Machine Vision Patents Thrown Out

chalker writes "Cognex Corporation, the world's leading supplier of machine vision systems, announced today that the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas has ruled in favor of Cognex in its lawsuit against the Lemelson Medical, Education & Research Foundation. It held that the claims of 14 patents asserted by Lemelson are invalid and unenforceable , and not infringed by Cognex. Co-plantiffs included barcode reader manufacturers Symbol Technologies, Accu-sort Systems, and Zebra Technologies amongst others. These patents were classic "submarine" patents orginally applied for in 1954, but tied up in the patent office and changed over the next four decades to cover changes taking place in the machine vision field. Lemelson had threatened to sue numerous end-users, including Motorola and Ford, over the past two decades and had settled all of them out of court for over $1.5 billion in licensing fees. For once a judge has seen how ridiculous our patent system is."

Comments

You know the world has gone to hell

[Anonymous Coward]

..when so many corporations own patents on so many intangible things that a corporate dynasty like IBM can bring anyone in the world to their knees financially.

Even foreign governments.

Intellectual property in all of its various forms is being abused by the corporate world - both friends and foes of Linux and otherwise. The madness is the laws supporting this behavior continue to pass, bypassing the individual and wholeheartedly supporting the corporation.

Isn't the government supposed to be working for us? Aren't our rights supposed to be first and foremost in their minds? There is a balance to be maintained, and our rights are not unlimited, but more and more across the entire globe the individual is lost.

Not to be funny but has anyone considered the implications of all these recent intellectual property rights and how it seems more and more that we're being pushed into the draconian future of Johnny Mnemonic and Shadowrun? The only way you get information is to steal it. The only way for another corporation to get information is to hire you to steal it.

I grow more and more distressed at the world my son will grow up in, the conditions he will consider normal, the laws he will break just by trying to think.

Re:You know the world has gone to hell

[automatix]

..when so many corporations own patents on so many intangible things that a corporate dynasty like IBM can bring anyone in the world to their knees financially.

Even foreign governments.

What? Patents are not an international thing. Each country has it's own patent laws, which differ quite a bit around the globe. There are some global agreements, but they are typically much more limited than regular patents.

Any government can ignore or enforce patents as it sees fit within its borders. Whether IBM will sell products to those countries is another issue...

Rob :)

Re:You know the world has gone to hell

[S.Lemmon]

This is true to a legal extent, but practically many foreign governments are too heavily dependent on trade with the U.S. to simply ignore its patents.

Like when a small company makes a deal with a corporation like Microsoft and later finds they got the short end of the stick (if any stick at all), most smaller countries simply find they have no choice but to play the game on U.S. terms.

Re:You know the world has gone to hell

[Syre]

This is completely false. Obviously you've never applied for a patent.

When you apply for a U.S. patent, what you get (if anything) is a patent enforcable for things which are made or sold in the USA. That's it.

In order to apply for any other patents, you have to first file a PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) application (about $5000 extra) with the USPTO. This gives you the RIGHT to file additional international patents within the next 36 months.

If you DO want to file international patents you have to file EACH ONE INDIVIDUALLY in the country you want it filed. Each one has to be translated into that country's language and must be put into their particular format.

If you decide to file in every country, it will end up costing perhaps $200K or so more (depending on the length of the patent and therefore translation fees). But some countries (notably Taiwan) are not signers to the PCT, and have to be filed entirely separately.

The U.S. does not rule the world yet, and U.S. patents are not valid everywhere.

trademarks and patents

[aNonMooseCowherd]

I plan to trademark the "TM" trademark symbol, and then charge everyone else royalties to use it. Once that is successful, I will patent that as a new business method.

mmm....

[doublebackslash]

The concept that any idea nowadays is uncopyable or un-emulateable is rediculous.
I'm sick of companys thinking that they have any unique ideas that someone else cannot make a cheap duplicate of.
I've yet to see a great, profitable idea go un-coppied, despite patents.
I blame the lawyers, what was the line in 'king lear', blank all the lawers? It'll come to me, but Shakespear has verry little advice that is not still valid.

Pardon the spelling, I'm in a hurry.

Way too much history behind this

[swordgeek]

Something that people don't seem to realise (not just on /., but in the world in general) is that the patent system has been abused for centuries. Eli Whitney spent decades in the courts, trying to prevent people from making and selling ripoffs of his (patented) cotton gin, and by the time he won, the patent was only valid for one more year. Edison, in contrast, patented everything under the sun and sued people black and blue over trivial or non-existent issues.

The point is that the patent system has been open to abuse as long as it's been around, and it's not likely to change in the next two years or so, as most seem here seem to think. Even if the abuses are so flagrantly worse now than ever before that it really is going to collapse, there's a LOT of momentum, and it's going to take a decade or more.

So push it hard, but don't expect to see much movement for a while.

Re:Way too much history behind this

[glinden]

• So push it hard, but don't expect to see much movement for a while.

It's not really clear what the average person can do to promote change in the patent system. Do you have any suggestions?

I'm completely serious. I like many others are unhappy with the current situation, but I honestly don't see a way to change it. What can the average person do to promote constructive change in the US patent system?

Re:Way too much history behind this

[Kwil]

As somebody else mentioned, write your congressman and senator about the situation and push for legislation that would make a difference.

One significant and fairly easy change to make is that once a patent is submitted for registration it may not be altered. It either passes or fails in its current state. If it fails, you have to submit an entirely new patent application. This means make sure you get it right the first time or cough up more money (giving more resources to the patent office to adequately check things) It also means you don't get to say that a patent you submitted in 1954 but have been changing every 3 years to match current technology counts as being patented since 1954.

Another simple change would be to make it so that people who have their patents thrown out in a court of law have to repay any liscence fees previously collected, plus a penalty fine of up to 50% of those total fees to be paid to the court system, (thus reducing the burden on the taxpayer that the "patent to sue" practice places on us by over-use of the courts)

not all IP is disgusting

[SHEENmaster]

if something is a truly unique invention, or a truly unique work of art, it deserves a patent or a copyright.

The problem here is that the patent office doesn't have the resources to investigate patents for legitimacy. Anyone can then patent anything and get away with exthorting license fees out of other, unrelated, businesses.

The patent system should be modified such that any significant improvement upon an existing patent negates a new invention from being covered by the previous patent. Then technology is advanced, rather than hindered, by the patent system.

"Submarine" Patents

[Deraj DeZine]

These patents were classic "submarine" patents orginally applied for in 1954, but tied up in the patent office and changed over the next four decades to cover changes taking place in the machine vision field

I didn't really know where the name came from until recently, so I'll comment on it (maybe it's ITFA, but I didn't RTFA). Apparently they're claled "submarine" patents because they only surface when necessary. Like when 3dfx sued nVidia and then nVidia countersued for trivial patents so that they could end up with a cross-licensing agreement.

If this is wrong, I've been misinformed, will apologize, and then hunt down whatever sick mind thought it could safely spread lies on the Internet (of all places!).

Re:"Submarine" Patents

[XaXXon]

Here's what appears to be an authoritative definition of submarine patent..

A Submarine Patent is a patent which an "inventor" files on a device or technology that doesn't exist yet, or which has not yet been successfully implemented. Using various procedural mechanisms, the filer intentionally delays issue of the patent, sometimes for years, until a practical implementation of the device/technology appears on the market. At that time, the filer allows the patent to "come to the surface" and demands royalties from the party who did the real work.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SubmarinePatent

Nice Troll

[donutello]

.. especially considering that Lemelson is not a corporation.

Corporations are nothing more than representatives of individuals. Behind every "corporate interest" is an individual or collection of individuals who share the same interest.

We need laws against submarine patents and ridiculous IP enforcement but you lose a lot of credibility when you throw the "corporation" bogeyman on there.

Re:Nice Troll

[Dukael_Mikakis]

Corporations are nothing more than representatives of individuals. Behind every "corporate interest" is an individual or collection of individuals who share the same interest.

But corporations do possibly reach a point where they become the sort of "faceless" entities that they are. The reason why many people get upset at corporations and the things that they do is that they quite frequently assume a sort of "mob mentality" where many people backing a certain interest seems to validate that interest (though the largest interest we discuss is greed). The problem with these sorts of things is that most frequently it ends up very much in one person's interest and moderately (if that) in anybody else's.

Corporations benefit strongly the executives and the investors (especially large "bankish" ones, how much more faceless can you get?) and they use the "we're worth billions of dollars, employ thousands of people, make useful products" basis to ruin the environment/take advantage of third world labor/commit corporate scandals. Simply because a corporation employs thousands of people and pays tehm and everything does not mean that they have everybody's interests in mind. They likely don't. Hell, it doesn't even mean that they necessarily have the employees' interests in mind (as we've seen). Corporations are not iron-clad.

Hell look at the "corporation" of Communism in China and Russia.

Re:Nice Troll

[Aaden42]

Behind every "corporate interest" is an individual or collection of individuals

Very true, but the problem begins when the US system is abused. Elections cost money and litigation more so. In general large corporations have far more money at their disposal than do smaller companies and individuals.

The intent of the US system of representative government is that each individual should have an equal say in governmental proceedings. The inbalance of money of corporations versus individuals compromises that goal to the point that a very few (boards of corporations) can disproportionately influence law making. That influence is often used to push through legislation that greatly favors the influential corporations in matters of Intelectual Property while necessarily eroding the rights of the unwashed masses whose rights, by virtue of Majority, should trump those of the corporations.

Even in cases where the law does not necessarily favor the large corporation, the power of the law suit often prevents lesser-funded entities from exercising the rights they do have for fear of being sued into oblivion by well funded adversaries.

I believe that both the US legal system and its copyright, patent, and other IP laws are horribly flawed. Alas, not knowing how to fix them myself, what more can I do that mount my soapbox on /.?

(It's my first time. Please be gentle.)

Not the end of the road, but a start

[Nakito]

This is only a District Court decision (District of Nevada) so it is not binding precendent elsewhere. But it will interesting to see if this is the beginning of a trend that eventually kills the major cash cow of the Lemelson foundation. The foundation's business model has been to sue everyone in sight (or at least everyone who makes image recognition systems) and then to offer a license on the patents for an amount less than the cost of defense. It's been a very effective strategy. But there are tons of other Lemelson lawsuits in the works, and I am sure the lawyers are all reading this decision very carefully tonight.

Where to put the burden ...

[gradji]

Currently in both academic and policy discussions, there is some debate as to whether it is better to put the "burden of proof" for patents in the application process or the infringement/interference litigation process.

The current U.S. system is arguably set toward "easier" application and "harder" enforcement - with the idea being that a court room has more flexibility and resources to tackle difficult intellectual property rights issues than the patent office. Moreover, this type of system avoids a bias against inventors: a more "front-loaded" system that applies burden at the application process would delay the patent and perhaps even shorten the patent life significantly (similar to the argument pharmaceuticals make regarding how rigorous FDA testing effectively halves the patent life of new drugs)

So it's nice to see cases like Machine Vision. Of course, for every successful court ruling against a harmful/irrational patent, there are several more that survive the litigation process ... hence the ongoing debate ...

Re:Where to put the burden ...

[nudicle]

Some of the problems with the current easier application and harder enforcement system, however, are the nature of the inventors and the exortion it allows on the back end.

If our nation's inventors were toiling away in their basements in their spare time then avoiding a bias against inventors would be more important. But that's just what we like to pretend. In reality the overwhelming majority of patents are issued to corporations and have been developed by engineers and scientists working in their corporate capacity. Corporations should be able to deal with a more front-loaded system. Which is not to indulge a fantasy that corporrations are all huge and wealthy, but that it's not hardto argue that a "bias against inventors" fear mischaracterizes reality.

Also, patent litigation is massively, massively expensive. I mean, seriously expensive. Patent lawyers are expensive and litigation takes a long time. (from 1995 to 1999 there were 9615 patent cases filed, mean time for resolution was 1.12 years .. BUT only 5% of those cases went to trial)* So when a patent issues you suddenly have a lot of power to threaten and extort -- because the costs associated with challenging the patent in court are astronomical. This effect actively discourages the progress of science and the useful arts in areas like computer science where the patents are broad and their scope usually unclear. * - according to Kimberely Moore, Forum Shopping in Patent Cases : Does Geographic Choice Affect Innovation? in the North Carolina Law Review .. sometime in 2001 (i forget)

interesting

[DrDoombender]

I was doing some googling and found a site that talks about the history of the patent. Basically in England, it was used by the monarchy to grant monopolies and maintain control (EG gain quick coin). http://www.ladas.com/Patents/USPatentHistory.html

Apparently a patent only lasts about 17 years. So that's not as bad as a copyright, because if I recall a copyright lasts for around the life of the individual + ~20years(correct me if I'm wrong, one site said about 95 years).

In anycase, the US concept of the patent was used as a device to protect individual property rights during a time when the US needed technology bad (think back to when England had efficient factories, and the US wanted to know said secrets). Now with the concept of the corporation, it seems that the ideals of the patent have been corrupted. However, I can see the importance of protecting intellectual property rights, but at the same time, the US corporate world is beating every US citizen over the head with laws that should be corrected.

Machine vision patent case

[mjc_w]

Very interesting.

Apparently (IANAL, IMBanal) the patents were thrown out because
(1) too much time was taken modifying the patent claims, and this seemed to be intentional (something called "latches");
(2) the patent(s) described a system in which the objects to be scanned were at a fixed position, while the supposedly offending systems found the objects (e.g., bar codes) anywhere in their field of view and scanned them there.

There were also differences in which the way the information was processed (patent: analog differencing, systems: computer processing).

I found it a very interesting read.

My compliments to the judge.

Re:Machine vision patent case

[bezuwork's friend]

The court probably got most of it's reasoning from Symbol Technologies v. Lemelson Medical, Education and Research Foundation (2002) where the Fed. Circuit held that latches applied. For those that don't know, all patent appeals go through the Fed. Circuit - it was created expressly to bring consistancy to the patent litigation field. I'd imagine that many Lemelson suits will go this way from now on, given the Fed. Circuit precedence. Actually, they have to if the same issues apply.

Lemelson built his empire on what are called submarine patents - applications which are prosecuted for many many years before issuing. Once issued, the owner then goes after the big companies who have dominated the market in the meantime. That's how he made his billions.

I used to work in the patent office. My supervisor once brought in a Lemelson application he was working on - it's original filing date was 35 years earlier. From what he said, the original application was for a memory chip, but over the years Lemelson added bits of information here and there, and by the time my supervisor got the case, it was for a microprocessor of some kind. Basically, he played the patent system pretty close to the edge, but pretty much legally, I guess.

For those who find this shocking - the current patent system measures length of patent term from the date of application, so submarine patents of the extreme nature of Lemelson's are pretty much not possible any more (except if the application is classified - a few years ago a patent came out which had been classified some 67? years previously IIRC).

Alvin Toffler

[G27 Radio]

My dad used to read a lot of Alvin Toffler (futurist) books when I was a kid. I picked up a couple of them and read parts, but don't really remember much detail (nor the names of the books.) One of the things I do remember was him talking about how we were going to move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. I suppose we were already in the transition at the time.

He talked about a triad of Power, Wealth, and Information. Any one or combination of the three could be used to aquire another. The interesting thing about information (and the information age) was that information could be expended, yet the provider of the information would still have it.

I'm not sure what my point is :) but being that it's the Information Age, information has become (and still is becoming) a commodity to be bought and sold. Companies are realizing this and focusing on how to capitalize on it. It's the Information Age. Unless you want to be stuck in the Industrial Age, this is what you have to do.

Maybe that's the point. If it's software, audio, video, text, or whatever, it's still information. This is what Information Age companies will make their money from. Figure out how to own or control of as much of it as you can now, and as we continue into the Information Age you will reap the rewards later.

Oh the Irony

[Crypto Gnome]

Am I the only one to consider it ironic that it took a patent about "Machine Vision" to make someone in the legal system see just how stupid some patents are.

Re:For once...

[Capsaicin]

a judge has seen how ridiculous our patent system is.

Nothing could be further from the truth. What a judge has seen is that this particular patent was unenforceable under the patent system.

What is ridiculous, is that it is often more cost effective to pay licensing fees for these kinds of patents, than to defeat them in the court system.

They tried to sue the company I work for..

[Anonymous Coward]

for using spreadsheets to display PLC (Programmable Logic Controllers)data realtime...
This is a common practice, it would be like patenting the method of turning on a light by upward motion of a toggle device..

Re:There's more, too.

[donutello]

Nonsense. Where do you people get this crap?

Corporations are individuals as far as civil offenses are concerned. If a corporation gets caught committing a civil offense it is fined just the same as an individual is.

Corporations are not individuals as far as criminal offenses are concerned however. If a corporation gets caught committing a criminal offense, it is the individuals who authorized or committed the crime who will be subject to criminal prosecution.

So in your example, if they knowingly dumped poison into someones drinking water, the people who did it would be in jail for attempted murder.

Re:Who is this Lemelson guy anyway?

[Ancil]

who in 1954 could envision a machine that "see, identify, and measure something", much less design one?

Certainly not this asshole. The nature of a submarine patent is to "invent" something by describing it. Like this: "Wouldn't it be cool if machines could see!!" *PATENT PENDING*

You then "refine" your patent application as real inventors do the actual work of teaching machines to see. Once someone else has put in the long hours making your "vision" a reality, you hit them up for ten million bucks.

Getting back to your original question -- it's actually two questions. Who in 1954 could envision a machine that could see? Plenty of people. Really, anyone who spent a lot of time daydreaming about the future. Who could actually design a machine that sees? Very few people, and it took them a long time. It was a lot of work, and the people who did it were the ones getting extorted by these pricks.