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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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?

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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*

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.)

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.

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

[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?

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?

When does the hurting stop!?

[iminplaya]

As soon as you all want it to.

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.

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?

the wheel is patented

[brickballs]

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

a patent for a "Circular Transportation Facilitation Device"

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.

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,

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.

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"

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.