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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
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
Essentially, you are suggesting that the US Patent Office use volunteers, rather than patent examiners, to determine the validity of patents.
The problem comes when these volunteers start submitting bad and misleading information, either unintentionally (by not understanding the patent) or intentionally (maliciously). For example, you are one of the volunteers. You are evaluating a patent of your competitor. So you might create a fake website with some "prior art" and point to it as an example.
The problem comes not in whether or not that fake prior art will be believed--it will be sorted out in the end, for sure--but rather that you've just created additional work for the patent examiner. Suppose everyone did this--submitted garbage that the examiners need to sort through. Some "prior art" might be valid, some invalid, some irrelevant. Notice on Slashdot how very few people RTFA? Well, consider how few people will RTFP. Much of the prior art suggested to be reviewed will be irrelevant. There are lots of people who will try to come up with something just to show how smart they are.
The net result will, unfortunately, be far more work for the patent examiner, not less.
This is not to say that your idea should be discounted entirely, but rather that implementing it would simply be a lot more complicated than your initial suggestion. It would probably have to be done more along the lines of an anonymous peer-review system like that which is used in academic journals. However, anyone who has had an article turned down for Physical Review Letters will tell you how well that works.
Indeed, it's a complicated problem.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/document s/1900.htm
h tml
Something similar to this is in place. Apparently, with the sheer volume of patents that are applied for, not every application gets commented on appropriately. Its much easier to bust a bad patent BEFORE it's granted though.
I don't know of any services that send out notice of pending patents, but the USPTO has a searchable database of pending applications at http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.
[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.
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
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'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.
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...