More Patent Worries for Mobile Phones

loekf writes "After the story about NTP suing Research In Motion over alleged patent infringement (do your homework, U.S. Patent Office!), there's another story on The Inquirer about a U.S. firm, Antor Media, suing a lot of companies over a 'Method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage means from a central server to subscribers via a high data rate digital telecommunications network,' see: U.S. Patent 5,734,961. When does the hurting stop!?"

Comments

When does it stop?

[ScrewMaster]

When the pace of technological advancement reaches zero.

Re:When does it stop?

[Hal XP]

When the current software patents expire and the number of new patents reaches zero.

Re:When does it stop?

[springbox]

Technological advancement will realistically never stop as long as humans exist, but it can be made to slow down quite a bit.

Re:When does it stop?

[Space cowboy]

Fortunately (for the rest of the world), that's only the case in the USA. Of course, unless the EU gets its act together and *really* gets to grip with patents (in general, but especially s/w patents) it's curtains for the rest of us as well.

Perhaps a patent ought to have a natural lifetime specific to the patent, which has to be claimed for in the patent application. Give the patent-examiners the right to barter the lifetime of the patent vs the generality, taking novelty into account.

So, a patent has a default lifetime set up on a class basis (for-cars, for chemical-engineering, for software, etc.) and if a patent is truly innovative (in the opinion of the examiner), it gets a longer lifetime to start off with. Then the author and examiner can come to an arrangement ("yes, I'll exclude areas X,Y,Z but I want another 2 years" ... "most I'll give you is an extra year for that", etc.)

Default lifetimes for different patents ought to reflect their industy-area (eg: software ought to be very small, say 3-5 years. If someone comes up with transparent aluminium via a novel process, they get 20 years for the process, as it relates to transparent-Al; 10 years if they agree to sell the rights for everything other than Al; or 5 years in general).

This would allow the patent author to decide how to leverage the patent, make them relevant only to what the patent author has thought of (overly-general patents would be useless because of the low time-limit) and still keep the 'reward-a-good-idea' mentality that fosters exploitation of innovation.

It'd require the courts (or perhaps a fair few more patent examiners) to oversee the increased workload, but it would kickstart the various industries again, and all the lawyers currently working on creating patents could work on overseeing them instead :-)

Simon

Re:When does it stop?

[dmonty]

Well said, Hal - very on target.

Re:When does it stop?

[rekrutacja]

Then the author and examiner can come to an arrangement... ..."2000 bucks for me for every year extra for you"?

Re:When does it stop?

[dotwaffle]

I think you've hit the nail on the head - the US is the laughing stock of the world when it comes to "rights", where everything is geared towards the corporation as opposed to what's fair to all (although that does sound a little commie...)

Put simply, what I think a lot of people are thinking in the US and over here in the EU is that Patent law needs to be scrapped, and that Copyright law needs to be changed slightly to allow a maximum licence period of say 10 years. After those 10 years, you don't have the rights to your product anymore, unless you file a claim with the (let's call it copyright office) requesting an extention, the only circumstances for extention being part of the 10 years was research, and you want the full 10 years of retail.

The only problem I see is certain US senators hi-jacking the bill with items to increase the power of corporations in media - for example making IP crime a criminal offence.

Either way, the patent experiment has failed. Copyright has been hi-jacked by corporations like Disney. Things need winding back 150 years and going back to then - sure, there was trade secrets then, but there are trade secrets such as the alleged formula for Coka Cola anyway...

Re:When does it stop?

[NickFortune]

Perhaps a patent ought to have a natural lifetime specific to the patent, which has to be claimed for in the patent application. Give the patent-examiners the right to barter the lifetime of the patent vs the generality, taking novelty into account.

That might now work as well as you might hope.

To begin with, novelty, as applied to patents, is supposed to be absolute. They're supposed to be granted to ideas that no one ever thought of before. To consider the novelty of patents as being relative is to accept that patents are allowable on ideas that not many people have thought of, or on ideas that are only proposed infrequently. Given the degree to which the current arragenment is abused, it seems foolish to slacken the requirements.

Secondly, the current patent procedure is not known for its rigor, certainly not as it applies to some technical sectors. Patent offices are gaining a reputation for simply rubber-stamping computer patents possibly (let's be charitable here) because they lack the background to effectively. As such, it's difficult to imagine patent clerks in the role of steely-eyed defender of the common weal, standing implaccably against the forces of corporate greed in order to limit the scope of a not-particularly-novel process.

Thirdly, the patent office, at least in the US, is swamped. Microsoft and their ilk are going through the Encyclopedia of Computer Technology and applting for patents for each concept in turn, justifying this bare-faced abuse of the system under the semantically bankrupt unberella of "good business". I even if those patent clerks were inclined to the role of steely-eyed-defender, I doubt they have time to evaluate that sort of trade off.

I know your idea calls for a lot more oversight on patents. Even so, the proposal cedes valuable ground unnecessarily. It opens the way for patents to be considered on relative novelty, allowing a whole new class of bogus patents to be de defended on the grounds that they were "fairly novel". It also opens the way for patenting corporations to badger courts and patents offices both for an extended duration for their own patents by talking up the novelty of the invention.

And for software, the proposal tacitly accepts the legitimacy of software patents.

It's much easier to keep rights that we currently have, then it is to regain them once lost. If we're going to think about how to reform the patent process, we need to make sure we don't conceed more than we gain in the process.

Re:When does it stop?

[eric76]

alleged formula for Coka Cola

The most important parts of the formula are obvious:

1) Caffeine, a diuretic, to make you get rid of the liquid faster.
2) Salt to keep you thirsty for more.
3) Sugar (or other sweetening) to cover up the taste of the first two.

After that, the other ingredients don't count.

Re:When does it stop?

[Space cowboy]

Well, I had sort of assumed the 'public' part of the 'arrangement' was taken as read. Obviously not.

So, in the same way as patents are currently disclosed, any arrangements would also be part of the disclosure. There would have to be some sort of overview, which is what I think you're saying - but what's the difference between my suggestion, and the current option '$2000/year if you pass the patent' option that the unscrupulous could offer today ?

So, presumably there is already a checks/balances system in place...

Simon

Re:When does it stop?

[Space cowboy]

Good points all, I think there's a definition of novelty that fits though - If you come up with something that (for example) depends on a new law of physics that you just invented, I think that could be regarded as 'better' than a new type of rubber for tyres that (I dunno) doesn't wear out as fast. They're both new (and I think a patent must be for something genuinely new, not just 'slightly' new).

Perhaps rather than novelty, I mean 'insightful' or even just plain 'impressive'. In other words you get bonus points for being cool [grin]. Hell, this is /., I can reduce things to absurdity if I want to :-) Measurement would be ...tricky... in this case. Perhaps ignore the 'novelty' aspect and keep the generality ideas though

What I didn't make clear is that the wide-ranging patents *lose* points in the same way, and I'd consider applying it retroactively. So, all those millions of patents that patent 'everything I can think of,or might in the future be able to think of' would essentially be worthless because they'd last months at most.

Perhaps the patent office says 'from 2015 all currently-active patents must have been through a review and be made subject to the same rules as new ones at that date, and you get between 1 patent/year/employee and 0.1 patents/year/employee depending on company size '. Choose the ones that you want to keep, bearing in mind we're going to be limited on what we can process.

So, all patents go through the bartering process (I'm guessing that they'll be seriously re-written to cover what they *really* want to protect). And from that point on, the patent office is *not* swamped with millions of useless wide-ranging patents.

As for s/w patents - the thing is that I can see a case (yeah Simon, way to make friends and influence people on /. !) for some of them (eg: if I invented PGP, I might want to make some cash out of that). But the deserving ones are a tiny fraction of the completely crap software patents that people are filing.

This was the idea of inverse generality - if your patent is applicable all over the place, you get less protection (the cursor, one-click shopping, anyone?) than if it's the SHA algorithm for encryption. And if you try to patent a class of algorithms, you get less protection-time as well.

I do agree about the patent office problem though. The funny thing is that I own a US patent (for a machine, not s/w :-), and I went through several iterations of the wording until the patent office in the US was satisfied that it was original. The EU and Japan were far easier to convince...

In truth, I was throwing an idea out there off the top of my head. I didn't really expect such a detailed response. I think there's something in the inverse-generality idea though.

Simon

Re:When does it stop?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you conceive a sw patent when it could be said that all works today are derivatives of research done in the 60's and 70's by pioneering software engineers? Dykstra anyone? ;-)

I mean take "one click shopping" or a "basket" or "shopping cart" online. Nothing original there.

Re:When does it stop?

[necromcr]

There is a perfect bash.org quote that answers your question..

Re:When does it stop?

[leuk_he]

When the pace of technological advancement reaches zero

Wrong... 17 years after that! And at that moment they will switch to copyright & trademark infringements.

Re:When does it stop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Things need winding back 150 years and going back to then - sure, there was trade secrets then, but there are trade secrets such as the alleged formula for Coka Cola anyway...

IIRC, some court finally forced them to publish what that is. Coke basically said: "OK, you can't compete with our economies of scale anyway so here you go."

Re:When does it stop?

[Grishnakh]

2) Salt to keep you thirsty for more.

I'm not a doctor, but isn't salt (especially the sodium component) necessary to sustain your electrolyte levels? This is why Gatorade and other sports drinks have quite high levels of it. You can actually die of "water poisoning" if you exercise a lot and drink too much plain water without eating or drinking anything else to restore your electrolytes, because the electrolyte levels fall too low and your nerves stop functioning.

I won't debate the caffeine part, however; that's clearly not necessary for health.

Re:When does it stop?

[NickFortune]

I like the idea of penalising broad patents and rewarding tight focus.

Still, as I think Bruce Schneier in a different context, we have to look at the way in which things fail as well as they way they work. The principle risk here is that, having made the duration of a patent a subject for negotiation, it opens the door to the extension of undeserving but carefully worded patents. I'd expect to see companies striving to find wording that sounded superficially specific, but that could be interpretted very broadly.

Of course, that's not hugely different from the way it's done now. Apparently.

The anti-swamping idea is fun too. How could we hack that? Imagine 100,000 holding companies, all with the same single patent-lawyer employee, all with Microsoft as the majority shareholder perhaps. Still, another interesting idea.

Software patents on the other hand...

As for s/w patents - the thing is that I can see a case (yeah Simon, way to make friends and influence people on /. !) for some of them (eg: if I invented PGP, I might want to make some cash out of that).

There's this weird meme circulating that suggests that anyone who is opposed to software patents also disapproves of coders receiving recompense for their hard work and insight. I say weird because, really, what would stop you making money from an encryption algorithm if you invented one? You can code it up and market it protected by copyright and licence agreements, or you can declare it a trade secret and protect it with NDAs. You can even burn it onto a dedicated chip and patent the device (although still not the software I should hope). With the expansion of laws against reverse engineering and strengthening of copyright, that ought to be enough for anyone to turn a profit.

So why do we need software patents? The only thing that they bring to the table is a mechanism for failing corporations to preserve dwindling revenue streams through anti-competetive monopolies.

In truth, I was throwing an idea out there off the top of my head. I didn't really expect such a detailed response. I think there's something in the inverse-generality idea though.

Well, the detailed response comes from arguing the pros and cons of patent legislation as well as here on slashdot. I hope I've not come across as being bloody mindedly negative; you have some interesting ideas and I'd quite like to see them developed a little further. I'm still not sold on the software patents though

Re:When does it stop?

[bfree]

You can even burn it onto a dedicated chip and patent the device (although still not the software I should hope).

Bingo, you've hit the magic point! Someone, lets say NickFortune, comes up with a genuinely new method of encrypting data. Suppose it's totally unpatentable as a piece of software or any form of set of instructions for coverting the data stream. Now NickFortune goes and takes a load of common basic unpatentable hardware and adds a burnt chip which does the actually en/decryption. What do you have a patent on? What can be done without licensing? If someone can create an independent software method of doing the encryption is that covered? Can they then burn their own chip of their method?

If I write the laws then NickFortune's patent is little more then a copyright on the design of the burnt chip but it sounds like you believe in a system where embodying anything which can be reduced to software in hardware prevents others from doing the same thing a different way. I can never see an encryption algorithym as protectable unless there is absolutely only one way to do it, in which case copyright alone provides the protction required. As long as someone can come up with a different set of instructions on how to convert the datastream (not simply using hex instead of binary or decimal to write it down or anything similarly non-significant) then a patent is worthless as it provides no protection beyond copyright.

If you come up with just a new method of manipulating data, no choice of setting or field of use should allow this to become patentable and hence protected from competition. This is analogeous to regular patents, where you can protect a specific implementation of how to make a coin holder, but you cannot prevent others from making coin holders a different way, just like you could protect a triggering method for releasing coins from the device, but could not prevent others from designing alternative coin triggering devices.

Re:When does it stop?

[NickFortune]

If I write the laws then NickFortune's patent is little more then a copyright on the design of the burnt chip but it sounds like you believe in a system where embodying anything which can be reduced to software in hardware prevents others from doing the same thing a different way.

Nope. Actually I agree with you, I just didn't phrase that especially well.

If I write the laws then I'd be tempted to allow a device that does foo by a certain method to be patentable. However, I would say that any such patent does not extend to any software involved in the device. That software may be copyrighted, but not patented.

If after the software is removed from the picture, the remaining device is no longer novel, then you do not have a patent. If the device - sans software - is still patentable, then you can patent it.

This would apply even if the software was embodied in clockwork, or by a systems of rods and levers. Suppose you invent a mechanical novelty nutcracker shaped like a monkey that cracked nuts by whacking them with a little hammer. You could implement that with cogs and levers, and it'd be hard to say why it shouldn't be patented. However the control sequence that defines the monkey's actions would be considered to be software, and would not be covered by the patent. That means that if I later use that sequence of actions in a video game, you couldn't sue me for patent violation.

Basically, it's the Groklaw Definition.

There is one area we disagree:

If you come up with just a new method of manipulating data, no choice of setting or field of use should allow this to become patentable and hence protected from competition.

You see, if we're writing the law here, then we don't need to be consistent with other areas of patents. The entire field of legislation is one gigantic exercise in Case Based Reasoning, and as such is largely a compendium of exceptions and special cases.

So, since we're writing laws, we don't need to be consistent, because I job consists of writing exception handling code to deal with inconsistencies in external reality.

We seem to be agreed that softwate patents are both harmful and unnecessary. So if the only reason to allow them at all is consistency, then it makes more sense to define software patents as a special case.

The only question then is where should we draw the line. If I write the law then the line is: "No software patents, ever! No patents on data, nor on symbols. No patents on sequences of commands. Any patent infringemnt claim against software will always fail, irrespective of the other factors involved."

Hopefully that's a bit clearer ;)

Re:When does it stop?

[Frobnicator]

I'm not a doctor, but isn't salt (especially the sodium component) necessary to sustain your electrolyte levels? This is why Gatorade and other sports drinks have quite high levels of it. You can actually die of "water poisoning" if you exercise a lot and drink too much plain water without eating or drinking anything else to restore your electrolytes, because the electrolyte levels fall too low and your nerves stop functioning.

It's a matter of ratios.

If the liquid has too much salt, your cells will give up their own water to make the solution less concentrated, since the difference between inside the cells and outside the cells must be a certain ratio.

If the liquid doesn't have enough salt, your cells will absorb the water to make the external solution more concentrated, again to preserve the ratio.

Drinking salt water (ie: from the ocean) when you are thirsty will dehydrate the cells, but drinking lots of pure water while exercising can cause your cells to absorb too much.

Fortunately most of us don't get out enough or exercise enough for those to be problems. :-)

Re:When does it stop?

[eric76]

The problem is with the electrolytic concentrations in the synaptic cleft. Too little and the transmission of nerve impulses between the axons of one neuron and the dendrites of another neuron becomes grossly inefficient or impossible.

This shouldn't be a problem with coke. I don't know of any athletes who drink cokes to replinish their necessary electrolytes.

Re:When does it stop?

[eric76]

Fortunately most of us don't get out enough or exercise enough for those to be problems.

I used to ride bicycles about 3,000 to 5,000 miles a year. (I really need to start doing that again.)

One Friday night I was riding slowly around the neighborhood cooling off after about 30 miles of relatively intense effort when I suddenly felt very weak and my heart beat slowed way down.

On Monday morning, I went to the doctor about it. My doctor at the time was a former U.S. boxing team doctor and was easily the most fit doctor I've ever met. He couldn't find anything wrong at all.

Later, I was reading a book about vitamin and mineral deficiencies and recognized my symptoms when reading about hypokalemia (low potassium levels). These included bradycardia (my resting heartbeat dropped from about 80 beats per minute to about 35 beats per minute) and hypotension (blood pressure dropped from about 120/80 to something like 80/60, but I don't remember the exact numbers).

Assuming that was what it is, I now take a potassium supplement any time I'm getting much exercise.

Re:When does it stop?

[Grishnakh]

This shouldn't be a problem with coke. I don't know of any athletes who drink cokes to replinish their necessary electrolytes.

I can't imagine any athletes drinking coke, because of the other additives like caffeine.

However, my point was that most sports drinks, like Gatorade, have salt added in order to replenish electrolytes, so that's why I took exception with the original poster who put down Coke for having salt, saying it just makes you more thirsty. By that logic, sports drinks would be really bad for you too, right? That certainly doesn't make sense. I can understand putting Coke down for its caffeine or excessive sugar, but not the salt, unless it's far too much by volume (I haven't compared it to Gatorade). I know I've never personally felt thirstier after drinking any soft drink.

Fight insanity with insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure your network has a "medium" data rate, or "very high" data rate, but not a plain "high" data rate.

Re:Fight insanity with insanity

[MoogMan]

Regular, Medium, Super size?

Re:Fight insanity with insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Mobile phone networks have, periodically,
500 to 1500ms latency at the handset to tower
point, and therefore will never be able
to be considered 'high speed' by any means.

Re:Fight insanity with insanity

[darkain]

speed has nothing to do with latencey. this is the theory behind satalite internet access. sure, you may have like a second or two of latencey, but if you are getting 100mbps download rates, you are still going fast as hell with merely slow turn around times. (granted, i dont actually know the true specs of current satalite internet, and this is a highly exagerated example)

Re:Fight insanity with insanity

[teksno]

adam sandler was on to somthing with the medium pace...

i think ill go get that shampoo bottle now...

Re:Fight insanity with insanity

[TheSHAD0W]

That'll be eight bucks!

Re:Fight insanity with insanity

[aaronl]

Roundtrip Earth to a geosynchronous satellite is about 500ms. Speed depends on your channel width, and so could be anything.

Consumer satellite Internet tends to push 512Kb-1Mb down and 128Kb-256Kb up, all with 500ms latencies. You can get faster than this with specialized services. For example, DirecTV is pushing hundreds of MPEG digital video streams at the same time, so that's going to be a considerable data rate.

Re:Fight insanity with insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say that the speed has more to do with latency than with bandwidth.. going at, say, 0.1c instead of c is definitely going to affect the former, but not necessarily the latter.

This is not the Central Server with High speed ...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. that you are looking for

Vague.

[caluml]

'Method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage means from a central server to subscribers via a high data rate digital telecommunications network,'

Could it be any more vague? Sounds like a webserver to me.

Re:Vague.

[ArielMT]

Sounds like a webserver to me.

Shush! Don't give them any ideas! They'll just sue companies making Web servers like IIS by Micros--

Hmm, this has possibilities. *Muwahahahaha*

Re:Vague.

[dqbiggerfam]

or, you could extend that to apache. OOPS.

Re:Vague.

[ArielMT]

D'oh!

Re:Vague.

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> Could it be any more vague? Sounds like a webserver to me.

The first thing that came to my mind was voice mail. Yeah, I know it's anything but "high speed" when it hits my ear, but the phone messages are stored digitally and transmited via fibre to subscribers, so I'd say the phone company is infringing...

I would LOVE to see them try enforcing against the phone companies.

Re:Vague.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes this is vague, but when you read the description and definitions at the bottom it describes a specific design (including the method in which the hardware operates) to deliver data to a subscriber over a telecom network. If anyone manages to infringe on this patent, they are using an incredibly slow system (it even specifies how the disks are loaded in the process). Technology that has been created since this patent makes this completely obsolete.

Re:Vague.

[slashflood]

RTFP! It's about a music server, that plays disks to subscribers. Just read the abstract and you'll see that it is not that vague and it has nothing to do with webservers.
On the other hand, it doesn't sound very innovative to me.

Re:Vague.

[phoenix.bam!]

Or useful. I got the idea that the patent is decribing almost a Juke Box. Seems slow and pointless when you can just store all the crap on servers. I didn't read every claim though, so I don't really know

Re:Vague.

[AngryElmo]

I read more than the abstract, and it describes music, images, text and software (eg games) being made available to subscribers' "terminals" using a "high data rate telecomunnications network" (ffs - Basic Rate ISDN is given as an example).

Re:Vague.

[shking]

It's about a music server, that plays disks to subscribers

How is this different from video-on-demand, which was "invented" in the 1970's (or was it the 60's)? Even if you discount such blatent examples of prior art, this inevention fails the test of obviousness

Re:Vague.

[datadriven]

I would LOVE to see them try enforcing against the phone companies.

It's be a shame if they had to break up the phone company or something.... oh wait.

Re:Vague.

[anthropomorphized]

The title of the patent is ALWAYS vague. The abstract almost as vague. And even the claims, which truly define the scope of the invention and are what is asserted as one's intellectual property, are vague when taken by themselves. It is usually not until you read the claims in light of the rest of the specification that you can really get a glimpse of what is being "invented." Unfortunately, even then, it is difficult to tell what subject matter is truly protected. You really need to look at the entire file history (all the communications between the PTO and the patent prosecutor) to understand what subject matter is covered by the patent. This is a problem that comes up time and time again when technologists/scientists read patents. Patents are written in legalese (come on! who says, "said one of said plural subscriber stations" instead of "one of the subscriber stations"?????) I am not defending every patent that is issued these days. I am simply pointing out that what is really protected by a patent may be the the tiniest of details in a patent, which may in fact be inventive, and not every word or idea expressed in the patent. Sadly, it takes someone who works with patents on a regular basis, if not a patent lawyer, to really be able to identify what is protected by a patent and whether a company should be worried. (semi-frivolous patents happen, and so do semi-frivoulous suits on patents(frivolous or not)).

Re:Vague.

[scoove]

Could it be any more vague? Sounds like a webserver to me.

I just read through the patent and I'd be amazed if it didn't cover WAIS. I implemented Brewster Kahle's WAIS server (Wide Area Information Services, based on Z39.50 protocol) on high-speed networks back in the late 1980s through 1991, putting a campus newspaper, campus phone directory and a collection of wave files onto the DecStation 2000 running the server.

It appears that the patent office must believe more in time travel than intellectual property registrations given the wealth of prior art available. Or perhaps the perspective I read that they're "the department of information, not information retrieval" was correct; e.g. USPTO blindly approves the applications and leaves it up to the courts to decide if they actually have any merit. IANAL but several IP atty associates have given me this perspective and explained that one does not want the USPTO rejecting anything as a bureaucratic clerk should not make law -- a court should (!!!).

Unfortunately, this overloads the already taxed court system (district court here taking 12-18 months to get a date for civil litigation; 2.5 to 3 years for appealate court beyond that, meaning any civil action will likely take you five years to see a dollar starting from the day you file litigation, and assuming you have rapid discovery). It puts companies in limbo, causes hard working technology employees to be at constant risk (which they'll naturally migrate to other types of employment) and leaves the US uncompetitive.

Nothing like a five-year time table to block up technology development. Guess the trial attorneys have ensured that the Chinese and Indians will lap US technology development, eh?

*scoove*

Re:Vague.

[alphaFlight]

Given that it is based on a French application form 1989, I would guess that it was inspired by, or perhaps directly related to, the Minitel system.

Re:Vague.

[91degrees]

And don't you just hate this? The idea of a patent is that it should make it clear to someone skilled in the area. If scientists and engineers were responsible for enforcing these, rather than lawyers, then 99% of patents would be rejected on the grounds that these are largely incomprehensible to anyone not also skilled in the art of law.

ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

Method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage means from a central server to subscribers via a high data rate digital telecommunications

Isn't that just a little too broad to be patent-worthy? Heck, they could probably sue Sony for their Everquest technology since it follows basically the same principal.

Re:ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

it doesnt stop there, you could sue every server on the planet that was accessable by someone on a DSL line.

including the USPTO

Re:ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is. However in the name of sensational journalism (or whatever the hell you consider slashdot) the writeup is made extremely misleading to make patents sound evil. This is what was actually patented:

1. Method of receiving information from one of a plurality of information systems via a high data rate telecommunication network in response to a request from one of plural subscriber stations, said method comprising the steps of:

initiating a two-way transmission from subscriber computer means of said one of said plural subscriber stations to one of said information systems via said telecommunication network,

outputting on output means of said one of said plural subscriber stations data related to plural information stored at one of said information systems,

selecting at said one of said plural subscriber stations at least one of said information by means of input means of said one of said plural subscriber stations and transmitting a signal identifying said at least one selected information from said subscriber computer means to a selected information system via said telecommunication network,

receiving at said one of said plural subscriber stations from said selected information system digital signals via said telecommunication network, expanding by expansion means said transmitted signals, converting said expanded digital signals into analog signals and delivering said analog signals to transducer means.

However, that wouldn't sound quite as bad, so they went with the one line version.

Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

It's been 6 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment

This place really is going to hell.

Re:ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just the one-line description. The abstract show that it is a little more specific, talking about large numbers of disk on the server, and digital to analog converters on the client side.

when the hurting stops

[kraada]

The hurting stops when we get politicians who care. Right now the people who are in office simply aren't addressing this as an issue, because they don't see it as one. Their powerful lobbyists aren't pushing for patent reform nearly as much as other things (like laws which line their pockets better), so there isn't a real problem yet. When Microsoft, IBM and a few other big names start coming out and publically denouncing the patent system for screwing over innovation we might start to see some patent reform. But right now nobody cares, so nothing is going to get fixed anytime soon.

(Note: I did call my congressmen and senators about this issue prior to the previous election. I also have a friend who is attempting to get a job with the patent office specifically to try and fix some of these problems. I hope he succeeds.)

Re:when the hurting stops

[iminplaya]

When Microsoft, IBM and a few other big names start coming out and publically denouncing the patent system for screwing over innovation we might start to see some patent reform.

You never know what will push them over the edge.

Re:when the hurting stops

[Mr. Hankey]

I think the point where it really stops is when non-US corporations start putting US corporations of business using patents. It's probably closer than we think, most of what the average joe purchases these days at Wal-Mart is already made in China. A pity that the people responsible won't be the most highly affected.

A lot of people don't see India or China as competition due to the current state of their economies, but they're the two most populous nations on the planet. Their businesses are fully capable of purchasing patents, and they have a larger set of people from which this innovation can come. Imagine what Japan did to the US auto industry, but on a much larger scale.

Say what you will about how innovation has typically come from the US, but we're exporting our jobs to these places. We're bringing people in to the US with H1-B visas, training them in cutting edge technologies and sending them packing after a few years. Then, we're giving corporations the world over tools to legally prevent others from using any technology they've developed. This is surely a recipe for disaster.

Re:when the hurting stops

[StikyPad]

I also have a friend who is attempting to get a job with the patent office specifically to try and fix some of these problems.

But what can he do really? Does the patent office have the authority to deny patents based on prior art, or is that something that must be established in court?

Re:when the hurting stops

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the patent office have the authority to deny patents based on prior art, or is that something that must be established in court?

That patent office not only has the authority, it has a responsibility to deny a patent based on prior art. It also has a responsibility to deny patents based on obviousness.

However, I believe patent examiners have to find prior art to deny a patent based on it. I believe they also have to come up with a convincing argument for obviousness.

And if a patent examiner actually does find prior art or prove a patent is obvious, s/he will have two more problems to deal with:

1. The examiner's manager will complain that the examiner denies too many patents (the patent office is self-funded. Patents are paid for over the course of their lifetimes. If a patent is denied, the patent office doesn't get as much money).
2. Whoever submitted the patent will make some adjustments and submit it again.

Re:when the hurting stops

[kraada]

Since he doesn't have the job yet, I haven't found out from the inside how it really works, but I'll point out that even if he can't do a whole lot, it's a lot more useful for bringing about effective change than making a few comments on Slashdot.

Re:when the hurting stops

[StikyPad]

Not necessarily... discussing things like this and making people aware could result in much greater, sweeping changes. At least, that's what countries who practice censorship would have us believe, but those of us living in free-speech societies know firsthand that when something becomes free, it loses all value.

Does this only affect equipment manufacturers?

[PornMaster]

I'm curious as to whether or not, if this patent is legitimate, it's likely to lead to lawsuits against the wireless carriers as well as the equipment manuacturers.

Re:Does this only affect equipment manufacturers?

[ScrewMaster]

I'd say it's unlikely to be legitimate, but I'm sure there'll be lawsuits. Lawyers in suits, anyway.

Prior Art Date

[Anonymous Coward]

A reminder that for something to invalidate this patent, it must have been known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before November 7, 1991. From the patent:

This application is a division of application Ser. No. 08/196,765 filed Feb. 14, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,502, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/784,450, filed Nov. 7, 1991 now abandoned.

Re:Prior Art Date

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that would come close for that time frame would be a BBS, usenet, or fidonet.

I do remember at the time downloading large amounts of midi from BBS's that had many modems in them. It may actually be a 'unique' idea for the time frame. But is it a 'novel' idea. Not really. It is someone versed in the art could have come up with. And many people have.

Re:Prior Art Date

[strredwolf]

When was the Internet created? Back in 1977? How about FTP? When was Sun's .au audio format created?

Or how about this: Find any audio file that was on a BBS before 1991, and locate the BBS's owner. Remember dialup?

Re:Prior Art Date

[AtrN]

It has a priority year of 1989 (France). Even for that time its a stupid patent and an obvious invention. So you've got a CD changer and people can request files from one of the CDs which is then sent to them. Amazing! Big ideas like this keep us marching forward.

Re:Prior Art Date

[zerocool^]

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/net.periphs/ms g/5446d8129e3aacc

Re:Prior Art Date

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, find a BBS owner that upgraded to 33.6k when it was cutting edge and "very fast" as opposed to just "medium" speed like the 14.4k or 28.8k modems.

Re:Prior Art Date

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and pagers are just low rate things, eh?

Since Voyager was launched, data gets uploaded from a server, just as 100's of other 'commumication satellites', military or otherwise - BTW they transmit their data down to many servers at a high data rate too.

Apart from throwing in subscriber and telecommumications, the transport mechanism is old hat - an analogy - like patenting fast hire cars with mag wheels, served from a hire car depot. It still gets you from A to B, but new age patentable, because we call the driver a 'subscriber'.

Re:Prior Art Date

[N Monkey]

A reminder that for something to invalidate this patent, it must have been known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before November 7, 1991. From the patent:

This application is a division of application Ser. No. 08/196,765 filed Feb. 14, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,502, which is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/784,450, filed Nov. 7, 1991 now abandoned.

The question is, what exactly did those now abandoned applications actually say? It's only been a few years since the US (finally) fixed their laws to prevent submarining. I wonder if this is such a situation.

Re:Prior Art Date

[julesh]

When was the Internet created? Back in 1977? How about FTP? When was Sun's .au audio format created?

Or how about this: Find any audio file that was on a BBS before 1991, and locate the BBS's owner. Remember dialup?

This would invalidate claim 1, sure. But it probably wouldn't get you very far with the other 20 or so claims in the patent...

Let the [patent] madness continue

[bogaboga]

I wish the patent madness continues the more. This is because when it goes far enough to the point of hurting, things will change. Change will be faster when the madness begins to hurt sales/technology/growth.

And when changes do come, the direction of change will be for the better. As Americans, we pride ourselves for being objective and reasonable, but I wonder why this madness cannot be seen by those on positions of power. WHY?

Re:Let the [patent] madness continue

[rkcallaghan]

I wonder why this madness cannot be seen by those on positions of power. WHY?

Those in power are benefitting both in terms of more power and lined pockets.

~Rebecca

Re:Let the [patent] madness continue

[eraserewind]

Well, while I agree with your sentiment, I think you'll probably find that while large corporations consider these kind of patents frivolous or cheating, they consider their own patents to be entirely worthwhile just by virtue of different ownership.

Rather than try to abandon the patent system, they are likely to lobby for patents to be only granted if they are worthwhile, where "worthwhile" means granted to the company that is doing the lobbying in the first place (or legaleze that means essentially the same thing).

When does the hurting stop!?

[iminplaya]

As soon as you all want it to.

This patent is not exactly original

[Anonymous Coward]

The invention provides a method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage from a central server via a high data rate digital telecommunications network to subscribers connected to the network. The telecommunications network is capable of two-way communication.

This sounds like the internet circa 1991. The date of the patent is 1998.

The central server includes a central communication interface connected to the network, a magazine containing a very large number of disks, disk players, a controller for transfer of the disks between the magazine and the disk players

I seriously doubt any cell phone company uses this method for getting data; using robots to get tapes or disks went out of style in 1991 (the old 1980s Crays did this).

Basically, this patent doesn't patent anything original, and what it patents is a really dumb way to make information available over the network. I won't be surprised if the patent office re-examines this patent should this issue come to court.

Basically, this is highway barons abusing the patent system.

Re:This patent is not exactly original

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess what, this patent was filed in 1991. The date the patent was issued is irrelevant.

Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.

It's been 11 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment

Don't miss a trick

[Anonymous Coward]

One-way transfer of information from a server. Sounds like they've invented the UDP bit of the internet. I guess in a few days time we get to see a patent for bi-directional flow of date to/from the server?

When does the hurting stop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy anwser: here.

Quick solution: Use tapes

[Anonymous Coward]

From the patent: The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on digital disks from a central server to subscribers via a high data digital telecommunications network.

Well, if we use tape to store the information or use some kind of analog media, this patent does not apply.

Patents last too long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents need to expire more rapidly.

The emphasis should be on continuing innovation and increasing the velocity of discovery. Why? Because global competition has nearly zero respect for US intellectual property, but also very little capacity to match our pace of innovation.

If we want to preserve a world-class economy we've got to stop punishing those who can execute or pre-existing innovation and also shift our support to who can produce sustained innovation.

In other words, Amazon.com's one-click was a cheap one-trick pony, while IBM's R&D is an innovation factory in need of pressure to execute on its ideas more quickly.

My 2 cents.

Re:Patents last too long...

[cheekyboy]

no, plenty of non-usa companies invent good stuff, ie in australia and uk and japan... but again they find it hard to hit the US market because US businesses are so US centric and only like to deal with other US companies, that was our experience, until you have a US office in the bay with a 1800# and a american accent.

Its the business deals and partnerships which are HARD to do if your not american, thats why american cmompanies like amazon work because they GET THE DEALs.

Good tax incentives help too, which some countries totally dont do well, "MORONS"

in other words...

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

they patented 'ls *' ('dir *.*' for you windows users) through a wireless connection...

swell!!!

Re:in other words...

[julesh]

Actually, no. Looking at the document, you'd have to actually play one of the listed files through an audio player before it'd be an infringment. And it doesn't have to be wireless; it has to be over a "telecommunication network" (e.g. the Internet).

Patent/Trademark all bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, I understand that there are cetainly downsides to it and all, but if it could to solve the slashdot dupe problem by having one story viciously sue another if it is duplicated, I just might support stricter requirements.

* - Yes, I know this story is not a dupe... at least I think it isn't...

RTFP

[slashflood]

Please read the patent, before you post anything like "that would affect webservers as well" or "they patented the internet". It has nothing to do with it. I'll make it easier for you:

"[...]a magazine containing a very large number of disks, disk players, a controller for transfer of the disks between the magazine and the disk players, a central computer, a memory for storing information relating to the locations of the disks, and a multiplexer. Each of the subscriber stations includes a communication interface connected to the network, a computing terminal, a demultiplexer, a data rate expansion circuit, a digital-to-analog converter, and a transducer for converting analog signals into humanly perceptible signals. In one example, the invention provides for the delivery to a subscriber of a personalized sound program selected from a large directory of available selections."

It is a music box server or something like that.

Re:RTFP

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoutcast anyone?

Re:RTFP

[Anonymous Coward]

this is something dreamt up over a few drinks in the pub at the dawning of mobile phones. "so what else would we need to get that CD on the jukebox to play on your very big mobile phone?"

Re:RTFP

[Boogalord]

Yeah - I had a skim (seemed relevant to my current research) and I think you're right.

If you look a bit further, where it's describing the diagrams (when there's already thousands of words, who needs to pay for the pictures?), it's all about actuators and servo arms for essentially behaving like an 80s jukebox; selecting and loading CDs into a drive and then buffering them in memory.

So yeah -- it's the wireless jukebox podcaster, formulated in the days where hard drives were expensive and we still thought our CD-Rs would last a lifetime.

Re:RTFP

[Anonymous Coward]

I see someone already posted that it is actually specifically limited to playing physical media discs (CDs).

I don't see how this damn thing applies to *ANY* current server situation. Folks, settle down.

Re:RTFP

[mrmacman_g4mac.com]

Hmm, so, a magazine of disks and disk players and a robotic arm to move things around, a computer, memory, and a fancy computer program. This sounds like the backup and archive server at my school.

Subscriber station is a communications interface (NIC), a terminal (computer), a demultiplexer (What is that exactly? A part of the NIC? A part of the OS?), a data rate expansion circuit (AKA a decompressor, like for a gzip archive), a digital-to-analog converter (graphics card), a transducer (monitor)

So, they appear to be patenting this process as well:

robotic tape library fileserver network workstation gunzip less monitor

I'm relatively sure that's been around for at least fifteen years or so, if not more.

Re:RTFP

[julesh]

I claim:

1. Method of receiving information from one of a plurality of information systems via a high data rate telecommunication network in response to a request from one of plural subscriber stations, said method comprising the steps of:

initiating a two-way transmission from subscriber computer means of said one of said plural subscriber stations to one of said information systems via said telecommunication network,

outputting on output means of said one of said plural subscriber stations data related to plural information stored at one of said information systems,

selecting at said one of said plural subscriber stations at least one of said information by means of input means of said one of said plural subscriber stations and transmitting a signal identifying said at least one selected information from said subscriber computer means to a selected information system via said telecommunication network,

receiving at said one of said plural subscriber stations from said selected information system digital signals via said telecommunication network, expanding by expansion means said transmitted signals, converting said expanded digital signals into analog signals and delivering said analog signals to transducer means.

A 2-way connection is initiated by a subscriber's computer, e.g. an ISDN phone. A list of available messages is sent from the base station to the phone, which outputs them (by sending the data, transmitted as digitally encoded signals, through the DAC and to the loudspeaker). The user presses a button on the phone's keypad, which is transmitted as a DTMF tone back to the base station, whereupon it is used to select a stored message. This message is transmitted as digitally encoded audio to the phone, which decodes it and produces sounds. Sounds like voicemail to me.

I'm pretty sure this was common practice before the patent's filing date of Dec 22 1995.

2. Method in accordance with claim 1, further including the step of storing in memory means of said one of said plural subscriber stations said digital signals received at said one of said plural subscriber stations.

A voice mail system that stores messages in memory (e.g. a flash disk).

3. Method of transmitting information from a central server to plural subscriber stations via a high data rate telecommunication network in response to requests from said subscriber stations, said method comprising the steps of:

recording information at said central server on a plurality of information storage means, each of said information storage means being identified by an address,

receiving at the central server a signal representing an initiation of a two-way transmission from one of said plural subscriber stations via said telecommunication network,

receiving at the central server a signal identifying at least one selected one of said information storage means at said central server from said one of said plural subscriber stations via said telecommunication network,

reading at the central server from memory means of said central server said address identifying each of said at least one information storage means,

transmitting said address from said central computer means to a controller,

controlling each at least one selected information storage means drive to retrieve signals from each at least one selected information storage means,

transmitting said retrieved signals as compressed digital signals to said one of said plural subscriber stations via said telecommunication network.

A little more complicated. It seems to describe a system with multiple disks (or other storage media) attached to the server, with some kind of controller that enables access to them. A CD jukebox would conform to this, as might some kind of large disk array. Still, I suspect that this kind of arrangement has been used for voicemail before 95. Possibly even with the storage media being magnetic tapes loaded into a j

Re:RTFP

[kibbylow]

I read the patent, and yes those comments are absurd. However, it seems just as absurd that companies like NEC, RIM, Virgin Mobile, LG Electronics, Palm One, etc. are getting sued.

Think back to 1995 when this patent was first written up. They're trying to invent a CD jukebox that can transmit over a network. Sounds like they were trying to play the actual CDs in CD changer magazines, but good for them for using the language they did.

"Digital disks or compact disks", in fact meant CDs at the time, but the fact that they used "Digital disk" is vague an can be misinterpreted as a hard disk.

In any case, why sue RIM, LG, etc? Do they do anything like this on the server side?

Satellite radio and cable tv affected?

[shking]

Will this affect satellite radio and digitally transmitted cable tv? Video on demand? How is this tech not obvious to someone skilled in the art?

Re:Satellite radio and cable tv affected?

[eclectro]

How is this tech not obvious to someone skilled in the art?

When they work for the patent office??

Please!

[Anonymous Coward]

My mobile phone has enough to worry about without this patent nonsense.

the wheel is patented

[brickballs]

http://www.ipmenu.com/archive/AUI_2001100012.pdf

a patent for a "Circular Transportation Facilitation Device"

too broad

[Im Rick James Bitch!]

"a method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage from a central server via a high data rate digital telecommunications network to subscribers connected to the network"

The patent text seems overly broad. Are they gonna sue Nullsoft next, for Shoutcast? Maybe Time-Warner for their cable systems? Maybe the reverse-911 systems that some local governments use to warn people of certain events? When is this patent stupidity going to stop?!

Look, Chief! This came over the wire!

[AtariAmarok]

The patent appears to be so vague that it could apply to the teletype. Or perhaps even the telegraph.

Re:Look, Chief! This came over the wire!

[t_allardyce]

Also radio and TV (playing from a video or tape deck) the only catch being that it has to be digital. The prior art on this bullshit is insane

Re:Look, Chief! This came over the wire!

[julesh]

The patent appears to be so vague that it could apply to the teletype. Or perhaps even the telegraph.

Did you actually read it? Or just respond based on the title of it?

If you read it, you'll see that neither the teletype nor the telegraph are even approximately covered by it.

But you have lawyers making the laws

[Colin Smith]

It's like having car mechanics design cars. What's better a 3000 mile service interval or a 30000 mile service interval?

They can see the madness, they made it, but they're also getting lots and lots and lots of money from the madness.

Open Society, Open Information, Open Source

[dAzED1]

The # of people "in" the OSS community that meaningfully contribute to the community (beyond just the contribution of expanding the user base by 1 person) is smaller now. There's many more ways to contribute than just coding too, that's the sad part.

Patent reform needs the same thing many OSS projects need - leg work. There is a review period, where people can make public comments. The major patent reform is for the area of simply improving the public review process; if we let them know that public reviewers exist and are ready and willing, I'm sure they'd happily take suggestions for an improved review process. You know, one where someone can actually find what they're looking for.

So yes, write your congressmen and ask for that - it's a much more sane thing to do than asking to abolish IP (even if that is the ideal situation...heh)

The Solution. Jail.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I'm sick of this, there is only one solution.

There should be a public enquiry, Macarthy style into the USPTO. It's directors should be jailed, the people who granted the patents should follow.

Too extreme? These people are crippling the economy of the world! They have broken their mandate and gone out of their way to turn the whole patent system into a joke.

I think jail time for those responsible for issuing patents like this isn't out of the question,

Re:The Solution. Jail.

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be a public enquiry, Macarthy style into the USPTO. It's directors should be jailed, the people who granted the patents should follow.

What about people who commit perjury by filing patents like this?

Re:The Solution. Jail.

[Anonymous Coward]

hung and quartered :P

Re:STOP THE FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

' Sorry dumbass, but there are plenty of countries that have real environmental laws and are not ruled by conservative regiemes that ram crap down their complacent surf's willing throats. '

You mean they are ruled by leftist regimes that ram "real environmental laws" down their complacent surf's willing throats? Leftist regimes like that in Prague from the 1940s through 1980s which left that country a shining example of environmental perfection? And not to be a spelling nazi, but you left out the "m" in "smurf". Cowabunga, dude!

This reminds me of a little story

[iminplaya]

A guy walks up to his friend and sees him hitting himself on the head with a hammer. "Why are you doing that!?", he asks. "Because it feels so good when I stop.", was the reply.

Modem are THAT fast now???

[AtariAmarok]

' Hell, find a BBS owner that upgraded to 33.6k when it was cutting edge and "very fast" as opposed to just "medium" speed like the 14.4k or 28.8k modems. '

You mean they have modems THAT FAST now? I still run my C-Net BBS on a 14.4k modem. Maybe that is why no-one has visited it for 13 years: they think it too slow. If only I had known!!!

That'll teach me to keep rereading the 1981 series of "Compute!" magazine year after year instead of renewing. I bet "Compute!" is even better these days. What's Commodore done these days? Do they now have some sort of 10-bit "Commodore 192" that is still kicking TI-994's ass?

Patent Whores?

[Lemurmania]

When I first read the title of the post, I was sure it read "More Patent Whores for Mobile Phones." Not ebtirely inaccurate, really.

no, the Wayback machine maybe

[HermanAB]

Not the internet. This is a jukebox patent - the patent describes the machinery behind the network as part of the method. This is old shit that isn't used anymore.

Re:no, the Wayback machine maybe

[alien-alien]

I was thinking more of a URL server (basis of Web Browsing).

ps I'm not Republican
pps I might be a bastard
ppps Al Gore *did* invent the internet

When does the pain stop?

[thewiz]

When does the hurting stop!?

As soon as we find a way to put a bullet in patents that are so loosely worded as to enable a company to sue (almost) everyone in sight. The pain for consumers, programmers, and others will continue so long as the USPTO and companies continue to be greedy and our representatives in government continue to look the other way.

Sweet!

[Mac Degger]

They patented the internet! ('cause it's a telecommunications thingamybob you subsribe with your ISP for, and you download stuff off it!).

How about an IQ test for the USPTO employees? Something along the lines of 'how many fingers am I holding up?' would improve things....and a pay raise if their response is 'hey! Stop giving me the bird!'.

my patent

[sumday]

i patent the method of filing for a patent. I'm gonna be a bazillionaire!

Why aren't they suing apple?

[mellon]

TFA mentions a bunch of companies they're suing. Apple isn't one of them.

well,

[alizard]

Does the patent office have the authority to deny patents based on prior art,

They not only have the authority, they have the legal responsibility to do so.

They don't seem to be doing all that great a job of it.

European Equivalent expired

[Arend]

According to the ffii newspage http://wiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn, there is a European equivalent to this patent: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP04 74717+&F=8, which has been expired.

In the legal status document (http://v3.espacenet.com/legal?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP047 4717+&F=8&QPN=EP0474717), it also says opposition has been filed by Philips and that it has been expired because the patent owner failed to pay it's yearly fees.

Regarding USPTO and patents

[trezor]

I'll just pop in to say that nothing from that department is able to surprise me anymore.

That is apart from the ability to sustain incometence this solid over so much time.