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This is the US patent system in a nutshell. Allow me to quote Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution:

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to author and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"

Explain to me Mr. Godici, how in the world can the extension an already documented and wide-spread system with a couple of extra characters qualify as an discovery!? Ahh, yes, "the land of opportunity".

The US Patent & Trademark Office is such wimps.

Why not just submit a provisional patent application? Read a description here. The idea is that you submit a provisional application for a patent, and then follow up with an actual patent application within 12 months. For the purpose of establishing prior art, one can submit the provisional application, but then let it lapse.

It's dirt cheap ($75 for a small entity), and it's a pretty much bullet proof prior art evidence since I believe your application will be kept on file by the PTO (someone correct me if this is not the case).

A press release on www.uspto.gov indicates that the USPTO now exposes patent applications before they finish the grant. This makes it possible for third parties to challenge the grants as obvious or covered by prior art.

This was one of my "stock rant" solutions. Since the USPTO is a source of revenue for Congress, it has incentive to grant patents for a fee, and it has incentive to minimize the work it does to consider or invalidate applications.

That's pretty funny. Maybe someday you'll have the balls to put a name to your words.

So for example, "P" isn't a registered trademark of Parsons in computer systems?

Yes, shitbag, that's exactly what I'm saying. You cannot trademark a letter, even the letter "P", even if you're Parsons Technology. What Parsons has registered is a trademark for their particular stylized design, incorporating the letter "P". So if I want to call my computer company "P Computers" or even "P Software", then there's nothing they can do about it. Now, were I to call my company "P Technology" and use a "P" logo that was suspiciously similar to theirs, like the one in their trademark record (serial #74179529 registration #1734490, which you can find by searching TESS), which by the way clearly indicates that it is for "words, letters and/or numbers IN STYLIZED FORM", THEN they might have a case of infringement.

If you don't think so, then let me announce that I am applying for a trademark on the letter "E", with respect to its use in all correspondence, electronic or otherwise, to protect my forthcoming product, named "E-Mailer". But I'll license it to anyone who wants to use "E", for the low, low fee of $0.50 per occurrence. Cash only, please.

See the list of "-Files" trademarks here.

See the list of "-Files" trademarks here.

See the list of "-Files" trademarks here.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:

Software Patent Institute

Bustpatents.com

invalid/withdrawn/pathetic software patents.

"Software Patents Tangle the Web,"

With billions of dollars in Internet sales at stake, the proliferation of broad e-commerce patents is sowing confusion, uncertainty and a good deal of cynicism among many software developers and business leaders. Some legal experts, such as Robert Merges, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, believe the sheer number of patents now pending on business methods has "pushed the patent system into crisis."

So what is all this button talk in the patent? Sounds like a different device from a Palm.

If you were to "patent the process of transcribing a sequence of 1's and 0's to a digital medium ..." etc, then your patent would be invalidated in your first suit because of *significant* prior art.

Here, educate yourself: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/.

You'll see that there are already significant restrictions, at least in the law, of what can be patented. Our USPTO seems to be a little lenient though (ie how the hell can genes be patented? Aren't they "physical phenomena"? oh well, pet peeve there).

However, I do agree that business methods shouldn't be patentable ... at best they fall under "trade secrets." That's just imho.

-------------
The following sentence is true.

This treaty is called the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgements in Civil and Commercial Matters.

The Hague Convention involves some 47+ member nations, including the U.S., EU and China. The object of the convention is twofold:

1. To make foreign judgements recognizable,

and 2. To make foreign judgements enforceable.

This is extremely significant to the techie community, and anyone concerned with the application of law over the internet. Remember the Godfrey v. Dolenga and related cases, where a British physicist sued foreign nationals under the UK's draconian libel laws (where the burden of proof is, paradoxically, on the defendent to prove his innocence)? Godfrey obtained several favorable verdicts against citizens in the US and Canada, but was (at the time) unable to have those verdicts enforced.

Under the Hague Convention, Godfrey might have been able to not only secure favorable verdicts in the UK, but able to enforce those verdicts on others not ordinarily subject to UK libel law.

That's just one example. The Hague Convention does have one loophole (a fundamental public policy exemption) that nations could use to escape the enforcement of onerous verdicts. Libel cases may be an extreme example.

However, factor in Intellectual Property -- such as the precendence laid down in Germany concerning ISPs and Copyright. The Hague Convention would make it much, much easier to corporations to take advantage of disparities between the intellectual property regimes of different nations, secure favorable verdicts by picking and choosing courts to their advantage, and then enforcing such verdicts in other nations.

Imagine what will happen if the Hague Convention is passed (it's in draft-stage negotiations now) and free-software developers in EU countries which don't currently recognize software/business method patents are suddenly liable for patent infringement due to crappy US-PTO issued patents.

I think it is time that the geek community sat up and started paying attention to international legal developments such as the Hague Convention -- the corporations and industry associations (RIAA, MPAA) sure are. If you want to see what they have to say, check these comments recently submitted to the USPTO about the intellectual property aspects of the Hague Convention.

Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

Go to delphion.com and look up U.S. Patents 5987525, 6061680, and 6154773.

Ok, first off, if the issue is why pay for something when you can get it for free, then you should do your patent searches at www.uspto.gov instead of Delphion.

Second, Patents 5987525 and 6154773 are for syncronizing an audio CD with a web site via a plugin, which doesn't apply here.

Third, Patent 6061680 is the one which covers database lookup. It was filed in July 1999. CDDB had been around a lot longer than that, and thus similar programs existed concurrent with the early days of CDDB. One such was a project called Disco that was programmed by an Apple employee and had clients on multiple platforms. This was in use at least by 1997. CDDB was small and independent in the beginning, and they didn't think to file a patent in time to really cover the database, at least if those 3 patents you site are the only ones they hold.

------
WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??

Get a job at the PTO

In any event, check out this for the earliest still-live registration of 'windows' by MS at the USPTO.

One of Blizzards entries in the US Patent and Trademark Office database for "Diablo" (there are several) lists "PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MOTION PICTURES" as a Good or Service for which Blizzard has registered the "Diablo" trademark. The link is located here. A larger list of US trademarks of the name "Diablo" can be found here

New Line was surprisingly lax in not checking whether the name "Diablo" was already registered for motion picture distribution.

One of Blizzards entries in the US Patent and Trademark Office database for "Diablo" (there are several) lists "PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MOTION PICTURES" as a Good or Service for which Blizzard has registered the "Diablo" trademark. The link is located here. A larger list of US trademarks of the name "Diablo" can be found here

New Line was surprisingly lax in not checking whether the name "Diablo" was already registered for motion picture distribution.

One of Blizzards entries in the US Patent and Trademark Office database for "Diablo" (there are several) lists "PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MOTION PICTURES" as a Good or Service for which Blizzard has registered the "Diablo" trademark. The link is located here. A larger list of US trademarks of the name "Diablo" can be found here

New Line was surprisingly lax in not checking whether the name "Diablo" was already registered for motion picture distribution.

IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: ENTERTAINMENT IN THE NATURE OF AN ONGOING TELEVISION PROGRAM IN THE NATURE OF ACTION ADVENTURE FANTASY, AND PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MOTION PICTURES

IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: ENTERTAINMENT IN THE NATURE OF AN ONGOING TELEVISION PROGRAM IN THE NATURE OF ACTION ADVENTURE FANTASY, AND PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MOTION PICTURES

but for a married, 35 year old father of two, "social life" is really churches, youth football leagues and PTO meetings.

Ok, how many other /. readers skimming this message thought he was referring to the United States Patent and Trademark Office when he mentioned "PTO meetings"?

Once a patent has been granted, the information regarding it is available to anyone. This means that anyone can find the patent description and use it to reimplement the same idea. This is hardly "proof" that the idea is obvious.

Maybe you should look here for more info.

And yet I have yet to actually see someone come up with evidence of prior art. There have been some claiming existence of evidence as early as August '97. But that doesn't predate the patent application.

IIRC, once a patent has been granted there is a period of a year in which if the same idea is reimplemented then it is taken as proof that the idea is obvious and the patent is invalid. So these claims, whilst not prior art, do show that the patent isn't nonobvious. See here for more info.

Trademark is established either via actual use and/or through Federal registration.
Trademark rights arise from either (1) actual use of the mark, or (2) the filing of a proper application to register a mark...

It's generally a first-come, first-serve process, and trademarks can be held indefinitely.
Generally, the first party who either uses a mark in commerce or files an application in the PTO has the ultimate right to register that mark.

Unlike copyrights or patents, trademark rights can last indefinitely if the owner continues to use the mark to identify its goods or services. The term of a federal trademark registration is 10 years, with 10-year renewal terms.

For Federal registration one must engage in interstate commerce, or intend on doing so (and not just be capable of doing so, as the previous poster stated).
Furthermore, it must be state-to-state, or US to Foreign-country commerce. Intrastate do not qualify as "interstate commerce" for Trademark purposes.

An applicant may apply for federal registration in three principal ways. (1) An applicant who has already commenced using a mark in commerce may file based on that use (a "use" application). (2) An applicant who has not yet used the mark may apply based on a bona fide intention to use the mark in commerce (an "intent-to-use" application)....Use of a mark in purely local commerce within a state does not qualify as "use in commerce."...(3) Additionally, under certain international agreements, an applicant from outside the United States may file in the United States

Regarding the notion of a "Trademark Clearing House" as some suggest, I wonder if that might run afoul of this requirement:
The application must be filed in the name of the owner of the mark...

It seems to me that creating, consistently using, and defending a logo for one's endeavors, regardless of commerce, gives you defacto Trademark status.

If you want to Federally register it for further protection, you must sell goods or services from one state to another.

As always, IANAL, just some guy that can read web pages.
-----
D. Fischer

To follow up on my own post with some additional information

Trademark is like copyright, you can claim it and use it and that is enough to grant you a good degree of legal protection. Sell, for $1, a copy and support for your open source project to a friend, and voila, you have used it in commerce and can now claim a trademark (tm) and/or service mark (sm).

This is generally enough to have staked your flag in the sand, and if you are the first one using it, it should be fine. Things can get messier if someone is also using the trademark, and you both don't know about each other, but otherwise it is generally "good enough" for most purposes.

If you want more protection, you can register your trademark (R). Registering essentially is the US federal government officially approving and granting you the rights for a 10 year period (renewable indefinately). This costs ~$380/mark to file.

More information at US Trademark Basics


Nicholas C Weaver, Winged Rat Consulting

How you proceed depends on how strong your trademark is. If it's distinctive and fairly unique (Kodak film), and your the first to use it, you can protect it as a strong trademark. If it's general (probably not in your case) it's a "weak" trademark (Al's Car Repair), and although you can't stop other people from using it, they can't stop you either.

If you have a strong trademark and want to protect it, the "Legal Guide for Starting and Running a Small Business" by Fred Steingold (Nolo) suggests:
1. Use your trademark as a proper adjective that describes your product.
2. Always capitalize the first letter of your trademark.
3. If your trademark has been placed on the Federal trademark register, consistently use the (R) symbol (I think other people have already chimed in with advice on what you can do to make it "commercial" and able to get put on the register).
4. Take prompt legal action if other businesses use your trademark without your permission (I'd expect a polite letter, sent certified mail, would be fine. Remember to keep a copy of the letter).

The book also talks about how to search for people who may already be using a mark you wish to use. The Trademark Electronic Search Service can be found on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Website . This lets you do a "direct hit" search (see if anyone else has registered that exact name). There is also a (pay-per-use) search engine called SAEGIS at www.saegis.com that can do analytical searches that look for marks with a similar name. I haven't used SAEGIS so I don't know how much they charge, but it may be worth it if you want to make absolutely sure no one else has a similar trademark.

Every company that I have worked for has had someone perform a trademark search when they were contemplating releasing a new product. Some ideas would come back in tatters, while others were wide open.

This task is typically performed by a lawyer, although you can pare down some things by checking for the trademark you want at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

I am sick of people bashing trademarks and praising the open alternative. All this while even Slashdot is trademarked!

And for your information, I have found SSH2 from Tatu and friends to be superior to OpenSSH. Besides functionality, SSH2 is free and open source, that's all I need.

There's a live claim on an SSH logo . This one is valid. It prevents others from using the logo. It doesn't prevent others from using the word "SSH".

There are a few other SSHs of no significance to this issue. His claim that OpenSSH infringes on his trademark is BS.

There's a live claim on an SSH logo . This one is valid. It prevents others from using the logo. It doesn't prevent others from using the word "SSH".

There are a few other SSHs of no significance to this issue. His claim that OpenSSH infringes on his trademark is BS.

There's a live claim on an SSH logo . This one is valid. It prevents others from using the logo. It doesn't prevent others from using the word "SSH".

There are a few other SSHs of no significance to this issue. His claim that OpenSSH infringes on his trademark is BS.

Sheesh, can no one spend 5 seconds trying to actually find things out? There's a job opportunities page on the USPTO website. As an example, here are the requirements for a position listed as "Patent Examiner (Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Specialist/Computer Engineering)":

MINIMUM ELIGIBILTY REQUIREMENTS: U.S. CITIZENSHIP REQUIRED. Engineering position in Technology Center 5 requires a four- year degree in a professional engineering curriculum from an accredited college or university. Computer Science positions require completion of a four-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree in Computer Science or another related degree which is supplemented by 30 semester hours in a combination of mathematics, statistics and computer science. At least 15 of the 30 semester hours must have been in any combination of statistics and mathematics that included differential and integral calculus.

Don't blame me for karma whoring--if alen had taken 5 seconds to find this out for himself this post wouldn't be necessary.

It is 20 years from date of filing. (Simply, there are other conditions.....)

Older patents expired 17 years from date of issue. I don't remember when things changed....

Look here.

To infringe that claim, a speaker must have both these claim elements. Any speaker with both elements is an infringing device, and any speaker without both elements is (probably) not an infringing device.

Said quote refers to one claim. To infringe a claim, a device must have all the elements of the claim. But infringing even one claim of the patent is sufficient to infringe the patent.

refer to the USPTO

I found some general patent information on the USPTO's site. But I also found this on uspatentagent.com (not affiliated with USPTO) and this ruling in which damages of $324.4 million were awarded for infringement of one claim of a patent with six claims.

The USPTO uses an extensive categorization system, using classes and subclasses. I commend you to their website for more detail, should you need trouble sleeping, or need information on the appropriate category for inventions relating to the preparation of hot grits. US Patent Office Home Page

As an aside, expired patents are in fact searched, because they are still prior art. I have had art cited against me from the 19th century. So far the champion is from Reconstruction. I am eagerly awaiting my first antebellum prior art citation.

Among the things these trademarks cover is the use of X to describe an OS that can play games. I half expect Microsoft to go suing Linux distros and UNIX vendors to drop games from their distributions or stop using the term X.

This is all because someone wrote that damn xbill game. Trademarking X gives Bill Gates the right to sue that game out of existence!

Actually, in all seriousness, I have to wonder. I was in an EB store and saw a large green X displayed and saw the tm sign and went searching and found the two above trademarks for X.

Among the things these trademarks cover is the use of X to describe an OS that can play games. I half expect Microsoft to go suing Linux distros and UNIX vendors to drop games from their distributions or stop using the term X.

This is all because someone wrote that damn xbill game. Trademarking X gives Bill Gates the right to sue that game out of existence!

Actually, in all seriousness, I have to wonder. I was in an EB store and saw a large green X displayed and saw the tm sign and went searching and found the two above trademarks for X.

The answer is potentially.
I'll try to answer this question in two parts.

1. First off, the US PTO has been soundly criticized for granting patents on software and business methods. While the rest of the world guffaws at the US PTO, the US government has been quietly attempting to "harmonize" patent examining procedures abroad.

For instance, on October 24, 2000, the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) drafted a Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Jordan concerning IP protection. Here is provision #5 of the MoU:

"Jordan shall take all steps necessary to clarify that the exclusion from patent protection of 'mathematical methods' in Article 4(B) of Jordan's Patent Law does not include such 'methods' as business methods or computer-related inventions."

In other words, the US government is attempting to export its penchant for granting lousy patents to other nations.

2. Second, consider an international convention is currently being negotiated between representatives of 47 nations. The Hague Conference on Private International Law's "Proposed Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgements in Civil and Commercial Matters" -- or "Hague Convention" is an attempt to render legal judgements between nations enforceable. If the Hague Convention is ratified by member nations, the following scenario may occur:

Multinational Corporation X (native to Britain) patents a fundamental web standard in the United States, where such patents are allowed. X sues its competitors (who reside in nations that do not tend to grant such patents) in a U.S. court, and under the Hague Convention, is able to make the judgement enforceable in other countries -- even if those other countries do not allow patents on web standards. Imagine what the Hague Convention might do to increase the liability of international Free-Software developers.

The U.S. PTO recently solicited comments from the public about the Hague Convention and its effect on patents and intellectual property. You can read the comments here. My organization also has a page on the Hague Convention here.

I hope that helps answer your question about the enforcement of U.S. patents abroad. Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

The PTO has lots of technical people, and few lawyers. The PTO has hundreds of PhDs. Sure, they hire hundreds of people with less than Ph.D. level degrees, but then, I don't expect that every critic of the work they do has one either. Hey, if you want to solve the problem, here's some info on becoming an examiner.

The shortcomings of the PTO have more to do with the time given to examine applications, and the money spent on examination, not the smarts of the examiners. Money is short in part because Congress is using the PTO as a piggy bank. Fees go in, and instead of putting all the money into making patents, Congress sucks about a quarter of the money out for other things.

Having looked at the arguments behind the domain name situation, I reached a logical conclusion. It is my considered and informed opinion, that we arrived here because of one main cause.

The authorities are deliberately managing system, so that domain names are not compatible to trademarks. Though they know how to make them compatible, do not do so - for reasons I shall not go into here. Needless to say, reasons based on money and power.

You will see in just the USA alone that there are 1685 trademarks that contain the word "toy". You can find them listed at: USPTO.

There are also very many thousands of trademarks, that use the word "toy", in 200 other countries.

It is logical, therefore, that they ALL cannot be toy.com or similar, (etoy, eToys etc.) - else they would "infringe" upon each other.

In legal terms, it is also unfair competition that one should be allowed to use their name and ALL the others not.

BUT - authorities know the answer, allowing all trademarks to use their name on the Internet. I put this solution to USPTO and DoC - they do not deny it will solve problem. Basically, an identifier, class and country code are ESSENTIAL to identify trademarks.

All these cases, in the courts and before WIPO, are based on lies and propaganda. I am amazed so many intelligent people have been taken in. Consumer confusion is an obvious lie, used to take away the domain. They all cannot have their name - nearly ALL visitors are going to arrive at wrong location. So they are going to be "confused" anyway.

Please visit my site WIPO.org.uk to see the some of the laws they break.

WIPO.org.uk is the World Intellectual Piracy Organization.

Not associated with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO.org)

However, it's not entirely a hoax. They have been granted the trademark on ":-)" for Printed matter namely, greeting cards, posters and art prints . You could argue that because emoticons have been such an electronic phenomenon, they are not currently in the public domain for printed media. Either way, despair.com is going to have to prosecute if it wants to retain its trademark.

See for your selves.

On a separate note...

I am AMAZED at how many idiots there are that don't seem to be able to realize that this story is MAKING FUN OF FRIVILOUS LAWSUITS by PRETENDING TO BE ONE.

I have to revise my opinion of the average intelligence of the readership of slashdot WAAAAAY down.

Ask yourself, outraged nimrods, if you really believe the following things are TRUE.

1) A company that sells PARODY products is actually working with the FBI to MONITOR YOUR EMAIL.
2) The PARODY company in question is SERIOUSLY planning to sue 7,000,000 people.
3) The founder of that company is SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING changing his name to :-(
4) The SAME person also is suing JEFF BEZOS for infringing on a trademark.
5) The DISCLAIMER at the bottom of the story is actually NOT TRUE.

Did you read any of the OTHER STORIES on the website?

Do you REALLY believe they are partnering with Yahoo to create BOOHOO.COM- a portal for miserable people?
Do you REALLY believe Noah Wylie is the interim CEO of FUTURE POWER


The only story on their entire site that I might ACTUALLY believe is the one about selling 5000 Apathy posters to Fry's. That I believe.

From the US Patent Office website

In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new as defined in the patent law, which provides that an invention cannot be patented if: "(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent," or "(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country more than one year prior to the application for patent in the United States . .

-76041367
-76041368

-76041367
-76041368

Incredible.

The unadulterated greed of so many corporate behemoths is so absurd that it even can't even be parodied.

I saw an article yesterday at The Register about how Despair.com had registered a trademark on the frown emoticon- :-( and planned to sue 7,000,000 people for trademark infringement.

As absurd as the joke is, it pales compared to what is actually being legitimately discussed by CMGI.

Of course, CMGI has little alternative, given their dire stock situation. Have you seen their stock chart recently? If it were a ski slope, it'd be a triple black diamond.

From the US Patent and Trademark Office web patent database, there are only two patents listed where the AltaVista Company is the assignee.

However, there are a large number in which Digital Equipment is the assignee and that refer to "search engine". If I'm not mistaken, DEC developed AltaVista, Compaq bought DEC and then sold off AltaVista. I suppose the original assignee may have re-assigned the rights as part of a sale, so who knows how many of these are owned by CMGI.

> (If you could I'd trademark E and sue everyone!)

Microsoft is already ahead of you.

and even your examples would not stand up in court. There are many trademarked terms that are in common use. Try "Good Thing", owned by Martha Stewart. Look up other "everyday" phrases at U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. You'd be surprised.

and even your examples would not stand up in court. There are many trademarked terms that are in common use. Try "Good Thing", owned by Martha Stewart. Look up other "everyday" phrases at U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. You'd be surprised.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a copy of the Cease and Desist letter online, but you can see the patent here.

Funny, things are already changing though, if you look at this bake-off/cache-off page