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Patent Claimed on System-Level Encryption
nattt writes "The Register is reporting that a Californian firm, Maz Technologies has been granted a patent for application independant file encryption, and is now going after other companies with its lawyers to press its claims. It seems that the US patent office doesn't check very well for prior art, and their laxity is causing small firms that get attacked on infringing these bad patents a lot of money to defend themselves."
If they are suing already, doesn't that invalidate the patent by demonstrating prior art before the patent was applied for?
"No good deed goes unpunished"
We need more bad patents like this. The more of a problem this becomes, the more likely Congress is going to do something about it. And as long as the patents are as ridiculous as this one, and as long as they go after companies with money before they go after open source, everything's fine as far as I'm concerned.
Attack the small firms first so they cannot afford to invalidate the patent. Meanwhile when the small firms start paying royalties your patent will become more established. By the way the 25 000 in royalties is nothing compared to what the case may cost. So that company will probably pay the fee if hey cannot get an early win in court.
Why not directly sue Microsoft, Sun, HP, IBM? Somewhere along the line one of these companies offered system level encryption.
Or maybe this dinky unknown company saw a way to squeeze money out of little companies who they thought couldn't afford to fight back?
I find it quite disturbing that our United States patent office will accept such a broad claim, needless to say. What I find even more disturbing, however, is the precident for accepting such patent claims without, as the article states, any such encryption programs being submitted.
In my mind, it's one thing to stake your claim to an invention or creation of your own doing, something that you have already built. Even what may be viewed as a "fair" patent process, however, I object to on the principle that it tends to create unnecessary monopolization of certain products and only serves to lock down profits for one party. Patents, in my mind, are a competitive, money-making scheme and nothing more. It's another thing entirely, however, to patent an idea, preventing others from using it possibly, without submitting any such art of your own.
Think about this for a moment. If companies are allowed to patent thoughts and ideas they have not created, then this only creates a rush to create patents and not a race for innovation. If "prior art" of your own is not required in a patent submission, then the application for patents becomes nothing more than financial speculation on future technologies.
-Niten
And you've just struck on the problem of having the government do anything...
Suing the governemt, while possible, is an extremely daunting prospect. It takes lots of time and lots of money--two assets the government has in plenty, whereas most private companies or individuals don't.
Now, if the government wasn't doing so many other non-Constitutional things, perhaps some attention could be paid to the patent office and things like this could be prevented... nahh, I'm just a lunatic...
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
This is an idea that sounds good on the surface but is actually very bad.
If you could sue the USPO, the majority of suits would be from companies suing to have their patents *granted*. Being able to sue would just give them a second whack at the pinata.
Normal small companies and rational individuals would not sue to have bad patents denied: if you have the money to go to trial, it's better to wait until the patent is enforced in an unfair way.
So, could you restricts suits to reimbursing the costs of unfair patents? "Unfair" would need to mean that a court had invalidated the patent or restricted its scope, so the defendant would already have gone to trial for patent infringment, and prevailed. In this case, he may well ask for court costs, and get them (especially in a David & Goliath situation) so the USPO incompetance has, in some sense, cost him nothing.
If the defendant can't afford to defend himself in court, no one is going to judge the patent to be "bad."
IANAL, etc.
Would it be possible for a number of small firms that have lost a lot of money and time wasted over these lawsuits produced by the Patent Office's lack of care in looking for prior art to actually take a class action lawsuit against the Patent Office? Perhaps, they could try and prove loss of wealth and try and prove that the Patent Office is failing?
Just a thought, yes I know its an expense to do..But just wondered.
StarTux