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Open-source Overhauls Patent System
K-boy writes "The US Patent Office has announced new plans to reform the patent system - and right up there at the front is open-source software. Techworld argues that it is in fact open-source software that has been the driving force behind the reform." From the New York Times article: "At a meeting last month with companies and organizations that support open-source software (software that can be distributed and modified freely), including I.B.M., Red Hat, Novell and some universities, officials of the patent office discussed how to give patent examiners access to better information and other ways to issue higher-quality patents. Two of the initiatives would rely on recently developed Internet technologies. An open patent review program would set up a system on the patent office Web site where visitors could submit search criteria and subscribe to electronic alerts about patent applications in specific areas."
1. Lock door to patent office.
2. Throw away key.
3. Profit!!!
Even better, no need to even bother with the ??? step.
From a quick scan of the article, it appears the changes will affect searches for prior art only (which is a good improvement), but will not address the deeper problem of patents being issued for things like business processes. (One-click, anyone?)
Patent portfolio "licensing" (i.e. suing) companies' stock prices just fell through the floor. =P
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
awww IBM's finaly growing up, it got its first three periods.
There goes my rant against software patents *crumple crumple crumple* :P
Major issue with software patents cannot be solved by better searches for prior art - the only way to fix software patents is to do away with them in their entirety.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
So basically this means open source projects are now liable for making sure they don't infringe on corporate patents.
I fear this seems like either lawyers creating a whole new industry that'll inflict expensive patent-searches and licensing deals on more projects; or SQ industry lobyiests trying to put more burdens on open source projects.
By making a whole bunch of legal game playing a required part of an open source project, MSFT will finally make Open Source development as bureaucratic as themselves.
"One frequent critic of the patent system, Gregory Aharonian, publisher of The Internet Patent News Service, said it was unlikely that the new initiatives would have a significant impact, because the patent office was not able to deal efficiently with the information it already had."
Let's see, give someone organized data and better search tools, and it won't help them search faster and more accurately?
Hey! My bike chain broke because my gears are not set properly. Let's not fix the gears, it's the chain that broke!
I'm not saying that information access is the only problem the patent system has. And I also understand that the three steps proposed are not a panacaea. But not taking steps to fix part of the problem. just because the problem exists? Ridiculous.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Please!
before the overhaul takes place will some do-no-evil company please patent the following:
- flash advertisements which use sound
- flash advertisements which take over your browser and shove themselves over the content you're trying to read
- annoying flashing siezure-inducing animated GIF advertisements
and then sue every advertiser which uses that style ad for patent licensing fees, and commit to not use those style ads on any web site, EVER?
Thanks. This would be an appropriate use for patenting prior art. If you do this you will have my eternal appreciation.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I mean, since when has there been an "Open submission" for prior art in any of the USPTOs area of authority, or to have a searchable database for newly published applications that allows you, me, and everybody else to offer feedback directly to the examiners who need the information most [Note: I am including the patent quality index" under the heading of feedback by the way.]
From the Techworld article:The USPTO will host a public meeting to discuss the projects at its offices on 16 February.
I hope that RSM, ESR, etc. Lawrense Lessig et. all are there to defend this proposed change.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I must be dreaming.
...c'mon...
Technically I should be awake now since I realised I'm in a dream.
HELP I'M TRAPPED IN A DREAM AND I CAN'T WAKE UP! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
If it's not a step backward, it's a step forward!
Later we can worry about elliminating software patents entirely.
Besides, take a look at this:
Not only can prior art be searched more effectively, the PEOPLE (this is, us!) can submit their comments about the patents in question. In other words, if an obvious software patent goes to slashdot, we, the slashdotters, can complain about it DIRECTLY!
And that's a good thing
the problem is that the patent office is often issuing patents for things that are trade secrets, business processes, or just plain obvious. However, this is a step in the right direction.
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
What would be pro-F/OSS would be if the patent office provided a way that F/OSS projects could point out prior art on the large numbers of obvious&non-innovative pending patents more easily. But with industry lobbyests running the show, there's 0 chance that this will happen.
Obiviously the patent office needs to return to the example set in early 20th century Europe (e.g. Bern). They were hiring people like Einstein to examine patents. I don't see the USPTO working to recuit brilliant young physicists.
U.S. Office Joins an Effort to Improve Software Patents
No, it isn't.
What this is, in my opinion, is a grab by the content cartel to entice OSS to change their ways. They'll offer to make some patent-law changes, but not enough to make the OSS crowd happy. They'll ask the OSS crowd to take steps closer to the cartels' desires. Sort of a "meet halfway" deal.
The likelihood of real change is slim. The OSS crowd will generally not give in to the cartel crowd. Those who do will find themselves hurt by stomping on their customers.
I think this is an eyewash. To try to bring the OSS crowd into the collusion of the cartel crowd is a big reach, but it will be worthless in the long run.
If there were an official website where patent applications were scrutinized and commented on by the public, I'd bet a lot more patent applications would be thrown out due to prior art. Here on slashdot, every time some patent is mentioned at all, there's some cranky old technology guy who remembers doing the same thing back in '78 on some project at Fubartronics Inc. Further, competing companies would have the incentive to do the research to find solid prior art and comment on it.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Google had participated in the discussions and it was possible that its search technology would be used in the project.
Meaning, patent examiners will now Google the phrase "customer review" before saying, "Gosh, what an original idea!"
In other news, patent examiners' computers will now have web access...
It's an excellent beginning.
Luckily for me, I was just able to get several patents pertaining to the reforming of patent laws. Now I just need to ???? and profit.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Any fix of the patent system that doesn't address all the outstanding issues is a waste of time. I'm specifically looking for a solution involving the phrases "crush the patent office", "see them driven before me", and "hear the lamentation of the women"
I think all the patents should be put in a queue that is visible to the public and that we can moderate. Also, maybe there should be a limit on how many patent submissions you can make in a day, or a week, or something. And I don't think Roland Piquepaille or Beatles Beatles should be able to patent anything.
Wait... didn't we already have this discussion today?
An open patent review program would set up a system on the patent office Web site where visitors could submit search criteria and subscribe to electronic alerts about patent applications in specific areas.
This will only make anti-innovation patent enforcement more efficient. Great for patent holders (and the Patent Office I might add). Lousy for everyone else. I was hoping they would consider rescinding all software patents.
an ill wind that blows no good
For example, if a video codec used an alogrithm that was discovered to have code which is arguably prior art, wouldn't that prevent the codec or the tech to implement it from being patented, etc.?
Let me know what you think.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
At least I still got to patent my closed source "JUMP to CONCLUSIONS MAT" using the old system.
basically this means open source projects are now liable for making sure they don't infringe on corporate patents.
In the USA
luckily the rest of the world will carry on regardless
You might want to cut 'em a little slack - if their first effort at patent reform falls short, then it's up to us to give 'em another nudge in the right direction. Until then, it might make sense to just watch and see.
The complaint is that they are approving too many frivolous patents not that they can't approve good patents fast enough. Giving someone better equipment means they can approve patents faster. The problem is not the equipment, it's the process.
How many times have we seen a frivolous lawsuit post on slashdot, and how many people within 15 minutes of it's posting came up with links to prior art? Give a person a faster computer can help if they are experiencing slowed down processes. If I can find prior art with a $300 PC, what good is a major software/hardware upgrade if people in the patent office aren't finding this prior art to begin with?
This is PR spin. I'm not discounting the need for the right technology to make the process more efficient, and faster equipment will help speed the process once the right process is in place. I want to know more about the changes in the process they are making. This article makes the change in technology a much larger part of the patent reform process than it really is.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
First, I'm anti-patent in every way, so I'm definitely outside the box on this issue.
There's the difficulty in patenting software -- reverse engineering two similar programs that both have different patents can give you similar results.
On the other hand, there is also the problem of how to address what the "inventor" may have used from their discovering in researching other patenting mechanisms. Did this person take some mechanisms, manipulate the build, and take the output to be used by the new mechanism? A patent covers the process but not the output, but if two different mechanisms offer the same output, are they conflicting with one another?
It seems like a waste in every way. Copyright was meant to further the arts and the sciences. I don't see how patents further anything -- research occurs with and without the force of patents. The fact that the patent monopoly is now in the hands of a select few (content cartels) shows that they don't help the little inventor in anyway.
I for one would like to congratulate our Open Source Geek overlords. Yes, I mean you, you GNU/Linux running geeks you. This isn't the radical overhaul that the patent system needs, but it's something, and it's a clear sign that our commitment to ideas and ideals that we know make sense can have an effect if we keep with them and keep pushing the good word.
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
Yeah, the Courts pretend that the 9th amendment doesn't exist, or the debate over the "right to privacy" in the Roe vs. Wade case in the Supreme Court would not have happened. I wonder what would have happened if somebody sat them down and said, "Of course the right to privacy exists, read the 9th Amendment!" Yeah, I thought as much.
please patent ... annoying flashing siezure-inducing animated GIF advertisements
Actually, the technology behind GIF animations was patented in the early 1980s, but patents last only 20 years. The best way to block the other annoyances is to limit application/x-shockwave-flash support to a whitelist of web sites.
Patent law is so complicated right now lawyers dedicate their entire lives to just that one field. The wording is confusing, dry and seem to run in circles. Any change is good, as long as every patent lawyer doesn't have to buy a new bookshelf for the new laws.
Why would you trust a testimonial when choosing hosting?
This is nice, but the real problem with patents today is not novelty, it is obviousness. The article implies that the obviousness problem is not being addressed. The worst patents in recent memory have been bad because they were obvious, not because they had been done before. One-click was novel (as proven when the prior art challenge failed). One-click was not non-obvious. Obviousness cannot be tested by patent examiners; they are not skilled in the art.
I recently read what seems like a good solution; when a patent is submitted it must be tested for obviousness. Submit the problem that the patent solves to a panel of experts. If they come up with a sufficiently similar solution, the patent is void. Funding? Submitters who get their patents voided for obviousness pay the expense of the panel - calculate the cost at the end of the year and divvy it among the applicants. That has the added bonus of penalizing patent flooders, and since there will still be rivers of patents coming from IBM and MS, the individual patent submitter will only risk a tiny fraction of the cost of the board.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Two of the initiatives would rely on recently developed Internet technologies.
Wasn't the "reform" to take any mundane activity, and add "over the Internet" to it and you get a patent?
It may work best for prior art, resembling one of the systems discussed in the article.
As usual there is great information on this at Groklaw.
/.
Apperently the PTO and the companies they are working with are looking for input from the general community so here's a chance to have your $.02 heard somewhere else besides
Per PJ:
I know from your comments that some of you feel that the only solution is to get rid of software patents altogether, and if you can accomplish that, feel free. But others of you have expressed the thought that high quality patents are legitimate, for ideas that are truly innovative and represent real scientific progress. Think what it means that the USPTO is participating and asking for your help.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
"I mean, since when has there been an "Open submission" for prior art in any of the USPTOs area of authority"
Since 1790. The current "proposal" is nothing new, its just a more effective way of submitting third party prior art. The current and long standing USPTO rules for public submissions of prior art can be found here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/document s/1100_1134_01.htm
Also, the current proposal does not allow third parties (the public) to submit comments after an application publishes (which of course would be most helpful) due to the confidentiality required by federal law (35 USC 122: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documen
So if you see an application publish that you know is anticipated by prior art there isn't anything you can do about it until the application issues into a patent (in which case you can pay 10k-100k for a reexamination).
...until they get around to revoking one-click and the other ridiculous business process patents.
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
By its very nature software falls into the scope of what is not patentable.
Physical Phenomenon
Natural Law
Abstract Ideas.
Mathmatical algorythims are a subtopic of the above three primary facets of what is not patentable.
Haven't the time at the moment to read the article but I don't need to. I know software is provably not patentable.
How software got patent status in teh US is not by approval of the people, but by the abstract rethoric of abstract arguement.
Software creation is all about abstraction creation and manipulation.
This alone make its a a human right and duty to apply. For we as creatures able to go beyond other creatures have only this as our advantage enabling us to go beyond the limits other creatures have.
Software is not patentable and there are more details as to why this is and provable, then I have time to go into ATM.
We only advance by building upon the works of those before us. Why falsely limit that process and increasing rate of? Ity is not consistant with what we are.
Reform???? What we need is correction in accord with what is not patentable.
"All these incremental fixes to Firefox are just annoying. I wish they'd just get over it and release version 5.1 *right now*. Anything else is a waste of time and effort."
Change at this level of society doesn't come in an avalanche, it's an incremental, patch-like process. This is done to minimize harm to the basic structure of society, which after all has fed and educated some of us, despite its flaws. I don't know how many others like me are out there, but I know I've been hoping for exactly this kind of open review for patents for a long time. Now hobbyists and competing commercial interests will have the ability and incentive to help crush some of the utterly stupid patents that get granted.
Self-referential sigs are rarely entertaining.
Quick, somebody patent the business method of using open source software in government patent tracking systems!!!!!
... Gosh, thanks ^_^
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
I found these interesting links about more patent reform work out there. The first one is a partnership between IBM and some university people on building some kind of peer review patent system. Looks very interesting:
- BethNoveck.pdf
http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent
Second is an article by one of the university people with more details on this (PDF warning):
http://peertopatent.jot.com/WikiHome/PeerToPatent
They simply found out that OSS developers don't obey the patents and it is expensive to sue them. So they will create nice tool that even you can easily find that you are writting patented piece of code... It will save lot of money on lawyers because many people will start to obey low once they know they are breaking it.
Despite the bobastic title of this article it looks like the open source made giants to improve the tools to allow people to perform better self-control.
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
...Getting paid by some corporate entity to hunt down prior art to all their competitors new IPRs. Kind of like an anti-patent attorney...
If you get commission for every patent you kill, there'd be a fortune to be made.
They should just use the Mechanical Turk to decide.
Is this patent obvious:
(picture) ?
"So basically this means open source projects are now liable for making sure they don't infringe on corporate patents."
You mean, just like they always have been? If you infringe on someones patent and they send you a cease-and-desist, you've got some level of problem, and this has no impact on what that level is.
This is trying to let you hear about patent applications in particular areas before the patent is granted; presumably so you can tell the patent office, "Hey, wait! I've been doing it that way for years, I just never patented it because it's so stupidly obvious." I don't see how it puts any more burden on anybody. If it works, maybe it will reduce the number of stupid patents. I'm not sure why you're bent on deciding this is not a good thing.
Please make some attempt to understand what a story is about before pointing out why it is an attempt by MS to cause trouble for Open Source. At the least, please identify whether the story has anything particular to do with MS or Open Source. Note that mention of open source in the Slashdot summary is not a good guide. This story, for example, is about patents, which are an topic under the larger heading "Technology" which also contains the topics "Open source" and "Microsoft"; and that's about as close as it gets.
In the EU, the patent crowd were misrepresenting their intentions right until the final whistle. If a company says they support F/OSS, we should call them on it. Let's stop letting corporate lawyers define the argument.
And it's blatantly. No e.
Good post, though, and I agree.
Mods - please note I did not post w/karma bonus because speling eror curecshun is llame)
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
How is this funny? The decline of technically competent personnel in the government (not to mention businesses) is about as far from a laughing matter as you can get.
Jazzer hit a main issue right on the head--reform the rules all you want, without competent people to make what will inevitably be subjective decisions, the system will be burden vice a boon.
Carl
Ironically, if you get colon cancer you could be illegally duplicating patented material.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
You open source guys are so cool. You're like rebels and are actually sticking it "to the man". I wish I could be as cool as you.
recently developed Internet technologies
Database-driven web sites and web forms? It's recent in geological terms, I suppose.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
It would be a good start if the USPTO could start by not issuing invalid patents. For example, patents which are patently obvious, or patents with well-known but not published prior art, or patents for devices that don't work, or patents which rely on techniques that haven't been invented yet -- but when they are, this patent will have priority.
For example, you could require that a functioning device which implements the claims of the patent must be sold within a year of the granting of the patent.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The whole concept being proposed is interesting but, sounds like it's just a Wikki that IBM is going to bill the PTO huge money to set up.
It's funny because it deliberately manipulates chronology to make its point.
Let me introduce you to "The Art of Controversy"
http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/
In my opinion, neither copyrights nor patents encourage progress. Copyright is also in the hands of a select few trusts (RIAA, MPAA, BSA - all consolidating the power of already very large corporations).
The goal of both the patent and the copyright industries is to squash startups and maximize profits. This leads to stagnation and very little innovation, but lots of marketing and public relations.
Forced to chose between the two, I would get rid of patents first, but I would like to see both eliminated.
It good to review where OSS fits, but it's the wrong agency.
pedant.
I don't see how patents further anything -- research occurs with and without the force of patents.
...and in 17 years, it becomes freely available to anyone. Would you rather have inventors keep them as trade secrets and have that innovation squirreled away 'forever'?
A bit OT, but the following is sure to bring up the post's issues in spades. Graphon, through acquisition of NES, has a suite of patents that cover several fundamental aspects of web commerce. I think this will be way more important than the Intertrust dustup. Have a look at:
5,778,367 customer-updatable on-line databases
5,579,664 software licensing using on-line processes
5,826,014 firewalls, implemented in software or hardware
5,870,550 multi-homing web servers
5,898,830 two-factor authentication processes
and have a look at the filing dates, and think about the decendant divisionals, CIPs, etc. This is going to be a very lucrative IP portfolio, and a big IT/IP fight.
because my content didn't reflect what the Justices reported in Roe vs. Wade. My point was that even though my post didn't reflect such matters, having read Roe vs. Wade would not necessitate a cange in my writing. Besides, it doesn't seem the court gave it much consideration, briging it up only to evade charges of "Well. why didn't you!"
A patent to give patent examiners access to better information and other ways to issue higher-quality patents. Two of the initiatives would rely on recently developed Internet technologies.
Pursuing such an initiative is not allowed as this initiative is patented and is covered by patent protection.
...I've got better things to do, thanks. These theories aren't gonna unify themselves.
Try computer geeks though. They're pretty smart, and it seems they have nothing else to do but hang out on slashdot.
It might seem sarcastic, but I choose not to interpret it that way.
Slashdot - Mutual Assured Discussion
Wow! Openness in fascist democratic government. Who woulda thunk it.
On the outside I may look angry, possibly even full of hate, but on the inside I'm really just laughing at your collective incompetence. You kids and your "computers".
I have no expectations for fairness and justice from fundamentalist Americans capitalists. They are just words to you, like freedom. Bought and sold for profit, but not much else.
I'd rather that inventors be able to use the fruits of their own "innovation" without worrying about someone else coming along and legally squashing them. There are very few "innovations" noawadays that people won't come up with independently given that they are trying to solve the same problem(s).
If someone can't figure out how to make a buck off their own ideas in the face of competition, then there's no reason to give them the power to stop other people from developing their own ideas.
It might be interesting to enforce a maximum number of enforceable patents at any given time.
Not only would it make it easier to search the patent database for violations (given a small enough max # of patents), but if you include some kind of competitive process for the granting of the patent "slots", then the process should weed out a lot of the worthless patents.
And revery said:
Okay then. Let's open the Slashdot Patent Office. Imagine how many one-click patents would get modded redundant.
I for one want my patents to be +5 Funny.
No. Existing patent law does not require inventors to conduct a patent search before developing a product. It does require them to do so before releasing it. It has been defined this way because noone can conduct a complete patent search without the final product in place. By the time one had reviewed all of the preexisting patents one would have to review the patents that were issued while one was conducting the initial search and so on.
Uner the present system the fact that you developed something without noticing a patent is a viable defense. The idea that you searched first however makes you liable for infringing all of the patents that you saw.
Microsoft likes this system just as much as Amazon and IBM. The alternative would be entirely unworkable for eveyone involved.
That habving been said if a released project violates a patent it will be as liable under the new system as it was under the old.
IANAIPL, but there is a potential risk to someone submitting prior art under a program as sketched in the article. Assume open source developer submits a competant (i. e., having a good date) prior art which happens to describe work he has made bublic, and which has been used in some open source projects, and suggests it would be relevant to an invention claimed in a published patent application.
Now, the applicant can argue against applying the reference (presumably in an obviousness context), perhaps with some minor amendment. If the examiner agrees, and, especially, if the examiner notes, in a Reasons for Allowance, that the reference applies, the claim will issue. The result will be that anyone else trying to defend themselves in an infringement case will have a much tougher burden using the cited prior art, or anything similar, since the Office has explicitly considered the question; if the prior art had never been brought up during prosecution then the defendant would have a clean slate before the Judge to make a case.
We'll have to wait for the details to see what the implications for the proposed intervention will be.
I don't see how patents further anything -- research occurs with and without the force of patents.
I mostly agree, and mostly dislike patents. But I do see kindof a place for patents that benefit an industry I don't like to begin with, but seems to be a necessary evil.
Manmade drugs.
From what I know, it takes tons of money in research and development, testing, and liability to be in the drug business, and patents or something similar are necessary for this research.
I still believe that health care and medication is way overvalued and priced in the US, but there may be a cure or helpful medication some day. It seems like Viagra is the best drug to hit the market since penicillin (not from personal experience).
Software patents and business method patents are basically the same, and are stupid. Although they are instructions just like drugs. Argg, this is difficult. If a business method is good, be the first to implement it and go ahead and do business. There are so many other things that distinguish businesses that sharing a "business method" is not going to give a competitor or non-competitor any advantage, its just hindering progress. Software patents I don't get either. Things like the expiring of the RSA encryption patents in 2000 (9/20 I believe) were bad for many people. People are very rich writing free software, people are very rich from writing closed software in binary only.
What about user interface, and workflow? Those aren't algorithms, but they are the most important parts of any software.
How is the user interface of a word processor any different from the user interface of a type-writer in terms of abstraction? There is no practical difference. There is no good reason that elements of user interface and workflow should be any less patentable in software products than in hardware products.
You aren't taking into account dependent claims. Typically there are dependent claims that throw in additional detail and narrow the broadest claims. If brought up while an application is prosecution a piece of prior art might lead to an amendment where one of these dependent claims is incorporated into the broader claim. If the prior art wasn't introduced until trial it could invalidate the broadest claim but leave the dependent claim valid which is essentially the same result. The main difference is that the burden of proof to knock out a claim is much higher in court than it is at the patent office.
This exact same issue comes up in reexamination proceedings where a patent is put back into prosecution because of new prior art. The implications and tradeoffs are well known.
So this could theoretically lead to having a peice of prior art considered, and rejected, before the patent is granted. That would make it harder to bring up that same peice of prior art in court after the patent is granted, eliminating the meager chance that that prior art will pass the much higher standard at that point after it failed the lower standard? Gee, I never thought of that. You're right, this is a terrible idea. In fact, that same argument makes clear that we should try to ensure the patent office never hears about any prior art! Best they just issue patents to anyone who applies, and let us fight it out in court. Are you sure you're not a patent lawyer?
Manmade drugs.
I don't see patents helping here. Drugs aren't expensive until you look at the current burdens:
1. FDA regulations. Government regulations are ridiculously written. Dump the FDA, let the market replace it with grounds like Underwriters Labs and Consumer Reports. Competitive testing will significantly lower prices.
2. Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare prescription drug benefits - End them. The minute you provide federal tax dollars for anything, the price skyrockets. College was cheap for centuries until the feds started paying for it.
3. Advertising -- By accepting such high federal payments, drug companies can charge enough to fund billions in marketing.
4. Prescription laws -- Prescriptions protect no one but allow pharmacies to charge more.
5. The War on Drugs -- eliminating useful drugs due to abuse causes legal drugs to become pricier
Prescriptions could be 1/10th the cost but the feds don't allow it.
NNNYYYYAAAAHHHH!-8P
Well, I was assuming that all claims would be considered when the prior art was submitted, which would include any dependent claims. As you point out, similar considerations apply during Rexaminations, since only new questions of patentability over the prior art trigger a reexam.
The main consideration, here, is that, unlike a reexam, the proposed procedure (as understood from the sketchy articles) are more likely to include submisions from people not versed in things patent, who might not be sensitive to the implications raised.
No, I'm not a patent lawyer, nor, even, any kind of lawyer. However, I was a patent examiner (but not since 1991, so I'm sufficiently decontaminated to be able to post on /.)
'Source' needs to be interpreted widely, but basically they are talking about enrolling the 'community' to contribute to the 'development' process of the patent database. If you see what I mean. It's sort of like SourceForge for commenting on patents.... The sort of thing which governments should do with their actual IT frameworks (and much else).
They really need to change US Patent laws to account for Open Source software.
Qualified Open Source projects should have 'open' access to software patents if the project does not seek to profit from it's self.
Somebody should patent ... "An open patent review program that would set up a system on the patent office Web site where visitors could submit search criteria and subscribe to electronic alerts about patent applications in specific areas." and "the creation of a patent quality index that would serve as a tool for patent applicants to use in writing their applications". (From the Article)
That way, the USPTO will have to pay royalties to reform the patent process. Oh, the irony.
(This is a joke.)
Favorite
I actually looked it up as I was interested. And rather than waste that 20 seconds of my life in dictionary.com, I decided to share it with all of you, compound the waste into weeks.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
OSS must obey the law, just like anyone else.
You can't ignore the patent system and pretend it doesn't exist.
If OSS is to be used by anyone except individuals for personal use, it must not infringe on patents. That's the harsh reality, sorry. (Otherwise, larger fish who use OSS leave themselves open to being sued. Especially if they build on the OSS and extend it - even if they leave it under the GPL.)
People in the OSS community have been ignoring the issues for too many years. It's sad and stupid that software patents exist, but that's the law.
This change is a huge step in the right direction. Improve the quality of software patents and everyone wins. Reform the patent system (esp. for software and business patents), and everyone wins even bigger. But that change is orders of magnitude harder to effect.
In my opinion the fixes the article describes will only complicate the present system. A true fix would be to return to copyrighting software instead of patenting it, and to end the utterly stupid patenting of business practices.
Agreed. Maybe this new system won't work. Maybe it will. But I can list a heck of a lot of good things about it:
(a) IBM and RH are involved (and maybe some of those ideas churned up on Slashdot, FWIW). Both have incentive to keep patents workable for open source developers.
(b) The USPTO is aware of the problem, has acknowledged that it can improve, and is trying ideas to do what it can. This is a *huge* leap.
(c) It's an idea to try out. It might make things better. If it turns out to be a disaster, it's easy to go back to the way things were. It might make things worse. There are almost certainly going to have to be changes made to the original idea, but I suspect that it's better than what's going on now.
(d) Effort is being made to keep this process inexpensive. That's good for individuals, like open source authors.
(e) It also solves another major problem with research -- trying to evaluate how well a researcher is doing. Right now, it's *damned* difficult for a researcher to prove that they are doing good work. A company hires a researcher, and their only metric is how many papers or how many patents they churn out. The incentive is thus to churn out low quality papers. Now they have a new metric -- if someone churns out a lot of low-grade, heavily-challenged patents, their patent is "less good" than the guy down the hall who came up with an idea that nobody's found any prior art for.
(f) It makes the open source community an *extremely* powerful player in this world. In the past, the ability of the blog/open source world to, once irritated, perform research as to the validity of claims and shoot things down has been absolutely stunning. Look at the forged Bush papers, the SCO case, Microsoft marketing FUD, and so forth. Smart people with spare time on the Internet are can now actually *do* something other than flail about, angry about some nonsense patent.
Am I dubious about some aspects of the patent process (especially software patents?), even with this fix? Sure. I worry that they last too long to be appropriate for the software world, that there is incentive to make patents difficult to read, that the cost of a third party getting a patent rejected exceeds the cost of getting a patent approved, that patents are largely not incredibly amazing ideas, that a company designing a product around a patent is constrained to use the process described in that patent, even if they come up with a better process along the way, that the USPTO doesn't recognize the number of new ideas that *any* software developer produces simply in the course of doing his work, and so forth. However, this isn't going to be worse than things were before, and might be a lot better.
Think about it. Slashdot posts "this patent is stupid" and links to a patent. Patent gets a deluge of prior art and research attached to it. Patent becomes impossible to enforce (anyone who might try to enforce it is going to be challenged). Just the threat of that happening is not minor. Slashdot literally gains the ability to nullify bogus patents. Sure, maybe it can only do so for a few patents a year, but it's the really nasty important ones, the ones that threaten open source projects.
Thanks to all those folks involved!
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
The sense in which a patent is "obvious" is not "obvious" as defined in the dictionary, the common word. "Obvious" patents are those that are trivial modifications of existing ideas. An "obvious" patent might be a patent on a blue taxi, when someone has patented a yellow taxi already.
This becomes significant when the problem is new (maybe due to a changing environment), and nobody has done anything like it before, but that any expert in the field would, in short order, provide a similar answer to the problem.
For example, let's say that suddenly, for some reason, bioengineers produce flying monkeys that can chew through metal but are, as it happens, afraid of triangles. A traditional monkey pit won't work to hold the monkeys, because they'll fly out. You can't put chain link fence over the top, because the monkeys will chew through the fence. However, you can put a big triangle at the top of the cage, and the monkeys will be scared to fly out. That's pretty obvious to you or me -- given the above problem, anyone's going to say "stick some triangles where you don't want the monkeys to go". It doesn't take years of research or funding or anything. However, because it's not a trivial modification of an *existing* idea -- we've never had monkeys that are afraid of, say, squares before -- the system is not obvious in the eyes of the USPTO, and can be patented.
This is the problem that software developers run into. This particular weakness of the patent system -- it does not address changing environments well -- is *exactly* the kind of thing that the software world has been constantly seeing. The whole thing is constantly moving. Faster processors come along that can handle audio in real time, without needing a custom ASIC? Patent systems having general-purpose processors do various audio tasks. The Internet arrives, and cheap data transfer becomes available to everyone? Patent doing various operations over the Internet that are now feasible. Mobile MP3 players get popular? Patent various methods of moving audio to mobile MP3 players.
But, hell, I'll take this as a worthwhile first step.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Do you realize that the US is trying to forcefeed recognition of software patents, specifically USPTO ones, into every recent and ongoing "Free Trade" agreement? Each one that falls makes life harder for users, not just developers (though the press likes to misdirect people towards the development issues sw patents will bring, further distorting the issue by making it looks like it only affects open source developers).
In first aid, you stabilize the patient then go on to other priorities. So, while working on correcting US patent legislation, we need to stabilize the situation internationally. That means stopping the spread of infection by going after the transmission vectors: trade agreements.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.