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EFF Runs Patent-Busting Challenge
markclong writes "Every year numerous illegitimate patent applications make their way through the United States patent examination process without adequate review. The problem is particularly acute in the software and Internet fields where the history of prior inventions (often called "prior art") is widely distributed and poorly documented. As a result, we have seen patents asserted on such simple technologies as One-click online shopping (U.S. Patent No. 5,960,411.), Online shopping carts (U.S. Patent No. 5,715,314.), The hyperlink (U.S. Patent No. 4,873,662.). The EFF is hosting a patent busting project to fight the most egregious abuses of the patent system."
That's right, slashdot readers are mounting a "Dupe Busting Challenge".
However it's still being ignored.
Is this article a duplicate of an article from nearly two months ago? Or is there some specific news about this patent-busting project? The blurb didn't seem to help.
And then slashdot could apply for a patent.
How about a Wiki-type thing that lists some previous art for patents that a watchdog group lists out? Get some serious evidence and archive it in one place so the masses can check and see what patents they don't really have to pay attention to.
I hope every
I mean, most of us get a lot of email but maybe less than every day, how about a digest every week saying the same? Distributed patent-invalidation?
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
Apparently the current US patent system does not want to spend the time/money to carefully check new patents. Now the EFF and volunteers are doing the USPTO's work for free.
It might remove the most harmful and obviously insane patents, thus making the idiocy of the current system less visible.
I have a bit of confusion over one patent they have listed, however. They label it as patenting "using a credit card online", whereas the patent that they link to is described as being a voice-based terminal for collecting loan applications and processing them based on user input and credit rating information. Can anyone tell me if I'm missing anything or if that's just a mistake on EFF's part?
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If only one or two of the folks in that office find themselves unemployed after an annual review, because to many of the patents they granted were overturned, it wont take long and the rest will actually take the couple hours required to document prior art on many of them.
An obvious next step, would be for the patent office itself to provide a public input period for feedback on various applications. Heck, if they posted new applications to /., they could save a lot of effort. At least half of the new applications would get responded to with a link documenting valid prior art within an hour of being posted, thereby saving the office the trouble of processing that application.
Not to be overly simplistic about answer this, but two wrongs won't make a right (the system as it is, and not doing anything about it), in an optimistic light if many patents get overturned it might embarrass the system into change, or at least expose it to more of the general public who use the common 'patented' technologies. Cleaning off the ridiculous patents might prevent frivolous cases from making it to court as well, and with a clogged up court system as it is, that wouldn't hurt either. I'm sure we can all think of a patent case that seems obvious that it shouldn't be in the courts but is. On an offtopic note, happy birthday me, still up to post on /. at 2 in the morning EST.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
When they say fight the outrageous patents, are they referring to the ones that already exist, or future ones? Or both? How would you combat a patent that already exist? Show prior art? Anyway, I think it's rediculous that we have to go as far as to create an organization to stop what should be common sense. Come on, a patent for double click? Oi..
Then again, if life were perfect, I'd have better things to do than rant on slashdot at 2 am in the morning. Hehe =)
Anyone notice that the EFF announced that they were going to be challenging bogus patents 2 days after PubPat announced that they had submitted a request to have Microsoft's FAT patent re-examined?
Why should the reexam cost so much... How about a refunable fee if it to be found in error? Why should it be so cosly to fix a mistake that was made? I guess I don't get it.
I guess I should...
1) Patent a whole lot of stuff (that I may or may nat have invented)
2) Sit back and wait
3) Sell patent for $$$
US patent system does not want to spend the time/money
The problem is that Congress won't give the USPTO the money it requires to do its job. This is on its way to changing with the new fee bill H.R. 1561, but it may take some time. It is still largely a step in the right direction.
And that's when the real fight for great justice begins.
What you say?
h = openFile("regular_business_behavior.txt");
while (w = readNextWord(h)) {
if (random(0.0,1.0) > 0.96) {
w = w + " using a computer ";
}
print(w);
}
Table-ized A.I.
Currently, it is possible to request a patent re-examination of one of two types.
However, the person who must pay the fees is the person who wants the patent to be re-examined. Fees may start (for inter partes) at $8K, plus $12K for legal fees. Getting a patent accepted costs only about $1K. With legal fees and prior art searches (which I swear that a lot of these people don't do) that might get up to $8K or so.
This keeps the playing field quite tilted towards those that file patents -- there is little incentive not to file bogus patents.
I'd like to see this system modified to impose the fee (perhaps with some multiplier) on the *patent filer* if the reexamination finds that the patent is indeed invalid, rather than on the party requesting the reexamination.
If pro-bono legal work is available, or a simple walkthrough on how to do basic requests for review ("I wrote a program that already does this that was sold five years before the patent was applied for, and here it is"), the process could be made effectively zero-cost for organizations like the EFF that attempt to eliminate bogus patents.
I see few drawbacks. It does impose the difficulty of collecting fees on the USPTO, but besides being part of the federal government (and thus being in a good position to locate patent owners that refuse to pay), they can refuse to issue more patents to an individual until he pays his fees.
Old patents, many of which are quite bogus, will have to be grandfathered in. There's no other reasonable way to deal with them, but eventually they will expire, and this prevents future abuse of the system.
It also increases the potential cost of obtaining a patent (not good, if you want to protect the little guy). However, patent filers are *supposed* to do prior art searches ahead of time, and are *supposed* to only be submitting legitimate inventions. Thus, if a patent holder has performed his tasks as he should, there will be no additional cost added.
I don't think it's feasible (since the USPTO can't hire the best researchers in every field) to never let through an illegitimate patent. I do think that making the review process more oriented around discouraging people from filing bogus patents is possible. This also takes a lazy approach -- bad patents are only dealt with and the patent holder only imposed a penalty upon if an actual problem comes up -- otherwise, there's little reason for an organization to go after patents.
I would like to see review fees reduced if possible.
I would also like to see it be made possible for an inventor to freely invalidate a patent. This means that if a company (let's say Microsoft, or the FSF) discovers that someone is going after them with a patent, and they are able to produce prior art, it's easy for them to just send a letter to the patent holder noting that they have identified prior art, and unless the patent holder wants them to initiate a review, to mark his patent invalid within the next month.
That way, Microsoft or the FSF doesn't have to pay the legal fees associated with requesting a review (so it's in their interest to first send out a letter), review load on the USPTO is reduced, and the inventor is never hit with the fee associated with losing a review.
There are some details to be resolved -- how should invalidation of individual claims be resolved? Should a per-claim fee be increased, and fees for review on individual claims be lower?
I don't think any of them are showstopping issues, though.
I've brought this up once before on Slashdot and haven't gotten any idea-killing issues brought up -- I'd be interested in any feedback.
May we never see th
well, the most nafarious patent of them all was when an ozzie man decided he wanted to patent the wheel, and actually succeded.
the lawyer patented the " circular transportation facilitation device". so that means anyone who ever produced car, bike, even unicycle in australia would have to pay royalities.
dont believe me, well check the BBC or CNN
personally this is a prime example of intellectual rights gone amok. i would rather convert my car to square wheels before paying any damn royalites on a wheel. but i dont think it will be a problem. but just in case, im going to go patent the spherical rolling device. lets see MR. Keogh drive home without any ball bearings.
There was a recent slashdot post about Microsoft's patent on the autogenerated TODO list in an IDE. They filed in 2000. Well, as usual, it's pretty easy to find prior art for something like this, if you just search google on the grand-daddy of IDEs.
I was so confident, I went with "feeling lucky". Sure 'nuff, the very first hit, automated TODO lists in 1999, From Tulane University.
Apparently the current US patent system does not want to spend the time/money to carefully check new patents. Now the EFF and volunteers are doing the USPTO's work for free. It might remove the most harmful and obviously insane patents, thus making the idiocy of the current system less visible.
It should be obviousness that prevents such patents, not so much prior-art. Most software prior art is in the form of trade secrets, not prior patents.
They should use the "graduate criteria". If at least 20% of computer-sci graduates with a B or better could implement the functionality being claimed for a patent, then it should be tossed.
Table-ized A.I.
I got called for a job once when some friends had a patent and wanted me to dummy the technology in Flash - they already had the patent(?!), which I scrolled through, and some fun double talk about the technology. I said this was the 'Artist conception of flying car' patent. We haven't built it, but we want to sue you if you figure it out.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Would anyone care to explain the difference between "ex parte" and "inter partes"?
hi all,
we are a small software company developing a new open instant messaging-based support application and i'm sure we are already "infringing" on many patents that would hold NO water if they were actually challenged.
http://www.qunu.com
I hope the patent re-examination fee gets refunded if the claim is found to be legitimate. I mean, why should we have to pay for the USPTO's mistakes? That would be some racket!
Difficulty of implementation and obviousness of an idea are completely unrelated.
An artificial intelligence system is an obvious idea these days, but its implementation is very difficult. On the other hand the proverbial "better rat trap" would be comparatively simple to implement, but unobvious.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
I don't know the answer, but if the fee does not get refunded, things start to make sense. In this case, USPTO has no incentive to deny any patents, since they get more money for the patent re-examination than if they simply researched and denied the patent in the first place.
End of Line.
True, but most of the "problem" patents are merely taking existing physical processes and automating them. The patent office seems to think that this is novel. The "concept" is merely implementing something physically common and putting it on the web.
Table-ized A.I.
Guys (that's you guys across the pond). This is a governemt office. You have democracy. Your politicians will do anything for a vote. Tell your congress man that if he will make sure you vote for him again, he will do something about the hilarious patent office that's the laughing stock of the rest of the world.
This project might help an awful lot in proving that something is rotten in the state of patents.
Happy Birthday!
May we never see th
How about the fact that the fee goes towards the costs of examining if the patent is legitmate. If you're going to make them give back the fee everytime they make a mistake, they'll just automatically turn every applicant down. Applicants would have an incentive to make their patent applications as obfuscated as possible.
Even though the application was only 200, it's the invention date that matters, specifically, the "reduction to practice" of the patent, or when you figured out how to actually make it work. The applcaiton date is generally the presumed invention date, but the inventor can file an affidavit stating that he concieved of the invention some time before. Also, how do you prove that the tulane prior art was invented before the Microsoft app?
I've actually read this MS application, and it is VERY narrowly worded. Take a look at 35 U.S.C.S. -
102. Conditions for patentability; novelty and loss of right to patent
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless--
(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States, or
(c) he has abandoned the invention, or
(d) the invention was first patented or caused to be patented, or was the subject of an inventor's certificate, by the applicant or his legal representatives or assigns in a foreign country prior to the date of the application for patent in this country on an application for patent or inventor's certificate filed more than twelve months before the filing of the application in the United States, or
(e) the invention was described in (1) an application for patent, published under section 122(b), by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent or (2) a patent granted on an application for patent by another filed in the United States before the invention by the applicant for patent, except that an international application filed under the treaty defined in section 351(a) shall have the effects for the purposes of this subsection of an application filed in the United States only if the international application designated the United States and was published under Article 21(2) of such treaty in the English language; or
(f) he did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented, or
(g) (1) during the course of an interference conducted under section 135 or section 291, another inventor involved therein establishes, to the extent permitted in section 104, that before such person's invention thereof the invention was made by such other inventor and not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed, or (2) before such person's invention thereof, the invention was made in this country by another inventor who had not abandoned, suppressed, or concealed it. In determining priority of invention under this subsection, there shall be considered not only the respective dates of conception and reduction to practice of the invention, but also the reasonable diligence of one who was first to conceive and last to reduce to practice, from a time prior to conception by the other.
The EFF apparently does not realize that the crazy patents are caused by deliberate corruption. Not allowing enough money for an agency to do its job is a deliberate strategy of those who want corruption in the U.S. government. When corrupters don't want government oversight, they just reduce the operating funds. Those who want corruption don't mind if they destroy a thousand things to get one thing they want.
Those who want corruption will introduce bills that, if passed, would give the EFF what it wants, with the secret understanding that the bills won't get passed.
For a disussion of starving the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, regulates the stock exchange), see this article: Keeping the SEC on a Starvation Diet. The corrupters don't want their stock manipulations discovered. They want more of this: Enron fraud, this: WorldCom fraud and this: Tyco fraud.
They are corrupting the IRS (U.S. Internal Revenue Service, collects taxes), too. The corrupters definitely do NOT want their tax returns to be audited, so they arrange that there is not enough money for audits: Bush Request for IRS Not Enough, Report Says
The Bush administration has been appointing heads of government agencies that have agreed to reduce the role of those agencies. When they have destroyed the agencies, they will go back to running their businesses, and the corruption will give them more profit.
This is all part of extremely widespread corruption in the U.S. government. Even the 3 movies and 34 books linked in this article are not enough to tell the story: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Be careful with your terms. In the legal sense novel (see MPEP 2131 Anticipation) means that the exact system as claimed does not exist in the prior art. Most of the time this is true, the real question becomes whether or not the claims are obvious. The condition for obviousness in the legal sense is that references exist which teach all parts of the claims, and that there exists motivation in the prior art to combine the references to obtain the claimed system with a reasonable expectation of success (see MPEP 2143 Basic Requirements of a Prima Facie Case of Obviousness). This is very different from teh common dictionary definition of the term.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
Have you ever tried reading a patent? I actually have two that I was lead inventor on when I was working at Apple. When the lawyers got through with the application I couldn't figure out what we had patented and I suspect we didn't actually patent anything. Since all I got was a pat on the back and (I think) $1000 per patent I really didn't care if the patent wasn't good for anything.
In any case, the original poster was talking about a refund of the RE-examination fee. That's the fee you pay when you challenge a patent. I think it's reasonable to have it refunded to the challenger. They can charge it to the parties filing the bogus patent.
By your logic, this wouldn't be happening. Mainly because lawyers are also supported by a bad patent system. All the lawsuits give money to the lawyers, yet they're helping out with this.
If this gains support, I think it's quite possible a politician will try to reform the patent system to get voted into power.
Every time there has been article about a strange patent on slashdot, hundreds of people have presented prior-art cases.
I understand that patent officers can't review profoundly every patent, especially when software patents swarm in great numbers.
Why not to use power of the Internet to review those patents. Similar to grid computing, but using users' brain capacity.
There could be either web pages similar to slashdot or networked review application. Hundreds of thousands users could review those patents and those who found prior-art cases would get a reward (part of the money applicant had spent on the patent application).
I bet you have plenty of opposite opinions, so don't hold back.
Unfortunately, they probably have laws to prevent this since a long time ago. But, hey, it would certainly make them think about what they were letting through.
It would also make patents extremely expensive due to the new risks involved for the patent officials and the insurance they would need to take out.
Another approach could be to make the patent holder liable for any losses incurred to other businesses due to the enforcement of wobbly patents.
IMHO patents may have been a good idea once but right now I get the impression they cause far more harm than good and we are really better off without them at all or have them so expensive, with above mentioned liabilities, that no one takes one out unless they have a patent-robust invention and they are serious.
Yes I am dreaming.
I worked at a company in the early '90s, which had one of the very first ecommerce sites on the early web. The public production prototype of the site was being used by a restricted subset of the public a year or two prior to OpenMarkets patent. This was back when the web was relatively small and ecommerce was a novelty. It was C language CGIs running on NCSA, the horror. This site included, among other things a shopping cart, which we called a "shopping cart", which did all the thing a normal web shopping cart does.
As it happens, I was one of the developers of that project. Because we didn't think it was that big of a deal and it wasn't a secret, I actually had email exchanges with one of the guys at OpenMarket (and anyone else who cared to know) explaining how we had implemented it, basically giving them the design from our running site, all prior to their filing date.
Fast forward several years later, and I discover that OpenMarket is claiming the invention of the shopping cart. I don't mind patents generally, but that one was grossly unethical and I nearly blew a gasket when it was announced. Unfortunately, the company that did develop the shopping cart notion, and which helped at least one OpenMarket engineer figure out how to do it themselves, has been long gone for years.
The bottomline being that not only was I involved in creating the prior art for OpenMarket's patent, as far as I can tell one or more engineers at OpenMarket actually learned how to implement them by emailing myself and others at our company.
Here's another possibility for dealing with obviousness.
The federal government establishes scholarships for people who which to obtain a graduate degree in a particular field.
Once these people recieve their degree, however, they are required to review a small number of patent applications in their field for obviousness each year (perhaps for a certain number of years).
There are obviously a lot of rough edges and unresolved details -- what if people change fields? How do we deal with the larger number of patents than potential reviewers? Will reviewers do a poor job? What if, out of sheer chance, a reviewer is chosen to review a particular patent that knows one of the people that produced the patent?
The jury system works reasonably well, and this is effectively a "jury trial on a patent".
May we never see th
There is a wiki page on How to improve patents here.
If your add to the page, remember to add a how not a just a what.
Knud
For the past 5 years and more Gregory Aronian has been campaigning to allow the patent office to KEEP all the fees it collects instead of paying ost of them to the government.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
[Emphasis mine]
Actually it seems that as well as patenting the hyperlink, patent no. 4,873,662 could be construed as also patenting all of HTML!
-Ashton
(-(friend^2))^(1/2)
Incoming mod-bombing for having a different viewpoint, 2 o'clock! Heads up!
Why not implement a deposit sum for patent to be granted to the person that found prior art or faults invalidating it. This would probably end all talk about underpaid or overworked reviewers and spawn a new profession on the internet.
I like this idea quite a bit actually. It sounds a bit like this project is trying to do half of the patent office's job. But even if they were doing their own job, having a full fledged project of this nature would be a boon. Forums, mailing lists, wiki, the whole nine yards. If I was a bit older, and had lived through a little more history, I would gladly help patent bust as a hobby. I think there are many here on slashdot who feel the same.
It could just fix one problem this way. Without the type of feedback/interaction mechanisms you mention, projects like this tend to disappear from view. If there was a following to the project, there would likely be more items submitted to slashdot, drawing the long term attention of a fair percentage of slashdot users (and other news/forums). The effects could be a mild domino effect, not becoming the best known project in existence, but making its presence felt to those most able to help.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
....against the big end of town.
Only via mega victims/abuse will there be patent law reform.
It was a real pity BT didn't succeed with it's hyperlink patent suit - the mega-economies would've reformed their patent laws quick smart if BT had succeeded.
Really the more outrageous the suit & the bigger the defendents, the better off we all are in the long run.
Fact is law reform virtually only occures if the big end of town are victims of bad laws.
I just like to point out that Mr. Keogh applied for his patents to highlight the fact that so many bogus patents are allowed to stand.
Not to try and grab royalties from wheel users.
So show him the respect he deserves for standing up for common sense instead of trying to sound righteous about his nefarious act.
Economic Left/Right: -0.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
I don't like the idea of getting some sudden enormous financial setback, just because some obscure prior art is found. I do like the idea of having the re-examination sent to the patent holder for a short time before the patent office deals with it, and in giving them a chance to back out of the patent. I also think there should be some type of penalty for submitting a patent that later gets canceled, but some fine that forces you onto the path to bankruptcy is not the answer. This would only discourage smaller businesses from applying.
It has been said that driving is a privilege, not a right. Regardless of this statement's validity, the same vein holds true for patents. If someone has a patent yanked out from under them, it should become harder for them to hold other patents. One suggestion would be to increase/double future filing fees per-patent yanked. If filing is normally $1000, and a company has 2 prior violations, their fee jumps up to $4000. This would give companies an incentive to not file frivolous patents, and if they do, to step down quickly when a re-examination comes in. It would also mean more to big companies that hold many patents. I would have the "violation" "stay on record" for either 17 years (the life span of a patent) or at least until the patent was due to expire.
Comments, suggestions?
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
IBM got a patent on CAPS LOCK status indicator: Here's the link
You are saying what I was saying. The government is starving the PTO of money.
How was what I said in the grandparent post a troll or flamebait? It is documented very well by links to articles at a university and at the Washington Post.
Was that a case of "I don't want to believe, so I will mod down?"
It started as a good thing in 1991 amd then later at some date unspecified by your article, it became a bad thing... during the next administration.
Thanks for playing, and losing, the blame game.
No it's not, it's feeding the bureaucracy. A step in the right direction would be simply abolishing the patent on invention. Patents run completely contrary to modern economic science, are a blight upon the free market, and are just plain fascism -"I'm sorry, you might have thought of that completely independently, but Joe Friend-of-the-Establishment here has sole rights to do it."
It's patent 5,924,098. It's owned by Sun and it's basically on using the Boehm style GC to do well known lock-free programming techniques, one of which RCU is based on. I even commented on the obviousness of the technique before Sun was issued the patent here. It's not prior art but it does show obviousness to someone (me) versed in the art of lock-free programming. It's a standard technique that depends on some mechanism to delay deallocation of data nodes until they are no longer referenced. Which is by definition Garbage Collection. Specifying a known form of GC in conjunction with this technique is not an invention. Coming up with a new form of GC or proxy GC is an invention.
Actually it is a patent for a crimped bread sandwich that holds the insides intact. The patent is from 1998 and it has been on the market since the 80s in Japan, would this not be prior art? Called the manufacturer here in Japan to let them know but they are so behind they cannot even set up email for customers (granted they are one of the biggest bread companies here). Previous posts: 1 , 2 , 3
I don't think this is really the most pressing patent to trash but perhaps an easy one for even grade school kids to understand.. might be a good one for them (the EFF) to attack after all.
Get real.
Only geeks care about patents, JP doesn't give a shit.
1) They don't want people bringing these things as harassment
2) They don't even have the time to properly look over the patent application in the first place. They are under staffed and over worked
3) Patents are presumped valid, and it is up to you to disprove it, and in the American legal system you pay your own legal fees
The flaw in your strategy is that, Each patent will run you $10k+ and take you over 2 years to obtain. Furthermore, you have to enforce it so you will have to watch everywhere for violations. Then you will have to litigate it. Should you win, and your patent be found valid, then you can sell it for big money.
Everyone's doing it, why not you? Periods tend to get lost a bit on most monitors, so the capital letter at the beginning of each sentence really helps make your arguments clearer.
got this idea once to market crimped bread sandwiches containing a bean spread. glad i didn't do it now knowing there's prior fart
The EFF strategy could very easily do more harm than good by strengthening the patents they are trying to invalidate. Except for a few special situations, only a fool challenges a patent using reexamination.
Reexamination is rarely used as an offensive strategy to attack a patent, because it usually works to the patent owner's advantage. When a patent is litigated in court, the patent is presumed to be valid over all prior art that the examiner has considered. This creates a very high hurdle for anyone challenging a patent. Once an examiner has considered a prior art reference, it is almost impossible to successfully use that reference in court to invalidate the patent.
In fact, it is very common for a patent owner to do extensive prior art searching and then request reexamination before asserting the patent in court. The patent owner wants to "knock-out" all prior art that the defendant might be able to use to attack the patent.
Probably the only way to make reexamination attractive is to eliminate the presumption of validity. But that doctrine is firmly established in U.S. patent law and isn't likely to change anytime soon.
Hmm...
:-)
just take a look at
gauss.bacon.su.se
database about European patents
Read patents to get new ideas
I just registered wikipatent.org... I'll definitely look into contacting the EFF. And maybe even Groklaw. Then the Wikipedia people. Wow... I need to contact a lot of people. Well, what is is summer break for than doing some cool slashdot-oriented project?
...What are the odds that the EFF is serious about busting the software patent issue? --- What is more profitable for them? to feed off the manifested symptoms of the real core issue (keeping it hidden) or exposing the source of the manifested symptoms (pulling the carpet out from under the whole software industry?)
... died off over a period of 300 years generations.
an email to JS
"Mr, Schultz,
It is very clear to me that the #1 problem regarding invalid software patents, is the simple act of denial of what is in fact the fundamental basics of programming and computer usage. What amounts to being "A Lack of Honesty" as to what is the Natural laws of the physical phenomenon of abstraction creation and use. Not to mention mathmatical algorythims and other such honestly not patentable but only thru denial of even the original line drawn between what is and is not patentable.
Its really very very simple Mr. Schultz. Programming is the act of automating complexity (typically made up of other automations and/or simpler things) for the purpose of making it easier to use and reuse the complexity by the user of the complexity. This is the most fundamental purpose of making and using computers and software, though it is obvious in hindsight that monitary gains and elitism have distracted from that obvious objective.
To use an analogy, the application of software patents today is like using the roman numeral system while holding in denial the hindu-arabic decimal system by claiming nothing can't possibly have value (zero as a place holder), where it fact it was the use of zero that brought about a new world and ecomony (accountants with vested interest in the roman numeral system and its high level of complexity, and job security, wouldn't want to undermine their position in society).... once those in denial
The above is in no way all there is to say.... its just a warm up, a small introduction.... to hard reality!!!
Nature has a way in working in three's like primary colors, be it additive or subtractive colors (paint or light). Where having the primary three colors you can create any other color. But if you take away one of the primary colors, you greatly limit what you can produce colorwise.
The computer industry pursues, as a general practice, the art of denying the general user/consumer the fullness of the three primary user interfaces....an intentional act of denial of what is naturally possible,... acts of limitating what the user can do for themselves. MicroSoft set this in motions best of all.... "If you want to become successful, make people need you- Bill Gates"
So with all this effort and intent to deny the users what is natural and otherwise obvious..... Just exactly where do you suppose addressing the individual manifestation of any symptom of this consumer fraud, is going to go?
I can most certaintly go into more specific and verifiable detail of the natural and obvious, just as any "roman numeral supporter" can persist in claiming what I have to say has as much value and relativity as the nothingness of zero does to the roman numeral system.
The point, Mr. Schultz, is that you can piss around in the field regarding the manifestations of the symptoms of the core problems of denial, perhaps make some legal industry earnings off the endless generation of such manifestations.... OR you can come to undersand, as I do (and there is more), what the natural laws of the physical phenomenon of abstraction creation and use are..... AND BY THIS... pull the fu&'in carpet out from under those busy manifesting BS limitations in user computing.... SO THAT WE ALL CAN move forward far enough to have the hindsight to KNOW what bullshit this software patent crap really is.
DO NOTE: Computer technology could never have been developed without the acceptance and use of the zero place holder concept in math. And as such, there is most certainly such advanceme
The only prior art considered by the patent office, is prior patent filings and since there are no prior software patents, every piece of crud is approved. Fortunately, patents have a limited lifetime, so the problem will eventually go away, when all the patents expire.
Oh well, what the hell...
Hopefully Microsoft is on there hit list, I have seen stories of many questionable patents on Slashdot like the double click. Way to go, STOP THIS MADNE$$!!
411 Y0UR 8453 4R3 8310NG 70 U5!! -NSA
Who really wants the PIAA to come after them (Patent Industry Artists of America)? Don't think it couldn't happen.
I'll agree with the first part of your post. OTOH copyright law has it's own problems. Unregistered, but legally protected, copyrights abound (for example).
I think patents are the right general direction, but I personally think they should be MUCH harder to get, not apply to algorithms, and last only a few years (as apposed to almost 2 decades after filing).
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
After quite a bit of yelling at messy children, mothers will often give up, and clean their children's bedrooms. That's kind of like what is going on here. The EFF just doesn't deserve to pay rediculous amounts of money to the patent office in order to get the books fixed. Neither does anybody else who cares. But that's the only option available short of government reform (which needs to happen here anyway).
But lets pretend the patent office was doing their job well. Such a community program would still be wonderful. Such an organization could work alongside the office, in harmony. I get the impression that CERT does that. Right now, though, this is only a dream where the USPO is concerned.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
your .sig gives me a 404 error. You might want to fix it.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Your welcome. Fortunately .sigs are served out each time you reload your browser. When you change your .sig, you change it for all your posts (past and future).
I just changed mine, got kind of squished in the 120 char limit though.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Unfortunately, I'm a bit late and Tablizer probably won't see this.
It should be obviousness that prevents such patents, not so much prior-art. Most software prior art is in the form of trade secrets, not prior patents.
There is a difference between a common language definition and a legal definition. Obviousness has such a distinction wrt the patent office. This is similar to the following: it is an accepted practice to stalk someone during paintball games, but (even though one engages in the activity) that doesn't make the person a stalker (in the legal sense).
If at least 20% of computer-sci graduates with a B or better could implement the functionality being claimed for a patent, then it should be tossed.
This approach reinforces the biggest problem with the USPTO - that a process can be patented.
Businesses did not have the ability to patent a process 100 hundred years ago. Edison introduced the commercial audio recording industry with cylinder storage and, in response, companies competing with Edison developed the more popular disks. If Edison had a patent on the process of recording audio (which was similar between the cylinder and disk), imagine how different the US economy would be today. Most probably, every minor advancement would occur at 17 year intervals - if you're lucky.
Nowadays you can patent something like "multiplying by 2" whether it is implemented with bit shifting or the longhand method taught in grade school or any other approach unconceived by the patent applicant - yet the author owns the process.
There are other problems with the current USPTO (wrt software), but the biggest (and most cliched) one is with awarding patents for "mousetraps" rather than "a better mousetrap".
This is not my sig.