Groklaw Rants On Software Patents

LMCBoy writes "Groklaw has the story of Kodak v. Sun (mentioned on Slashdot already), which PJ calls 'Exhibit A' in the case against software patents. Her analysis of Kodak v. Sun, and the larger issue of software patents, is excellent. Bottom line: the software patent 'cold war' provides no benefits to anyone, and will inevitably make the game of software development impossible for anyone to play."

Comments

What about GNU Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean the end of GCJ and other "Free Software" java implementations?

Maybe Sun wanted to lose.

Or perhaps someone who gave them over a billion dollars wanted asked them politely to lose a case like this.

Re:What about GNU Java

[Anonymous Coward]

If Java and similar virtual machines (.NET) are encumbered by expensive billion-dollar-patents; this could be a huge thread to moderd software development under Linux.

My guess is that Sun now sees Kodak as a valuable partner in keeping Solaris(which can run Java) alive and keeping Linux (which has no Kodak license) out of the market. For that, $1 billion is a small price to pay.

Re:What about GNU Java

[B'Trey]

Sun doesn't want Java to be a Solaris language. They want it to be a ubiquitous language. If Java can't be run on ony OS, then Sun loses. Which isn't to say that this can't help Sun. If they have a license for their runtimes, then any other implementation could require a Kodak license. Bye-bye, any other implementation. Hello, Sun regains their absolute control of the language and implementation.

There's also another issue. If this affects .NET, where does that leave Mono? How much do you figure Microsoft would pay to shut down Mono?

Re:What about GNU Java

[rpozz]

The problem with your argument there is that the particular /someone/ may also be violating that 'patent', and get screwed as well..

I wonder how this could affect Mono.

Re:What about GNU Java

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with your argument there is that the particular /someone/ may also be violating that 'patent', and get screwed as well..

Not true. Remember that Kodak got that particular set of patents from Wang; and in a long ago intellectual debate between Microsoft and Wang, MSFT paid/invested $90 million to settle issues on a set of Wang patents that covered OLE. It's probably the case that this settlement got them a pretty broad IP cross-license including the Java patents.

Re:What about GNU Java

[QuantumG]

True, and remember, Microsoft is playing the "our language is standardized" game until they have captured the hearts and minds of developers everywhere, then they'll squash all other implementations of their language (dotGNU, mono) with big patent infringement cases.

Re:What about GNU Java

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more likely that dotGNU and mono will be squashed by FUD from zealots such as yourself.

Re:What about GNU Java

[FrYGuY101]

Silly Tin-Foil hat crowd. Haven't you learned that independently developed but intercompatible software is legal, ala UNIX System Labs vs. Berkely Software Design, Incorporated.

Since Microsoft has standardized C# through the ECMA, any patents are limited to products which break C# standards, something which, to my knowledge, Mono and dotGNU do not do.

Re:What about GNU Java

[QuantumG]

Thanks for your reply, but you don't know what you are talking about. Microsoft has a number of patents that cover the exact things that they have put into the ECMA standard. They are simply not suing anybody with these patents yet because it is not YET in their interest.

Re:What about GNU Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Utter bullshit. The patent uncertainty around Mono and dotGnu is not the standardized CLI - it's in the framework classes that are not covered by the standard. Read any of the Mono documentation about this exact subject for confirmation. Do some reading and stop spreading FUD.

Re:What about GNU Java

[Free_Meson]

FYI, the patents infringed upon were:
US Patent # 5206951 Filed April 3, 1991
US Patent # 5421012 Filed May 30, 1993
US Patent # 5226161 Filed August 31, 1992

Because in the U.S. patent rights belong to the first to invent rather than the first to file, and companies often wait a long time before filing in order to maximize the value of each patent (the more you know about your eventual product when you patent it, the better you can protect it) it is likely that at least two, and possibly all 3 of these were "invented" before sun put together its green group, which eventually created Java.

For anyone interested with access, westlaw has 4 documents from this case, including rulings on FRCP 12(b)(1), 12(b)(6), and 56(c).

From the Court's Rule 56(c) decision (August 2, 2004):

The patented inventions attempt to solve this problem by teaching the creation of programs that, when faced with an unknown object (for example when a word processing program is faced with a picture), seek help from other software programs that do understand the unknown data (in this example the word processor would seek help from a graphics program that understands picture data). In the most general terms, the patents describe a set of software programs where the programs have the ability, when confronted with a foreign type of data, to send a message seeking the assistance of an independent software program to help manipulate the unknown type of data, and have the ability to receive help from a second program to manipulate the unknown data.

I'm not sure there's a cut-and-dry case for prior art here. This seems to cover a specific method for one program to ask all other programs how to handle data -- a sort of "plug'n'play" for datatypes. While this is common (if not foolproof) right now, it wasn't in 1991 when the first patent was filed. IF the court is going to generally take this broad a view of this patent (reading the summary judgment decision I saw no reference to the specific methods mentioned in the patent) then Microsoft Office is probably squarely in Kodak's sights. Office was first released for windows (according to WIKI) in 1992 and I don't think it was as seamlessly integrated at the time as described by the patent. Further text from the decision:

The patents disclose the use of a set of integrated computer software programs that can work together to create documents, (or understand documents that have already been created), which use different types of data. Specifically, the inventions teach the creation of a software program that can seek the assistance of other independent software programs if the original program comes across, or is asked to use, data that it does not recognize. For example, a word processing program may generally understand only one kind of data: text. If word processing document were to incorporate a picture, the word processing program would not understand how to manipulate the data containing the picture, and would be unable to display or print the picture.

The kind of integration described in this patent was to my knowledge not existant at the time it was filed and is a rather recent thing. At the very least, it seems that this portion of the patents at issue were significantly ahead of their time, or at least enough that Wang actually worked on the project first and didn't win some race to the patent office.

Re:What about GNU Java

[cofaboy]

yea V nice, try this, My wordprocessor knows not how to print a document so it asks my OS to do it for it. My word processor knows not how to write to the screen so asks the OS to do it, My OS knows not how to write to the screen so asks the device driver. This kills all software on all machines if taken to the extreme. US you are out of the software business.

Re:What about GNU Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean the end of GCJ and other "Free Software" java implementations?

Well, with respect to GCJ, that would be the FSFs judgement call, since they are the copyright holders.

I doubt it, though. Neither Sun or Kodak would do well to sue a non-profit organization such as the FSF. Especially not Sun.

Maybe Sun wanted to lose.

And lose more money than they ever made off Java in the first place? Doubt it.

As if GCJ were somehow a billion-dollar competitor to Java.. It's not that good.

Re:What about GNU Java

[bollow (a) NoLockIn]

Haven't you learned that independently developed but intercompatible software is legal, ala UNIX System Labs vs. Berkely Software Design, Incorporated.

That case was about copyright law. The situation with patent law is much less clear.

Since Microsoft has standardized C# through the ECMA, any patents are limited to products which break C# standards, something which, to my knowledge, Mono and dotGNU do not do.

I am not sure that the defenses which we have against patent-based attacks which are based on patents owned or controlled by MS will also work against patents which are not controlled by MS. I feel that these questions need to be thought trough carefully by a team of good patent lawyers. If you know one one who may be willing to do some pro-bono work to the benefit of DotGNU, please let me know.

Re:What about GNU Java

[jasonshortphd]

They want it to be a ubiquitous language. If Java can't be run on ony OS, then Sun loses.

Then why not make the versioning information more clear? Version 5, Java 2 SDK 1.5? What the heck is all that about?
I would say that if no developers want the language then Sun loses...

Could be better

[ravenspear]

I don't think the issue is as much with software patents in general as the way the system is currently implemented. The Patent Office is so clueless about prior art wrt software that pretty much anyone can patent anything that hasn't already been patented. They can then use that to intimidate or sue other companies even if those companies have been using the same technology for years without obligation to anyone.

Re:Could be better

[pe1rxq]

Personally I don't think there is anything special about software... Patents are just wrong.
The patent system assumes that ideas are something unique and that it is something special to come up with new ideas. It is only with software that the mistake becomes really obvious.

If it were really neccessary for us to advance how the hell did the monkey ever come out of the tree without a working patent system?

Jeroen

Re:Could be better

[Soko]

The USPTO isn't just clueless about prior art - they have no idea what-so-ever about what is an obvious/overly broad patent when it comes to software. Either that, or they're looking the other way for some reason. Who knows - I can't make heads or tails of how/why they grant the patents they do.

Soko

Re:Could be better

[roman_mir]

Patents are not just wrong. An inventor with his new shiny invention goes to a manufacture X, and the manufacturer gets the implementation details for the invention and profits and kicks the inventor out of the door. Bang. If you are the inventor you want some protection.

Software is different. The barrier to entry is small, all you need is a Turin complete machine (a PC) and you are golden. Well, at least you can build some things that way. But the problem with software patents is that software is really just special cases of math, and math ideas should not be patentable. Do you want to pay royalty to company X just because you added 1 and 1 together?
Software ideas are too broad to be patentable. An example:
Controller software managing transformation and transmission of data structures.
That's it. That's your entire computing right there. If I patent it everyone has to pay royalty to me if they use a computer in any way.

Software is different from physical things in a way that it represents ideas more than just implementations. Patents to physical objects are more obvious than patents to ideas that can be in principle reduced to a simple set of mathematical rules that define the Turin Complete Machine.

Re:Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers aren't just math anymore than life is math. No one anywhere is saying 1 + 1 is patentable.

I agree that software is different and shouldn't be patentable. Maybe real life is the same though. Surely they're standing on the shoulders of giants too.

Re:Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd done it once, I'd just assume that it was a typo and not worry about it. But since you did it twice, it's likely you really don't know.

It's a Turing machine, not a Turin machine. It's named after Alan Turing.

Re:Could be better

[pe1rxq]

You are using the same old story about the little inventor and the big bad company....
A little spin on that one:

An inventor with his new shiny invention and a few tens of thousands of dollars to spare goes to the patent office and gets a patent. (Ignoring the fact that a few thousand others might come up with the same solution when presented with his problem)
Now the inventor goes to the manufacturer and waives around his patent. Manufacturer says: 'great, but by the way we have a few patents of our own that cover part of your invention'
Inventor has no way to sell it to anyone but that one manufacturer and gets screwed anyway.

If you are a inventor and want protection use an NDA.
The current system punishes unrelated third parties that just happend to have the same idea (possibly even years earlier).

Jeroen

Re:Could be better

[Vicegrip]

Software is fundamentally a mathematical process.

Read Donald Knuth's letter to the USPTO to get a better understanding of this reasoning against software patents.

What PJ is effectively pointing out is that software patents have degenerated from rewarding true innovators to being serious road blocks to software innovation. They are land mines waiting to explode on anyone writing serious software without the resources to pay an army of lawyers to protect them.

Re:Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

The Inventor should sue the Manufacturer for violating the Non-Compete or NDA parts of their contract.

You don't need patents for that.

And software is no different from hardware or genetics or whatever - for any modest sized company the barriers to entry of manufacturing any of those things is tiny - you just call up the same manufacturers everyone else does in China and they'll build your chips, CDs or plastics.

Re:Could be better

[RWerp]

An inventor with his new shiny invention and a few tens of thousands of dollars to spare goes to the patent office and gets a patent.

He can as well spare a few thousand bucks more to find out, whether his invention infringes other parties' patents.

Re:Could be better

[nihilogos]

I think it's more than prior art. Sun has spent the better part of a decade developing Java. Kodak is now going to claim half of Sun's operating profit for the past five years or so, about 1 billion dollars, because they acquired some patents from a company (Wang) that, looking at the patents, spent the better part of a month on them.

Re:Could be better

[Qzukk]

With the gibberish patent lawyers use in their patents? Abstracts that have nothing to do with the claims? Overly broad claims that cover everything?

And thats without the fact that in the end the claims get interpreted by human beings, and especially in the case of software, the fact that human beings cannot always see how software works (unless its open source. Go FOSS!). A recent case from a friend of mine: there is a patent in place for scheduling appointments with people based on two databases (specifically those words in the claim), one with pending appointments and another with approved appointments. He said "well, we can do this with one database. The company lawyers said that since the software would be closed source, anyone implementing a scheduler which allowed people to screen and approve appointments would be a sitting duck for a lawsuit. Even if the source was revealed and it showed that it used a single database with a field for pending/approved appointments, someone could argue that by dividing the database in such a way, there is effectively two separate databases, and a judge or jury might be fooled into agreeing. That feature of the project was canned.

Re:Could be better

[RWerp]

Can't you subvert the said patent, as being overly broad?

Re:Could be better

[RodgerDodger]

That's not what patents were about. Patents were about the real, demonstratable fact that producing an idea and turning it into a finished product was an extremely expensive process in the 19th century. In many industries, this is still the case.

In order to foster innovation, companies needed protection; otherwise, it was a lot cheaper to let the other companies innovate and then copy them later.

Two things have changed in this regard:
1. Many ideas are now a lot cheaper to take to market than they used to be. This makes the cost of innovation a lot less, and thus the rewards (in the form of protection) should be less, in those areas (it's not true everywhere).

2. Companies have taken to a scattergun approach to patent laws. The idea has become to profit from the patent, not from the innovation. This is particularly bad.

How to solve this: Restore patents to a state where they only protect innovation, not litigation, and make them non-transferable; a company that's gone bankrupt anyway doesn't need protection, and with acquisitions it's easy to keep the old comapny alive to retain the patent right.

Re:Could be better

[Dashing Leech]

If you are a inventor and want protection use an NDA.

That misses the key trade in a patent system: publication of the idea. Your version of "protection" results in the idea being kept secret by the inventor and the public never benefiting from the knowledge of the idea, or the public can figure it out (e.g., reverse engineering) and the inventor is left unprotected. Yes, patents have a downside, but they are recognized as a necessary evil. The key to a good patent system is a proper balance between the public good and providing enough protection for the inventor to publish their idea (in a patent). Once the patent runs out the invention design is in the public domain and can be built, sold, and improved by anyone. Some people seem to miss the point that without patents there'd be fewer publically available designs.

Re:Could be better

[0x0d0a]

While I agree with you that software patents are a terribly bad idea, I have to call you on one of your arguments:

An example:
Controller software managing transformation and transmission of data structures.

That is almost certainly the title of a patent. The title means effectively nothing from a legal standpoint. Ignore it and the abstract and go straight to the claims. No claim will look like the example you listed.

Re:Could be better

[burns210]

That disregards the part about mathmatical formulas are not patentable... As they are discovered, not created.

Programming is essentially a markup language surrounding mathmatical formulas and thus, should not be patentable.

Re:Could be better

[Deecrypt]

Innovation is what got the monkey to use the tree to build a house rather than living in it. The patent system asks that the new product/process ideas also have industrial implications. Unfortunately its downfall is that only big companies can use it to get rid of competition i.e IBM and what happens when there is no competition........no innovation Khurram

Re:Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, after you sue and/or have been sued. That costs money, and is completely uncertain thanks to the decision being made by a jury of random people who typically have no clue whats going on. (For instance take a look at the Sun vs. Kodak trial, decided by a jury of people who all lived in Kodak's home town.)

Re:Could be better

[j. andrew rogers]

Software is fundamentally a mathematical process.

If algorithmic information theory has taught us anything, it is that everything is fundamentally a mathematical process. In this fashion, software is no different than anything else.

Again, we must either decide on a universal and consistent patent system, or none at all. Arbitrary and capricious decisions as to what can and can't be patented are certainly not the way to go. Personally, I'd be happy if we just cracked down on frivolous patents, a problem that plagues patents entirely unrelated to software as well.

Re:Could be better

[John Miles]

Some people seem to miss the point that without patents there'd be fewer publically available designs.

No, most people realize it wouldn't matter.

The originators of the patent system thought it might spur innovation by establishing a public record of the workings of existing inventions. However, in reality, the only reason anyone carries out patent searches today is to scout out potential infringement claims, for either offensive or defensive purposes.

That is why the system is broken. The USPTO should be throwing out any patent whose description is obvious enough that it's likely to be reinvented without a patent search. Otherwise, the patent system really does benefit nobody but the lawyers (and lucky 'inventors' of soon-to-be-obvious concepts).

Re:Could be better

[Dashing Leech]

I agree. I have yet to see an argument that demonstrates "software" patents are inherently bad. There really is no such thing as "software patents" anyway. They are patents on "methods" or "algorithms". Some of them can be implemented in hardware rather than software but in this day and age that is unlikely to happen. There are essentially two arguments against such patents: examples of bad software patents and the harm they've caused, and stating that software is just math and math isn't (or shouldn't be) patentable. This is essentially what the case against software patents comes down to. Lets look at these two arguemtns:

Examples of where "software" patents have been, or can be, harmful is not an argument that they are inherently bad. There are also bad "device" patents even outside software, such as the combover and using a laser pointer to play with a cat. It also doesn't show that all software patents are harmful.

The harm caused by some software patents isn't because algorithms and methods are patentable, it's because simple obvious ones are being approved as valid patents. Think about it. If the algorithm is not trivial or simple, nobody would come up with it by chance anyway and so it isn't stopping them from doing anything. For example, there are a multitude of machine vision algorithms such as facial recognition or object recognition. You can't accidently stumble on the same approach, they are complicated an non-obvious. Patenting these harms nobody. If they weren't patentable, many of these intelligent algorithms would not get published and would be kept secret, so we'd never learn how they worked and couldn't improve from them. Conversely, as in the typical examples given, if someone can inadvertantly implement a patented algorithm, it must be somewhat obvious to people in the industry (and hence shouldn't be patentable).

As far as the "it's just math" argument, I go back again to machine vision. Yes, it can be written as math. But we're not talking about fundamental math derivable from first principles, we're talking about procedures that involve math as a basic building block. This is akin to developing physical devices in which physical laws are the basic building blocks. Often a physical design is optimized by math, the same as an algorithm.

In short, so far the arguments against software patents in general don't hold water. Yes, there absolutely has to be patent reform, but that includes all forms of patents. But that doesn't mean that one has to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are non-harmful algorithms (and I would argue these are the majority of algorithms) and it is in the public's interest to provide some protection to the inventor, otherwise these algorithms will be kept secret.

Re:Could be better

[Free_Meson]

The patent system assumes that ideas are something unique and that it is something special to come up with new ideas. It is only with software that the mistake becomes really obvious.

You have no idea about what you are talking. The problem with software patents is not that they are not special, it's that it's nearly impossible to determine novelty or nonobviousness. In a closed source world, the only way to determine what, exactly, a piece of software does and how it does it is through a patent. You could break out the hex editor and attempt a reverse-compilation, but you would have to do that with every piece of software before determining whether some new piece of software was either new or nonobvious. If every piece of software were open source, it would be easier to determine whether something was actually novel or nonobvious.

I also doubt you fully appreciate the three requirements of a patent -- that it be new, useful, and nonobvious. It has to be new -- that is it can't currently exist. It has to be useful -- meaning it has to solve a problem or convey some benefit to the user or practitioner. It has to be nonobvious to an expert in the field. If you come across a new problem, or are working on an old one, and come up with a novel solution to it that would not be obvious to an expert in the field, then society has an interest in learning your solution. To be absurd for a moment, how would you feel if some doctor got HIV (or cancer, or whatever), devised a cure, cured himself, and then told no one about it? What if you had HIV, or cancer? The patent system is how society pays for such secrets. Perhaps you think the USPTO grants patents for inventions that are overly obvious, and with software patents that is occasionally the case. There are reasons (above) for this, though, and it is the aggressive pursuit of software patents that will, through disclosing these methods, eventually reign in the "software patent monster" by increasing the availability of prior art.

If it were really neccessary for us to advance how the hell did the monkey ever come out of the tree without a working patent system?

It took roughly 7 million years (6.8, IIRC) for those tree apes that became men to develop the (modern) steam engine. It took approximately 200 years from the development of the modern steam engine for man to land on the moon. Innovation during the latter interval was protected by an effective patent system while innovation in the former interval was not. Attitudes such as yours towards innovation will soon see us back in the trees, though, and as I have no affinity for small, biting insects I would prefer for that not to happen.

Re:Could be better

[RWerp]

But the same can be said about every case decided by the jury. It's not patent-specific. If you don't like it, abolish the jury system and make judge decide about everything.

Re:Could be better

[Mithrandir]

Programming is essentially a markup language surrounding mathmatical formulas and thus, should not be patentable.

ooooh, what a lovely sound-bitish summary. I see a new email sig in the making there.

Re:Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the issue is as much with software patents in general as the way the system is currently implemented. The Patent Office is so clueless about prior art wrt software that pretty much anyone can patent anything that hasn't already been patented.

I have mod points, but instead I'll take this opportunity to point out that you're talking out of your ass.

Can you even define what "prior art" is? I'll even play nice and give you a clue - it's 35 U.S.C. Sections 102 and 103. What you think is "prior art" isn't worth a bucket of warm spit - what the law says is prior art is the one and only meaningful definition.

Next, can you provide a single reference where a prior art issue was clearly missed by the patent examiners - not situations where the review board overtuned an examiner's rejection? I know that "having a basic understanding of the system I'm criticizing" is completely superfluous to getting mod points around here, so let me be clear that we're ruling out cases where the review board overturned rejections.

I know this is shocking to roughly 98.7% of people at Slashdot, but basically every patent was rejected at least once - the fabled "First Action Allowance", an application that wasn't rejected at least once, is spoken of in terms like, "Yeah, I had a first action allowance once back in the 90s."

Third, "pretty much anyone can patent anything that hasn't already been patented", provided that "anything" falls into an area of statutory subject matter, is WHAT THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION SAYS SHOULD BE PATENTED YOU DUMB ASS .

And once again - I chose to post instead of moderate, partly because there isn't a "-1 Misinformed Retard" option, and partly to be helpful. Hope you were helped.

Re:Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

~From an anonymous examiner:

Software is fundamentally a mathematical process.

Quite true. Software itself is unpatentable - you must claim it interacting with something tangible. It controls a processor, it takes input from a user, it causes a display to operate, etc. In this way, it legally becomes a component of a larger process, like, "I'm flying an airplance and a computer is helping," even if the claims are 99% about software and 1% about airplanes.

To make that any more restrictive would cause thousands of corporate lawyers to descend upon the USPTO with innumerable appeals until a federal judge substantiated the USPTO's (new) position. Since the case law supports that a method, process, or invention that makes use of software is just as legitimate as any other method, process, or invention, you have the current practice of the USPTO.

Don't for a moment think that some nutcase on Slashdot was the first to point out that software is a mathematical process - or that Knuth was being insightful by supporting that opinion. Examiners know that "a computer" is prior art for any purely software invention, and there are mountains of case law supporting that stance. If an prior art can perform the function of another invention, even if it is not disclosed, the difference is a "naming convention". If prior art has all the functions of an invention, even if the claimed limitations are not disclosed, the prior art teaches all the limitations. Any tangible implementation of a Turing machine is prior art (if old enough) for all software. You know that, Knuth knows that, many examiners know that, and some lawyers probably know that, but the problem is that if the USPTO took that stance, there is no legal justification. The USPTO would have to fight that issue all the way to the Federal Courts and argue at least a 4 year degree in computer science to a judge who probably isn't interested and have as plaintiffs billions upon billions of dollars in corporate interest. And what for? To eliminate software patents before their issued rather than when the assignee attempts to enforce them? There is nothing for the USPTO to win and it's extremely unlikely that they could, in the first place. They are land mines waiting to explode on anyone writing serious software without the resources to pay an army of lawyers to protect them.

Lawyers are at the heart of the problem, aren't they? You know what's really going to change the situation? When two teams of corporate lawyers go after each other, appeal the case to the Federal level, and get the judge to recognize that a Turing Machine teaches all software. Want to guess how likely that is to happen? 0. The legal team that "wins" would lose anyway.

And finally, in case this gets moderated positively, take a moment to realize that police officers don't write the law and don't prosecute the law. They just do their best to uphold the law and execute the law on a day to day basis. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and politicians make the laws. Such is the case of the patent examiner who is quite analogous to a police officer. They aren't nearly as clueless as many people think, but they're blamed for problems other people create. Take a look at the attorneys and case law if you want to know why the examiners issue "crazy" patents.

Re:Could be better

[ravenspear]

Third, "pretty much anyone can patent anything that hasn't already been patented", provided that "anything" falls into an area of statutory subject matter, is WHAT THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION SAYS SHOULD BE PATENTED YOU DUMB ASS.

Sorry but you are the uninformed dumbass here. What I was saying was that "anything that hadn't already been patented" could include common technologies that had been in use for a long time by a lot of people. Thus if someone tried to patent such a technology, there would be numerous examples of prior art that could be cited. Further, I was pointing out was that the USPTO has been abysmal in their recognition of such prior art and has been readily granting patents for such commonplace things as clicking a mouse or executing a program as root. These things were most certainly not patented by the inventor but by various companies decades after the fact solely to gain a legal advantage over competing products.

Re:Could be better

[Fortress]

> ...make them non-transferable; a company that's gone bankrupt anyway doesn't need protection, and with acquisitions it's easy to keep the old comapny alive to retain the patent right.

This seems like a bad idea to me. If a lone inventor invents something useful, the only way he can profit from it is to produce it and sell it, an endeavor that the inventor may not be well suited to. His/her talents are more likely to lie in the creative process than the managerial and production oriented fields, the inventor is better off selling or licensing his/her patent to a company with production infrastructure already in place.

Besides, this policy is easily circumvented by companies, but not individuals. A company can just create a new sub-company to hold the patent and sell that company to the highest bidder. An individual can't create a sub-individual, thou I guess they could create a holding company to own the patent.

It just seems that such a rule would favor the big guy and punish the little guy, one thing that patent laws should do the opposite of.

Re:Could be better

[Free_Meson]

The originators of the patent system thought it might spur innovation by establishing a public record of the workings of existing inventions. However, in reality, the only reason anyone carries out patent searches today is to scout out potential infringement claims, for either offensive or defensive purposes.

The Patent database isn't a good place to find prior art, anyway. Recent applications aren't there and nothing before '76 is searchable. The normal scenario for an independent inventor is this:
1)Inventor has problem.
2)Inventor searches for solution to problem.
3)Inventor finds no solution to problem discussed on the internet or in industry-specific journals or in publications addressing the problem.
4)Inventor wishes there were a solution to this problem.
5)Inventor gets an idea.
6)Inventor with new knowledge (the idea) again searches for solutions to the problem, finding nothing.
7)Inventor invests time and money in creating a workable solution to unsolved problem.
8)Inventor realizes (or knew before) that other people with the same problem will not see their problem solved unless the Inventor can effect a profitable method for inducing others to manufacture and distribute the invention to those with the problem.
9)Inventor realizes that no manufacturing company will talk to him without a patent because of the high costs assocated with mass production.
10)Inventor contacts lawyers who
11)Pay a private firm to search the world's publications and patents in dozens of different languages in order to determine whether the invention is novel.
12)If invention is novel, inventor pays lawyers to draft and submit a patent (for the sake of argument, it is immediately accepted).
13)Inventor talks with Company X that now is willing to invest monstrous ammounts of money retooling his factory because he knows that no subsequent company will undercut his prices once he has established a market for the invention.

The patent database is really only useful to large companies (who do a lot of research and would prefer not to duplicate what they can license) and lawyers. This isn't a sign of the obsolescence of the patent system, though -- it is a sign that it is working remarkably well. There is rarely any need to search a patent database because, once patented, ideas, designs, products, etc are freely discussed. Why search through a patent database when google has 10 pages of links to descriptions of a product, what it is used for, and why it works? Maybe if you have some bizarre fetish for arcane wording and complicated claim structures you'd search the database, but for the vast majority of people it is redundant BECAUSE of the rights granted to the patent holder.

That is why the system is broken. The USPTO should be throwing out any patent whose description is obvious enough that it's likely to be reinvented without a patent search. Otherwise, the patent system really does benefit nobody but the lawyers (and lucky 'inventors' of soon-to-be-obvious concepts).

Yeah, I have no idea what you are trying to say here. The patent search is only useful once you've invented something. It is very hard to search a database for something that isn't there. More to the point, in most cases you would find a more exact answer to the question of "is this new?" by using google. Should inventors be barred from using the internet? Besides, a patent is nothing more than its claims. A patent's description is not enforceable as a patent. In the current case, the invention is described only as "a method by which a program can "ask for help" from another application to carry out certain functions." That tells you nothing about what the patent covers, beyond some form of interprocess communication. You have no idea if it is truly novel or not, and you couldn't because you haven't read the patent.

Surely you will concede that there exist some things novel enou

Re:Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but you are the uninformed dumbass here. What I was saying was that "anything that hadn't already been patented" could include common technologies that had been in use for a long time by a lot of people.

If you can't say what you mean, that's your problem, not mine.

Thus if someone tried to patent such a technology, there would be numerous examples of prior art that could be cited.

I ask you again what you think "prior art" is. I have given you a hint already - go paraphrase 35 U.S.C. Sections 102 and 103.

Further, I was pointing out was that the USPTO has been abysmal in their recognition of such prior art

I said you're a dumb ass with no substantiation and you simply said I was wrong. Twice you have said that the USPTO fails to recognize what prior art is and twice I say you're a dumb fucktard. I strongly doubt you know what "prior art" is - you have a general idea but haven't even glanced at the actual laws. Maybe you've glanced at the laws but you've never rejected a lawyer's application on the basis of prior art. The obvious conclusion is that you're talking out of your ass and connecting the dots to "dumb fucktard" is a trivial exercise left to the reader.

Re:Could be better

[jackb_guppy]

But software is different than a driver train for a car.

Software is better to be thought of: as order in which to assemble the atoms that make the driver train for a car. Or simpler that steps to bake a cake.

That *IS* the fundimental difference.

Is a receipe a patentable?
Is the receipe for cherry pie patentable?
Is the receipe for a new drug patentable?

That is focus. How much complexity / work needs to put into a receipe that makes it cross into a patentable range?

There is patent out there to today that calculates your credit risk/worthness. Why was that math routine patentable?

Re:Could be better

[j. andrew rogers]

The research that went into many software algorithms was non-trivial. I work with (a still unpublished in any form) family of algorithms that actually required an 8-year R&D effort to develop, and with high commercial value. Why should this receive less (hypothetical) protection than some worthless mechanical trinket someone threw together in their garage?

It seems like you are merely arguing against frivolous patents, a completely separate issue. Most mechanical patents are crap, just like most software patents. But because this is slashdot, we focus on the software ones. I have seen no real valid argument why high-investment algorithm R&D should not be patent protected while a widget with similar investment in time and money should be. We already know there is no difference between "machine" and "software" theoretically, so that can't be the issue.

Re:Could be better

[roman_mir]

well, I am sorry to Alan, I forgot the spelling of his full name, thank you for reminding me?

Re:Could be better

[roman_mir]

Wrong, the inventor does not have the money. Besides, the inventor can also publish his work if the patents are respected.

Re:Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with software patents is not that they are not special, it's that it's nearly impossible to determine novelty or nonobviousness.

Given that, patent is pretty much impossible idea to apply for software, and trying to do so is counterproductive to patent's intent. How would you "tweak" the system to suit software?

...it is the aggressive pursuit of software patents that will, through disclosing these methods, eventually reign in the "software patent monster" by increasing the availability of prior art...

Not as long as USPTO keeps pumping out stupid software patents (and stupid patents of other types). It's like sucking with a straw at the mouth of fire hydrant. This will make expensive legal service prequisite for software development work of all scales. You wouldn't be a lawyer, would you?

It took roughly 7 million years (6.8, IIRC) for those tree apes that became men to develop the (modern) steam engine. It took approximately 200 years from the development of the modern steam engine for man to land on the moon. Innovation during the latter interval was protected by an effective patent system while innovation in the former interval was not.

Now you are sprewing complete bullshit. Did European Enlightenment start because patent law? Did Von Braun built the rockets because patent laws? Did Henry Ford employed assmebly line because of patent laws? What buncha self-serving nonsense.

Re:Could be better

[ravenspear]

The obvious conclusion is that you're talking out of your ass and connecting the dots to "dumb fucktard" is a trivial exercise left to the reader.

And this dear readers is an excellent illustration of why not to feed the trolls.

Re:Could be better

[roman_mir]

No one anywhere is saying 1 + 1 is patentable. - oh, really? But I bet they would, one click shopping, then one and one more click shopping.

Software are more math than life. Computers are not life, if you didn't figure that out yet, you need to get out more :)

Computer instructions operate in a complete set of commands - a language ( I am not talking about a high level language, rather a Turing complete type of language.) Life does not fit this definition because it is not a Finite State Automaton and computers are. So computing is reducible to a T.C. Language and life is not. Computing is very much math, much more than life in general. Algorithms are math, you don't deny that, right? Algorithms are provable mathematically, they are math. You do not describe your HTML page in real life anything, you describe it in a finite set of commands, a language. C or Java can be used to simulate other computers that can simulate C and Java back completely. This is all math, it's just that for people it's difficult to understand that theoretical math is the same as practical math. That's exactly because people don't get math.

Re:Could be better

[grahammm]

No, the lone inventor can license manufacturers to produce and sell it. The difference being that (s)he retains control over the rights.

Re:Could be better

[arose]

Ever read a patent? It seems that they are written to be as confusing and ambiguous as possible.

Re:Could be better

[arose]

12)If the invention is patented, inventor is out of time and money spent 7 and can't use/sell his solution, even if it improves on the patented one in some ways.

Re:Could be better

[arose]

It souldn't receive any protection at all beyond (reasonable) copyright. What if someone spent 7-years on similar algorithms and you patent before they do? Why do they deserve less protection just because they started a year later?

Re:Could be better

[jackb_guppy]

All software is trivial. It is a bunch of moves and adds nothing more.

But as we build apon prior constructions... macros that do I/O, then sorting, then ISAM, then DB, then RDB, then 4GL... Why is the later more patentable then the move?

I too have spend many years building what in the end was a non-trival system. One part alone 1/4 million lines of assembler... but in again that was all moves and adds, macros for I/O... And just because the idea overall handled inventory control, why should it be patentable?

There are many ways to do inventory control, this is just one.

Again what makes one receipe more patentable than another?

What you talk about is to me trade secert, just like what I worked on. A receipe is a trade secert not a patent.

Re:Could be better

[RWerp]

So you want to abolish the system just because YOU don't understand how it works? Wonderful. Apply this to economics, law in general, IT... Welcome to Bedrock!

Re:Could be better

[warrax_666]

You can't accidently stumble on the same approach, they are complicated an non-obvious.

Yes. You. Can. Wherever someone is sitting around "inventing"/discovering something someone else is sitting around somewhere else "inventing"/discovering the exact same thing. Regardless of how complex a given (software) solution is, it was almost always arrived at in small logical steps. There is no particular reason to believe that somebody else could not have replicated the essential parts of the though process required to arrive at that solution.

Very few things indeed require a "leap" and those are almost never software-related, they are things like General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, the realization that there are these tiny little things called Bacteria, etc. In fact, about the only such "leaps" in computing were the Babbage's Analytical Engine and the "invention" of the Turing Machine. (And the latter could even be argued to be the inevitable conclusion of all the theoretical work that was being done on models of computation -- especially since TMs are the most "powerful" model of computation currently known).

One of my biggest issues with software-patentability in general is the fact that there is no allowance for independent invention (like there is with e.g. copyright)... You simply cannot protect yourself from liability (and it appears that not even billion-dollar companies with hordes of lawyers can either).

Re:Could be better

[Dashing Leech]

However, in reality, the only reason anyone carries out patent searches today is to scout out potential infringement claims, for either offensive or defensive purposes.

That's not true at all. Many companies, and including myself, search a patent to determine how a particular new invention works and to learn from it. I agree that this has less meaning than it did when the patent system was originated because by the time the patent has run out the technology is probably long obsolete. But this doesn't mean that the principles involved in how it works don't create better understanding of the invention (including pros and cons) as well as create ideas in people's minds (including mine) using similar principles. Even if those new ideas are close enough to the original that it requires licensing with the patent owner, without the publication of the patent those new ideas never would have existed. In that sense, it is even more in the best interest for an inventor to patent because even if someone comes up with something better based on their idea, the inventor still gets to profit.

Again, I'm not saying the current system isn't full of problems. It certainly needs reform. But that doesn't mean the principle of a patent system inherently harms innovation. Even the current broken system does create advancements, albeit poorly balanced against the developments it stops.

Re:Could be better

[Dashing Leech]

Wherever someone is sitting around "inventing"/discovering something someone else is sitting around somewhere else "inventing"/discovering the exact same thing.

Absolute bull. Let's take, for example, an object recognition algorithm that uses data from 3 different types of sensors, performs a dozen algorithms on each sensor image, performs a database search on each processed image using unique comparison algorithms, combines the results into a singe metric, and performs self-consistency and validation checking using unique properties of the algorithms. There are litterally thousands of steps involved using a variety of techniques specific to those sensors and the way they are combined. The odds that anyone else in the world is even close to the same approach are infinitessimal. We're not talking about algorithms that are derivable from first principles, we're talking about a very complex network of algorithms.

And, supposing someone somewhere did stumble upon a similar, even if not identical approach, how would this be harmful to software development in general? Again, we're talking about very specific algorithms for a specific purpose that has nothing to do with normal operation of software. Do software developers normally in the run of a day have 3 specific sensors they are trying to perform object recognition on?

More importantly, the argument that someone else is coming up with the same thing would apply just as much to physical devices.

Re:Could be better

[vettemph]

A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct.

I don't think a beam of invisible light will be effective, nor is a laser "invisible". I (and everyone else) has had our cats and dogs chasing light for well over twenty years. Anyone remember flashlights??? ...the reflection of your watch from the sun???? My cats have chased all of the prior art already. My moms cats chased all the prior art 20 years ago.

Re:Could be better

[$1uck]

I'm sorry but your saying that just b/c something is complicated that there is no way two different people would stumble upon the same method is just wrong. I think its highly likely that two different people tackling the same problem might very well use the same methods.... newton and some other fellow and calculus comes to mind (maybe not as complicated by todays standards but still...). Problems tend to have solutions most solutions (come to by humans) to the same problem are going to have similarities.

Re:Could be better

[arose]

Are you trying to say that the system is designed to layer bullshit on bullshit on bullshit.

Re:Could be better

[mOdQuArK!]

There are litterally thousands of steps involved using a variety of techniques specific to those sensors and the way they are combined. The odds that anyone else in the world is even close to the same approach are infinitessimal.

Absolute bull indeed.

While _you_ might perceive a large system as being indivisibly complex, by the time a good engineer gets done breaking it down into small processes, there aren't many pieces left that are truly innovative. In fact, a good engineer would probably be highly skeptical about the success of a project which depended on too many implementations which _weren't_ tried-and-true solutions.

Even with the contrived example you put together, if you described in detail each individual part of the process you are trying to accomplish: "we've got these types of sensors, they deliver this type of data, we're trying to extract this type of information", I can almost guarantee that different engineers are going to have very "standard" ways of solving that problem which will be completely obvious to each other.

Re:Could be better

[RWerp]

I'm trying to say that patent system should be corrected when necessary, not abolished.

Re:Could be better

[mkldev]

The problem is that computer software is relatively easy for an expert in the field to create, and there are rarely multiple ways of doing something, for compatibility reasons. It isn't like inventing a pencil with an eraser on the end, where another company can make a pencil and a separate eraser and still be compatible. Compatibility is only an issue in software, and therefore deserves consideration in patent protection.

The fact of the matter is that there are very, very few algorithms that are sufficiently novel to the average programmer to allow patents. I can think of maybe ten, and they all have to do with data compression and/or analysis (Lempel-Ziv, Huffman coding, Fast Fourier Transform, Discrete Cosine Transform... okay, you've got me... I can't come up with ten...). In the case of those, they have become parts of ubiquitous standards, such that if patents were used against those who have implemented these algorithms, it would be the end of computing as we know it.

I can't think of any patent that hasn't become ubiquitous that isn't obvious. For compatibility reasons, the non-obvious ones (i.e. the ones that don't have eighteen work-arounds because they're so simple and transparent that they should never have been patentable) become implemented everywhere, and must, by definition, be implemented everywhere.

Thus, Software patents are like a car company being allowed to patent "an apparatus that allows driving on the right side of the road", if there were such an apparatus. It effectively would have created a twenty year monopoly on all automobile manufacture, regardless of design, because no other vehicle could be compatible with existing roads. That's not what patents were designed to do. They were designed to provide a limited monopoly on a single design. The very nature of software makes this impossible, and -that- is why software patents are inherently bad.

Re:Could be better

[Michael Woodhams]

No, no, it really is a Turin machine. This is a device with internal states and a shroud that it moves back and forth, writing and removing mysterious negative images of dead people.

Re:Could be better

[Minna Kirai]

I also doubt you fully appreciate the three requirements of a patent -- that it be new, useful, and nonobvious.

How can you say that on the same planet where Amazon owns a patent on one-click ordering? Those are decent guiding principles, but real-life patent offices don't care about them. As long as there's no prior art (which would prove non-obviousness beyond a shadow of a doubt), it's good enough for them.

eventually reign in the "software patent monster" by increasing the availability of prior art.

NO! Just because documented prior art isn't available, it doesn't mean that something is so non-obvious that granting a patent for it will promote the progress of science! It usually just means that the preconditions for the "invention" weren't yet available.

It took roughly 7 million years (6.8, IIRC) for those tree apes that became men to develop the (modern) steam engine. It took approximately 200 years from the development of the modern steam engine for man to land on the moon

That's a totally invalid comparison. The effort needed to build or research isn't measured in wallclock time, but man-hours (time elapsed * number of people). What was the population for those 6.8 million years? For much of it, less than 100,000 people. The past 3 centuries saw a population explosion.

Also, 7 million years is wrong to count from too. 7000 years back would be more fair.

Innovation during the latter interval was protected by an effective patent system while innovation in the former interval was not.

Swapping cause and effect. Also binary perceptual disease.

Re:Could be better

[Dashing Leech]

... by the time a good engineer gets done breaking it down into small processes, there aren't many pieces left that are truly innovative.

See, here's your problem. Patents are generated for the "pieces" that make them innovative. All patented mechanical devices can be broken down into the 4 simple machine components. The patent is on the way in which they are put together. By breaking it down the way you suggest, of course there won't be anything truly innovative, it's the combination that is innovative. And it is extremely unlikely that any two people would come up with the same combination near the same time, and exponentially less likely the more complicated the combination is. There are rare exceptions like radio and telephone but these aren't by coincidence.

Re:Could be better

[gbjbaanb]

Perhaps you think the USPTO grants patents for inventions that are overly obvious,

of course everyone thinks this - all patents are obvious now, once the idea's been explained to you.

Bzzzzzzt

[Anonymous Coward]

Bottom line: the software patent 'cold war' provides no benefits to anyone[.]

I disagree. As a patent lawyer with a background in software, the "software patent cold war" has provided me many benefits (such as my new house).

Re:Bzzzzzzt

[Anonymous Coward]

And it provides benefits to Microsoft and Sun, who are now the only legal vendors of Java, locking Linux out of the market for good (until they can find a billion to give Kodak).

Re:Bzzzzzzt

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe lawyers register as sentient lifeforms, so the term "anyone" doesn't apply. ;)

Re:Bzzzzzzt

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you, brother. Before all this patent controversy I had nothing to moan about on Slashdot. Now I can get karma easily by making the same tired arguments over and over again.

Re:Bzzzzzzt

[ScrewMaster]

That's not fair. Even microbes have rights.

Hey! Where's my can of Lysol?

Re:Bzzzzzzt

[Anonymous Coward]

is this fossil man, no you quit being a patent laywer, because you won 5 million on WSOP?

Kodak vs. Polaroid

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone remember the Kodak vs. Polaroid lawsuit?

Maybe that experience is what gave Kodak the idea. The sheer number of software programs constantly being developed also makes patent searches an overwhelming task. And how do you research prior art in proprietary software licensed under terms that forbid reverse engineering?

There are other reasons too that they list. Software is developed so rapidly a 17-year blockade is impractical; it never wears out, so the traditional argument that patents are needed to stimulate stagnant industries doesn't apply.

Patents hold back rapid development, and they are designed to protect mature industries, once the rapid phase is completed, but with software, there is no end to the rapid development, no maturity plateau that can be beneficially protected.

As Microsoft has learned, software doesn't wear out. You can run Windows 95 in 2004, if you so choose, and the only motivation to upgrade is if the customer wants innovation, new bells and whistles. So patents aren't needed to encourage invention. Software companies have to invent, because their product never wears out.

Re:Kodak vs. Polaroid

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, Moderators? This is copy/paste from the Groklaw article with some paragraph breaks added.

Rants

[NightDragon]

Yeah. Rants dont look good when yer on groklaw, b/c rants give you a crapload of unorganized info, and it just doesent have a hook that makes a reader want to keep reading.

Re:Rants

[Anonymous Coward]

Says who?

Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't Kodak sue SCO now ? I mean, I have a java runtime on my linux box... and who's responsible for linux? eh ?....

Some people can play

[Anonymous Coward]

The ones with the most money.. They can just buy the rights..

Its us little people that cant play anymore.

about your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Lesbians Against Bush

Re:rants are annoying

[mistersooreams]

I agree with you that rants are for blogs, but I think the blurb does it a disservice by calling it a "rant". It's certainly an impassioned and angry diatribe by someone who feels very strongly on the subject, and maybe that's what rant means to you. But the article is also well layed out, structured, and an interesting read. I don't think we should label every piece of writing which contains a strong opinion as a "rant" - it's good to know that people care about these patent issues.

Re:rants are annoying

[LMCBoy]

for the record, I didn't use the word "rant" in the original article submission, and nor does PJ use it in the linked article.

Why aren't univerities better at the patent game?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems if patents are that valuable, universities should be in a wonderful position of power. Instead of having sutdents publish papers, they should all be filing patents and funding themselves off of the royalties the patents produce.

Software Patent "Cold War"?

[rts008]

Cold war? Seems pretty proactive to me="hot" war. To me, the scary picture of WHO CAN OWN THE MOST PATENTS are who will control (COMPLETELY!) ALL software (how it's used) if this continues. Don't think for a minute MS doesn't see this...That's what they (not just MS) are counting on. The losers are as usual... us. Even IF this trend turns around or stops, the damage will be done. If trend continues much longer, I don't know that even the "tin foil hat" crowd can envision the implications to us all. We HAVE to figure out how to stop this current insanity!

Re:Software Patent "Cold War"?

[Lumpy]

not true.

Many many more OSS writers are releasing under hidden psudeonym names or even with NO author information at all and releasing on overseas sanity-safe servers.

if I want to violate your patent and release a free implimentation onto the world, there is nothing you can do about it.

Want proof?

Look up DeCSS, that genie is not going back in it's bottle, that highely Valuable Patented Process (Yeah right) is 100% worthless now.

I look foreward to the underground computing that will balance things out.

Although ever cince 9/11/01 I knew that programming and Hardware hacking skills will force myself and many others into the underground.

that's ok though, we will be joined by the indie musicians and movie makers shortly.

Think I'm being melodramatic? I suggest you take a look around, it will not be long before running a unapproved OS on your computer will be considered a felony.

Patents won't stop innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, patents aren't like copyrights, where Congress keeps granting extension after extension to the protection period. They'll eventually expire, though granted the number of frivolous patents will obviously slow innovation down incredibly.

This might be an object lesson in other fields, though. If we want to slow down the pace of genetic engineering, for example, just allow extremely broad and ill-defined patents in the field, and by the time they expire perhaps we'll have time to define a series of ethics and protocols to safeguard us.

/ only slightly facetious

Re:Patents won't stop innovation

[russotto]

Yes, patents eventually expire -- but by the time they do, someone else has patented the same process using different wording, and you're back at square zero.

Re:Patents won't stop innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, patents aren't like copyrights, where Congress keeps granting extension after extension to the protection period.

Disney has shown the way. Count on it; after Microsoft has gathered a huge portfolio of patents, they will start lobbying, just like Disney, for extensions on patents to inifinity.

Kodak vs. Sun

[k4_pacific]

It'll be interesting to see what develops. /ducks

Re:Kodak vs. Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

But do they really want that kind of exposure?

Re:Kodak vs. Sun

[ScrewMaster]

A 35mm film camera with a built-in coffeemaker?

Re:Kodak vs. Sun

[Oscar_Wilde]

I imagine a number of interesting things will be exposed.

Re:Kodak vs. Sun

[ScrewMaster]

Hey, Guido, that ain't no problem. Just tell us where to send "The Fixer" and fugeddaboutit.

Re:Kodak vs. Sun

[vettemph]

Kodak Sues Sun for 1 billion dollars, Film at eleven.

mod parent down, redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

And the point of copying and pasting text from the article without further comment was what exactly?

So will MY project infringe somone's patent?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just about to start coding up an implementation of an idea I had a year ago. It would be nice to earn a little money from it, but it won't be much - it may be free.

SO slashdotters, tell me: How can I find out if my project will infringe a patent and cause me trouble in the future?

Where do I look? IANAL and ICNAAL (I cannot afford a lawyer) just now. What should I do?

Re:So will MY project infringe somone's patent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't look anywhere. If you knowingly infringe on a patent, whammo!, triple damages!.

Re:So will MY project infringe somone's patent?

[stratjakt]

As the other poster said, ignorance is bliss. You just go ahead and wait for problems to come to you.

You could plan ahead, think of potential alternate ways to accomplish things your software does.

These sorts of "attack" lawsuits are only filed against people with money anyways, so chances are you'll never have to worry about it.

Re:So will MY project infringe somone's patent?

[Oddly_Drac]

"What should I do?"

Buy a winnebago. drive coast to coast and breath in the deep unfettered air of the land of the free.

Eventually you could consider getting a job with a large corporation and eventually you might find yourself working on a similar project. Rejoice in your litigation protection, citizen.

This epitimizes what is wrong with SW patents

[eamacnaghten]

This epitimizes the case against software patents. They are too open to abuse. The purpose of patents is to encourage inovation, I do not think this is the case with software ones. The vast majority of software is written by employees of non-software companies for those companies. Software patents are irrelevant there. Copyright performs as good a protection where needed regarding software as ever is required.

Even if you think patents are a good thing (as I do), there is no room for Software Patents. The only people they benefit are the Lawyer IP-Land-Grabbers. The vast amount of the proffessionals in the industry I know are against them (includiong me).

Re:This epitimizes what is wrong with SW patents

[doc modulo]

We should encourage companies to enforce their software patents. Drop an anonymous e-mail here and there, so they are notified of the infringements of other commercial companies.

Once the patent wars start, there'll be no stopping them (because of bad blood between companies) and there will be more money to be made from sueing non-open-source companies than open-source projects with volunteers.

Once companies are in multi-million dollar lawsuits. Then maybe the lobbyists working for the corporations will change their tune and push for abolishment of software patents.

My suggestion, get some good patents into the hands of EFF or similar organisations and start the conflict until it bleeds everyone dry in the US and Japan.

We know that software patents are bad because we're smarter than average, we're also knowledgeable of the industry. Others are not so forward-looking and they have to be SHOWN examples of why it's bad. This /. story is one example but we need lots more and worse ones.

Re:This epitimizes what is wrong with SW patents

[Anonymous Coward]

...software patents. They are too open to abuse. The purpose of patents is to encourage inovation, I do not think this is the case with software ones.

Neither Groklaw, nor any of us have even essayed an analysis of the patents at issue between Sun and Kodak. A court and a jury, spent a heck of a lot of time thinking about it and decided that these patents were both valid and infringed. Can we give the jury and the judge a little credit here?

Can we maybe take software patents one at a time rather blaming all of them for the abuses of a few? It's not as if Java existed in 1987, y'know.

Re:This epitimizes what is wrong with SW patents

[mdfst13]

"Once the patent wars start, there'll be no stopping them"

Unfortunately, the big players cross license with each other. Microsoft deals with Sun deals with IBM. The only companies that work as loose cannons are those (like Eolas) that do not produce software products profitably. They can't be intimidated into cross licensing because they don't actually produce the software.

Re:This epitimizes what is wrong with SW patents

[renoX]

>start the conflict until it bleeds everyone dry

And do you release that until the software patents are dropped, the one who will be bleeding are the customers?

A patent war will:
- kill some companies --> less choice for the customers.
- transfer money from some companies to patent holder --> the looser will have to increase the price of their products to pay for the license.

Ok the winner may reduce the prices of their product, but somehow I doubt it..

So while this may ultimately kill the software patent system, in the meantime be prepared to suffer!

Re:This epitimizes what is wrong with SW patents

[doc modulo]

Unfortunately, I think you're right. The Kodak situation is similar to what you're describing, /. posters say they're in trouble and that that's why they're playing the patent violation card now.

How about we adjust the plan to sending e-mails mainly to companies who aren't doing so well and could use an alternative source of income, like Kodak?

Re:Groklaw...

[Anonymous Coward]

Software patents can be a good thing if the USPO was smart.

Yes, and pointing an AK-47 downwards and pulling the trigger can be fun and exciting if you move your feet out of the way fast enough. That doesn't mean it's a sensible risk to take.

good for open source

[cinemabaroque]

there are too many coders for a software patent to be enforceable, especially since a lot of you are the people at the companies. Enforcing a ridiculous software patent is akin to the United States "war" on drugs. A senseless and expensive (lots and lots of jails for non-violent crime) effort that has completely failed to keep drugs out of white suburbia. There are too many of us to keep track of, and even if a specific tool is banned it isn't so hard to make another one, especially with so many millions of copies of the source code for any infringing program would be all over the world.

Re:good for open source

[RWerp]

A senseless and expensive (lots and lots of jails for non-violent crime) effort that has completely failed to keep drugs out of white suburbia.

I thought the war on drugs was meant to keep out drugs of all suburbia. Has the US administration gave up keeping colored kids away from drugs and focused on whites only?

Re:good for open source

[dsanfte]

Don't make me laugh. Nobody in the '70s was concerned with keeping black neighbourhoods safe from drugs. The affluent caucasians were scared of little Billy having a drug dealer at his middle school. The inner cities were viewed as the source of the problem (and where the minorities lived), not the target to be protected.

Re:good for open source

[QuantumG]

Umm no. Say Microsoft decides to go after Open Office because they're messin' with their market share (and they will). There is no company to sue, so Microsoft goes after the individual developers who have infringed on their patents (and you can be sure that they have). The mere threat of a lawsuit will be enough to bankrupt most the developers, but say one actually goes to court. Microsoft will drag out the case (which will cost the developer a fortune) then they'll win and get a huge award of cash from the developer (which he/she won't be able to pay and will go bankrupt as a result of) and then the court will order that Open Office cannot be distributed. That will be the death of Open Source. Every single developer out there (like me) will stop contributing to Open Source projects because any day you could be driven bankrupt by a lawsuit.

Re:good for open source

[blue trane]

Deano's in Seattle (21st and E. Madison) openly deals drugs inside and outside the club. The cops know about it, the neighbors know about it, everyone knows it. But they can't be shut down. People have tried to get their liquor license rescinded, but have failed every time. No one cares it seems.

What they should do is just legalize the damn shit. Keeping it illegal just funds the damn gangs that are in control of the street distribution.

Re:good for open source

[b1scuit]

Whew! I thought they were going to go ahead and waste all that time and create all that grief by trying to enforce them anyway. I'm sure glad they have the war on drugs to use as an example. Man, I feel better now. Thanks!

Keyboard error... Press F1 to resume.

Re:good for open source

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't try to keep track of the coders. Tracking succesful programs would achieve the same thing for far less. The only protection against this is to put a 'use it or loose it' clause in the patent laws.

Untrue

[Anonymous Writer]

the software patent 'cold war' provides no benefits to anyone, and will inevitably make the game of software development impossible for anyone to play

It would shift the production of software with unhindered innovations from countries that have intellectual property restrictions to countries that completely disregard them. Governments that are allowing these patent controversies to continue are killing the IT segment of their economy, and will eventually be surpassed by the unrestricted countries. It provides benefits to the latter.

Re:Untrue

[SuperDry]

The problem with this theory is that this does not really help the problem with commercial software. For example, if Sun or anyone else were to have developed Java in a country that disregards IP restrictions, that's fine. The result still couldn't be sold or distributed in the US in violation of a US patent, no matter where it was written or what the laws are there.

Re:Untrue

[Muppy]

Your right. However, innovative software can have a difference in how a company performs in a market, and the market is now global. The US (and countries that follow the US's lead) will find themselves at a disadvantage in terms of innovation or application of innovative ideas. If I cannot utilize a technology but my competitor can, then I am at a disadvantage in the marketplace. The reason I cannot use a technology or idea is irrelevant. Companies inside of the US run the risk of marginalizing themselves.

Re:Untrue

[Anonymous Writer]

The result still couldn't be sold or distributed in the US in violation of a US patent, no matter where it was written or what the laws are there.

That's my point. The software would still continue to be developed, but as in the example you gave, the US would not be allowed to use it. The US economy would not benefit from the advances in software while other countries would.

Re:Untrue

[not_a_product_id]

there is the other aspect - if the US saw other countries benefitting by flauting US 'IP' then they have the 'big stick' of the worlds most powerful military to threaten the rest of the world with (and they would want to use it before the competition from the rest of the world weakened it too much)

I'd like to think I'm getting too 'tin foil hat' but I can't be confident about it.

Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the deal, I want to ask out a girl who is a big Linux fan, has a Tux tattoo and everything, so I was thinking I would ask her like this:

"Girl, you must be in /etc/fstab because I'd like to mount you"

but I'm not sure how to say /etc/fstab! Would I say etc as "ets" or the full "et cetera", and for fstab would I say "f s tab", "f stab", or the full "filesystem table"?

Thanks!

re: Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[Anonymous Coward]

I really think you should ask her to bathe and get de-loused before thinking about a relationship.

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet she would reply: Sorry, normal (l)users like you can't use the mount command on me, and I already have someone else as my root, thank you.

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[Anonymous Coward]

In your example, you should pronounce /etc/fstab as "OW MY EYES! HOLY FUCK THAT PEPPER SPRAY BURNS! AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

--
"It tastes like burning, Ms. Krabappel."

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least that's better than, "Say, can I chroot your bunghole?"

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[bhtooefr]

Wait a sec... I thought you could just mount if you provided the device (/dev/girl) and the target (/mount/girl)...

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[bhtooefr]

Ahh... I forgot the filesystem type. What shall we name it? cumfs?

Also, why don't you try for yourself at http://www.research.att.com/projects/tts/demo.html ?

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[Anonymous Coward]

That assumes mount can probe for the proper filesystem type to use. Otherwise, it'll try to read it from the fstab, and failing that it will deny the mount because it requires more info.

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[bhtooefr]

I realized as soon as I pressed Submit that I forgot about filesystem type.

Also, I reread the message, and realized that she's already in /etc/fstab. It's just /etc/fstab isn't spelled that way, it's "spelled" in speech, and he doesn't want to force it (mount, providing his own locations for zipper and entryway - that's illegal, of course).

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a /.er SAYING he's going to try a geek girl, but I've heard of it actually happening...

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pronouce "etc" "et cetera", pronouce "fstab" "f s tab". At least that's how I do it.

But if you seriously think a lame pickup like that's going to work, you need your head examined :)

(btw, you realise that one reason devices are placed in /etc/fstab is so that regular users can mount them without having root access ..)

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[Anonymous Coward]

et-see eff-ess tab

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I pronounce /etc/fstab?

[t35t0r]

"Girl, you must be in etcetera f s tab because I'd like to mount you" ..would probably get you slapped either way.

It's not a rant, but the news item is low quality

[EJB]

To rant is "to utter in a bombastic declamatory fashion" or "to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner". I can't find that in PJ's article. If Michael does believe that PJ's article is like that, he should have the guts to say so, instead of implying that the story submitter called it a rant, which he didn't, as he posted here.

The only ranting I saw was in the title of the item. It would do the poster good to observe some courtesy towards other news sites.

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[solarcardork]

Unfortunately, this is the way it's heading in the US. Many universities in the US are running into problems with patents and IP. Even up here in North Dakota we've had an incident were NDA's had to be signed after a student presented a project he was working on.

Traditionally, the university was used to progress and disseminate knowledge. Now, due to increased administration, budget cuts, etc., all the knowledge is being locked away just in case it might be worth something.

I'm not sure what can be done about it, but it is unfortunate and wrong IMO.

Re:Dupe !

[jdgeorge]

How is this any different from the posting just a few short hours ago about this exact same thing ?

Only a complete N00B wouldn't understand this. Well, I'm a nice guy, so I'll explain the obvious and profound difference:

The previous article was posted by CmdrTaco, whereas this article was posted by michael. Isn't that enough?

I know, this may make it seem as if these aren't really different stories, and the Slashdot "editors" are just a bunch of buffoons. Well, if you're going to believe that, I'm not sure I'm up to the task of disillusioning you. Otherwise, you will understand the clear difference I'm talking about, and respect the editorial decisions made by these seasoned and professional journalists.

How is software really different?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Even though I have approx 10 patents myself, I'm not pro patents of any form.

The "software doesn't wear out" argument is BS. When you sell software, you don't sell the software as such, but the right to use it. While the software itself does not wear out, the usefulness does. eg. Anybody still using TurboPascal V1 for MSDOS? Expanding on that, if anything software "wears out" faster than mechanical mechanisms.

When you take out a patent, you're not so much protecting your product but you're protecting your market/customer base. This doesn't change when you're making software or little mechanical gizzmos. All the examples showing that patents kill software innovation could equally be applied to mechanical gizzmos too. eg. "Method to attach spring to washer" is just as much a problem for somebody making gizzmos as "Nesting identification by colorizing". If Ford own a patent for some engine technology, they can prevent Toyota using it. So how is this different from IBM preventing Microsoft doing something?

The "software is different" proponents are just like the people who whine about their tech job going to India while wearing Nikes made in China. Patents of all kinds, including software ones, have common problems.

Re:How is software really different?

[rollingcalf]

Software is the only thing in the world that can be patented, copyrighted, and be a trade secret at the same time (because source code in usually not revealed). That definitely makes it different, and that sort of multi-level IP protection is excessive.

Re:How is software really different?

[nihilogos]

While the software itself does not wear out, the usefulness does. eg. Anybody still using TurboPascal V1 for MSDOS?

PJ's point is that you still could. The reason nobody does anymore is that MS, Borland etc now offer better products. She says that these companies innovate so people won't want to keep using TurboPascal V1, even though they could.

The tech and software sector innovate because it's in their nature. They don't need patents as a stimulus.

Re:How is software really different?

[QuantumG]

Especially when you consider that the purpose of a patent is to expose how something works so that inventors don't need to keep it a trade secret.

Re:How is software really different?

[Dun Malg]

The "software doesn't wear out" argument is BS.

What are you talking about? Software doesn't wear out. There are programs running in the insurance industry that were written 30+ years ago. And funny you should mention, but there are odd little niche markets where people DO still use TurboPascal for MSDOS. I know of at least two software products written in Pascal, designed to run on MSDOS platforms, which are still being maintained and updated by the original creators-- in Pascal for MSDOS. One of them even complained to me about having trouble finding a modern computer that would work with his old TurboPascal.

Anyway, you're missing the entire point of the argument. The fact that people upgrade is, as stated in the article, because the industry requires constant innovation to sell new products. They don't need patents to stimulate innovation, as innovation is an integral part of the business model-- because the product doesn't wear out and require replacement. The reason most people don't still use TurboPascal for DOS is because better products came along. If neither the hardware nor the software ever got any better, you can bet your ass people would still be using their same old copy of TurboPascal for DOS rather than buying a new copy of TurboPascal for DOS becuase the old one would never fucking wear out.

Re:How is software really different?

[TheHonestTruth]

a) copyright is pretty narrow on software these days. It has to be a direct copy or clearly a derivative work since most software protection is shifting towards patents.

b) I don't know how something patented can be a trade secret. Part of being a trade secret is that you have to keep it a secret. Patenting something is the complete opposite: you are disclosing the invention to the world in exchange for a limited monopoly.

I could be wrong, so please show me a case where a company successfully litigated a patented invention as both a patent infringment and a violation/misappropriation of a trade secret.

-truth

Re:How is software really different?

[0x0d0a]

One thing: in the current state of the software world, change is much more rapid than almost any other fields. The length of patents is quite high.

Other issues:

* With software, systems are generally quite complex and require effort to re-implement. Consider your "Method to attach spring to washer" -- if you *didn't* have a patent, it'd take your competitor five minutes to figure out what to do by glancing at your system. In software, just because you have the latest version of a 3d rendering package doesn't mean that you can reproduce the features. Since the reimplementation cost is relatively high, patents are less crucial for software than for other fields.

* The bogus patent boom has coincided with the tech boom. Might just be unfortunate coincidence, might be a serious problem.

* The barrier to entry to designing and producing professional-class software is much lower than to designing and manufacturing new professional-class mechanical systems. You need a computer and a compiler versus machine tools, a CAD system, materials knowledge, and so forth. It's harder to regulate and monitor the software world.

I think that you're right -- that patents in general have some problems -- but it's a lot easier to try to loosen patents WRT software, especially since originally most countries disallowed patenting of algorithms. One thing at a time.

Re:How is software really different?

[Anonymous Coward]

not successfuly done, but is this not what SCO is trying to do?
Just a question.

Re:How is software really different?

[burns210]

"Patenting something is the complete opposite: you are disclosing the invention to the world in exchange for a limited monopoly."

I have always wondered, it use to be that an inventor had to disclose blueprints and specifics on how to build the machine he was patenting. If software is to be patented, I think sourcecode should be provided and sealed in a vault (digital and/or physical) until the patent expires, then that sourcecode becomes public domain.

Ofcourse, I also think patents should be scrutinized better, and the standards for prior art and non-obvious should be stressed again, as they once were.

Re:How is software really different?

[runderwo]

If software is to be patented, I think sourcecode should be provided and sealed in a vault (digital and/or physical) until the patent expires, then that sourcecode becomes public domain.

Making patents secret is the wrong approach. Seal patents in a vault and there's no way to find out if your code is infringing on the patent outside of a lawsuit.

Re:How is software really different?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Anybody still using TurboPascal V1 for MSDOS? Expanding on that, if anything software "wears out" faster than mechanical mechanisms.

You insensitive clod, I'm still using TurboC daily!

Please, dear god, shoot me...

Re:How is software really different?

[burns210]

I say seal them in a vault, because if Microsoft wanted to patent, say, Windows XP, the source code coudln't exactly go up on the uspto's website, it would be to easy for code to be 'stolen' and put into a competing product. Internet Explorer's code would be suspected of being fed into gecko, and the NT kernel would be suspected of being in Darwin, Linux, Solaris, etc.

It would be too easy for code to get stolen, so it would have to have some sort of abstraction layer, protecting 2 developers from seeing one another's patented (and competing) code. A third-party knowledge observer would have to be used, to compare the two codebases, not the developers themselves.

Re:How is software really different?

[Waffle Iron]

I don't know how something patented can be a trade secret. Part of being a trade secret is that you have to keep it a secret. Patenting something is the complete opposite: you are disclosing the invention to the world in exchange for a limited monopoly.

The patent just has to give the general idea of how to implement the patented idea. It doesn't have to reveal the specific program that the patent filer is protecting; that usually remains a trade secret. A lot of software patents have little more than a block diagram describing the algorithm at a very high level.

Patents give you broad coverage over a swath of the industry, and trade secrets give you targeted protection of the tricky details of your own products. A particular software product can enjoy both complementary barriers.

This double whammy can be daunting. Microsoft's secrets about how the Word file format are a formidable barrier would take would-be competitors many man-years to divine. If you throw in the possibility that after having gone through of all that effort, Microsoft will hit you with a patent infringement suit on the Word interoperability, most potential competitors aren't even going to try.

Re:How is software really different?

[TheHonestTruth]

The patent just has to give the general idea of how to implement the patented idea. It doesn't have to reveal the specific program that the patent filer is protecting; that usually remains a trade secret. A lot of software patents have little more than a block diagram describing the algorithm at a very high level.

Yes and no. A patent has to have an enabling description such that one of ordinary skill in the art could practice the invention without undue experimentation. This means that someone should be able to pick up the patent, sit down at a computer and bang out some code that implements the methods. You are correct that it does not have to give the actual code, and yes, generally applications are filed with block diagram level descriptions, but I don't think you could keep it secret enough to gain trade secret rights without gving an sufficiently enabling description. *shrug* Not my area of expertise, just hypothesizing.

-truth

Re:How is software really different?

[TheHonestTruth]

AFAIK, SCO is just going after the copyright claims since they have no patent cliams to the software. That's the big hubub around "show me the infringing code" since for copyright (and I am quickly getting out of my area of expertise) you need to show a clearly derivative work in that you have to go beyond function. That Linux infringes patents is a scare tactic, but I don't know if it has to do with SCO, or just the anti-OSS movement in general. I think it was actually brought up by the OSRM guys.

-truth

Re:How is software really different?

[Eminor]

The "software doesn't wear out" argument is BS. ...Anybody still using TurboPascal V1 for MSDOS?

Monolithic software may wear out over time. But most things that follow the "KISS" mentality don't. Do you think that ls, grep or cat will ever wear out?

Re:How is software really different?

[mdfst13]

"The bogus patent boom has coincided with the tech boom."

I think that you misspelled "tech bust." During the boom, I don't recall any major patent abuse litigation. Now we get a new case every month. Note also how many abused patents came from previously bankrupt companies; the patents were bought purely to be litigated (why does *Kodak* have a patent on object oriented programming? Answer: they bought it from Wang Labs).

Re:How is software really different?

[hyphz]

Which would only be the case if software patents had to include source code.

Re:How is software really different?

[runderwo]

It wouldn't be a difficult exercise to develop a new computer language specifically for the purpose of expressing patented algorithms.

Re:How is software really different?

[JaredOfEuropa]

All the examples showing that patents kill software innovation could equally be applied to mechanical gizzmos too. eg. "Method to attach spring to washer" is just as much a problem for somebody making gizzmos as "Nesting identification by colorizing".

Not really. If "Method A to attach spring to washer" is patented, you can still try and invent a Method B. Patents on production methods protect the implementation but not the end goal (the concept) itself.

With software, it is both the concept and the implementation that are being protected. The mechanical analogy would be a patent on "the concept of attaching springs to washers". The implementation of software is already adequately protected by copyright; we do not need patents for that.

Re:How is software really different?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that different from stealing the design of a physical product from diagrams and specifications? I don't see the point here: patents are explicitly designed to PUBLISH the plans for the idea (while simultaneously reserving the rights to use that design). Sure, anyone could grab that from any patent, but then they'd be in infringement.

Re:How is software really different?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with copyright and software is that since there are a limited number of fairly standardized ways to do things (enforced by the logic of how things need to be done inside a computer and the syntax of the programming language being used), a lot of code could look like a lot of other code that was independently created. The language and logic are very constrained, such that the range of expression is far more limited than in traditional literature. This is especially true as so much code consists of variants of fundamental algorithms taught in textbooks.

Re:How is software really different?

[Sri Lumpa]

Among other things SCO is claiming that IBM cannot put RCU under an open source license because it would (according to them) breach IBM's confidentiality agreement regarding Unix Sys V (yes, even though RCU doesn't come from it). In other word they claim that IBM has a contractual obligation to keep RCU, a patented technology, like a trade secret.

And SCO isn't even going after copyright claims as far as Linux is concerned, they are actually fighting very hard NOT to have them be in front of the court. What they say (to the court) they are going after are breach of contract claims. Their only claim about copyright are that IBM had no right to distribute dynix and AIX after they yanked their licensed... or so they claim ;)

Chicken Little

[tabdelgawad]

One (failing) multi-billion dollar company has just won a billion dollar lawsuit against another multi-billion dollar company. Cry me a river.

Rants aside, the raison d'etre of patents is to promote innovation. Now I don't see how patents have fostered software innovation in the US; copyrights seem to be sufficient protection for that. On the other hand, where is the *evidence* that patents have choked-off software innovation? What developer did not pursue an idea for fear of a patent-infringement lawsuit?

I'm not trolling. If we're going to argue against patents, then let's see the evidence that they actually choked-off innovation; the linked "industry at risk" story makes some cogent arguments, but read closely and you'll find it's mostly speculation about what *will* happen in the next decade.

An aside, but check out this quote the "industry at risk" story uses to bolster its POV: "Thus, if a small company tries to use a patent to "protect" itself against competition from IBM, IBM can usually find patents in its collection which the small company is infringing, and thus obtain a cross-license. Besides which, if you are a small company, do you really want to try taking IBM to court?"

Re:Chicken Little

[Jerf]

If we're going to argue against patents, then let's see the evidence that they actually choked-off innovation;

It isn't stopping me, but it does scare me. I'm trying to get into the billing software industry, and hoping and praying that the industry doesn't have any patents to speak of, but who knows?

To the extent I control the company's purse (not the only owner), I'm going to want to build up a war chest much sooner than I should have to under normal circumstances, because who knows what shit some other company might try to throw at me? This will inhibit the growth of the company. Did you see the article a couple of days back about the company just making random infringement claims on companies building open source software?

Now, the obvious counter is that I just feel scared and you might think to assure me that I am not threatened. But the real threat level doesn't matter. If I feel threatened, that is enough to stifle innovation, and a more timid person might just give up in advance. The atmosphere is a sufficient argument.

Re:Chicken Little

[Anonymous Coward]

"On the other hand, where is the *evidence* that patents have choked-off software innovation? What developer did not pursue an idea for fear of a patent-infringement lawsuit?"

Don't have a specific example, but I think the problem many /.ers have with software patents is that they can be annoying to open source software. The way things have often worked is that open source has re-implemented stuff that closed source software has already done (please don't flame, it's true...). And that's perfectly OK if the software is copyrighted; you can use an app, see what it does, and write your own version totally legally (if you haven't seen the source code or out-and-out copied the interface).
Patents are on ideas, so you can't do that. If someone patented "a system of editing formatted text which allows you to see your edits in real time" (i.e. a word processor), then the OSS movement (and competing companies) can't homebrew their own.

I have a real question.

[OccidentalSlashy]

I'm a software programmer from way back. Currently I'm designing peer to peer networks for games. I'm single, healthy, and able to take care of myself in life. Seriously, can I leave the USA yet and never come back?

Wrong To Argue No One Benefits From Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

It's wrong to assert that software patents benefit no one. Someone who holds and enforces an important patent stands to make lots of money. That is definitively a benefit.

Consider: If someone had patented DNS, each DNS query might chalk up a micropayment in the patent holders' account. That's a serious benefit for the patentholder.

That's the incentive driving patents.

It's possible to argue that "society" suffers from all this, while one individual prospers. Perhaps. But, society is a morass of people with conflicting interests, not a phalanx of the altruistic marching toward the common good.

Re:Wrong To Argue No One Benefits From Patents

[Quiberon]

"And then we'll get a better DNS from someone else" or "DNS was invented 30 years ago by hundreds of programmers interested in creating a surviveable network" --- prior art, and expired too. or "Just like a phone book. Had them for a century."

Re:Wrong To Argue No One Benefits From Patents

[hyphz]

> Consider: If someone had patented DNS, each
> DNS query might chalk up a micropayment in the
> patent holders' account. That's a serious
> benefit for the patentholder.

Except that what would actually have happened is that everyone would have switched to handing out numerical IP addresses to save the money of those who want to visit their sites. For those who didn't, there would be BBSes where people posted the numerical IP addresses of popular sites. Then the DNS company would sue them for infringing their copyright on information in the DNS database, and..

Litigation Death Nell

[madstork2000]

The other thing that irks me about this is Kodak, is it is yet another company that has been bleeding badly, and thus turns to litigation to survive. Hopefully soon a judge and the judges above them will get a clue and realize software patents are ridiculous, and should not be allowed to survive.

Maybe someday a judge will be appointed that has a computer science background that will be able to see as plain as most programmers how wrong and misguided software patents are. Until then I know I'll never buy another Kodak product. . .

Re:Litigation Death Nell

[InfiniteWisdom]

Hopefully soon a judge and the judges above them will get a clue
That isn't their job. Unless you meant they quit the bench and run for congress.

Re:Litigation Death Nell

[Kalani]

Until then I know I'll never buy another Kodak product...

Then they'll sue somebody else. The reason they're resorting to something as stupid as this is because fewer people are buying from them in the first place (and they blame the computer industry).

The problem (hopefully) written in one sentence:

[Soko]

"Computer code is simply the expression of inate human ideas in a different language - the difference being that the language spoken is one that a machine understands, not other humans."

(Perl jokes aside...)

IMHO, the expression of ideas in any language is covered by copyright law, not patent law. Ergo, software patents should not be allowed, since there's already plenty of protection under copyright.

Soko

Ain't that the truth

[Anonymous Coward]

You can sum PJ up pretty quickly:

1. Software patents are the most evil thing in the universe.

2. The "new" open-source mode of doing business has made "old-think" obsolete.

It's the second one I really laugh at (because software patents probably are bad). Let's see - after thousands and thousands of years of civilization, a new way of writing software is going to obsolete previous economic theories and ways of making money. Yeah, sure. No way I'd ever think I was that smart.

What do the media companies think of this?

[ScrewMaster]

I would imagine that media outfits are in good spirits over the Sun/Kodak decision. I mean, these people have never endorsed technology, and have moved heaven and Earth to squelch any new invention that they perceive as threatening to their interests. The reason they failed as often as they did was because our legal system operated, for the most part, in the citizen's interests. That appears to be changing, with the advent of extended copyright, the DMCA, software patents ... I mean, if development of new commercial technologies grinds to a halt in the U.S., why, all they'd have to do is get Congress to block imports of tech from Canada and overseas and ... we can all go back to listening to Victrolas and piano rolls, as God intended.

Protesting Software Patents

[trenobus]

So you want to protest software patents?

Things that don't work:

• Boycotts. Not enough people who care to have any appreciable effect on the revenue of most offending corporations.
• Contacting your representative. +3 Funny

The trick is to make people other than software engineers actually care about this issue. I suggest the best way to raise awareness is for software engineers to refuse to write code for a day. (I suspect for any randomly picked day, that was a day most of us weren't going to write any code anyway. Am I right?) The intent to do this should be widely publicized beforehand. On the chosen day, lots of people like Lessig and Stallman (maybe not Stallman himself; I said like Stallman :-) should be available to brief the press.

If it doesn't work the first time, rinse and repeat, say maybe once a month?

The movement needs a name. I suggest:

Software Patents Are Not Kool!

Re:Protesting Software Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

I love this idea. Like an industry-wide strike! Perhaps the same group could organise a similar strike whenever large outsourcing projects kill jobs here too. This could be the beginning of a real labor movement for software. You think the Teamsters are a force to be reconed with? Wait till you see the protests S.P.A.N.K can organize!

Shades of SCO vs. Linux

[Fallen Andy]

Read the groklaw article, and indeed, given that
Sun give java away free, the only people kodak
ought to be going after are the customers *using*
java. Whoops. Does this start to look familiar?

This nonsense will finally end when someone pushes
the absurdity *deliberately* to the limit. Are you
listening IBM? (If they went after everyone who
infringed their patents, we'd all be in court..).

Which raises the interesting question. Could the
legal system be /.ed by enough absurd (but interesting) cases? (or is that terrorism?)

Re:Shades of SCO vs. Linux

[Dinosaur Neil]

I like it! Maybe get ahold of those people who developed VisiCalc way back when and have them patent "A method for applying various mathematical formulas to a tabular array of numerical values with dynamic updates" and little likelyhood of anyone proving prior art. Then they can ding MS (Excel), IBM (Lotus 123), Corel (Quattro Pro), and who knows how many other spreadsheet (and derivative) products until the big players start telling the USTPO that software patents are a bad idea...

Yeah, there's prolly some legal reason why this wouldn't work, but I can dream, can't I?

Re:Shades of SCO vs. Linux

[tchuladdiass]

Actually, I think the only way to get things to change is for a "dying ip only company" to sue Hollywood companies for billions for patent infringement. Pixar MUST be violating a patent somewhere. Imagine Disney being sued for the total profit from their latest computer-animated films.

Re:Dupe !

[CmdrGravy]

Gosh, thanks for clearing that all up for me jgeorge. It's clear I've still got a lot to learn here !

Looking again at the 2 articles I can also see that there are quite a few different words in each of the summaries and although at the end of the day it is the exact same topic for the exact same discussion they do also both contain different links.

I am surely grateful to the /. ( is that how you say it ? ) editors for allowing me to examine this important subject from two distinct viewpoints. Thankyou ./ and thankyou editors. Thankyou also whichever moderator it is that moderated my grandparent post as being "Overated" when in fact no one else had rated it anyway, thankyou for taking the time to understand the moderating process and thankyou for choosing my humble post as the object of your sublime moderating attentions.

Re:Wang vs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they got the idea from here:

http://www.ibiblio.org/patents/txt/061594.txt

Wang Laboraties
having success in its lawsuit against Microsoft for infringing Wang's patents
on OLE:

"It seems to me like Wang has a very good shot there.
It's not as intrinsic a part of their business as the
disk compression is to Stac, so they will have a hard
time convincing the judge that billions and billions
are required. But certainly there is a good revenue
stream that will probably come from that. It's probably
a better idea for Microsoft to buy Wang, take the
patents, and spit out the rest".

Remember, these are Wang patents Kodak bought.
It looks to me like cookie cutter mirroring what they did to microsoft earlier.

Is using common sense the same as inventing???

[Deecrypt]

Why is it that we do not have an independant office of IT professionals selected from various parts of the industry that form part of the Software Patent department who can decide whether a certain product/step is deemed innovative or is it simply the use of common sense i.e having requests sent to the server with least load?? I believe that once its realised using common sense is not the same as inventing a new product/process, the IP wars will ease dramatically.

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[cpt kangarooski]

They do, actually. Big research schools such as the UC system or MIT hold and license out patents on tons of stuff.

All comments owned by previous posters

[CmdrGravy]

"Kodak praised the verdict and said it was part of an aggressive push to convert innovations ? both homegrown and purchased ? into real money. The company over the past several years has been issuing licenses, filing lawsuits, forming spinoff companies and finding other uses for its technologies."

It seems that today, companies don't produce products, they produce lawsuits, and that's how they get their money. How long can this continue?

Furthermore, since 1.06B is about 1/3 of Sun's cash on hand (here [yahoo.com]), what will that mean for Sun? It's 7% of their total value, so this can't be good for them.

In the end, it's only the lawyers who win.

--

First the Eolas lawsuit, now this. What is going to take for Bill Gates to wake up and say that suing OpenOffice developers isn't worth being able to lose $1.06B to a company that actually has the legal resources to wage a protracted war with Microsoft? If Sun loses this, the Microsoft had better be willing to settle in a very generous was or Kodak will go after them. $1.06B for Sun, since Microsoft has much, much more money it could just as easily be $5B from Microsoft.

This is all starting to become like nuclear weapons in and after the cold war. First it seemed like no big deal, hell it was even a requirement to be a big player to have nukes. Now all these little players are getting them, and Eolas and Kodak IMO are no different or better than the rogue states getting their own arsenals of nukes. Now the big boys are getting attacked so, what do they do? Disarm by pushing for the elimination of all software and business method patents, to keep these guys from having legal nukes to use against them, or do they just pray that not enough ankle biters will get enough patents to bankrupt them in independent and coordinated lawsuits?

--

Although I know its offical /. policy that everyone should run around in circles yelling its the end of the world everytime a software patent is infringed, this particular dispute is far from over and probably faces 5+ years of appeals before any money changes hands or any technology is changed or restricted.

First, after damages are decided, Sun will move with JNOV (asking the judge to set aside the verdict because there was insufficent evidence to support to verdict). There is probably a 10% probability of this happening in any given case, even more when there is alot of money at risk.

Second, Sun will appeal to the Federal Circuit, which usually overturnes 60% of district court decisions because district courts usually dont know anything about technology and know even less about patent law.

So, IMHO, its too early to start running around in circles over this decision, at least until the Federal Circuit affirms.

Please check the other identical story on ./ for the original posters of these insightful and interesting opinions.

Re:All comments owned by previous posters

[robbyjo]

Troll! Do you think you can "import" comments from previous threads and get modded up? The first part of your comment is from here. Then the second one. The third part.

Moderators wake up!!!

Re:All comments owned by previous posters

[CmdrGravy]

I agree, I was just importing comments from the previous ( identical ) thread and it is surprising that anyone modded me up for that.

Observant moderators would have noticed the title of my post and the disclaimer at the bottom.

In a way I was performing a small public service, this debate had already taken place in the earlier "Sun lose to Kodak" story posted just before this one so I was just collating the best of the previous posters to save people bothering here.

flipflopflipflop...pop.

[poptones]

Mkay, lemme see if I get this: linux is supposed to be "of the people, for the people" and all that... right? I mean, it is, at its core, about freedom with one of those BIG F's... right?

You jest... but consider: I can hit a repository and download decss for virtually any distribution I want, and all I need to do is hit a search engine to find it. So... what's the plan? Outlaw search engines? Ban them from carrying lists of files? Or are we going to commandeer the entire internet, lock it up in a vault, and throw away the key?

I'm really sick of these chicken little rants. I like groklaw and I actually have a good bit of respect for pj and crew (pj crew?) but this is absurd even from them - or maybe especially from them.

So, whoopdeefuck, patents lock up corporations and cause them to waste money fighting each other - great! Let the lawyers eat while the system fights itself.

These arguments are all nonsensical. Like the folks who bitch all the time about not being able to play Madonna and Britney on their internet stations for free because the record companies have that content all locked up - but insist "the internet is the future" and "one day" we'll all be able to be our own publishers. Just not now... because there's no money in it.

Fuck that. Fuck you all who insist on co-opting the system while you talk big about overthrowing it. The internet is a revolution, but if you think you're part of that revolution because you share pop songs for free, bootleg commercial software and bitch about how "the man" is keeping you down, you ain't part of that solution - you're just another part of the problem... and doomed to share the fate of "the system."

Re:flipflopflipflop...pop.

[0x0d0a]

Hold on there a moment, sailor.

I appreciate very much the work that DeCSS has done. Without the work from folks who were willing to move around in a legal gray area, DVDs would be a closed system, and I probably wouldn't be able to play my DVDs on my computer (which runs Linux) and *certainly* wouldn't be able to play DVDs with open source software on same.

I appreciate what P2P does. P2P is a new and important economic infrastructure that allows costs of distribution to (a) be low due to efficient use of resources, (b) be spread out across all the content consumers. This lets me give a piece of content that I've created to the world -- look at the Red vs Blue people, or Linux distributions, and so forth. Sure, pirates use it. There's a *big demand* for free (if illegal) content. P2P filesharing is nothing more than another data transfer system. It just happens to be used for copyright infringement a lot because it's so effective at letting people inexpensively spread content -- which is an important characteristic of a system in which pirates are not making money off of their work.

Yes?

[ggy]

I always thought groklaw was a blog, altough a very well written and professional one? So where's the problem?

Hey editors, stop abusing your powers.(nt)

[Anonymous Coward]

blah bleh blarg

What Makes Software Patents Different

[shirai]

As many have mentioned, the idea behind patents is to encourage innovation. So for example, if inventor A decides to create a specific implementation of an idea, then all the effort to create that implementation does not go to waste.

One thing that I never see pointed out as a key difference between software patents and traditional real-world patents is the time it takes to make an implementation.

For example, in the past, it could have taken years and thousands to millions of dollars of development and testing to create a patentable idea. Because of this, you need a way to protect that hard work and investment or, yes, nobody would spend the time to invent things because they could get stolen by big companies (patents were originally designed to protect small inventors ironically). The problem with software patents is that it hardly takes any R&D whatsoever to create most of the patentable ideas. All it takes is an idea, something that patents were originally designed NOT to protect. They were designed to protect the implementation of an idea.

All the BS patents seem to fall into the space of no R&D for implementation, especially the "business processes" patents like 1-click. It's like "Oh, I have an idea," let's patent it. The patent office is making the erroneous assumption that not being able to patent an idea as soon as you thought of it would somehow have discourage you thinking of the idea. If software patents are allowed at all, they need to be tempered by the amount of research it requires to go from idea to implementation.

You should NOT be able to patent a "Hey, I just thought of something idea" that takes 10 minutes to implement. Practically all web-based patents fall into this category. I think there is still room for patents on ideas that take a lot of R&D work, investment and time.

Re:What Makes Software Patents Different

[Anonymous Coward]

Great post.

Re:What Makes Software Patents Different

[mavenguy]

Sorry, but the following sentence from 35 USC 103 (a) removes any requirement that lots of R & D etc. be required for non-obviousness:

Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.

This goes back to the 1952 substantial revision to the Patent Laws that codified the obviousness requirment and was included specifically to reverse a Supreme Court Ruling (Too lazy for me to research) that had set forth a so called "Flash of Genius" requirement for patentablility.

That's also why you will see references using "Invention or Discovery" because even if something "falls into the lap" of a person they can patent it (as long as it wasn't publicly known or used).

Basically, as long as the result is new, useful, and nonobvious, then the inventor or discoverer gets the patent.

Re:Fuck Sun Microsystems

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, but how will you feel when Kodak (or anyone else) goes after a company that you do respect, and whose products you use?

I don't smoke, for example. I detest the things because of all the bad things they do and I'm somewhat allergic to them so I get physically ill around smokers. However, I'm dead set against policies that are directed specifically against smokers: excessive taxes on cigarettes, anti-public-smoking laws, etc. I personally wouldn't mind if all cigarettes disappeared from the planet tomorrow, but I do know that if we tolerate unjust punitive measures taken against one group (however unpopular) the next time around may be different. Hell, we might find ourselves in the hot seat.

Is there an IT PAC?

[Vthornheart]

Does anyone know of a Political Action Committee for IT Professionals, Computer Scientists, the Open Source movement, or anything along those lines? If not, perhaps it's time that we formed something.

It sounds to me like what the Government needs is a large, influential group that can force them into understanding just what it is we DO. I think that's the big problem: they just don't understand what goes into Software development, and as Groklaw's article mentions, the mathematical nature of it. There is a lot we could do if we were to mobilize.

So if there is a PAC, point me in the direction and I'll join it. If there's not... perhaps we should make something happen.

Re:Is there an IT PAC?

[dpletche]

Does anyone know of a Political Action Committee for IT Professionals, Computer Scientists, the Open Source movement, or anything along those lines?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, perhaps?

Re:Is there an IT PAC?

[Vthornheart]

Hmm... that's a start, but I'm not sure if they'd cover issues like this... it seems that they're more interested in music download/freedom of expression & privacy issues on the Internet. I think what we'd need is a PAC devoted to the business related issues of Computer Science. Though those issues are sort of business related, they're not as much as we require. It could be quite useful for us, as an industry, to have a PAC geared toward defending our industry's interests.

hilarious

[poptones]

the truth gets instantly modded to "flamebait."

Re:hilarious

[Mornelithe]

That sometimes happens when "fuck" is one of the most common words in a post.

Re:hilarious

[rco3]

Regardless of whether your content is accurate and on-topic, your attitude and phrasing are most certainly flamebait.

I'm not saying you should say it any other way, but if you say things in an inflammatory manner, you should expect people to react accordingly. Any other expectation is foolish.

Re:It's not a rant, but the news item is low quali

[0x0d0a]

To be fair -- PJ originally had some of the most fair and objective content on the Internet. As she's gotten tied up in the swing of the open source movement, she's gotten much less objective. Still worth reading, but not as good as "old Groklaw", IMHO.

There are serious benefits.

[bmetz]

Bottom line: the software patent 'cold war' provides no benefits to anyone

IBM nets billions in profit from patents annually. How is that not a benefit?

Re:There are serious benefits.

[mikera]

How do you know that they wouldn't be making even more if there weren't any patents?

Suppose that patents have reduced overall economic growth by 2% per year since 1950. That's not a totally unrealistic estimate, given that innovation could have been encouraged through far better means than patents (market competition on implementation of ideas, for example!). Without patents, we would all be earning on average nearly three times as much right now.

Re:There are serious benefits.

[code shady]

A;though the EFF was already mentioned, the closest i can thinf of would be IPAC . . . i weill see if i can find the URL.

Re:There are serious benefits.

[phuturephunk]

IBM is a different beast entirely. They've got cats up in Armonk and all over the world trying to figure out how to choreograph a broadway show starring individual atoms, using magnets and a 2 micrometer thick plate of glass as a stage..thats a bit different then taking what amounts to an overgrown calculator and telling it to "Check for new mail every hour" and then have the moxie to demand payment because you believe that you're the only one who ever thought to have the computer check something at a certain time.

IBM does research down to the atomic level. They design new hardware and more importantly, further the foundation of research even under the technology down to the very core theories of physics that become involved in hardware manufacturing. That requires research labs and brainpower that your average patent hungry litigation pirate couldn't afford..and never will be able to.

Re:There are serious benefits.

[swillden]

Bottom line: the software patent 'cold war' provides no benefits to anyone

IBM nets billions in profit from patents annually. How is that not a benefit?

software patents != patents

IBM makes lots of money from patents, but the patents it licenses so successfully are patents on devices, not algorithms.

I'm not aware of IBM ever having used its software patents directly, only as a litigation tool or as a deterrent to litigation.

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[mikael]

Universities and small companies have considered this situation. One of the problems is that if you stake your claim in knowledge-space and file a patent, a large company can come along and file a hefty number of patents in every possible direction your research could go in. Sure you own the land, but they now own the access.

And filing/defending a patent isn't easy. Filing costs are around $10,000 and you have to register your patent across the world (Europe, USA, Japan) and you must defend the patent the minute it is violated. For a university it's the big company/little company. If the university has good funding, it will have the warchest to fight all patent violations. Otherwise, it's blowing away all that cash which could be spent on equipment.

One way to fix.....

[icejai]

One way to fix the patent system (re: software patents) without going through the arduous process of patent revokations, appeals, re-reviews, peer-reviews, court dates, dumb juries, is to simply limit patent protection to 2 to 3 years.

That way, those who are serious about their idea will be given plenty of time to get a head start and license out to those who can't wait, or don't want to fall that far behind the curve.

Those who make it their business model to sue won't have much time to sue. Most companies may just simply wait it out, or license a non-infringing technology, or simply work out some 2-3 year licensing agreement.

And once the protection time is over, those who waited will have to play catch-up... and it'll be back to the good'ol days where companies actually competed on things like cost and quality.

Re:One way to fix.....

[mikera]

I don't think you even need 2-3 years.

In the modern business world, just doing something first and doing it well can earn you a substantial market lead.

And if a company is so fat and inefficient that it can't exploit news idea quickly and efficiently enough to earn a good profit, then it doesn't deserve a patent-enforced monopoly either.

Karma Hits Sun

[reporter]

When SCO slapped IBM with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit, the management at Sun Microsystems snickered and bragged that it had "legally" bought the perpetual right to the UNIX patents. Then, the management prepared a knife to stab into the back of the Linux movement.

Next, the management showed its hand by doing a deal with the devil: Bill Gates. He gave Sun Microsystems a ransom on the order of a billion dollars.

Now, Kodak comes out of nowhere and slaps Sun Microsystem with a lawsuit and wins a billion dollars.

Apparently, karma works.

Re:Karma Hits Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Karma nothing.

Some people seem to think that setting these patent parasites on their competitors is the way to get ahead.

They neglect the fact that other companies can do that to them...

Nash equillibrium is everybody vs. everybody, and I don't think anyone really wins here but the lawyers.

What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Flyboy Connor]

I am currently finishing my PhD thesis. In it, there are a couple of new ideas (which I have empirically verified) in the field of software engineering. These ideas are clearly more serious than many of the software patents that have been granted in the past few years.

When I talk about my work at conferences, it occasionally happens (especially when "business people" are in the audience) that someone eagerly asks, whether I have already patented those ideas.

My answer is no. First, patenting is expensive. I don't have the money. Second, I want my ideas to benefit the world (that's what science is about, I think). I do not want to hoard them for myself. Third, if I want to patent my ideas, I have to spend a lot of time on legal stuff. I am a computer scientist, not a lawyer. I rather not do that.

But now there is a problem. If I do not patent my ideas, what withholds someone else from patenting them? It is not a requirement that you are the originator of an idea to patent it!

Prior art? Sure, I can bring that forward. In court. Which is not what I would like to do, because, (1) as I said, I am not a lawyer, and I hate spending time on legal matters, and (2) if I attempt to sue company X which has patented my ideas, for which prior art exists, no doubt that during the case, the expensive lawyers of X (which I can't afford) will have turned the case around and start sueing me for something, anything. Prior art is no defense. Basically, there is no defense if you are not rich enough to be able to afford expensive lawyers.

What I would really like to have, is a possibility to say, without all kinds of legal hassles, "Here are my ideas, they are for the world, anyone can use them, for free, forever." This should protect my ideas from being misused in patent form.

Guess what, that is impossible. I have a choice to either claim sole ownership of my ideas, and become a 50% of a lawyer, or to throw my ideas out to the world, close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and hope that the vultures leave something of my ideas for the world, and for me, to use.

If you look at it objectively, that is ridiculous. Patently ridiculous.

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>It is not a requirement that you are the originator of an idea to patent it!

that's bullshit. thank god you're an engineer and not a lawyer.

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>It is not a requirement that you are the originator of an idea to patent it!

that's bullshit. thank god you're an engineer and not a lawyer.

So why weren't the patentees in the Kodak case required to originate the ideas in their patents?

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can file a "Disclosure Document" for $10. That will last for two years. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/disdo.html

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Flyboy Connor]

Nice, but that only works if you file a patent afterwards. As I said, that is exactly what I do not want to do.

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Flyboy Connor]

that's bullshit. thank god you're an engineer and not a lawyer.

Me: Your honor, the patent awarded to X is actually a patent on an idea that originated with me!

X: Well, I thought of it myself at exactly the same time.

Judge: Nothing provable. Case dismissed.

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry friend but your University owns the patent rights. Read what you signed when you started your Ph.D. and then cry.

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Pembers]

Publish your ideas in a reputable academic journal - one that somebody working in your field would be expected to read. You need to be able to prove, maybe years later, that your ideas were available to the public on a certain date.

If someone later manages to get a patent on your idea(s), you can file a request with the USPTO to ask them to strike it down or narrow its scope. You can cite your publication as prior art that the PTO should have considered. The Microsoft FAT patent was invalidated in just this way.

The relevant section of the law is 35 USC 301. You have to pay a fee to file the form, but it's pretty small. For added poetic justice, go to the small claims court and sue the bastard who patented your idea to get the fee back.

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[sexylicious]

Having your thesis/dissertation on file with your University might work. Most of those also get published, depending on your field.

Either way, having the information documented and dated is the thing you need to do. Having your presentation materials from those talks would help out as well.

And if you win, be sure to write a letter to the person trying to patent your idea saying, "SUCK IT, BITCH!
SUCK IT HARD!"

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Flyboy Connor]

Sorry friend but your University owns the patent rights. Read what you signed when you started your Ph.D. and then cry.

Actually, no. It is stated specifically that I myself own all the rights to my own ideas. Even if the university pays me to generate them. But I would have no problems with the university patenting them. If they would have the money. Which they don't.

Re:What if I don't want to patent my ideas?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm replying to this late but as a patent examiner you mind find it useful.

Publish your ideas on the internet, with a CLEAR AND SOLID DATE, and do your best to make it easy to find. Keyword searches, linked to from your university department page, etc. etc. I've been through grad school, I know it's not easy getting published. The quickest/cheapest/most effective for the dollar thing you can do is publish your stuff on the internet with a CLEAR AND SOLID DATE.

I was just about to say........

[reality-bytes]

I was just going to say that PJ was stating the obvious.

Isn't it strange how the USPTO are the only ones who can't see the obvious?

Hmmm.. Kodak could have hit paydirt

[Anonymous Coward]

A pantent on the concept of a "method by which a program can "ask for help" from another application to carry out certain functions"

What about Ole ?

What about spellcheckers ?

what about plugins in general ?

what about web browsers that launch upon clicking a URL from another app

maybe I am misunderstanding the patent

anyone else see possibilites for this ?

wow, that is REALLY squinting

[poptones]

between the lines. I never mentioned p2p in that "rant" for a very good reason. Nor did I rebuke decss. In fact, it would appear you completely missed everything I actually said. I admit that's a danger from that sort of post, but still.. you could at least try.

Since you didn't get it I'll make it easy: patents (like copyrights) DO NOT HARM INNOVATION. If you want to produce art you damn well can - and you can distribute it your heart's content, all because of this wonderful invention of communications. In fact, you can even "sample" all you like and there's little those mean and nasty corporations can do about it if your work becomes popular.

Patents and copyrights make it harder to profit in the corporate world. That's an entirely different argument, and one for which a great many of us do NOT harbor the least bit of sympathy. If you want to program, all you need do is pick a project to contribute to - meanwhile those big mean and evil corporations might even use a bit of that brainpower of yours as motivation to cut you a paycheck. If you want to sell or support computers, they're cheaper than ever now thanks to mass production (by those evil corporations) and some fantastic free software. If you want to make and sell music, fucking well do it - and if you want to run a radio station, then walk the walk and you got nothing to bitch about when you talk the talk - not many indie artists are going to turn down the chance for radioplay even if it's just a small internet station.

Boohoo, IP laws make it harder for corporations to profit, and harder for small players to tie up even more in the system that never should have been in the first place... waaaah, cry me a fucking river.

Re:wow, that is REALLY squinting

[pyrrhonist]

If you want to program, all you need do is pick a project to contribute to -

Okay, in that case, I'd like to make a one-click buy option for an open source online store.

Oh, wait, I can't, because Amazon owns the patent on that and my open source project can't afford to license it.

Now do you see how patents hurt open source too?

meanwhile those big mean and evil corporations might even use a bit of that brainpower of yours as motivation to cut you a paycheck.

Or they could just decide to sue you for violating their intellectual property rights.

mor(m)ons?

[poptones]

what the fuck do they know about it, anyway?

Kodak Moment?

[magefile]

Does PJ call it a Kodak moment?

Re:Kodak Moment?

[vettemph]

you could have filed that comment here:

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=124241&thr eshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=155&mode=thread&cid=104 22594

Re:Kodak Moment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scott McNeally bent over, with a paper roll labeled "WANG" on it being shoved where the Sun don't shine by a large yellow K.

that is what "Kodak Moment" means to me now.

I was at one time an avid photographer.
I will never, ever purchase another Kodak product ever again.
I am not some 18 year old with little disposable income.
I am someone that bought a $450 USD digital camera for mom last fall.
I am someone that will most likely bring this cause up with no less than 100 hundred people.

I am glad that the company facing this particular piece of litigation is Sun, but I do hope that Sun prevails.

Re:Kodak Moment?

[vettemph]

Good image, but does Jonathan fit into the picture?

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[Free_Meson]

And filing/defending a patent isn't easy. Filing costs are around $10,000 and you have to register your patent across the world (Europe, USA, Japan) and you must defend the patent the minute it is violated.

I don't see how you think you can discuss patents and intellectual property intelligently when you don't know the difference between a trademark and a patent. You have no duty to "defend" a violated patent. A patent is ONLY the exclusive right to prevent others from practicing the invention or process described in the patent. You also don't "register" a patent -- you have to file for a new patent in every country where you want one (though some countries are combining for this purpose, or are moving towards cross-patenting agreements). If you want to patent something in the U.S., and you only want to use that patent in the U.S. then you don't have to bother with the rest of the world. BTW, the patent application fee for an individual or small company is a whopping $395.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee2004 oct1.htm#patapp

If you think it's so easy to patent something, go to town. If you hire a high-powered law firm to write your patent, research prior art, craft your claims so that they are as broad as reasonable, and prosecute the patent until issue (which would include several rejections for overly broad claims and additional fees for reexamination under narrower claims) then you could spend $10k. If you're doing that, though, you're either planning to license to a company to produce your product (which you presumably have no problem with, provided you are rational) or you are planning to practice or produce it yourself (again, there should be no problems here).

One of the problems is that if you stake your claim in knowledge-space and file a patent, a large company can come along and file a hefty number of patents in every possible direction your research could go in. Sure you own the land, but they now own the access.

You plainly don't understand the patent system. A patent has to be new, useful, and nonobvious. If, given Company A's patent, Company B's engineers can invent new, useful X, Y, and Z without substantial thought, research, or development then X, Y, and Z are not patentable inventions. If X, Y, and Z are not obvious (Company B had to invest substantial research etc) then they are patentable. Why? Because we want to reward Company B for adding to our global knowledge base. Your problem is that you think, many years after the fact, that X, Y, and Z are obvious, and because they are obvious now that they were obvious at the time they were invented. You can't patent "in every possible direction," (whatever that means) you can only patent related nonobvious inventions.

Your ignorant, paranoid rantings are really quite disturbing to those of use who contribute to society, and to the onward march of technology, and wish for a system that rewards largely based on innovative merit to remain in place. The system does have some problems, and determining obviousness in software patents is one of the harrier issues, but your desire to dismantle a system that has successfully promoted innovation and prevented intellectual quagmire for more than two centuries based on a problem with a 20-30 year-old industry is unfounded.

facts are a bitch

[Anonymous Coward]

last I checked it was just under a billion annually. do you know something special, or do you like to just make up numbers like "billions" without reading the SEC filings?

All our rants will do absolutely nothing

[Anita Coney]

The only thing that will stop software patents is if big business wises up and realizes that they're bad for business. I.e., with software patents, there will be impossible to innovate without being sued into submission.

Congress and the patent office will NEVER change the rules without pressure from business because the patent offices makes a LOT of money selling patents.

I'm not saying we shouldn't educate people about the issue or that we shouldn't discuss the issue, I'm just saying not to get your hopes up.

Wonderfully evil

[Evil Pete]

Are you a student of Machiavelli, or merely a gifted amateur. [rhetorical question, no need for a question mark]

The scenario you describe is all too likely, the IT/IP mix is like a powderkeg at the moment with software patents. Sounds unethical to me to start such a bloodbath, but one could argue that if it was deliberately started now it would be like "back burning" to prevent bush fires, preventing something even worse later on.

Re:Wonderfully evil

[hyphz]

Well, I think there's a very good argument that one way of fixing the situation would be to add a requirement to patents such as the one that copyright already has - that you have to enforce it by legal action, or lose it.

This would cause an end to the "war chest" game that the large companies now play, where they all violate each others' patents in exchange for being allowed to violate each others' patents. That would force them against software patents.

Re:Wonderfully evil

[plenTpak]

Are you a student of Machiavelli, or merely a gifted amateur. [rhetorical question, no need for a question mark]

Traditionally, a rhetorical question requires a question mark, since it's still a question (e.g. "Who cares?"). A lot of people do use a period since it sounds like a statement, but grammatically this is incorrect.

what?

[poptones]

You give yet another example of how it's harder to make profit if you are a company and then say "see how it hurts open source?"

Duh... what? If you want to run a "click and shop store then you are, by definitoin, doing business. That means you have taken the impetus to play in the corporate world, which means taking on their rules.

OTOH, nothing at all to stop me from creating (and maintaining) an open source software project that provides "click and shop" functionality to those who do business in countries with sensible IP laws.

That last comment you made was even stupider than the first. So a company would hire you to work for them and then sue you for doing it? duuueeehhhhh.... hello, anyone home?

Re:what?

[pyrrhonist]

If you want to run a "click and shop store then you are, by definitoin, doing business.

I didn't say "run", a store, I said, "make a one-click option". Totally different.

OTOH, nothing at all to stop me from creating (and maintaining) an open source software project that provides "click and shop" functionality to those who do business in countries with sensible IP laws.

Provided it's not written by a U.S. citizen, not hosted in the U.S., and no one in the U.S. can download it.

This means that U.S. citizens cannot create open source software without fear of litigation by corporations.

So a company would hire you to work for them and then sue you for doing it?

No, I'm saying that the company would rather sue you than hire you. Get it?

duuueeehhhhh.... hello, anyone home?

Real mature. What are you 12?

Ugh, wake up

[Rorian]

After reading the groklaw article, I realized one massive flaw in their argument: Why the fuck would big companies want to ditch software patents now?

IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Kodak, you name it - they've all sunk huge sums of money into buying these software patents, and aside from some lawsuits between eachother, they all stand to win, by crushing opposition with their ridiculous repertoire of patents. So when the article states "The solution is obvious. Everybody needs to get rid of their stockpiles of weapons. Declare patents don't cover software, and everybody wins. Except some lawyers, who will then have to find other work. And not a moment too soon.", it just doesn't work. Like the Cold war, the big players really cannot lose, and getting rid of their "stockpile of weapons" is NOT an option.

Still, I guess we can all dream that this will happen, Linux will be safe from Microsoft, Java will be open-sourced, and safe from Kodak.. or not :(

Kodak Has Big Eyes

[coyotedata]

Does Kodak make anything of its own anymore??? Old Art cannot become new art just because it is in a new frame or in electronic code.

A change won't happen till all development freezes

[C_Kode]

It won't happen. To make a change like this takes alot of lawyers and money. The only people that have that are big business. Big business doesn't want the change because they want to protect their *IP* They want to sue the next guy to stifle them, and get a windfall profit out of it. Soon when the real lawsuit wars begin and every IBM, Microsoft, Sun... erm. They are all in these lawsuits now. Well, maybe it will never change! Now the question is. Are you a programmer? I have a lawyer! cough up some cash! :)

REALLY... what?

[poptones]

If it's not a store then a "one click option for download" is a fucking URL. No, I'm not twelve but these "points" you seem to be attempting sure have me convinced you are.

Re:REALLY... what?

[pyrrhonist]

If it's not a store then a "one click option for download" is a fucking URL.

First of all, I did not say, "one click option for download". What I referred to was a one-click option for purchase, which is covered by a patent owned by Amazon.

Secondly, what you are describing, a "one click option for download", is not a URL, but a hyperlink. A URL is an address of a resource, while a hyperlink is the object you click on to download the resource.

Furthermore, the hyperlink is patented.

Now do you see how difficult it is to write software without violating someone's intellectual property? It doesn't matter whether you are a private company or an open source project, you can still be taken to court if you violate patent law. Why do you think that GNU doesn't use GIFs? Here's a hint:

If we released such a program, Unisys and IBM might think it wiser (for public relations reasons) not to sue a charity like the FSF. They could instead sue the users of the program, including the companies who redistribute GNU software. We feel it would not be responsible behavior for us to set up this situation.

No, I'm not twelve but these "points" you seem to be attempting sure have me convinced you are.

May I remind you that you're the one who can't seem to use polite, logical arguments backed by evidence to refute my supposedly jejune "points".

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[Anonymous Coward]

"A patent has to be new, useful, and nonobvious"

No it doesn't. Amazon patented "click on a button order a book". Man, that was so non-obvious!

"Your ignorant, paranoid rantings are really quite disturbing to those of use who contribute to society"

The only thing you seem to contribute is hot air. Please. Leave the field to those of us who have a clue and have been doing this for more than 5 years. The people with a real clue know that software patents are a dumb idea; large companies like them because they give them a measure of control over what they consider a chaotic situation, e.g. some guy in finland invents an operating system and start crushing Microsoft, and damnit, he wont' charge any money for it.

That must piss you off. But given that you seem mostly a parasite on society, that shouldn't be surprising.

Repetition helps us learn. Repetition helps us...

[jbn-o]

While I can sympathize with you having to read the same objections repeatedly, this information is repeated for a good reason: it is not a part of the public's common understanding of computers and it should be. Common computer users are under threat too even if they don't know it (I refer you to Paul Heckel's threatening Apple Hypercard users with patent infringement if Apple didn't see things his way; RMS talks about it in his talk on the danger of software patents when Heckel attended one of RMS' talks). Read the transcript:

We are not the only ones threatened by software patents. All software developers are threatened by software patents and even software users are threatened by software patents. For instance, Paul Heckel, when Apple wasn't very scared of his threats, he threatened to start suing Apple's customers. Apple found that very scary. They figured they couldn't afford to have their customers being sued like that, even if they would ultimately win. So the users can get sued too, either as a way of attacking a developer or just as a way to squeeze money out of them on their own or to cause mayhem.

I doubt most people know that they could be violating the law even though they are using purchased software. I doubt most people know that some patent-unencumbered alternatives exist (Ogg Vorbis instead of MP3, for example) and work well (even on portable digital music players). We need to repeat these stories and spread awareness of free alternatives so people won't be threatened or lose a patent infringement lawsuit.

The main way to teach people new ideas is through repetition. So it behooves us to repeat the patent horror stories to help the newcomers to the free software community learn why they won't find MP3 encoders or decoders with free software OSes, for instance. It also serves as a reminder why one should use a free software system despite occasional practical difficulties--we want the freedom to share and modify software.

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[mikael]

This is the advice that has been given to our university (in the UK) covering all possible research areas (hardware/software engineering). A good example is the Dyson vs. Hoover patent lawsuit:

Hoover to pay 4m [pounds sterling] damages to Dyson - News - in dispute over bagless vacuum cleaner

Hoover wins court battle with Dyson

Dust settles on Dyson's long battle

Forgive my use of the word "register", but I am using it within the context defined by the following article:

Business Law - An Overview of Patents

WTF?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was cut and pasted from the article! Don't the moderators RTFA? Jeez...

What will it take?

[thewiz]

Unfortunately, IMO it will take some software companies being litigated out of existance before the patent laws change. Like healthcare in America, changes to law are ALWAYS a reaction to something being really out of whack.

Think about how long it has taken for Americans to get a clue about how bad things like McDonalds food are for your health. Our healthcare system reacts to things, like people having a heart attack, instead of the person taking preventative measures (exercise, diet) before the heart attack happens.

It's going to take several major software companies having legal "heart attacks" because of software patents before the rest of the industry gets a clue and quits dining at the trough of patents and IP.

Software and Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

> Bottom line: the software patent 'cold war'
> provides no benefits to anyone, and will
> inevitably make the game of software >
> development mpossible for anyone to play.

Software is no different than any other type of
intellectual property. Software patents are no
different than any other type patent. They are
viewed the same, they will be treated the same.
People need to quit being silly about this as
though the world is going to come to an end. Some
people will put their code into the public domain
and/or GPL it. Others will seek to patent and
profit from their hard work. To each his own.
Freedom is the ability to choose which path you
decide.

Re:Software and Patents

[TheInternet]

Software is no different than any other type of intellectual property. Software patents are no different than any other type patent

I disagree. The inherent complexity and abstractness nature of software development puts it in a separate category altogether.

Not to mention the rate at which software is being written. Not many people are going to go out and build their own bridge, but how many people have written something that would qualify as a virtual machine? Quite a few. It's a natural progression.

I frankly don't think we could have forseen something like software development when the patent system was originally designed.

I'm not yet sold on the idea of "no patents", but there are too many patents lawsuits that amount to abuse in rather than true defense. The abuse is becoming a business model, that's what most people take exception to.

- Scott

Re:Software and Patents

[Jamie Lokier]

Some people will put their code into the public domain and/or GPL it. Others will seek to patent and profit from their hard work. To each his own. Freedom is the ability to choose which path you decide.

I put my hard work in the public domain and/or GPL it.

Then I am sued for everything I own. What kind of Freedom is that?

Patents such as they are now implemented create an unjust system. Those who pursue patents can accrue profits from their own work and the work of others. The who do not pursue patents can go bankrupt or be blocked from inventing despite working independently and competing fairly.

-- Jamie

Re:Software and Patents

[BubbleNOP]

It is quite easy to unintentionally infringe on a patent and be sued for it. I doubt it happens often with other kinds of intellectual property.

MOD UP

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it just goes to show you that when you think something is so crazy as to make no sense at all it usually just means you don't know all the factors involved.

As a software developer I am glad I don't release anything into a commercial environment, I think I would go crazy having to avoid tip-toe around all these insane patents.

Re:The problem (hopefully) written in one sentence

[madstork2000]

Actually wouldn't that make things worse? The way things are going copyrights are eventually going to be perpetual. 15 years, is obvisously better than forever.

I am in no way saying I am in favor of patents on software, I just do not want to make things worse than the alread fsck'd system that currently exists.

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I get laid???

[vettemph]

"Girl, you must be in /etc/fstab because I'd like to mount you"

Yep, and this is why slashdotters don't get laid http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Laid :)

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[Free_Meson]

That Business Law article is disturbingly wrong... Anyone following such advice would quickly find that they had wasted a great deal of time and money. An inventor has no exlcusive right to practice his invention, merely the right to exclude others. If I invent and patent the glove, then you invent and patent the red glove, you still cannot produce your red glove because it would infringe upon my patent (or, rather, I would have the legal right to stop you if I so chose). I could not make red gloves, either, but I could make brown gloves and green gloves and black gloves and so forth, provided there were not patents covering those inventions. This is absurdly simplistic, but you get the idea. Things could work differently in the U.K., but I don't know how you could have a patent system that assigned exclusive rights to the inventor, because any patents improving previous inventions still covered by patents would necessarily infringe.

For some reason the article also seems to use the term "register" in place of both the word "apply" and "renew", or at least where those words would appear in a description of the American patent system. Trademarks are generally "registered" because the objective behind them is to prevent nefarious entities from doing business under a name that a company has spent time and money promoting or associating with their own good practices. There is a public registry of protected trademarks so that upstanding businesses can check before they start to do business with someone else's goodwill.

There is no duty to protect a patent against infringement in the U.S. and there shouldn't be in the U.K. either, though it's possible they have such a law. In many cases, this would put an impossible burden on a patent holder because, in addition to managing his business, he must seek out infringers. Maybe if your invention is the automobile that would be easy, but many inventions are used to make consumer goods rather than used in them, and so any evidence of infringement would exist only on factory floors and, if the invention allows significantly greater efficiency and therefore profit, the balance sheet.

From your first article:

DYSON has settled a dispute over its bagless vacuum cleaner by accepting a 4 million [pounds sterling] damages offer, plus costs and interest, from arch-rival Hoover.

The offer, which is expected to top 6m [pounds sterling], follows a High Court ruling in October 2000 that Hoover's Triple Vortex vacuum cleaner infringed Dyson's Dual Cyclone patent.

...

Dyson revealed that, as early as June 2000, it had offered Hoover the opportunity to settle the claim for just over 1 million [pounds sterling], "in order to avoid court proceedings".

Hoover has bad lawyers. If you can settle such an obviously lousy case for only ~$2M U.S., you do it. You'll spend almost that much on lawyers (it looks like dyson did, roughly). I'm not sure how this relates to the above, though -- Hoover infringed, refused to license/settle, was sued, and lost. The trademark claim is a different matter entirely and Dyson said he was "forced to sue" but he was forced by Hoover's business practices, not by a law which compelled him to act or lose his rights, as far as I can tell from the story.

patents now benefit only lawyers

[museumpeace]

I checked for articles on "patents" at Scientific American...they have published over 140 in the last 6 or so years counting columns, articles and letters and virtually every one of them levels scathing criticism at what stupid things we allow to be patented or how patents have retarded progress in some very important technologies [their 2001 article on how many drug companies are suing and counter suing is scary, I wish they'd just spend the money on finding the cures!] The alarm Groklaw sounds about the software industry has already come to pass in parts of the biotech industry and the solution that some of us espouse for permiting the unfettered advance of software, open source, has been embraced by Worldchanging.org and by BIOS an organization that wants, in their words, to "develop and validate a new means for the cooperative invention, improvement and delivery of biological technologies, drawing inspiration from the open source software movement to forge a 'protected commons' of knowledge and technology."
I think the thing that has kept software innovation from stalling out completely in a patent litigation tarpit has been the combination of open source and the fact that you can often bring a software idea to market for vastly less venture money than a new drug takes. Those VC's and big pharma's do all they can to see that such big gambles pay off. But trying to own and "idea" when everybody and his sister are working get an idea that solves the same problem is bound to make for friction, duplication and loose-loose litigation. If you get out there first with something people really need and you don't gouge your customers, just staying one innovation ahead of the competion can keep you in business and maybe even make you some money. One machine vision startup I worked for NEVER patented a really significant advanced technique, preferring to keep it a trade secret because they took out a patent, competitors would find a way around it more easily than they could reverse engineer it. 20 years later, they are still in business. Its much harder to spend nearly a billion dollars on a new drug and still keep it a secret until you are making sales.

What about Bash or Perl?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems any shell script would rely on external help, just as Java would. And this has been around since 1969 or so... wouldn't that be prior art?

Audio: R. M. Stallman's talk on software patents

[t35t0r]

I found this referenced from Groklaw and just thought it would be good for people who didnt read that far down the comments (or don't read at all) to listen. It's a very informative talk about software patents. Ogg format URL: http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-cambri dgeuni-england2002.ogg

My favorite quote: " ..one engineer said 'I can't recognize my own inventions in patentese.' "

Re:Fuck Sun Microsystems

[Anonymous Coward]

not a troll.
the same day that they whacked another n% of their employees, 200 openings where posted for Bangalore.

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I get laid???

[Anonymous Coward]

Now now, as we all know Wiki != authoritative!

rotfl

[poptones]

Mkay, but I already mentioned "purchase" to which you pretty much said "I wasn't talking about purchase." So which is it? Were you talking about a purchase (in which case you are indeed doing business - ie you have entered the corporate world EXACTLY as I pointed out in the first rebuttal) or it's NOT a purchase, in which case it ain't nothing but a link.

So which is it? Do you even know what YOU were thinking?

I can't order mandrake that can play DVDs out of the box either - but it takes about sixty seconds to make it able to do so. This is the exact fucking point I made TWICE now... You REALLY don't pay attention, do you?

Re:rotfl

[pyrrhonist]

Mkay, but I already mentioned "purchase" to which you pretty much said "I wasn't talking about purchase." So which is it?

I think that at this point it's pretty obvious what I am talking about. I even provided you with information on exactly what type of system I was talking about implementing. I really don't think you're this obtuse, so you can stop your trolling.

Were you talking about a purchase

No.

or it's NOT a purchase, in which case it ain't nothing but a link.

No, I'm not talking about a link either. Even if I was talking about a link, that's been patented too!

But that's really not the important part. It doesn't really matter what I implement, and since you seem to be having such a hard time understanding exactly what it is that I want to implement, we'll use your example instead.

You want to talk about playing DVDs, so fine, let's talk about playing DVDs.

I can't order mandrake that can play DVDs out of the box either - but it takes about sixty seconds to make it able to do so.

And you think that's no big deal? On other platforms and with commercial Linux players, I can play DVDs immediately. You know why? Because these implementations have players that have a legal CSS license.

The reason you can't play them by default is, because the Content Scramble System (CSS) is the intellectual property of the DVD Copy Control Association, and it is illegal to implement CSS without purchasing a license for the patent.

Mandrake does not have a CSS license, and neither do the makers of any of the open source software in the Mandrake distribution. Because of this, they can't ship a working DVD player unless they purchase a license. The open source DVD player projects also can't ship a working DVD player without violating intellectual property laws.

On Mandrake, I have to install libdvdcss, which is illegal in some parts of the world. This opens the user up to intellectual property litigation.

So, fine, you're happy with installing your illegal library on your computer and spending time to try to get it to work. CSS, though, is a very small part of DVD playback, and it has caused tons of litigation already. Now, think about the other things involved that are patented, like MPEG. What if you had to download an illegal library for that to?

Suddenly, you have to install several libraries on your own, because Mandrake can't ship IP encumbered libraries (this would open them up to litigation). Instead, you open the end-user up to litigation. I'm sure end-users will love that and it will make them want to use open source software all the more.

Now who would implement these open source libraries? Nobody in a country with strong IP laws is going to be able to, so that leaves out the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, etc.

Furthermore, no company is going to want to use these open source libraries in their operation, because it opens them up to litigation. For example, I'm sure that small companies would love to be sued by Microsoft for using a version of Sendmail with Sender ID.

So, how exactly are patents good for open source again?

This is the exact fucking point I made TWICE now... You REALLY don't pay attention, do you?

No, it's you who don't pay attention very well. The point I have been making is that you can have legal action taken against you if you violate someone's intellectual property regardless of whether you are a for profit or non-profit entity. Furthermore, since there are so many software patents, you can do so, unknowingly. If you are an open source project, and violate someone's intellectual property, your project is pretty much finished.

Palpitations: Kodak vs. sun

[Tony]

It's going to take several major software companies having legal "heart attacks" because of software patents before the rest of the industry gets a clue and quits dining at the trough of patents and IP.

I think that's what PJ was getting at: the Kodak vs. Sun lawsuit is big enough to draw attention to the broken nature of the patent system. Considering the rate at which software patent lawsuits are popping up, I think there's a dawning realisation in the software world that things are amiss.

Currently, we seem to be in a cold-war type arms buildup, in which software companies are stockpiling patents to use as some sort of mutually-assured-destruction deterrent. Maybe soon we can have talks concerning disarmament.

repatenting?

[crucini]

Care to cite an example? Give me the numbers of two patents that patent the same process. And identify which claim of the second patent reads on a process described in the first.

Re:repatenting?

[russotto]

Compression provides numerous examples: http://www.ross.net/compression/patents_notes_from _ccfaq.html

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[mdfst13]

"A patent has to be new, useful, and nonobvious."

So how is the object manager patent a new, useful, and nonobvious improvement on Smalltalk (which is mentioned under Other References)?

When Thomas Edison's laboratory was inventing the light bulb, they tried thousands of wrong solutions over the course of a year and a half. That kind of work does require patent protection, since it is much easier to reverse engineer the one correct way than to redo the research.

Software is the opposite. It is a constructive process rather than one of elimination. One starts with a framework and then develops the various required processes inside that framework. Reverse engineering is at least as difficult as redoing the development. Further, there are frequently multiple ways to accomplish the same task. Note that Microsoft's announced plan in regard to the Eolas patent is to replace the code. Eolas is not going to get rewarded for "innovative merit," just for hiding their monopoly. If Microsoft had found the patent in the first place, they would have simply avoided the Eolas method.

Yes, there are some ideas in software that are, in fact, new, useful, and nonobvious. However, they are not the results of long research, but of intuitive leaps. For example, the GIF patent was based on the Welch variant of the Lempel Ziv algorithm. The primary difference between LZW and LZ is that LZW adds sequences to the translation dictionary one step earlier. For example, LZ does not compress baba at all (it would compress bababa). LZW compresses the four eight bit characters to three nine bit characters.

Software patents can also have an actively harmful effect on research and development. For example, if Sun has to pay a billion dollars, what effect will that have on future development of community languages? What happens to Java if Sun refuses to pay Kodak's licensing fees (note: I find this scenario highly unlikely but it's worth thnking about why it's unlikely)? What happens with other object oriented, compiled to bytecode languages that do not have Sun's deep pockets (e.g. Python, GNU Java)? This is especially bad since applications aren't published at the time of application, so someone may have already patented the system that you are currently developing.

Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents were ok when Sun sued M$ over Java....now they're not!

America's Decline

[Anonymous Coward]

America has turned to crap, its impossible to do business. Years of hard work and millions of investment dollars are for othing if sleezy lawyers take a bogus lawsuits in front of ignorant juries who have no qualifications what so ever to make such important decisions on things they have absolutley no comprehension of!

Healthcare is bad enough with insurance costs so high its driving doctors out of the industry all together, now IT companies can't even write software without some sleezebag claiming they have the rights to your work!

America is broken, who's gonna fix it?

Old geeks should enter a class action vs. USPTO

[garyebickford]

Knuth was right!!

Changing the rules in the middle of the game was unfair and should have been blocked in court. All the geeks from "back in the day" should participate in a class action suit against the USPTO to have all software patents overturned.

If we had had the chance to patent software back then, my associates and I might well have patents on certain types of client-server architecture, physical disk mapping, soft failover disk servers, tiled images with prefetch for seamless virtual panning, using neural networks for heuristic evaluation of image convolution patterns, 'tiled' convolution pattern matching, various methods for converting scanned image data into 3D terrain models, etc., etc. If not our group, then certainly others before us. But we did not have the opportunity to do so because at the time (early 1980's) software was not patentable!

Allowing SW patents 10 to 30 years after many of the most significant innovations was violently unfair to the hundreds or thousands of creative people who developed the industry to that point, and produced nearly all the real inventions, under a non-patentable paradigm.

In the early 1980's my teams developed dozens of major innovations that today could be patented, but at that time were restricted to the thin "trade secret" and copyright protections. The entire philosophy of the industry at that time was either keep it secret, or publish. There was no middle ground. We were just a minor group, there were hundreds or thousaands of others doing as well or better. None of those innovations were protected as "Intellectual Property" - we just shared ideas.

Now, after all that work, stuff that we built back in the 1970's and 1980's is being patented right and left - not to mention trivialities like file formats for a disk partition scheme!! What's new in that?

At this point the best action might well be for all of those who were around before the USPTO changed the rules to get together and file a class action suit against the USPTO to have all software patents thrown out and return to the previous presumption that software algorithms were mathematics to be discovered, not invented. I would suggest a legislative process, but I doubt that this would go anywhere in today's environment.

Kodak boycot

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's time to boycot all kodaks products.

Re:It's not a rant, but the news item is low quali

[Anonymous Coward]

The only ranting I saw was in the title of the item. It would do the poster good to observe some courtesy towards other news sites.

Like the courtesy that PJ extends towards Slashdot?

If you get a user account, you are less likely to get deleted. Groklaw has standards to be a guest here. If you violate them, you will be deleted. I don't care if you like it or not. That is how it is. Leaving nasty remarks about moderation policies won't change those policies. This isn't Slashdot.

Oh yes, PJ, and this isn't Groklaw. We don't delete alternate points of view around here.

Groklaw isn't for discussion with trolls. It's for work, primarily. And trolls need to go to Slashdot or wherever to have long discussions.

So according to PJ, Slashdot is for trolls and Groklaw is for work. How nice of her to make such a disparaging judgement. My judgement is that Groklaw is for uninformed rants and republishing of documents that can be found elsewhere.

Re:Fuck Sun Microsystems

[pommiekiwifruit]

Wow, that's beyond libertarianism even!

The quote I found was: "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[chthon]

Patent costs are larger. I work for Philips, and we had a request from the IP group, if we please could file some more (software) patent requests.

In the lecture we got, the complete cost for entering a valid patent was mentioned, it is about one million euro per patent.

Not sure if this is because Philips is a global company, but I can be sure that it is because much investigations need to be done. When more software patents are approved, I can only assume that the total cost of filing a patent will only get larger and larger, because of the amount of patents to be investigated.

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[!ucif3r]

Actually at my university they have a group within the school of business that is completely responsible for patents. They provice a free service to help develop the IP rights for the professor or professors who developed the work. They will take care of forming a company if necessary or the licensing of the rights to others.

This has allowed Queen's (Kingston Ontario) to form a couple of phamaceutical businesses around pharmaceuticals developed here. There have also been other non-medical examples too. The money goes mostly to the researchers and to pay the expenses, like any employees. Also, some goes to pay the patent and business guys of course. Almost none goes directly to the University.

As for software, I think many who do develop software as part of their research (myself included) like to be able to share their work and prefer open source to private patents. But, point well made. Even open source should make sure they get a patent to ensure it remains open source.

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[mikael]

That's about the same amount our IP adviser came out with. Not only do you have to search entire patent office across the world, but you also have to check every research journal and digest for papers. Some of the multinationals are rather sneaky - they'll publish papers, but only in exclusively expensive/small subscription list journals.

The management of one entertainment software company I worked for, were so scared of being sued for violating software patents, that they wouldn't allow any of the programmers to use a particular technique unless it was already documented in the public domain. So much for the opportunity to do something completely different, unique and creative.

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[mikael]

Even up here in North Dakota we've had an incident were NDA's had to be signed after a student presented a project he was working on.

That's happened in the UK too. We've had students do research projects (MSc/PhD) in conjunction with external companies. The research is good, but they end up having to signed a NDA/confidentiality agreement. So they can't talk about their research to any other potential employer.

And on another level, if you're a mature student and are looking for employment software engineer, you need to be able to demonstrate that you have skills that no entry level graduate has. The benefits of any work you do can be blown away if your supervisor decides that he would like to use your research as teaching material for an undergraduate/postgraduate course. And there is also the horror story abou a final year student published a paper six months prior to submitting a PhD only to see a startup company commoditise his research within three months, with the result he didn't get his Ph.D.

Publish, but please include dates!

[goldfndr]

An anonymous coward in an earlier patent discussion, perhaps an Examiner, mentioned that many pieces of Art found in Journals and on the Internet aren't useable as Prior Art because they lacked dates. They might've been before or after, but without a date the Examiner can't use it.

Whether the journal was "reputable" or not, and whether the Art was available to someone's notion of "the public" or not, do not to matter; those can be hashed out later.

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I get laid???

[vettemph]

But I just added that slang entry for laid a week ago due to some other slashdot post.

Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I get laid???

[Anonymous Coward]

ask jeeves

Yes it will infringe

[Tom Wiles]

1. A patent search is not feasable even for large corporations. Even if you were able to identify some of that patents that MIGHT apply, you would not have the expertise to determine if they actually do apply. Even if you determined correctly that a particular patent does not apply, that does not mean that the patent holder would agree with you.

2. As someone else said, ignorance is bliss.

3. In your specific case it probably makes no difference. Unless the value of the product you are building exceeds the cost of enforcing the patent in the legal system the most you are likely to receive is a demand letter.

It is really sad that innovators can not build products without the fear of being crushed totally and everything the own being taken from tham by (what amounts to) a heartless system. We forget that many of the engineers the scientests that built our country in the 1800's came to the US to flee the European patent system that was crushing them. Think about that.

Tom

Re:Why aren't univerities better at the patent gam

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but patents are just a way to hide the thievery behind a "productive" clothing. Drug company goes to the jungles of Amazon to find out what kind of herbs natives use to cure certain diseases. Comes back and goes to a lab to try an isolate the active ingredient, extracts it, patents it and makes huge profits selling it. Did they pay a reasonble cost for those natives of Amazon? no. Most things are like this. Ideas come and go, and they are almost always based on something that is pre-existing. Very little of modern inventions can be called unique and is not the property of a single person or a corporation. Anyone can dream up big things, but with patents, only those that have access to it can benefit from the patent. Patents are just a way of manupulation by those in the know to screw others.

Re:Fuck Sun Microsystems

[Anonymous Coward]

So you support smoker's rights to kill you. That's nice.

blah blah blah

[poptones]

Now, think about the other things involved that are patented, like MPEG. What if you had to download an illegal library for that to?

You mean like Suse? You have to install an assload of packages to get even basic multimedia support working properly in that distro - and even then it takes lots more tweaking to get it halfway as refined as (for example) mandrake.

So fucking what? There's other distros that include it all and don't care - because they're hosted and maintained in places that have sane IP laws. This is why domestic IP laws don't mean a fucking thing (here it comes again) UNLESS YOU ARE IN IT FOR PROFIT. Is it really your argument all OSS projects are "doomed" because they are not profitable? That regional "illegality" can shut down a project? You said this, but I still cannot believe anyone who knows his ass from an rpm would posit such a stupid thesis.

If you are an open source project, and violate someone's intellectual property, your project is pretty much finished.

Just like decss, huh? Hell, just like mandrake - sure seems to have fucked them in the ass. I know no one I introduce to mandrake ever wants to use it - they just mutter something about "getting sued by the MPAA" and walk away.

Yeah, that's it. No Mandrake users around this small American town... nosiree.

Re:blah blah blah

[pyrrhonist]

There's other distros that include it all and don't care - because they're hosted and maintained in places that have sane IP laws.

That's my point; no place with IP laws will be writing open source. This is similar to why there are no U.S. based open source encryption projects. This hurts open source, because there are less people able to contribute to it.

This is why domestic IP laws don't mean a fucking thing (here it comes again) UNLESS YOU ARE IN IT FOR PROFIT.

Yes, they do. It doesn't matter if you aren't in it for profit. If you distribute code that contains someone's intellectual property, you open yourself to litigation by the owner of the intellectual property.

Is it really your argument all OSS projects are "doomed" because they are not profitable?

No, that's obviously not the case.

That regional "illegality" can shut down a project? You said this, but I still cannot believe anyone who knows his ass from an rpm would posit such a stupid thesis.

Sure it can. Bnetd still hasn't recovered from the DMCA violation they were slapped with. I don't see anybody in countries with sane IP laws rushing to take it over.

Just like decss, huh?

Yes. Although, Jon was acquitted, legal action was taken against him. The result of this is the reason Mandrake doesn't contain the libdvdcss library.

Hell, just like mandrake - sure seems to have fucked them in the ass.

No, not like Mandrake. Mandrake removes software that violates IP laws so that they don't get taken to court.

Re:blah blah blah

[poptones]

That's my point; no place with IP laws will be writing open source. This is similar to why there are no U.S. based open source encryption projects. This hurts open source, because there are less people able to contribute to it.

Your "point" (for the last time) provably has no edge. The only chance you even had of making one - that regional IP laws harm open source - has now apparently been abandoned even by you. What you just said is not that "open source" is harmed (it provably is not) but that US commercial interests are harmed.

DUH, that's what I fucking said the last six posts now. The OSS projects go right along, all that is impaired is the opportunity (in the US, germany and a few other backward nations) to profit from these projects on an individual basis.

There is nothing at all to prevent me or you or anyone else from contributing to open source projects - encrypted or otherwise. I myself have contributed to encyption projects (and even written a newbie "howto encrypt your linux system to protect your privacy") and I've seen no MIB. I've also submitted quite a lot of code to an open source project that is widely employed in those "ez 123" dvd rippers, and I've seen no hollywood process servers. Decss doesn't need to be reinvented 1000 times over so there's little need to "contribute" there, but gpg and other projects still continue to evolve... and will, even without (shudder) US funding.

I really can't believe you're tryuing to make such a provably toothless argument. Even projects like asfrecorder linger long after their useful life has ended - not because they were "closed down" or "unprofitable" but simply because they no longer need to exist - they're obsolete.

Anyone who uses mandrake and has directed their computer to zarb.org can attest to the stupidity of your argument. Decss, gif tools, strong encryption - all that "unprofitable" and/or "illegal" stuff is available from servers located all over the world. Even (your example) bnetd is easily obtained from the very first link found under a google search. I guess the UK doesn't have "sane IP laws" - oh well... or maybe you just have an insane benchmark for what constitues "sane IP law."

Mandrake removes software that violates IP laws so that they don't get taken to court.

Uh huh. And it has provably harmed them, huh? Just like it has harmed Microsoft (who also doesn't include decss in their os). Of course, if you install mdk10 it takes about one minute online to be playing (and ripping) dvds - as opposed to the MS way, where you end up downloading several MB of (not free) software to do the same job. (or, ironically, download the same OSS software that is included with mdk10 and most other linux distros but will never be included in windows).

So you tell me, genius: who is harmed more by this? Looks pretty obvious to me the open source method comes out ahead in every way. Looks like there's something to all that "free with a big F" stuff, huh?

In a world where even child pornographers - an industry that is almost universally illegal - cannot be completely silenced (much less put out of business), your thesis is laughably absurd. It's pointless, as this entire discussion has become... ciao.

Re:blah blah blah

[pyrrhonist]

The only chance you even had of making one - that regional IP laws harm open source - has now apparently been abandoned even by you.

No it hasn't. You just lack reading comprehension.

What you just said is not that "open source" is harmed (it provably is not) but that US commercial interests are harmed.

No, I said that Open Source is harmed. Open Source is harmed when developers have to spend time scanning their code for patented algorithms and stripping them out of the codebase (like what OpenSSH has had to do). Some of these algorithms may be necessary for interoperability with other software. If the interoperability is not allowed, that hurts Open Source. But I guess that someone that hates Open Source as much as you can't understand that.

With the U.S. and Europe forcing their IP laws on other countries through the UN, it will no longer be possible for any open source project to implement any patented algorithm. But, I guess that's just fine with you, since you want to see Open Source die a painful death.

The OSS projects go right along, all that is impaired is the opportunity (in the US, germany and a few other backward nations) to profit from these projects on an individual basis.

It's got nothing to do with profit. It's illegal even when you are giving it away for free. That's probably hard for you to understand, since you insist on saying that Open Source means "for profit".

There is nothing at all to prevent me or you or anyone else from contributing to open source projects - encrypted or otherwise.

Yes there is - it's called the LAW. I don't know why you don't understand that - oh, that's right, you think you are above the law. You know, if you live in a country where possession of strong encryption is illegal, you cannot write open source software to do strong encryption.

I myself have contributed to encyption projects (and even written a newbie "howto encrypt your linux system to protect your privacy") and I've seen no MIB.

Really, I'm happy for you. Really, I am. You seem to live a charmed life driving drunk with no regard at all for any country's laws. Others, have not been so lucky.

I've also submitted quite a lot of code to an open source project that is widely employed in those "ez 123" dvd rippers, and I've seen no hollywood process servers.

Oh, really? Which project is it? What code did you write? Give me a list. I doubt you can, because I bet you haven't written anything.

but gpg and other projects still continue to evolve... and will, even without (shudder) US funding.

That doesn't even have anything to do with this discussion. You just don't have any argument at all so you throw in anything. You know you're done. You might as well just give up right now.

I really can't believe you're tryuing to make such a provably toothless argument. Even projects like asfrecorder linger long after their useful life has ended - not because they were "closed down" or "unprofitable" but simply because they no longer need to exist - they're obsolete.

So stuff lingers, big fucking deal! You think there's no IP in obsolete software?

Anyone who uses mandrake and has directed their computer to zarb.org can attest to the stupidity of your argument. Decss, gif tools, strong encryption - all that "unprofitable" and/or "illegal" stuff is available from servers located all over the world.

Yeah, if you like to surf the illegal warez boards. Why do hate Open Source so much that you want to link it to pirates?

Even (your example) bnetd is easily obtained from the very first link found under a google search.

No it isn't. Bnetd is the third link, and there's no active development on it. It's a fucking archive of the last official versi

Re:Fuck Sun Microsystems

[ScrewMaster]

No, I'm against the government trying to punish groups of people for legal (if socially unacceptable and otherwise grotesque) behavior. Maybe you like to have few brews after work: already there are closet prohibitionists at work in many local governments that would like to place extreme taxes on those because alcohol also has health risks, and because they personally don't think people should drink. I'm just saying that we need to be careful about sticking taxes on behaviors that we may disagree with. No, I don't support smokers' rights such: but I do support all the rest of the rights that we Americans are supposed to enjoy, and I don't like people telling me what to do (it's always for my own good, of course.)

Re:Fuck Sun Microsystems

[ScrewMaster]

No, that's simply reasonable. It's easy to justify someone else getting fucked over if you, personally, don't lose anything by it (or if you dislike them.) But Kodak's position here is grotesque, and however little you many think of Sun Microsystems doesn't justify this decision. Because, as I said, the next time a company gets hit with something like this, it may very well affect you more directly.

Re:The problem (hopefully) written in one sentence

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem is that they are already covered by copyright law, then can be covered by patent law on top of that. One question about software copyrights: I don't understand how software developers can get full protection under copyright law without depositing their source code with the library of congress. Otherwise, comparing source code should be meaningless and all that could be compared is the resulting binary. (I know that depositing a copy is not REQUIRED to secure copyright any more than affixing a copyright symbol is, but I think that it is if you want the full level of protection.)

Tolerance to smokers

[pommiekiwifruit]

You think it's reasonable that you and I have to endure coughing and foul tastes because some addicts are unreasonable bastards and cannot last the course of a meal without lighting up and blowing their smoke all over my food? (I was talking about that, not about Sun/Kodak).

If they want to kill themselves and smell like tramps, they should do it out of range of my nose and dry-cleaning bill, e.g. outside or in a specialised smokeatorium. Since they have proved themselves incapable of doing this without the government telling them to (i.e. it becoming standard practice to have smoke-free meals, like it is now with offices), the government seems the only way to do so.

As for Sun/Kodak I am with Sun on that. Overbroad software patents are plain evil.

fallacy

[ReporterIsATroll]

fallacy: false cause

Re:It's not a rant, but the news item is low quali

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you 100%. And it's significant, as you point out, that the "rant" insult wasn't made by the story submitter but by the Slashdot editor.

The people who read and post on /. and Groklaw are just slightly different mixes of the same kind of people. Any material difference comes from the editors.

And yes, I find Groklaw more constructive and informative than Slashdot nowadays.

Re:rants are annoying

[bigtangringo]

I think there was a previous slashdot article about a lawyer and lobbyist for MS or some such company. Doesn't the saying go "Any man who choses to represent himself has a fool for a client"? God we need some good lawyers and lobbyists on our payroll... If we had payroll I guess.