Business Process Patents Taking The World By Storm

Siriaan writes "DE Technologies, a company based in Montreal, has hit a number of web retailers in the U.S., New Zealand and Singapore with patent infringement claims covering such things as purchase histories and online currency conversion. A small wooden model kit firm my company does business with is amongst those hit; they received a demand for a US$10,000 'signing fee' and then 1.5 percent of all transactions ongoing. "

Comments

20 years at a stand still.

[Godeke]

If this kind of thing is allowed to continue, I suspect that the world's economies will spend the next two decades in a sort of "dark ages" where only the largest companies will be able to do business. Note that the targets of these insane patent suits are always the little guys, because there is no expectation that they can fight back. Once the big companies realize that they can get away with this kind of abuse of the patent system, you will likely see a flurry of activity where large companies simply outlaw competition via absurd licensing fees on things like "selling product (via common, but not yet patented channel)" or "maintaining a customer list (in a DATABASE)". I mean, feel the innovation!

Makes me ill.

Re:20 years at a stand still.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is: Processes aren't marketable with patents and they aren't marketable without. Nevertheless they are becoming a key factor in economical success. Having a key factor evade the traditional investment-return philosophy is problematic for businesses. Patent advocates are right when they say that some businesses don't invest in development and profit from other businesses costly trial and error instead. Information, due to its non-existent marginal cost, isn't marketable. Patents are a way of marginalizing information to make it marketable, but for a healthy market to exist, there have to be several comparable products, which patents by definition don't allow: Patents are monopolies on ideas. There can be many implementations, but only one company sells the idea. This leads to situations which resemble extortion, with ridiculous prices for even simple (but novel) ideas -- ideas which would otherwise have independently cropped up hundredfold. There is no market regulating prices, only monopolies granted by law.

Any legitimate Business Process Patents?

[Flying-Cow-Man]

Seriousy, I have had some long chats to my (lawyer) brother about this. Has anybody heard of any real, legitimate, honest-to-goodness, business process patents that have been granted and licensed?

Obviously, being an engineer, I believe that technical processes should also be public domain...

Safe Haven(Co)

[thecampbeln]

The more I read these stories about the abuse of the American (and now international) patent system(s), the more I believe things like HavenCo and Sealand have a good idea behind them. Until it gets really bad, I suppose you could simply move your site hosting from country to country, but for the love of god when will this end? As a little guy software developer with a site (shameless plug - NanoWeb, but it needs an update) I am beginning to fear that my after hours source of a little play money could get me into legal trouble for using techniques and technologies that have been used collectively on the net for years! We thought the "Microsoft Tax" was bad, how about making up for the 1.5% patent taxes?

Re:And the point of these postings is?

[Flying-Cow-Man]

I made a joke about this above, but some "process" patents are legitimate, such as technical processes. Do you know how hard it is to figure out how to get strained silicon to grow on a sapphire substrate in usable quantities, but still able to carry a current? Some of these processes involved a great deal of hard work and ingenuity, and that should be respected.

After all, there's no such thing as "One-Click Silicon."

Patent

[dammitallgoodnamesgo]

In fact, looking at their white paper - the patent link is broken - the system they appear to have patented is a system which automatically adds any taxes you have to pay onto the bill (so, for instance, if the buyer is in Europe, adding on VAT). How on earth can you patent something like that?

Re:first post

[jnana]

I am sorry sir, I have a patent on first posts, frosty pists, and all variations thereof. You will have to give me $1000 for the continuing privilege of using my method, and $5/fp thereafter.

Regards,

L. Sinclair, esquire.

What to say.

[SmallFurryCreature]

Sure we can rant on about how stupid this, how this proves the US patent system is long due for an overhaul.

I haven't been reading slashdot for to long but this type of story seems to be a frequent feature and absolutly nothing seems to change about it. The real world just seems not to care and absolutly no precedent is being set to deter future cases of this disease. Is there no organisation that is willing to make a trail case out of this to create precedent so that future leeches will think twice before trying this?

After all the one thing these stories have in common is that after they got a few little guys to pay up they vanish without a trace. They know that in a court they will be thrown out and will then have to pay any legal costs that have been mode by the other side. So they can only win against those that can't afford to make the initial lawyer investment.

Sad really. Oh and americans, it won't belong till the next election. Try to vote for someone else then the guy promising the lowest taxes for once will you.

Counter patent!

[ikeleib]

Patent the business process of identifing an existing business practice, patenting it, and demanding royalties from companies using this business process. When such patent is granted, send a letter to them demanding a percentage of their litigation proceeds.