefit publishers. Which is one of the many reasons digital book distribution is rare and underdeveloped.

Ford doesn't sue the soccer mom that drives a Chevy Suburban if the Suburban violates patents Ford owns - Ford sues Chevy.

Funny you should bring that up. You should take a look at this page, in particular, to the broadside that's reproduced about 1/3rd of the way down the page. The "Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers" (holders of the infamous Selden Patent) frequently threatened to sue not only the manufacturers of unlicensed autos, but also their owners, since "use" of (not just manufacturing) an infringing device constitutes patent infringement by law. I don't know whether they ever actually bothered to do it though, because like Microsoft, their aim was to funnel business into the coffers of their financiers.

So anyway, the reason Ford might sue Chevy for patent infringement, rather than going directly after Chevy drivers, is mostly because Chevy is a much bigger (and deeper-pocketed) target.

Actually, Ford had a major fight with an early (and successful) patent troll.

http://www.bpmlegal.com/wselden.html

The shoes sound like a shoe version of this US gas powered pogo stick that actually made it to the market.

http://www.bpmlegal.com/wpogo.html

We had that beat in 1960:

http://www.bpmlegal.com/wpogo.html

rj

These seem to be a variation on the gas powered pogo stick. Like this; http://www.bpmlegal.com/wpogo.html They were a commerical product. They were also pretty dangerous. They appear on ebay on occasion.

Patents used to be valid for 20 years from date of filing, now a company can sit on it, tweek it, and get 17 years from date of issue (AFIK).

It's the other way round: Patents used to be valid for 17 years from date of issue (allowing 'submarine' patents). Since 1995, they are valid for 20 years from date of filing.

That's a broad summary of the situation; for the details see a law site, e.g. here.

1. US Patent Application 20050244804

2. USPTO explanation of provisional patents

3. FAQ about provisional patents

4. This is also being covered at Peter Zura's Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog (Peter Zura "is a registered patent attorney practicing in the Chicago area. He is a former patent examiner and has considerable experience in patent litigation and patent portfolio development and management.")

In short, the provisional patent application becomes enforceable as of the publication date, if the patent is eventually awarded. This is why "According to the official Patent Office website, provisional rights 'provide a patentee with the opportunity to obtain a reasonable royalty from a third party that infringes a published application claim provided actual notice is given to the third party by [the] applicant, and a patent issues from the application with a substantially identical claim.'"

In other words, you could infringe this provisional patent if you wanted, even after being notified by Mr. Knight, but if he is successful, you will owe him royalties.

I hope this doesn't make sense to you -- because it doesn't. We are laboring under an extremely broken system which, rather than rewarding innovation, rewards monopoly stagnation and locking up ideas from the public.

You really should get involved in the fight against this nonsense. Right to Create and freeculture are good places to start.

It doesn't appear that Taiwan honors foreign patents via treaty: http://www.bpmlegal.com/pctco.html http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/plt/ , but I may be wrong.

Taiwan would probably happily sign up on the treaty if only the united states would pull its head out of China's ass and recognize it as a soverign state for real.

It doesn't appear that Taiwan honors foreign patents via treaty: http://www.bpmlegal.com/pctco.html http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/plt/ , but I may be wrong.

The US has done basically the same thing with US patents which have "national security" implications. In the US, the Constitutional authority for patents lies in Congress, so Congress is perfectly free to decide whether patent protection should/is offered for such things. I don't profess to know such specifics about Taiwan.

Oh, so you're against patents in every industry. Where I look at automobiles

The early automobile industry spent many years in litigation because of the Selden patent, a patent made by a patent attorney with no desire to actually make automobiles, nor much of a claim to having invented one. Read and be enlightened.

In the end, Selden's patent was invalidated, but after much litigation and extortion of licensing fees.

No, patents did *not* help.

The patent may have a life of up to 20 years. The rules to determine if the patent qualifies for a 20 year life or a 17 year life based on a filing from 1987 are too complex for me to figure out. All new patents filed in any TRIPS signatory nations have 20 year terms.

Here is a tidbit from the history of U.S. corporation law that may be of interest:

Back in 1919, Ford Motor Company was making money hand-over-fist and Henry Ford was the majority shareholder. He basically controlled the company in every way. Henry Ford had some interesting ideas for the time: in order to make sure that the employees could afford to buy the cars that the company made, he paid incredibly high wages to all his workers, including the janitors that swept up the factory. (Interestingly, one of the reasons Ford Motor Co. was so profitable was that it managed avoid paying patent license fees to George Selden.)

Henry Ford believed that his company was making too much money! He felt that the right thing to do was not to increase profits for the shareholders, who were already getting potloads of money from the corporation, but "to spread the benefits of this industrial system." The result of this policy was that the dividends were not increased in favor of raising wages and lowering the selling price for the cars. Note that the company was immensely profitable in spite of this, and paid a large regular dividend to its shareholders.

What do you think happened to Mr. Ford as a result of this policy? Two shareholders who held 10% of the company, the John and Horace Dodge, brought a shareholder derivative suit against Ford demanding a larger dividend. They argued that a corporation has a responsibility to maximize return for its shareholders, and that Mr. Ford's actions in managing the company with social good in mind were inappropriate. The Supreme Court of Michigan agreed with the Dodge brothers, finding that "the corporation exists for the benefit of the shareholders," and ordered that a larger dividend be given. The case is Dodge v. Ford Motor Company, 204 Mich. 459, 170 N.W. 668 (1919), if you care to look it up, or it may be found here.

The two Dodge brothers used the money from the larger dividend to set up the competing Dodge Motor Company.

The reason that it was eventually broken was because it had been misapplied. Selden's patent was for a machine that used a specific type of engine, and since Ford used a different engine (as did all other auto manufacturers), the patent really didn't apply. However, for many years Selden was able to convince every manufacturer (except for Ford) that he did own the patent for all automobiles.

I haven't read about the Selden Patent in quite some time. There are some obvious parallels with SCO and Linux (including the threats to sue end users!).

Does this sound familiar to anybody?

Document everything. Mail it to yourself. The postmark is sufficient proof of the date.

That's a complete myth. Just think about how easy it would be to mail yourself an unsealed envelope and place your documents in later.

From http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/066sidebar.ht ml :

But don't mail your idea to yourself hoping that the postmark will prove the date you came up with the idea. This oft-tried strategy is filled with legal holes. Instead, file a $10 USPTO disclosure document (see www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/disdo.html).

From http://www.bpmlegal.com/patqa.html#10 :

Can I protect myself by sealing a description of my invention in an envelope and mailing it to myself?
The mythical "postmark patent" offers no protection whatsoever. Having someone sign your written description as a witness would accomplish the same thing - documenting your date of conception of the idea. You might find our Invention Disclosure Form to be helpful in preparing a detailed written description. It doesn't provide any protection, either, but it will help you get your thoughts in order when you contact a patent attorney (our firm, we hope), and you'll save the 37 cents it would cost to mail it to yourself.

I was just going over this with a coworker... I'd suggest filing a provisional application to claim priority and protect your ownership rights, but then try to find someone with deeper pockets to follow it up with a formal application though a patent lawyer. Like others I advise against DIY unless you alread have some experience with the process as there are lots of little gotchas.

Unlike a "real" application there are no formal requirements for text or drawings for provisional applications except that they ultimately fit in an 8.5x11. All you need is a cover sheet and an $80 fee if you do it yourself.

Here are a few decent links:

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa061701 a.htm

This one is also pretty decent and a bit more DIY info http://www.frompatenttoprofit.com/provisional_pate nt_aps.htm

Finally, the software mentioned there seems useful... http://www.patentwizard.com/ and so are their FAQs http://www.patentwizard.com/htmls/support.htm, but if you were to go that route, you'd be out $580 for the software, filing and a flat fee review by their attorneys.

Various universities have invention disclosure forms posted on the www (see e.g. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&q=invention.disclosure.forms) That ask all the right questions. Look at some of these and adapt them for your needs, this will drive you to pout all the information together in the right form and send it to the PTO with the cover sheet and your $80.

Balam

This issue isn't unique to modern times or the computer industry. A patent lawyer named George Selden used a vague patent to force people who built cars in the 1800's to pay a licensing fee. It wasn't until Henry Ford challenged that patent in 1903 that the auto industry took off.