Interwoven Patents Code Versioning

webengr writes "It seems like the USPO is pretty lenient when it comes to awarding software patents. CVS has been around for a long time, but now Interwoven has been awarded a new patent covering version control of web assets. The claims include, 'The use of a hierarchical file system and an object repository for representing and hosting content and its structure,' and 'The combined concepts of file history, versioning, comparison, and merging as it relates to content, provide an archive of all individual changes as well as collections of changes so they can be versioned and audited.'"

Comments

Lenient? No.

[burgburgburg]

Asleep at the wheel, recklessly driving us all over a cliff of patent infringement lawsuits? Yeah, that's fair.

lenient ? are you kidding ?

[Booie Paog]

"It seems like the USPO is pretty lenient when it comes to awarding software patents." no kidding. the USPO appears, in some cases, to not only be lenient, but to be completely oblivious to the purpose of having patents, as well as having wild interpretations of patent law. software patents, the way that they are currently handled, is incorrect, with regards to the original means that was set out by even Thomas Jefferson himself. to be able to patent compiled binary code, without regards to the source, or ENTIRE details of the mechanism that the software is implying is insane, and will continue to destroy the legal ability to innovate based on derivative work.

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[account_deleted]

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The PTO has no incentive *not* to grant patents

[Sanity]

Their attitude is to grant patents left right and center, and let the courts sort it out. The have no real incentive to try and find prior art.

The problem is that in the time between the dumb patent being granted, and the courts sorting it out, severe damage can be done to people's freedom to innovate.

Recall that over the past 100 years (and beyond), significant advances in technology have almost always been despite IP laws, not because of them*

*Some examples:

• The modern movie industry set up in Southern California to escape from Edison's patents
• The VCR was fought tooth and nail by the movie industry even though 2/3rds of their revenue now come from video rentals and sales
• The proliferation of the commodity PC was only possible when IBM's BIOS was reverse engineered thus evading trade secret laws
• The Internet is currently under siege from copyright holders
• One of the worlds fastest growing operating systems, Linux, explicitly rejects the concept of intellectual property in its license

Re:The PTO has no incentive *not* to grant patents

[awol]

One of the worlds fastest growing operating systems, Linux, explicitly rejects the concept of intellectual property in its license

Unfortunately, no it doesn't. Indeed, Linux (and GNU) explicitly relies on IP to make the GPL binding. This is the problem, even the answer to IP, Free Software, requires IP in order to live because of the existence of IP in the first place. It is a classic Catch 22 situation

Re:Ugh.

[HBI]

2) Over 90% of the serving members of the 3 branches of government were lawyers. Lawyers and old-money own the government(now more than ever). Do you think they will regulate themselves?

Where did that come from? Even *appointed* officials aren't 90% lawyers, and rank and file government employees sure as hell even aren't *mostly* lawyers. It's a tiny, tiny fraction of the total government work force.

USPTO sucks, but let's not get carried away here.

Re:wrong incentive

[ctxspy]

No it is not.

The parent is incorrect.

It's a non-refundable fee -- this fee is actually meant to compensate for the USPTO guys doing a prior art search.

-Tomaj

That is incorrect

[Srin Tuar]

The GPL would be unnecessary if there were no copyright law.

If there is no "copyright", then why would you need a "copyleft"?

GPL is supposed to spit in the face of copyright law. The beauty of it is that it does this by depending upon it.

If there were no copyright, then closed source would still be inviable: because anyone could copy it around. The difference would be that the BSD, LGPL, and GPL licenses would be effectively compatible, and I could finally see goddam SVG enabled in mozilla by default, etc.

The reason the GPL does not need copyright, is that eliminating copyright would eliminate the incentive to violate the GPL. Thats a catch 22.

Re:Why is everyone overreacting?

[Un pobre guey]

I am as upset about idiotic patents as the next guy, but I agree with the several posts that point out that there are some novel elements to the patent that are built upon prior art. You can use as much prior art in your patent as you like. What you are patenting, and can defend in court, are the novel aspects not found in the prior art and which are not obvious to skilled practitioners. At some point, someone needs to make a few bucks on an invention in order for there to be incentives to generate new technology.

The historically interesting aspect of licenses such as the GPL lies in the possibility that some people would forego the monetary profits for the greater good of both the inventor and the community. If you want to make a buck, fine. If you want to share with and among others, fine too.

Unfortunately, the USPTO is becoming less able to function as the arbiter of the rules, and this is what causes the system to degrade. In fairness to those poor schmucks, it is not realistic to expect young, underpaid, undertrained, inexperienced patent examiners (or even not so old or inexperienced) to be able to consistently and without errors or omissions spot all issues relating to obviousness and prior art. The volume of patent submissions also thwarts the system, at least as it pertains to high tech patents.