Newest Patent Threat to MPEG-4

Sachin Garg writes "After the notorious JPEG patent which has made many big and small names pay huge amounts to Forgent (total more than $105 million), PCMag reports that AT&T claims to have a patent covering core MPEG-4 technology and has warned Apple and others of Patent Infringement. Pentax and Nero have already paid them."

Comments

Typical

[DoddyUK]

1) Help to form new "revolutionary" file format.
2) Wait for it to take off and become popular
3) Use new file format popularity to hold companies to ransom thanks to the incompetancy of the current USPTO system.
4) ...
5) PROFIT!

But honestly, is this the way for people to get their money nowadays? Claim "prior art" on any patent which seems convenient and then hold any company which uses the format to cut a hole in their wallet? Any patent issues should be resolved before a file format is made readily available, therefore any companies who happen to use the format will know of any pitfalls.

I still admit that this may be nothing compared to the JPEG patent (which about 99.9% of websites use), but it still seems silly, just like any other USPTO story which is posted on /.

Oh, and FP :)

Re:Typical

[Hatta]

But honestly, is this the way for people to get their money nowadays? Claim "prior art" on any patent which seems convenient and then hold any company which uses the format to cut a hole in their wallet?

That's not what prior art means. Prior art is a way of invalidating a patent by showing that the idea existed and was in use before it was patented. If MPEG-4 or something like it existed before the patent was filed, that would be an example of prior art.

Re:Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

is this the way for people to get their money nowadays?

I think you will find that the more powerful government becomes, the more coercion and corruption you will find in the market (as opposed to voluntary association). The winners are those who can figure out how to exploit the power of government. The losers are those who rely on persuasion (voluntary association) to sell their product. Increasingly, the winners will be the bad guys, and the losers will be the good guys. There is no remedy to this problem short of reducing the power of government.

There are two modes of human interaction: voluntary association and coercion. Government is founded on the principle of coercion, whether one wants to admit it or not. (The social contract theory is false, because it is impossible to volunteer to subject oneself to coercion, just as it is impossible to coerce a person into volunteering!) As government grows more powerful, the ratio tilts in favor of coercion. Naturally, the path to financial success will be paved with coercion, not voluntary association.

Welcome to big government, where the crooks are the winners.

Re:Typical

[rs79]

" If MPEG-4 or something like it existed before the patent was filed, that would be an example of prior art."

Hey I remember seeing an implementatio of what would fall under these patents twentry years ago. There were these cool videophon... oh shit.

Re:Typical

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

THINK OF THE PORN! Seriously. Theres money in them there web sites...

And I have a patent for ...

[neonprimetime]

And I have a patent for Windows Viruses ... so ya 'all better stop writing them or I'll sue your @ss.

Is AT&T Serious?

Re:And I have a patent for ...

[dave-tx]

And I have a patent for Windows Viruses ... so ya 'all better stop writing them or I'll sue your @ss.

You'll do better if you go after end-users.

Re:And I have a patent for ...

[Zeinfeld]

And I have a patent for Windows Viruses ... so ya 'all better stop writing them or I'll sue your @ss.

It would not be the first.

A lot of companies with DRM schemes patent the circumvention technology so that they can sue companies that come out with decoding tools.

I don't know of a case in virus land, there would be a problem establishing novelty. But there certainly are people who would like to go after certain virus writers who try to avoid criminal liability by having other people distribute their code.

Re:And I have a patent for ...

[HTH NE1]

And I have a patent for Windows Viruses ... so ya 'all better stop writing them or I'll sue your @ss.

I can think of a few people who would be interested in seeing you present your prior art in person.

ouch

[iosmart]

well that sucks :( I hope they make some sort of agreement where old, already shipped, software doesn't have to be paid for. hey maybe they'll use the money to fuel AT&T Labs :/

Re:ouch

[lisaparratt]

More likely fuel AT&T Executive Yachts.

Re:ouch

[MSZ]

If you think about old Bell Labs, the home of the transistor and other fine devices, think again. Bell Labs are no more. Reduced to patch writing for Lucent software and firmware.

The money will go to Mr Company President's champagne and hooker fund.

Pay Me Instead

[mfh]

Nobody ever taught me about how lucrative this patent business was in school. Here I am, just a small-time dev working at an electronics shop to support my family. I need to patent something!

I think Nero paid because they don't want to be shut down. AT&T could easily hold up a small company in court for years, bleeding their profits dry. I guess someone just did the math and figured it would be cheaper to pay off the patent mafia.

Re:Pay Me Instead

[Zeinfeld]

The patent system is an utter mess but I am not sure this is really evidence of abuse. AT&T may well have a genuine claim, they have certainly spent a huge amount developing compression technologies.

Bell labs was a patent factory, they invested billions a year on research. Bell labs is an example of how the system is meant to work. Spend a non trivial amount on research, get a limited term monopoly in the invention in return.

There are many other patent holders getting royalties from MPEG4, why not AT&T if they have a valid claim?

I am not opposed to software patents in general, just the junk ones, which means at least 98%. The real problem is that the USPTO does not follow the rules it is supposed to. See my blog essay.

One of the problems with the current patent system is that there are so many junk patents being circulated by the trolls that the claims of genuine inventors are devalued.

Re:Pay Me Instead

[Tester]

Bell labs was a patent factory, they invested billions a year on research. Bell labs is an example of how the system is meant to work. Spend a non trivial amount on research, get a limited term monopoly in the invention in return.

But this is phone company AT&T, the Bell Labs are now part of a different company (called Lucent) who own the patents, etc.. So this probably has no relation to Bell Labs... AT&T isn't even AT&T anymore, its SBC that changed its name.. and as those on their part of the world knows, they are not nice people.. more like money thirsthy capitalists..

Re:Pay Me Instead

[LubosD]

Nero wouldn't be shutdown. Nero is developed in Germany, not in USA.

Re:Pay Me Instead

[DrWho520]

The basic idea of patents is to perturb the free market economy so that it does not stagnate. It does this by providing a reward for companies who produce and introduce new, innovative products into the economy. A patent provides a producer a measure of protection against a competitor cloning their product and gaining from the original producers research without cost. This would allow the competitor a much greater profit margin, enable them to undercut the producer and remove any incentive for innovation.

Patents were not introduced to allow a brain trust to think up thousands of ways to make a doorknob so they can sit back and demand royalties from companies that actually produce products for and item they have never built. That leads to companies sticking with old technology which stagnates the market. The complete opposite effect desired.

Take this example as you will: DVD vs BD/BD-DVD. The standard compression format on DVDs is 12 years old, MPEG2 (1994). The standard compression format on BD/HD-DVDs will be MPEG2. Other formats are supported, but the standard is MPEG2. Why not a format that is 8 years old, MPEG4 (1998)? So a new format is being generated and new media players will need to be bought all because a new format is necessary to carry all the new bits when using a TWELVE YEAR OLD TECHNOLOGY!

Consumers will eventually be forced to buy brand new media and brand new media players, so I guess the market is not stagnating. But if a player was produced that understood MPEG2 AND MPEG4, you would have a media player that could play both standard and HD content off the same media.

Let the nitpicking begin...

Re:Pay Me Instead

[ThrobbingGristle]

"AT&T could certainly try to go after any company that sells products like iPod - there's always a strategy with licensing technology," Aharonian said. "If you charge too much it gives people the ability to challenge the patent in court. If you charge something less, most people will just sign the license since it costs more to fight than to pay the license."

How can he say something like that and not feel dirty...

Re:Pay Me Instead

[bzipitidoo]

Well, a lot of us are opposed to software patents in general, and hope Europe doesn't try it. You say the patent system is a mess because the office doesn't do its job. A bit of reform, and all will be well? We say the whole idea of software patents does not work. It isn't the implementation of the system that is broken, it is the system that is broken. 98% garbage out (if true) sounds to me like we should concede that there might be problems with the system, not merely the implementation.

Look at NTP vs RIM. NTP was genuinely inventive. RIM is also genuinely inventive, and better at sales. NTP's patents were recently reanalyzed as "too broad" ("junk") and invalidated, for political reasons. If not for that move, the courts might have imposed truly astounding measures. They might still do so. Imagine if someone surfaced with valid patents on "diagnostic embedded software methods for analysis of vehicle emissions" or some such which all 1996 and newer vehicles have, and things escalated to the point where as remedy the court threatened to order that no one be allowed to use a vehicle newer than 1995, to "punish" the automakers. That's not a punishment for just the automakers. Extremely unlikely, yes, but thanks to the patent mess, not impossible. The Blackberry maybe isn't as vital as the automobile, but there is real danger the plug will be pulled. A system that could lead to such a situation over such a petty problem is seriously broken. Shutdown is appropriate if the thing in question is a "clear and present danger", but not appropriate over a doubtful infringement, not when the thing is so useful and valuable. The reason the patent insanity can continue operating is the underlying operating system, the Constitution, says ultimate power lies with the people. The people would never comply with such an insane order to stop driving their infringing cars. It is not a truly serious matter if this ill-behaved patent process tries to crash the system, because the US will not blue screen. Like adware, the patent process keeps going, consuming a lot of resources for not much return, perhaps even negative return, but doesn't stop the office apps from doing their job. Just slows them down a little.

Re:Pay Me Instead

[Skuto]

AT&T does get royalities from MPEG, via the MPEG LA patent pool. However, they have sat on this video patent until the standard was popular enough, so they could force people to license it outside the patent pool.

The patent pool is supposed to ensure that you pay to a centralized enitity for usage of all patents relating to a particular standard. Without this, the standards would be hopeless, since you'd have to negotiate patent licenses with 100's of seperate companies.

What AT&T did was just sit on it until the standard was so popular that certain companies couldn't afford to _not_ support it any more, even if that means paying AT&T, well, whatever AT&T asks.

So yes, AT&T is certainly entitled to some bucks, but the way they did this undermines the whole MPEG system. One wonders what brought them to this.

Re:Pay Me Instead

[ichimunki]

Patents were not introduced to allow a brain trust to think up thousands of ways to make a doorknob so they can sit back and demand royalties from companies that actually produce products for and item they have never built.

Why not? Certainly it's better to get some really good doorknob designers in a room and have them think up some great doorknobs than it is to force every door company in the world to have to reinvent the doorknob?

The problem here is that ATT has waited until their doorknob was used in every house built for several years before deciding to press their case.

Re:Pay Me Instead

[arkanes]

It's abuse because regardless of the error At&T may or may not have put into the technologies, the people who invented and currently license MPEG4 did so without AT&Ts help. AT&T doesn't deserve any of that money at all - what they did was independently developed. The point of patents is to encourage the development *and release* of new technologies. If you don't productize a patent, but instead use it to sue someone else who independently developed and did productize it, that is abuse of the system and contrary to the foundation of patent law.

Re:Pay Me Instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Bell Labs *was* a patent factory for the then-Bell.

When Bell was split up, some of Bell Labs went to the baby Bells as Bellcore which later became Telcordia, the rest stayed on as AT&T Bell Labs.

In the 90s when then-AT&T sold off Lucent, AT&T Bell Labs was again divided into two: most of the equipment-side research activity went to Lucent; the pure telecomms, largely operatioinal side of Bell Labs stayed with AT&T.

A merger of several baby Bells under the name SBC recently bought AT&T, and so controls a large fraction of Telcordia, as well as the remainder of AT&T Bell Labs.

There are also research holdings within now-AT&T in their overseas holdings and joint ventures like TeleDanmark or AT&T-Unisource.

Which Bell Labs this is is unclear, or even if the historical parts of Bell Labs is involved at all. The entity in TFA is AT&T, which is now pretty big.

What would really help is a patent number... no such luck there. :-(

Re:Pay Me Instead

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many other patent holders getting royalties from MPEG4, why not AT&T if they have a valid claim?

Because there's no such thing as a valid claim, software patents are stupid.

XVID?

[Danathar]

How would this affect open source/freeware implementations of standardized codecs like H.264?

Re:XVID?

[Kadin2048]

I'm just guessing here, but I would think that unless you could prove that the freeware codecs were true clean-room reimplementations that didn't involve any of AT&T's IP (which it doesn't seem like anyone except AT&T has actually seen), then those codecs might have to get moved off of US servers and onto ones on friendlier shores.

I think the Penguin Liberation Front would probably be willing to host it.

Re:XVID?

[serialdogma]

No thats copyright and trade secrets, patents apply to anyway doing business in that legal jurisdiction.

Re:XVID?

[cortana]

A "device" either infringes on a patent or it doesn't. Independent invention is neither a license nor a defence.

Re:XVID?

[JTL21]

They wouldn't be doing business in the country/countries where AT&T hold critical patents, they would just be a server somewhere else. If people happen to download the software then the downloader may become liable for patent infringement although perhaps only if used for business. Some countries at least allow personal use and research without patent license, just forbid manufacture, distribution, and commercial use.

Re:XVID?

[drakaan]

Excellent point. Since we're not talking about a device, there's no infringement, then...unless there's an MPEG-4 device of some type that AT&T patented and that Pentax et-al have infringed upon.

Very good example of wht patents and software are a bad marriage.

Re:XVID?

[NTiOzymandias]

I'm just guessing here, but I would think that unless you could prove that the freeware codecs were true clean-room reimplementations that didn't involve any of AT&T's IP...

This probably wouldn't help in the slightest. Any freeware implementation of a standard has to adhere to a certain level of compatibility, which necessarily includes stuff covered by patents because the standard designers need to hold onto the ability to sue people over it later, regardless of how they reimplement it.

Even a "patent-free" standard is very likely to fall under accidental patent restrictions. And when (not if) it's found that it does, you can't just license a percentage of 0 profit, either; the patent holder will want to recover lost profit, and if that doesn't come out of the price that users pay, it will come out of the developers' wallets.

Re:XVID?

[NTiOzymandias]

The behavior of the software, according to current patent law, can be considered to constitute a device. This may include behavior pertaining not to its implementation, but to its interface.

Re:XVID?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think you can only download sourcecode from www.xvid.org?!
It's exactly because of patents. xvid.org argues that sourcecode
is just a description of the patent, a translation from patent english
to the C (programming) language. It's like writing a book about
a patent. This is not "use" of the patent.
You by downloading and compiling or this Koepi-guy by distributing
binaries on the other hand are using the patent and must pay
the patent holder for using it.
Did you contact the MPEG LA? ;)

Re:XVID?

[gstoddart]

A "device" either infringes on a patent or it doesn't. Independent invention is neither a license nor a defence.

And therein lies the problems with software patents.

I went to University so that I could learn the general principals of how to implement code and algorithms.

In theory, I could sit in my basement, write a couple of small applications, and violate who-knows how many patents.

It seems like people are my education out from underneath me some days. So much of these things are obvious to a practitioner, and you would expect them to be replicted independantly all of the friggin' time.

Re:XVID?

[HunterZ]

That's just it - they want you to learn to use what they've patented. That way, you either have to license it from them when you want to use it in a real-world application, or you have to pay them a settlement when their lawyers come calling.

Re:XVID?

[vertinox]

Independent invention is neither a license nor a defence.

It should be. Why not make it only Paten infrignment if the party can prove that the other stole it from them or reversed engineered their product.

Re:XVID?

[cortana]

Patents would then be worthless. Your idea would make them similar to Trade Secrets, but without the secrecy.

(Intellectual "Property" consists of Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights and Trade Secrets.)

Re:XVID?

[arose]

"Intellectual Property" consists of [ ] (not including the square brackets.

Re:XVID?

[MemeRot]

They don't actually grant patents on pure software. What they grant is a patent on 'a system consisting of a computer and software that does x, y, and z'. That's how they consider software a device. You could theoretically write software code that completely infringed a dozen patents and be fine - you just couldn't run it on a computer because at that time it would be considered a device.

Crapola.

Re:XVID?

[pyros]

Independent invention is neither a license nor a defence.

If multiple independent parties are inventing the same thing over and over without prior knowledge of the existing work, then it's just not a novel invention, and doesn't deserve a patent.

Re:XVID?

[cortana]

Incorrect; subsequent inventors infringe on the original patent, regardless of knowledge of that patent.

Novelty is a patentability test, according to which an invention is not patentable if it was already known before the date of filing, or before the date of priority if a priority is claimed, of the patent application.

Novelty (patent), from Wikipedia

The second inventor may only defend against a claim on the grounds that the patent is not novel, if he can prove that the invention had been disclosed prior to the publication of that patent.

Re:XVID?

[pyros]

I know how the rules are implemented, I'm just saying what I think makes sense. Seriously, how can you call an idea original if multiple people come up with the same thing on their own, with no knowledge of each other?

Re:XVID?

[cortana]

Ah, well then you are talking about an entirely different kettle of fish and I agree with you completely. :)

Re:XVID?

[Anonymous Coward]

However, prior invention is a defense. It also has a tendency to invalidate a patent.

Re:XVID?

[drakaan]

Thank you, sir. I figured everybody on /. already reads groklaw (so I didn't bother mentioning what you just did about patents on software), but apparently not...

Hurting innovation

[slackaddict]

Are there any cases of patents actually helping people/companies? Why do I see story after story of companies whipping out their patents and hurting technology by suing and/or demanding massive royalty payments? Can someone point to any good uses of patents?

Re:Hurting innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

Before there were patents, there weren't any multinational companies with huge research teams; there were guys like Whitney and Franklin, who invented things on their own.

Before the patent was invented, if you invented a way to do an existing process or manufacture an object cheaper and/or faster and/or better, you could put all your competetion out of business.

Of course, under this system you would be a fool to let anyone else know how to make a cotton gin or whatever. So what happened was that novel things and processes were invented, and the secrets of these inventions died with their inventors.

The patent system was thus itself invented - you have a limited time monopoly on your invention, but in return you have to let everyone know how it works.

Like everything else, after a couple hundred years it's been twisted by those with the power to change laws. The patent was supposed to do away with the trade secret; now the big multinationals have patents AND trade secrets.

Power corrupts, but it doesn't corrupt people, the people who seek power are already corrupted. What power corrupts is the system itself.

(lame MRC="recruits")

Re:Hurting innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly right ... the problem is that patents are too easy to get. The bar for non-obviousness is intolerably low.
At least patents have seen the bastardization that copyright law has -- the patent monopoly still has a finite lifetime.

Re:Hurting innovation

[AndersOSU]

The problem with your request is that slashdot groupthink narrowly defines profit as bad, so with such a definition no there are no good uses of patents.

However, if we accept that we live in a money driven society and that profit isn't necessarily a bad thing then yes profits have helped many, many products come to market. For instance it is not difficult to argue that the invention of Nylon by the DuPont Company created profits that allowed for increased R&D spending that ultimately turned out Teflon and Kevlar, among other things.

The catch is that we can't run the control experiment so the standard anti-patent comeback to this is that some other player would have developed them anyway. Personally, I think that an anti-patent stance reduces to an anti-business stance, but hey whatever floats your (commie pinko ;) boat.

All that said the USPTO is incompetent and patents like "one-click shopping" and the JPEG and this nonsense are abuses of the system that shouldn't be allowed. A patent should, in my mind, cover things that are actually unique and non-obvious, and a working implementation of the patented device should have to be presented. Oh, and there should be some kind of common property catch where if something you patented has become widely popular and profitable and you haven't acted you can't try to cash in after the fact.

Re:Hurting innovation

[gnasher719]

'' Are there any cases of patents actually helping people/companies? ''

In the case of MPEG 4, there are dozens and dozens of patents that all the parties involved have thrown together to create that standard, and they all license them to each other. You can get a license for that whole patent pool relatively cheaply, and I guess for free if you supplied patents to the pool.

The problem here is that AT & T is not in the pool, and that they don't have any MPEG 4 products. Apple or Microsoft couldn't do this kind of thing because they are members of that pool, and by making patent claims they would lose the right to use the other two dozen patents. AT&T has nothing to lose here as they have no MPEG 4 product.

Companies like Apple and Microsoft mostly benefit because the system allows standards to develop _without_ everyone having to check that there are no patents violated. Specialist companies that concentrate on producing that kind of intellectual property benefit because they have a much better chance to get paid; on the other hand, they can't demand extortionate fees because otherwise their stuff will not be made part of the standard. Companies like Nero benefit first because there is a standard, which makes life easier, and second, because they can get licenses for everything quite cheaply.

The whole system suffers if there are any outsiders involved who don't play by the rules.

Re:Hurting innovation

[Mayhem178]

And now you've just seen the typical "/. users think profits are bad" post.

The point that most everyone gets confused on is that profits aren't bad; in fact, I don't think anyone hear is saying that. How you obtain them, however, can be. I could become a real burden on society's ass by pulling an ever-popular mid-90s "hot McDonalds coffee" suing frenzy. Of course, I'd get a bad rep and the kind of notoriety that would destroy my life. Why is it that big businesses should be treated any differently? What real reason would any company have to demand excessive royalties for such common technologies? Surely they aren't doing it to play the part of the "righteous crusader," promoting innovation and independent thinking while at the same time protecting the rights of inventors everywhere.

I'm telling you right now, their motives aren't for profit. Not directly, anyways. They do these things because the USPTO has provided these companies with a nice, legit way to run their competitors out of business, without breaking federal antitrust laws. IP patents are like a trump card for big businesses that they can hold until the final trick and steal the game.

Re:Hurting innovation

[Zeinfeld]

Are there any cases of patents actually helping people/companies? Why do I see story after story of companies whipping out their patents and hurting technology by suing and/or demanding massive royalty payments? Can someone point to any good uses of patents?

Patents helping companies, yes, plenty. AT&T was founded on a patent.

Patents helping society, yes, some. It is doubtful that there would be as much medical research without the incentive of a patent.

Junk patents harming society, well lets start with Henry Ford.

Before he invented the assembly line Ford made a much more important step to making cheap motor cars possible. He took on the Selden patent and the automotive manufacturers cartel. At the time the cartel insisted that you could only get a patent license if you paid a large royalty per car and that the car cost at least a certain amount. The other motor manufacturers went along with it even though they knew the patent was junk because it kept their sales prices high.

Looking at what we know of the AT&T case I can not tell whether it is in fact an example of a good or a bad patent. AT&T spent billions a year on Bell labs. Bell labs was founded as a patent factory. AT&T spent billions on research and then made it back licensing the patents.

This is a fair deal provided that two important criteria are met. First the party that gets the patent should be the actual real inventor of the invention. This is where the USPTO goes wrong by not following its own rules. They allow patents despite copious prior art and they allow patents that are far too broad.

The second criteria is that the 'invention' must be something that would not have been discovered anyway. This is where the US patent law needs to be changed. The 'obvious' criteria is not working.

A third criteria some people are trying to propose is some sort of fence test. A big problem with software patents is that you don't know where the field of the invention starts or stops. I think that this is probably just another aspect of the second prong.

I have no problem with the patentability of the RSA algorithm. There are four or five other patents I have read that are justifiable. But 98% of the software patents issued are pure junk.

Re:Hurting innovation

[mOdQuArK!]

Are there any cases of patents actually helping people/companies?

That's the wrong question. Obviously, the people/companies who have made a lot of money from patents are going to say that they were helped greatly by them.

The correct question is: has it been demonstrated that enforcing patents provide a net benefit to society?

Re:Hurting innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

McDonalds was actually sued several times for coffee burns before the famous incident. They purposefully kept their coffee at higher temperatures because it tasted better that way and figured that it was a cheap enough trade off to pay off anyone who got burned. The bottom line was that they decided that some burned customers would be balanced out by the profits on selling more cheap coffee. Running your customers out of business means profits as well. Pretty much all corporations have profits as the bottom line and everything else, good or evil, as means to that end.

Re:Hurting innovation

[Peter La Casse]

the problem is that patents are too easy to get. The bar for non-obviousness is intolerably low.

A solution to that might be to have non-willful infringement be grounds for invalidating a patent, on the basis that the patent wasn't as non-obvious as originally thought.

Re:Hurting innovation

[OwnedByTwoCats]

has it been demonstrated that enforcing patents provide a net benefit to society?

After the Wright Brothers invented an airplane that could (a) carry people, and (b) be controlled in flight, they received a patent. Glenn Curtiss made some improvements, and got another patent. Other inventors did the same. And then the patent fight pretty much stopped aviation development, because noone could make a decent airplane without infringing on some patents held by someone.

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, this was intolerable. So Congress basically nationalized all airplane patents, and then aviation took off.

Re:Hurting innovation

[gordo3000]

http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/c otton_gin.htm

Franklin was a good example. I find it funny you cite Whitney though, who tried like hell to use his patent on the cotton gin but no court woudl enforce it until 13 years after filing, which gave competition ample time to come up with work arounds.

I think Franklin was the last inventor to public domain everything he did. Very rarely have ideas ever died with their inventor. I can think of no examples. There have always been people reverse engineering ideas just as fast as ideas spring up.

Re:Hurting innovation

[mOdQuArK!]

I'm not a patent proponent, but all you're doing is giving a few examples which may or may not be related to whether patents help society or not.

Patent proponents pretty much do the same thing though: list a set of examples like you did, and then state that this "proves" that patents are good for society.

IMO, unless patent proponents can dig up a solid set of studies which show that patents provide a net benefit to society, then the laws should revert back to "normal market" behavior (i.e., no government-enforced monopolies on ideas).

We've got such a humongous vested interest in the current system, however, I'm not even remotely optimistic that anything short of a revolution will change it significantly.

Re:Hurting innovation

[nutrock69]

- In the case of MPEG 4, there are dozens and dozens of patents that all the parties involved have thrown together to create that standard, and they all license them to each other. You can get a license for that whole patent pool relatively cheaply, and I guess for free if you supplied patents to the pool.

The problem here is that AT & T is not in the pool, and that they don't have any MPEG 4 products...

Something that's bothering me about this even after reading the FA. I'm sure it's a stupid question and has a really simple answer, but I don't see it...

If (as is the case of mp4), the consortium owns all of the patents required for the mp4 concept, which must be the case if they are allowed to bundle & license it legally, how can AT&T not be in the consortium if they have a valid patent? Or conversely: How can they have a valid patent if they're not in the consortium? If (which is probably the case), AT&T freely gave the consortium use of the patent, how is it legal for them to pull a reverse on a patent they freely gave up - especially by trying to license customers who most likely have already licensed its use through the consortium?

Re:Hurting innovation

[AndersOSU]

Sure no one says profits are bad directly, but what they do say is that patents are. This leads to one of two possible conclusions: either we are cutting off our noses to spite our face i.e patents are screwed up so lets get rid of them regardless of the effect on R&D, or patents are bad because buisness use them to make money at the expense of others i.e profit is bad.

What I'm saying is that patents are screwed up, but there is a legitimate reason for awarding temporary monopolies to inventors, we shouldn't do away with that.

Re:Hurting innovation

[Skuto]

>If (as is the case of mp4), the consortium owns all of the patents required
>for the mp4 concept

The whole point is that it turns out now that they don't. And given the the technology is already massively popular, AT&T can now cash in as they will dictate the terms.

Re:Hurting innovation

[networkBoy]

what if everyone thumbed their nose at AT&T and said join the consortium (and get your *fair* share) or we will fight your patent as a team?
I mean, while I have not RTFP I am sure that it can be worked/wiggled around with the current patent pool providing some form of prior art?
-nB

Re:Hurting innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

Before the patent was invented, if you invented a way to do an existing process or manufacture an object cheaper and/or faster and/or better, you could put all your competetion out of business.

That's genius! Has anyone actually patented "the patent" yet? Cuz otherwise I'm gonna be rich.

Re:Hurting innovation

[steveness]

Case law would seem to be in your corner, then. Dell got slapped down in 1995 for trying to enforce a patent after getting the VESA standard approved (as part of the VESA organization). Here's a link: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1995/11/dell.htm.

So basically, companies can't push for widespread adoption of their technology and then swing a patent hammer afterwards.

Re:Hurting innovation

[Weasel Boy]

Patents helping companies, yes, plenty. AT&T was founded on a patent.

Yes, although possibly it shouldn't have been.

Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The more case like this one we get, the faster free formats will be adopted by the industry.

Re:Good thing

[dustmite]

Based on historical evidence (e.g. looking at the GIF debacle) I take a less optimistic view.

- Most big companies (e.g. MS, Adobe) find it simpler to just pay the patent fees and pass the costs on to their customers, than adopt free formats.

- Most end-users don't even realise they're paying more because of patents. The average purchaser of Photoshop, for example, never stops to think that they are paying GIF royalties in the purchase price.

In the case of GIF, the existence of an open, free (and even superior) alternative to GIF barely dented GIF's popularity. Even today only around 6% of websites use PNGs, while over 60% use GIFs. The main thing holding back PNG was, in fact, Microsoft's absolutely terrible support for it in Internet Explorer etc., and even Adobe Photoshop's PNG support sucked for many years (generating oversized PNGs), only since around v7 did they get OK PNG support. (By that time the GIF patent had nearly expired.) (PNG also unfairly got a bad rep amongst web devs as being worse than GIF because Photoshop's PNG compression algorithm was so bad it generated PNGs that were often much bigger than the equivalent GIFs, and people blamed the file format.)

Fact is big companies seldom fight patents, they just license them. Guys like us simply pay more without realising it anyway. And companies like MS still wield a lot of power over what formats succeed - e.g. Internet Explorer not supporting PNG has ensured PNG remains a fringe format.

Re:Good thing

[jZnat]

Welcome to 2006; there are no remaining [valid] patents defending GIF. The entire format is unencumbered by all legal standards. Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:Good thing

[dustmite]

Wow thanks brainiac! If you weren't so quick 'n eager to try say something intelligent, you would have noticed that I even mentioned as such in my post, but thanks anyway for clarifying that completely useless and redundant information that happens to in absolutely no way refute my use of the GIF patent as a valid counter-example to the GP's point.

ffmpeg?

[Se7enLC]

What about ffmpeg? I assume that will also be affected, as they provide MPEG-4 compression/decompression. What happens when you try to collect licensing fees from an open source project?

Re:ffmpeg?

[scuba0]

They have three options * If stationed outside of US don't bother * Exclude the codec * Pay the money Or maybe AT/T doesn't care about the opensource community because they can't collect any money there. Best option would be to let the opensource projects to roam free.

Re:ffmpeg?

[LiquidCoooled]

I suppose they could just give a percentage of their profits :)

Re:ffmpeg?

[slashbob22]

That is where the major problem with open source lies. Corporate Lawyers will not allow the use of Open Source software because of the un-known factor. What happens when someone tries to claim this? The developers usually aren't hurt as much as the deployers. Spread an Open Source application across 50,000 workstations and then find out they infringe on a patent. You'll be paying more then you would have buying some lock-in technology.

While I know these are the risks of software such as this, I am even more disturbed by the bait-and-switch like methods AT&T are using. What would be the most profitable way of claiming on a patent? Wait until you have as many people as possible using it and let the Lawyers go.

NTP, SCO, and ATT; whats with the three letter companies doing this?

Re:ffmpeg?

[WWWWolf]

A wild guess, but I guess they won't be going after them - just people who use ffmpeg binaries for profit (that is, put that thing in their own products). At least that's how things have been with MP3 licensing.

Of course, they could go silly and make license demands like Dolby does with AAC ("don't distribute compiled binaries or we'll get nasty", I think).

Re:ffmpeg?

[slavemowgli]

What happens when you try to collect licensing fees from an open source project?

If there's enough interest in the project, development moves to another country with less braindead patent laws. If there's not, it dies.

Re:ffmpeg?

[HuguesT]

Actually, AFAIK the implementation of a patented technology is not per se an infringing use of the patent. On the contrary, patents are there, or at least were there initially, to make implementation of known technology easier (they are meant to make something "patent").

As well, software patents are not valid in Europe, amongst other locales.

Thus, the FFMPEG implementation in that light is not infringing. However *actually using* the FFMPEG library in the US for anything other than research would be. Only people who hold a license to the disputed patent would be allowed to use the FFMPEG library for anything.

As illustrations of this point, see the VTK, which embeds patented technology such as the Marching Cube algorithm. When compiling the VTK, one can decide to include such pieces of software or not, depending on whether one is a licensee. See also various X11 antialiasing libraries which include code for a hinting interpreter, which is patented and labelled as such in the code. Most distributions turn it off, but it is there and can be enabled in jurisdictions for which the patent is not valid or if one holds a license for example.

OTOH, at the time of the LZW patent Unisys was actively harassing open source implementations of the algorithm, such as with the libtiff library, on the basis that mere distribution of code was usage. This behaviour never got challenged in court.

Re:ffmpeg?

[Tom]

What happens when you try to collect licensing fees from an open source project?

Open Source project dies.

Re:ffmpeg?

[gabebear]

Using proprietary technology doesn't help with indemnification... have you ever read any EULAs?

SCO may have worried some IT managers, but Timeline succesfully sued some of Microsoft's SQL server customers for 1.75 million.

What I could actually see happening is someone suing all MS-Office customers... would Microsoft pay 20 billion to idemnify customers? I'm sure some old fart has a great spreadsheet or word proccessing patent worth litterally Billions.

Re:ffmpeg?

[mspohr]

It's really hard to kill an open source project since in many cases there is no one to sue. The source code is out there and anyone can find it and use it and there's no way to find them. It's like trying to eliminate MP3 file sharing... impossible to stamp out.

Re:ffmpeg?

[mrball_cb]

I am not an expert at video.</DISCLAIMER>

If it's anything like previous video issues, I see licensing being pursued for MPEG-4 compression only. I don't see them pushing licensing for players. Decompression is the desired end use, so why do things to hamper that end goal? There's no money to be made forcing the players to pay for using decompression, because players will just stop using that technology (such as switching to Real as the standard, who give away the playing technology, or at least the files to do it). Witness MS and the defacto acceptance of WMV which internally is MPEG-4 part 10, but they can do that since they internally developed much of the spec that enhances it and makes it "part 10". MPEG-4 part 10 is an enhancement to MPEG-4 so it undoubtedly also relies on some or all of the core patented function. So...

Is MS paying their licensing costs for the privilege of enhancing their video format? Have they already paid? Was it a gratis license (in an effort to inject the MPEG-4 format onto millions upon millions of computers via a monopolistic desktop)? Is MS about to get hit upside the head with a lawsuit that they might actually be a victim that Slashdotters would feel sorry for?

I don't know the answers to those questions but would be interested to find out.

Re:ffmpeg?

[vettemph]

NTP, SCO, and ATT; whats with the three letter companies doing this?

  v v v

RIM, IBM and PLF. :)

Re:ffmpeg?

[Tom]

In theory, yes.

In more practical terms, an open source project almost always needs a well-known central website, one or two lead developers, an easily-accessible place to store the files and many other public frontends.

The underground approach will work for small, self-contained projects. It won't work for anything as complex as, say KDE or X.org

Re:ffmpeg?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Open Source project dies.

And commercial products swoop in to fill the void, collecting fees for the licensors and licensees, some of which get channeled back to political campaigns, ensuring the status quo. A good little system they've got going there.

Re:ffmpeg?

[jZnat]

Difference here is that KDE and Xorg have commercial backings (Trolltech in part for KDE, Red Hat and Novell are two of the big guys when it comes Linux-related (and the Linux kernel itself) software).

Re:ffmpeg?

[Aardpig]

Marching Cubes was patented in 1987. It should expire next year, right? In any case, it's a shite way of doing an isosurface. There are methods that make much nicer meshes.

Re:ffmpeg?

[HuguesT]

It may be shite but it is very popular.

There are many ways to extract isosurfaces but AFAIK most are derived one way or the other from Marching Cubes, so the patent would probably still apply. Feel free to educate me though.

Re:ffmpeg?

[Aardpig]

I was thinking about the various algorithms that do implicit isosurfaces -- you supply a function that returns a value, and the algorithm traces out an isosurface of this function. I've implemented a couple of such algorithms, and you can do really neat stuff like changing the triangle size based on the local radius of curvature of the surface. The triangles produced are usually pretty close to equilateral, and the meshes typically have a lot fewer vertices than marching cubes. However, I should add that I haven't tried out any postprocessing with marching cubes. I've heard that can give good meshes -- what's your experience of this?

Re:ffmpeg?

[HuguesT]

Marching cube is the granddaddy of implicit isosurface extraction algorithms, but its precision is only first order. It's usually enough for what I do, which is typically medical image segmentation. The main problem with MC is the non-preservation of topology in some instances.

More like TradeMarks

[RingDev]

Maybe I'm completely off base, but I think I remember hearing that if you don't defend your trade mark, you can lose your rights to it. Patents should be the same way, if you knowingly allow your patent to be infringed apon for 3 years and never so much as mention it to the infringer, why should you have the right to sue?

-Rick

Re:More like TradeMarks

[SchrodingersRoot]

It's called genericization, or "genericide." If a word becomes used often enough by the public regardless of branding, the courts can declare a trademark a generic word.
Heroin, Allen wrenches, and I think Spandex (Hence the new name Lycra) are all examples of this. There are many more, and there are plenty of companies that have trademarks that would appear to be in danger of "genericide" (the apparent legal term).

Xerox actually was in danger of this, and started a campaign against "xeroxing", strongly suggesting that people instead "photocopy" documents.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[caudron]

if you knowingly allow your patent to be infringed apon for 3 years and never so much as mention it to the infringer, why should you have the right to sue?

I'm not sure why Estoppel By Silence isn't invoked in such cases.

What is Estoppel by Silence? Let me consult the Great Lazyweb for a good explanation:

From nolo.com

Estoppel by Silence is a "type of estoppel that prevents a person from asserting something when she had both the duty and the opportunity to speak up earlier, and her silence put another person at a disadvantage. For example, Edwards' Roofing Company has the wrong address and begins ripping the roof from Betty's house by mistake. If Betty sees this but remains silent, she cannot wait until the new roof is installed and then refuse to pay, asserting that the work was done without her agreement."

I don't see a difference between this and what these submarine patents are doing. But IANAL and this is ./, so I'm sure some other IANAL poster is gonna come along and explain why I'm daft and my post has killed a kitten somewhere.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[kfg]

For the same reason you don't lose title to your house if someone moves in while you're on vacation. A patent is a title.

A trademark isn't. A trademark is an association of the mark with your business in the mind of "the people." In a sense it is owned by your customers, not you. One need not even register a mark to have one. It can exist de facto simply through use, creating the public assoctiation.

A patent cannot. You must file for title or it does not exist. What "the people" think about the whole thing isn't relevant to possession. Ignorance or missuse is not the law.

Patents and trademarks are two very different things, you can't just lump them as "IP," and there is sound legal reasoning as to how both are handled.

KFG

Re:More like TradeMarks

[frinkster]

Maybe I'm completely off base, but I think I remember hearing that if you don't defend your trade mark, you can lose your rights to it. Patents should be the same way, if you knowingly allow your patent to be infringed apon for 3 years and never so much as mention it to the infringer, why should you have the right to sue?

I'm not a lawyer, but my wife is an intellectual property lawyer and tried explaining this to me. I'll try to explain it, but I may get some details wrong.

In fact patent infringers do have a similar protection. If you knowingly allow someone to infringe on your patent but wait for a while before filing an infringement lawsuit against them you give up the ability to collect damages during the period you knew about the infringement but did nothing about it. And I think it limits the amount of damages you can collect for the infringement after the lawsuit is filed.

In effect, you get a free ride on their intellectual property for as long as they knowingly allow you to infringe without doing anything to stop it. But as long as the patent is valid, they will always have the ability to stop you from infringing at any time.

If anyone can clarify further that would be appreciated.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[gvibes]

It is the same way. It's called "laches." If you learn of an infringer, and do nothing for six (6) years, suit is barred.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[chphilli]

IANAL, but you just killed my kitten! When I told the guy mistakingly ripping off my roof to stop, he jumped down and landed on my kitten!

In all seriousness, I don't understand earlier.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[dcw3]

Heroin, Allen wrenches, and I think Spandex (Hence the new name Lycra) are all examples of this. There are many more, and there are plenty of companies that have trademarks that would appear to be in danger of "genericide" (the apparent legal term).

Also rumored to be on the list...aspirin (originally TM'ed by Bayer), kleenex, xerox, and ski-doo.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[ubernostrum]

IANAL, etc., but the defense is called "laches", and this is my layman's understanding of it.

There are two things you have to demonstrate in order to use the laches defense:

1. There was an unreasonable delay between the time the patent holder found out about your infringment and the time he or she filed suit against you.
2. This delay caused "material prejudice or injury" to you.

So, to take an example, suppose that you're getting into the business of manufacturing widgets, and Acme Corp. sees your press releases and realizes you're infringing on their widget patent. Rather than take immediate action, they sit back and wait and, after you've been up and running for a while, they file a patent-infringement lawsuit and seek an injunction to stop you from making any more widgets until the suit is settled. At this point, you can meet both conditions of the laches defense: Acme Corp. delayed unreasonably in taking action, because they knew you were infringing long ago, and as a result you've suffered material injury -- had they acted sooner, you would either have licensed the patent, or found a way to make widgets that didn't infringe, and your business wouldn't be in deep trouble right now.

At this point, the patent is still valid and you will have to pay royalties on any widgets you make in the future (so this isn't really analogous to the situation with trademarks), but Acme Corp. can't demand back royalties for the widgets you made in the past.

So, basically, the doctrine of laches tries to make situations like this fair to everyone (you'll actually see it called "the equitable doctrine of laches" in a lot of places); it's fair to the patent holder, because they get royalties going forward, but it's fair to you because you're not held responsible for the damages incurred by their delay.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[iamacat]

Surely Betty only has to pay what she thought was the cost of a new roof though? How is she supposed to know if she was never presented with and sign a contract?

Re:More like TradeMarks

[TechForensics]

Too right. Look what happened to Thermos and Jell-O. Took some fancy wrangling to preserve these names as protected.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[caudron]

Surely Betty only has to pay what she thought was the cost of a new roof though? How is she supposed to know if she was never presented with and sign a contract?

That's the penalty for not speaking up right away. If she tells the roofer he's made a mistake as soon as she was able, she isn't liable for costs, otherwise she is, according to the doctrine of Estoppel by Silence, liable for costs as if she signed the contract. She pays what the roofer says she pays if she doesn't speak up.

Re:More like TradeMarks

[owlstead]

And this is where things go wrong. If the *alleged* infringement is as big and as widespread as MPEG4, the patent should be invalidated. It is otherwise impossible to create (open) standards. Open standards are the way to increase competition - I would consider them more important than open source. If everyone that creates a new MPEG4 device or creates (a copy of) software suddenly has to pay a license, the whole infrastructure is at risk.

Maybe there should be a sepperate way to deal with these issues. For important technologies, the patent office or other governmental structure should publish a "respond before this date or shutup forever" statement. Any patents that encumber the use of the technology are invalidated from that point in time. Because this is getting out of hand (or, more to the point, already is).

Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Caspian]

Christ. Look at the earthshaking technologies that were invented/discovered and/or popularized in the interval from roughly 1860 to 1960: Radio, the telephone, the television, the laser, nuclear fission, the automobile, the airplane, the rocket, the microwave oven, the computer...

Now look at what we've achieved since then. Uhhh..... let's see. Um. PDAs? ... Blackberries? ... Cell phones? (read: radio + telephone)... umm ... well, our computers are smaller now, and faster?...

I cannot help but think that the shift away from R&D, the overreliance on patents like this story, and the constant threat of being sued/bought out by megacorps have combined to slow the pace of human technological development.

The new business model seems to be "obtain patent on a niggling detail of a process or device; sue over patent; profit!". Back in the day, the business model was "Research fascinating new things; patent them; bring them to market; profit." I'm all for a return to the old model...

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[thefirelane]

Now look at what we've achieved since then. Uhhh..... let's see. Um. PDAs? ... Blackberries? ... Cell phones? (read: radio + telephone)... umm ... well, our computers are smaller now, and faster?...

ummm... did you miss everything that has happened in biology and DNA lately? Electronics has just moved into the incremental consumer phase, instead of being a strict labratory science. Things like DNA sequencing, stem cells, cloning, nano-technology, and genetic engineering are where the real advancements are.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[quokkapox]

Sorry, but the new paradigm is designed to exclude the individual inventor from profiting.

Don't worry, this won't last long because the revolution is imminent.

We (the people of the world) are all simply going to ignore IP law. And we'll share our knowledge over the Internet. With technology designed and manufactured IN YOUR FACE.

The world is changing, either get with it or get left behind.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Caspian]

ummm... did you miss everything that has happened in biology and DNA lately? Electronics has just moved into the incremental consumer phase, instead of being a strict labratory science. Things like DNA sequencing, stem cells, cloning, nano-technology, and genetic engineering are where the real advancements are.

That's nice. So where's the cure to HIV? To cancer? To the common cold? Where's the organ cloning plant? Where's the "rewrite the genes of your choice" service? Where's the designer babies shop? Where's the "change your sex with a retrovirus and a massive hormone/stem cell injection" service? Where's the "make yourself into a furry" boutique? Where's the brain transplant clinic? Where's the "grow new muscles in a vat overnight" outpatient graft center? Where's the "upload yourself into a computer" facility-- or, for that matter, even something as limited in brain/computer interaction as a VISOR? Where are the nanites, the artificial T-cell booster shots, the dermal synthesizers?

Oh. Yeah. We can clone cats-- for $30,000. And we're kinda sorta maybe working on some kinda sorta maybe medical treatments that involve genetic engineering. Wowie zowie. Meanwhile, we're still freaking the fuck out about the fucking Flu being capable of mutating and taking out a statistically significant chunk of humanity.

How you can even compare our progress in biological science to our progress in electronics is laughable. We've taken the first few baby steps. Barely. No great breakthroughs that transform the lives of average people, like television or penicillin or power plants or automobiles. Just baby steps.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

To be fair, you should compare equivalent stretches of time; 1960 was 46 years ago, so look at 1860-1906, and you'll see that more than half your list goes away. And some of the changes that have taken place since 1960 are, I think, just as important -- as far as computers go, they're so much smaller and faster (and, just as importantly, cheaper) than I think you're looking at a difference in kind, not just degree.

But overall, I agree with you. The suits have thoroughly bought into, and convinced judges and politicians (including the US Supreme Court) of, the fundamentally wrong idea that money is the driving force behind scientific and technological progress. The simple fact is that the kind of person who is capable of creating something genuinely new is also usually -- not always, but usually -- also the kind of person who wants to see that "something" widely available much, much more than he wants to get rich off it. Scientists and engineers don't, as a rule, expect to get rich; if that were their primary motivation, they wouldn't be scientists or engineers. This is something the suits will never, ever understand ... but then, if they understood such things, they wouldn't be suits, either. And so the world is run by people who don't actually understand much of anything except the rules of their own made-up game.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[tgd]

You really need to read up on the history of that period where IP is concerned.

The battles were far bigger and far bloodier over pants in the 1800s than they are now. The innovations you mentioned were *obvious* to many people of the time. It was common that patent applications on a new product would beat a competitor by hours. Lawsuits were rampant, technologies crushed far more often than now.

Particularly read up on the development of the telegraph and electric systems in the US. Those were both especially bloody IP battles, although a lot of industrial developments were too.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[codifus]

Or could the slowing of innovation be inevitable due to saturtaion? Don't we live in a been there done that world, much more so than ever before?

Caveman days, fire and the wheel are invented. There was soooo much to invent back then that even the simplest inventions were remarkable. The earth is round. OH MY GOD!

1860s to 1960 - the birth of the electronic age. There was so much to invent in electronics; transistors, ICs, lasers, microwaves, digital audio and video, etc. It was the wild wild west back then.

2000 and beyond - my guess is that this is the birth of quantum era. It's still in it's nascency, but we are just so totally saturated with electronics that it's so hard to find something new. Look at the Blackberry lawsuit. Looks like RIM borrwed technology from someone else.

Food for thought

CD

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[tgd]

*hangs head*

The battles were far bigger and far bloodier over pants in the 1800s than they are now.

Yes, mock me now. You all know what I meant, though.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[the chao goes mu]

Battles over pants? I don't recall those from my history books.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Anonymous Coward]

"1960 was 46 years ago, so look at 1860-1906..."

You are assuming that technology growth is linear. I don't think it is.

-

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

You are assuming that technology growth is linear. I don't think it is.

I don't think it is either, but to say, "the pace of innovation is slower now than it was then" when "now" and "then" are two different lengths of time is simply a bad comparison. If I had to guess at a good functional description, I'd say it's either stochastic-exponential or stochastic-logistic; obviously I'd prefer to think it's the former, but there's always the possibility that it's the latter, and we're reaching the point where the curve flattens out.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole thread is Bullshit. There's wa more cool stuff now and I wouldn't live in the 1800s or 1960s if you paid me.

I grew up in the fucking 80s and I wouldn't go back.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[HuguesT]

In the last 40 years or so, average survival rates of all cancers have grown from about 25% to about 60%. Some cancers have an over 90% survival rate.

I leave you to decide whether this constitutes progress.

Progress in the biological sciences is enormous and constant, but the translation from scientific understanding to treatment & prevention is slow, because it needs to be as close to 100% safe as possible. There are about half a dozen known treatments against the HIV virus that work on monkeys and cats, but few would dare try them in their own bodies.

Compared to biology, electronics is so simple that it is child's play.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[mschaef]

""Christ. Look at the earthshaking technologies that were invented/discovered and/or popularized in the interval from roughly 1860 to 1960: Radio, the telephone, the television, the laser, nuclear fission, the automobile, the airplane, the rocket, the microwave oven, the computer...

Now look at what we've achieved since then. Uhhh..... let's see. Um. PDAs? ... Blackberries? ... Cell phones? (read: radio + telephone)... umm ... well, our computers are smaller now, and faster?... "

This is rated 5, insightful? Unbelievable.

Comparing mass market technology to what was commonplace 45 years ago:

• Automobiles are: faster, more reliable, safer, more nicely equipped, and cheaper to buy. Some are even more efficient, if you value that enough to buy such a model.
  
• Computers (not just desktops and laptops, but embedded, as well) are cheaper (by orders of magnitude), faster (by orders of magnitude), more efficient (by orders of magnitude), move available (by orders of magnitude)... get the picture?
  
• With respect to medical technology: Yesterday, I walked into the hospital, had an MRI taken, burned onto a CD, and now I'm able to browse a 3 dimensional model of the innards of my hip in real time on my personal laptop. (Along with a radiologist, who probably works halfway around the world.)
  
• Photography now has zero marginal cost for 'dud' pictures. It has zero marginal cost for sending pictures to family.
  
• Airline transit (even International) is cheaper and more accessible.
  
• I can now pay bills online, in a minute or two.
  
• ....and on and on and on...
  

I grew up in the 80's, and remember pretty clearly what life was like back then. It's pretty easy for me to say that life is incredibly improved by technology compared to what was commonplace even 20 years ago, much less compared to 40 years ago.

Maybe it's the fact that all these improvements are incremental that makes them more difficult to see, but I can assure you that life would be very different for 1960 Caspian, compared to 2006 Caspian. At the very least, you wouldn't have nearly as large a potential audience for your cynical crap...

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[operagost]

Where's the "change your sex with a retrovirus and a massive hormone/stem cell injection" service? Where's the "make yourself into a furry" boutique?

Boy, I can't wait until we have those!

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[ynohoo]

sure, there was that big one between the pale blue pants & the dark blue pants. Plus of course the centuries old pants vs. no pants one. And that's just in the USA...

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[operagost]

New York Times, February 10th, 1898. Sears and Roebuck sued by Woolworth's over use of "pants" in their catalogs, sidesteps issue by calling them "slacks".

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, the Great Pant-Patent War of 1906.

How soon we forget...

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Plunky]

That's nice. So where's the cure to HIV? To cancer? To the common cold? Where's the organ cloning plant? Where's the "rewrite the genes of your choice" service? Where's the designer babies shop? Where's the "change your sex with a retrovirus and a massive hormone/stem cell injection" service? Where's the "make yourself into a furry" boutique? Where's the brain transplant clinic? Where's the "grow new muscles in a vat overnight" outpatient graft center? Where's the "upload yourself into a computer" facility-- or, for that matter, even something as limited in brain/computer interaction as a VISOR? Where are the nanites, the artificial T-cell booster shots, the dermal synthesizers?

Dude, I'm fairly sure I get email offering me all that stuff every day.. you telling me that its all a scam and they dont really exist?

like, I was really tempted by the 'make yoursefl into a furry' boutique..

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[mschaef]

"How you can even compare our progress in biological science to our progress in electronics is laughable. We've taken the first few baby steps. Barely. "

Biological science is a lot more complex than electronics. We also have not been at it in a scientific way for nearly as long.

"No great breakthroughs that transform the lives of average people, like television or penicillin or power plants or automobiles. Just baby steps. "

That's all you'll see: a bunch of baby steps, and one day you'll wake up and the world is changed.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[ediron2]

*hangs head*

The battles were far bigger and far bloodier over pants in the 1800s than they are now.

Yes, mock me now. You all know what I meant, though.

ROFLMAO. I wish I could give you *every* mod point I get for the next year for these two. Your self-reply is exactly how I've felt too many times-- a split second after hitting return and *knowing* there's no enter/delete option.

That was priceless. Well, at least worth more than $30, considering I didn't even mind that I snorted coffee onto my keyboard when I read the typo. Worth losin' a keyboard.

The unit of time you've just experienced is known as the 'ohno second'. Most commonly tied to locking one's keys in the car, deleting files, and throwing something tasty away and keeping the wrapper.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Asprin]

On the other hand, the reason moviemakers moved west and turned a piece of desert into Hollywood was because they didn't want to pay the patent fees on Edison's motion picture camera technology, so there is precedent for this sort of greedy silliness.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up...

I call BS. You obviously did no such thing!

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Dunbal]

That's nice. So where's the cure to HIV? To cancer?

      If you had any idea how much progress has been made in medical science in the past 15 years you wouldn't push these points. We've gone from knowing absolutely nothing about how some of these pathologies come about, to understanding the exact molecular mechanisms. Being able to do something about it (without killing the patient) is another story.

      In the meantime, feel free to enjoy the fact that the mortality of your heart attack is now under 11% if you make it to the ER in time, down from over 50%. Plus now you can get a stent, or if you get coronary artery bypass grafts, they don't even need to stop your heart and hook you up to the pump anymore. Plus arterial grafts have a >90% patency at 10 years, up over 20% from venous grafts. Or that if you get many types of cancer you can live long enough to die from some other cause first. Or that you can have virtually any kind of surgery done endoscopically (not to mention the fact that the anaesthesia risk is way down now due to better drugs and monitoring techniques).

      But yeah, people still die. And will continue to do so. If you had any idea of how the influenza virus works, and how easily it mutates, you would understand how hard it is to deal with it.

      It's very easy to knock something you know nothing about. But rest assured, many solutions to these problems are being presented every month. We're not idle in the bio-medical field.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Cyno]

DNA sequencing, stem cell research, cloning, nano-tech, and genetic engineering.. all patented.

We can't teach you anything about these topics unless you sign this NDA right here.

If you want to work in these fields go out and rediscover it for yourself, then hire a patent attorney before selling anything.

Thanks,
The American Way of Life.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[kmartshopper]

ummm... did you miss everything that has happened in biology and DNA lately? Electronics has just moved into the incremental consumer phase, instead of being a strict labratory science. Things like DNA sequencing, stem cells, cloning, nano-technology, and genetic engineering are where the real advancements are.

Ummm... did you miss that many of these things too are also being patented so that companies can sit back and wait for someone to discover that their patented gene cures some disease... then wait for someone else to spend money developing the cure and claim they have the patent to that very gene that made the whole process possible and that they therefore deserve a large chunk of the pie?

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP was right. Though he was off by 9 years as to the main cause of this phenomenon. These supressed techs aren't ignored, however. We currently have 2 separate (and not equal) technology tracks -- the public and the private. It's not just airplanes being tested at those secret bases in NV and others (many others).

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[gg3po]

Interesting. You seem to know something, or at least give that impression. Can you provide any additional documentation?

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you'd consider immortality for all as the ultimate achievement for biological sciences? Until a few years later when the entire ecosystem collapses in a pile of human biomass...

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[rubycodez]

that would be nice except the National Cancer Institutes re-analysis of cancer incidence indicates that the number of people *getting* cancer is increasing, the apparent recent falling was just do to time lag of disease reports coming in recent decade. The new results: breast cancer up 0.6% a year since 1987, lung cancer in women up 1.2% per year since 1996. Melenoma in white males up 4.1% a year since 1981, the report goes on & on, more people getting cancer, no doubt for technological reasons.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[Courageous]

It take more than that, particularly not if the majority aren't with you. And it they are, you don't need to "ignore" the law, because you can have it changed.

C//

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[mdfst13]

Talking about pharmaceutical patents in the same breath with software patents is somewhat misleading. Yes, pharmaceutical patents do encourage companies to develop new drugs. However, very little of this is because they spend more on R&D. The main reason that pharmaceutical patents help is that they encourage companies to go through the FDA's drug approval process. In the end, most drug companies only have a few years to actually use the patent. Most of the patent period is spent in testing.

By contrast, software testing is only a fraction of the overall process. It took Edison's lab 10,000 tries to make a light bulb. Software's not like that. There's much less try and guess. Yes, there are multiple ways to do things and some are better than others. However, the process of choosing is much less exhaustive.

It's also worth noting that reverse engineering a pharmaceutical product is trivial. Reverse engineering software is difficult. Frankly, it's almost always simpler to write the software fresh. If reverse engineering were trivial, you could run all your Windows apps on your Linspire box.

Pharmaceuticals and software are the two endpoints of the discussion. It's not at all obvious to me that either tells us much about the other. They're very different products.

Also, I'm willing to spot you huge advances in medicine recently. I would still point out that we are woefully lacking in understanding still. This is one of the reasons why medicine is different from software. In software, you start with a system whose entire behavior can be known and build complexity from it. In medicine, you take huge swathes of the unknown and try to extract tiny pieces of knowledge.

It's interesting that both penicillin and Viagra were accidents. Penicillin kept killing the bacteria that was being studied, which Hess and Bumstead finally realized was a good thing. Pfizer was studying Viagra for a possible effect on lowering blood pressure when they realized it caused a Priapic effect. Perhaps we are close to being able to do constructive work (designing drugs rather than trying random experimentation); however, we aren't there yet.

It's quite possible that we are making great gains and still in the infancy of medical science. Note that people learn the most impressive things as an infant: how to walk; how to talk. These are incredibly complex tasks; yet, infants accomplish them with very little assistance. However, infants appear ineffectual, because they don't do these tasks well at first. Since we are ahead of them in the curve, they seem clumsy and slow.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[HuguesT]

At the same time lung cancer in men is finally decreasing, thanks to public policy on smoking. Melanoma is among those cancers that have an over 90% survival rate.

Also more people are getting cancer later in life because they live longer. Fewer people are dying of cardio-vascular related diseases now than in the 80s. If one is not dying of a heart attack at 45, one is increasing one's chance of getting cancer.

Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing?

[owlstead]

Funny you would say that. I know of research in the Netherlands that uses neutered viri to put in gen-therapy. This is just now be used in (severily ill) human patients. Just like the advance of computers or the internet you should not expect things to change overnight. But it would be stupid to ignore the technology as well.

Xvid question

[mysterious_w]

Would open-source mpeg4 codecs such as xvid be vulnerable to AT&T's patents?

MPEG-4 was introduced over 7 years ago...

[digitaldc]

...so why did it take AT&T this long to argue that someone is violating one of its patents?
Isn't there something fishy about this?
Or is suing 'late in the game' now the norm for patent lawyers?

Re:MPEG-4 was introduced over 7 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that there the proud company we once knew as AT&T is long gone. The entity that calls itself "AT&T" is now just slimy old SBC with a new name. That might partly explain "why now."

Re:MPEG-4 was introduced over 7 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a couple of possibilities that I can think of.

One is that they were acting like typical patent trolls. Being AT&T, I don't think that's the case. If AT&T wanted to leverage their patent, they would have done so since the beginning.

The other, more likely, possibility is that the new execs at AT&T have decided to enforce a patent that the old execs chose not to.

Don't forget, AT&T was recently acquired by SBC (who then renamed themseves to AT&T). It's very possible, and likely, that SBC/newAT&T took a look at the patent portfolio of oldAT&T and decided to use it to its advantage. Nothing particularly wrong with that. But it would have been nice if oldAT&T signed some form of contract or agreement with the MPEG committee granting royalty-free use of their patent in MPEG technology.

Re:MPEG-4 was introduced over 7 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also the point that SBC has just recently completed their aquisition of AT&T. I'm sure they were salivating to go over all of the patents AT&T was just sitting on.

Re:MPEG-4 was introduced over 7 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

The weird thing about this is that AT&T is attacking companies like Apple instead of the MPEG-LA. Apple, Nero, and other companies pay their MPEG-4 royalties to the MPEG-LA, under the assumption that it granted the rights to the technology. If this is not the case, AT&T is trying to circumvent the current licensing process and double-dip on the implementors, AND will likely hit the MPEG-LA as well. In other words, AT&T could likely create a drive AWAY from the technology rather than getting their hand into the cookie jar pulling this stunt.

Re:MPEG-4 was introduced over 7 years ago...

[Zerbs]

It could be opportunism by SBC to cash in a little on their investment of buying AT&T.

Re:MPEG-4 was introduced over 7 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

The timing may have something to do with the SBC takeover of ATT ???

Will Dirac be ready in time to rescue us?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Some information on Dirac can be found here and here (PDF warning).

Re:Will Dirac be ready in time to rescue us?

[hullabalucination]

Ah...I just had the same thought. Went to Dirac's home page, downloaded the codec and patches for various players/encoding tools.

Apparently it's far enough along that you can start using it today.

As somebody who does a bit of video work presented on the Net now and then, I'm going to start experimenting with Dirac and using it if at all possible.

Re:Will Dirac be ready in time to rescue us?

[LubosD]

Is Dirac that good? OGG Theora seems to be more ready to use...

We can always go back to using FLI !

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that the Unisys LZW patent has expired ;)

Next gen codecs

[lisaparratt]

I guess Dirac's time has come.

Re:Next gen codecs

[WWWWolf]

Or rather, Theora's time, which not only is actually implemented in multiple popular cross-platform player softwares (VLC, RealPlayer) and has a nice converter (ffmpeg2theora), it's also - hopefully - proven to be free of patent issues. =)

Re:Next gen codecs

[lisaparratt]

Unfortunately, though, it's not really a next generation codec. The underlying algorithms are all rather aged. Admittedly, so are MPEG-4s, but it'd be better for the open source movement to put their weight behind something both free and with a real future, rather than something already showing it's wrinkles. With it's large archive of content, and it's fingers in the DVB pies, the BBC is in an excellent position to push Dirac to the forefront.

Re:Next gen codecs

[bradkittenbrink]

from the dirac faq:

When will Dirac be ready?

We hope to get to beta by the end of 2005. This means fixing the bitstream spec and getting the code to conform to it.

indeed it would seem that it's time has come.

Re:Next gen codecs

[cosmic_gravy]

And let us not forget Theora (http://www.theora.org/). VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) allows you to easily transcode into Ogg Theora and IPTV shows from revision3 (http://revision3.com/) are distributed using Ogg Theora. I have experimented with it a litte bit and I like the results over Xvid (for the same bit-rate), but I have switched to using x264 (developers.videolan.org/x264.html) but since it is also MPEG-4, it could be in trouble.

Re:Next gen codecs

[evilviper]

Unfortunately, though, it's not really a next generation codec.

Actually, I'd say it's at least on-par with h.264 and could be improved in the future. VP3 had in-loop deblocking many, many years ago. It looks decent on DVD-res material down to about 500k, etc. That's all before any improvements made in the past several years.

The problem with Theora is that Xiph.org has taken YEARS and YEARS, and still doesn't even have a beta release, let alone a stable release. Remember, they started back in 2001, and still haven't accomplished anything more than porting VP3, and sticking it in an Ogg container. That's even a downgrade, since it has painfully large overhead, and Matroska is gaining in popularity because of it.

Theora strikes me as another HURD project that will never get completed.

With it's large archive of content, and it's fingers in the DVB pies, the BBC is in an excellent position to push Dirac to the forefront.

Yeah, but who the hell wants it? They're aiming for a replacement of MPEG-2, not a low-bitrate next-gen codec that could compete with MPEG-4, h.264, VC-1, etc.

libavcodec/snow looks much more promising, but work on that has stalled lately, and it really needs some optimizations and bitstream freeze as well.

Re:Next gen codecs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you can put theora in MKV, the latest mkvtools supports that. It will save you overhead compared to OGG.

Dirac supports B-frames and multiple reference frames and other stuff that Theora doesn't. It's definately an improvement over theora.

Re:Next gen codecs

[evilviper]

It's definately an improvement over theora.

Well there's a totally baseless assertion if I've ever heard one.

~sigh~

[TerminalWriter]

You know, the more and more I read stuff like this, the more and more I think that open source, general public liscense is the way to go.

Re:~sigh~

[WinterSolstice]

You know, I'm starting to agree with that sentiment. I never seriously considered Ogg or anything like that before but I will start to do so.

Time to take technology out of the hands of corporations and give it back to the inventors :)

-WS

Re:~sigh~

[interiot]

GPL doesn't protect software authors from patents. GPL doesn't prevent RedHat from creating a submarine patent and not telling anyone about it until a number of companies have based their business strategy around it.

Re:~sigh~

[TheSync]

The issue is that "patent clearance" doesn't exist, you can't really prove that no patents are relavent to your product. There are just too many of them, and they are worded too vaguely. Five years from now, some unknown company can come out of the woodwork and say "Vorbis infringes on our patent filed in 1997".

The ITU/MPEG folks THOUGHT they had gotten all the patent holders on MPEG-4 collected together by MPEG-LA, but it looks like they didn't.

My impression is that MPEG-LA is still trying to gather all the patents for Windows Media / SMPTE VC-1.

Re:~sigh~

[fossa]

From what I understand, MPEG-LA doesn't even pretend to guarantee that a license from them covers all applicable patents. From the MPEG-LA: "Any party that believes it has patents which are essential to the MPEG-4 Systems Standard, and wishes to participate in the MPEG-4 Systems Patent Portfolio License upon successful evaluation, is invited to submit them for evaluation and inclusion." This statement is repeated in a number of locations including the FAQs for both MPEG-4 Systems and MPEG-4 Visual. The MPEG-LA licensing is more of a "We know these patents all apply, and you can conveniently license them all in one place. You're on your own with anything else." Also, the patent pool for the audio portions of MPEG-4 is administrated separately by Via Licensing.

I often wonder if MPEG is more about good technology, or more about getting everyone's patents included.

Re:~sigh~

[jb.hl.com]

You know, you could post that in reply to just about any story on Slashdot and get an instant +5 Insightful...

Re:~sigh~

[TheSync]

I often wonder if MPEG is more about good technology, or more about getting everyone's patents included.

It can't be about getting everyone's patents included, because nobody knows which patents are infringed upon until after the standards are published.

Yes, there are a few participants in ITU/MPEG/SMPTE processes who know they are putting in their patents (and they have to declare that ahead of time, and generally offer RAND terms). It is the non-participants who come out of the woodwork later that are the real concern.

Re:~sigh~

[TerminalWriter]

Really? This is my first day ever commenting at Slashdot. And I only ever got up to +3 Insightful.

Yes, that's the whole point.

[meringuoid]

Or is suing 'late in the game' now the norm for patent lawyers?

Sue early: people say 'Ah, well we'll just use some other video codec, then.'

Sue late: people say 'Shit, we've committed our whole business to this technology. Better pay up.'

There's more profit to be had this way, which is why it's done like this. What, you expected some ethical or technical reason?

Re:Yes, that's the whole point.

[digitaldc]

There's more profit to be had this way, which is why it's done like this. What, you expected some ethical or technical reason?

Good point...now to find out who I can sue to make a quick buck.
Maybe that kid in 9th grade who always copied the answers from my tests?
I hear he is a really kick-ass scientist now.

Re:Yes, that's the whole point.

[ciroknight]

Well then they dropped the bombshell just seconds too late to hit Apple; their video store is just getting started, so there is still time to switch the specific coder they use for it, and with a firmware update to the iPod, they can some quickly into compliance, and not lose a dollar over it.

They should have kept this submarine under wraps for another year or so.

Re:Yes, that's the whole point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Under wraps?

Does it come with chipotle sauce?

Age

[xeoron]

How old is this patent that AT&T owns? The article does not seem to say.

Re:Age

[rs79]

"How old is this patent that AT&T owns? The article does not seem to say."

Uh yeah, ABOUT that. I have a feeling it's fairly old, like mid to late 80's.

Did you ever see AT&T's slowscan videophones back then? I don't think anybody ever bought one but they were for sale in stores.

Re:Age

[xeoron]

Then lets hope that it is old enough for it to expire soon.

Let it drown

[tknn]

I am all for this kind of stuff. Let the system suffocate enough that corporations finally realise that the patent system only helps lawyers as is. Then we will see reform. When you see legal fees outstrip R&D revenues, then things will change and not until then. Plus every patent war like this is another call to use open-source.

Re:Let it drown

[Kadin2048]

I think you better think twice about all that. It's easy to say 'down with the man,' especially when you ignore what the man's doing for you.

When there's more money to be had in patent-mongering than in R&D, nobody is going to bother to do R&D. And I don't care how much of a FOSS zealot you are, there aren't any free projects that approach the scale of the big commercial research projects. You aren't going to go on Sourceforge and start a project to develop the next silicon wafer technology. Development takes a lot of money, and a lot of time, and a lot of expensive equipment, and to be honest, sometimes just requires putting a lot of smart people in a room together for a while. That kind of stuff is funded by corporations -- in the semiconductor and technology sector, in the pharamaceutical sector, and probably in lots of other places. That's not to say that 'lone wolves' don't do important bits of invention, but innovation -- fitting those bits together along with existing technologies -- is not something that's easy (or frankly, always fun; which is why they pay people do it) to break up and work on in a distributed-collaborative environment.

Governments aren't going to pick up the ball here either. Nor, I think, would we want them to -- anyone who's been paying attention shouldn't have been surprised about the recent "revelations" that research at NASA gets politicized. Can you imagine the right mess we'd be in, if some Senate committee handed out all the awards to do drug research in this country? (No doubt we'd have Viagra that would make your penis eight feet long...)

Unless you want technological development to come to a grinding, screeching halt, you want private corporations to want to develop new stuff. What we need to get rid of are these parasitic non-developers (to be fair, I'm not sure where AT&T fits into all of this) who are destroying the incentive to innovate and develop by companies that actually do useful work. They are the really dangerous ones, and if you look at the companies who do useful stuff (IBM, for instance) and generally play nice with others, they have some of the most realistic proposals for patent reform.

In short, when I hear people on Slashdot writing stuff like "fuck the system" and "down with patents," it reminds me of a suburban teenager driving their mom's minivan, while wearing a Che Guevera t-shirt. It may score you points with your buddies, but I really doubt that you want what you're advocating, if you saw where it would leave you.

Re:Let it drown

[tknn]

Nice reply, to bad you didn't notice that I called for reform, not elimination of patents. We could make them shorter to minimize their damages, but it would be better to make the bar for granting a patent much higher or perhaps make the challenges much easier.

Re:Let it drown

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The problem with this idea is that there's no real incentive for the corporations to go along with reforming the system, no matter how bad it gets, because it's a tragedy-of-the-commons situation. Is this kind of IP absurdity bad for everyone in the long term? Yes. Is it good, in the short term, for AT&T (or whichever bunch of jerks is claiming ownership over mathematics this week?) Also yes. The only way it's going to change, as much as I hate to say it, is from above -- i.e., patent (and other IP) reform by law, not by behavior. Specifically, what needs to happen is that governments need to say:

• No, you cannot patent math;
  
  
• No, you cannot keep copyright indefinitely, nor can you keep re-patenting trivial re-implementations;
  
  
• No, you cannot sue everyone who mentions you or your trademark in any context whatsoever, especially if there is no way any reasonable person could be confuse them for you; and
  
  
• No, you cannot park on what you consider to be a particularly valuable piece of IP and wait for it to become popular and then start suing people when you should have known all along that they were using it.
  
  

Of course, that would require that the people making the rules for the USPTO and similar bodies not be under the thumb of the same people who are causing the problem in the first place. Good luck with that.

Re:Let it drown

[Kadin2048]

I wasn't responding just solely to you. I should have been more clear there. I'm in agreement that the patent system needs reform, in a bad way.

I think perhaps a 4- or 5-year patent on particular software algorithms would be the way to go, combined with traditional copyright protection on the actual source code implementation. Combined with a well-maintained database of prior art, I think this would go a long way to fixing the system without killing the golden goose that is corporate tech R&D. (I'd also support reforming copyright to 'life of the author plus 21 years,' which is the traditional limit to prevent the creation of perpetuties.)

There is a large segment of Slashdot, though, who definitely like to tout the "down with patents! Down with corporations! Viva la revolution!" thing, and they're frequently (especially re the RIM debacle) the ones saying that they wish the whole system would just crash and burn. That's more the mindset I was going after, since I think it's pretty trite for people to say 'down with corporations' when they're typing away at a PC -- an example of a corporate invention if I ever saw one.

Re:Let it drown

[rs79]

The first three are already true. I'm not sure about the fourth.

The problem isn't the theory, it's the implementation.

Re:Let it drown

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The first three are already true.

No they aren't. Any patent on an algorithm is, by definition, a patent on a mathematical expression -- which shouldn't be allowed, but is. Copyright may be theoretically limited, but as long as Congress keeps passing extensions every time Steamboat Willie comes close to entering the public domain, it's effectively infinite. And as the fate of Mike Rowe Soft and the recent Red Cross case show, big organizations (even supposedly humanitarian ones, in the latter case) have free rein to go after anyone, anywhere, who might portray anything that looks their trademark, whether or not a reasonable person would have any chance of confusion.

Ah the lovely patent society

[rolfwind]

We moved from a manufacturing based economy to a "service" based economy.

Now it's lovely that we are moving on from even that, and can earn money by letting others do the hard work and implementation while we can sit at the patent office all day and submit vague, obtuse applications (that read like and are about as specific as Nostradamus predictions, he predicted Hister you know!) to gain a monopoly on "methods", "software", etcetera all in the name of "innovation" (because without patent, there wouldn't be any you know. Civilization started when Romulus and Remus instituted the first patent office.....)

A great time to be an American. It's also nice we are exporting this type of mentality to the rest of the world too.

Re:Ah the lovely patent society

[Daniel Dvorkin]

that read like and are about as specific as Nostradamus predictions, he predicted Hister you know!

Ah, a fine example of Gorflin's Law!

;)

Re:Ah the lovely patent society

[Reziac]

"We moved from a manufacturing based economy to a "service" based economy.

You misspelled "stockholders".

Re:Ah the lovely patent society

[AutopsyReport]

Now it's lovely that we are moving on from even that, and can earn money by letting others do the hard work and implementation while we can sit at the patent office all day and submit vague, obtuse applications to gain a monopoly on "methods", "software", etcetera all in the name of "innovation"

Yes, because it's just so easy forking out $5000-$10000+ to file and succeed in a patent application. I guess that's akin to sitting on your ass all day and just submitting random applications?

Give me a break. I dislike the American's patenting system as much as the next, but in no certain terms is the patenting process cheap and easy. You do realize it can take anywhere up to 2 years or more to have a patent approved?

Re:Ah the lovely patent society

[pembo13]

Well in all fairness, if it is not really your money, how hard can it be?

Re:Ah the lovely patent society

[rolfwind]

Hmm, you must be correct.

When the method of swinging on a swing can be patented and granted - the patent system must be really expensive and systematic.

http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2004/06/pat ent-method-of-swinging-on-a-swing.html

Obviously, it's so expensive, there will be no leecher companies that sit on their ass all day, think up of shit to patent without implementation (99.9% of the work), and go after other companies that do the work for a profit (since they don't have to pay for R&D, they can operate cheap).

Thanks for setting me straight!

You do realize it can take anywhere up to 2 years or more to have a patent approved?

I do realize that, yes. Do I care? No.

Thanks for proving me correct.

Re:Ah the lovely patent society

[AutopsyReport]

I didn't say it was 'so' expensive, but it is expensive for the average person to file a patent.

Leecher companies? Leecher companies with plenty of capital. You suggest it's all in a days work to file some obtuse patent and then sit on it, when it actuality it does require money and thought. Both of which the average person cannot or does not do. Of course there are some idiotic patents that make their way through the system (you can congratulate your superior country for that), but that doesn't imply that all patenting is easy.

Thanks for understanding what I said.

Thanks for missing my point entirely.

How long have they been sitting on this?

[uab21]

Perhaps I am confusing my types of Intellectual Property, but don't you have to show that you are actively defending your IP, or you give up your rights to it? TFA didn't list the patents involved or the dates they were granted, but if violators have to pay triple damages for 'willful' disregard, shouldn't the patent owners lose rights to damages if they willfully allow infringement until they know that the other companies are over a barrel?

(Yes, I know this is /. and software/algorithm patents are eeeevil to their core. Bad USPTO! Bad! But allowing the system as it currently exists, aren't there safeguards against stuff like this?)

Re:How long have they been sitting on this?

[yeremein]

Perhaps I am confusing my types of Intellectual Property, but don't you have to show that you are actively defending your IP, or you give up your rights to it?

You are. Trademarks must be defended, but patents don't have to be.

Re:How long have they been sitting on this?

[Benanov]

That's the problem--trademarks must be defended; patents have no such requirement. I do remember that on Groklaw the principle of laches was applied to 30-year-old patents, rendering them "untimely" but 30 years is a loooooooooong time. It means UNIX in its earlier forms must have done it. (The patent in question was extended a few times.) This is why "IP" as a term is grossly inaccurate--it's like saying mangoes, apples, and tomatoes are part of a "fruit basket." All are technically fruit but you don't really mix the three.

Re:How long have they been sitting on this?

[uab21]

Trademarks must be defended, but patents don't have to be

Got it. So the system is set up with long term protection (17 years?) to encourage companies to hide their prior art until the time that they can jump out from behind the figurative bush (Bush?), yell "Gotcha!" and demand everything that someone else has worked for - likely completely independently.

This doesn't foster innovation - this fosters corporate muggings.

Re:How long have they been sitting on this?

[aug24]

You're thinking of Trademarks. Patents don't work that way, but they damn well should.

If a company knows it has a case - against anyone at all - and doesn't pursue it within a reasonable timescale, then that should be a defence for anyone and everyone else.

(My 2p)

Justin.

Re:How long have they been sitting on this?

[trygstad]

I suspect this is why, to the best of my knowledge, Unisys never actually took any GIF infringers on their LZW patent to court--because having gone so long without any attempt to enforce the patent, they pretty much knew that they would lose. And I still find it very strange that Lincoln Stein actually encouraged people to pay Unisys' extortionate $5,000 per Website GIF license.

Re:How long have they been sitting on this?

[yeremein]

This doesn't foster innovation - this fosters corporate muggings.

I agree wholeheartedly... but unfortunately, that's just the way things are. IMHO, patents should be abolished entirely.

Patent warfare

[lisaparratt]

Surely Apple's been in the game long enough that they've got something in their IP portfolio to sting AT&T with, and thus enter a cross licensing deal, rather than licensing it straight out?

Re:Patent warfare

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple maybe has, but new firms don't. So this is a nice method to ensure only the old boys can stay in bussiness.

Re:Patent warfare

[mkiwi]

Surely Apple's been in the game long enough that they've got something in their IP portfolio to sting AT&T with, and thus enter a cross licensing deal, rather than licensing it straight out?

Exactly. How you play the game is mention a large company that you really have no intension of sueing to frighten smaller companies into giving you money. Since AT&T does so many things with phones, there HAS to be some type of Apple technology (i.e. Newton) that Apple can reverse-blackmail them with.

Recouping merger bribes

[thaerin]

Considering what they likely paid (read bribed) the FCC to allow the merger with SBC, I imagine their using this patent claim to reline their pockets. If it looks and sounds like a submarine patent...

at&t - "Your world. Delivered ... by our painstakingly slow, tiered Internet services. We pwn your world!"

the worst part is..

[Intangion]

when these big companies pay up to some little patent troll it just gives the troll more ammo to use against other companies, if NO one paid they should hopefully quickly run out of money for all the lawsuits, but the more money they get the more lawyers the more people they can sue ;(

Re:the worst part is..

[tinkerghost]

Problem is AT&T is what in the top 5 largest companies in the US? I'm sure they can hire a staff of ambulance chasers just to handle this one issue. If they are on staff, then no 30% legal settlement for them - just a bonus for each company they get to fork over cash.
Also, I do not believe there is an enforcement provision in the Patent system - although yes there is on trademarks - if you let people use them, you are seen as having allowed them to fall into public domain.
IINAL but I think that what should be patentable is:
* Physical objects or individual components: a new type of car transmision or even just the shift mechanism. * Specific processes: you make asprin by doing steps 1-58 in this exact order - protects drug patents etc. What should NOT be patentable:
* An idea: ie: Moron trying to patent a storyline. * A general process: making asprin - in any way shape or form. * Anything built with prebuilt components: No patenting that nifty LEGO robot. No patenting web page design. No patenting software.
As for this whole wait-until-it's-a-standard-then-sue ploy, I say if you don't enforce your patent within 2 years of being aware of someone starting to use it, then you have tacitly liscenced it to them. In this case, AT&T has known from the beginning that MPEG4 infringes on their patent - they did nothing. They have therefore tacitly liscenced their patent to the MPEG consortium for this use. New uses may of course require a new liscence, but you shouldn't be able to go back and retroactively enforce patents like this.

And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[Caspian]

Before you start in on your rose-tinted "but we have Teh Intarweb now, and computers are so cheap thanks to the Free Market(TM)" drek...

Yeah? And? Where are the flying cars we were all supposed to have? Where's our fusion energy? (Other than that big fiery lamp out in the Big Room) Where's our moonbase? Where's our Mars colony? Where's my fucking robot sex toy?

We'd have all of this shit by now if humanity were focused more on developing as a species and less on making money with the least possible effort. We need more cooperation as a species-- and note that "cooperation" and "competition" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. During the Space Race, broad swaths of humanity came together and cooperated to compete-- the West versus the soviet East. What did we accomplish? We went from the first suborbital flight to landing on the fucking moon in less than a decade.

THAT is what humanity can do when its priorities are aligned properly.

Now, it's Megacorp A versus Megacorp B versus Megacorp C, and they're all so busy playing chess with patents and lawsuits, they can't be bothered to innovate. It's fucking sickening.

Re:And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen.

Re:And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[uab21]

Where's my fucking robot sex toy?

We'd have all of this shit by now if humanity were focused more on developing as a species

Ummm.... Somehow I don't think the former contributes to the latter. Maybe developing as an individual (?), but developing the species using that act would require...well 2 people (of opposite genders etc...), not a robot.

Re:And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[Tim C]

Where's our fusion energy?

There are a lot of things holding up fusion being a viable energy source, but trust me, patents are not one of them.

I'm not arguing against your main argument, but if you truly think that we don't have working fusion because of patents you need to do more research.

Re:And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[mschaef]

"if humanity were focused more on developing as a species and less on making money with the least possible effort. We need more cooperation as a species-- and note that "cooperation" and "competition" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. "

Sadly, it's competition, greed, and fear that drive most progress. Capitalism is just the best way we have to harnass this power for now, and patents are a part of the process. The fraction of people that will do the work and take the risks required for true innovation when there is not a chance for personal reward is much smaller than the already small fraction of people that will do it when there is a chance for personal reward. Idealism will not change that.

"During the Space Race, broad swaths of humanity came together and cooperated to compete-- the West versus the soviet East. What did we accomplish? We went from the first suborbital flight to landing on the fucking moon in less than a decade.

THAT is what humanity can do when its priorities are aligned properly. "

THAT is what humanity can do when it's scared to death of being vaporized by the 'enemy's' ICBM's and 'superior' technical prowess. Anyway, why is 'landing on the moon' a worthwhile priority for 99.9% of humankind? It's kind of like the Palace of Versailles or a large Cathedral would have been 400 years ago: a nice way to stroke the ego of a select few, but largely useless for the masses.

Re:And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd have all of this shit by now if humanity were focused more on developing as a species and less on making money with the least possible effort.

It's unbelievable how you can cram so many errors into a single sentence. Do you have the faintest idea what money even is?

Re:And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[drew]

Where are the flying cars we were all supposed to have?
Flying cars are a fun idea, but inherently impractical. Suppose you are on one side of the bottom of a ravine and you want to get to the other side. You can either walk across the ravine floor, or climb up one side, walk across a suspension bridge and then climb back down. Sure, that bridge may be a lot nicer than the ravine floor, but was it really worth the extra work. Also, you would then have to trust a bunch of idiots who can barely drive a car properly to learn how to fly safely. Moreover, while the effects of a car accident are (usually) limited to cars in the vicinity of the accident when it happens, the potential effects of aircraft accidents is much more severe, as was demonstrated not only in the 9/11 attacks but several past incidents where planes have accidentally collided with buildings in New York City. The technology to build a flying car is there now, but there are a lot of good reasons why it has never happened.

Where's our fusion energy? (Other than that big fiery lamp out in the Big Room)
Good question.

Where's our moonbase? Where's our Mars colony?
Where's the benefit? We achieved little by putting a man on the moon other than stroking our national ego, but at the time, that was a major political priority. If there was a strong incentive for us to esablish long term bases on either the moon or Mars, I've no doubt it would have either happened by now or be well underway.

Where's my fucking robot sex toy?
I'm not going to touch that one...

Re:And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the flying cars we were all supposed to have? Where's our fusion energy? (Other than that big fiery lamp out in the Big Room) Where's our moonbase? Where's our Mars colony? Where's my fucking robot sex toy?

Oh, don't worry. We've got your all you're silly technologies right here

Re:And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types...

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, why is 'landing on the moon' a worthwhile priority for 99.9% of humankind? Well... it did give us velcro...

You don't need your step 4

[Soybean47]

The point of a "..." or "????" step is that it's not clear how to get from the previous step to the following one. In this case, there's no "..." step. There's just proft.

Re:You don't need your step 4

[DoddyUK]

But that would remove the obligatory South Park joke if I removed the "..." ;)

Re:You don't need your step 4

[Soybean47]

I think it would just make it more subtle. But perhaps you're right. I'll stop nitpicking now. ;)

Re:You don't need your step 4

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Help to form new "revolutionary" file format.
2) Wait for it to take off and become popular
3) ...
4) PROFIT!

where 3 is

Use new file format popularity to hold companies to ransom thanks to the incompetancy of the current USPTO system.

OMG, they've solved it!

See, that's how you keep the reference and use the ... correctly at the same time.

It won't drown

[RossumsChild]

corporations finally realise that the patent system only helps lawyers as is. This won't happen because under the current system, a company with patents to enforce can turn their legal department into a profit center--i.e. the lawyers make more money for the company (in licensing fees--extortions from smaller companies, and so on) than it costs to keep them employed, so the corporations see a positive bottom line, not a negative one.

Re:It won't drown

[tknn]

That is probably true despite the rent-seeking nature of those profits (an obvious effect of granting monopolies). The worst part of course being as we force IP regimes on everyone, nobody can show how anti-innovative this whole thing is by leapfrogging and out-competing us.

slashdotters write your congress person AND senato

[meatbridge]

r! Seriously this is how the elderly get things done.

Hooray!

[erveek]

Ma Bell is feeling like her old self again!

Re:Hooray!

[meatbridge]

save the celebration until the FTC and FCC allows SBC and verizon merge.

A bit late in the game, isn't it

[stunt_penguin]

If a company is going to force this kind of licensing patent issue on another company, then they should be obliged to issue this kind of legal action within a number (say 90? 120?) days of first learning about any infringement. This company has clearly waited until MPEG-4 is hugely popular, having been implemented in popular technologies like Qucktime, the PSP, in HD DVD codecs (I believe in the form of H.264), Nero Digital and Xvid..........

If a company with any patent rights had asserted its right in the first place, then maybe they would be in the right here, but to allow a technology to grow for a number of years and then assert your claim to large amounts of money is immoral and should be illegal.

What if a company like Apple submits and then counter-sue the company for deliberately allowing a free lunch then asserting it's patent, causing financial and legal pain to Apple et. Al.

It's like a bar giving out water to customers and then trying to back-charge for it when they're halfway through the evening, under threat of kicking them out of the bar otherwise.

Re:A bit late in the game, isn't it

[Anonymous Coward]

They are, however under US law the time period is 6 years. They can still sue though, and try to weasel out of it by saying they didn't know, or have their lawyer try to come up with some other excuse for the delay.

I think XviD has only been around 4 or 5 years now...

Re:A bit late in the game, isn't it

[hotdiggitydawg]

Not quite - if you want to use the analogy, then the bouncers will insist on reclaiming the water as they kick you out of the bar. Presumably with interest.

hmmm, maybe it's not such a bad real-life analogy after all...

Re:A bit late in the game, isn't it

[gnasher719]

'' If a company with any patent rights had asserted its right in the first place, then maybe they would be in the right here, but to allow a technology to grow for a number of years and then assert your claim to large amounts of money is immoral and should be illegal. ''

The problem with these patents here seems to be that a standard compression format (MPEG-4) cannot be used without infringing these patents, not for technical reasons but for reasons of compatibility.

My suggestion would be "enforced reverse licensing": If company A has a patent that must be used for compatibility reasons, and company B has a patent for something that is just as good, but cannot be used for compatibility reasons, then company B can offer their patent to A for free use and aquires the right to use the patent of A that way.

In other words, the MPEG-LA group just has to take a very close look at each of the patents, then develop for each of those patents an alternative technique that is at least as good (but not necessarily compatible with MPEG-4), and offer those techniques to AT&T for free use.

Not only would this get rid of patent trolls and submarine patents, it also would work exactly in the spirit of patent law: Patents are granted to encourage the advance of the state of art in technology, and exactly that would be achieved if companies were actually forced to develop new methods.

What's the time limit?

[pedestrian crossing]

I think the thing that stinks is that they sit there, knowing full well that they hold the patent, and let the tech go into wide-spread use before informing anyone that they hold the patent.

With trademarks, the rule is enforce it or lose it. Too bad the same doesn't apply to patents...

Re:What's the time limit?

[Zeinfeld]

I think the thing that stinks is that they sit there, knowing full well that they hold the patent, and let the tech go into wide-spread use before informing anyone that they hold the patent.

I agree it stinks, in fact I have been working on a part 4 to my essay where I make the same point.

The problem is how to get from 'this stinks' as Plankton would say,to solving the problem without creating ways to game the patent system entirely.

One solution would be to have a requirement that patent holders have to monitor major standards efforts in their field of invention, but how do you arrive at a legal definition of a standards effort? How do you avoid the problem of someone creating a bogus standards organization for the sole purpose of creating an exclusion to a patent?

OK I know this particular problem would not make slashdotters upset. However it would likely allow the patent trolls to stop the law being changed.

I am not interested in just debating the problem ad nauseam on slashdot, I want to get it fixed. To do that we need to create a wedge between the patent trolls and the major corporate holders of IP.

If you look at what free software people want and where the interests of the big computer corporations lie there is a huge overlap, probably 95%. The problem is that a small number of ultras insist on all or nothing.

Re:What's the time limit?

[shawn(at)fsu]

See now your making me defend a patent holder.

Is it all their fault? I mean shouldn't a company using a file format do a check to make sure it's not covered in a patent?

Now I feel dirty.

Re:What's the time limit?

[pedestrian crossing]

Is it all their fault? I mean shouldn't a company using a file format do a check to make sure it's not covered in a patent?

No, the monopoly is granted to the patent holder, so the onus should be on them to defend their patent, since they are the party getting the benefit of the patent.

They should be required to give notice (ie., a C&D), and only if the infringing party continues to infringe should there be damages.

No C&D within a reasonable time frame, no chance for damages down the road.

Patent litigation should not be a corporate profit center.

Re:What's the time limit?

[MadEE]

One solution would be to have a requirement that patent holders have to monitor major standards efforts in their field of invention, but how do you arrive at a legal definition of a standards effort? How do you avoid the problem of someone creating a bogus standards organization for the sole purpose of creating an exclusion to a patent?

I think for cases like these (submarine patents) the solution would be to treat patents similar to trademarks in such that patent holders have a requirement to defend the patent or risk losing it. It is certainly not an "automatic" remedy as it requires a judge to make a call in a case by case basis but it would prevent the most obvious examples of this behavior.

Re:What's the time limit?

[pyros]

Why not limit the life of the patent to letting the inventor recoup development costs? Once that has happened, no more patent, level playing field for free market competition. And seriously, making the patent holder solely responsible for finding people using their patents? That's not a good idea. It will mean the small independent inventors will lose out on royalties because they don't have the resources to both watch for potential infringements and manage their business. Anybody who decides to use an existing technology should do their due diligence to research patent history for that technology.

Re:What's the time limit?

[Dan Ost]

There are accounting games that could be played such that the patent owner never recoups their development costs. I don't know if they are legal, however.

Re:What's the time limit?

[picklepuss]

2 reasons this won't work.

First of all, just recouping what you spent does not count as an incentive. You want people to make an "investment" in R&D. If there's no ROI, there will be no I.

Second, it would be very difficult to calculate revenue over the patent - particular on products containing multiple patents. It would be a nightmare, and widely subject to fraud and abuse. Think of the way record contracts work - they loan the band money to make an album, and all the royalties go directly to the record company until the advance is recouped. Then they say promotional copies are not included, then they give a copy to every radio station in the nation for free, and they throw in 1000 of your CDs as an "incentive" when a distributor buys a bunch of other CDs at an inflated price. There are reasons why bands can have 3 consecutive gold albums and never see a cent on royalties or ever even recoup their original recording costs. If you tie patents to how much a company makes off them, you're going to achieve nothing but an explosion in creative accounting techniques. It will end up exacerbating the situation as large corporations figure out how to stretch patents infinitely by never recouping.

Re:What's the time limit?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anybody who decides to use an existing technology should do their due diligence to research patent history for that technology."

How are they supposed to know that it is "existing"? Anything can be patented. There are no limits whatsoever that are actually enforced. People joke about how they patented posting on Slashdot, but it's not just a joke. There are probably hundreds of patents that cover every conceivable aspect of posting on Slashdot. "Method of Interfacing Computing Devices...", "Method of Storing and Retrieving Data...", "Method of Verifying Human Interaction...", "Method of Numerical Identifcation of Users..."

Re:What's the time limit?

[pyros]

How are they supposed to know that it is "existing"?

If I am writing a program and grab a library to link against to gain some functionality that I don't want to implement myself, then I should research the patent licensing issues surrounding it.

Re:What's the time limit?

[knarf]

Are you Phillip *Verisign* Hallam-Baker? As in Verisign US-patent 6,560,634 ("Method of determining unavailability of an internet (sic) domain name.")?

If so, can you go into some detail as to why Verisign applied for a patent on doing several whois searches in parallel? Is it meant to be a defensive patent? Did you (as principal scientist at Verisign) have any influence in the process which led to Verisign applying and getting this patent?

Also I notice you have applied for patents yourself, eg. 20040205135 (application number for "Control and management of electronic messaging"). What are your reasons for doing so?

Re:What's the time limit?

[pyros]

I think the RIAA's business model is basically indentured servitude and has no place in a free market. It discourages competition and doesn't promote creative works.

Re:What's the time limit?

[pyros]

You could always use Trade Secret instead of patents. The whole point of patents, as spelled out in the constitution, is to contribute works to the public domain for others to build off of. Recouping the development costs is, in my opinion, exactly the spirit establishing patents in the constitution to begin with.

Re:What's the time limit?

[EvilSS]

I think something that should go along with an idea like this is that the USPTO should "Standards" registration. That way, when whatever working group comes up with a standard, they submit it to the USPTO, it undergoes review for patent implications by PTO -and- it is held for public comment and patent dispute for a time before being registered. After that point it should be immune from claims by any owner of patents not already attached to the registration. That way everyone knows up front what the IP implications are and it can be worked out before the standard is put into use.

Of course, I won't hold my breath..

Re:What's the time limit?

[amliebsch]

The whole point of patents, as spelled out in the constitution, is to contribute works to the public domain for others to build off of.

Uhhhhh...are you reading a different constitution than I am?

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;,

Because I don't read that as saying what you say it says.

Re:What's the time limit?

[shmlco]

The issue here is the oft-mentioned small inventor, who typically doesn't have the funds to continually defend a patent. Hence biggie-corp's A, B, and C could all kill the little guy by forcing him to hire lawyers and drowning him in legal fees.

Re:What's the time limit?

[Haeleth]

The issue here is the oft-mentioned small inventor, who typically doesn't have the funds to continually defend a patent. Hence biggie-corp's A, B, and C could all kill the little guy by forcing him to hire lawyers and drowning him in legal fees.

And they can't do that already? What's stopping them doing the same thing today? The only difference is that today he has the option of not suing them. So he keeps his patent, but they get away with infringing it. So what's the point of his having a patent in the first place, if other people can infringe it with impunity because he can't afford to sue them?

If patents are going to help small inventors, we need to reform the legal system to make it easier for the little guy to sue the big guy - and if we do that, then the problem you identified disappears, and there's no reason not to go ahead and require people to do so proactively. Or am I missing something here?

Re:What's the time limit?

[shmlco]

"... we need to reform the legal system to make it easier for the little guy to sue the big guy."

Like Forgent suing Canon and Sony and Apple? Or NTP suing RIM? But again, the problem with a non-enforcement clause is with the period. You're saying if someone uses my patent and I don't defend it for, say, a year (or whatever period), then I've lost the ability to do so.

But how am I supposed to monitor every company in the world? What happens if, two years from now, I finally discover you've used my invention in your product? You could say I have a year from the time I know you've done it, but that just gives rise to another problem. Namely, how does anyone else know when I knew? Who can prove when NTP knew RIM was infringing?

The bottom line is that, like most real-world problems, it's a complex issue.

Re:What's the time limit?

[MadEE]

But how am I supposed to monitor every company in the world? What happens if, two years from now, I finally discover you've used my invention in your product? You could say I have a year from the time I know you've done it, but that just gives rise to another problem. Namely, how does anyone else know when I knew? Who can prove when NTP knew RIM was infringing?

Then it should be up to a judge to decide if a good faith effort was made to enforce the patent. As I have said before it should be a judgment call and it would likely not be used unless in rare circumstances. There is a vast chasm between making a solid effort to protect a patent and simply overlooking something and neglecting enforcing a patent at all. In this case it's rather clearly the later as AT&T has been involved in the MPEG-4 game since the start, to claim that AT&T was unaware of MPEG-4 would suggest retardation at an epic level for the company.

Re:What's the time limit?

[mdfst13]

This is also something that could definitely be open sourced. The patent office wouldn't even need to do a prior art search. They could just publish it. It would be the patent holder's responsibility to say "Hey, I've patented that." Since patent holders now have an incentive to pay attention (which they don't have for patents), this means that it actually encourages knowledge sharing. Unlike patents, where researching patent implications only endangers you.

That would also be great for open source algorithms in general. It does for patents what BSD licenses do for copyright.

Re:What's the time limit?

[Infinityis]

Actually, that's not a bad idea. In addition to a govenment entity that protects the rights of certain individuals, it might be advantageous to have an opposite entity that ensures the freedoms of everyone else.

Essentially, it would be the equivalent to the Free Software Foundation, but more generalized and government backed. It would have to supercede the USPTO, and a standard or process with it would be immune from patent violations (because it falls under the domain of "obviousness").

This would likely spur innovation even more, much like the GPL and FSF have resulted in a large amount of software being written.

Re:What's the time limit?

[Solra Bizna]

What if you are writing a program and, while coding the "obvious" way, end up writing something that's been patented? Am I supposed to make sure there isn't a patent on doubly-linked lists before implementing one?

-:sigma.SB

Re:What's the time limit?

[pyros]

What if you are writing a program and, while coding the "obvious" way, end up writing something that's been patented? Am I supposed to make sure there isn't a patent on doubly-linked lists before implementing one?

If it's obvious (to someone with knowledge in that field) then it isn't supposed to qualify for a patent (under current patent law).

Re:What's the time limit?

[pyros]

Because I don't read that as saying what you say it says.

What do you think "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times" means?

SBC

[chill]

Please note that AT&T here really means SBC. SBC purchased AT&T not too long ago but kept the AT&T name. It is run by the same cocksucker who thinks Google, Yahoo and other content providers are getting a "free ride" on his infrastructure and wants to charge them for the right to travel his wires -- peering be damned.

  -Charles

Re:SBC

[AlterTick]

Please note that AT&T here really means SBC.

But keep in mind also that (as noted by others here) the letter of demand referenced in TFA was sent in Dec 2005, before the merger.

Re:SBC

[drew]

Isn't he also the same guy who asked why "anyone should expect that their cell phone would work in their house?"

Re:SBC

[mdfst13]

It's also worth pointing out that SBC was one of the baby bells. I.e. they used to be part of AT&T. This is more like Exxon merging with Chevron and calling itself Standard Oil.

I'm not exactly sure why AT&T owns this patent rather than Lucent. Elsewhere, people say that this was a Bell Labs discovery. Why didn't the patent go to Lucent?

Last line in the article

[TheTarget24]

Hillary said. "Think about video technologies. That's certainly one area we're looking to expand our capabilities for video."

See AT&T is not after money! The last line in the article certain explains it all.

What underlying technology?

[Midnight Thunder]

Either its the article or AT&T, but all I could glimmer from the article is that AT&T hold the patent on some underlying technology of MPEG-4? What is this mysterious 'underlying technology'? It would be nice if there were more specifcs, but until I see it just sounds like FUD.

Re:What underlying technology?

[jesup]

I wonder what the patent is on? Transport stream? Main/High profile (requires a bunch of patent licenses via MPEG-LA already), or Baseline (which was supposed to be license-free, but didn't end up that way)? MPEG4-SP, ASP, or AVC (H..264)? Audio? (Not too likely.)

Re:What underlying technology?

[mpaque]

The MPEG-4 audio licensing is done through VIA Licensing (www.vialicensing.com).

The visual and systems stuff is done through MPEG LA (www.mpegla.com), but participation in MPEG LA by MPEG patent holders isn't required. AT&T isn't participating here, unlike other companies including Apple Computer, ETRI, Phillips, and Mitsubishi.

AT&T has patents on technology it claims are essential to MPEG-4, Part 2 and MPEG-4, Part 10 (H.264), as well as ISO/IEC 14496-2 and 14496-10.

By not placing the relevant patents in the MPEG LA patent pool and not making infringement claims for several years, AT&T has given up the right to punitive damages for past infringements, but has now gained enormous leverage in demanding royalties over what has become an increasingly popular standard.

Re:What underlying technology?

[Midnight Thunder]

AT&T has patents on technology it claims are essential to MPEG-4, Part 2 and MPEG-4, Part 10 (H.264), as well as ISO/IEC 14496-2 and 14496-10.

Fair enough, but I would feel better if the specific patents (patent number for example) that are being infringed were revealed.

Re:What underlying technology?

[ciroknight]

My earliest guess on what the patent speficially protected was something to do with either the interleave of the audio/video, or the vector quantization algorithm in MPEG-4. This guess stems from the specific timing of the attack; right after the SBC/AT&T merger, AT&T is settling back into being its old self again, and they're going through their old Bell Labs patent library to see what they can use to generate some instant income (of course, this goes along with why they're ending Google's/Microsoft's "Free Ride").

Specifically, I think it's got something to do with the specific quantizer because it only effects such a narrow band of the MPEG-4 standard (only MPEG-4 part 2 was effected). Very likely this quantizer algorithm was designed for voice communications (and at that, probably Mobile voice communications, my guess remains that the specific piece of IP is actually a Cingular patent, Google it), and for this reasoning, they're being a bit gunshy about giving the media the patent number (since AT&T only owns a 60% stake in Cingular, BellSouth owns the other 40%; it's likely that if BellSouth did the research and it was a Cingular patent, that they would actually recieve part of the commissions from any licensing, and this fishing expedition wouldn't bring home quite as many greenbacks).

But it's far too early, and far to alleged. For all we know, the patent could be over toothpaste named MPEG-4.

old AT&T is now part of SBC (renamed to AT&

[RocketJeff]

First, the article stares that the original letter about this was sent back in December of 2005 - this is before the merger/rename was completed. This means that we can't blame SBC (now renamed to AT&T) for starting this.

OTOH, knowing how the 'new' AT&T (aka SBC) has handled things before, I don't think there is any hope of them just letting this go and ignoring that they have the patent. If anything, they now have more money and lawyers to persue other companies.

Re:old AT&T is now part of SBC (renamed to AT&

[louden obscure]

this whole AT&T name thing confuses me to no end. at one point AT&T was my phone company. then they were no longer my phone company but showed up one day as my cable company. then they stopped being my cable company and now they're a phone company again. it wouldn't suprise me to find them in a few years trying to sell me electricity...

AT&T or SBC?

[Verteiron]

Didn't SBC recent buy AT&T? SBC has pursued bizarre patent claims like this before, I wonder how much of this is SBC looking through AT&T's patent portfolio and thinking, "Hmmmm...."

If I'm right we can expect a lot more of these from "AT&T" in the near future.

Re:AT&T or SBC?

[TerminalWriter]

SBC bought AT&T and then took the name, deciding that AT&T had more consumer appeal. Ma Bell was eaten by a baby bell...

Re:AT&T or SBC?

[Reziac]

Are any of the old Bell Labs patents still in force? if so, were they included in the SBC-eats-AT&T deal??

Re:AT&T or SBC?

[Doctor Faustus]

The same thing happened with CBS. Viacom bought CBS a couple decades after CBS spun them off.

Re:slashdotters write your congress person AND sen

[SchrodingersRoot]

Seriously this is how the elderly get things done.

The elderly get things done??
.
.
.
Wait...was that what they were doing during the election? ;)

But seriously, this might be a good idea, though I don't know that it would have much effect, since in this case (unlike, say, RIM/NTP), the congresspeople probably don't have much of a vested interest to care. And the number of people that care about this issue are probably a relatively small percentage of a constituency. Ignorance, and whatnot.

the best example...

[Anonymous Coward]

Scotch tape.

Re:the best example...

[RingDev]

Bandaides and Klenex too.

-Rick

Re:the best example...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree and go with escalator. Adobe is working hard to keep Photoshop from becoming generic, and Kleenex sends letters asking people to use "facial tissue" instead.

Plus it looks like 3M still has the Scotch trademark, so I don't even think that applies.

Re:the best example...

[MemeRot]

The best example is Spam. Hormel actually went to court to try to defend their trademarked potted meat from being used by anti-spam software companies and lost.

Re:the best example...

[sjames]

The best example is Spam. Hormel actually went to court to try to defend their trademarked potted meat from being used by anti-spam software companies and lost.

Not really. The meat product and email are entirely different, so they keep the tardemark on the meat and the email is considered non-infringing.

In general, trademarks need only be unique within a particular type of product or service. There are also 'famous' marks that are considered so well known that any other use might mislead consumers to believe the holder has entered a new business.

That doesn't help

[Solandri]

That's how JPEG was introduced - an open and royalty-free graphics format. It still didn't help keep the patent hounds at bay.

Re:slashdotters write your congress person AND sen

[robertjw]

...in this case (unlike, say, RIM/NTP), the congresspeople probably don't have much of a vested interest to care.

I bet most of the congresspeople have iPods.

Call me stupid, but how does AT&T have a claim

[Vokkyt]

I will admit, patent knowledge is not something I can claim as a strong point, but a little bit of googling as to AT&T's patent on the coding of MPEG-4 brought up a lot of FAQs about MPEG-4, but not a lot of mention about AT&T. In fact, the only thing I can find relating AT&T to MPEG-4, after digging through a couple pages on Google, is that AT&T now is claiming a patent. Why isn't AT&T more prominently mentioned in a lot of these FAQs on MPEG-4 (one specifically having a section dedicated to who owns the patent)? If they had the patent, why didn't they let people know that the proprietary use of it was patent infringement? And, above all else, what specifically did AT&T contribute to MPEG-4?

Patent Number

[ElNonoMasa]

Anyone?

Re:Patent Number

[Vivieus]

Might be one of these?

Re:slashdotters write your congress person AND sen

[SchrodingersRoot]

Well, Senator Stevens does, but I have my doubts about many of the others. Remember, a lot of them are old. And very busy.

However, the Intellectual Property Action Committee is trying

Do the Hippy Hippy Shake

[korekrash]

I don't get why you guys want everything for free.....They spent money to help dev it so they could make more money in the end....I swear sometimes this site just makes me laugh out loud. You guys are going to make me get in trouble at work lol. Seriously though...this patent seems very valid. There is no such thing as free beer. korekrash

Re:Do the Hippy Hippy Shake

[djward]

Seriously though...this patent seems very valid.

It does? Have you read it? What's the patent #? Or are you just trolling?

Re:Do the Hippy Hippy Shake

[Doctor Faustus]

Dude. Nobody's saying the patent is invalid, just that it should have been brought up earlier.

Re:Do the Hippy Hippy Shake

[nicolastheadept]

How about if you don't announce that its patented as soon as someone violates it, the patent becomes invalid. Some politician please pick this up!

Re:Do the Hippy Hippy Shake

[korekrash]

I wouldn't say I read it, but I did skim through it, and it did seem valid to me. No, I didn't memorize the patent #....why would I care that much? Anyway, I'm not trolling I just think it's funny how things are approached around here. If you have ever read anything I have posted you would know I'm not a troll I just have descenting views from many at /. and like to argue my side of things. Gen. Patton once said "If everyone is thinking alike than no one is thinking." I think that applies to you pretty well. BTW, did YOU read it or are you trolling?

Re:Do the Hippy Hippy Shake

[korekrash]

True, it should have. I just get a kick out of how many people on this site are so quick to discount ANY patent.

Notice of Patten infringement

[Vandilizer]

I am afraid that you are infringing on one of my patents.

"A First Post on /. With content that is directly related to the article to which said First Post was posted is contained."

I would kindly ask that you remove your post and rewrite it at some later point in this discussion.

Intelligent First Posts, next they actually look at patents before the issuing them... What is the world coming to?

Re:Notice of Patten infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I do believe you are wrong. Any avid /. reader will recognize that TripMaster Monkey holds the patent you speak of.

Especially that of the karma-whoring variety.

SCO business plan

[DrGalaxy]

This sounds like a SCO/Darl McBride strategy:

1. alert the world that "ubiquitous thing X" is infringing on your IP
2. start sending out bills
3. use the court system to refrain from telling the public exactly how they are infringing.

Re:SCO business plan

[mr100percent]

Yes! Especially since they started sending letters to vendors, claiming they too are liable for infringement. Can't you sue a company for trying to spread FUD about your product? Isn't AT&T shooting itself in the foot by trying to dry up the revenue stream that they claim royalties over?

Richard Stallman was right

[J.R. Random]

RMS started warning about software patents about 20 years ago. Now we have an utter mess, and no one will be able to convince me that the ability to patent software has been a significant spur to inovation.

good luck finding it

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried on their site but it was pretty vague, here are the over-all results of a search for these patents. So no idea which ones are really being discussed here in the article. 3 pages of hits. On their site they claim to dump two patents a day on the patent office and have a 90 % perversion- I mean conversion rate.

http://www.google.com/search?q=AT%26T+MPEG-4+site% 3Auspto.gov&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

MPEG-4 licensing confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Something confuses me about this whole thing. Hasn't MPEG-4 always required a license. I never really paid attention to who controlled the licensing. A quick google search brings up a company called MPEG LA which represents the various companies that hold patents related to the MPEG-4 standard. One article even mentions a change in the licensing plan. It mentions Apple as one the companies that hold a patent on MPEG. On top of this isn't DVD compression base on MPEG-4 and DVD decoding also requires licensing.

Ug, this patent stuff is going the make my head explode.

Re:MPEG-4 licensing confusion

[pruss]

Yes, a license was always required. But the MPEG LA visual license is royalty-free for less than 100,000 units, so someone who just wanted to personally use open source MPEG-4 stuff like xvid or tcpmp could just sign MPEG LA's license, compile his own copy of the code, and report to MPEG LA a sale of one unit (or few more with updates or multiple computers), and pay nothing. A nuisance (I do not know of anyone other than myself who has gone through this), of course.

Re:MPEG-4 licensing confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

MPEG-LA is a licensing group that includes some of the essential patent holders for MPEG-4 technology. Basically, its a way to avoid patent disputes between the major manufacturers and put a little money in the pockets of technology developers. Its a business coalition and AT&T is not a member so they are not bound by any licenses.
MPEG-2 is used in DVDs.

one can request a license personally, too

[pruss]

[Just sent this email to AT&T's patent licensing folks. The encoders/decoders in question are xvid and tcpmp.]

Dear Sir/Madam:

I am interested in a license to your MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio, as I'd like to be able to continue to use some open source MPEG-4 encoders/decoders that I have modified for use on my family's two computers and three PDAs. I got a license from MPEG LA to do this under their no-royalties-for-less-than-100000-units terms. I am not selling or giving away the said software--this is all for personal and family use. (Though I might eventually use the encoder for educational purposes as I am also an academic, and I'd like to hear about your licensing terms for that.)

It's possible that you have no objection to someone using the technology for personal purposes. In that case, please let me know.

As a small software developer, I want to do things the right way with respect to IP, and so I want to make sure that even software that I don't ship but merely make/modify for use within the household is properly licensed.

Best wishes, ...

SBC related?

[__int64]

This seems to coincide with the recent SBC takeover of AT&T or was this going on beforehand? I wouldn't be surprised if this was brought on by SBC management.

Re:SBC related?

[KG6BGJ]

You can bet on it. SBC is very good at using the fine print to extract money from customers. This is just an extension of that mentality.

Maybe he was referring to

[jheath314]

sans-culottes?

Please explain,

[msauve]

given "It's called genericization, or "genericide." If a word becomes used often enough by the public regardless of branding, the courts can declare a trademark a generic word.Heroin, Allen wrenches, and I think Spandex (Hence the new name Lycra) are all examples of this. "

How is it that Daimler-Chrysler has a trademark on "Jeep," which started as a generic term used by servicemen ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeep#The_origin_of_th e_term_jeep )? How does one go about taking a term in general public use, and turning it into private property?

Re:Please explain,

[AutopsyReport]

It's because trademarks do not apply to everything -- they apply to the specific line of products and/or services that the trademark represents. In this case, Jeep applies to the automobile. I can make a product called JeepCandy, or a product called JeepHeadphones. That's not a trademark infringment. But if I make a new vehicle called TheJeep, then I'm infringing.

Re:I can tell you why...

[vertinox]

Yeah? And? Where are the flying cars we were all supposed to have?

This is a policital/societal reason and not a technological one. Do you really think it would be wise to have flying cars? Drunk drivers and old ladies flying at high velocity into buildings. I mean... I thank god we don't have flying cars today. We won't get them until all our cars are totally automated and unable to be manually controled.

Where's our fusion energy?

2015. You've got 10 years. Its like complaining to someone in 1935 that we haven't invented the atomic bomb yet.

Where's our moonbase? Where's our Mars colony?

This is economical reasons... We could have people on mars in 6 months, but it require every person and business to do nothing but devote their lives to the project and do nothing else. Do you really see the benefit of sending people to a barren and uninhabital place just to sit at the rocks?

Where's my fucking robot sex toy?

I'm sure a Japanese man is working on this as we speak... Trying to Asimo and a real doll to mate. Just be a bit more patient.

Re:Typical (Submarine patents)

[mikael]

But honestly, is this the way for people to get their money nowadays? Claim "prior art" on any patent which seems convenient and then hold any company which uses the format to cut a hole in their wallet?

This is an example of submarine patents. You have an idea, quietly patent it, but noisily advertise the technology. Then you wait for the patents to be granted and for industry to incorporate your technology into their products. Once the market has matured, you fire off multiple patent violations in every direction. By then, the cost of removing your technology from their products will cost far more than it would to pay the license fee.
(For digital file formats, this is especially true, since both software and hardware codecs will already have been distributed, and third party customers will have distributed their data into this format.

They're already infringers.

[Spy der Mann]

The reason XVID binaries can only be found on underground networks, is because the MPEG4 standard is INFESTED with patents. There's no way an open source project can pay all the licenses. Ergo, they develop for "academic purposes", and provide only the source code so you have to compile it yourself. The binaries are unofficial, unsupported, in other words, taboo. Legally speaking, NOBODY should be using xvid AT ALL.

(Isn't it amusing how commercial interests hinder innovation? I've been expecting DivX-capable players since 5 years ago.)

Re:They're already infringers.

[ichigo 2.0]

Isn't it amusing how commercial interests hinder innovation? I've been expecting DivX-capable players since 5 years ago.

I'm not sure what kind of players you are expecting, but my DivX and Xvid capable Philips DVD player cost 99 euros when I bought it ~1½ years ago, today I can get a similarly priced MPEG4 capable DVD player which also plays DivX&Xvid. I think the bandwagon you're waiting for left without you. :)

Re:They're already infringers.

[Spy der Mann]

but my DivX and Xvid capable Philips DVD player cost 99 euros when I bought it

Considering Europe was the first place where those players began to appear, I believe you. I live in Mexico, and only this year DivX players began to appear - and they're obsolete models :(

Re:They're already infringers.

[networkBoy]

Last year I spent 2x retail to import a phillips unit from Germany.
:(
Man I wish these would come over the pond in current models.
-nB

There are NO patent free video codecs

[schngrg]

Opensource/freeware doesnt means patent free.

AFAIK, there arn't any open-source patent-free standards for video codecs, fortunately we have better luck with image (PNG) and audio (FLAC) formats.

Besides MPEG-4, JPEG2000 is the only other "standard" option available for cutting edge video compression. JPEG2000 recently gained traction with digital cinema. But it will no longer be a surprise to see such patents come up for it within another 3-4 years. It has already had a near miss recently.

Disclaimer: Shameless self promotion, above text taken from this post at Data Compression News Blog: After JPEG, Now Patent Threat to MPEG-4

Re:There are NO patent free video codecs

[qq7te]

aren't Ogg Theora (currently available) and dirac (the one the BBC is developing) unencumbered by patents?

----
"All evidence unequivocably points to the same conclusion: we don't know"

Re:There are NO patent free video codecs

[Yartrebo]

What about the FLIC video format? Any format that old should be patent free.

Re:There are NO patent free video codecs

[NutscrapeSucks]

Opensource/freeware doesnt means patent free.

GPL licenced software does claim to be patent-free (or freely licensed), but this is basically ignored by developers such as LAME and XViD.

Re:There are NO patent free video codecs

[schngrg]

Yes, but then how good is flic for todays applications.

Re:There are NO patent free video codecs

[schngrg]

The domain of video compression is so heavily patented that even simple things like methods to rescale frame size to fit screen are patented.

IMHO, its just a matter of time. Wait for any format to get popular, and patents will start showing up (I hope I am wrong).

Re:There are NO patent free video codecs

[elvum]

There's Dirac, of course.

Re:There are NO patent free video codecs

[CRCulver]

AFAIK, there arn't any open-source patent-free standards for video codecs

Well, now you know that the Xiph.org Foundation provides two. Theora is ready now, while Tarkin is a wavelet-based codec of the future.

Flying Cars?

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

You know, I think that they will be neat and all, but people in this town have a hard enough time driving in 2D. Add a vertical component and I'll NEVER make it to work on time.

It's no secret

[ChrisMaple]

It's been well known for at least 10 years that the various MPEG formats are covered by patents and that AT&T was one of the developers. It would be hard for any serious developer to have avoided that fact. It would have been dishonest for any commercial developer not to seek (and pay for) legal permission to use MPEG.

Re:It's no secret

[Skuto]

Audio - yes. Video - no. AT&T is not a part of the MPEG video patent pool. So even if you got a license to legally use MPEG video, you're still screwed.

I'm not sure about that...

[shummer_mc]

There's a local bar, which used to be called "Jeep's" for the owner's nickname... Well, rumor has it that Chrysler sued and it's no longer called that. I don't have 1st hand (or even 2nd hand) info on the suit, but that's the 'word on the street'-- or it was 10-15 years ago when it happened.

Once again, limiting creativity and usability

[DizzyDanMD]

Once again, we see mega-corps regulating what is intellectual creativity and usability of what should be free technology. There is eventually going to be an uprising from the user communities about the outrageous costs passed on to consumers from these ever-so-high fees. And I dont believe in the concept that Pentax and Nero have paid for this technology. YOU THE CONSUMER PAID!!! -dan zubairi Daniel Zubairi, Candidate United States Congress Maryland 8th Congressional District http://www.choosedan.com/

Re:Call me stupid, but how does AT&T have a cl

[ichigo 2.0]

And, above all else, what specifically did AT&T contribute to MPEG-4?

Nothing. They probably patented something a long time ago that got independently implemented in MPEG-4. This is the very definition of a submarine patent.

Re:Typical (Submarine patents)

[dwandy]

I was under the (obviously) mistakened impression that if you didn't enforce your patent, that that in and of itself made your patent invalid...

Seems to me that this is some kind of uber-troll patent scheme.
Troll patents just patent stuff and hope ... these guys actively build, encourage and promote before clobbering you.

2 Years to Get a Patent!

[cheesedog]

You do realize it can take anywhere up to 2 years or more to have a patent approved?

You do realize that if anyone adopts your genius 'invention' during those two years, you'll be in a better position once your patent is granted than if you had stopped them right away, right? Isn't that the whole point of the GIF, JPEG, MP3, MPEG-4 patent strategy -- lay low until the technology becomes widespread, then do a massive shakedown.

The patent office is doing you a favor by taking so long.

Re:2 Years to Get a Patent!

[AutopsyReport]

Right, but if you understood the context of my reply, you would realize that I wasn't saying that waiting two years is a bad thing. I was pointing out that patenting is not as easy, relaxing and cheap as people think it is.

I'm not sure how you came to any other conclusion.

Re:2 Years to Get a Patent!

[cheesedog]

I see that you are right.

Tell that to my dead mother...

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it really wonderful that survival rates are so wonderful now but maybe... just maybe the rates would be better if drug companies didn't spend so much time giving old men hardons.

On Patents Defeating Trade Secret

[cheesedog]

You are absolutely right about the patent system being agreed upon in the U.S. largely as a compromise to get people to reveal their trade secrets. That is the essential exchange in the patent system: society agrees to grant a temporary monopoly on an application of an idea if the discoverer of that idea makes public everything about how to perform the invention.

The biggest problem with this is that the whole exchange is antiquated: there are no more trade-secrets that can be kept for periods of time longer than 10 or 20 years. Society is trading in a lot and getting essentially nothing in return, since the invention would eventually be disclosed anyway.

BTW -- about that period of time during which the discovery hasn't yet been reverse-engineered or independently discovered -- that time period forms a natural monopoly over the invention, and the length is a natural consequence of how ground-breaking, difficult, or genius the discovery actually is. No patent office, no arbitrary examiner's decision, no arbitrary and uniform 20-year period is needed. Trade secret lets the discoverer of an idea or technology have a limited monopoly without government intervention, oversight, or artificial grant of monopoly power.

See the comments under this post for more discussion.

Re:On Patents Defeating Trade Secret

[amliebsch]

Are you sure your argument doesn't apply only to software patents? For example, suppose I invent the safety pin. Normally, I patent it, and for a while, only I can produce (or bless the production of) safety pins. Under your argument, I get no patent, and instead use trade secrets. How do trade secrets help me? Anyone spending 30 seconds looking at a safety pin probably knows everything there is to know about it. But if not for the ability to patent it, I wouldn't have spent months figuring out the best way to design a safety pin.

Re:On Patents Defeating Trade Secret

[cheesedog]

An argument can certainly be made that a patent on the safety pin is a bad patent. You may not agree, but here goes:

Patents, constitutionally, only exist for the "promotion of the useful Arts and Sciences." They don't exist to guarantee inventors revenue streams.

Now, you could say that the potential revenue stream that an inventor may get is what caused her to invent the safety pin, and that without patent protection, instead of inventing the safety pin the inventor would have instead sat on the couch and watched Jerry Springer. But the burden of proof for such a counter-argument is on he who puts it forth: why wouldn't the inventor have invented it anyway? How many inventors of our most seminal technologies claim to be motivated primarily by economic incentives? If this inventor had not invented the safety pin, why would no one else have invented it independently?

The truth is, there are a host of natural incentives for inventing the safety pin that exist without patent protection. The obvious one is: people buy safety pins. True, you wouldn't be able to avoid others from also making and selling safety pins, but there is nothing that prevents you from selling them yourself. And there are a number of 'first-mover' advantages in any market. If you can't use those advantages to your benefit, then perhaps you don't deserve to make as much money as a competitor that can. And the marketplace, in general, actually benefits from this competition.

Substitute any invention or discovery for 'safety pin' above. The argument is the same.

The following is more specific: the safety pin is a rather trivial 'invention' -- anything that couldn't naturally be protected by trade-secret should be considered obvious enough that it doesn't warrant patent protection in the first place. This harks back to my original post, about the essential trade involved in creating a patent system: inventor discloses a secret, society grants monopoly. If the inventor couldn't protect his original trade secret, he has nothing to trade to society in order to get his monopoly. What is the secret he can bring to the table to trade for? Thus, the patent is invalid to begin with. The much lamented 'patent quality' issue is also at play here.

I know that the current patent system doesn't recognize these arguments; it grants patents for essentially anything that can be created, regardless of the value to society of disclosing it publicly in a patent application. But that doesn't change the fact that the constitutional basis for giving Congress the power to grant idea monopolies is based in 1) an argument for spurring the Arts and Sciences and 2) an exchange of value for value (disclosure of a trade secret for grant of patent).

Re:On Patents Defeating Trade Secret

[amliebsch]

thank you for your thoughtful reply. I do have a couple of responses, though.

But the burden of proof for such a counter-argument is on he who puts it forth: why wouldn't the inventor have invented it anyway?

In fact, the safety pin was invented by a man who was trying many different devices in an attept to build a repeating rifle mechanism. His motivation was purely economic, in that there was great demand for effective repeating rifles. He hit upon this idea and refined it into the safety pin. There are many other examples to support my proposition. Charles Goodyear spent huge amounts of time before discovering vulcanized rubber, with the expectation that it would be a well-repaid investment. Thomas Edison spent fortunes and years of his life trying to perfect different inventions, and he was certainly no altruist. The truth is that even what seem like simple or obvious devices can take an immense amount of effort to get "just right." Hindsight is always 20-20. It's impossible now to look at the safety pin and not think it the most obvious device. But that's only because that is the device you have ever known, and in fact, most people cannot without great difficulty conceive of a safety pin being any other way than it is.

How many inventors of our most seminal technologies claim to be motivated primarily by economic incentives?

I would say a great deal, Edison being one of the most famously so. The cliche, "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" doesn't refer to people dropping by for a chat and a cup of tea. Even most serendipitous inventions usually occur because of the exploratory effort being put into finding some lucrative invention.

If this inventor had not invented the safety pin, why would no one else have invented it independently?

Of course, this is impossile to answer, but even discounting the value of having it sooner rather than later, if, as you propose, the only conceivable advantage to working on such a device would be having it first to market, the incentive to spend more than a trivial amount of time on the idea is relative worthless. Especially in modern manufacturing, the market winner will be whoever is able to manufacture safety pins the cheapest - a skill totally unrelated to the amount of effort that is put into the design (actually, there is perhaps an inverse relationship, as more complicated products offer more advantage to manufacturing at huge scales). Why would anyone bother to secure financing, start a company, form a production line, buy machinery, etc., when if the product flops, you hold the bag, and if the product is a success, a Chinese manufacturer produces the same thing in huge quantities and at half the price? Why would anyone bother?

Re:On Patents Defeating Trade Secret

[cheesedog]

I'll readily admit that what incentivizes people to be innovative is clealy complex, and any simple motive that we can assign is surely not adequate.

Thomas Edison spent fortunes and years of his life trying to perfect different inventions, and he was certainly no altruist.

I would agree 100% with you there. In fact, I'd take it further: Edison was more interested in money than he was in invention. His antics with DC vs AC, his cutthroat attitudes toward Westinghouse, his undervaluing of Tesla, his antagonism of competitive video equipment that drove the movie industry to California to escape his patents -- all indicate that he was very motivated by money, and not particularly motivated by truth or even, for that matter, progress. I know that sounds a bit heretical for a man we are taught to revere in elementary school, but it is an increasingly common sentiment for those who become familiar with his history.

But I digress. I wasn't trying to claim that altruism should be our only (or even our main) motivator. The real reason Edison is interesting in this debate is that he was FAR from alone in working on many of 'his' inventions. There were dozens of researchers working on the light bulb at the same time he was, for instance. He didn't invent the light bulb. He did happen upon a design that worked better (burned brighter and longer) first, but surely no one would claim that without Edison, the modern light buld wouldn't have been invented within +-1 or 2 years. It is also interesting to note that Edison didn't do a lot of his own inventing -- he hired others to do it for him (such as Tesla).

Goodyear, likewise. I certainly wouldn't argue with Daniel Webster, who asked "And now is Charles Goodyear the discoverer of this invention of vulcanized rubber?... Is there a man in the world who found out that fact before Charles Goodyear?" Yes, absolutely, Goodyear found it first, and he deserves that credit. But he certainly wasn't alone -- MANY people were working on the problem of how to make rubber less brittle in cold and more resilient to heat. No one can say when vulcanization of rubber would have been discovered, or who would have discovered it had Goodyear not done so, but it is quite certain that someone would have, and that it would not have been long after 1843.

Now, the natural response to all this is "there would not have been so many people interested in developing the light bulb or tough rubber if there weren't patents." Maybe so. You said:

Why would anyone bother to secure financing, start a company, form a production line, buy machinery, etc., when if the product flops, you hold the bag, and if the product is a success, a Chinese manufacturer produces the same thing in huge quantities and at half the price? Why would anyone bother?

Your argument seems obvious, but there is a lot of subtlety that I think you ignore. I'll point some of it out.

First, there is an insidious assumption underlying all of this: that invention, in and of itself, is without value.

I'll say that again. You are asserting that invention, without patent protection, is without economic value.

I assert that it is tremendously valuable economically, regardless of patents.

That Chinese Manufacturer that you mentioned, for instance, is tremendously benefitted by invention. Everytime some new idea for a producible good is created, the manufacturer is enriched. The manufacturer, then, has an incredible economic incentive to fund innovation.

That may sound a little crazy, but a large part of our economy already works that way. I'll give you an example. When I was a graduate student, I visited Intel's headquarters up in Oregon. We talked about storage devices, a market that Intel does not participate in. The people I met with told us, point blank, that if we had a good idea for a non-rotating storage device that could compete with magnetic hard drives, they had millions of dollars to throw at us

Obviousness was:XVID?

[dwandy]

I know how the rules are implemented, I'm just saying what I think makes sense. Seriously, how can you call an idea original if multiple people come up with the same thing on their own, with no knowledge of each other?

And that would be the other requirement for a patent to be granted: nonobviousness.
The problem is that this test can not* easily be applied in a proper manner.
If you place a dozen random engineers in a room, and ask them to solve a problem, you are likely to get only a couple of different solutions. Patents on these should be disallowed. Other solutions would be patentable.

Note from the link that An invention is nonobvious if it would be viewed as an unexpected or surprising development by someone skilled in the technology of the particular field. Note that it's not nonobvious to joe-six-pack, but to someone who is knowledgeable in the field. Are we really to believe that the poor people down at the USTPO are experts in every field? Almost by definition, even if you start by hiring 'skilled' people, they lose their 'skilled' status as soon as they leave the field (due to changes in the field) to work the patent desk, and you end up with non-skilled people reviewing for obviousness.

The patent system as designed is set up to fail...it can end nowhere other than where we are today.

*some suggest independant review boards, but that smells like the old-boys club to me... i.e:the system will just be broken for some peope, not everyone. Perhaps patent review would be like jury-duty for engineers.... :)

Cartoon: BIG bite requires new logo

[ElitistWhiner]

Apple (AAPL) logo has one bite. ATT MPEG-4 license would take a second bite. Steve Jobs will abstract technology layers than pay royalty and redesign his logo.
Apple's Quartz avoids Adobe's Postscript license fee. iPod music is about to be fully abstracted. ATT will be left to sell MPEG-4 versions of pop music on their own damn network if they want a royalty cut. Jobs isn't going to let their fee ride over his iTunes service for free. Fees work both ways...SBC

Re:Typical (Submarine patents)

[JCMay]

I was under the (obviously) mistakened impression that if you didn't enforce your patent, that that in and of itself made your patent invalid...

No, you're thinking of trademarks.

Parent is partially correct

[PCM2]

The parent is correct that MPEG-4 is "infested" with patents. You could easily say that the main reason the MPEG organization exists at all is due to the issue of patents in multimedia. They are countless. There are so many patents governing every individual aspect of multimedia file formats like MPEG, in fact, that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to move forward with a product without licensing some of them.

Seriously. If the companies that hold the multimedia patents did not work together, there would be no multimedia.

The MPEG-LA organization mentioned in TFA is the compromise these companies achieved. The purpose of MPEG-LA is to license those patents on a "reasonable and non-discriminatory" basis. "Non-discriminatory" means anyone is entitled to license the patents -- the patent owner cannot wield the patent as an anti-competitive tool. "Reasonable" means the fee does not amount to holding the licensee hostage; it does not, however, necessarily mean that the fee is affordable to anyone who asks.

An open source project like XviD, which has no money, is not in a position to license the MPEG patents, so they don't. As the parent said, the source code is available "for academic purposes." It's not illegal. The source code itself doesn't do anything. A working binary, on the other hand, may be infringing.

Given this legal gray area, why would a company like Philips take the risk of incorporating XviD compatibility into its products?

Easy. There's no risk. Philips licenses the patents. Case closed.

Patent system disfunctionality is deliberate.

[Futurepower(R)]

Some people claim that the US patent system is broken, but that way of expressing the problem is a bit misleading. The word "broken" implies that something undefined caused the patent system to be disfunctional. That's not what happened. The disfunctionality was caused deliberately. Those who want government corruption so that they can make money have caused the patent system to be underfunded. They've done the same to the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Here are short reviews of books about the corruption: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

SBC owns the AT & T name.

[Futurepower(R)]

Also, my understanding is that the AT & T name now belongs to SBC, a telephone company in California that is widely considered to be very poorly managed. Apparently AT & T sold all its assets except for a few, and SBC bought the name. For example, Comcast bought AT & T's cable business.

Apparently SBC is so hated that the company decided they needed to have a new name.

Does anyone have clarification about this?

Re:SBC owns the AT & T name.

[pete6677]

Actually SBC/AT&T is based in Houston. That explains it all.

Re:SBC owns the AT & T name.

[chevybowtie]

Actually, you are both wrong. It's based in San Antonio, Texas.

Re:Typical (Submarine patents)

[the_lesser_gatsby]

You're thinking of trademarks. It's not true with patents. Maybe it should be.

I'll give him an offer...

[davek]

from the article:

"Each of these companies has been advised that they are offering infringing products, that AT&T can provide proof of infringement, and that AT&T is offering a license under reasonable on non-discriminatory terms," Michael J. Robinson, licensing director of AT&T Intellectual Property Management, wrote in a letter sent in December 2005, and obtained by PC Magazine.

In other words, we threaten you, and you secretly pay us what we want. AT&T gies people offers they can't refuse. Software patents basically legalize extortion perputrated by corporations.

Theora to the rescue

[bustersnyvel]

I'm very glad that Theora is on it's way. It seems like, with all those patent holders leeching money out of us, Open technology is the only way to go.

Hopefully, Matroska will gain popularity as well. It's a nice container format, with way more possibilities than old AVI.

Southpark is Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean really, folks, come on...

Apologies to Andy Warhol...

[WED Fan]

In the future, everyone will have 15 software patents. Then we can sue each other until we are all rich. That will put RMS out of business. Bwahahahahaha.

Ignore the shouting - want to hear the truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been issued five patents during my career, covering the disciplines of hardware, software, and system design. I can personally assure you that the USPTO does not just freely issue patents. All five of mine have involved tremendous amounts of non-technical effort interacting with the Patent Office to convince them I had novel inventions.

In fact, for the last three I had to personally travel to the USPTO offices in Crystal City VA to argue with the Examiners and, in one case, before the Appeals Board itself. Endless paperwork, legal documents, and attorney's fees were involved. This was no cakewalk - the Examiners came at me and my employers with refusal after refusal and we had to counter them all, claim by claim.

OK, so now let's say you have a patent. It's not as "easy" as the "submarine patent" stories would have you believe. For example, if someone uses your technology for ~6 years (depends upon which Federal Circuit you're in) and then you try to shut them down, they can get an estoppel which essentially grants them royalty-free access to your patent forever. The court's "reasoning" here is that the holder of a patent has some obligation to police the use of their government-issued monopoly. It's not fair, according to the court, to permit someone to blindly invest lots of time and money and they pounce upon them after the fact. So if the patent holder doesn't act within a "reasonable" amount of time (generally held to be around six years), it is presumed that the patent holder is aware of the activity and, by not stopping it, has granted implicit permission. Nice, eh?

It goes on and on. Lots of people gripe about the patent system, but no one with any personal experience in the process of inventing something, filing a patent application, arguing with the Examiner and the Appeals Board, and going over the claims language word by word to satisfy the USPTO will ever tell you that getting a patent is "easy". Nor will they tell you that, once you have a patent, enforcing it is "easy". Anyone who says those things is inexperienced or an attorney.

Re:Ignore the shouting - want to hear the truth?

[ebrandsberg]

You must have a dumbass lawyer if this patent can get through and you had issues. Not to be rude, but that patent PROVES there is an issue.

Re:Ignore the shouting - want to hear the truth?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is easy for big companies with legal departments. If you are part of one, you are being deceitful. Or maybe your 5 patents were really borderline novel.

Re: WAR

[Anonymous Coward]

War requires a lot of effort. It's exhausting.
We've been at a war on everything for a while now.
At first it drove some inventions. (a la penecillin)
But now it's at a sufficient level were inventing is not a stict requirement; or we don't have the luxury to invent a better way to conduct war.

I recommend you put in a formal request for a return to peacetime operations. I'm sure there's a form for that on whitehouse.gov

In the mean time disengage yourself from all war maintainance activities and forge ahead on those dreams of yours.

P.S. the Fucking Sex Robot is currently busy Fucking. You might want to look into the warantee replacement provisions before engaging it in personal use.

If DivX-capable players had appeared 5 years ago

[ardle]

... we might have heard about this patent sooner. I reckon these dudes would rather go after hardware manufacturers' money than chase down fly-by-night software companies/cabals or joe end user. Not only has MPEG4 got into our living rooms but portable devices such as PSP and the Video iPod thingy support it (either in hardware or firmware - don't they? If not, there are a multitude of other examples, I'm sure). Now these guys have addresses to send their bills to!

did AT&T know as early as 1999?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an article from The Register back in 1999 that briefly mentions MP4 and AT&T.
From http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/18/mp4_launch ed_as_successor/

Web site Global Music Outlet yesterday entered the race to define the standard format for music distributed by the Internet with the launch of a encoding system it calls MP4. But despite sounding like the successor to MP3, the MPEG 1-based format loved by listeners but loathed by the music industry, or even the latest generation the open audio and visual compression system, MPEG 4, MP4 is a proprietary format. In fact, MP4 uses encoding technology provided by AT&T, which suggests it's based on AT&T's a2b, one of the handful of digital music formats battling to become the standard.

Is this MP4 the same as the format known as MP4 today?

Re:did AT&T know as early as 1999?

[pruss]

I don't think it's the same, because the current issue is MPEG-4 visual, while the article you have deals with audio.

Re: AT&T

[dch24]

I live in the Bay Area. SBC advertises all the time here, trying to boost their image with "feel-good" ads like "SBC...powered by AT&T." But while they're buttering up the customers with TV ads on one hand, they're lobbying for government protection against the cable companies, setting up a tiered internet to double-charge for traffic, and generally lobbying heavily to maintain their position as the premier supplier of landlines.

Here's an example of how SBC is trying to win back the consumer. (The reason for this blog was SBC's incredibly poor customer service. The U.S. lags considerably behind other countries on price and speed. Taiwan: $23 USD. Hong Kong: $19 USD. etc.)

You should probably know that SBC has expanded outside California, even before it merged with AT&T. And you are right about them having a bad name. Not that AT&T has a much better one.

They DON'T always know

[Andy Dodd]

While a corp may know they hold a patent, they may not know that their patent actually applies to a system. Also, there's the whole "left hand/right hand" issue - the patent may sit in a database unnoticed by the intellectual property department of the company until that patent and any related patents come under review by the IP department *or* a high-priced external consultant. (I know someone who falls into the latter category - some of his clients didn't realize the value of some of their patents until they hired him to do such evaluations.)

That said, in this case, it's pretty easy to know about the inner workings of MPEG-4, although while many of the people in corporate IP departments have engineering backgrounds, their technical expertise might not cover the area the patent does. It's harder than you might think for the IP people to talk to the engineers familiar with a technology, because aforementioned engineers usually have managers which want them to be doing things of more immediate benefit to their own department and not another one within the company.

Bell Labs is part of Lucent, BUT

[Andy Dodd]

AT&T still has its own research division on par with Lucent's Bell Labs. Some of the top minds from the old AT&T days stayed with AT&T instead of Lucent. For example, Bjarne Stroustrup worked just down the hall from a friend of mine who interned at AT&T research in Florham Park quite a while after the Lucent split.

Not sure how the SBC merger will affect AT&T Labs...

Your world. Patented

[DrewCapu]

Welcome to the new AT&T.

FLI used RLE compression and not LZW

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually wrote a FLI decoder back in the days.

Bad Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there's this brilliant invention. An MP3 player. That's right, an MP3 player. But not just any MP3 player. Of course, we know that people listen to MP3s on their computers all the time. This player is special and deserves a patent because - get this - It's portable! You can take it with you!

Yes the patent office issued a patent for this "novel" idea. Recently SigmaTel bought this patent and has been harassing people with it.

Slashbot is as clueless as ever...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a small guy with just one patent

How the hell am I supposed to know who uses my patent and in which product?

They would never tell me.

So all I can do for now is sit on a shitty piece of paper and hope that
one day something comes up and I can sue the cheating bustards into oblivion.

Call me a troll or worse, I don't fucking care...

Re:Typical (Submarine patents)

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that would be copyrights, not patents. You lose your copyright if you fail to enforce it.

Correct 100%

[Anonymous Coward]

Just got a first office action from PTO with ridiculous rejection
of all independent claims.

The examiner sort of combined the previously issued patent on basic windshiled wipers with a paper about physiology of a human eye to state
that intermittent windshiled wiper is obvious to anybody in the field..Ha???? (This is just an analogy to my situation)

I am travelling to DC to look him in the eye...

Re:Typical (Submarine patents)

[quentin_quayle]

At the risk of being obvious, there's a simple solution. I mean a possible simple solution - well, possible in principle. Whether it could be enacted politically is another question.

Imagine a reform of patent law saying, in essence: if you don't go after violations as soon as you are aware of them, or should be aware of them with due diligence, - you lose the right to do so (at least in regard to the particular infringer). They could still "submarine" until it's granted, but not years later.

Adverse possesion

[ExMember]

Perhaps we need to apply the principles of adverse possesion to the patent industry.

Patent not known

[riversky]

They got the patent and told no one. Then as SBC's teams were reviewing all the IP they owned found the gem and thought "WOW, no one knows." Many companies probably don't know they have things they do.

No,

[msauve]

that doesn't answer the situation. "Jeep" was vernacular for some military vehicles, dating back to WW1, according to the Wikipedia article. This is not the case of Apple using a fruit name for a computer, but one where the word was already in public domain use in relation to the same class of products (motor vehicles).

Re:No,

[mdfst13]

I think that the real answer is that prior use doesn't matter in trademarks. It's current use. Daimler Chrysler currently uses Jeep to refer to their vehicle, and people no longer call other small 4WDs "Jeep." I.e. it's not generic *now*, which is what's important.

It's also worth noting that even in the '40s, Jeeps were mostly made by Willy's, which is now part of Daimler Chrysler: http://www.hrja.org/jeep.htm

It's also not clear from that article whether just the Willy's vehicles were called Jeeps or if the Ford vehicles were as well. However, even if the Ford vehicles were called Jeeps during WWII, that wouldn't necessarily make it so in 1950, much less now. Perhaps Ford could have fought it in 1950, but they didn't.

Re:Call me stupid, but how does AT&T have a cl

[uid7306m]

Well, I was at AT&T in 1990-1995, and they had a bunch of smart
people working on audio and video compression technologies.
I suspect that they actually invented something useful.

In fact, AT&T did a video phone in the 1960s (over
dedicated co-ax cables) and another around 1990 (over
9600 (!!!) baud modems). There was a long-standing
interest and support of this kind of technology.

Patents aren't evil, after all. Not always, anyhow.
Sometimes people work hard and spend money and
invent something. If that happens, they deserve some
rewards. Quite likely (though I don't know for sure)
AT&T actually deserves it.

A lot of this carping sounds like sour grapes to me.
People who are drunk on the idea of free/open source
software, and don't have any historical perspective.

(And, for those who care, I own only a trivial amount
of stock in some AT&T spinoffs, like Lucent, which
would have more value as a capital loss on my tax return
than from the sale itself.)

Re:Typical (Submarine patents)

[dgatwood]

I believe that you actually do lose the rights to punitive damages during the period in which you were aware of the infringement but did not take action. Thus it is not generally in a company's financial best interests to sit on a patent claim. Unfortunately, the penalties for sitting on such a claim are not currently sufficient to prevent it from being beneficial in cases where a technology has the potential to become as pervasive as MPEG4 or JPEG.

I am of the opinion that publication of an open standard draft should automatically begin a 12 month countdown during which time any patent claims must be made against that standard, after which time any patent claims against any implementation of standards so published should be void unless it can be proven that those patent claims to not arise out of the implementation of the standard itself. (In other words, claims against a user interface for showing the movie would be valid, but claims against the decompression process would not be.)

In my opinion, such a model would not substantially diminish the value of the patents, as it would provide the lawyers for companies who are actively doing business in a space (as opposed to squatters) ample time to determine that they hold patents that would conflict with the standard, and would provide them ample time to determine whether to allow this use freely or to block the use of the patented technology in the standard.

There should, of course, be rules about what constitutes publishing a standard, rules about what constitutes a standards body, requirements that the specifications be viewable at no charge for the purposes of searching for infringement of individual inventors' patents, etc., but in the grand scheme of things, those are all relatively minor details.

Re:Typical (Submarine patents)

[petermgreen]

I was under the (obviously) mistakened impression that if you didn't enforce your patent, that that in and of itself made your patent invalid...

nope that only applies to trademarks not patents or copyrights.

who cares?

[penguin-collective]

MPEG4 is already heavily patented. In fact, the whole point of MPEG has been to create a patented standard that the MPEG licencing authority cartell can use to extract money from device makers. One more patent doesn't make a difference--it just screws up their greedy business plan.

AT&T has at least one MPEG-4 patent in MPEG LA

[zencor]

The MPEG LA January 1, 2006 MPEG-4 Visual Patent List lists patent
6,134,269: Fixed or adaptive deinterleaved transform coding for image coding and intra coding of video.

The inventors are from AT&T and Lehigh University (Competitive Technologies acted as Lehigh's agent and submitted the patent to the pool). So it looks like AT&T might have at least one patent in the MPEG LA pool (just through a related entity).

some other potential AT&T patents:

4,999,705 Three dimensional motion compensated video coding
5,227,878 Adaptive coding and decoding of frames and fields of video
5,253,056 Spatial/frequency hybrid video coding facilitating the derivatives of variable-resolution images
5,270,813 Spatially scalable video coding facilitating the derivation of variable-resolution images
5,500,678 Optimized scanning of transform coefficients in video coding

Some of these are prior to MPEG-4, but you can follow the "Referenced By" link on the individual uspto patent pages to see other later patents.

I have seen AT&T patents assigned to:

AT&T Corp
AT & T Corp
AT&T Bell Laboratories (old, but still valid patents)
Bell Telephone Laboratories (patents mostly? expired)

AT&T guys now work at Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

The most ironic part of the story is: Many of the researchers who wrote
those MPEG4 patents at AT&T Labs now work at ...... Apple.

In early 2002, AT&T Labs fired half of its researchers, including the
entire Video research departmnent (headed by video compression pioneer
Barry Haskell). AT&T had just spun off the cable business, and decided
that video compression research was no longer justified. Many members of
that department, including Barry Haskell, moved to Apple.

So AT&T is now telling them: not only can't you work on MPEG4 at AT&T,
you can't work on it at Apple either!

Who said the patent system is designed to foster innovation?

it's not easy, but the system is still broken

[js_sebastian]

I have my name on a couple of patent submissions, and have helped review others previously submitted by my colleagues, and it's true that getting a patent approved takes a certain --as you say-- non-technical effort. But this just means it is hard for small buisnesses to do it. Big buisnesses (like the one I work in) have patent lawyers in the bunches, and have no problem getting patents approved.

When you submit an invention for patenting you get an international search report, which usually lists completely irrelevant "prior art" which supposedly invalidates the claims but really has nothing to do with them, proving the patent officers did not understand the invention. Then you reply explaining why they are wrong. In the end you patent some slightly modified version of the original proposal, regardless of whether the invention has the "inventive step" required by EU law or the "non-obviousness" required by US law (or is it the other way around?). The patenting offices nitpick on the details but miss the point that they are allowing people to patent very wide formulations of obvious ideas.

A further issue with submarine patents is that under older US copyright laws patents were valid 17 years from APPROVAL and were not published until APPROVAL. So a company could deliberately delay the approval of their patent so that when it is published, it is too late, the technology is old and ubiquitous, and they can extort from everyone who uses it. This is what happened with the microsoft FAT patents that were recently on slashdot.