Posted by
michael
on from the patent-office-fails-the-turing-test dept.
gondaba writes "The US Patent and Trademark Office has
granted an all-encompassing patent to ActiveBuddy that covers every step of
IM botmaking technology. According to internetnews, ActiveBuddy now plans to
enforce
the patent, even though the existence of prior art is well-known and documented."
In a word, yes:
by
FreeUser
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
They have an opportunity to earn money thanks to stupid patent laws and they try to take advantage of it.
Yes, I can and do blame them.
Human beings are expected to have ethics, and to treat one another with a semblance thereof even when the law doesn't manage to anticipate every possible permutation of human interaction, or indeed, even when the law is clearly flawed.
Sub-human filth that lack such ethics and/or use the law to cause deliberate harm to others for their own banal benefit deserve to be treated exactly as what they are: sub-human filth.
Re:In a word, yes:
by
Ironica
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"Human beings are expected to have ethics..."
And that is the heart of a good deal of our social and political conflicts in the US. Human beings are held to higher expectations than corporate entities, and yet, those corporate entities have the same rights as human beings. Note that a person didn't apply for this patent; a company did. If the smaller developers had to go up against an individual, even one with substantial resources, they probably wouldn't be nearly so worried. Corporations can draw on resources that individual humans can't, however. Furthermore, if they lose, the company goes bankrupt, dissolves, and the corporate officers go on about their merry way and try again next year. If it were a person, it would be at least seven years before they could do much of anything again.
As long as corporations can live forever or die without hurting anyone, they are unmotivated to partake in human ethics. The answer seems to be to also remove some of their human-like rights. Of course, can you imagine the corporate lobbying against such legislation?
-- Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
What I find interesting is that they're selling bot-writing tools. I haven't seen too many of those around, so perhaps they'd have been able to patent THAT idea. I really don't see how a company could write tools to make bots and then think there were honestly think there's no prior art. Looks to me like a 'lets see how much we can get away with' ploy. Unfortunately, how much they can get away with is usually: a lot. Of course, I suppose most executives out there don't really know all that much about IP law, and they're just trying to protect their businesses. They have lawyers who file the paperwork and handle the patent application process. And, of course, those lawyers are paid for doing this work. They're also paid for pursuing claims against anyone who infringes the patents, whether the company wins or loses. So.... perhaps we shouldn't question the scruples of this company as a whole so much as the litigating community itself.
-- These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
What the hell is the fundamental difference between an IM bot and an IRC bot?
Or any other bot running within an environment generally used for 2-way (or more) communication?
I wrote a bot in 1990 for christ sake.
Not kidding, work with DDIAL chat systems.
DDIAL ran on Apple IIe with 7 300bps modems.
Patenting Ideas
by
Tall+Rob+Mc
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
To my knowledge, traditional patents are held for the specific invention they detail. However, different implementations of the same invention and improvements on an existing invention are individually patentable and legal. For example, there are multiple types of patented egg beaters (electric with a handle, electric upright, hand-cranked, etc.) Though they all achieve the same end goal, beating an egg, the different implementations are considered different inventions.
A wider example might be flying machines. There are thousands of different types of planes, baloons, helicopters, hangliders, and ultralights but each achieve the same goal by different means. Each has their own style, benefits, drawbacks, and potential uses.
I see the general patenting of auto-IM responders as being similar to patenting the idea of human flight. Though every auto-IM responder may have completely different code, handle events in different ways, and interact with different systems, ActiveBuddy owns the idea. That is bullshit.
I can buy 1000 differnt models of cars, why can't I buy 1000 different models of IM responder if each has its own advantages and disadvantages, efficiency, interface, and style.
Re:As long as they're rewarded...
by
JohnG
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I'm not so sure it would set a legal precedant. What would that be? That you can't patent things that don't exist? You already can't patent things that don't exist.
Maybe I'm a pessimist but I'm also not entirely sure that one company getting burned would stop others from repeating the process. I mean, when that one lunch money bully at school got punched, the lunch money bully population didn't disappear.
The key here is patent office reform, it's not going to take any one case to do it, not even a big huge one. The patent office will dismiss that as a fluke and continue on as usual. There needs to be many cases against bad patents. People need to quit paying to make the problem go away and fight for their rights.
Re:Can you blame them?
by
Jucius+Maximus
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I think that what's been proved now is that the United States Patent Office is 100% broken and needs a complete overhaul. There have been too many stupid and overly obvious patents that they have granted in the past couple of years and they have proven beyond reasonable doubt that they do not have the slightest clue about technology.
Re:Can you blame them?
by
Physics+Dude
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
They have an opportunity to earn money thanks to stupid patent laws...
Don't you mean "an opportunity to make money"?
There is a slight difference.:)
It's a symptom, not the problem.
by
Fat+Casper
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Every time I see something as retarded as this, I want every last moron at the USP&TO taken out back and shot.
Unfortunately, they're not the real problem. We need some real dust-off-the-Constitution kind of IP reform.
Unfortunately, that's not the real problem. We need some real get-the-companies-out-of-politics kind of capmaign finance reform.
Until Disney, the **AAs and normal industry turn our government back over to us, we're going to keep having these outrages shoved down our throats. In one of the races in my state, one party is running attack ads claiming that 96% of the other candidate's money is coming from out of state. It doesn't matter to me if it's an "I need funding" issue or an "I'm a corporate whore" issue. It's a backwater district in a tiny state, and it's bought and paid for by corporate interests that have no interest in the state, just in how many seats they can buy for their favorite party.
We have to fix the government before it can fix anything for us.
-- I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Re:It's a symptom, not the problem.
by
Ironica
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Wouldn't it be amazing if campaign finance contributions could only come from valid, registered voters?
As it is, foreign governments, multinational corporations, and large PACs have louder votes than US citizens. Doesn't make much sense to me.
-- Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Re:Can you blame them?
by
WowTIP
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Might be they are not christians?
--
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Re:Have to say it...
by
zapfie
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It's fairly easy to say it is moronic from our view, since we have a decent knowledge of the subject. It is probably very hard to have a good knowledge of each field things are patented in, given the broad spectrum of things that get patented, the vast amount of patent applications, and the limited amount of people processing those applications.
So could I patent pirating Windows?
by
Uttles
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
OK, here's a good EULA question:
Microsoft's EULA for Windows OS says don't copy it and distribute copies. People do that, and supposedly they're breaking the law.
AIM's EULA says don't make an automated chatting script, or bot, especially not to spam with. People do that, and apparently they get patents for it. How does this make sense to anyone?
--
~ now you know
Re:Have to say it...
by
neuroticia
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Incompetence is the PROBLEM and should not be used as the excuse. Yes, it's very hard to have a good knowledge of each field that things are patented in, however those granting the patents should *do the research* that they are supposed to do. It would take what? about 20 minutes of research to determine that prior art exists?
It's the same in EVERY field. It's stupid/negligent to hand out a patent without doing at least minimal research beforehand.
-Sara
suddenly i have an interesting view on patents
by
shren
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
You spend 75 of your working hours on four patents. Now, in the last 5 hours, you have to approve or deny a last patent.
If you deny a patent and it turns out to have been a bad patent, you did the right thing, but only by accident.
If you deny a patent and it turns out to have been a fair patent, you did the wrong thing, and you're probably going to get in trouble when the company bitches about your denial of thier perfectly reasonable patent.
If you allow a patent and it's a fair patent, then you did the right thing, but only by accident.
If you allow a patent and it's a bad patent, you did a bad thing. But you met your quota, and the patent applicant sure as hell isn't going to get you in trouble. You can rest easily knowing (or hoping) that the patent will be shot down later. You've met the quota and kept your job by deftly shifting the burden to the legal system.
Thus, the patent reviewers are encouraged by the system to approve bad patents when they are short on time. Furthermore, if I had to pick between a sort of bad one and a really, really bad one, then I'd pick the really, really bad one because there's less chance that it'll stand.
Systems build the world we live in. Can anyone think of a different system that doesn't reward the patent examiner awarding bad patents?
-- Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Slashdot Mirror
They have an opportunity to earn money thanks to stupid patent laws and they try to take advantage of it.
Yes, I can and do blame them.
Human beings are expected to have ethics, and to treat one another with a semblance thereof even when the law doesn't manage to anticipate every possible permutation of human interaction, or indeed, even when the law is clearly flawed.
Sub-human filth that lack such ethics and/or use the law to cause deliberate harm to others for their own banal benefit deserve to be treated exactly as what they are: sub-human filth.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
What I find interesting is that they're selling bot-writing tools. I haven't seen too many of those around, so perhaps they'd have been able to patent THAT idea. I really don't see how a company could write tools to make bots and then think there were honestly think there's no prior art. Looks to me like a 'lets see how much we can get away with' ploy. Unfortunately, how much they can get away with is usually: a lot. Of course, I suppose most executives out there don't really know all that much about IP law, and they're just trying to protect their businesses. They have lawyers who file the paperwork and handle the patent application process. And, of course, those lawyers are paid for doing this work. They're also paid for pursuing claims against anyone who infringes the patents, whether the company wins or loses. So.... perhaps we shouldn't question the scruples of this company as a whole so much as the litigating community itself.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
What the hell is the fundamental difference between an IM bot and an IRC bot?
Or any other bot running within an environment generally used for 2-way (or more) communication?
I wrote a bot in 1990 for christ sake.
Not kidding, work with DDIAL chat systems.
DDIAL ran on Apple IIe with 7 300bps modems.
A wider example might be flying machines. There are thousands of different types of planes, baloons, helicopters, hangliders, and ultralights but each achieve the same goal by different means. Each has their own style, benefits, drawbacks, and potential uses.
I see the general patenting of auto-IM responders as being similar to patenting the idea of human flight. Though every auto-IM responder may have completely different code, handle events in different ways, and interact with different systems, ActiveBuddy owns the idea. That is bullshit.
I can buy 1000 differnt models of cars, why can't I buy 1000 different models of IM responder if each has its own advantages and disadvantages, efficiency, interface, and style.
Maybe I'm a pessimist but I'm also not entirely sure that one company getting burned would stop others from repeating the process. I mean, when that one lunch money bully at school got punched, the lunch money bully population didn't disappear.
The key here is patent office reform, it's not going to take any one case to do it, not even a big huge one. The patent office will dismiss that as a fluke and continue on as usual. There needs to be many cases against bad patents. People need to quit paying to make the problem go away and fight for their rights.
I think that what's been proved now is that the United States Patent Office is 100% broken and needs a complete overhaul. There have been too many stupid and overly obvious patents that they have granted in the past couple of years and they have proven beyond reasonable doubt that they do not have the slightest clue about technology.
Don't you mean "an opportunity to make money"?
There is a slight difference. :)
Unfortunately, they're not the real problem. We need some real dust-off-the-Constitution kind of IP reform.
Unfortunately, that's not the real problem. We need some real get-the-companies-out-of-politics kind of capmaign finance reform.
Until Disney, the **AAs and normal industry turn our government back over to us, we're going to keep having these outrages shoved down our throats. In one of the races in my state, one party is running attack ads claiming that 96% of the other candidate's money is coming from out of state. It doesn't matter to me if it's an "I need funding" issue or an "I'm a corporate whore" issue. It's a backwater district in a tiny state, and it's bought and paid for by corporate interests that have no interest in the state, just in how many seats they can buy for their favorite party.
We have to fix the government before it can fix anything for us.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Might be they are not christians?
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
It's fairly easy to say it is moronic from our view, since we have a decent knowledge of the subject. It is probably very hard to have a good knowledge of each field things are patented in, given the broad spectrum of things that get patented, the vast amount of patent applications, and the limited amount of people processing those applications.
slashdot!=valid HTML
OK, here's a good EULA question:
Microsoft's EULA for Windows OS says don't copy it and distribute copies. People do that, and supposedly they're breaking the law.
AIM's EULA says don't make an automated chatting script, or bot, especially not to spam with. People do that, and apparently they get patents for it. How does this make sense to anyone?
~ now you know
Incompetence is the PROBLEM and should not be used as the excuse. Yes, it's very hard to have a good knowledge of each field that things are patented in, however those granting the patents should *do the research* that they are supposed to do. It would take what? about 20 minutes of research to determine that prior art exists?
It's the same in EVERY field. It's stupid/negligent to hand out a patent without doing at least minimal research beforehand.
-Sara
You spend 75 of your working hours on four patents. Now, in the last 5 hours, you have to approve or deny a last patent.
If you deny a patent and it turns out to have been a bad patent, you did the right thing, but only by accident.
If you deny a patent and it turns out to have been a fair patent, you did the wrong thing, and you're probably going to get in trouble when the company bitches about your denial of thier perfectly reasonable patent.
If you allow a patent and it's a fair patent, then you did the right thing, but only by accident.
If you allow a patent and it's a bad patent, you did a bad thing. But you met your quota, and the patent applicant sure as hell isn't going to get you in trouble. You can rest easily knowing (or hoping) that the patent will be shot down later. You've met the quota and kept your job by deftly shifting the burden to the legal system.
Thus, the patent reviewers are encouraged by the system to approve bad patents when they are short on time. Furthermore, if I had to pick between a sort of bad one and a really, really bad one, then I'd pick the really, really bad one because there's less chance that it'll stand.
Systems build the world we live in. Can anyone think of a different system that doesn't reward the patent examiner awarding bad patents?
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)