Perens on Patents

mowa sent us a link to the one of the latest interviews on sendmail.net. This time around they're talking with Bruce Perens, concerned primarily with the issue of patents. The interview uses Amazon as its example of patents gone awry - nothing much new here, but yet another perspective on the whole issue.

Update: 02/16 11:40 by michael : A while back, we received a submission that never made it into a story of its own, but will fit nicely here. Bryce wrote: "Several of the WorldForge developers, impressed at the quality of comments on the patent story posted a few days ago and wanting to see those comments preserved in a useful form, edited all of the replies into a useful, readable set of documents. The article is most definitely, "Written by Slashdot, For Slashdot". Many of our team members put in a few hours each sorting and summarizing, in the hopes it'd get some good press for WorldForge."

Comments

For proof the world has gone mad ...

[threaded]

For proof the world has gone mad look at what they allow to be patented.

Re:For proof the world has gone mad ...

[slashdot-terminal]

For proof the world has gone mad look at what they allow to be patented.

Ah however never think that evil things are the work of an instable mind. Many evil deeds have been carefully and rationally thought out and then the choice was made. Nuclear weapons, secretive nuclear tests in the Nevada Desert by the DoE, NSA snooping. Just examples.

Question has anyone filed a patent as opensource?

[slashdot-terminal]

I am wondering if anyone has actually filed a patent as opensource yet? Seems like a sure fire way to succeede and prevent Amazon like things from happening.

An easy way to deter unoriginal patents

[Chalst]

Introduce a clause to filing a patent that if prior art is
deminstrated to exist, then anyone who establishes this in court must
pay a bounty. If this figure is set to the right level, it should
ensure that patent filers are pretty confident that prior art does not
exist, whilst unduly eroding the advantages of filing legitimate
patents.

Re:An easy way to deter unoriginal patents

[Chalst]

.. naturally I meant the person who establishes existence of prior art in court *receives* the bounty...

Re:An easy way to deter unoriginal patents

[hobbit]

I think that money is the wrong approach, because, as has been stated elsewhere in this thread, money is already what differentates the little guy and the big guy.

How about a punishment much more tailored to hurt those abusing - such as If prior art is found for one of your patents, you may not file another patent within a six-month period?

Hamish

Re:An easy way to deter unoriginal patents

[Chalst]

Maybe there is something to this, but the idea of legal individual is
a tricky one: big companies can create new companies whose purpose is
to carry patents. Disentangling this in the law courts can be a
tricky affair, and is perhaps impractical for the patent office to
apply proactively.

The usual legal idea (in tax law at least, which is the bit I know
a little about) is that one section of a big company shouldn't be
deterred from profitable activity because of what the other parts are
doing.

Re:An easy way to deter unoriginal patents

[kashko]

I believe the suggestion is redundant. If prior art is demonstrated that renders the patent obvious or non-original that patent is invalid.

Where lawyers get rich is demonstrating or disproving the above.

Re:An easy way to deter unoriginal patents

[hobbit]

If prior art is demonstrated that renders the patent obvious or non-original that patent is invalid.

<p>This is obviously far from enough deterrent.

<p>Big companies take out bogus patents, knowing full well that their size will scare others into paying them royalties on those patents.

Hamish

This is why I'm considering law...

[JohnnyX]

It's precisely the stupidity of legislators and the courts when it comes to issues of a technical nature that Mr. Perens talks about that is making me consider going into IP law. People within the industry seem to be doing nothing but whining, and people within the law are clueless. We need more lawyers who actually know what the hell they're litigating about, and don't put together embarrassing defenses like the one presented in the DeCSS case.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

Re:This is why I'm considering law...

[TekPolitik]

By all means do a law degree, but don't become a hired gun lawyer except as a pit stop on the way to the political arena. That's what I plan to do, not because I want to be a politician, but because I want to stop the stupid things politicians are doing. One of the first things on my hit list will be sotware patents. Lawyers per se cannot change the law only politicians can do that. What is required now is for some of us to get our hands dirty in real politics - but a law degree is extremely helpful in that.

Don't forget to help out.

[Gord]

--Quote from article

One of my big wishes is that I not have to do everything myself. I'd be very pleased to have someone else take up this torch. First, I'm running a company, and I have a kid coming. Second, I have a lot of other issues to work on. Some help in this area would definitely be nice.

--End Quote

I'd like to hope that people will join together to put an end to the stupid patents that we have seen recently. It's up to YOU to help out rather than just sitting down and hoping that everything will magically sort itself out.

But however I feel that most people won't take any action, all it needs is a letter to your MP, Congressman (or whatever you local representative in the government is), expressing your feelings, and hopefully they will begin to listen.

Stuff We've Already Heard

[Maul]

Not that this isn't a good article, and that I'm bashing Slashdot for posting it, but this article pretty much sums up what the typical Slashdotter has said about most of these stupid patents from the beginning.

What I did find more valuable about this article was the fact that he talked more about pushing Linux into the business world. He had some interesting comments that strayed from the patent talk a bit about Open Source.

Re:Stuff We've Already Heard

[slashdot-terminal]

Not that this isn't a good article, and that I'm bashing Slashdot for posting it, but this article pretty much sums up what the typical Slashdotter has said about most of these stupid patents from the beginning.

"Expert" opinion is usually held higher than normal opinion because said expert usually has more of a swap with words and a wider audience.

What I did find more valuable about this article was the fact that he talked more about pushing Linux into the business world. He had some interesting comments that strayed from the patent talk a bit about Open Source.

Well creating something that could read current MS office file formats would be a nice thing.

Re:Stuff We've Already Heard

[Bruce Perens]

I bet you know someone whom you could show this article, who has not gone over all of these ideas before. That's who I am writing for.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Stuff We've Already Heard

[possible]

I totally agree. We've already heard about patents on slashdot - let's talk about Linux for a change!

What's even funnier is that your post was made in all sincerity.

Re:Stuff We've Already Heard

[gruntvald]

Bless you, Bruce - you do good work.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing much new here

So why is it being discussed? Sorry, Slashdot/Slashdot posters is like-minded about this. Can't you find anything news-worthy? Anything that matters? Or an article that will generate 200 "me too"s, 5 "first post"s and half a dozen trolls?

patents

[Gutzalpus]

I'd like to patent the act of typing. This is a unique process through which a person, through the sequential striking of lettered buttons laid out in a particular arrangement, can communicate his/her thoughts, enter code into a computer, etc.

From this point on anyone who would like to type is required to send me licensing fees. Please email me for info on where to send payment.

RSA

[um... Lucas]

I was glad to see that Perens viewed RSA's patent as a legitamate patent. Too often around here it seems that RSA's lumped into the same group as Amazon... When they indeed do real research and created something that had never been seen before in the private sector.

Yes, Amazon's patents lousy... Slashdot basically does the same thing, except I get to post comments without logining in everytime i visit this site.

I think if anything the patent system should be revised... Computer related patents definetly should have their time tables cut in half at the very least. Another glaring example is Unisys, whose LZW compression was used freely for a long time and then they came forward and started to demanding royalties.

When applying for a patent, a company or individual should have to decide right then and their if the patent is going to be royalty free or if it's going to need to be licensed, rather than let it be freely used until it hits critical mass and then switch licensing terms of everyone.

Re:RSA

[dillon_rinker]

Slashdot basically does the same thing

Slashdot also lets you view other people's comments, and permits everyone to moderate (theoretically). /.'s moderation system looks highly patentable to me; perhaps CmdrTaco et al should put money where mouth is and create a defensive patent.

Note that "prior art" isn't always a defense. IANAL, but IIRC, you've got to have been using the invention/process/whatever for more than a year before the patent is applied for, or else you may be liable for royalties.

Re:RSA

[um... Lucas]

I don't think that Rob would need to patent anything about Slashdot as a defensive measure... Hundreds of thousands of people could go on record saying that this site has existed and done what it's done for several years if another company ever tried to patent any aspect of this site.

Of course, it'd be aweful if there were a sleath patent sitting out there that covered the entire basis of slashdot... But that's extremely unlikely.

Re:RSA

[slashdot-terminal]

Slashdot also lets you view other people's comments, and permits everyone to moderate (theoretically). /.'s moderation system looks highly patentable to me; perhaps CmdrTaco et al should put money where mouth is and create a
defensive patent.

That means that the use of GPLed code for other projects would be in jeopardy and I don't think we need that.

Note that "prior art" isn't always a defense. IANAL, but IIRC, you've got to have been using the invention/process/whatever for more than a year before the patent is applied for, or else you may be liable for royalties.

A year in the internet world could be quite costly and kill startups if they try to patent anything.

Re:RSA

[Ed Avis]

RSA's patent was probably 'legitimate' as it was a patent on real, new research. (Britain's GCHQ say that they invented public-key crypto some years previously, but it wasn't published.)

The question is, is it worthwhile granting software patents even for things like this? We have to ask whether the invention would have been made anyway, without the promise of a patent monopoly.

The purpose of the patent system is not to grant special favours to inventors. It is to increase the stock of inventions available to the public, by granting a temporary monopoly in exchange for publishing an idea; this is preferable to inventions being kept secret. Latterly, the possibility of getting a patent has encouraged the development of new inventions in the first place.

So is it worthwhile granting a patent on encryption algorithms to help disclosure? Not really, you have to disclose an encryption system anyway if people are to trust it. What about to provide an incentive for it to be discovered in the first place? I think it unlikely that Rivest Shamir and Adleman were motivated by the thought of getting a patent. So in this case the public has lost out, granting a 20-year monopoly in exchange for something they would have gotten anyway. That's a bad deal.

There may be some software techniques that genuinely do need patent protection to provide an incentive for them to be developed. But personally, I doubt it; the industry has done well enough over the past 50 years without patents. And this small number is more than outweighed by the huge damage that software patents cause.

As for providing a special kind of time-limited patent for software, the GATT treaty requires patents to last 20 years. So the choice is between 20-year software patents and no software patents. I believe that the latter is preferable, especially since we already have copyright for software.

You can check out a letter I wrote to the UK Patent Office if you'd like more explanation of this. I might as well put in a link :-)

Can I get a....

[pnevares]

Can I get a patent on patent interviews?

Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".

RSA and patents

[chandler]

I know this is slightly OT, but what exactly did RSA patent? Is it the basic modular system that's included in every elementry cryptography textbook? Or is it something far more complicated? Thanks for helping me out here.

"The romance of Silicon Valley was about money - excuse me, about changing the world, one million dollars at a time."

IMHO

[jd]

It would make much more sense to abolish the concepts of patents, copyrights and intellectual property, and replace them with intellectual privacy, anti-exploitation and a stronger concept of "fair use".

What do these offer?

Well, "Intellectual Privacy" is a drop-in replacement for the idea of a patent, except that it doesn't matter if there's prior art. You couldn't rip-off someone's ideas, any more than it's legal to steal someone's identity or personal papers. On the other hand, it doesn't cause havoc if multiple people come up with the same idea. There would be no penalty for getting there second. The only penalty would be in appropriating someone else's work without permission.

"Anti-exploitation" laws, to me, would be much stronger than patents, and much more effective. Together with the concept of Intellectual Privacy, they would prevent someone from cloning work and pricing researchers out of business. Patents, to me, hinder the researchers more than anyone, as researchers outside of large companies don't generally have the money to file and defend patents. This makes it a very scary prospect to go out and try and sell an invention. Any company or customer could rip the idea off, patent it, and sue the inventor! I'd rather see exploitation banned, than real work.

Then there's "Fair Use". In the DeCSS fiasco, I'd say that reverse engineering the algorithm, from the data to hand, was fair use. Pirating the CSS algorithm from the manufacturer should be a big no-no, but deriving it by reasoning and deduction should be not only legal but encouraged. The Free Market -depends- on free trade and competition. Without these, market forces don't exist. You have a totalitarian regime.

Re:IMHO

[coaxial]

Your concepts of "Intellectual Privacy" and "anti-exploitation laws" are completely unworkable even in an ideal world, which this is not.

You claim that Intellectual Privacy would behave the same as a patent only that it didn't hurt someone from developing a solution second, but would punish those that "ripped off" someone else's idea. I don't see how this would work in practice. What would keep 1st Company from crying "2nd Company stole my idea!!"; while 2nd Company calls out "Uhh uhh!" Thus the long and protracted childish game of Uh-Huh-Uhh-Uhh (read: suits, countersuits, and appeals) until one company either loses interest, or goes bankrupt.

Of course, any sane person would see key issue in any Intellectual Privacy suit would be implementation, but this isn't ncessarily would would be the deciding factor. 1st Company could always claim the concept, along with the implementaion and thus closing out any competitors. There's also some concepts that are so basic, that they must be intentionally obfusicated to avoid the "cannonical implimentation" (i.e. cat(1)).

Your Anti-Explploitation law doesn't reinforce the benefits of Intellectual Privacy, but rather directly hinders them. 1st Company creates a widget. Everyone like the widget. 2nd Company says, "Hey, we can make a better widget and make it fully compatable with 1st Company's widget, and make it for less money too."

Since the 2nd widget is effectively a cheaper clone of the 1st wideget, 2nd company would be charged under you anti-exploitation law.

Your goals are admirable, but they simply won't work in the Real World. Companies are already quick to sue anyone that looks at them funny; your mock-laws simply renforce this behavior to the detriminete of everyone.

For what it's worth

[DonkPunch]

A relative of mine is an attorney. We had a real interesting discussion last Thanksgiving. I enlightened him on, "...this whole Linux thing." He clued me in on things to watch out for in IP law -- when to talk to an attorney, etc.

He also said that there is a huge demand for attorneys who also have technical certification. Certified engineers with law degrees are highly sought-after these days. The field of IP law is also growing.

A Broader Point

[Jim Tyre]

Perens makes a broader point, one which applies well beyond just the areas of patent and copyright law:

This is a classic problem of the nerd personality: we're both the alienated and the alienator. We only want to hang with people like us. Well, the next ten years can't be like the last twenty. We can't go off and form our own country; we have to educate the people around us. That's a real jump. That means: Let's not talk like nerds to them. Let's translate these hard things into something they can understand. The consumer electronics companies, the big Web conglomerates, the traditional media companies like Disney and NBC have been expert at taking something very technical and making it palatable to the public, because they provide those things as products. We have to use the same language. We have to say, "Hey, public, here's how you'll be living in ten years. This is how you'll be reading the paper over your morning coffee. And this is how people want to make that hard for you. This is how they want to reduce your rights."

It is wonderful to understand from a technical perspective what is going on, to be able to parse it, to preach to the choir. But unless the concepts are articulated in layperson's terms, understandable to those not as well versed in the tech as regulars here, any impact one might hope to have will be minimal at best. The masses may or may not be clueless, but unless those who have a clue speak to them, in a language which they will understand, don't expect even the hope of change.

XXIV. Of Speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as the people understandeth.

It is a thing plainly repugnant to the Word of God, and the custom of the Primitive Church to have public Prayer in the Church, or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understanded of the people.

Oh, to be young again ...

[threaded]

If you're in the UK:
Look up a case involving a snail, a bottle of ginger beer, two glasses, two ladies, an Italian restaurant in Glasgow.

In America:
Look up a case involving a Lady, a Cup of hot Coffee and a drive thru'.

If you think they are perfectly sensible then I suppose you'll make a good lawyer.

Something tells me that all the knowledge based occupations will be seriously hit by the next wave of expert computer systems.

Offtopic -- but opportune ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, don't wet yerself -- but Perens' reference to the shameless strategy of Amazon.com attempting to patent a self-evident idea (aren't these the guys who stole their very name from a lesbian bookstore??) offers a very nice opportunity to ask: What the heck happened to the boycott protest? I thought legions of people were going to sprinkle their amazon online book reviews with pleas to boycott Amazon.com? At the very least, I could have sworn I saw that bunches of GNU/Linux book authors were going to use the review section of their particular books in order to voice their displeasure. Did the plan simply fall apart? Did I mis-read? Is Amazon filtering out those comments?

I thought it was a great idea and was anxious to participate. I felt confident that if Amazon.com dared to censor such comments from reader reviews, that they would be opening a can of worms that would further toast their credibility.

Now, back to your regular broadcast day ... grits, Natalie Portman, and all the important stuff ...

Killing off the little guys

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't think it's already hard enough for individuals and smaller companies to get patents?

You want to guarantee that only large corporations such as IBM, AT&T, MS, and Cisco can afford to pay your "bounty".

You want to create an entire industry of "patent bounty hunting" leeches to clog the already burdened courts with false bounty claims on the hope they get lucky sometimes?

Do we fix *that* problem by having a bounty on the bounty hunters to be paid by the patent bounty hunters for submitting false or weak prior art?

Your idea is silly and needs to be moderated down, not up. It isn't interesting. It is poorly conceived and ill thought out.

Re:Killing off the little guys

[Chalst]

If you cannot demonstrate prior art, then there is no possibility of
your legal challenge succeeding. Only an idiotic lawyer would support
such a challenge, since the costs would be borne by the law firm on a
`no win no fee' basis.

Re:Killing off the little guys

[Weezul]

Yes, this would have an effect on the little guys, but this is still better then no reform at all. We could also make the patent holder liable for bringing a bad case to court, but I do not htink this is good enough since it dose not really keep anyone from getting patents in the first place. The bounty ideas really is a very good colution so long as the judge has some discression to make the punishment actually meaningful, i.e. he wont fine a little guy as much as a big guy.

You want to create an entire industry of "patent bounty hunting" leeches to clog the already burdened courts with false bounty claims on the hope they get lucky sometimes?

This would depend on the specifics of the legal implementation, i.e. you normally need to show you have been harmed to bring suit, so I doubt this would happen.

Your idea is silly and needs to be moderated down, not up. It isn't interesting. It is poorly conceived and ill thought out.

I disagree, even with the problems, it did contribute a good bit to the discussion. People should not be moderated down just because you disagree with them.

Re:Killing off the little guys

[Anonymous Coward]

You said, "Yes, this would have an effect on the little guys, but this is still better then no reform at all. We could also make the patent holder liable for bringing a bad case to court, but I do not htink this is good enough since it dose not really keep anyone from getting patents in the first place. The bounty ideas really is a very good colution so long as the judge has some discression to make the punishment actually meaningful, i.e. he wont fine a little guy as much as a big guy. "

Bad reform is worse than no reform. I'm very opposed to 'doing something' just to 'do something'. And I don't trust a judge to make a fair determination of something like this. To hurt Microsoft you'd have to fine them a few billion dollars. Fining a little guy even a few thousand dollars might ruin him.

The fear of having Microsoft enter the picture and attempt to get free money by presenting prior art would definitely deter me or my small company from trying to get a patent. Some here would say this is A Good Thing. I disagree. That only means that Mega Corporations such as MS can afford the risks involved in patenting.

I say, "You want to create an entire industry of "patent bounty hunting" leeches to clog the already burdened courts with false bounty claims on the hope they get lucky sometimes?"

You reply, "This would depend on the specifics of the legal implementation, i.e. you normally need to show you have been harmed to bring suit, so I doubt this would happen"

But this is exactly the same as the current situation. Only a company on the wrong side a patent infringement claim can sue. The defending company can bring up prior art cases in an attempt to have the patent invalidated. This bounty hunting scheme as you describe it would only make the patent system even more expensive and high risk. Every company in the world would turn to the courts rather than pay a license because their chances of getting off the patent hook are easier and more lucrative and they may get the chance to kill off an otherwise more innovative (not the MS version of the word) competitor just by winning a patent case.

You see this as a positive reform?

Excuse me, but I fail to see this.

Finally, "People should not be moderated down just because you disagree with them."

I don't merely disagree. I pointed out several obvious flaws that lead to the obvious conclusion that this is not only a bad idea but would actually make the current patent system and the courts remarkably worse than they are now.

Again, I am opposed to changing a system just for the sake of changing it.

( Sorry, not in the mood to do the html tags on
quotes )

nothing much new here, but yet another perspective

[xmedh02]

How come there's nothing much new, when it's yet another perspective ?? I thought another perspective also counts as something new..

That just screws the little guy

[/]

Big corporations have deep enough pockets to pay most any fine you can set -- it's the little guy who can't afford to hire the same teams of lawyers who can't afford to pay any fine who would lose out. Besides, since half the reason why corporations file these sorts of patents is to slow their competition by means of lots of litigation, something that wouldn't be reduced (and perhaps would be increased) under your system. If you can prevent your competition from earning a billion dollars, it might be worthwhile to pay a million dollar fine.

You'd just be creating another class of lawyers who would (on contingency) blanket the talk-show airwaves with ads encouraging more people to sue more people. We hardly need more of that.

Reform has to come, but it won't look like that. Perhaps if we start docking the salaries of the USPTO apes who process these patents.... :-)

Re:That just screws the little guy

[Chalst]

Yes, it would create a new class of `ambulance chasers'. But no, deep
pockets would not be a protection if the bounty was set at the right
level: the fact that prior art exists by itself motivates the
challenge to the patent, and not necessarily by the firms competitors.

The fear is that this system would deter the filing of genuinely
original patents. But if the filer knows their field, then they
should be reasonably sure that prior art exists. Also, if the filer
can obtain testimonials ofexperts in his field that the idea is
genuinely original, then that should be enough to convince insurers to
insure the patent.

It is a drastic measure: but the figure of only 1 in 20 patents
actually being original is apalling!

Re:That just screws the little guy

[sjames]

But if the filer knows their field, then they should be reasonably sure that prior art exists.

How sure is reasonably sure? Sure enough to risk bankrupcy if you're wrong? If the bounty is large enough to actually discourage a large corperation, think what it would do to an individual. Everything you own is a lot to risk on 'reasonably sure'.

If the bounty were set based on a percentage of net worth at the time of filing (and re-computed upon transfer), it could work. 5% of net worth hurts the same no matter what your absolute net worth is. Personally, I think all fines should be computed that way.

My name is Legion for we are many ...

[threaded]

That sounds like St. Thomas Aquinas' cop outs.
It would seem that not every act of will in the damned is evil. For according to Dionysius (Div. Nom. iv), "the demons desire the good and the best, namely to be, to live, to understand." Since, then, men who are damned are not worse off than the demons, it would seem that they also can have a good will.

My point is good, is survival. Ethical conduct is survival. Evil conduct is nonsurvival.

I suggest The official publication of the American Society of Sociopaths

editorial neutrality

[Signal 11]

Rob, please tell the slashdot authors to stop interjecting their personal beliefs / commentary into the news posts. I've been watching this for some time and it's really starting to grate. Let ME be the judge of whether it's new and insightful (or inciteful) or not.

Put your comments down here with the rest of us if you feel the need to comment - but stop biasing things. Bruce has consistently made intelligent commentary on things and even if YOU don't think it's new, maybe some of US do. Let us make up our own mind.. instead of being like conventional media and telling us how we should think.

(Score: -1, un-pc)

Re:editorial neutrality

[jallen02]

Looks like yer doing a good job of thinking for yourself? Whats the problem.. did they stifle you or take away your thinking abilities in any way by saying that??

Re:editorial neutrality

[Signal 11]

weel, if ya'all er thinkin' dat dem author's em slashdoot er doin' all yer thinkin' maybe dem's better idears fer ya!

Re:editorial neutrality

[hobbit]

(Score: -1, un-pc)

This from the self-acclaimed Karma Whore, who knows full well that this equivalent of false modesty will chide moderators into bumping his karma up a few hundredths of a percent.

Hamish

Re:editorial neutrality

[Anonymous Coward]

Rob, please tell the slashdot authors to stop interjecting their personal beliefs / commentary into the news posts. I've been watching this for some time and it's really starting to grate. Let ME be the judge of whether it's new and insightful (or inciteful) or not.

They've been doing this all along. At least ever since I started reading /.

And it's only now starting to grate on you?

I think it's handy. It lets the knee-jerk geek wannabes know what they should think. And lets the MS-blinkered rest easy in the knowledge that /. is an anti-MS cesspool.

Re:editorial neutrality

[Ed Avis]

Rob, please tell the slashdot authors to stop interjecting their personal beliefs / commentary into the news posts. I've been watching this for some time and it's really starting to grate. Let ME be the judge of whether it's new and insightful (or inciteful) or not.

The whole point is that the Slashdot authors decide what is interesting and new. They sift through hundreds of submitted stories to find a dozen that are worth putting on Slashdot. If you want to be the judge of what's interesting, you'll have to go out looking for stories yourself.

A brief explanation of why the story was picked - 'not new but interesting', 'funny', and so on - helps the reader to decide whether to read the rest of the article and the comments. Not everyone wants to read through every single story on Slashdot; I'm glad of a few hints from the editors as to what's worth my time.

Re:editorial neutrality

[Animats]

The whole point is that the Slashdot authors decide what is interesting and new. They sift through hundreds of submitted stories to find a dozen that are worth putting on Slashdot. If you want to be the judge of what's interesting, you'll have to go out looking for stories yourself. Maybe those chosen as moderators should be able to examine the story submission queue and mark stories for posting. Then this whole thing would run on autopilot. I'd like to see that tried. It will take some fine tuning, as did the existing moderation system, but it could work.

As a starter, anybody who wants to should be able to read the slushpile, the stuff rejected by the editors. It may suck, but making it accessable keeps the editors on their toes.

Re:editorial neutrality

[jallen02]

Heh heh heh Sorry, I couldnt resist! :p and hey whats wrong with being From Georgia and talking like that? Ehh? and I *do* say ya'll so... hehe.

I see someone from your fan club has moderated you as a troll

WWMD? [What Would Malda Do?]

[Anonymous Coward]

"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil," Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda told bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Malda, and his homosexual partner Jeff "Hemos" Bates, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.

"I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Roblimo, our gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual, Hemos shouted out 'Armageddon', my cue that he'd had enough. I tried to retrieve Roblimo but he wouldn't come out again,so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him."

At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next. "The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out the tubing, igniting Malda's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball."

Malda suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Bates suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.

-23, Redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

How the &$#*(@ is this "2, Funny" when it should be about "-23, Redundant"???? OK, so it was the first such comment posted to this particular article. It seems there's about 2 dozen of "I patented X, now pay me" comments posted to every single stupid patents story on /. (I'll let the reader decide for emself whether "stupid" in the previous sentence modifies "patents" or "story".) These are way more annoying than any Natalie Portman-Grits-First Post trolls.

The points about the DMCA were well made...

[ArtDecayed]

...one of the things that I hadn't realized was that this could lead to having 'encrypted web pages'.
Where would this leave Mozilla? Would it be illegal to have a browser that did not allow the features mentioned? (For those that didn't read the article: Print button disabling & HTML source encryption)
Obviously, you could do a build that worked around these features - but, so what? Everyone else, with their AOL-ised Mozilla, won't notice nor care. Ok, you could say that 'those web sites that insist on content protection simply won't get the same hit count as those that don't'. But is that really true? If IE and AOL-zilla support the features mentioned, those of us with a 'self rolled' browser would be in the minority.
This is a pretty serious implication - it's almost as if you buy a book but have to wear 'special' de-cryption glasses to read it. Scary.

Re:The points about the DMCA were well made...

[sjames]

Would it be illegal to have a browser that did not allow the features mentioned?

Under DMCA, it would be illegal to use such a browser to print. The real question is would printing the whole screen count a circumvention the copy protection or would the protection be ruled 'not effective'. What if the screen is electronic paper (with all the bugs worked out) and the image persists if you disconnect from the computer?

Treading into the Twilight Zone now:

Some people have perfect recall. There is some evidence that an auditory halucination will actually cause the ears to reproduce the sound that the person thinks they hear (It's a lot more plausable than it sounds if you consider the feedback mechanism between the brain and the ear).

If such a person listens to a DVD audio, is it a violation of DMCA?

RE: Worldforge Summary, great idea methinks

[caolan]

I think that the worldforge summary idea is a great idea. While I have my doubts about one or two points accuracy, the idea of a summary for particular topics is interesting.

Perhaps slashdot should consider making a feature out of this idea, for stories over a certain amount of postings (of non trolls), or maybe stories that reoccur regularly. Have some volunteer do a digest of the most popular articles, ala the kernel and wine weekly news sections.

Allows those of us who get swamped under by stories to get a handle on them again, and also maybe remind of us some of the more important points again. An idea worth considering.

C.

bad patents.

[angelo]

What sickens me about patents is the broad brush by which they are applied. to say "method of making greeting cards" and simply copy it as a derivative work by placing "electronically" or any other postfix is part of the problem. I'm not against patents, but rather against broad patents.

One example is a process patent. The way we do things to a certain extent is determined by the way we think. Patenting a process is like patenting a thought to an extent. As a matter of chemistry, culture and education 2 people just might come up with the same idea despite never having met, or seen each other's work. One isn't allowed to use his/her thoughts because he/she didn't patent it and the other did.

I am willing to give in on some points though. One such point is software that is truly unique. The truly non-obvious stuff should be patentable. Now what is obvious? I'd have to say that anything that makes at least a majority of the population say "well duuuuh." If you look at IBM's Patent Server you'll see quite a few duh's out there.

One click shopping springs to mind. While it has not real analogue to real life, it has to be common sense that the least steps anything can be done in is one. That goes for anybody out there who wishes to capatilze on one step processes of any sort. The number of steps in a process is not something on which to base a patent.

I'm personally ok with patents on algorithms. However, algorithms that are derivitive works shouldn't even get to be an issue. Modifying something existing does not make it yours. You also shouldn't be able to patent nature. Why patent leaf patterns?

I ramble as usual, boring slashdot to tears. Parting shot : Patents are good for physical things, dubios for processes, and OK for original software in my book. I don't mind flames :)

Re:bad patents.

[cw0000]

"I'm not against patents, but rather against broad patents."

How does one draw the line between a "broad" and "non-broad" patent in a way that's not completely arbitrary?

I'm against patents, period. People should be free to use all ideas that they discover. IMO, Property is only justified if one person's use of something prevents the original user from accessing it. Because I'm free to use an idea without preventing you from doing the same, you would not have a similar justification for prohibiting me from using the idea. You might profit less if I use your idea, but guaranteed profit is not a right. If you happen to profit from a venture, then you have a right to keep what you acquire, but *potential* profit is not yet your property. If potential profit is not your property, then it can not be used as a justification for declaring an idea as your property.

Re:bad patents.

[joshy]

the patent system already has some of these mechanisms. something is not patentable unless is its original and novel. unfortunately the patent office doesn't seem to be too good about enforcing this rule. i would say that priceline's patent on reverse auctions on the web is original but certainly not novel.

and on the last point, you already cannot patent something in nature, and most of mathematics is considered part of nature. makes you wonder where encryption stands. is it an algorithm or mathematics?

Re:bad patents.

[angelo]

and on the last point, you already cannot patent something in nature, and most of mathematics is considered part of nature. makes you wonder where encryption stands. is it an algorithm or mathematics?

That's a tough line for me too. I happen to believe you can't patent DNA, but you should be able to patent the hardware to use it. Like the site that's linked in this article states, there is the issue of RSA's patent on their encryption. The algorithm is 200 years old, and they applied the principles and patented them. Like you said, it may be an original patent, but not really a novel one, due to a 200 year old work.

As far as nature is concerned, I consider only lower maths to be a part of nature. Most gemoetry is. Calculus to an extent is, since it describes nature. But when you are talking things like encryption, you tend to get into hypotheticals and are a bit outside the bounds of traditional mathematics and nature.

Re:bad patents.

[angelo]

How does one draw the line between a "broad" and "non-broad" patent in a way that's not completely arbitrary?

I define broad patents as anything that falls outside the bounds of a perceptible concept or thing. One click shopping is broad because it (1)obviates its own need, and (2)covers any one-click shopping, as long as it's electronic.

As to your second statement, I agree except in the cases outlined in the original post. Mechanical devices should be patentable, as well as anything outside of behavior and natural law.

Re:bad patents.

[remande]

Guaranteed profit is not a right. But patents were never about rights anyhow. They are about research.

The point of a patent system is to give a potential inventor a carrot to reach for. Indeed, that is how patents are described in the constitution--not as a natural right, but as a way to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (article 1, section 8). There are a lot of inventions that take a lot of work to produce, and nobody is going to do that work when somebody else can go and use their work immediately.

In software, this doesn't happen as much. Most stuff in the computer field is a relatively small amount of research for a large amount of benefit. Such protection is not needed, and actually counterproductive.

But take, for example, medicines. A good medication can take millions of dollars to research and create, and millions more to test so that we're sure that it's safe and effective. But often the manufacture is fairly inexpensive.

Unless I have money to burn and a generous streak, I am not going to spend multiple millions of dollars to produce a cancer-fighting drug that somebody else can copy next month. I have costs to amortize--big costs. The patent is the promise of a temporary monopoly that gives me a good financial reason to invest all of that R&D money.

The only reason that a patent approaches being a right is that it is a promise by the government, and one that a researcher bets ones farm on. The government does not extend this promise as a natural right of the inventor, but as a way to coerce inventors to work harder.

VIVA LA REVOLUTION!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

TIME TO CARE OF THOSE GOD DAMN CAPITALIST FUCKIN WHORES!!!! LETS ALL PUT PATENTS IN THE PUBLIC TRUST!!! ITS FOR THE FUCKIN PEOPLE!!! AFTERALL OUR LORD LENIN SAID SO AND WE ALL KNOW HE WAS A GREAT MAN WHO LED THE SHINING COMMUNIST UTOPIA IN OUR BELOVED RUSSIA. VIVA LA FUCKIN REVOLUTION LETS TAKE OUT THOSE CAPITALIST SHITHEADS AND SAVE THE WORKING CLASS NOW! BRING DOWN THE CORPORATE WHORES, LETS MAKE THEM FEEL THE WRATH OF OUR UNSKILLED LABORERS!!!!

Re:i hate orange

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators:

Please moderate this up. It is very interesting and deserves the largest target audience possible. Thanks.

No! that would ruin the site

[Smack]

First off, links with no commentary are boring and soulless.

"Let ME be the judge of whether it's new and insightful (or inciteful) or not."

This implies that when the authors add commentary, they AREN'T letting you be the judge of wether it's new and insightful. But they aren't doing anything of the sort. They're only providing their view of it, and you are free to ignore it.

But I don't think you're actually saying that YOU personally would be be misguided by their comments. I mean, you clearly saw through it on this story. Rather, I think you're looking down at the the other slashdot readers and thinking that they might not be as smart as you, and might not be able to think for themselves, and WILL be misguided. Which is really degrading... you should be ashamed of yourself.

Re:No! that would ruin the site

[Bhagera]

No. The comment area should be used for personal comments. Headlines do not have to be "soulless" just because they are without slant.

And whats with the personal attack (character assassination) against Signal11. "You should be ashamed of yourself"?! I wonder how your other posts read.

Re:No! that would ruin the site

[Signal 11]

All things considered... yup.. I do believe the majority of slashdot readers are not intellectual giants.

Was there a point to your post, or did you just want to highlight the fact that in any large group a large percentage will be idiots?

Idea.

[Rodney L Caston]

Instead of ending stupid patents, why don't we just end stupid posts on /. ?
Heh, There goes any karma I had left...

I'll say it again. and again... and again...

[bons]

The problem with the patent system has nothing to do with laws, clueless judges, lawyers, or anything else of that ilk.

If you want to fix the system you need the following:

An internet based database of prior art. This database will allow anyone to enter in data and the data within the database will be open to all. Data in the database will be dated according to the date it is entered into the database or the date the same data was entered into another accepted prior art database, such as the current U.S. patent database.

By creating and maintaining this database we have an effective tool to fight patents in court and to keep our inventions as our own without using the patent system.

In short, we create "open patents".

Please don't bother moderating this article as it's just after the magical #50th reply where moderation no longer seems to happen.

-----

Re:I'll say it again. and again... and again...

[Sloppy]

The problem that I see with this is that oftentimes someone won't even think to search (or enter) an idea into the database. A programmer can solves dozens of little problems per day, and isn't always going to check to see if something is patentable.

Suppose you needed to draw a cursor and then erase it again. The ol' XOR idea would quickly come to mind, whether you had previously heard of it or not. Would it occur to you to check to see if it had been patented? Would you bother to query the database? And afterwards, would you bother to document it and put it into the prior art database? (And think about the Amazon one-click patent in that regard. Would you have really thought to enter one-click shopping into a prior art database? NO WAY!)

Some things are so obvious and natural, that the idea that it could be patentable doesn't come up until much later.

Programmers solve problems at a rate that run rings around other disciplines. (I'm not saying that the problems are hard; I'm just saying that we do them quickly.) If we have to stop and search databases, then software work that currently costs you $75 is going to go up to hundreds or perhaps even thousands of dollars. If that happens, nobody's gonna sign my work orders anymore and I'm going to have to flip burgers for a living.

I don't think that easier patent searches and prior art searches are the answer. The problem really is with The Law. Patents in software (or anything else that doesn't require a lot of capital investment for production) should be abolished.

Or maybe the duration of patents should be a function of the capital investment that went into "inventing" them. That way, most software patents would expire after a few hours. :-)

---

For the Patent CLUELESS

[Anonymous Coward]

People,
The patent process is indeed flawed, but the process that the Open Source advocates are proposing is even worse. Aside from the fact that the likes of Perens and Co. have no mandate to represent us in this instance THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT

1. Patents take 24-36 months to go through. There are little checks to see if there is prior art and there is NO WAY that a Prior Art database on the net would stand up in court. Why? Because it has to be active prior art to prevent fraud.
2. Its no use saying that "the open sorse community thought of it 10 years ago" and then did nothing with it. Any attempts to register ad-hoc usage or a database entry as a place-holder would be justly thrown out by the courts. An open sorse database to block future Patents is as fraudulent and as unjust as anything the 'Suits' do. There are claims that the Open Sorse community is better than this.We are not.
3. An individual inventors rights to invent should be protected and not violated by a psuedo communist plot to block, stifle and otherwise control invention that is outside Open Sorse.. We complain about MS, but we are acting in a manner much worse.

People, those contributing to this forum are so biased and blinkered to anything other than accepted Geek Doktrine that this post will be moderated down as Troll-fodder. Never mind, fortunately the rest of the world has a patent system so,

4. I file my patent in Europe and all the US Open Sorse developers will violate it.

Please stop the religious crusade. This is not war, this is not a community. Perens is as bad as Raymond - they are just in it for themselves.

Oh well, at lease the FreeBSD people act with dignity and respect.

Re:For the Patent CLUELESS

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to respond to a troll who can't spell but:

None of the silly software and method patents in America are fucking valid in Europe! You COULDN'T patent one-click shopping, or xor cursors, or RSA encryption in most of Europe or Asia!

That's why the US is exerting a hell of a lot of pressure for the EU to recognise American patents, but the EU will not do so. The EU doesn't want its own industries tied up by ridiculous patent legislation. The EU doen't want to honour any silly first-to-invent instead of first-to-file systems. Hell, the EU are likely to require Government-used software to be Open Source soon, and China loves linux. If americans persist in promoting their obsolete patent model, they'll slowly but surely fall behind in innovation stakes.

Patent Resource on Bruces homepage

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Source Patent Resource

Pricing bounty

[Chalst]

Insurance should be possible: insurers are in the business of covering
thse kinds of small risks. What an insurer would demand is evidence
that the patent provides a novel solution to a known problem.

Still, it is the case that the risk will be some deterrent, and it
may be the case that insurance premiums are high because of the
technical knowledge required to reduce risks to the insurer. Some
ideas on protecting the little guy:

1. There could be discounts on the bounty for unlimited liability
filers (ie. individuals and partnerships);

2. There could be discounts for `first time filers';

3. Bounty could be reduced if the filer can provide independent,
expert testimonial saying that this is a novel solution to a known
problem. (not sure about this)

What I like about my proposal is it attacks the problem without
simply outlawing classes of patent, or creating potentially unlimited
liability to patent filers. Maybe the idea is drastic, but are there
any definitely better ideas out there?

Re:Pricing bounty

[sjames]

What I like about my proposal is it attacks the problem without simply outlawing classes of patent, or creating potentially unlimited liability to patent filers. Maybe the idea is drastic, but are there any definitely better ideas out there?

I like the principal of the idea. Perhaps if the bounty was a percentage of net worth at time of filing and the possability of insurance to cover that. The big advantage there is that it scales well from the smallest to the largest inventor. Or perhaps even percentage of disposable income? That's not too hard to define for an individual, but could be more challenging for a corperation.

I would like to see such a thing set high enough to be a deterrant but low enough that insurance not be necessary for most people to proceed with a legitimate patent. Doing that probably would mean there would be some abuse, but not nearly as much as there is now.

Some of this problem is only indirectly a patent issue per se. The root problem is that civil litigation costs are ruinous to an individual and frequently capricious as well.

Striking resemblance!

[Anonymous Coward]

technocrat.net bears a striking resemblance to slashdot... Rob, is he running your code?

Shadow Man?

[slashdot-terminal]

Just wondering the phrase appears a great deal. The mass murders all quote it as does Legion.

What complete and utter rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a treaty which allows a US patent to be recognized and enforced in Europe.

What? Introduce mere facts? Nah, this is /.

Holding the world hostage

[nyet]

But take, for example, medicines. A good medication can take millions of dollars to research and create, and millions more to test so that we're sure that it's safe and effective. But often the manufacture is fairly inexpensive.

My dream is to amass a huge fortune, spend several trillion on a unique cure for cancer, then hold the world hostage with my patent for 20 years. Can't afford my $1,000,000,000 per treatment licencing fee? Tough shit. Die like the rest. Came up with an identical drug, but selling it cheaper? Tough shit; that drug is MINE.

You seem to be confused/that drug belongs to me/the drug is MINE.

This is a capitalist society. I have a god-given right to make as much goddamn money as I want. My ideas are my property. I will litigate you into the ground for making a better, cheaper product, because that is not what capitalism is all about; that is communism, or socialism, or something pinko, and just plain anti-American.

Wait a sec, something is wrong with my line of thought..

Hrm....

You can't.

[Chris Johnson]

You can't file a patent as open source. The concepts are so orthoganal that they can't coexist. Unlike copyright, which concerns itself with laying claim to the origination of a work (I, not you, wrote this), patent specifically concerns itself with controlling access to a work (I, not you, can use this) and has no other purpose at this time. As such, it is the essence of what 'proprietary' means, and is intrinsically opposed to anything 'open source'. OSS is about sanctioning the free flow of information in whatever manner and legislating how that may be used. Patents are about blocking the free flow of information unless you pay or make other arrangements. It's a black-and-white difference in mode of information exchange.

What you would want if you really want 'open source' inventions is glaringly public domain- ability to publish an invention of whatever nature and have it immediately be recognized, at that point, as prior art. This requires some work- j. random website won't cut it, there must be a central location for hosting the database, it should be searchable so the patent office can _use_ it to look for up-to-the-minute prior art, and it must be widely accessible and publically acknowledged, not secret.

However, this would only prevent Amazon from making a patent based on a public domain idea- it would not prevent Amazon from using that idea, or making millions of dollars off the idea. If you want to punish Amazon, or punish Microsoft, or withhold things from anyone, you don't even want to be using open source much less PD inventions- the whole essence of open source is that anybody can use it, without passing tests or being voted in as OK, given only that they use the OSS according to the rules it comes with. In the case of public domain, it is oddly like the GPL vs. copyright in that the _only_ rule is 'This disqualifies the idea from being fit for patenting'. There are no other rules! Nobody is impeded from marketing the idea at all- the _only_ behavior that _is_ stopped is the ability to take an idea, railroad through a patent and then sue other people to stop them using it.

For some of us, this last situation is dangerous enough that access to a truly _public_ PD system is desperately needed. I know that I desperately need such a system- my website ain't enough, I do not trust that it would stand up in court as prior art against a corporate enemy because it _is_ my website, it's my own backyard.

And yes (hell, yes!) I have stuff to make public- I'm a peculiar geek kind of like the character 'Leonard of Quirm' in pterry books, and people who know me personally and have worked with me or visited my home tend to get all worked up and insist that I should be patenting things left and right. Runs in the family, my Dad is a scientist with a series of infrared instrumentation patents, and he too has pointed to particular inventions of mine and said they were clearly patentable. But that is not the way I want to behave! So for now I just _sit_ on reams of stuff (much of which is audio hardware, me being an audio geek), wishing for a _real_ public domain place to go. I look at SourceForge and drool- something like that would be so good, but nobody is making one for the inventor, because apparently the assumption is 'If you invent physical items, you don't _want_ to share, or to benefit the world, or work within a community of thinkers- only software programmers do that!' Well, bollocks to that :P and I can't be the only one 'cos I'm _not_ unique, I know there are others out there who feel as I do.

Ack, major tangent and rant! Well anyway... you want to look for ways to block patents, not ways to create more of them. The only thing they're good for anymore is blocking innovation and preventing good ideas from fully entering society. They are nothing but toll-gates and it is naive to think they are necessary- how much money does Microsoft make from patents versus how much money it makes through control of media and ownership of extensive distribution facilities? It's asinine to think that losing IP control will hurt the big corporations one iota. It's asinine to think that individuals _get_ equal rights and abilities under patent IP law, for that matter- it comes down to money, as these things do, and you can't outspend a corporation. So the only recourse is abolishment of patents- and, while they exist, staking out areas of public domain, that being the one area that is explicitly off limits to patents.

_I_ am wondering if anyone else is doing the slightest thing to further the development of a public domain database, a web resource? I swear it's necessary. I don't know how many other people need to use such a resource, but think about it- how many people could be expected, in 1990 or so, to write Unix-alike software for no pay just so other people could also share it? Think about it. What about software is so special that only software needs to be open? Ideas are even cheaper to transfer. You just talk- and listen.

Re:Feedback mechanism

[Scrymarch]

Alternatively and talking without any legal or legislative experience, you could introduce a feedback mechanism.

Patents were historically introduced to encourage inventors to share their works rather than hide them in the back shed, and so promote the works of innovation and a technological society. As the pace of technology increases, this becomes less important, and in fact allows organisations to strangle access to particular technologies, stifling innovation. The length of patents should be modified accordingly and automatically.

I don't see the people at the patent office getting a clue about innovation anytime soon. The incremental stripping away and smoothing of features is very much a part of technological improvement. Also, massive innovations are sometimes recognised only in retrospect. Determining the difference between genuine innovation and technological "smoothing" leaves the patent office open to all sorts of problems with inconsistency.

Length of patents could be determined by some constant divided by the number of patents issued over the previous year (not from Jan, from the date of submission). Alternatively some more sophisticated exponential based formula could be used. This would give a boost to innovators in slow periods and the acceptance of lots of spurious patents would quite appreciably devalue the value of other patents submitted.

Problems with this approach? It's complicated and confusing, but in patent law, compared to what? :)

Re:Feedback mechanism

[Chalst]

It's not that complex, but I think I don't think it is a good idea to
make it impossible for large organisations to file patents just
becuase they filed lots of patents in the past: folks like GE file a
lot of *good* patents. The advantage of the bounty idea is that you
can increase the bounty for companies that have a history of filing
spurious patentes, without actually preventing them from mending their
ways and filing good patents.

Re:Feedback mechanism

[Scrymarch]

Though tying it to a company is interesting that would punish innovators as you say. What I meant was the duration of patents is dependent on the number of patents not just submitted, but accepted as patents, by everyone.

This would have a similar effect of "floating" the duration of patents much like currencies were floated a few decades ago. It becomes a measure of both the quality of patents granted and the amount of innovation about. In economic and R&D lulls, the length of patents for everyone would increase, encouraging innovation; in booms the length would decrease, encouraging competition and driving technological change.

UK Patent Law

[tubs]

Just had a look at the UK patent office (www.patent.gov.uk) and it has an interesting set of exclusions

This is just interesting :- Articles or processes alleged to operate in a manner clearly contrary to well-established physical laws, such as perpetual motion machines, are regarded as not having industrial application.

Not be 'excluded'
An invention is not patentable if it is:

a discovery; a scientific theory or mathematical method;
an aesthetic creation such as a literary, dramatic or artistic work;
a scheme or method for performing a mental act, playing a game or doing business;
the presentation of information, or a computer program.

If the invention involves more than these abstract aspects so that it has physical features (such as a special apparatus to play a new game) then it may be patentable.

If computer programs are not able to get a patent under UK law, how would the UK be affected by a "computer program" patented by the WPO?