Slashdot Mirror
Chip Firm Hit By 45-Year-Old Patent
JPMH writes "The Register is reporting that a Taiwanese chip foundry is being sued over two chemistry patents, one over 45 years old. The patents at issue were filed in 1957 and 1964, but are still in force because they were not granted until 1987 and 1992 respectively. The first patent, 4,702,808, details an apparatus and method for initiating chemical reactions by focusing "radiant energy, such as a laser" onto streams of particles. The second patent, 5,131,941 also details an apparatus and method for initiating chemical reactions, but this time radiation is used to provide the energy kick needed to get the compounds to interact."
This may be a death rattle for Lemelson's submrine patents. The dead "inventor" recently had suits thrown out on this issue. Basically, under prosecution laches, they are charged with gaming the system deliberately or without any reasonable reason. Fortunately, this old trick is harder to perform now that patent terms run from the date of filing (with some possible adjustments) instead of date of issuance.
Aside from the fact the Description of the patents makes them sound like a patent on FIRE and if its held up I want the wheel, isn't there enough out there to show our patent system is completely broken ?
The primary purpose of the patent system seems to be allowing those that don't plan on developing technology, improving technology or doing any of the work needed to advance technology to practise legal extortion on those that do.
See, before the 1990's, patents took decades to be approved. They've now gone and made things work the other way, approving them too fast now.
Can someone *PLEASE* find a happy medium between friggin fast and damned slow?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I understand how most people here reject the ideas of patents infringing development, and would automatically argue this is some "unjustice." But, this is a legitimate application of law. It seems this artice was biasly submitted knowing how a "45 year old patent" striking down current development would affect readers.
Now, if patents do infact hurt productivity enough, it would be reasonable to augment/abandon patent laws. Nevertheless, one must keep in sight the nature of patent laws: protection of developers.
The irony which you have to admire is that US citizens hate importing shit cuz they lose jobs. But US industry loves it because instead of paying a skilled labourer say 15$/h or whatnot they can get a way with "we won't kill your family today" as a wage in a third world asian country.
What I don't get though, aren't US industry leaders also US citizens? So basically they steal jobs from their neighbours to support slave labour. And we admire these people as "famous CNN headshots" because???
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
It was my understanding that U.S. patents were only applicable within the U.S. Can someone please clarify?
Later,
Phil
Where do people like you come up with such rubbish. These people who applied for the inventions were "way" ahead of their time. Look at the year of their filing. Unbelievable!
Things are obvious to you because someone else did the hard work and showed it to you. Go and do something original just once in your life.
It's the patent office's fault for taking so long to approve the patent that is the real problem.
Why? The patents don't appear to be of the obvious "one-click shopping" type and the holders are initiating the action (rather than some company that bought the rights, a la PanIP). Clearly the work took a lot of research and specialized knowlegde, and the researchers were granted a patent for their work.
Are you anti-patent in general or were you just exhibiting a typical slashdot knee-jerk response?
Unfortunatly, the H-bomb is not a chemical reaction, but rather a nuclear reaction. Thus, the patent does not apply.
Secondly, if your looking for prior art, best start by reading the patent. It's quite specific about streams of matter, and intersecting those streams with radient energy. Thus, the H-bomb, even were it chemical, would be well off.
You need to find stream of matter, and energy, inside a reaction vessel.
No offense, but countries like china have existed for thousands of years before the West came about.
It seems only after the west has tried to "modernize" [re: exploit] nations like china that these "sudden problems of infrastructure" have appeared.
Also from a "nature" standpoint if a piece of land cannot sustain human life, maybe, just maybe, humans shouldn't live there.
However, if the land cannot sustain life because urban sprawl [re: Canada] or Nike Factories [re: China, Taiwan, etc] have sprung up then that's hardly a problem of the country.
Essentially the solution is two pronged. Both sides have to simultaneously cut off dependencies for this to work. If say the US cuts off from the other nations before they setup farming, etc then they're screwed.
What it really boils down to is greed.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Iniating chemical reactions using outside energy IS obvious today.
LASER was a novelty in 60s but it isn't anymore. Patents should be valid for a certain period after their _filing_ date instead of issue date.
The idea would be obvious to a thoughtful undergraduate student. Actually *doing* it, on the other hand, is an impressive feat.
... ". A few weeks later the guy came back and said "Submarine is taken, but the rocket and some other ones are still free ... " I think someone eventually wrote up the "Nuclear Rocket" patent for him.
That's what so frustrating about the US patent system. So many obvious ideas which require little though have been patented, and when someone puts an enormous amount of effort into actually *implementing* something they get sued. No frickin way did the engineers who built that particular part of the chip plant read that patent. And they get sued by someone who couldn't have implemented it in a million years.
I read yesterday that when the physicist Richard Feynman was at Los Alamos working on the bomb he was approached by some government legal advisor who said that they should patent any ideas they might get. Feynman replied that couldn't possibly keep track of all the ideas that crossed his mind, let alone write patents on them. The legal beaver replied that "just let us know about them" so Feynman said "OK, how about a nuclear powered submarine, a nuclear rocket, a nuclear reactor
Imagine that, someone had patented a nuclear powered submarine propulsion system before anyone had even exploded an atom bomb.
The point is so many of these patents are granted to people who haven't implemented anything when all the work is in the implementation.
:wq
Because they used a loophole to keep there patents hovering and extend ther effective lifespan. It's a Legal loophole that nobody wants to close.
No sir I dont like it.
Those are what as known as submarine patents. The entity getting the patent purposely manipulated the patent process so that the patents were granted long after the application was filed, giving an effective patent lifetime far in excess of that normally granted by the patent system.
Patents should be granted from the date of filing, not the date of issue. Submarine patents are a nasty abuse of the system.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
This patent has moved from the period where it was a novel, and powerful innovation, into textbook area. Part of the problem with software patents is that this take a year or so, compared with the 18 years patent life.
With chemistry, your looking at 15-20 years. That's one of the reasons why there is so much chemistry research - the patent lifespan is just right in that field.
The delaying of the patent for so long has crippled the use of this technique. This was not by bad buerocracy, but by deliberate intent. It is this deliberate intent to delay the onset of the patent that I object to - as this technique, novel and non-obvious in the 1960's, is commonplace now. The patent would have been, on balance, a good one in its time.
The loophole was plugged - to prevent more of this in the furture. The detritus from it's existance needs to be delt with.
Oh, and the patent does not apply to laser printers. It's quite specific about collimated beams of energy, and streams of matter to undergo chemical raction. Laser printers do not have a stream of matter, as defined in the patent. There is a reaction, which might be defined as chemical, on the photosensitive drum. However, I'm quite sure [0] the the motion of the drum will not qualify as a stream of matter.
[0] I'm not a patent lawyer. This is not legal advise. For legal advise, consult a professional liscened in your juristriction.
Okay...so if the patent is 45 years old (1958) but was patented in 1987, I see a big catch-22.
If the patent does not start until 1987, then anything doing this from before 1987 should now be prior art.
If anything from before 1987 is not considered prior art because the patent was created in 1958, then the patent should be enforced from that date, not the 1987 date, and therefore expired.
Oh...sorry Government and sense...my bad
Bingo! I've decided that the powers that be want to leave the patent system as is not because it fosters innovation, but because it feeds the American tendancy to want something for nothing (which is why Lotto is so popular here). What is (most) every American's dream? Strike it rich and retire, even though this means that if you are rich many other people will be poor. I'm no communist, but this strike it rich mentality is just absurd.
I would like to live in a world where doing something is rewarded, rather than being the first to think of that something.
- Matter/electron/atom enters interaction,
- Photon enters interaction,
- Electron absorbs photon,
- Matter/electron/atom leaves interaction
Ultimately we seem to end up with a patent on quantum electrodynamics (electrons interacting with photons).Okay, you could probably use that argument on quite a few patents when you get down to the basic physics. It's interesting to ask how will patents deal with molecular/atomic nanotechnology. As manufacturing scales get smaller, and fewer particles are involved, will patenting a 'manufacturing method' turn into an attempt to patent basic chemical/physical processes?
Strike it rich and retire, even though this means that if you are rich many other people will be poor. I'm no communist, but this strike it rich mentality is just absurd.
Yeah, you're a communist. You think economies are zero-sum games.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
if they have been refining the patent does this mean that they have been actually adding the work of others to their patent. Possibly adding (after the fact) prior art in order to get coverage on current technology?
Dude, I was there! That guy suffered a concussion and punctured lung and went home in an ambulance (well, right after I got done pissing on him).
"But isn't getting filthy rich the American dream?", I recently had someone ask me.
Well, no, it isn't. The American Dream (tm) is to own your own property and to make your living from it so you don't have to hire yourself out as a servant.
Somewhere along the line The American Dream has turned into the idea that you hire yourself out as a servant ( or you're a worthless bum) so that you have the proceeds to buy lottery tickets in the hopes of hitting it rich by chance.
That isn't the American Dream, that's the American Nightmare.
KFG
Regrettably, you have no understanding of economics.
" * changes in productivity (the amount of production generated by an individual in a period of time. So making people work longer hours does not increase productivity because they're spending more time in order to accomplish more work, whereas having them tend a machine that produces ten times what they could do by hand is an increase in productivity)
"
This is certainly true, and it is precisely the reason why the global economy is _not_ a zero-sum game. The continued reinvestment of profit into capital is what has caused a tremendous increase in productivity and enables the extraordinary standard of living, and extended life, that we are lucky to enjoy.