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What Happens When Patents Meet Antipatents?
Roblimo pointed out an interesting piece by Grant Gross of NewsForge tying together some of the recent thoughts on Slashdot and elsewhere about preventing the creation of bad patents. Gross examines the idea of "antipatents" as formulated by Media.org co-founders Rebecca Hargrave and Carl Malamud. From the article: "'Antipatents are simple, a registration mechanism for your open-source inventions. ... Taking the time to document the antipatent prevents some clueless corporation from making it their property. Perhaps a handsome certificate, suitable for framing, can be sent with each antipatent for a modest fee.' Hargrave and Malamud also call for a formal way for the community at large to shout down 'clueless patents.'" Sounds good to me.
The problem isn't that people are out there inventing things and then not patenting them. It's that people are out there doing stuff that seems too obvious to patent, and then some idiot company patents it. Who would have antipatented one-click shopping? Or selling music on the 'net? Anyway, you can already get a patent for something that you don't want to make money off: I forget what it's called, but someone here knows.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
IMO, antipatents don't seem like a great idea. Rather, I think we need better technical patent investigators and more efficient ways of investigating prior art.
If you really want to share your invention, and ensure that nobody can patent it, release it in such a way that it can be shown to be prior art. To be effective, there should be proof of the date of the invention, etc.
Obligatory mention - IANAL.
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
Are you volunteering to run the database?
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
> So how does the patent office define 'public'?
I suspect they are limited to their own library as well as the contents of the Library of Congress.
and identify common transmission errors by the
time you've read the first 8 bytes (JPEG-2000
has adopted this method, too)
art (RFC 1950, 1951, 1952, 2083)
You're correct ... but (modulo some legal changes, which are sorely needed anyway), there is still lots of work to document all the "inventions" that were already invented a long time ago. Many of the patents being filed are equivalent to work that happened 10 years or more ago. Even 1-click and affinity programs were well beyond the one-year ticker.
:))
No system is perfect.
The S.I.R. Patent is *EXACTLY* an 'anti-patent'. I thought the name was 'Statuatory Information Patent', but in any event it is (a) lower cost than regular patents, (b) simplified form I think, and (c) designed specifically to register an idea with the patent bureau for which you claim no proprietary interest, which means the idea is protected from somebody else patenting it. Therefore, this is the ideal and existing channel for filing an idea to make sure nobody 'reinvents' something you're already using and then gives you legal hassles for using it, and it means that open-sourcers could invest a small amount of time and money to keep the work open source. Although I've filed a couple of patents, I'm no expert, but it appears pretty clear that the S.I.R. would be much greater protection than 'publication' or 'prior use', because (a) it would head the rustlers off at the pass; (b) they cannot 'overlook' your published 'prior art', and more importantly the patent *examiners* at the USPTO are far more likely to find it in USPTO records than in some software journal, and (c) you'd be spared the legal expense of later 'proving' your rights in court. I say, use the S.I.R., sir! That's what it's there for!
== buddha is as buddha does ==
all the "evil corporation" has to do is just file their patent within one year after your publication. .using their internal documents and lawyers.
They can still file it until a year after you publish it, so long as they can show the patent office they "invented it" before you did . .
I'm afraid you'll never get this one, theres just too much prior art out there...
Hold on thats never stopped the patent office before as we've seen recently, so go ahead and give it a try..
So antipatents are just another way to register your ideas so that someone else can't take them, only with automatic free licencing to the entire world. :-)
So the two really aren't opposites; and in fact are very similar.
Just like pasta and antipasta.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
This exact item exists, and has been discussed on Slashdot.
It's a class of patent in the US called the SIR, and it exists so that when government funded research is done, the SIR establishes formal prior art, and no one else can claim it as a regular patent.
See, that was easy!
Not in the direct reading of the first amendment, but the idea that the government doesn't favor one group over another in cases like these, unless in a trial, but that's covered in the fifth.
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
Wasn't this Jeff Bezos' idea when he and Amazon.com applied for "defensive" patents so that other companies couldn't come in and clobber them? Now we know what happened in that story. What's to stop these antipatents from becoming patents of their own?
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
OK, I'm violating my moderator status by replying, but I just have to jump in ,more than invalidate the patent and subject the one commiting the fraud to criminal remedies. Apublication that is more than one year prior to the effective filing date is a "statutory bar", which cannot be "sworn behind"
Yes, a patent applicant/owner can "swear behind" prior art that is less than one year prior to the effective filing date, but he must show evidence of conception of the invention and dilligence to reduce it to practice PRIOR to the publication date of the reference. Obviously, this can be faked, but that is fraud, and could
This petition is directed to the European Parliament.
Its goal is to warn European Authorities against the dangers of software patents.
This petition is supported by the EuroLinux Alliance together with European companies and non-profit associations.
Please make this petition well known to everybody concerned.
IANAL but IIRC obviousness is a perfectly acceptable reason to refuse a patent. Only novel things are supposed to deserve patents. That's why they go through the trouble of getting patent examiners who know something about their fields. Sadly, they've been a little late in getting lots of programmers into the USPTO - thus the glut of stupid crap.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Get a business model patent on getting patents on an obvious (and heavily used) process and then suing everybody using the process (recursive). Then go out and sue everybody using that business model!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I once considered patenting some bad ideas (along the lines of using negative numbers as sentinal values, undocumented OS capabilities, etc.) so that I would own the IP and be able to sue companies that used these bad practices. -m
I had some, but it died.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
IT might be helpful to the PTO if people who are regularly assigned to process the prior art I f thy could figgure out where the prior art in a given document would be useful and send them directly to the Art Unit or, if known, examiner in charge, so they can go directly to where the can be of most use.
The SIRs have one feature that a simple publication doesn't..they can be a party to an interference (to determine priority of invention) and can actually be effective in that context prior to the filing date. SIRs were intended to be used by US Government agencies that wanted a defensive mechanism to avoid having work that was developed by the Government tied up by a the patent of another, but anyone can apply for a SIR. It is very expensive, but if the stakes are High, then it might be useful
First, you must always carry a baseball bat. (Wood, aluminum, steel, lead, iron, etc. it doesn't matter)
Second, as soon as a clueless executive says "Hey, I have an idea, let's patent sedimentary rock." you smack them in the leg with the aforementioned bat. They may limp around for awhile after that.
Third, when they get the lawyers together and get ready to apply for the patent, hit them all in the head with the bat. (Make sure you hit at least one of the lawyers twice)
Forth, if they are still insisting on getting this patent, don your sporty black armor with the classic skull facemask helmet, grab your trusty sword, bust in on a board meeting, kill the chairman, and exclaim "I am your leader now, fool mortals! Does anyone wish to challenge this?"
Finally at the beginning of your first meeting with the executives, proclaim in a deep booming voice "From this day forth, no one shall patent what is already a reality! Those who defy me will be destroyed!"
Alright, I'm done.
Oh, and make sure you always have scantily clad female servants following you around everywhere. (Uh, mostly for your pleasure.)
Thank you, and have a good day.
The central problem with the patent system is not the idea behind it, but the stupidity of the people granting that patent, and the rights it gives the patent holder. That should be fixed. It's hard to see how having another database would change things.
I don't agree. An antipatent is not awarded by the USPTO. It is a well-known way to log and timestamp ideas, such that when a clueless patent does get awarded by the USPTO, it can be used as prior art. It would serve as a useful resource for the USPTO clerks, too.
~
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I mean, you really think the patent office is doing something useful?
Especially being in Washington DC, we could kill not only two birds with one explosion, but the nest and breeding ground of the entire big ass bureaucracy!
--
Infuriate left and right
I don't really see the big win here. Surely any open source project big enough to file for an "antipatent" is big enough to show up on even the the most cursory prior art search. These typically aren't the problem; they tend to sort themselves out.
It's the obscure or super-obvious ones (such as international e-commerce and other business methods) that tend to slip through the prior art cracks. But they're also the ones that don't have a natural constituency to file an "antipatent". Catch 22
Problem solved. Pat. Pending.
> SCOTTY! Get more more ANTIPATENT!
Cap'n, the examiners canna take enny more!
Chris Mattern
There are people out there working on this.
Look at http://www.halfbakery.com/editorial/links.html
There are also idea exchanges like yet2.com.
Jeff Veit
There are still people who do things just to help people, but you're right; there aren't nearly enough of them.People in this country have become overwhelmed by their own avarice. It's disgusting. Stop the f*cking planet, I want to get off. No joke.
Check out the OSS linux clustering technology called
If you are an employee of a large company, antipatents would help to ensure that you could always use your ideas. The company would not be able to stop you from using your creation.
This is also a reason why antipatents will never become law in any country controlled by large corporations who feed on the knowledge of their underpaid employees and later throw these people out on the street when they have no ideas left.
I gotta idea. its called the cellfone torch combo. With all these torchs the size of a coin about, it is a good idea to combine such a device with a cellular phone. this is a cool and very useful feature to add to a phone. nokia, erricson, motorolla et al: /. has my number :)
Thats kind of like ShouldExist.org Its a kind of idea exchange place. Sounds a whole lot like your idea (but it doesn't run slashcode, it runs scoop.
As a previous poster pointed out, anti-patents already exist in the form of "technical disclosures".
A few years back when I was working in a research lab, even if we weren't going to go the whole hog and patent something, then we would make sure that the idea was published as a technical disclosure. Once this was done then basically the idea was in the public domain and was not patentable.
-- Harry
What they are is a very effective tool for fulfilling the ORIGINAL INTENT of the patent system- furthering the arts and sciences. This is a social benefit and those who cannot see beyond individual benefit will be at a disadvantage in understanding it, but there are individual benefits to antipatents too, again in the same way that there are individual benefits in GPLed software authoring. The significant factor is that the creator of the idea must be thought of in a context of 'what other ideas might this person produce?' rather than 'how much money's worth of ideas does this person keep control over?'.
Phrased that way, maybe it might make more sense to people who can only think in terms of how much idea-property is controlled by a given person. Ideas, code are all well and good, but the real jackpot comes from implementation- putting the idea into action- and a person's real value can be considered in terms of their capacity to adapt to new situations and environments and get the most out of the new situations.
In a way this is strikingly reminiscent of Alvin Toffler's pontifications: he postulates a future in which change accelerates so unbearably that only the most adaptable people will thrive. We are in fact seeing that- Napster, for instance, is a type of change that few people predicted, and the environment of music distribution is still changing. The key concept to remain aware of is that the change can't be willed away- in the case of Napster, the RIAA is already dead, even with all its money, because it is determined to prevent the change in its mode of business, and in the long run it must fail. If it succeeds in totally controlling audio, suppose people begin producing and exchanging forms of interpretive dance, or audiovisual media like film off their desktops? To completely bind a media (like audio) and force it to be an unchanging 'cash cow' is dooming it to irrelevance as the change will swirl on without it.
To apply this to patents/antipatents, it's instructive to consider that patents are by nature denials of change. They are attempts to define ideas as if they were indispensable as laws of nature, and charge a toll for them- as if the context for the ideas won't change and leave the idea as orphaned as a patent bull-powered combine harvester. By contrast, antipatents are by nature completely dependent on change, as is the GPLing of software- to put out an idea as utterly free and unencumbered (i.e. antipatent, the only restriction is that someone else can't patent it) is by nature accepting that the idea itself is of transient use- the important thing is on the one hand showing "Hey, I can think of ideas like this!" which has value, and on the other hand putting an unencumbered idea into the hands of others who might find it inspires other ideas- cross-pollination.
The more hysteria over all these IP issues I see, the more I think that Toffler was right- the rules are changing faster and faster, and the only survival technique worth a damn is to develop the capacity to react to new situations and make the most of them. Establishing a community that can communicate ideas is a very good way to do this- as illustrated by the rise of Linux. There's no reason to believe this is any different when it comes to _physical_ inventions, or for that matter business models- as interactivity rises, rigidity is death, and patents and hysterical IP protectionism are rigidity, with very bad survival value.
In the spirit of change and getting thrown nasty curve balls by life, might I make note that mp3.com has begun committing suicide by changing their contracts and embarking on a brave new learn-to-spam-hopefully-responsibly-to-appease-RIA A-labels program? So as a _result_ of this, if you ever wanted to check out that music I so often go on about, OR BUY ONE OF THE 5.99$ CDS that mp3.com makes, be advised that now would be a good time because my page with them is going to go AWAY once small issues like payment are resolved. In the future I will repeat WILL be selling CDs myself, probably not as cheaply as that but better quality audio (mp3.com CDs are a convenience burning of the mp3s to Red Book CD, with nice cover art and labeled media) but I'm not going to have squat for a while. So if anyone ever considered picking up some of that music on CD, do it before the music goes away, 'cos it WILL go away at some point- I am absolutely not going to consent to mp3.com's new artist agreement terms, so our relationship is maintaining under the old agreement and no future development will be possible.
Don't you just _love_ change? ;P now I gotta start pricing _CD_ _duplicators_ and stuff like that, oh joy. But at least I understand the importance of being ready to adapt to such change. I think mp3.com are going to die by the side of the major labels they're trying so hard to appease.
Yes, double letters in the english language trip me up, but I can blame them on my key board. English has got to be the only language less consistent than VB.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ahhhhh. Thank you for that answer, that helps a lot.
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
When patents and anti-patents collide, a gigantic burst of litigation energy is released. Patents are theorized to be composed of six sub-patent particles, called "actions", named, arbitrarily: sue, settle, bribe, extort, lock-out, and monopolize. Hopefully definitive proof will come after the IES (International Ethics Smasher) collider is built.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
They anihilate eachother, creating a burst of legal briefs containing just as many letters as the combined text of the patents and the antipatents.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That's a damn good idea. I was wondering when someone was going to come up with something to actually defend good ideas from patent mongers instead of just complaining about it. Cheers to those involved.
Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!
A long time ago, a friend and I would try to play stupid tricks on the post office. Things like sending letters with the name and city only, mailing rocks postage due and then rejecting them on reciept and so on.
One thing that didn't work was sending an open letter. The post office taped it up and stamped "SEALED FOR YOUR PRIVACY" all over it about 15 times.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
If a company decides that something is a good idea, but not good enough to patent, they publish in a rather obscure journal. You can find copies of the journal in any patent library, at the PTO, and in most law school libraries.
This was the purpose of the IBM Technical Bulletin.
Currently, according to IBM, the defensive publication of choice is:
Research Disclosure, published by Emsworth Design, Inc., 147 West 24th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011 (212) 366-4363 - Attention: Tony Drobinski.
Thalia
What if somebody patents the concept of the antipatent? Then do they own all our antipatented ideas?
Most of the patents we care about are of the type that make you scratch your head and say "How could they patent that?" (examples abound). So, it seems to me that to make this work, we'd pretty much have to anti-patent _everything_, no matter how crazy and dumb it sounds. By the end of this idea, we'd have so many anti-patents.
If I had a real patentable idea, I wouldn't even bother with the anti-patent. I'd get the real patent.
Well, my two cents worth anyway...
...what about preventing people who aren't even aware of the difference between copyrights, patents, and trademarks, from pontificating on IP issues?
I really think slashdot should have little "reference cards" at the bottom of the article for various pieces of information like this.
Since discussion now is invariably so mis-informed on even the basics, perhaps such a brief reference would raise the general level of discussion, at least a bit?
Of course, that assumes the Slashdot editorial staff are capable of getting these things right themselves... unfortunately, they don't even seem to consistently manage to spell "copyright" correctly (which this poster did, kudos to him for that).
DNA just wants to be free...
Stupid geeks
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
I wish I could be more optomistic, but having a differently worded older patent or even documentation of inventing something before a current patent awardee was born does not seem to matter much these days.
Your patent is only as good as your lawyer.®
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
someones idea the same way that the US patent office does, and then publishes it. That way it would be easy for others to search.
Also, alot could be done if the patent office were able to keep ALL the fees they collect for patent services. As it stands now, congress takes about half for non-related programs outside the patent office. Maybe then they could lower the fee for individual filings making it more accessible.
The discussion of an "anti-patent" reflects the increasing inaccessibility of the patent office to the average individual, with the average cost of a lawyer produced patent at around $10,000+.
Does anybody know of a lawyer/law firm that does it cheaper if you do some of the leg work?
(like in the $2000 to $3000 range).
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Intellectual property will be the downfall of our society, if the nukes don't get us first. Whatever happened to cooperation between men for the benefit of all mankind? Guess greed got the better of us. Raise your hands and praise the almighty dollar.
shade
Thank you. Finally someone who understands!
Also, I'd like to point out the fact that these "ideas" do not occur to most of us as real "ideas." They occur to the marketing and suits as "ideas" and thus they go for patents. The only people going for antipatents would be the suits anyways!
We'd end up with just one more silly system.
You can probably just self-publish as long as you register your copyright with the Feds. That puts a legal date stamp on your publication and it can then be cited in court to overturn patents.
The hard part is to get patent examiners at the US PTO to actually look at the prior art so that they will not grant bad patents in the first place. But that's another problem....
I'm curious what you or anyone else thinks about this sort of thing. How should such a site be organized, should it be a real effort by the people to provide something like this where I can find some other similarly minded people and create something beautiful? Or should I fund it myself to begin with and see where it goes from there? Have any ideas? I have tonnes and the knowledge to begin implementing them, just very little time and currently no bandwidth of any kind to host.
...if you are referring to the Mickey Mouse issue. Lobbying had very little to do with the ultimate decision, no matter how paranoid a view you take.
Thus the point of mailing it to oneself, and keeping it in a safe place (Deposit box, safe, bank vault, etc.). To mail it, it must exist in a publishable format, therefore satisfying the requirements for the "prior art" argument.
Averye0
--o You're just jealous cause the voices talk to me and not to you! o--
I think it stupid patents are getting through it's the fault of the Patent system. That's were the fix needs to be.
Fairly obvious aside: For an antipatent system to work, the paperwork burden and cost of filing need to be low. The standards for the text of the filing would need to be easy for any literate english speaker. I've filed a patent and at $345 just for the filing, few will pay it w/o economic incentive. But if an employee at the PTO is going to read an "antipatent", poke, prod and categorize it, i'm not sure how low the fee can go.
"Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design
An open source-related patents effort might be useful, however: creating an organization that uses its patents to trade with commercial patent holders to get them to license their patents for open source use.
Some information on Research Disclosure is here.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
No, because "in a publishable format" != "published". Published, as in available to the public. Something must be published to be prior art.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Please believe me that I do not intend this question as flamebait.
What has the open source community produced, especially recently, that could be patented? That is to say, what original inventions can OSS claim as its own?
The further back one reaches, the more evident the free-software innovations appear to be, but then, the software landscape was fare sparser back then. Currently, all OSS projects I am aware of are copycats of closed projects, and while they are useful they are not original. Can anyone provide me with insight as to what free-software has invented in the last few years?
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
The anti patent can serve as the same depository. What will happen with anti patents is that they will be treated the same way that public domain software is - rather than the way GPL code is. In other words anti patentened material will be seized for use by any corporation that feels like taking it for use - without so much as a 'screw you' to the inventor.
It is doubtful that anything of great value would be anti patented excepting of course the mythical 'super carburetor' that various 'interests' don't want to see on the market. If somebody did come up with something like real anti gravity (for example) submitting an anti patent might be better for your health than submitting to the government patent office - who would mark it "Top Secret Defense Department Property" and keep anyone from ever hearing about it.
As I see it anti-patents would fall into 2 main classes: simple obvious things of marginal commercial value and a few things of too much value to risk trying for a patent. What do you think would happen to someone who invented a real Star Trek style replicator? My guess is industry would have him fitted for concrete jogging shoes in short order.
It would have one further effect, it would eliminate the retroactive cries of "That's obvious". If it isn't in the anti patent database either, it ain't obvious. In other words, as an unintended side effect, it could make patent defense much easier.
Antipatents are a cool concept, but the only legal legs it has is proof of "prior-art". Proving "prior-art" in court might snag you enough to buy a Diet Coke(TM) US 002 013 023 029 030 033 040 050.
To invalidate the possibility of others producing patents, IBM publishes a journal. Any good ideas that are borderline patentable get put in the journal. If someone sues IBM over patent issues, the journal is one of the first things that are searched.
Slashdot code could be used to the same purpose. Submit a patent idea as a story, let others flesh it out. Any open-source product that gets a cease and desist letter can send back a URL of where to pick up the discussion on Slashdot.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Now, you can make the argument that you have to pay for a patent, and some inventors may not have the money for the neccessary fees to deal with the application. But if that's the case, then it's not terribly likely they'll have the money required to fight a court battle over a patent dispute (brought on by an actual patent "owner") either, so they'll probably just end up losing their rights anyway, and the whole point is moot.
Check out the OSS linux clustering technology called
Don't sites like http://www.shouldexist.org/ also provide a sort of board for displaying prior art?
You mean like this one?
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Shouldexist founders are working to make the site function like that - encouraging people to flesh out ideas so that they constitute prior art in the eyes of the law (ie you need to say how to do it (think of as many ways as possible) not just that it should be done.
Shouldexist currently runs scoop but there are plans in the works to organise it something more like everything2 - linking up ideas as they connect.
I try and get eric from shouldexist to post.
It wouldn't stop bad patents, but it would reduce the damage.
But for the patent office this isn't "public". The patent office can't even do a simple google search to see look for prior art since that could reveal details.
This is why IBM sends the patent office a copy of their journal. Any pubilc format would still need to send the patent office a hardcopy (as well as a softcopy so they might have a hope to search). There may be some problem that a patent attorney may be required to review the publication before that patent office would accept it. They have some very funny rules.
Isn't that incentive enough?
Welcome to this planet. I take it you are not familiar with humans?
Yes... you've finally caught on. The FSF is really a front for aliens who want to destroy humanity.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
While the idea of antipatents seems extremely appealing to me, it's very hard to define it legally. While patents have to be brief and accurate, it is hardly possible to make specific antipatents so that that nobody could reclaim it with a slitghtly altered description. That's why I think the problem should really be split in two:
One problem of just patenting/not-enforcing is that acquring a patent is a fairly expensive process. I believe it is on the order of $5k - $15k; partly because you need patent lawyers properly obfuscate your invention description :)
I like the idea of reducing the cost of the patent process, and implementing a very low cost anti-patent database (apdb).
Also, I understood them as suggesting the apdb be moderated by volunteers. The danger is that these new examiners could bring their own professional agendas into the process, seeking to hinder others to benefit their own company. Proper precautions would need to be worked out.
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
All that is necessary to create bad karma for bad patents is to *publish* existing art. Write it up in sufficient detail to enable a person of ordinary skill to practice the invention, and get it published with a date -- ship it to a library, and be done with the idea. No fee needs to be collected or managed, no central repository necessary -- just a publication, and the ability to date the publication is all that is required.
[Its a good idea, if this is your purpose, to provide this information for free to the USPTO, so examiners will have it available for that purpose. Perhaps if we can index and organize the information to make it more suitable for examination, it would be a greater tool than traditional journal publications.]
The problem is that the abstractness required for publication in some journals does tend to make academic CS journals less effective in judicial proceedings. Concrete disclosures of the kind prepared for a patent specification tend to make all of the difference in determinations of invalidity.
BTW, there exists a non-rights registration instrument already, called an SIR. You get the pretty ribboned and certified document from the Patent Office, useful for nothing except prior art -- but a classified ad in a newspaper would probably be cheaper and equally effective as evidence of invalidity. (The problem with SIR's is that they are fairly expensive.)
It's been mentioned before, and perhaps the reason it isn't popular is the cost of filing for a patent. But wouldn't it be great if instead of tons of "innovations" going into the public domain by virtue of there being no patent, if a foundation funded the patenting of many critical innovations, and would allow them to be used without royalty under the simple agreement that the licensee could not file a patent infringement lawsuit without the approval of a board of review or something. The board might permit a patent suit on a true innovation, but it would be up to a panel of real experts rather than a clueless judge and bought-and-paid-for expert testimony.
Imagine if, to file a patent suit without infringing yourself, you had to give up the rights to... blowfish/twofish, banner ads, png graphics, client-to-client file-sharing directory services (the Napster patent, hahaha), and so on and so forth.
ISTR an earlier story here on /. explaining the different types of patent issued by the USPTO, and one of those types was a rather cheap (free?) patent that was basically just a registration of an idea in the database so it would pop up more easily in searches for prior art.
Prior art must be published, IIRC. Proving that you invented something in your basement prior to the patent holder does not affect the validity of the patent.
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Boy, you people sure are stupid.
If you want to make the process cheaper, write to your legislator, and convince them to make it a priority.
shade
Already patent holders are reluctant to do a comprehensive prior-art search - why should the presence of the "anti-patent" database change things?
antipatents will become a large prior-art database for patent holders to search.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually, the real problem with the patent system is that the people granting the pantents are not allowed to deny a patent because it is obvious to them. The patent reviewers must have real written proof of prior art in order to deny the patent. This isn't always easy for them to find this kind of proof lying around in the public domain. It's not until after a patent is granted and made public when everyone says, "Hey! They can't have that patent! I have prior art right here!"
A patent doesn't really mean anything until it is survives in court. It would certainly be wonderful if we all could wade through the database notifying the patent office of the worthless patents, but in order to nullify a patent, it has to be dragged through a very expensive court.
If only we could give the patent reviewers the ability to use their own judgment instead of requiring them to hunt for written proof...
-Sean
Well for starters, you cannot copyright the "II" in Pentium II. It would have to be a trademark issue. You cannot copyright the "II" because it does not constitute a "work" as defined by the copyright code.
Nitpicky? Just the opposite. A copyright is a broad range of rights (including moral rights and rights to copy, destroy, use, prevent others from using, license, make derivative works), whereas a trademark is a much narrowed range of rights (basically limited to excluding others from using the same mark, but only if it would be confusing or devalue your mark--the so-called "dilution" right). Most importantly, copyrights are of limited duration, trademarks are unlimited.
A trademark can last forever, but a copyright expires 50 years after the author does.
What should be obvious in the patent system, and is not, is that if a company patents some concept and immediately finds dozens of people using it out there, the existence of prior art ought to be made self-evident. There needs to be a mechanism put into the patent process; maybe a 'trial period' like you get at your job. If you patent your idea and go out into the world to litigate and immediately find a half-dozen people using 'such a system' without any prior knowledge of what you're doing, that ought to immediately disqualify you the patenter and your absurd patent. And maybe qualify you for a court date on charges of fraud and attempted extortion.
After all, when a company does as is suggested in your sig here, it's clear that the only real goal was to bilk people out of a fee for doing something they already knew how to do before the patent was ever inked. . .
I don't think this would work. You'd generate a patent-antipatent reaction, destroying the whole Patent Office in the process.
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Sorry, but that title was just begging for a Trekkie joke.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
The best way to fix the patent system would be to constantly flood it with more and more patents applied for by OSS and FSF types willing to share the IP that should be shared. "Pre-emptive" patenting, which could hopefully invalidate future patents by clueless corps. Have a new idea, or just half an idea you thought up in a dream about flux-capacitor-like fanciful ideas? Apply for a patent on the new "development." Then, hopefully, it will cover something used later in a patent application by a big corporation, so that it can invalidate the claim. Have a database of these pre-emptive patents maintained by someone like FSF or OSS. I'm sure every one of us (well, a lot of us at least) comes up with ideas for new types of pointing devices, web interfaces, protocols, etc.; well, patent them to keep a big corporation from doing it and patenting it later.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
interestingly, the performance of a device is not a requirement for patentability. That's why there's weird patents, like for antigravity devices.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Nah, at $95 a page and $240 for a subscription, I'll pass on it. Furthermore, it's not searchable (as far as I know). I should also qualify my request with affordable. For about the same amount of money I could use something like this, and submit it to the patent office.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
"APat. Pending." ?
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
Think of something you do that's important to you, either for work or in some other capacity. Now think of all the little things that are necessary for you to do that one big thing -- break it down into little discrete pieces, and find all their little contingencies. Now write up a brief description of all those little things.
Patents only exist on the plane of concepts, and there are only so many concepts you can fit into one idea, once you're constrained by not being able to patent physical phenomena.
"Document your idea and mail a few coppies to yourself."
:)
Are the included police (coppies) there to protect your paperwork? How do they fit in the envelope? And doesn't the USPS forbid the mailing of human bodies?
I couldn't resist; that was just too good of a misspelling of "copies"
Seriously, that's a good idea, which I'ver heard a few times over the years. I plan on doing that to document the origins of my domain name, in case of future corporate antagonism.
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
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Boy, you people sure are stupid.
Please don't propagate this myth any further.
Yes, but some patents are actually defensive, that is, a company might patent something only in order to prevent a competitor from patenting it, in cases where we're talking about an obvious idea. An antipatent is a much better way to do this than making a "normal" patent.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
IANAL, and I don't even know any, so I make no claims as to the legal feasibility or implications of the following.
Something like a Patent Sharing Organization might be a viable, market-driven (as opposed to legislated) solution to the patent problem. The only membership requirement for this org would be to allow free use of all one's patents to other members. If such an organization attained a critical mass, being a member (hence having access to a very large selection of patents) would provide a greater competitive advantage than keeping patents to oneself (esp., stupid patents). Sort of GPL/OSS for patents.
Attaining critical mass might be hard. But then, it seems to face many of the same hurdles as the OSS movement, which has obviously overcome them.
There are certainly some issues with this. Some way is needed to allow for legitimate patents, for example. Perhaps, in Internet Time, a six month patent allowance might make sense.
Has anyone tried something like this? Does anyone with legal experience have some insight into the potential problems with such an organization?
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/, of the Library of Congress, has much information about registering your copyrighted items and how to generate backup means of proving your copyright should the need present itself.
Isn't that incentive enough?
Besides, if your drug is sound, and actually cures or prevents diseases (or even if it doesn't and you advertise as much as Claritin does), people will buy your drugs... Patents don't enter into it.
Check out the OSS linux clustering technology called
Without patents, there would be no incentive to create new synthetic pharmaceuticals. Without new drugs, new diseases will run rampant, and only the cutest humans will survive.
Someday all moments will be precious moments.<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
According to United States law, a patent may not be granted unless the invention is new, non-obvious given prior art, and useful; however, the Patent Office tends to ignore the "non-obvious" part, so here's my definition of "bad patent":
bad patent n. a patent on an invention that is obvious, given prior art, at the time the patent was applied for.
antipatents is trying to collect obvious information into a prior-art database that is easy to search when a Bad Patent is being overturned.
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
The PTO isn't exactly on the ball when it comes to prior art. The anti-patent would help the little guy not get squished by the corporate bastards.
So let's say you invent X. You don't commercialize it heavily, but you're making it here and there, maybe selling it locally. Five years later, someone you've never heard of files a patent on X, finds out you are making X, and sues you for doing so--despite the fact that you'd already invented X, so it is legally "prior art." The burden is now on you to prove it was prior art. In the end, even if you prevail, you are likely to eat your attorneys fees, and have to finance an anti-smear PR campaign to clear your name. At $150+/hour for the attorneys, if X isn't making you rich, trying to retain your right to make it will make you poor...
If you could have filed an anti-patent, there would be a prior record of your invention of X. So if the corporate shmucks try to sue you, you can file a quick motion for summary judgment on the basis that there is an anti-patent on file. That would, at the very least, get you out quickly and cheaply.
We've been waiting for a public journal of this type; search Slashdot for "patents" stories and read through the comments. Antipatents is this journal.
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
If I had the money to burn right now, I'd register a domain just for this project. As it is, I have LinuxBeachhead.com that I'd be willing to throw at the idea, if someone is willing to provide the coding.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
1) Patent reviewers should come from the industry they are reviewing patents for
2) Patent reviewers should be reviewed by an outside source
3) A "Method of Business patents" should be null and void. You can't "invent a method" if that were the case, I would patent the use of outerspace travel as a way of rubbing elbows for making business ties. It hasn't been done and there is no prior art (except for the fact that they already do it on boats and planes)
Just because it uses a new technology doesn't mean its nonobvious.
Burn Hollywood Burn
How will I ride my fat IPO offering if my artificial company can't claim it's vaporware??
Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
Just as the GPL uses existing copyright law, these "Antipatents" are nothing more than patents for which the owner does not enforce their rights. You don't need to do anything special to protect your rights, other than apply for a patent, much as anyone else with an invention does.
Besides which, the concept seems a little silly. When you have an invention, being a device and not code, you have the end product for which there is no real "source" so to speak, so there is no need to open-source it. If you want to duplicate a patented device (evading the subject of whether or not it's legal to do so), just look at it, and copy it.
Check out the OSS linux clustering technology called
What that? Patents not protons? The same.
I don't think this would work. You'd generate a patent-antipatent reaction, destroying the whole Patent Office in the process.
SCOTTY! Get more more ANTIPATENT!
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a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
the courts are already full of people trying to overturn patents the way it is. This is just going to fill things up even further with people fighting anti-patents. It would be a better idea to FIX the curent patent process, maybe hire someone in the office who UNDERSTANDS the tech involved, and force requests to be in plain english. creating more administration is not the way to fix BAD administration
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Isn't this what is called a Statutory Invention Registration in the United States? A filing with the patent office to register an invention so that nobody can get a patent on it.
I noticed they are trying to make deals with the RIAA. It struck me as kinda sad. Can you explain more about the changes in their terms for new artists? I suspect both the RIAA and MPAA / hollywood are a dying breed of IP organizations today. They will be replaced with indipendant film of quality, not quantity, and real musical art instead of hype and dance. Its only a matter of time. Money matters not.
And when all information is finally free so will the people be.
I like the way you think, kid; you'll definitely go far. In fact, I believe you're the man to lead this country to greatness! You are the chosen one! blazer1024 for President! Huzzah!
But how could you ever think up anti-patents to some of the ridiculous patents being applied for, such as this one by HP - applying for a patent for packing a computer in a box ? Apparently using one big box isn't obvious (not to HP, anyway).
[place clever signature here]
I used to advocate this kind of thing, but then a closer reading of the law made me realize something: Prior art must occur 1 year -before- the patent is -filed- for. Am I misunderstanding something, or would companies be able to rifle through the antipatent database and file for patents on all the new ideas and then say 'yes, but that's less than a year before we filed' (for software and business method patents you can surely cobble together a prototype in less than 11 months... )
Yes, this is obviously a 'bad' thing for them to do, and against the -spirit- of the law, but isn't it within the letter?
(IANAL... any Ls out there?)
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
In order to create a good general-knowledge database such as Everything2 or Mindpixel, a ton of common-sense knowledge has to be entered in. Think of antipatents as being a "common sense for engineers" database.
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Check out openpatents.org. You get actual real patents on ideas, and then give openpatents.org a grant, saying that anyone can use your patent, provided that any other patents that he owns are also contributed to openpatents.org.
Regards,
Zooko
Chief Hunchback
Evil Geniuses For A Better Tomorrow
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Boy, you people sure are stupid.
You're describing something called "defensive disclosure" of potential inventions, which can be done any number of ways. The Software Patent Institute offers (or used to, anyway) a defensive disclosure service - check out http://www.spi.org/disclos1.htm. IAAPL, where P=patent.
If you really want to share your invention, and ensure that nobody can patent it, release it in such a way that it can be shown to be prior art.
That's what antipatents is. It's a prior art database.
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
What you refer to is copyright, not patent, and it's entirely valid.
The sealed envelope with a dated postal mark on it would be rather good proof that the enclosed items existed on the date of stamping.
Sort of like the features in Outlook that allow it to be such a great platform for worms. It's not that nobody previously thought of executable e-mail, but that the people who previously thought about it were smart enough to realize that it was a Bad Idea.
Burris
You come up with something neat but you don't think its really worth a patent. But you don't want someone else to patent it either.
By the way, this process has been filed for patent consideration, and will be the first patent of the pool when it is granted. (I love self-referential logic)
Anyone who is interested in participating, please contact me.
What happened to the old practice of copying your work, sealing it, and mailing it to yourself? It's been used in court countless times to prove pre-existing art (more accurately, in the art cases, that artist X had it before artist Y "composed" it).
funny munging
what about preventing morons like Intel to copyright that "II" in Pentium II? That'd be as useful...
Patent the concept of obtaining a patent and refuse to share your IP with anyone.
I think this is also a good way not only to prevent someone else from claiming an idea was theirs and patenting it, but also to take an idea you came up with and then open it up for use. It's like open-sourcing an idea. In preventing a patent on it and making it an antipatent, you liberate it and let others build on it.
My advice is not a subtitute for a laywer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I didn't know there was anything new from Open Source...I thought the movement was just a bunch of great reinventors of the wheel
Kudos for giving us a catchy name that the average PHB can understand. If we can just get a lawyer or two to pick it up and turn it into legal jargon, we're golden.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Prior art and first use are excellent items for disputing patent claims.
The "antipatent" system seems a bit cumbersome, since registering something obvious is counterintuitive to most of us, but patenting something obvious seems to be what the patent office thrives on.
It just seems unworkable on a basic level. That being that the patent office does not seem to do much checking on prior art anyway and neither do these courts that keep handing out insane rulings.
I wish I could be more optomistic, but having a differently worded older patent or even documentation of inventing something before a current patent awardee was born does not seem to matter much these days.
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Patents aren't "ideas". They are descriptions of (for instance) "a novel system and method" for performing some task. So you can't just go and register on a web page that you thought up "an RSA-strength public key system with 10 byte keys" --- you have to actually document the facts behind the invention.
Basically, just as in the patent system, in order to register a meaningful antipatent, you need to publish a "best known mode of invention". As in the patent system, the "best known mode" has to be enough information for anyone competant in the field of the invention to reimplement it. This ratchets up the effort involved in "registering" an antipatent significantly.
The problem here is that it takes a similar amount of time to "file an antipatent" as it does to write a journal article or release a piece of open-source software. Either of those alternatives ALSO generate meaningful prior art, and they are also more useful to the community than an antipatent.
I think FreshMeat is a much more interesting weapon against patents, because they basically document published inventions in near-real-time. A much better idea than creating some new "antipatent registrar" would be taking the steps required to give FreshMeat filings legal credibility (a staff of editors "notorizing" registrations, and perhaps even writing "claims" for interesting-looking new software --- this might not even need to be very formal to give the system very sharp teeth).
But none of this solves the real problem. In working with patent attorneys, we discovered that an enormous number of superficial little things we did, like talking on Usenet and IRC, created "disclosures" that jeopardized patents. The problem is that patent agents have piss-poor methodology for finding disclosures of prior art --- they basically search the patent database and perhaps academic journals for obvious matches. Creating a new "antipatent" system doesn't change the USPTO's process. It just brings the inadequacy of their process into clearer relief.
Filing an antipatent is like posting as anonymous coward, while filing a patent is like posting under a registered username. It's for ideas you feel like sharing but which aren't worthy of posting under your own username. Occasionally, one will get modded up, just as an antipatented idea might hit paydirt and make someone a whole lot of money, in which case you can kick yourself for not having actually taken credit for it. Bad ideas that get patented are a waste of the filing fee, just as bad ideas attributed to usernames get modded down. And the most insightful part of the analogy is that both the USPTO's system and Slashdot's moderation system are severely fucked up and reward the most innane ideas at times, while occasionally producing correct results that justify their being continued.
This sounds like a good way to publicize that you are in violation of someone's patent. :)
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
- That would destroy the whole "free" nature of the project, which would suck.
- There's a helluva lot of prior art, so it couldn't possibly be patented.
The first point I agree with, in fact I felt a bit nauseous suggesting it in the first place.The second point? Someone can patent "date windowing" and no one will be able to patent the algorithms in Ogg Vorbis? Sure, prior art can be proven after an expensive court battle. But that point could be moot if the community can't foot the bill. Companies with deep pockets know this, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if their patent's not valid, as long as they can make you go broke on the way to court.
Antipatent would really seem to be the way to go with the key Ogg Vorbis algorithms.
-- Only unbalanced people can tip the scales.
Sorry, Amazon.com already has a patent pending on their anti-antipatent technology which will, of course defeat this otherwise brilliant idea.
If we are talking primarily about protecting open source from patent abuse, then surely by its nature open source is self-publishing. Does the release of an open source product not both publish and fully disclose the details of that product?
Pharmo companies would quickly establish joint research divisions to spread the cost. Also, this would happen in most industries, bringing real scientific research back from the corporation built grave.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
-- d'arcy poirot
This presupposes our ability to deform our minds sufficiently that we can even conceive of what might require an antipatent. That's a problem for me; in my wildest dreams, I'd never have figured out that XORing repeatedly to produce a blinking disply cursor would be a patentable concept. How about one-click ordering - would any of you ever have thought that something so obvious needed protecting? I've spent a lot of years getting my brain aligned - I'm worried that thinking in this way could get it seriously out of balance.
On the face of it, a good idea. But wouldn't it be nice if the existence of a patent could be limited or negated outright by public opinion. As in:
Well, one can dream, I suppose...
-TBHiX- ;)
Current holder of patent #5863434455555555534-A, "A biochemical aid to life support via repeated contraction-release mechanical action to propel an oxygen and nutrient enriched fluid to living organic tissue." Those using such a system without prior permission can contact me to work out a payment schedule.
stupid html edited out my tags
I think one of the appealing aspects of such an idea is that the anti-patent need not be for an idea reduced to practice.
The basis for the antipatent would not be that you have a new idea and you're donating it to the public, but rather that you've thought of the idea independently, and think that it's obvious enough that nobody should be able to patent it in the first place.
--When you buy proprietary software, you don't get better software. What you get is the right to complain about it.