Liquid Audio Sues In Pitiful Attempt to Appear Relevant

Emily writes: "Another case of patent abuse similar to the PanIP nonsense previously reported in Slashdot. This time, it's Liquid Audio suing geotargeting company Infosplit over patent infringement. I read their patent, it's hilarious! Liquid Audio basically received a patent for saying that a domain ending by "co.uk" is in the UK. More seriously, these lawsuits represent a serious threat to innovation in this country."

Comments

And in related news...

[WPIDalamar]

WPIDalamar recently filed a patent that covers "Determining people's location from their postal address". No prior art was found on this, and he intends to charge royalties to anyout who uses an address to travel to, ship items to, or explain directions.

Now I understand!

[Andy_R]

until I read this, I always wondered why spammers send mail about crap that is only available in the USA to me, when any fool with half an ounce of intelligence can tell from my address that I'm in the UK. Thanks for clearing this one up, /.!

Before you wail on the patent office too much....

[dfenstrate]

Their problems aren't entirely their own fault. Read all about it here

Basically, it seems that congress has been using the patent office as a source of income, draining off millions of dollars that would be spend reviewing applications- seems like a good 15-20% of the fees that companies pay aren't used for reviewing applications at all.

I'm not completely relieving the PO of blame, but it's something to think about anyway.

Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again

[Zocalo]

Also, the USPTO needs serious reform, training, and procedural improvement. They should be REVIEWING these things for relevance, prior art, etc, not just rubber stamping.

I just don't see that working. The USPTO (or any patent office) are just a bunch of clerks when it comes to the crunch. There is simply no amount of training that will enable them to pick up an arbitrary patent application and say whether it's bogus or not. They *should* be able to check for basic prior art, obviously bogus filing and so on, but that's really all they can be expected to do without being omnipotent.

The only thing I can see working is that instead of simply rubber stamping it as "approved" at this point, it's stamped as "provisional". The patent can then go into a very public place on the PTO's site indexed under a variety of searchable keywords for peer review. That way the onus is on those who are going to be nailed by the patent to demonstrate applicable prior-art and expose wild claims for what they are. A failure to raise any suitable objections within a pre-defined period causes an automatic upgrading to "approved", while objections enter a pre-defined process of resolution.

You can't rush out and make your own filing, because it will, (unless you are patenting time travel), have to be submitted after the date of the provisionally approved patent. The filer of the patent can't complain about their information being exposed to the public, because patents are a matter of public record anyway. There are probably a few other safeguards an expert patent lawyer could devise too, but blaming the PTO is not the way to go.

Ever heard the saying "behind every sleazy lawyer is a sleazy client"? Clearly, behind every sleazy patent office is a sleazy patent applicant trying to abuse the system as well...

Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again

[troc]

I am sorry but I take that rather personally.

I am a patent examiner working for the European Patent Office and we operate somewhat differently from the USPTO. For a start, we spend MUCH more time researching a patent (2-3 times as much or more). Secondly we have a much bigger database and full external access to many more.

Then there's this *new* thing the USPTO has started to do - which everyone else has been doing for ever, which is to publish a PATENT APPLICATION before it's been examined or granted. Thish gives people the opportunity (and the right) to submit to us any information they think might be relevant, if they so wish.

So to recap.

1. Patent Applications are published before being granted.
2. That's PUBLICLY published (just try our website ;)
3. Most places (i.e. Europe, Japan etc) do actually spend a decent amount of time on a search and, in our case using the largest, fully indexed knowledge database available (The USPTO are trying to buy our system).
4. Please don't tar all of us with the USPTO brush. We all know they are crap - that's why most Americans ask the EPO to examine their internations patent applications.

hohum

Troc

PS I am happy to do some sort of question/answer thing about this if you want.

Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again

[troc]

Heh, we have a whole book, called the "guidelines" it's a public publication which you can download from our website (convention, guidelines). Essentially, a novelty destroying document is one which discloses all the features of a claim (or invention) in a single embodiment or example. This can be another patent or any prior publication from anywhere - as long it was public knowledge at some point ;) Usually we have to challenge inventive step - in this we argue that something isn't inventive because someone skilled in the art (but with no inventive ability) WOULD combine the knowledge of two different documents to arrive at the concept. I know its dry and boring (as are all legal texts) but iy you get a chance, our guidelines and the European Patent Convention do have some info ;) Personally I feel a little cheated if (and this is rare) I don't find a set of prejudicial documents during a search ;) Then I don't work in computing and crap like that....... Troc