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Microsoft Researching Patent Law with New Experts
wikinerd writes "According to The Register, Microsoft seeks to hire new patent experts. In their words, patent experience itself "is helpful but not mandatory" and advance knowledge of patent law is not required. The applicants need only be Computer Science or Electrical Engineering PhD holders, without any qualification in law. They will be involved in prior art search, patentability research and technical analysis. The article outlines some of the most controversial MS patents, such as online bill payment."
in other news, war is peace, hate is love, and microsoft ROXXORZZZZZ.
And soon microsoft shall hold patents to errors, bugs, patches and security updates.
http://www.sandstorming.com
"Application for a patent that covers the act of patenting software intellectual property."
That that, logic!
I am from a small, grease-loving country in the north called Ca-na-da.
I don't know about you, but I'm not about to fund any massive development efforts if I have no recourse whatsoever should an employee of mine decide to sell my source code to a competitor. I agree that software patents in general are a bad idea, but there's no reason why someone should not be able to protect their proprietary work in any way, such as with copyrights.
As much as I like to poke fun at Microsoft, I don't see anything wrong with this job posting.
Performing a prior art search requires 95% technology knowledge and 5% patent knowledge. The little patent knowledge their employees will need I'm sure they'll learn on the job. Come on, we've all sold ourselves during job interviews as being "fast learners."
In my opinion, this is just a silly reason to ridicule Microsoft.
I promise not to look for prior art or question the validity of any mouse click you want patented.
I wont be bothered to see if anyone else is even trying to do something similar, and will push to patent using keyboards to input data, using a pen on the screen to push objects, and even patent running software on something called a processor.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Wanted: PHD in physics to serve fast food through drive through window.
Condidering the fact that getting a PhD in CS and EE is fairly easy these days, we should expect a lot of idiotic "methods and aparatii" from those new kids. Then couple of frivolous lawsuits against small corporations as a testing ground and finally against free software will follow during the next decades (probably some easy target, ala bnetd, so people will boycott Microsoft for few ours and then start buying new products, like with Blizzard) but it will result in very bad PR and counterclaims from IBM so the practice will probably be terminated after two (three at most) low-priority lawsuits from the top levels of the management, those new kids will get fired and everything will go back to normal. It will be certainly interesting to watch, but devastating to the US industry which will obviously benefit EU who will rather choose progress than software patents. It will mean stronger domination of Microsoft in the US and weaker in Europe. That of course means that it is a good time to buy stock of SuSE and Mandrake, and sell Red Hat.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I hope some of the real lawyers that read this site can confirm or discredit this.
:). Lawyers who work on IP issues tend to be very specialized and the firms they work for tend to be specialized as well.
Anyway, a friend of mine who happens to be a lawyer, when I asked what she knew about IP law stated that is so different from other types of law it has its own bar exam. Unless you actually pass that exam you are not really qualified to work on IP cases or to give legal advice. She said she will not touch IP law in any form because, in effect, it would be malpractice (I, of course, was hoping for some free advice
I have to wonder if by hiring unqualified people MS is heading for lots of problems.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Yes, copyright terms in general seem excessive and that's especially apparent in relation to software, but the general principal of copyrights still seems to be a good one.
Basically, if free software takes off and provides all the software everyone needs then there would be no need to revoke copyright laws since they wouldn't be doing any harm. If free software doesn't provide everything but leaves gaps for proprietary systems to fill then we still need an incentive mechanism to ensure that those gaps are filled. Either way, there is no good argument for abolishing copyright protection completely. Reforming it in some ways, most notably in duration, would make sense.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Litigate.
I fail to see how this differs from any of their own in-house attitudes towards patents, prior art, or the property of others.
It's kind of like the Mafia putting out an ad that looks like this:
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I know a Physics PhD that took a position about 10 years ago with a large IP law firm. He did it for the money. From what he described of his job, it sounded like a paralegal position where his specialty is to look at the science of patent applications. I imagine law firms have a need for specialized paralegal services in other areas too, such as medicine, etc; evidently, software too. Lawyers can't know everything.
In the end, the lawyer moves the paper and puts on the public face. The paralegals do the grunt work and directed research behind the scenes.
As a software developer, all this stuff makes me cringe. Makes me feel like I'm blindly jogging through a land mine field every time I create a new product.
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
I can't believe this post has been up for a day and not a single person has actually checked in with the following info:
Law firms and companies with patent lawyers routinely hire non-lawyer technical experts to help them with patent work. In law firms, these people are typically called "technology specialists" or something similar. Often these people simultaneously go to law school, with the idea being that they will eventually turn into lawyers.
Additionally, there are many people out there who are called "patent clerks." What this means is that they have studied for and passed the US Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) examination. Once you have passed this exam, you are qualified to help people obtain patents, regardless of whether you have a law degree. Now, you obviously can't practice law, so you're quite limited if your only a patent clerk and not a patent lawyer, but you can still be quite helpful to someone who just wants to obtain a patent or two.
Bottom line: law firms and legal departments routinely hire tech/science people to help them with their patent work. I honestly can't believe this made it into a story. Next week there will be a post about Microsoft hiring SECRETARIES. I mean, they're a software company!! They're supposed to be writing software and they're out hiring secretaries!?!?