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My bad... https://patentlyo.com/patent/2... They just acquired all their IP...

That is complete bullshit. One of patent's requirement is, it CAN'T BE PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE. You spill the beans before you file for the patent, invalid. Someone has published the same idea before you, INVALID.

The problem is, that USPTO by default grants patents, the extensive checks are expensive and they do not bother anymore - let the courts sort it out.

This is false - the USPTO by default rejects patent applications.

speaking of giving it a try....

Charles H. Duell was the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899. Mr. Deull's most famous attributed utterance is that "everything that can be invented has been invented." Most patent attorneys have also heard that the quote is apocryphal.

https://patentlyo.com/patent/2...

good thing Edison and any others with a vision didn't give up or you'd have to use the Pony Express to mail in your negativity

So, the idea of "sovereign immunity" in the USA is found in the 11th Amendment which says:

"The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."

There was a recent ruling that said this applies to the IPR process. This is all quite new, so there haven't been a lot of cases around it yet and this is the first time someone has tried to use this so far. Someone saw that ruling, found a tribe to go along with the licensing scheme, and then used it as a defense in court. This is why the ruling in the case about the Indian tribes goes on about whether or not to join the Indian tribe to the case--that's a procedural trick they're trying to employ.

Disclaimer: Everything about this is complicated, if you're looking at this for reasons beyond idle curiosity, get a lawyer.

While taken alone the interview might be frivolous when considered in combination with the fact that he went 11+ years without making any copyright claims over Pepe whatsoever including many instances of people making money off the property that he was aware of means that it could easily be considered binding/

Nope. Petrella v. MGM was quite clear that latches does not apply within the statute of limitations (3 years). Thank you for playing "Doh! An IP layer caught my gross misstatement concerning the law!"

I should have gone one click deeper:

https://patentlyo.com/patent/2...

Are they going to actually hand down a ruling that overturns prior decisions of the lower court?

I believe the answer is yes.

Yes, with respect to the Federal Circuit's VE Holdings decision that allowed venue in other districts.

Yes, with respect to the district court's decision in the still-pending TC Heartland case that venue was proper outside the state where TC Heartland was incorporated.

No, with respect to any other case decided under the Federal Circuit's old precedent and not still pending.

The future of cases currently pending in now-inappropriate districts such as the Eastern District of Texas is a bit murky and will be interesting to watch play out.

Given the new ruling, it should be pretty easy for defendants to submit a motion to either dismiss the case as improper venue, or move the venue to the proper one.

Are they going to actually hand down a ruling that overturns prior decisions of the lower court?

I believe the answer is yes.

Yes, with respect to the Federal Circuit's VE Holdings decision that allowed venue in other districts.

Yes, with respect to the district court's decision in the still-pending TC Heartland case that venue was proper outside the state where TC Heartland was incorporated.

No, with respect to any other case decided under the Federal Circuit's old precedent and not still pending.

The future of cases currently pending in now-inappropriate districts such as the Eastern District of Texas is a bit murky and will be interesting to watch play out.

The US violated trade agreements against antigua, and lots at the WTO. And DVDFab is based in Antigua... (Probably for this exact reason) http://patentlyo.com/patent/20...

This sounds Oddly Familiar...

"America is past it's prime and over, nothing better is coming"

http://patentlyo.com/patent/20...

Patents cover how something is done.

What I consider a good patent covers how something is done. The inventor considers a "good" patent to be one that covers what is done. Enjoy spending a million bucks proving that the inventor's means plus function patent is invalid.

For example, you could have a patent on how to peel a pear.

"What is claimed is 1. A device for peeling pears comprising a platform, bowl, grip, or stand for holding the pear and a knife, peeler, katana, or razor for removing the skin of the pear"

Bonus points for s/pear/fruit/, why limit my patent to peeling one kind of fruit that nobody peels anyway?

If you want to oppose this patent then you have to actually read it

1. An electronic-device-implemented method, the method comprising:
* using the electronic device, generating a symmetric encryption key associated with a content item;
* encrypting the content item using the symmetric encryption key;
* encrypting the symmetric encryption key using a public encryption key for a recipient to generate an encrypted symmetric encryption key;
* providing the encrypted symmetric encryption keys and information specifying the recipient to a synchronization computer that communicates, via a shared network, with at least one electronic device associated with the recipient;
* and communicating the encrypted content item to instances of a client application executing on the at least one electronic device via secure peer-to-peer distributed sharing.

(bullets added for readability)

It looks like the main thing that is added here is providing the encrypted symmetric key to a "synchronization computer" that (I assume) sends the key to "at least one electronic device" that has the private key to decrypt the key. The claim does not define HOW the encrypted content item gets to the client application other than a vauge hand-waved "secure peer-to-peer distributed sharing".

This is where groklaw would be great. But Algorithms are patentable, without the requisite case ruling it's hard to ascertain why Newegg won this time around, it could be the SCOTUS ruling dealing with it giving the judge more direct clarification in this area. Allowing for windage (lawyers jockeying, filing motions and court dockets) it's conceivable this may be why Newegg won this time around.

Think about it this way if Sony filed two patents on HD technology, they get one of them issued fairly quickly within 2 years .. and then by luck or bribery the USPTO action on the second patent is delayed 19 years just as the first patent is expiring .. then because it's the USPTO's fault that the second patent didnt issue .. they get to claim 17 years of additional monopoly on the HD technology. I am not against patents, I am against infinitely long patents .. which are unconstitutional .. yet in practice the USPTO is enabling it.

Except for the fact that that never, ever happens.
Seriously, find me a patent that has 19 years of patent term adjustment. Here's an article discussing how almost 100% of patents that get granted do so within 4 years, with the very longest outlier being 6 years.

Patents are equally useless for protecting against copying the look and feel of a game.

Design patents aside, of course.

You can only patent specific concepts or technologies, say, the way Zynga tried to patent the the use of in-game virtual currency. You're telling me you think the proper way for these indie devs to handle this is to go out, patent their own code and algorithms, and then fight it out in court with Zynga? Insanity.

You're saying a better way to handle it is to get no legal protection and just hope that Zynga never decides to copy them? Worse insanity, particularly because we've seen it fail, over and over.

The AAA game industry isn't "ignoring" the patent issue. They're simply declining to participate in the patent war madness that everyone else seems to be currently engaged in. Companies like Zynga are the exception to the general trend, and may end up forcing everyone else to do the same goddamned thing. Do you know who'll be left behind here? Yeah, the indie devs, because they can't afford patent lawyers and ridiculous lawsuits.

Patent litigation is frequently done on contingency. That's like saying "I can't afford to have you place a bet for me, because if it wins, I have to give you a share of the huge pile of free money I get."

Read the massive list of Zynga patents. It makes me weep as a game developer.

Why should it? After all, I believe a wise man once said, "The only way to beat a company that steals your best ideas is to keep coming up with better ones." Similarly, the only way to beat a company that comes up with the best ideas and patents them is to come up with better ones, right? Or pay a reasonable license fee if you can't come up with a better idea.

The USPTO seems to be rubberstamping whatever the hell Zynga sends their way, so long as it's couched in enough confusing terminology and legalese (oh, and "online" is mentioned anywhere).

[Citation needed]. The USPTO currently rejects around 95% of patent applications in this industry, so if they've got a rubberstamp, it says "DENIED".

If you actually read the patents in detail, they're essentially the sort of thing any competent developer would think.

If you read anything in detail, then ask yourself immediately afterwards if you could think of what you just read, you'd say yes. It's called hindsight. The question is whether any competent developer would have thought of it before reading the patent. And that takes evidence to prove, not a gut feeling based solely on "I understand what I just read, so therefore it must be obvious."

The incorrect grammar "comprised of" would be an ambiguity, and as such, interpreted in the strictest way -- limiting as in Patent B.

You're dead wrong: http://patentlyo.com/patent/20...

Also, since shark fins on a vehicle would be purely decorative and nonfunctional, their presence or absence would be irrelevant in either construction.

It may seem worrisome that scientists and engineers of all people -- some of the absolute worst butchers of language and grammar out there! -- are the ones who become patent agents or patent attorneys, but all-in-all, the ones who do so tend to be some of the smartest folks I've met. You need to be well-rounded to do the job.

Perhaps you're underestimating technical people. For example, I will very rarely, if ever, include a period in quotation marks, unless that period is part of the text I'm quoting. I will write things like

Type "cp -a /etc backup".

That example right there should tell you why I do it: if I include the period, it's ambiguous. Moreover, if I do need to quote a period at the end of a sentence, I will sometimes do this:

Type "cp -a /etc .".

Because if I didn't include the period, it would be ambiguous. I know so-called "standard English" doesn't like that. However, for all I care, anyone who would like to criticize my using quotation marks in this manner can go fuck himself in the ass with a retractable baton. I'm going to use language to communicate precise ideas, and I will rewrite any rules that inhibit doing so. Mangling quotations by including unrelated punctuation is stupid and idiotic and wrong, and I won't do it.

It may seem worrisome that scientists and engineers of all people -- some of the absolute worst butchers of language and grammar out there! -- are the ones who become patent agents or patent attorneys, but all-in-all, the ones who do so tend to be some of the smartest folks I've met. You need to be well-rounded to do the job.

Why would you think this? Scientists and engineers communicate precise ideas with each other routinely as part of their employment. Sloppy thinking and sloppy communication is tolerated less in those disciplines than any others, probably including even law.

My experience has been that technical people communicate clearly and efficiently about most topics and are less prone to falling for the cheap debating trick linguistic slights-of-hand that fool others. I assure you that if a competent technical person is talking to you in a way you find "incorrect", it is intentional. Perhaps you should be more tolerant.

Finally, to close: I have nothing against patent attorneys as individuals, though I'm glad software patents are dying. I'm also sure there are many competent patent attorneys out there. However, it's poor taste to diss one profession ("some of the absolute worst butchers of language and grammar") and then praise your own ("you need to be well-rounded to do the job"). It comes across as arrogant and condescending.

HAND.

Those patents - of which I've to actually see an example - would already be invalid under 103:

I so hate this argument. Sure, they could be. The road to a 103 invalidity is an expensive and often arduous task that is often left to a jury. What's more, its met with a high burden and a presumption of validity.

... at trial, yes. Not at the USPTO or before the PTAB.

The Federal Circuit and patent lawyers have done a marvelous job making invalidity under 102/103 all but impossible except in the most extraordinary cases.

And in KSR, SCOTUS pushed that way back. Now it's actually quite easy, unless the claims recite an element that you just can't find a reference for, anywhere.

The point is: they shouldn't have been patent eligible in the first place. You can't take something done previously, stick it on a platform that's used for it's conventional purpose and suddenly you're in patent-eligibility land.

That'd be an easy 103 rejection: you can prove it's been "done previously," right? You can prove that the platform existed previously, right? Where's the problem?

Now the burden, under 101, is for the inventor to show that which they did was actually inventive.

Good patents shouldn't have this issue. 101 should be a very, very low hurdle.

How do you define "actually inventive"? Currently, we have the 102/103 tests of novelty and nonobviousness, but if you're saying we shouldn't use those tests and should just determine, under 101, whether something is "actually inventive", what's the test? As Judge Wu said, "I know it when I see it"?

My expectation is that Alice Corp will not be used to invalidate all software patents, but it will be the end of most business method patents. Moving forward patentable inventions will again need to be primarily based on technological advances rather than business benefit provided by the solution.

Over the past 160 years, the Supreme Court has decided dozens of cases involving subject matter eligibility. This goes back to a time before Samuel Morse tried to broadly patent the telegraph. (He wanted a patent that covered any and all methods of using an electromagnetic signal to transmit at a distance a signal representing characters). I see the Alice Corp decision as part of that unbroken chain of decisions going back generations. In Alice Corp, the Supreme Court added only incrementally to those cases. The importance of the case, however, comes from the fact that the lower courts (namely, the Federal Circuit) had deviated significantly from that line over the past few decades. I wrote about this here: http://patentlyo.com/patent/20...

While they might not be "owners" now, [...]

They never were owners, with or without scare quotes, any more than Google (who also invested in IV) was or is. In fact, if you look into it, what you'll find is that Apple, Google, Microsoft, and a whole host of other companies made investments in IV in exchange for licensing agreements for IV's patents (i.e. to keep the patent troll away). That hasn't stopped IV or its subsidiaries from suing all three of them at different points in time for patents that weren't licensed, however, so any suggestion that Apple and Microsoft are behind IV's actions against Google here seems misguided, at best.

I can wait a little while longer.

Being obsolete doesn't mean that the patent isn't useful. If you manage to dupe the USPTO into granting you are patent on a necessary piece (or one that has become so commonplace to be necessary for interoperability reasons), you can ambush most anybody in the field.

Yes, but the conclusion that the USPTO makes the majority of their fees post-grant relies on the premise that the majority of these patents have maintenance fees paid. And, as you note, that relies on a premise that a majority are "commonplace" that are used to "ambush" people. However, the premise is false.

You also don't seem to be understanding the criticism. The USPTO gets paid as much or more for accepting a patent than they do for rejecting it.

No, I understand the criticism. I'm merely pointing out that it's based on a false conclusion from an erroneous premise. In reality, not only are the majority of patents abandoned during their lifetime, before many of those maintenance fees are paid, the original argument disregarded all of the other fees paid to the USPTO, including fees for Requests for Continued Examination (which increase drastically after the first one), appeal fees, petition fees, etc., and those are all fees that are only paid when the USPTO rejects an application.

Now, what is the actual average cost to obtain a patent in fees to the USPTO vs. what is the actual average cost paid for issuance and maintenance? I don't know, and it would take a lot of data mining to find out (albeit from publicly available information), but I can tell you that if you start by ignoring the majority of the fees, your conclusion is based on fluff and dreams.

Furthermore, the evidence points to your conclusion being wrong. From here, the allowance rate is 49.2% including RCEs, or 68.5% not including them, depending on whether you consider an RCE to be a new application or not (for our purposes, discussing fees, it's somewhat irrelevant). If the USPTO had such great incentives to allow these cases, wouldn't that be 90% or higher?
In fact, to maximize their fees, wouldn't the USPTO want to allow all cases immediately? But instead (from the same page, scroll down), you find that 87.2% of applications are initially rejected. It's almost the opposite of the rubber stamp that your argument would suggest.

People can and do sue the USPTO.

http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2012/08/suing-the-uspto-to-cancel-improperly-issued-patents.html

Bezos is synonymous with bad patents in my mind... all because of his one-click patent which makes a mockery of the entire patent system and undermines any validity his other patents might have.

One-click is actually a great counterexample of your point - despite private bounties being placed on prior art, an EFF campaign seeking prior art, and four years of reexamination that confirmed patentability, people still bring it up as if it were a "mockery of the entire patent system". Clearly ,that's not because the patent is invalid or obvious, since despite all of those efforts, no one has ever been able to show that - rather, it's because of the millions of dollars that have been spending in a propaganda campaign to convince software developers not to patent their inventions. Accordingly, discussions of the one-click patent can be a great indicator of people who have been misled by that propaganda - frequently, without ever actually having read the claims of the patent at all (after all, it's not, by any means, a patent on "clicking once").

more concerned with just getting the application off his/her docket.

So, stamp it 'DENIED'.

They do. 80-90% of patent applications are initially rejected.

The problem is junk patents

And the cause of junk patents is the distorted economy of issuing patents. USPTO gets paid for every patent they issue, good or bad, yet are immune from lawsuits from the businesses they negatively impact by their bad behavior.

The term for this immunity is royal perogative.

A recent study by the Richmond School of Law found that the USPTO's actual grant rate is currently running at about 89%. In 2001, it was as high as 99%. See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2225781 page 9. In 2001, it didn't matter if an application was overbroad, obvious, trivial, a duplicate, or unreasonable, they ALL got granted.

On the contrary, 80-90% of patents are initially rejected.. Yes, the rate at which patents are eventually granted is 90%, but that's after they've been substantially amended and narrowed. Pointing at the eventual grant rate and claiming "it didn't matter if an application was overbroad, obvious, trivial, a duplicate, or unreasonable" while hiding the rejection rate is disingenuous.

Furthermore, the fact that you mention "duplicate" indicates you may not actually know what you're talking about. There are no duplicate patents, as double patenting is a rejection under 35 USC 101. There are continuation applications, in which one application gets filed and then later, another application with the same specification, title, and figures gets filed, claiming priority to the first one. So, to someone who doesn't understand what's going on, they may look like duplicates... however, (i) the claims are different, and (ii) the second application, even though filed later, expires on the same day the first one expires. They're really just offshoots of the same application, and not "duplicates" at all. My guess is that you heard that terrible episode of This American Life where they mentioned that several applications (all continuations of a first application) had the same name, and were as equally confused as their "journalists".
This also explains your later complaint:

6) Finally, I suggest that it is a mistake to allow patent applicants to modify or extend their patents after submission. This complicates the patent pipeline. It facilitates ‘submarine’ patents. It enables capturing Standards. It also enables gaming the patent system. Reform must simplify and reduce the patent process. Patents should be quickly evaluated. Most should be denied. If an applicant wishes to modify a denied patent, they should alter it, resubmit, and pay a new filing fee.

None of this is true - patent applications cannot be extended after submission, and any entry of additional material is "new matter" and rejected immediately. Applications can currently be altered, resubmitted, and filed with a new filing fee, and then they have the same title, as mentioned above when you were complaining about duplicates. Submarine patents are an entirely different thing, where a patent is granted and first published years after filing. Patents are now published after 18 months, and so submarine patents are mostly a thing of the past.

Most of your complaints are based on misunderstandings of the process and half-truths or outright falsehoods spread by poor journalists. A few minutes of research before you post would clarify them.

You're missing the point. A lot of this was unintentional. They made the USPTO run on fees that were charged for patents which gave the USPTO and incentive to rubber stamp patents while not receiving sufficient funding to cover the cost of having patent examiners that could do the investigation that they used to do.

If it was true that the USPTO was just rubber stamping patents, then you'd expect to see close to a 100% allowance rate, no? Instead, you get about an 80-90% rejection rate, depending on art group.

In reality, it's a bit more complicated than you think: the USPTO runs on fees, but those fees are for application filing, searching, examination, continued examination after final rejection, issuance, and maintenance fees. Only the last two give an incentive to rubber stamp patents - the others give an incentive to reject patents.

Furthermore, the USPTO is full of humans, with their own personal interests. Specifically, the Examiners are graded for promotion/bonuses on a point system in which they earn points for examining an application, points for rejecting it, and points for issuing it - they have an incentive to initially reject patents, even just to allow them after getting a request for continued examination, because they get an extra couple points. That also means extra fees for the PTO, incidentally. The Examiners, however, get no points for maintenance fees, so their interests are in drawing out prosecution to a certain point, rather than immediately rubber stamping everything allowed.

What needs to happen is that the USPTO needs to go back to being a government service the user fees need to be based upon the amount of time and energy it takes to deal with the application.

They are - see the bit about continued examination fees. More time spent = more money.

And while we're at it, the duration of the patent period should go from the point where the first application is received to a reasonable period after that. For technology 7 years is likely more than adequate as a lot of that IP is no longer of value several years later.

The problem here is that now you need Congress passing different laws for patent terms for every single industry. And when there's a new industry - like online retail - is that really a "new" industry that should deserve a short 5 year patent term; just an offshoot of an older internet industry that deserves a 10 year patent term; an offshoot of computers in general, deserving a 15 year term; or an offshoot of electrical engineering, deserving a full 20 year term? And how do you determine this on day one so that you can put it in the statutes, rather than waiting 5 years to determine how quickly the new industry advances?
Similarly, say you invent a new computer control sequence for car engines that significantly improves mpg efficiency: is that an automotive advancement with a 20 year term, or a software advancement with a 5 year term? And while maybe you can pick an answer and justify it, what's the general, objective rule that you can apply to any new invention to determine what its term should be?

Patenting software is not a fundamental problem. Patent trolls are not a fundamental problem. Instead, these are the results and effects of the true fundamental problem, which is that the patent system itself is patenting anything that comes along that has no obvious conflicts, if even that. It considers its duty to be simply to record the patent ... and take all the money.

If true, you would expect to see 99% of patent applications immediately allowed. Instead, 85% are initially rejected. Apparently, the system considers its duty to reject patent applications until they're properly narrowed.

If something is truly innovative, then without the inventor having done it, it is likely to not have been done at all for many years (when based to genius thought), or for a substantial investment into the work needed to come up with it (when based on a huge amount of work).

I disagree with that definition. "Truly innovative" things may be due to a spark of insight, and then not require significant work. For example, I bet most any engineer now could draw a schematic for a working internal combustion engine on a napkin. Does that mean it wasn't truly innovative when it first appeared?

This "truly innovative" definition of yours has no support in the patent statutes, nor in case law. As a purely subjective definition, it also creates a tyranny of intellectualism, in which inventions may be judged unworthy simply because we dislike their field. Maybe we see a new cancer drug as "truly innovative", but not a new children's toy, regardless of the actual invention.

The vast majority of patents are not true innovation. Most of them are just broad brushes of things they see as inevitable and coming, anyway.

In hindsight, everything looks obvious. The difficulty is in proving that something is inevitable before it's already here.

Clearly this lawyer is pointing out how people who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect get into positions they shouldn't.

Clearly the lawyer is a buffoon. You'll deny if from me, but perhaps you would listen to the patent lawyers commenting on the original blog.

I would say at least 40% of my industry is laced with people who are barely able to work fast food.

Ah, the whole hiding false assertions behind hyperbole trick.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren't afflicted with the D-G. So who is the bigger fool, the incompetent who gets paid like the competent, or the competent complainer who continues to work in an organization that can't distinguish them?

Two links from the summary: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/04/dont-write-this-letter-to-the-patent-office.html

It contains the letter and an excerpt of the patent application. This is the sole case of the USPTO doing it's job.

FTFY.

Two links from the summary: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/04/dont-write-this-letter-to-the-patent-office.html

It contains the letter and an excerpt of the patent application. This is a case of the USPTO doing it's job.

As usual, the better article is not the one linked to in TFA, but in a deeper link:

http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/04/dont-write-this-letter-to-the-patent-office.html

Has a picture. Looks like a sprinkler on a tripod and you can raise or lower the sprinkler head. Somehow I'm guessing this is not the first such sprinkler.

Wrong. Under the Berne convention certain industries are specifically excluded from all IP laws

Berne is solely concerned with copyright law. Not trademarks, not utility patents nor design patents.

Lululemon v Calvin Klein.
Nike v Walmart
List of Under Armor patent applications

First, the incorrect or misleading:

But in the last four years there's been a sharp reversal, with a 2012 allowance rate about 20 percent higher than it was in 2009.

It can also be looked at as 12% higher, since it went from about 58% to about 70% in that time. "20 percent higher" is misleading. "120 percent of the 2009 rate" would be correct.

Calculating the real allowance rate is tricky because inventors can submit the same application multiple times. "From the perspective of the patent office, a 'final rejection' doesn't get rid of an application," Quillen told Ars in a December phone interview. If an application is rejected, the inventor can make minor changes to the application and file it again. "The only way you can reduce your numbers and get rid of somebody is to allow the case," Quillen said.

There are a number of different ways to re-file applications, with names like File Wrapper Continuations, Continued Prosecution Applications, Requests for Continued Examination and Continuation-In-Part Applications. But in all cases, the upshot is the same: the applicant gets another shot at convincing examiners to grant him a patent.

These are talking about two different things, mainly because the journalist doesn't understand the distinction:

1) An application can be "finally rejected" by the USPTO (meaning that it was rejected on specific grounds, the applicant replied, and the Examiner wasn't persuaded and "finally" rejected the application on those grounds), and the Applicant can amend to narrow the claims and file a request for continued examination or a continued prosecution application (the same thing, but for design patents).
For example, say you were Toyota and were patenting the Prius, and you originally had a claim of "1. A car, comprising: four wheels, an engine, and a battery" and the Examiner comes back and says "duh, that's every car." If you tried to argue that you meant a battery running the engine, but the Examiner wasn't persuaded since that distinction isn't in your claims (and there's other prior art with electric engines), they'd finally reject it. If you then amended your claims to recite your novel planetary engine dual-powered transmission, you'd have to file a request for continued examination so that it could be considered.
It's not really "submitting the same application multiple times" but several iterations of narrowing the application and arguing that as narrowed, it's patentable, until it finally is narrow enough to be allowed.

2) New applications can be filed as continuation applications or continuation-in-part applications, but they're not the "same application" by definition. Continuations and continued prosecution applications have the same specification, but different claims. Like, say, to save money, you wrote a patent application that described two separate, but related inventions. Like say, a new machine for more efficiently turning horses into glue, and a new offset gearing system for use in that machine or others that has increased torque with reduced tension. You could file a single application describing both, but only claiming the horse part. Later, you could file a continuation application using the same specification and claiming the gearing system part.
This helps small inventors by not requiring them to file dozens of applications on day one, when they might be short of cash, but file one big one, then later file additional continuations as they're able to raise capital. Importantly, all of the applications have the same effective priority date for prior art, and any patents coming from the applications expire on the same d

The problem is with overinflated lawyers fees, court procedures which encourage paperwork which makes even more fees for lawyers and and court fees that the courts are so expensive you are looking at handing lawyers and courts two million up just to defend yourself from a patent troll. If cases were streamlined and it only cost $10K to defend a patent troll it would be far fairer, but lawyers and judges would be out of work. Have you ever heard of judges being laid off for lack of work? Judges whose communities depend on patent trolls for a steady stream of cases have a conflict of interest. If they came down hard on patent trolls and threw out meritless cases there would be boarded up lawyers offices all over town. Instead the judges say well geez better have a trial anyway just to be sure. It might get an answer but it wastes a fuckload of cash to get there. If the USPTO issued firm rulings we wouldn't need the courts. Instead the USPTO scratch their balls and say well I will just approve this shit because I can't understand it anyway and let the courts sort it out. The problem is as much the court system as it is the USPTO. They should streamline these but do you really think lawyers and judges will be putting themselves out of work?

Patents are written in bullshit confusing language so courts argue what they mean. A software engineering looking at one of these wouldn't even recognize their own system in one of these documents. Lawyers write them to be broad and confusing so they can make money arguing it. The USPTO shouldn't be approving patents that are unreadable. And if a IT graduate can't read one of these and work out what they mean, they shouldn't be granted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57409792-296/how-much-is-that-patent-lawsuit-going-to-cost-you/
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/03/guest-editorial-throwing-trolls-off-the-bridge.html

The hysteria is mostly the media's. I get the impression that the biologists who are upset about this are more concerned with the principle of the thing, regardless of what the patent terms actually say, simply because the sequences involved are extracted from a natural source without innovative modification, so I guess that means they'd side with the Supreme Court on this one. Also, some digging suggests that the adrenaline case you mentioned was actually a bit of a screw-up, and that case only succeeded because the applicant was able to (eventually) convince the patent examiner that his product was chemically distinct from the natural hormone, which may or not actually have been true depending on how primitive his chemical extraction techniques were.

I'm not ranting at you. I'm ranting about the patent.

Not that these claims are patentable as is, but it seems to be more about smooth handoff between the first base station and second base station.

That's the irritating thing about these patents. It doesn't actually cover how to do the smooth handoff (a difficult problem with many extant solution), it just says "it happens by magic and I invented it".

And? It's just a patent application and Bezos is entitled to write whatever he wants in it. But, if any other piece of prior art does something remotely similar (and I'm sure we can find something), then he'll have to amend his claims to claim a specific way of doing it... and if all his specification says is "it happens by magic," then he won't be able to make that amendment.

In other words, save the rant until we see something get issued. In the meantime, send in some prior art. You've got six months.

Also, wouldn't the VNC or X11 or RDP or a whole variety of other protocols running over 802.11 in infrastructure mode, or GSM/3G/whatever cell data cover the whole part of wireless remote image display with smooth handoff?

The GSM/3G stuff is probably closer - VNC/X11/RDP are all session layer protocols, and this is hand off at the data layer. But you also need to find the power handoff, which might be more complicated. Most remote power stuff is still tied to a single area and source.

It relates to automatic cable tensioning:

Now, I'm really not an expert in this area. But this whole area itself is not new, and I'll bet it's been patented to death 50 years ago by mechanical engineers. There are thousands of different spooling systems out there for thoudands of different tasks. We'll see...

Agreed. It may be one of the reasons it's not actually claimed in this application.

What the EFF is specifically decrying is functional claiming. That is, an element of a claim described not in terms of what it is but in terms of its function. For example, instead of claiming a nail or a screw, claiming "a means for mechanically fastening" or, even more broadly, "a fastening means." This is allowed under 35 U.S.C. 112 6, now 112(f):

An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.

In other words, you can use functional claiming, but you have to explain what you mean in the specification, and you only get what you describe there, plus equivalents. If you don't describe what you mean then the claim is invalid as indefinite.

In the case of software, generically claiming an algorithm (e.g. "sorting means") requires describing in the specification what you mean by that. There has to be some corresponding structure. Failure to properly support a functional claim has bitten many a patentee. This happened just recently in a software patent case involving Google as a defendant, for example. Function Media, L.L.C. v. Google Inc.. Overall, the popularity of functional claiming has been dropping like a rock. From ~1992 to 2011 the percentage of newly issued patents with at least one "means for" claim fell from ~45% to ~10%. It has since fallen to almost 5%.

What the EFF is specifically decrying is functional claiming. That is, an element of a claim described not in terms of what it is but in terms of its function. For example, instead of claiming a nail or a screw, claiming "a means for mechanically fastening" or, even more broadly, "a fastening means." This is allowed under 35 U.S.C. 112 6, now 112(f):

An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.

In other words, you can use functional claiming, but you have to explain what you mean in the specification, and you only get what you describe there, plus equivalents. If you don't describe what you mean then the claim is invalid as indefinite.

In the case of software, generically claiming an algorithm (e.g. "sorting means") requires describing in the specification what you mean by that. There has to be some corresponding structure. Failure to properly support a functional claim has bitten many a patentee. This happened just recently in a software patent case involving Google as a defendant, for example. Function Media, L.L.C. v. Google Inc.. Overall, the popularity of functional claiming has been dropping like a rock. From ~1992 to 2011 the percentage of newly issued patents with at least one "means for" claim fell from ~45% to ~10%. It has since fallen to almost 5%.

Well, the GP got the quote's origin wrong. It's from 1899, and (you may be happy to hear) was widely believed to have been uttered by someone trying to close the patent office... but, alas, it was actually satirical.

The Federal Circuit outlined the "ordinary observer" test of design patent infringement in its en banc Egyptian Goddess decision. Here, the court fleshed-out that test with further details and nuances. Infringement of a design patent requires proof that an "ordinary observer, familiar with the prior art designs, would be deceived into believing that the accused product is the same as the patented design." The hypothetical ordinary observer is considered to have knowledge of the prior art. Thus, "if the claimed design is close to the prior art designs, small differences between the accused design and the claimed design assume more importance to the eye of the hypothetical ordinary observer." "The ordinary observer test applies to the patented design in its entirety, as it is claimed. [Therefore, minor differences between a patented design and an accused article’s design cannot, and [do] not, prevent a finding of infringement.” (quoting Payless Shoesource and Litton Sys.).

The court again emphasized that the test considers the design as a whole and that the court should not use drawing details to create an infringement checklist because "concentration on small differences in isolation distract[s] from the overall impression of the claimed ornamental features." Rather, a better tool for determining infringement is a side-by-side comparison of the patented design and the accused product.

On the facts of this case, the Federal Circuit found that the allegedly infringing shoes were "nearly identical" to the patented design. "If the claimed design and the accused designs were arrayed in matching colors and mixed up randomly, this court is not confident that an ordinary observer could properly restore them to their original order without very careful and prolonged effort. . . . [T]his court perceives that the accused products embody the overall effect of the ’789 design in sufficient detail and clarity to cause market confusion. Thus, the accused products infringe the ’789 design."

Now let's look at your comment:

If Apple design a flux capacitor and make it look exactly like the one in the movie... [they could not patent it]

And since there are previous examples of something which looks very similar... [they cannot patent it]

You're calling my argument bad? Please reread your own response. You actually tried to equate "exactly" and "very similar"! And my argument is bad?

Look, I said in my last post and i'll say it again here. You don't get a design patent for "very similar"! It is a extremely exact thing - or atleast a very, very, very, very, similar thing... to the point of being indistinguishable - just look at the shoe design patent link I provided. That's why the case was thrown out in favor of Samsung. The judge said "Apple, Samsung's design is different in these ways... it's not as cool. I can tell the difference and I don't think an ordinary observer would be fooled. Therefore no infringement." It's also why these other designs from the specifically mentioned TV shows / movies are NOT prior art... because you can look at a startrek tablet and then look at an ipad and easily discern one from the other.

Not to take away from anything you said, but Google also very secretly invested in Intellectual Ventures(yes that Intellectual Ventures that Slashdot hates, founded by Paul Allen), which unfortunately for them, came out in a court filing

You didn't link the original source. Unfortunately for you I found it.

For the most part, these tech companies appear to have invested in intellectual ventures as part of a licensing agreement. ... Google ...

I wouldn't call a licensing agreement "very secretly invested". There's a list of the real investors too.

What this boils down to is tightening up the enablement and written description requirements of 112 of the Patent Act, specifically with regard to the way functional claims are judged. This is not a particularly new idea, and quite a few people (including those that could be called 'pro-patent') have been saying for years that this is a reasonable way to address problems with lots of different kinds of patents, including software patents, that doesn't involve technology-specific changes to the law. I certainly have mentioned it on Slashdot many times (e.g. this comment from 2010).

One issue is that the use of functional claiming has been in pretty steep decline for a few decades now. So I'm not sure just how many software patents this approach will catch, but it could be that software patents are one of the last holdouts for functional claiming. Alternatively, the courts could begin to interpret software patents as using functional claiming even when they don't use the traditional "means-for" construction. This is already done in some cases (i.e. "means for" is not a necessary magic phrase), but it could become more common.

The bottom line is that this is a call to restrict patenting to only that which the inventor actually discovered and actually described in such "full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains to make and use the same." In other words, to enforce the statute as written.

Trend perhaps, but no landslide... have a look at http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2012/07/cls-bank-v-alice-corp.html

Quote from third link in TFS:

Whither Myriad: Although no action has been taken yet, I presume that the Supreme Court will now vacate and remand the pending Myriad case with instructions to the Federal Circuit to reconsider its holding that isolated human DNA is patentable. Following Mayo, the court could logically find that the information in the DNA represents a law of nature, that the DNA itself is a natural phenomenon, that the isolation of the DNA simply employs an isolation process already well known and expected at the time of the invention, and ultimately that the isolated DNA is unpatentable because it effectively claims a law of nature or natural phenomenon. One distinguishing point is that Prometheus claimed a process while Myriad claims a composition of matter. As we have seen in recent cases, the Federal Circuit already largely rejects formalistic distinctions between process and composition claims. Here, that distinction is further minimized by the reality that the claimed DNA is functionally characterized by the already well known process of isolating human DNA.

(Emphasis mine.)

Of course, that's just an observer's speculation, but very logical IM(A)HO*. We can hope that logic will continue to prevail.

*In My Amateur Honest Opinion

No; it's Central District California. Complaint

Political Candidates Sued for Patent Infringement

Complaint

P.S. And no it's not in East Texas; it's Central District California.

Political Candidates Sued for Patent Infringement

Complaint

P.S. And no it's not in East Texas; it's Central District California.

You are just failing to understand what a design patent is all about. Since you mention Ford, why not take a look at some info about Ford and design patents:
http://www.patentspostgrant.com/lang/en/2010/06/paparazzi-photo-kills-ford-design-in-patent-reexamination
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2007/09/car-part-design.html

Then you might want to read a proper detailed analysis of the Apple vs Samsung case:
http://www.mhmlaw.com/files/Carani%20-%20Apple%20v%20%20Samsung%20-%20BNA%20-%2010-11.pdf

Since when? Patents like copyrights must be defended and are subject to laches and estoppel. Like all IP, the holder of the rights cannot delay in enforcing their rights; however, the time that counts is when the holder is made aware that infringement has occurred. It is not as easy for the defendant (and sometimes plaintiff) to know that a patent is being violated compared to a trademark. Even in your example, laches came up as a defense.

A simple Google search reveals to me that it was used in a patent case at least as recently as 2002, but I'm sure you knew that already, counselor.

Reading that article, it also mentions that there is a "presumption of laches" after six years, so depending on when the patents in dispute were issued, there may already be a presumption that Samsung ignored the issue until it was "competitively convenient" for them to do so, which I'm fairly sure a judge will find if it's been 6 or more years.

In other words, Samsung may have to perform a fairly intricate dance in front of a judge to convince the court that they (Samsung) did not "unreasonably delay" bringing the suit. Just sayin'.