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Scientific American On Bad Patents
dltallan writes: "Scientific American has a short article in which Gregory Aharonian presents his picks for the four worst patents granted. I like the patent for training with manuals (1998)." The Bustpatents site is worth spending some eye-rubbing time on.
You know, the patent of Gene Profiling or Effectiveness of an Ad is a ubiquitous as ignoring two little kids attaching Cambpell soup cans with a string as prior art to the telephone. I understand that there are rules and regulations that are followed to grant/deny patents, but these two seem like I can patent the art of breathing and collect royalties all over the world...
I can't be the only one that finds humor in
- "U.S. Patent 5,851,117: "Building Block Training Systems and Training Methods"; Keith A. Alsheimer and others..."
Absolutely hilarious!!"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
From the article: "Three-Dimensional Presentation of Multiple Data Sets in Unitary Format with Pie Charts"
;)
Gah, and you thought Marketing was the only group that made up complex phrases to describe something so obvious.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
"A patent issued in 1999 outlines a system for garnering feedback on the effectiveness of a new advertisement or broadcast commercial by comparing it with a control advertisement."
ha! osdn should be paying us for our role in determining there ad's effectiveness.
- Documented Research and Development
- Resource Usage on R&D documented
- Professional Acceptance of Patent (Maybe a part of the USPO acts as a mentor program(?)
- Possible Prior Art and Explanations why it is not (I really like this one)
- Penalties for Obvious Patents
- Business Models and complex sociological functions unpatentable
- Physical patents require working model
- Web related patents with comparable real-life applications unpatentable (Amazon One-click)
And the list goes on and on"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Disclaimer: I have now been up 36 hours, if this is not funny, darn.
of this humor. (Scroll down and read the sociology part).
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
...so that all patent applications would be automatically acknowledged, and then the dubious ones could be challenged by any interested party? The patent office would not have to employ enough specialists to sort out the validity of every silly application, they would only have to have enough knowledge to be able to verify the claims of people who dispute the alleged patent.
Comic-not
Existence usually comes as a surprise (Idem)
The USPTO has just granted my first patent, #6,356,233. Clearly stated, I claim that respiration of 21.4 small breaths per minute is the ideal respiration of a human and I claim that this specific breathing rate is a design of my own creation. Anyone currently breathing at this rate must license this FreelyBreathing® Respiration rate from me. Don't worry, my AUP and End User License are very flexible!
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
While this article is really funny to read, it just shows the problems that are now going on at the PTO. There are two main problems - the first being what this article points out - that the agents are not doing enough research to make good judgement. It makes you wonder how much of a background in these particular fields the patent agents have?
The other problem is that the PTO has gotten to the point where people are actually rewarded for issuing as many patents as possible. This is a system that really has to be reviewed. It has gotten the PTO to the point where they basically pass EVERYTHING and then let the courts throw out the frivilous stuff. What a waste of time, and even more money since court costs can be astronomical.
This doesn't even raise the problem of issues like people patenting something in HOPES that it becomes an industry standard and only when it is well entrenched - THEN do they say - I HAVE THE PATENT!!! Um, isn't the whole idea that anyone can come up with idea prove that the need for the patent is dumb?
While the PTO was origionally started as a great idea, over the past two decades things have just gotten out of control. Software and Business Methods are something that are just so unreasonable to patent that the PTO needs to either go back and decide:
1- this is something that will have to be SERIOUSLY researched before a patent is issued, OR
2- These are just things that CAN'T be patented
Good luck to them, because either way, they have a big problem facing them.
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
You know, I wonder if this wouldn't be a good way to fight the RIAA. I remember a quote from the guy who leads the patent office saying he thought legal arguments should be patentable. His argument was basically "Why the hell not?" as I recall.
Now, I don't think that you can patent legal arguments at this point in time, but you can patent business models. I mean, we're all smart people, I say why not just patent everything we can think of that the riaa might need technological to fight fair use, etc. I mean they already have things like digital watermarking, and some business models, but why not try to stay ahead of the curve? I remember thinking about a Digital Rights management system built into an OS a couple of months before Microsoft's patent was announced. If I'd thought of it years ago and patented it I would have stopped MS from ever implementing it in the core of the OS. Hrm... not that I wouldn't have been unbribeable, but, maybe this could be done through some non-profit organization like the EFF or something.
Hrm, maybe I should patent this idea... method stopping tyranny through abuse of the patent system...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Instead of hiring expensive lawyers to do the prior-art search before granting patents, why don't they just employ a bunch of semi-trained monkeys to type the patent title into a decent search engine, and grant the patent based on the results?
Of course you'd need a Legal gibberish to English translation tool as well.
The problem with this is that most large companies deliberately give patent applications vague and general titles. This is because the title of the patent becomes public before the body of it - and there's no point telling your competition what you're working on until necessary.
Patents seem to be soft grounds for filing charges against an entity if the entity is richer/more powerful than you. Thankfully, however, patents that encompass key technologies (imagine someone charging a pixel tax or something) don't usually hold up too well. While it might not be too fair, this helps to prevent people from patenting everything that's interesting.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
Personally, I find that to be rather a bad idea. I think up interesting things all the time, and I think I should be able to patent them, even if I haven't got the capital to build a working model or anything like that.
Maybe the burden of proof could be higher or something for a corporation rather then an individual. But I don't really see a reason for not allowing people to patent something if it wasn't difficult to come up with, I mean sometimes the most useful things are 'obvious' in retrospect and their genesis consisted mostly of a flash of insight and a quick jotting down. I read a report on a guy who made most of his money coming up with new kinds of condiments containers. Those things do make your life better, and might not even ever be developed if the person who thought them up didn't think they could make money off of it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
IMHO one of the core issue with those IP problems is the notion that everything must be owned by someone. I suppose it makes kind of sense, if everything is owned, then money will be made out of everything.
When there will be a patent on the process of "a mother singing to help her children sleep", we will know for sure that we are slaves.
Part of the problem with the patent office is that technically minded people don't want to work there. Sure you get to learn about lots of creative ideas and there is good deal of job security, but who really wants to work for the patent office? As far as I know there has only ever been one really famous patent clerk, and he left shortly after that paper was published.
People with technical skills and training to solve problems aren't interested in a job that is largely research and paperwork. Who can blame them? At the University of Maryland (just outside DC), some people from the patent office came to give a well publicized lecture about their trade and next to no one showed up to hear it. The most knowledgable people will go off and invent or even just teach and then people who can't find positions elsewhere end up working for the USPTO. [I'm sure there are some bright patent examiners, but they sure aren't likely to attract many.]
One might try using pay and perks to make the job more attractive, but that's only likely to go so far. It occurs to me that we might do much better if there was a system resembling that of peer review for scientific research. A lot of problems might be solved if patent applications were reviewed by a pool of people that had recieved patents in related fields. Just add a priviso that people that recieve a patent are obligated to review 3-5 patent applications per year for the length of the patent. Remove all the identifying details and send each application out to several people to referee.
Of course there are lots of details to work out, but IMHO such a system could go a long way towards improving the current state of affairs with the granting of patents.
Michael Jackson's "Methods and Means for Creating Anti Gravity Illusion" should be on there
The Bustpatents site is worth spending some eye-rubbing time on.
:-)
Whew! For a second I thought that was Bust patents. Almost had me...
I think the USPTO should allow a time for public comments to be issued on pending patents before the research process begins. Perhaps via some easy to use Internet/Web interface. This would certainly reduce the work load of these guys, and pre-sort the bad/invalid patents out. Perhaps the ones with lots of comments would receive more attention by the USPTO as opposed to pending patents that recieve little or no comment. By essentially envolving industry in the process it is actually made more efficent. I suppose a possible draw back would be someone trying to slow down the approval of a good patent by making false claims, but a method could be devized to reduce or eliminate such behavior. Maybe the USPTO should install Slashcode and allow pending patents to be modded up or down depending on their worthiness. Regardless of how it is carried out, something needs to be done to change how the system works because it clearly doesn't work now. One idea I had would be to follow up on companies to see if they actually build/sell the patented product within a given time frame. If they don't then the patent would be lifted allowing anyone to use the information. Wouldn't that help a lot more mousetraps hit the street rather than being tied up forever in some government stack of paper work?
How would a "Circular locomotion device intended to aid transport or travel" do?
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
In my humble opinion, the XOR cursor patent is worse than any of his top four. That patent totally flunks the "obviousness" test: any first-year computer science student, taking a graphics class, could write code that infringes on that patent.
"Write code to move a cursor around." Hmm, what are the operations I can use to set and clear pixels? AND, OR, and XOR. Hey, wait a minute...
At least they didn't grant a patent on "A Technique Whereby Raster Graphic Image Fragments Are Made to Appear in a Blank Frame Buffer by the Use of the OR Operator". Hmmm, wait, maybe I should file that one before someone beats me to it.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
i would like to patent a rapid oxidation process that can be induced by friction.is there any prior art i'm not aware of?
Although IANAL, I am pretty sure that the burden of finding out if prior art exists rest with the person applying for a patent. This is part of the reason why, if you apply for a patent, you are advised to spend lots of money on patent lawyers and speacilists. The patent office only do quick searches to make sure you havent missed something obvious. If they were to do a full search, the costs would be ridiculous.
Nonetheless, a little common sense wouldnt go amiss.
Check these patents:
Silly patents
Really silly patents
Really Very silly patent
Plain absurd patent
Even law firms admit many patents are silly
Are you getting bored of all this silliness yet?
I can go on
And on
And on. Even in Spanish
Incidentlly, I have just made my own patent application:
Method of recieving Karma Points from www.slashdot.org utilising process of relying entirely on external sources and/or hyperlinks - "Karma Whoring".
Sorry, somebody already patented that one in Australia last year: here. Is crazy, no?
poink!
...Time is the best teacher, unfortunately it kills all of its students.
Hey - I lost my job last week - and I'm technically minded - tell me where I can apply :).
Well you asked...
Employment Announcements at USPTO
Also the main USPTO site is here.
A method to induce sleep in young humans through the use of pressure waves generated by the female progenitor's vocal chords.
These patents that only get granted in the US don't happen in Europe. Certainly in the UK this is because other people can challenge the acceptance of a patent, and the people investigating it put it out to experts in that field.
Sounds all to simple, but why not just switch to a system that has worked elsewhere.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
... I live in a country with some common sense, (although not enough). Around here, you are allowed to patent only innovations, and if they have substance at all.
;) (One of the adaptions are called speech, another music...)
What's next over there? Patenting "communication by varying the air pressure" or something?
Agreed. That is the exact same thing that makes it virtually impossible to give, or for that matter find, reasonable technical support.
In all cases I can think of right now, dealing with for instance my cable company and such, the user (you, me, anyone with a computer and some basic knowledge) is the one that has to explain to the support guy or girl what is happening. They have a little binder with questions 1-20 that they ask and then follow some kind of chart depending on what the answer is. If you skip 1-18 by telling them "Hi, I have no connection. I have rebooted computer and modem, one at the time and simultaneously. I have refreshed DHCP manually. The lights on the modem blinks OK, so there is a connection to your server." - well go figure. They panic, because they have no idea what you are talking about, or what that means in terms of their questions.
Now, if it was a fun (and challenging job working at the patent office, or with telephone support, there would be competent people manning those jobs, and maybe things would work once in a while.
Sorry for the slightly off-topic post, I was trying to make a point by analogy.
I just patented the phrase "can't imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things".
In the software/internet field, I think that the main problem is not that prior art is not found -- in a new field it may not exist -- but that the obviousness criterion is not tested.
IANAL, but AIUI, in order to be patentable, an invention must be both novel and non-obvious. But read this interview in which the Director of the US Patent Office demonstrated quite clearly that he did not understand the difference between these two concepts.
It appears that the US Patent Office believes that obviousness can be ascertained by determining whether there is any prior art. Of course obviousness is much harder to prove conclusively. But until they understand that an invention has to satisfy both of these criteria separately, we will continue to get more ridiculous software and e-businness patents.
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
He left out the amazon 1-click patent. That certainly ranks up there.
Maybe it's time to patent the 0-click mouse-over patent. "...the fool held the mouse over the image, he must have wanted to buy it..."
The US patent office can only search things in the library of congress or their library (i.e. stuff that is patent pending or has been patented (they discard the stuff they reject)). They can't do a google search for prior art since that would leak info to google.
Because most of the inventors of the cool computer stuff didn't think their work was patentable, they didn't submit it and now if you can find something that hasn't been sbumitted, you too can get a patent on something you didn't invent.
The same is true for business practices which can now be patented. With no "prior art", anything can get a patent.
One easy fix to this would be to do something as patent a method to something uesless (but patentable) and submit all of google's database. the problem with this approach is that it requires the entire database.
First off, we all know *yawn* how easy it is for a big company to patent a blindingly obvious idea. The little guys then have to go thought a painful and long process to get the patent overturned. The patent process is abused and big buiness wins.
Also remember that any company can claim patent pending to sound good.
e.g. Say I run a company making bog-standard parts for a Ford Escort. I then get a patent out for putting a roof on a toaster to stop the toast being poped up too high(!). I can now legitamately claim patent-pending !
Trade marks are similar. In the UK at least, putting TM after your trade mark is regarded as 'totaly meeningless', as it carries no legal weight at all. However, it is easy to bully smaller companies into submission by claiming you have many 'registerd' trade marks.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Trouble with the PTO not paying attention to their applications is that every bad patent makes them less credible, eventually to the point that every patent issued becomes suspicious. Or course the reason for these 4 was the hope of settling some lawsuits out of court and retiring. I know in this forum patents are evil by default, but that's a bit extreme. There are small companies that need that sort of protection to get their business off the ground. Every obvious, ridiculous patent issued reduces this level of protection. The solution? First let's eliminate lawyers everywhere, second, well that's been mentioned enough already.
. . . to piss you off.
In case you didn't know: the Alzheimer disease was named after the first person describing it, the neurologist Alois Alzheimer (in 1906).
So don't find coincidences funny if you don't know where they come from...
Regardless of the product or its originality, a patent is of no use unless the patent holder knows how to successfully market it. My uncle holds the patent for the Wax Whiz, an automatic floor waxing device and a few variants. This machine waxes floors a lot faster than competing devices, but sine he's an inventor and not a marketer, he hasn't been able to capitalize on the patent. It's in the best interests of patent-owners to sell their patents to marketers, rather than keep them for themselves. Based on this, why would anyone want to apply for a useless patent? What good is owning the right to a 3d pie chart if you can't sell it to the general public? I mean, stupidity aside, if your product is the best on the market you still won't be able to sell it if the only people that know about it are related to you. This may be a specific case, but I would think that all patents are the same. Most of the useless patents are held by companies and individuals that we've never heard of. If these uselss patents were marketed correctly, boom! Instant millionaires! Isn't that the way it's really supposed to work?!?
In order to be immortal you must be organize
Is there any mechanism by which members of the public can make available to the PTO examples of commonly used, prior-art software, prior-art biotech, prior-art whatever takes your fancy? If not, I think that is something that is necessary - we can moan all day about the PTO granting patents on "obvious" stuff, but perhaps we need to give the PTO a list, to help make their job easier. As another poster pointed out, a PTO clark can't do a Google search for the details of a new patent application, as that leaks information to Google.
What I'm thinking of is a place where I could describe, say, shopping on a website (to pick an example from bustpatents), and describe in very general terms how shopping on a website works (e.g. "You fill out forms in a web browser, and submit what you want to buy along with your credit card number preferrably over some form of cryptographically secured link such as HTTPS"). It needn't be an especially good example, and (I would say) the more general the better.
The PTO may well require the information to be public, which makes sense (no-one would post anything of value on it). And perhaps the PTO could somehow penalise applicants who apply for something already described on this list (or on a "small" number of other lists)
I can see that it would need a form of moderation system in order to avoid abuse, as I'm sure the PTO probably don't want a few thousand "common examples" of spam. But unless we the software community describe (preferrably in a concise manner, and definitely in one place that the PTO can grab a complete copy for its own searching) what stuff is obvious, the patent office doesn't stand a chance.
PS: I live in the UK, where software patents are not legal. However, you'd be amazed at the number of "mechanisms" that most people would describe as "software"
supposedly identified as busted or bustable by Mr. Aharonian have survived scrutiny over the years.
Greg has a tendency, as do many patent critics, to casually review patents without applying the appropriate rules of law, presume their scope are much broader than they actually are, and then conclude that they read upon prior art. This would be unrelated to the law.
In practice, the rules of patent construction and patentability are far more complicated than he appears to suppose. At least, he no longer presumes --as he did at one time-- that patents are defined by their abstracts.
I am a patent examiner. Youcan use nearly ANYTHING for prior art. I've used google to find webpages that discuss a video game's features which was similar to something I was examining.
You generally start off with searching what is allready in a numberof patent databases, if youdon't find it there thenyou look elsewhere within the limited time alloted.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
I found this off another Patent article...
Method for exercising a cat...
Patent 5,443,036 granted 8-22-95
This is a real patent.
Basically it states about using a flashlight to move a dot of light around and having the cat chase it.
As far as prior art, Hell, I've been terrorizing cats since I was little.
This is a very bizarre patent.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
I posted above on some of the internal reasons how productions incentives has degraded the ethic to do quality work in the PTO. The problem is one of a managment philosophy over the last 30+ years to worship the god of production over the virtue of quality. Even the most diligent examiner is faced with the problem of being diligent with the reality of not getting fired for low production, not turning around amended cases quickly enough, etc.
There really are lots of bright people in the PTO (as well as the ususal portion of duds) but they get eroded down to either always being on the edge of being fired (because their production is low) or they have to compromise their own standards to avoid this fate. Either way, they are miserable, and, if they have waited too long, they are trapped in an occupation that has limited applicability elsewhere (Patent Attorney/Agent/Searcher).
The result: lots of turnover from people who make the correct decision quickly (leave fast, stay long enough to get law degree then go on the outside, etc.) leaving the inept and otherwise unemployable, the competant but ground down by the institutional crappy environment, and the few who ae luck to be competant and in an art that enables them to do good work and satisfy the bean counters.
And the management wonders why turnover is so high.
http://webdb4.patent.gov.uk/patents/ application number is GB0015821.2, it's for finding virii in e-mails, and was placed on 28/6/2000 - *how* much prior art !?!
I have a question. From what I've read patent laws were recently loosened to allow for software and business-plan patenting. Does anyone know who created and passed these laws? Are there any records as to who lobbied for such changes?
It would be interesting to see who initiated this and how their profiting. I love capitalism as a system only until people start abusing government power.
_______
2B1ASK1
1) Patent swapping.
"Our pile of patent trading cards is bigger than your pile of patent trading cards, (plus this one is, like, a Wizard, and really powerful!). Therefore this technology partnership goes *our* way, not yours..."
2) Company valuation.
This kind of thing still actually impresses investors: "Stupidco. is a recognized leader in stupidity, and holds key patents in the field."
3) Patent lawyers.
"You want to patent the moon? No, no, I don't think that's a bad idea at all! You did bring your check book, right? We may need to patent full, crescent and new moon separately..."
4) If we don't do it...
"You really want to take the risk that Idiots.com will patent idiocy before we can patent stupidity? Sure it's a dumb patent, but that doesn't mean they won't get it!"
5) Difficulty of challenging a patent in court.
Witness: "...important innovation relating to the doping of spherical semiconductors during non-contact processing in the liquid state..."
Jurors: "?"
Can someone remind me what patents are for? A common argument is that they are supposed to increase innovation, but how I don't see how. When was the last time you went looking through the patent database for ideas? How many of us can even understand the hyperinflated language in patent filings?
Several US companies own patents for individual human and animal genes. No, not modified genes. Naturally occuring ones, like the one which causes Cystic Fibrosis.
If you're developing a CF test which looks for this gene (even from scratch), you will be paying patent royalties.
It's logically consistent with this that you could be paying royalties if you (or your child) has CF...
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
The USPTO frequently issues patents thinking any ambiguities can be worked out in court, but ignores the fact that the court process is prohibitivly expensive.
Were justice to become affordable to all, the federal government would be forced to correct the problem before the volume of suits effectivly shut down the 'justice system'.
It is quite possable that the flaws in the system were always there, but due to issues of scalability and the vast difference in the connectedness of society in the past compared to now have brought the problem to light.
For example, in the mid 19th century, a most people probably interacted (however slightly) with less people in a lifetime than we do in a week. Each interaction carries potential for a lawsuit. They also were never bombarded with advertisments and even 'entertainment' advising them to take others to court for every offense however slight.
Thus, today you are far more likely to be involentarily dragged into a dysfunctional system than at any other time in history.
My friend Sid preferred to exercise cats using a rather graphic method involving a Q-tip and turpentine....
Yes, he hated cats.
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
It seems to me, just given the broad and obvious nature of the granted patents, that maybe the USPTO ought to go with a personal presentation/interview format (almost like they do with permanent residency and naturalization applicants) as well as the traditional paper filing for a formal patent application. It would work a bit like this: Each person wishing to file a patent would do so in the normal way, and then a few weeks later would be sent a presentation time and date. He or she would have to justify and present the patent to the examiners, who would then have the opportunity to review and ask any questions of the petitioners.
Obviously, the big downside is the major hiring the USPTO would have to do to have enough presentation/interview slots available. I can't see how the pie-chart patent would have ever been granted with this process--I mean, how do you present such an obvious concept like that to a group of people and keep a straight face or not get booted from the room within 5 minutes?
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
I happen to own the patent on stupid patents. Every time some moron does this, ka-CHING! I'm 84 cents closer to retirement and I get a warm fuzzy for having made money off a lawyer.
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
US Patent 6025810:
A method to transmit and receive electromagnetic waves which comprises generating opposing magnetic fields having a plane of maximum force running perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the magnetic field; generating a heat source along an axis parallel to the longitudinal axis of the magnetic field; generating an accelerator parallel to and in close proximity to the heat source, thereby creating an input and output port; and generating a communications signal into the input and output port, thereby sending the signal at a speed faster than light.
Certainly not going to get shot down by prior art...
Herb: Hey Norm, you ever heard of training manuals?
Norm: Nope... what do they do? Herb: I dunno. Let me look it up. Norm: Is it lunch time yet? Herb: Yeah, let me just issue this patent. Norm: Okay.
Did anyone notice who filed the patent?
Maybe it's just coincidence and maybe I'm just reading too much into all of this, but:
(U.S.: 5,851,117: "Building Block Training Systems and Training Methods"; Keith A. Alsheimer and others.)
Altzheimer? Alsheimer? Hrm!!!
You're an ass.
"All representatives are busy. The estimated hold time is one..hundred..sixty..four..minutes." Detroit Edison, 02/01/02
I remember as a child around Giftmas time pouring over the Sears catalog circling and initialing items for my mother to find later. I have four brothers and for the youngest of us, this was common practice that somehow just started happening out of the blue...I don't remember how that practice started.
We used to get into arguments over who "wanted it first."
"Hey! You can't want that! I wanted it first! It's mine!!"
"If you wanted it first, you should have circled it first!"
"You took the book! So how could I?!"
The underlying notion was claiming ownership of a wish... we were very poor and we rarely, if ever, actually got what we wanted for Giftmas anyway.
But with all the "IP" issues that come to light these days, I am wistfully reminded of those days. And I ask is it really so different? Perhaps, we were all forward-thinking prodigies preparing ourselves for 21st century "industry" where we get paid for simply claiming to think of something first.
Last night, during an internet chat, I quoted James Madison. I didn't know James Madison said the same thing I did 200 years ago? I never read the quote, I just happened to have the same idea he had and expressed it in the same way. It's a good thing we don't have too much problem with being able to express ourselves freely... oh wait, nevermind...
How much of this is "too much" and do we have to come to the point of revolution in order to stop the insanity?
Then enforce a very stiff royality on the patent office directors only.
That should change a few things very quickly.
i hold a patent on math.
It would make more sense if applications were supposed to be made public in relevant industry journals - the applicant has to pay for an ad - and the public was given time to provide objections on the basis of prior art or overly broad or vague claims.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
>makes it much easier to remove the
>tiles from a Deluxe Scrabble board
The claim would be,
"Manually or with a gripping device, torque is applied to the planar element, until said element is orthogonal to the planetary or other gravitational field, effecting removal of tiles, pawns, and other instruments."
The muffin baking industry is a potential licensee.
hawk
The muffin baking industry is a likely licenssee.
hawk
If you don't do anything with a patent, then (a) it's officially invalid
Technically, that's correct; patents expire after 3 1/2, 7 1/2, and 11 1/2 years after grant unless the holder pays periodic maintenance fees. If you don't do anything, not even pay the maintenance fee, the patent becomes invalid.
However, most people would take this to mean "an unenforced patent becomes worthless." That's not patents; that's trademarks.
(b) you're depriving society of technology which they would otherwise have had, for no good reason
No good reason except your own bottom line. For any for-profit corporation, that's reason enough. (Corporations that claim to have ethics do so in order to build goodwill, that is, the value of their trademarks, and that can be measured in dollars.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Depriving society of technology, that is. Do you really think they can't make cars last longer? I read a report at least 10 years ago about a procedure where they coat all the engine parts with a very small diamond layer. They believed this would make an engine last 500K miles without an oil change. Why would they not do that? Hmm let's see... everyone buys cars that last much longer, people buy cars less often.... they don't make any money!
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
All you would need to do is look for obvious ideas that the big corps will need to use at some time in the near future then hold those ideas hostage until either the big corps pay through the nose or someone with a clue decides to pass legislation that raises the bar for granting patents.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
2) Software patents necessary if patents are to be consider a valid concept at all. These days, it's almost inconceivable that there exists any invention at all that couldn't also be accomplished by a device that incorporates software to perform some part of the inventive steps. If we prevent patents on software-containing inventions, it's very hard for me to see how any patent could protect any invention.
If patent claims were not allowed to incorporate software ideas, someone could just build the same invention as claimed by any patent, incorporate software to perform some of the steps, and then say that this clearly isn't covered by the patent claims for that invention. Patent claims are very picky things.
Honestly, people, we are not the first industry to feel that innovation is being "stifled" by patents and that patents "shouldn't apply to us". Every nascent industry that exists has gone through this stage at some point. There are industrys that still are in this stage (like the automotive industry... you may not realize this, but practically every part in every car is covered by some kind of patent). Somehow, they still manage to survive and thrive.
3) The reason the PTO doesn't search anything but the Library of Congress (which includes most significant journals, BTW) and prior patents is because the patent system is primarily about making sure that inventions are preserved for the public trust in the long term. Journals too small to find their way into the Library of Congress, web pages, etc. don't satisfy that primary goal. If you don't limit the search to some reasonably defined permanent storage, people will continue to hide their inventions as trade secrets and try to "protect" them by obscure references in non-commonly searched locations.
Also, most of these "trivial" examples of "prior art" that people talk about do not disclose how to perform the operation. A closed source program that does X really shouldn't count as prior art for X, because it's just another form of the trade secrets patents were invented to prevent.
Of course, one could look on this as an advantage of Open Source Development in terms of preventing stupid patents.
"The US patent office can only search things in the library of congress or their library (i.e. stuff that is patent pending or has been patented (they discard the stuff they reject)). They can't do a google search for prior art since that would leak info to google."
.doc file located on the USPTO site but you can use this comment #4 in html)
The USPTO had an RFC regarding Prior Art searches a few years ago. Check out Written Comment #4 (chose it from the list - it's in a
While that sounds good, think of the motivations of the competitors. It would be in their interest to kill a "good" patent (read, real innovation with no prior art) which would be a competitive threat, and let a trivial patent through.
I'm not sure there is a good solution.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
I belive it was Einstein who said "you only understand something if you can explain it to a 5 year old".
I propose that the Patent office adopt the "5 year old test" Each patent should be read to a randomly choosen kindegarden class; if the majority of the students can understand the language, it is clear enough.
Now, of course, the kindegarden test isn't sufficent in itself; the next step would be the "slaashdot audience test" that would involve the examination of the patent's giggle factor; present would be the examiner, the submitter, several of the more cynical members of the slashdot audience and a large collection of easy to lift cream pies.
Perhaps we could have a board of programmers/developers to come up with the list of 'obvious' practices. A smallish group of people should be able to decide on, and maintain a list of common practices that cannot be patented.
-- Must give Slashdorks something to whine about:
Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes
REDMOND, WA--In what CEO Bill Gates called "an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors," the Microsoft
Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.
With the patent, Microsoft's rivals are prohibited from manufacturing or selling products containing zeroes and ones--the mathematical building blocks of all computer languages and
programs--unless a royalty fee of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant.
"Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975," Gates told reporters. "For years, in the interest of the overall health of the
computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain
competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals."
A number of major Silicon Valley players, including Apple Computer, Netscape and Sun Microsystems, said they will challenge the Microsoft patent as monopolistic and anti-competitive,
claiming that the 10-cent-per-digit licensing fee would bankrupt them instantly.
"While, technically, Java is a complex system of algorithms used to create a platform-independent programming environment, it is, at its core, just a string of trillions of ones and
zeroes," said Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, whose company created the Java programming environment used in many Internet applications. "The licensing fees we'd have to pay Microsoft
every day would be approximately 327,000 times the total net worth of this company."
"If this patent holds up in federal court, Apple will have no choice but to convert to analog," said Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs, "and I have serious doubts whether this company
would be able to remain competitive selling pedal-operated computers running software off vinyl LPs."
As a result of the Microsoft patent, many other companies have begun radically revising their product lines: Database manufacturer Oracle has embarked on a crash program to develop
"an abacus for the next millennium." Novell, whose communications and networking systems are also subject to Microsoft licensing fees, is working with top animal trainers on a
chimpanzee-based message-transmission system. Hewlett-Packard is developing a revolutionary new steam-powered printer.
Despite the swarm of protest, Gates is standing his ground, maintaining that ones and zeroes are the undisputed property of Microsoft.
"We will vigorously enforce our patents of these numbers, as they are legally ours," Gates said. "Among Microsoft's vast historical archives are Sanskrit cuneiform tablets from 1800
B.C. clearly showing ones and a symbol known as 'sunya,' or nothing. We also own: papyrus scrolls written by Pythagoras himself in which he explains the idea of singular notation, or
'one'; early tracts by Mohammed ibn Musa al Kwarizimi explaining the concept of al-sifr, or 'the cipher'; original mathematical manuscripts by Heisenberg, Einstein and Planck; and a signed
first-edition copy of Jean-Paul Sartre's Being And Nothingness. Should the need arise, Microsoft will have no difficulty proving to the Justice Department or anyone else that we own the
rights to these numbers."
Added Gates: "My salary also has lots of zeroes. I'm the richest man in the world."
According to experts, the full ramifications of Microsoft's patenting of one and zero have yet to be realized.
"Because all integers and natural numbers derive from one and zero, Microsoft may, by extension, lay claim to ownership of all mathematics and logic systems, including Euclidean
geometry, pulleys and levers, gravity, and the basic Newtonian
- Penguin Kicka
- Culled from theOnion.Com
I worked for a private IP research firm in the US PTO for about 10 years. Prior to that, I worked a retail position in Crystal City (Arlington) VA - which is the physical location of the US PTO. I heard many stories that circulated about the fun and foibles of patent examiners. My favourite story is of a patent examiner who, in the rush to get things done, began to hide patent application files in his ceiling. One day, the dam burst. Papers and files everywhere. I have no idea if it's true (I doubt it is) but it's a statement of how rushed and stressed the examiners are that many people gave it credence.
The PTO is essentially a 19th-century operation. Much of the work is still done on paper. Even the physical location of all of the PTO offices hinder efficiency. The Dep't. of Commerce leases space as they need it - the USPTO encompasses offices and search rooms in at least six different buildings, with no rhyme or reason. Most patent information is off-site in one of three or four (or more!) different warehouses. You can wait up to a week for an older bit of information and that's if they can find the file. Just getting information from point A to point B can take a lot of time. The system persists because the most reliable information is still only available on paper. Ask anyone who uses the search rooms.
If you're a patent examiner (who doesn't hide applications in the ceiling) geologically slow computer systems and inefficient transportation of physical information are a fact of life. With the pressure from Congress and the public to speed up the process and more and more applications coming in, the examiners are in a no win situation. It's no wonder that patents of dubious merit are being awarded.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. - anon.
That should work for most inventions.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Apparently the moderator completely missed the joke (as I did the first time I read this comment), thus demonstrating the issue raised by the original poster. :-)
Nobody reads the subjects.
Method of referencing disparate or related content through the use of textual redirects whereby such references are accessed by manual entry of said redirect into browser's address or location bar.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
Found this petition link at the GNU Site Home page
Look who signer #1551 is. And look at what signer #1552 says.
If software wasn't patentable, then the patent office couldn't make software patent blunders.
If you are a US citizen, consider signing the petition.
How many people here can say they even got as far as finishing elementary school without having been taught a school subject, such as math or science, with the aid of a text book? I can remember using text books as far back as grade two.
So what can we conclude? The people working at the patent office have a very limited education, if any at all. Had these people attended any type of schooling they would have frequently used text books and this "Training Manual" patent would be incredibly obvious with many examples of prior art.
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
Giving a patent application to people who have received patents in related fields leads to a couple of problems. First, in industry, those reviewers are likely to either be co-workers of the applicant, or competitors of the applicant. In either case, the review is likely to be biased. Second, in the latter case, the PTO would be putting the content of the application - which is confidential until publication - into the hands of the applicant's competition. For those who actually file applications for valid patents, this would be disasterous.
The PTO actually has a sort of peer review in place, as of November, 2000. After 18 months of pendancy, most applications are published, and public comment is invited. This means that review is not limited to just competitors, but to anyone who has an interest, so the review is actually farther-reaching. The applicants are protected in case of infringement based on publication of the application, by being awarded a reasonable royalty for infringing activity dating back to the time of publication, if the issued patent has claims that are substantially similar to those of the published application.
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Several US companies own patents for individual human and animal genes. No, not modified genes. Naturally occuring ones, like the one which causes Cystic Fibrosis.
While I agree this makes me uneasy, what are your alternatives?
Gene research costs serious cash. Highly trained people (in high demand). Very expensive equipment and lab facilities. Lots of chemicals (and disposal) If private companies can't get some return, they simply won't do the work.
Who else will do it? Government or universities? Both supported by your taxes- pay up, assuming you can get a tax hike past Duyba. Or you can cut other services (Meet hordes of angry seniors) or add to the deficit if you prefer (Ask the Argentinians how well this works in the long run.)
I don't like the idea much myself, but privates do useful work that otherwise might not get done. Is it better to have a patented CF gene or not know anything about it at all?
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
God gave birth to metamoderation. If anyone happens to stumble across that moderation...
"All representatives are busy. The estimated hold time is one..hundred..sixty..four..minutes." Detroit Edison, 02/01/02
...what if someone patents the legal argument that you can patent legal arguments? It makes my head hurt.
Slashdot editors posting an article about people who don't do adequate searches for prior things...
It would have been icing on the cake if this particular story had been submitted before, but this SciAm article is new. (Although the bustpatents web site has been mentioned before, more than a year ago.) Guess I'll have to post this again the next time this article appears on slashdot.
the whole idea of patents is really to "promote the useful arts". they do this by letting an inventor have exclusive use of his invention for a limited time in exchange for publishing the invention. you could say that the patent system is intended to let people give back to the world while still letting them protect their rights to profit from their inventiveness.
"good ideas are valuable. i like to be well fed" - hans bethe
so in your case, it would be great to have invented an engine that runs on toothpaste, but it doesn't do any good if you don't publish. the patent lets you publish your invention for the crest engine and profit from your inventiveness. if you're not interested in developing the invention then you could give people an open license or license the invention for a nominal fee.
there is nothing really wrong with patents per se. the opportunity to publish and enjoy an officially sanctioned monopoly encourages people to invent things and tell the world about their inventions. without patents, inventors would treat their inventions like trade secrets. other inventors would have to reinvent technology on their own in order to build on it.
the key is that patents are supposed to be "novel" and "non-obvious". you really shouldn't be able to come up with any old idea and patent it. the patent office needs to be more rigorous in its analysis of patents for these two requirements.
the problem is that the patent office has been willing to approve any old patent without rigorous analysis. the reasons for this is partly due to poor funding from the federal government and partly due to the patent ofice losing sight of its mission which has changed from "promoting the useful arts" to "helping companies make monopolis". the result is a lot of poor quality patents that end up stifling innovation by giving inventors monopolistic control over inventions that are either not new or are obvious or both.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
It means the in Europe we can register silly patents in the US (eg BT holds the patent on the 'hyperlink') but EU industry remains unhindered by such absurdities. The UK government considered the US system and rejected it, has the US government any published studies that recommend/reject the UK system?
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Universities sound like the right choice to me. They have the fortunate by-product of producing more educated people as well as good ideas.
You can work out the economics. Make the assumption that it costs the same to produce an invention in a company as in a university (probably not true, since the univeristy doesn't have the lawyer/marketing overhead, and the peer review/academic competition in universities is arguably more efficient at spreading knowledge than closed corporate labs).
If the patent is granted, the average consumer will pay more and get less product (due to monopoly pricing) than they would if they had paid the required additional tax to fund the research in universities. The company makes more profit, but not enough to offset the consumer's loss. So the patent destroys value overall and is also probably regressive since corporate profits will tend to disproportionately benefit the rich.
With the invention in the public domain, companies can then compete in a free market to produce and market the product as efficiently as possible. This is in stark contrast to a patent-protected monopoly, which has far less incentive to cut costs since it is already sitting on a large margin and doesn't have to fight for customers. I actually think the companies would continue to innovate anyway to keep ahead of the competition even if they could not aquire a patent.
Basically, patents are bad, and the *real* free market solution is to abolish them.
Of course, people are dumb and don't like paying extra taxes, regardless of the fact that it might halve the prices of most products they buy. Ah well.....
With the invention in the public domain, companies can then compete in a free market to produce and market the product as efficiently as possible.
So, are you allowed patents on production? Good ChemE's don't come cheap, and if you think the production methods aren't covered in a flurry of patents you'd be wrong.
Of course, if you make all that free where's the incentive to improve production by inventing new methods? It costs a bloody fortune to develop a new method: why should any company bother when there's a free, inefficient method out there and any other company can take your new method away? There's no free market here- just a government sponsored research monopoly.
Who pays for clinical trials? The government would have to- no company could shoulder the ~$100M cost per drug under this system.
How about copyright on the informational/marketing materials that go with each drug? Can I take those free as well? I could save a bundle on technical writers/marketing staff. Perhaps the government should just take over those responsibilites too.
Patent works in the drug industry- it's probably the best example, since up front costs for drug development are immense but costs to copy are low.
Are drug companies angels? No, but shutting them down and transferring their entire R&D staffs to academia (where would we put all the chemists?) under government payroll is kind of a drastic solution. (BTW: I seriously doubt your argument that academic research is more cost effective- I've worked in both worlds. The amount of time spent writing grant proposals to get funded is huge. When I needed a new HPLC at Merck, I asked for one. It appeared the next week. In academia it would have taken 6+ months of writing and waiting.)
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
A husband of one of my coworkers works for a rival of Kraft foods. They designed a and tried to patent the process/machinery of making peanut butter and jelly into slices (just like sandwich cheese). Their patent I can understand (the work involved to get two dissimilar food products to stick together in a peel and open plastic square in a manufacturing environment is not as easy as it sounds). Anyways, they have been rejected by the patent office over 3 times because there is an "inventor" who basically patented wrapping slices of nut butter and jelly. Not the process, but the idea that it is packaged in plastic (err "flexible package covering". The patent will not issue them a patent because their process is based on "prior art", and nevermind the fact that the patent examiner has stock in PJ Squares. See patent RE37275, reissue of 5855939.
Also see 6,080,436 (patent for err, "refreshing" bread by heating it to 2500-4500 degrees (sounds like making toast) and the almost infamous Smucker patent on a "sealed crustless sandwich" patent number 6,004,596. Patent 6,296,884 (prepackaged s'more kit).
I think I will patent the "method of excreting organically processed food and other sustanance by way of a pouch shaped contractile organ which then compresses the processed food out through a hole at the end of the organ through repetative application of contractions along the length of the organ."
I will then own the patent on the process by which you take a crap. I wonder what I will get paid in?
Shango
--ngoy
Try this one on for size...
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05443036__
...a relevant quote in the interview is towards the end: "Obvious functions are not patentable. We don't patent obvious inventions. We just don't. And if you believe that it's obvious, and you've got prior art to show that it is obvious, send it on in, as I've said many times..."
Right now, corporations do in fact patent things through the employees who think them up. However, if one were to make it illegal to actualy transfer an 'individual' patent indefinetly and make it legal for corporations to co-sign patents, I don't think manny companies would trust their employees with the company 'crown jewls' so to speak.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
you're depriving society of technology if you just forget about it as well.
Maybe the current patent system should be replaced with a 'compulsory rights' system, where everyone can license your idea for a price you set.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I could have swore he was talking about Cowboy Neal.
Where's my 5-year-old explaination of the Theory of Relativity? :)
Zodiac Survey
First, if you are interested in learning more about the patent process in the US, I recommend the book "Patent It Yourself" by Patent Attorney David Pressman. This book can be found on the NOLO self help law site: www.nolo.com. A number of other books about patents can also be found under Patent & Trade Secrets/Patents on that site.
;-). When Mother Nature decides to kick butt for patent infringement it won't be happening in a court of law.
Second - how to fix the problem of patents granted for things that already exist. IANAL or an expert in the field, but it seems to me that the Patent Office will invalidate or revoke a patent when provided with documentation showing the existence of prior art that describes the invention that has a date earlier than the patented inventions date of inception. If the documentation describes the reduction to practice of a patented invention the patent should be invalidated - the invention already exists and is not patentable. Part of the patent application process is to search for and include prior art of similar inventions and to explain how your invention is unique and non-obvious. The responsibility belongs to the inventor and the inventor's Patent Attorney(s) to find and include the prior art.
So if you have prior art on a patented invention, send it to the Patent Office and see what happens.
Lastly, I have a question. How is it that if you change one gene in an organism which has million or billions of genes, that you then own the whole organism? That's like changing one register in an existing microprocessor and calling it your design. Or perhaps changing one line of code in Microsoft Office and getting a patent on the resulting code
Hey you screwed up your link to slashdot smart ass ... thanks, Einstein.
violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture! -- Sherlock Holmes
click the link before you mod
The idea here, a rather corporate one, is that everything must be owned by someone - even concepts (e.g., Amazon and one-click shopping). While bound to appeal to those motivated by greed, intellectually it's bloody fucking hilarious - primarily because only the incredibly stupid could actually attribute any worth to the notion, or allow some of the patents that have made it through the PTO.
Add two things that are automatically excluded from patents:
- concepts. You can't patent a concept. Period. Too bad if you don't like it. Move to some other country, eh?
- things of natural origin. Can't patent the discovery of natural objects, like genetic code. You didn't make it, all you did was stumble across it.
- anything funded by public money. All things funded in any way by public money, no matter how small, become public domain.
Remove these two things and you eliminate 99% of all the bad patents out there. Not only that, you return the patenting system to what it was originally intended to be, i.e., a way to protect an inventor of a technological, material product long enough for him to make a buck off that product before everyone else copied it.
Anything else is bullshit, from my point of view. Just a way for lawyers and non-creative corporate mouth-breathers to stuff more money into their wallets.
I can already hear the screams of apologists....
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Thinking up all sorts of interesting but trivial things and then patenting them is just a waste of everyone's time. There are companies and individuals out there making their living off of patenting ridiculous ideas and then suing the people that use them.
I don't think obvious things should be patentable. That just means that every thing I create will be patent encumbered by some other idiot who patented the vertical squeegee or the wireless joystick or the dvd drive that plays disks upside down.
Too many patents impedes creativity rather than encouraging it. The little guy gets screwed when he sinks his life savings into producing widgets and someone sues him because they patented the technique for using nuts and bolts with 3 washers instead of 2.
Coding Blog
Guess we just have to agree to differ on this one - you don't think scrapping patents would work, I most certainly do although I'm not convinced it will ever be meaningfully tried.
To answer a couple of your points (all good):
I don't think you would transfer that many people to university research - AFAIK a large amount of the manpower in drugs companies is around the production and testing of drugs, all of which would still have to be done by private companies if they wanted to compete. Even if they pick up the basic research for free, they still need to manufacture it efficiently and convince consumers that it is tested and safe if they want to make a good business.
You could even adopt a funding system where scientists are government funded but work within companies, on the proviso that the research results are available to all. This might be a good model for clinical trials as you mention.
Or as an even less disruptive alternative, the government could guarantee to write out the check for the development of any successfully researched drugs - essentially "buying" the development into the public domain. They would have to include a risk premium (to cover the risk of failed research), but the total costs would be exactly the same and the incentive to make a successful drug just as great. The only difference being that after the drug is made, you get the free market in production and supply rather than a monopoly once again. This might also work as a "bonus" for clever production techniques dreamed up by the ChemEs you mention.
Basically, we all know that patents are bad, that they restrict the free market, inflate prices and quite probably stifle future innovation. The only justification for them is to incentivise new discoveries, but I feel that this can be done in far more effective ways.
I've never worked in a drug company, but I've been in business and technology long enough to know that the ability to copy ideas and strong competition on a level playing field are the biggest drivers that force companies to perform and innovate. Patents prevent this from happening, and this more than anything else has convinced me that they ought to go.
TECHNOLOGY
Awarded jointly to John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia, for patenting the wheel in the year 2001 , and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him Innovation Patent #2001100012.
A patent on a "method of exercising a cat" using a laser pointer. Purely rediculous.
"A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct."
"I don't trust goats," --To Catch a Spy
2001 a
patently great
year for IBM
We Did It Again!
For the ninth year in a row, IBM leads the patent race, with IBMers being
awarded more U.S. patents than employees of any other company. We received
a record 3,411patents in 2001 -- surpassing the combined total awarded to
12 of the largest companies in the IT industry. This represents nearly a 20
percent increase over our previous record of 2,886 set in 2000 and makes
IBM the first company in history to be granted more than 3,000 U.S. patents
in a single year.
But this isn't just a numbers game.Rather, it's about IBM demonstrating
its knack for innovation and asserting its unparalleled technology
leadership. And that's paying off for IBM and its customers, as we
outpace a whole host of competitors who pride themselves on being among our
industry's best and brightest.
Patent Prowess in 2001: How IBM Stacks Up
Against 12 of the largest US companies in the IT industry
"Patents recognize the work of individuals because patent law has long held
that only human beings can possess the spark of creativity necessary to
produce original breakthroughs," said Nick Donofrio, senior VP, Corporate
Technology and Manufacturing. "IBM's patent leadership reflects our
continued success in attracting and retaining the world's most talented
researchers, scientists and technicians.Our commitment to industry
leadership depends on our success in creating a community of original
thinkers spanning a variety of disciplines."
Prestige isn't the only benefit of being crowned patent king. Patented
technology is big business at IBM; in 2000 alone our intellectual property
portfolio generated $1.7 billion in licensing royalties.It demonstrates
our industry and product leadership which in turn makes IBM more attractive
to potential business partners. In addition, patents help extend IBM's
influence over standards-setting in particular technologies or industry
segments. And, of course, our products are better as a result.
More than one third of the technologies IBM patented last year are already
being applied to IBM product and service offerings. Take US Patent 6280813,
for example. It covers Magnetic Recording Media with
Antiferromagnetically Coupled (AFC) Ferromagnetic Films as the Recording
Layer is a mouthful. That's why we call it "pixie dust." Pixie dust is a
new type of magnetic coating that will quadruple the data density of hard
disk drive products.In 2001, IBM shipped more than 5.3 million disk
drives manufactured with AFC media.
While not every invention is patented-- some are reserved as "trade
secrets"-- the number of patent issuances is a meaningful bellwetherof
the pace of innovation."IBM not only led in total patents issued," said
Donofrio. "We also led in almost all of the product and technology segments
in which we compete. That means we're making the right investments in the
right technologies, and it's paying off with growing marketshare in the
fastest-growing parts of the industry."
IBM's research and development priorities continue to position the company
for leadership in key industry segments, with more than 1,500 patents for
infrastructure technologies (including software, servers, and storage
systems) and 1,200 patents for core component technologies
(microelectronics, storage devices and displays).
Here is an approximate breakdown of U.S. patents granted to IBM in 2001,
categorized by business unit along with more in-depth explorations of key
business unit accomplishments.
Global Services: 17
Personal & Printing Systems Group: 189
Research (all labs, worldwide): 593
S&D: 57
Server Group: 533
Storage Systems Group: 136
Software Group: 524
Technology Group: 1,235
"Innovation is thriving in the research and development labs of corporate
America and companies around the world, as this year's patent results
confirm," Donofrio added.
Among the U.S. Patents issued for IBM inventions in 2001:
Mirror image improves proves chip performance
As we all know, transistors are the basic building blocks of semiconductors
or microchips.Dual or double gate transistors use two gates, rather than
one, to switch a transistor on and off. They effectively double the
capacity of the transistor or, alternatively, lower the power required to
run it.These traits are in high demand in high-performance processors or
for very low power uses, such as portable devices and blade servers.But
there was no practical way to build double gate transistors.This patent
describes a breakthrough method for effectively manufacturing them.
(Patent US 6207530:Dual gate FET and process)
Instant recovery:early example of self-healing capabilities
This patent describes how a computer system can recover more easily from a
crash due to a corrupted application or operating system.With this
invention, computer users can revert within minutes to a back-up copy of
applications and operating system software stored in a separate area of the
hard drive, without having to download or install a new copy from an
outside computer. Called "Rapid Restore PC," this technology is available
now on IBM ThinkPad notebooks and NetVista desktop PCs. (Patent 6195695:
Data Processing System and Method for Recovering from System Crashes)
Linking data made easier
Computers store data in diverse and often incompatible forms:structured,
unstructured, relational or hierarchical databases, in flat files or as
multimedia objects.This patent allows users to access all types of data
using a "single-query" search.This invention makes it possible for
businesses to integrate the management and retrieval of traditional coded
information with newer digitized data, and is at the heart of IBM's
DiscoveryLink software, which is fueling the company's growth in the
nascent Life Sciences industry.(US 6263342: Federated searching of
heterogeneous datastores using a federated datastore object)
New way to analyze fingerprints
This patent helps accurately identify and analyze fingerprints.
Fingerprints can be distorted due to skin elasticity and the varying amount
of pressure an individual applies when providing a fingerprint.In this
invention, fingerprints are identified by counting the number of ridges
between features in the print.By using the "ridge count," different
images of the same fingerprint can be identified as identical.(US
6266433:System and method for determining ridge counts in fingerprint
image processing)
Drivers' friend:artificial passenger
IBM researchers have developed an invention to keep drivers awake on the
road.An automatic in-car dialog system carries on a conversation with the
driver on various topics.The system analyzes the driver's answers
together with his or her voice patterns to determine if the driver is alert
while driving.The system warns the driver or changes the topic of
conversation if the it determines that the driver is about to fall asleep.
Such a system can also be used for voice-activated operation of audio
equipment, such as in-car CD/DVD players, radios and telephones.(US
6236968:Sleep prevention dialog based car system)
JonKatz is all alone in the world.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
It isn't a patent but I could have sworn that singing was a violation of the DMCA in some way, especially if it is infringing on a copyrighted lullaby. I mean the sound waves are being freely reproduced so that anyone in the room can share even if they haven't paid the mandatory license fee this week.
(BTW this is a joke -- It's only applicable under the DMCA if the mother is a songwriter or is using a webcam.)
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
All patents should Expire and not be renewable after a Reasonable time frame. Even if someone gets a silly pattent it becomes a moot point and in the end only hurts them because they can't try to lay low until the can extort people for money etc.
Copyrights should have the same rules, about expiring. I even question if an author has the right to own a piece of literature for thier entire life, and most certainly not for '50 years after thier death.'
This is a great idea. if in the last months of the process, the Patent was published on the web, with a natural language translation, my guess is that the vast majority of software patents would be shot out of the water within a few posts.
Today is the 80th anniversary of the patenting of the Eskimo Pie (Choc Ice in the UK). http://todayinsci.tripod.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl? http://todayinsci.tripod.com/1/1_24.htm