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Browser Cookie Patent
resistant writes "Here's more patent madness, this time on cookies used in browsers. (By now, even Forbes has a commendable attitude about this rampant greed)." This is actually a pretty interesting article for folks not so familiar with why patents are such a big deal in this day and age.
Patents are a critical part of the foundation of successful free markets. Why would anyone want to innovate if not to profit from his innovations?
I highly recommend The Lever of Riches to anyone who wants an accessible but rich economic analysis of innovation. The book attempts to answer the question of why different countries and civilizations have had varying levels of technological success. Patents are discussed, and in particular how different kinds of patent law influece the kind of innovation that is produced.
Amazing magic tricks
Here is the story
(sig on loan to Smithsonian)
Here it is, FSC-0056 EMSI/IEMSI.
if someone puts a patent in my face I just laugh and code around it
Then do you think you can implement an LZW encoder by the end of May (i.e. before the U.S. patent runs out on June 21), without infringing U.S. Patent 4,558,302? What about an MP3 encoder that doesn't infringe any of these?
Will I retire or break 10K?
One of the main differences between patent courts and the rest of the court system is that patent court is not adversarial by design. When you go for a patent, you're not under such a heavy burden to prove you're worthy of it. And it's not the government's job to prove you're not, or even to put up a challenge. Other courts are adversarial by design. Each side does whatever it can to prove they're right and the other is wrong. Out of this emerges a winner and a loser. The patent system is not like that. Instead of a right and a wrong, we're left with two maybes, and potentially some new barriers to free commerce.
This isn't a patent on cookies, this is a patent on load balancers detecting cookies and using them to keep a session associated with a specific server in the load ballanced pool.
Actually, according to this page, the first spam message ever was by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1978. Too bad you can't patent stuff 25 years later, it would have been good PR for Compaq/HPQ/DEC to repent for spamming and patenting it ;-)
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Some people forget that computing is one industry that did not always have to deal with patents as it does now. Computing was moving along perfectly well without them, so patents don't come off as necessary to spur innovation, but weapons to needlessly hobble competitors. Patents are being awarded for ridiculous and obvious ideas that stifle the development of software and hardware for all but the richest participants. The consumer does not benefit from this reduction in competition. Furthermore, your point suggests you think that if one industry has patents they all should have them. I suggest you examine the details on how patenting works in each field and you throw out such broad sweeping conclusions.
For a far more prescient, detailed, and learned view of patents specifically talking about patenting algorithms used in the production of computer software (sometimes inaccurately called "software patents"), listen to or read RMS' talk on patents.
Digital Citizen
I've been doing some patent searching myself at uspto.gov regarding clean energy sources. Evidently, the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) carries a lot of weight in the international patent arena, particularly in technical communities.
Myself, I have to wonder what is the nature of the relationship between the US and WIPO?
Anyway, HTH with your "international patent" question.
C|N>K
From the Forbes article:
In 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote, broadened the scope of what is patentable by directing the USPTO to grant patents on human-made, genetically engineered bacteria...
That decision (and several others like it) signaled to the USPTO an about-face in the decades-long reluctance to expand patent protection. The USPTO interpreted these new decisions very broadly and began to issue patents on computer software--hitherto considered uncopyrightable as mathematical algorithms, since they are not really human inventions.