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BountyQuest Announces First Winners for Prior Art
tessd writes "BountyQuest has been bragging for a few days that it was going to announce some winners -- looks like it wasn't kidding. Four winners -- $10k each -- with prior art that could bust patents held by Cisco, Walker Digital, InTouch and Oracle. Them's some big names. Check out the guy from Oregon who won $10k because he held onto an out-of-print copy of Snow Country magazine"
Anyway I just had an interesting idea for a way to discourage bad patents. What about imposing a fine on companies who patent things that are subsequently invalidated due to prior art (or any other reason)? The amount of the fine should be equal to the amount of royalties collected on the patent and should be paid to the person (or group) who provided the proof needed to invalidate the patent? I think something like this would go a long way to discouraging the market for stupid and unethical patent measures...
Companies feeling their profit margins slipping see collecting royalties on their patents as a way to make up for lost revenue, particularly with the US economy slowing down.
Besides all the patent lawsuits coming up out of nowhere, companies will increasingly see patenting everything they can think of as valid strategy for staying afloat.
It's up to us to stop them from trampling our rights. We are not microserfs; We should be able to use technology without having to pay tribute to the corporate lords.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Needless to say, this is rather common in filing patents: grab more than you want, including possible cases that might infringe, as then you'll probably end up with at least as much as you wanted if not a bit more, as opposed to getting too little.
Now, of course, something like the Orcale database snapshot sounds like it's completely dead in the water, since the prior art completely nullifies the case.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
For example, Kahin sagely points out:
"In-house legal counsel advise against routine reading of issued patents because of the risk of treble damages for willful infringement."
In my opinion, such idiosyncracies in the U.S. Patent system only reinforce the probability of the U.S. government handing out specious monopolies.
I spoke to a former patent examiner a few weeks ago. He informed me that (based on his observations working for the USPTO) patent examiners typically spend about 7-8 hours examining individual patents, plus another 7-8 hours doing "other things." Additionally, he confirmed my suspicion that the USPTO rewards its examiners for approving as many patents as possible -- quantity over quality.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell
Insects and Grafitti Photos
Their "about" section is meaningless. All we know that is that they're a: a company, b: partly owned by Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Besos. Of course we all know that Jeff Besos is responsible for one of the more ludicrous "business logic" patents.
If you look at their corporate identity, all they talk about is how they're trying to "Market Reform" the patent process. What does this mean?
It seems to me that
a: they're a for profit corporation.
b: they have clients.
c: these clients pay for their services.
My question is this: Who are their clients, and how much are these corporations paying for people like us to do the dirtywork?
How do we know that the dirt that we're digging up on existing patents, isn't simply going to be used for even more intrusive patents?
Slashdot has had so many articles about patents and patent-law that I know this is a moot point, but I'll repeat it anyway.
Just because there is prior art does not mean that the patent will become invalidated.
Read this response by werdna to the article about Archie posted a few days ago, I think it's very clear on this point.
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"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
this sounds a lot better than kicking in doors in trailor parks for $300 a pop.
Patents for which there is prior are are just plain invalid - they damage the overall economy, and it's the filer's own fault for not doing the reseach before filing.
God forbid we should try to prevent people from getting government-protected monopolies on the obvious! It will wreck the nation!
Sheesh.
If you can get decisive information that the patent you were going to apply for has prior art, it could save you a lot more than the $10k bounty.
If Mr. Bezos puts up $10k for some seemingly simple, obvious patent, and nobody can refute it or come up w/ prior art, he can feel pretty secure about going ahead with it, and saving court costs down the line...
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