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Netflix Suing Blockbuster for Patent Infringement
grouchomarxist writes "Netflix is suing Blockbuster for Patent Infringement. From the article: 'Netflix holds two U.S. patents for its business methodology, which calls for subscribers to pay a monthly fee to select and rent DVDs from the company's Web site and to maintain a list of titles telling Netflix in which order to ship the films, according to the patents, which were included as exhibits in the lawsuit.
The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the method by which Netflix customers select and receive a certain number of movies at a time, and return them for more titles.
The second patent, issued on Tuesday, "covers a method for subscription-based online rental that allows subscribers to keep the DVDs they rent for as long as they wish without incurring any late fees, to obtain new DVDs without incurring additional charges and to prioritize and reprioritize their own personal dynamic queue -- of DVDs to be rented," the lawsuit said.'"
I am really worried. Any minute now, someone will patent going to work by bus. (Including SCSI and VME)
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
My pics.
next 7-11 will sue circle K because they both run the same business.
So a common-sense business method is patentable? The U.S. patent system really is broken, I'd encourage all to read Jaffe & Lerner's Innovation and Its Discontents to see just how broken it is. Personally, I think there's no hope of repair, and innovation would progress better were the entire system thrown out. But patents are seen as such a triumph of early American government, with founding fathers like Jefferson in favor of them. Plus, our legislature is currently enslaved to monetary interests. So, we're stuck in quite a pickle where nothing can really be done.
Aside from whether or not business methods should be patentable... since they were granted the patent, it's pretty obvious that they had come up with a novel process which was straight-up copied. On the legal merits, they should certainly win.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
OK so what if I go out and patent queueing at a shop checkout to pay for goods, or paying for magazines to be delivered to your home on a monthly basis, or, or........
This shit has to stop, I mean netflix are just being totally petty about the whole damn thing. I mean, what *other* way is there to organise online DVD rental? Are they going to enforce patents on their *whole* business model.
This has to stop. Gah!
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
One hand washes the other, but your post is more like both hands waving apprehensively in the air because you weren't sure which one to wave but now you realize that waving both looks stupid but you've already committed to your decision and don't want to look like you did it on accident.
English is easier said than done.
Score another one for a broken system that will let you patent everything... Can I patent breathing?
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the method by which Netflix customers select and receive a certain number of movies at a time, and return them for more titles.
...um, long before 2003?
Isn't this exactly how libraries have worked since
Blockbuster should charge $.01 per year late fees. No longer the same as the patent.
First of all, Blockbuster sucks, they 'settled' their class action lawsuit for overcharging for late fees by offering about 3-4 free rentals as payment. That is unfair. They made millions from these late fees and then when they were found to be scamming, they just offered some free rentals, big deal...we never saw that late-fee money again.
Netflix needs to stop staggering movies for frequent-renters. Just because someone can take full advantage of their 'all-you-can-rent' policy, doesn't mean they should be penalized for it. Netflix already gains from those who don't return their movies regularly, so why should they care if some rent and watch a new movie every day? Just charge more per month or get rid of the policy.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
... should probably take the time to read the patents in controversy assigned to Netflix first.
They are:
US Patent No. 6,966,484 to Calonje, et al.; and
US Patent No. 7,024,381 to Hastings, et al.
As you do so, look at the claim language, not the specification, to find out what the invention actually covers. Discuss.
I forgot to point out that, in case you don't notice it, the following patent (of which the most recently issued is a continuation) is also included:
U.S. Patent No. 6,584,450 to Hastings, et al.
Yes, "common-sense" business models are patentable. Why? Because "common-sense" is not as common as you would think.
As for the "patents are bad for innovation" argument : if you come up with a way to manufacture widgets that no one else has before, and that innovation has cost you a certain amount in development costs, should you not have the right to protect that investment? If your competition can just steal your methods, then you would have no incentive to innovate.
I am not saying that there isn't a line here, or that the the line hasn't been jumped over by the US. patent office, but by and large patents do in fact encourge business investment into research that would otherwise not happen.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine 'success'
Last time I checked, patenting was only for "new and innovative" methodologies and products. What I read in the article is neither. It is common sense to give people the products they want in the order they want them, and to give repeat customers a flat-rate on rentals. I suppose Netflix should look elsewhere for their innovations. They could try pantenting their screw over your customers business methodology...
"Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
hate business patents, hate blockbuster more... hmmm...
Those examples (queueing, subscription payments) wouldn't / shouldn't be patentable, as there is clear prior art. So don't try and use them as some kind of reductio ad absurdum proof that the system is broken. The system may be broken, but that's not my point...
A method in which I look in the fridge on a regular basis and realize it is empty. I then get in the car and drive to the beer store to replenish my supply of beer.
You all owe me.
This is so fucking stupid. This is a business model called "renting" - it's happened for a very very long time.
I suppose we will have to watch the US Economy collapse as they tie themselves in self-imposed legal knots. What an unbelieveable situation.
How much more will it take before the US lawmakers realise that the Intellectual Property balance in the US has hit the end-scale stop.
- Paul
When my patent on the process of vacuum-induced gaseous elements being diffused into a liquid circulation system for the operational maintenance of bodies in motion, and, in turn, said vacuum-induced gaseous elements are exchanged passively in the system for different gaseous waste elements which are then expelled via compression. It's 100% enforceable and anyone found to be using my patented process without paying royalty fees to me will have their illegal process shut down or removed. You have been warned, start amassing your capital now. My lawyers will be in touch.
No point in rewarding them with my business.
Do you think Netflix is going to also patent their wonderful method of throttling their better customers? I just signed up for Blockbuster after watching my netflix shipping come to a slow grinding halt. I am actually LUCKY if I get my three movies at a time in a single week now. So I wanted to check out Blockbuster to see how they fared. Now they are getting sued by Netflix. Boy is that irony? Of course this will never go through - if it does, imagine the precident it will set. KMart will go after Walmart (for their methodology of having consumers in lines to pay for goods). Converse will go after Adidas (for their methodology of creating goods to go on someone's feet). I just hope like hell Blockbuster isn't also sued for slowing down the shipping of movies. I do believe Netflix has the corner on that market!
nature loves variety::society hates it get your variety at http://www.monkeypantz.net
What else is this but a Government sanctioned monopoly ? Patents seem to mainly not be used anymore to give an incentive for beeing innovate but to effectivly stifle competition. What better way to get rid of any potential compettitor is there than to patent a business model? Too bad it's too late to patent "filling a hot, brown liquid (coffe, hot chocolate) in a paper cup" (starbucks would never exist, what a shame) or "sticking a fat dripping piece of pretend-meat between two buns". Otherwise I wouldn't have to waste my time posting on /. and could just chill on some nice sunny island sipping a caiphi right now.
Oh, and before everyone goes all apeshit on people who patent things in order to protect their business interests, please go here here and run the following search:
in/torvalds
Blockbuster was stupid. If they had done a land grab, and patented simply renting videos, they could have knocked off NetFlix with a suit. And if "Corner Video" in Framingham had done it, they could have knocked off Blockbuster. And if the TV repair shop in Westboro (the first place I rented a video) had patented it, the entire industry could have been stopped. So, if the MPAA had thought of it, one patent could have prevented home theatre. Ok, I got the way it works now. Patents are cool.
And yes, that TV repair shop in Westboro had both VHS and Betamax. Those were the days!
http://www.screenselect.co.uk/ in the uk does the same thing.
And if you want to discuss how bloated OOo is you have to analyze the source code...
I've decided to file US patents on human sexual reproduction and gestation! Now any time the Ameican people have children I get to decide how much the parents have to pay to be allowed to keep these patent violations! Next China, then Luxemboug, after that the world! Oh Damn; just remembered, I think patenting business ideas and software is stupid.
I hereby announce that I hold a patent on suing others for infringing on dubious patents. If you hold a patent of dubious nature, and you sue someone else over it, you owe me royalties.
And if you sue me over my patent, you still owe me royalties.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
This begs the question, why are inventions, ideas and industrial processes that are supposed to benefit the public being developed and used privately? In my opinion, technology, pharmaceuticals and anything else where Copyright law is too "weak" should be developed by universities and publicly-funded institutions. These things are just too important to be owned.
Some asshole like you chimes in every discussion saying the same thing. They always get modded up, despite adding nothing real to the discussion. The facts remain. The facts being: ridiculous lawsuits, ridiculous constraints on freedom caused by the PTO.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Blockbuster, if you're listening, you need to lay hard into the US Patent Office and sue them for incompetently issuing bogus patents that will cost you huge penalties in legal fees and possible settlement costs.
The advantage of vigorously pursuing full-scale litigation against the patent office is that most of the research for your legal team will be done free of charge. There is a huge community who are already aware of the problem with the USPTO and can point to at least hundreds of similar bogus patents that have or may in the future cause significant financial loss to other companies.
One problem is that often someone will patent an idea without further developing it. They will sit on it until another company does all the footwork to make the idea feasible and then sue them. Unless the other company takes the risk the patent won't benefit anyone.
Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
I use these guys: http://www.intelliflix.com/. It's cheap. Anyways, they too are copying Netflix, must be that they're not big enough to get sued for it yet. Estupido.
nothing
There's a difference between patenting inventions (i.e. what the system was designed for) and patenting commercial actions and methods of organization, which is what business model patents are. Business model patents do NOT promote the Sciences and Arts. They merely ensure a monopoly without encouraging innovation.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Yes but here's the kicker - the idea in itself has to be novel!
... well where would you place the blame?
And it's not. It merely uses a little bit more technology to do what was priorly done by pen, paper and lists, or in-store/etc computers oh and lists.
Corporations are flooding the patent office and the office is unfortunately failing at their task. DO I blame the poor staffers that must examine the patents - not really. Do I find fault with a system that allow the mis-use of patents
Yes but common sense refers to the time the patent application is filed. I agree that lots of ideas are obvious after someone has had them. That is why you file the patent, and then tell the world about it. But if your idea was obvious before you suggested it, that's common sense and isn't (and shouldn't be) protected. If all obvious ideas could be patented, it becomes a race to file patents, and innovation naver gets a look in. Which appears to be how the US patent office functions.
My good friend who has been working at netflix for approximately 5 years says that most of the employees think the lawsuit issue with blockbuster is a waste of time
Blockbuster has been getting their asses kicked in regards to marketshare vs. netflix for about the last year or so
When blockbuster initially tried to compete with Nflix, the Nflix folks were a bit scared, including my buddy who was worried about the future of the company he helped develop - however, after Nflix's somewhat recent resurgence & increased user subscription, which in turn boosted the stock prices from all time lows, blockbuster has become a non-issue to Nflix (well at least to my buddy and most of the staff)
--
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
"as there is clear prior art. "
Let me fix it for you:
"OK so what if I go out and patent queueing at a shop WEARING A HAT & or CAP checkout to pay for goods WEARING A HAT &/OR CAP, or paying for magazines to be delivered to your home on a monthly basis WEARING A HAT &/OR CAP, or, or........"
Find me prior art for that in a form the US patent office considers acceptable prior art proof. If you manage it, I'll simply tweak the condition to make it unique.
The core problem here is the US patent office grants obvious and non novel patents for non-technical things, in clear violation of its remit.
This is the first comment I've seen that isn't screaming bloody murder. It's also the first comment that makes sense.
And I'd like to ask the naysayers this "How is the Netflix business not unique?"
#1 I do not remember any other company offerning rental by mail DVDs (and no late fees on returns)
#2 I believe Netflix was the first company to offer the monthly fee/get as many DVDs as you can watch in a month business model.
To me, these are innovative business strategies. I'm not going to argue the validity of the patent, but to say there is nothing new with what they've done is absurd.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
We don't need incentive to innovate, innovation is in the inner essence of the human race. Problems need to be solved, and someone will solve them first. There are many benefits of being an inventor or pioneer. And innovation is good for business as well, as it gives you a lead over the competition (no need to tie people down). There are ways you can prevent others from just stealing your work, such as copyrights, and trade secrets. That does not apply to business methods (you can still take credit for creating it, which can be good marketing). Here what matters is that you need to execute well and provide the better value for your customers.
I hereby claim the patent for pants where you hold the pants with your hands, then raise one leg, put your foot (the choice which it is is up to the user) into one of the trouser leg, pull that trouser leg up on your leg, shift the weight on the leg that you just put into the pants, lift the other leg, put your other foot into the second trouser leg and pull it up over your leg. then you pull it further past your butt and by some means of fastening you close them at the front.
EVERYONE building pants that can be used this way have to pay royalties to me!
Stupid? Yes. Why? Because there IS NO WAY to create pants that can NOT be used this way. And it is exactly the same with the patent in question. A system that allows to patent obvious techniques which are simple no-brainers because there simply is no other way to accomplish a certain task is simply broken.
Patents came into existance to give an incentive to publish your developments, so others would benefit from it and to further innovation. Now, they're exactly the opposite. It's a tool abused by some companies to crush competition, create monopolies and stop innovation.
There's little that's a bigger threat to free enterprize than patents nowadays.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What you say with regards to business method patents may or may not be the case, but at least you have an appreciation for the patent system. My post was directed to the people on this board who cannot visualize any use for a patent system.
Take a close look at the URL in the link for the book that is mentioned above. The poster apparently decided that not only was he going to recommend a book to the Slashdot crowd, but he also thinks that he should profit from it as well. The link clearly has a referral ID to it so that he gets a commission on any book sold by that link.
Unless the "unwritten rules" of Slashdot have changed, that kind of activity is generally considered to be verboten by the Slashdot crowd.
This reminds me of when "all you can eat" salad bars where waitresses complain about the few annoying slobs that try to push things to the limit.
Netflix has a good business model. The people who are complaining are the ones who get three DVD's, watch them or rip them, and send them back first thing in the morning only to repeat the cycle over and over again.
Those people should get a life and stop watching so much television. How many DVD's can a normal household watch in a week, anyway?
Those examples (queueing, subscription payments) wouldn't / shouldn't be patentable, as there is clear prior art.
Well, you'd think that, but while I'm sure that people have been playing with cats with flashlights since flashlights were invented, the USPTO issued a famous patent for Method of Exercising a Cat.
How about a side-to-side Method of swinging on a swing? I don't know about you, but I claim prior art from my childhood.
Personally, if I were Blockbuster, I'd take advantage of the way the patent office considers an invention thats just slightly different from an original claim as a new invention and patent a few variants on Netflix's original patent that try to anticipate where Netflix might take their business model and then countersue them to insist on patent cross-licensing.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It seems that as soon as you add the words internet or software people just lose any sence they had. If you asked someone if you could patent having cash registers at the front of the store instead of having someone follow you around charging you as you take things off the shelf they would tell you there is no way you could patent that. But now if you have some software in a virtual store that computes your bill once you've finished selecting which items you want that's patentable. This country really needs to come to terms with the technology it has invented and realize how few differences there are between this new tech and the business methodology from the brick and mortar establishments it is based on.
Business method patents would be more palatable if the term of protection weren't so long, especially when the web is involved. Seventeen-year legal monopolies just don't fit a twelve-year-old medium.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
There's an old saying that ideas are worthless because they have no risk. Economically, one of the elements of profit is risk. Merely having an idea, rather than acting upon it, has no risk and thus offers no reward. Hence why patents have traditionally protected only tangible items and copyrights have traditionally protected art in a fixed form; neither one of these designations used to protect mere ideas.
The patentability of business plans and software sets a dangerous precedent. What's to stop a film studio executive from patenting a story to prevent other producers from making movies that are similar?
I believe not at all. Rights are granted for the benefit of the whole of society, not single individuals: otherwise you might as well reintroduce slavery, as it was very beneficial to a few guys. Having a monopoly on something that can be reproduced indefinitely such as business or programming methods, and knowledge in general, means unfairly harming everybody else. You are not damaged by someone else who's using your methods (this does not block you from using them), unless you mean by competition, and last time I checked there is quite a load of legislation that actually protects competition, as it is demonstrated to improve product quality for society.
You cannot steal a method or an idea. You can only copy it. The original author still has it.
On the contrary, if you know that the competition is going to figure out your methods and implement them after a while, you know also that you must keep innovating and leveraging your position as first in the market (it takes time to make a Webshop from just an idea: and if you are slow and competition is faster than you to commercialise, it's all your fault). In other words, you have to do actual work, not rest on your laurels because some law forbid everybody else from using your methods.
From the whole society's point of view (that is, our point of view), if Netflix wins we are going to see worse service from Blockbuster and less competition. If Blockbuster wins, competition will be closer between the companies and they will have to find a way to get more customers.
The more I think of the patent system the more I think that the whole concept is flawed. As generally with IP, Beethoven and Mozart died in poverty, Britney Spears is filthy rich.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
to all but lawyers (confession: I am a recovering lawyer). Under the current approach, Coca-Cola's greatest error was not New Coke, it was not patenting the "containing of a carbonated fluid in a variable sized vessel..." Take that Pepsi, et al. Henry Ford should clearly have nailed down the whole "four wheeled, motorized vehicle" thing and avoided all these annoying "also rans."
Personally, I think a company should live or die on thier ability to innovate and, more importantly, provide value and support to their client base...not their ability to litigate. YMMV.
Well, at the time, NetFlix was new and innovative with their business model. Therefore, the patents were reasonable at the time. Just because something seems obvious now doesn't mean that it has always been obvious.
IMHO, a time limit is needed for business model patents. I won't argue here how long they should be valid, just that they should have a reasonable expiration date. That way, the innovative company can cash in on their research and development for the time limit of their patent while still allowing competition in the market.
Naturally, companies (and I assume politicians as well) won't like the idea of time limited business model patents but I think that is what would be best for the consumer.
The good side on all of this is that when the patent system finally collapses, the world will see a renessance of mindboggling proportions.
As for the "patents are bad for innovation" argument : if you come up with a way to manufacture widgets that no one else has before, and that innovation has cost you a certain amount in development costs, should you not have the right to protect that investment?
If a company comes up with a new way to manufacture widgets -- a new widget-making machine, for instance -- and you're talking about a competitor stealing the construction plans for the machine, then I think this is a different situation, and far less objectionable.
But when we're talking about business process innovation -- finding new ways to store inventory, or manage relationships with vendors and customers, or hire and retain employees, or deliver goods and services -- then I think the argument is less clear. Presumably you do these things simply to derive a competitive advantage, and the additional profits you expect to earn are incentive enough.
It used to be that the PTO wouldn't grant patents for business methods, because they saw them as abstract ideas -- this all changed with the State Street case.
How are you a "better" customer? A better customer is someone who pays money to use less services than your average customer. You are the worst customer imaginable. For the same amount of monthly fee, you are using countless times more resources than the "good customer" who forgets to even rent a movie a month. Consider yourself elite for being incompatible with a system that preys on dumb people.
"The first patent, granted in 2003, covers the method by which Netflix customers select and receive a certain number of movies at a time, and return them for more titles."
Sounds like they just got a patent on the US Postal service. I'm gonna have to buy some stock.
In-town, one could stroll to the lending library (or send one's maid or footman) to return a book and pick up the next one on the list. It was a social occasion as well as a literary one. Subscription price varied depending on how many books you wanted to have in your posession at a time.
Out of town patrons paid a subscription fee (higher to cover the cost of shipping) that depended on how many books they wanted to posess at a time (a few, up to dozens of them if you were going to India), handed over or mailed in their list and waited for the postman to deliver the books. When they were finished with the book/s, they sent it/them back and got the next batch on the list that was in stock.
Well I'm waiting for my patent to "Make Patents" to be approved by the patent office. I figure I'll have to get a good lawyer and start handing out some lawsuits. I think I'll just hang out at the patent office and pass them out like tickets for a doorprice.
Can I bum a sig?
I-co. has just filed patented for a process of extracting oxygen from air. This process involves two organic sacs with tissues to facilitate the exchange of oxygen into a liquid distribution medium.
Upon granting of the patent by the U.S. patent office, ico. plans to file patent infringement lawsuits against every citizen of the United States and any other country that still respecys US patent laws.
In other words, what's next a patent on breathing?
It seems to me that something patentable should be something that is more complex than a queue of something which when you return one of the items you have you get the top one on you list. Who runs the patent office a million monkey's?
Heh, I was checking for the "Boycott Netflix - I'm cancelling right now!" type posts, but I didn't see any. Customers that are happy with the service won't desert them over this. Talk of boycotts is cheap when you don't have to alter your own behavior (see also: "that's it, I'm not going to buy any more CDs!" by illegal music filesharers).
The entire US patent system is...
(wait for it)
Patently Ridiculous!
Referral links in the main articles themselves are normally accepted because the profits from those links are expected to benefit Slashdot in general, which benefits all of us.
Links for individual posters, however, are -- or at least were at one point -- considered to be bad form because only THAT PERSON profits from it.
There are plenty of posts from users that have been scorned because of that. Most users make sure that any Amazon links are free from referral IDs as it's generally considered to be the equivalent of karma whoring. Granted that Amazon links have dropped lately due to many Slashdotters' disdain with Amazon and their patent abuse, but the profitting of one individual at the expense of the entire Slashdot crowd is generally bad form and in the past was not tolerated.
I make a case for a Blockbuster bankruptcy here. The Netflix thing just makes it worse. http://www.worldoftech.blogspot.com/
So what you're saying is ways to improve business, the assembly line pioneered by Henry Ford for automobiles should be patentable?
While it was an amazing idea, and helped bring automobiles into the grasp of the average man, doesn't mean it should be exclusive to that company. A company discovers a new model that works, what should prohibit another company from taking up that model instead of going under? Bookstore than failing can't sell their books online because Amazon patented the 'innovation' of selling books online? Sorry, I thought capitalism was supposed to spur innovation not suffocate it.
-Brandon
Read the relevant information and hold an intelligent, informed discussion? This is /. We won't stand for any of that sort of thing around here.
If this isnt about money but about patenting a business model then why hasnt Netflix sued Blockbuster already? Blockbuster Online has been around since like late 2004 (I've been a customer since Fed. 2005). Why all of a sudden does Netflix wanna take action now. I'm guessing Netflix played the "wait-and-see" card.
1.If Blockbuster Online failed then Netflix wouldn't bother with a lawsuit.
2.If Blockbuster Online takes off then Netflix would sue them.
Option 2 happened.
If I had a patent like that I would have sued Blockbuster Online AS SOON AS I FOUND OUT ABOUT IT! Instead they chose to to wait til after Blockbuster Online built up a good size customer base, sue them and run them out of businees, then offer Netflix free trials to former Blockbuster employees.
Nothing gives me the "right" to employ coercion as a means to an end. The concept of owning an idea clearly requires an initiation of force, rather than an instance of voluntary association, in order to be implemented. Quite unlike the concept of owning a tangible item. I believe that coercion is unquestionably immoral and unjust, and therefore, the answer is no -- I have no such "right" to "protect" my ideas (i.e. employ coercion against others).
Sometimes I think I'm the only one left in the world who actually believes in the principle of voluntary association. After 15 years of studying and observing politics and current events, I've concluded that the only thing I can do is simply refuse to participate in this devil's game.
You do have the right to protect that investment in any case. Nobody is proposing prohibiting the protection of investments. What you're talking about is stripping other people of the right to use an idea.
If your competition can just steal your methods,
Eh? Is anyone proposing that stealing methods, which would necessarily entail forcibly erasing your knowledge of those methods from your mind, should be explicitly legal or something?
Why do you patent authoritarians have such trouble describing things honestly? Is it because your arguments are so incredibly weak that they wouldn't survive if people understood what they really are?
then you would have no incentive to innovate.
Yeah, because no innovation ever happened at any point in history before patent systems were established.
I am not saying that there isn't a line here, or that the the line hasn't been jumped over by the US. patent office, but by and large patents do in fact encourge business investment into research that would otherwise not happen.
Your evidence of this? And remember, we are talking about removing people's freedom. You need really strong and convincing evidence of a huge, unambiguously beneficial end effect to propose such a thing. And certainly everything I've seen suggests precisely the opposite, it just ends up with a load of power being wielded by the already powerful few, and makes innovation far more difficult for the majority of less powerful people and companies, whilst creating artificial monopolies which remove much of the incentive to innovate from the monopoly-holder.
What, did Circle K do something that wasn't kosher?
Sorry, couldn't resist that one. I worked with a devout Jew for a really long time, and every once in awhile I'd offer to share lunch with him. He kept Kosher, and he'd joke that not all of my food was "from the circle K ranch".
(to the gentile folk: the Kosher symbol on food is a K with a circle around it)
Did they also include a patent for slowing shipping down because you rent too many movies from them?
After all, Unlimited isn't really unlimited with netflix.
I'm leaving netflix To go to blockbuster - I guess people like me defecting is what really prompted the lawsuit. Instead of living up to the "Unlimited Rentals" they are going to sue everyone else out of existance.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
If you come up with a novel way to manufacture a widget, that should be patentable, but it is not a business method. It is a method for making widgets.
An idea ("rent DVDs online") has no development cost. The implementation of the idea (DVD database, packaging hardware, etc) does require some development and that may deserve some protection.
Yea like making their queue system drag and drop as opposed to click-to change position. Or slightly changing the way the queue is prioritised.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Patents were invented to stop trade secrets being the only way to preserve the competitive advantage. "If you open up your secret, we promise not to use it without your permission" is the deal.
Now, in this case, could it EVER be kept a trade secret?
No.
So why should everyone else agree not to use the idea without permission when there is nothing given in return (i.e. the idea CANNOT be kep secret, so no secret given up)?
with any luck legal online downloads will take off and thus endinig netflix. they sure like to hold on to the movies for days before sending em. this makes it obvious that there tyrying to maximize there earnings before there demise
cause book sellers are doing this since 40 years now in germany, just without any computer support ....
if you come up with a way to manufacture widgets that no one else has before, and that innovation has cost you a certain amount in development costs, should you not have the right to protect that investment? If your competition can just steal your methods, then you would have no incentive to innovate.
No. You would patent the widget and recoup the costs of the R&D through sales of the widget (or licencing to companies with larger factories).
In cases like this, this is stifiling competition because what keeps businesses afloat that provide similar services is the customer service and pricing. It's not methods that should be patented, it's product. You wouldn't expect a computer chip company to patent "a methodology of reducing the size of gates in diagrams to a smaller size". No, someone just found out how to shrink 120nm to 80nm, patented the hardware and left the work up to them.
Patenting methods lock people out of improving on it or emulating the same method with a better plan and thereby create a monopoly (illegal). All method patents show is that companies are becoming stagnant or lazy and are preferring legal ways to protect their market share than continuously innovating and improving the customer experience.
If you can't beat em...don't let them compete in the first place.
I believe not at all. Rights are granted for the benefit of the whole of society, not single individuals: otherwise you might as well reintroduce slavery, as it was very beneficial to a few guys. Having a monopoly on something that can be reproduced indefinitely such as business or programming methods, and knowledge in general, means unfairly harming everybody else. You are not damaged by someone else who's using your methods (this does not block you from using them), unless you mean by competition, and last time I checked there is quite a load of legislation that actually protects competition, as it is demonstrated to improve product quality for society.
Its easy to suggest solutions to problems you don't understand. Patents are for the general public because they are vested to the public after a term of years. Otherwise, the idea might have never been released. This is the tradeoff, you disclose your novel idea to the public, and you get a limited monopoly on the idea. Its not unreasonable at all, especially if you spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing the idea.
Just imagine how cheap Coca-Cola would be if they patented the formula in 1920.
You cannot steal a method or an idea. You can only copy it. The original author still has it.
What about modify it? Improve it? Remove steps that are unimportant? Use it on a different subject matter? Apply it in different way?
From the whole society's point of view (that is, our point of view), if Netflix wins we are going to see worse service from Blockbuster and less competition.
But society appreciates ingenuity and creativity. There is going to be a design-around for the patent, you just have to use your wits to figure it out. And when its figured out, how much competition will there be?
This is typical slashdot flamebait. A lot of accusations and no intelligent discourse. I think business method patents are absurd too, but the whole anti-patent attitude lacks any true discussion on the merits of the patent system. Maybe from your software-developing perspective patents are absurd, but have you ever thought outside of the box and realized that its a good for other industries?
Are you insane? All rights are granted to individuals only, never to "society". In your example, for instance, the South benefited greatly as a society from institutionalized slavery - not just "a few guys". I'm not here to say slavery is right (in fact it is very wrong), but that granting rights to "society" means granting rights to the majority. In that case, whatever the majority (or "society") finds desirable is correct. If society decrees that slavery is beneficial, under your model of rights, then slavery is allowed.
Under the individual rights model, as the US is founded on, each individual citizen is granted all the rights of every other citizen. You have the right to be free from being enslaved, I have the right to be free from being enslaved, Bob has ... get the picture?
You are not damaged by someone else who's using your methods (this does not block you from using them), unless you mean by competition, and last time I checked there is quite a load of legislation that actually protects competition, as it is demonstrated to improve product quality for society.
Pretend for a moment that you've been slaving (hehe) away in your basement to create a new method for conducting business that is vastly superior to the well-established companies already in the market. You create a new company to compete with these multi-billion dollar per year corporations, and with your business method you have the potential to blow them away. However, without a patent on your new method, all the established companies copy you immediately.
Not only did you not benefit from your hard work, you basically did all your competitors a favor by giving it away for free. You worked for nothing. What's the point in doing it again next time you have a good idea? You tell your story to a few friends, who tell it to a few more friends, and all of a sudden no one wants to innovate.
Allowing a patent on your business method gives your startup company a fighting chance to establish itself in the marketplace. The limited term of patents (currently 20 years) means that eventually, yes, all your competitors will be able to use the same business method that made you so fantastically successful. Know what that means? Time to innovate again.
Also, for the other companies that cannot use your business method, they must innovate new and even more improved business methods to compete with *you* now - they can't just use your idea and stop there.
I wish you damn socialists would just stop complaining that other people have better opportunities and luck than you because they came up with something people want and you didn't. Show me something you've invented or created and shared with the whole world gratis - what's that? You can't? Oh.
The Ezine Directory
Netflix is being evil. Patenting an on-line business model is retarded. It might make since to get the patents before someone else does to protect yourself, but to enforce them? That's just wrong. I hope they either 1) make things right or 2) lose all their customers. I just terminated my service. I was hoping they'd have a comment box asking why. Was going to link to this slashdot article.
There's no place like ~/
This is exactly my point. How is a business process different from a machine?
Formally, a business process is (and can be modeled as) a finite automata. Just because what is modeled is not a physical entity should not cause you to discriminate when it comes to the granting of a patent.
Again, I am not saying that the patent office doesn't have issue. I am saying that there needs to be rational give and take, and that getting rid of *all* patents is simply not the answer.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine 'success'
That is typical geek thinking (That science and technology are the only form of invention).
Many successfull businesses out there innovated not in their technology or science, but in their business models/process.
Just because something doesn't advance science doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't be patentable.
I just filed one. I call it financial storage. I hold ur money and you get it when you want or write out things I call checks. beware banks your all getting sued.
and it's "shut up"
of course, should anyone hold the patent on exploding then the whole exercise is moot...
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
blockbuster should have been doing this before netflix. Plain and simple. How many mom and pop video rental places did Blockbuster run into the ground? Blockbuster didn't want to do online rentals they were forced to by the competition. This time though the competition had a good idea and patented the idea. I do however agree that this kind of stuff should only be able to last like 7-8 years. I think netflix is wasting their time with this one as well. Brick and mortal rental of anything that can fit into the US mail was bound to go tits up sooner or later. I know lots of people who like blockbuster's unlimited instore rental deal though. They live near them though which makes all the difference.
I wonder if throttling is part of that business method that is patented.
/me wipes the sarcasm off his lips...
That would actually make it 'novel' and potentially patentable... I mean, who actually would think of a system of Unlimited rentals that was in fact Limited depending on whether or not the customer actually tried to use the service as if it were unlimited.
Who here can show prior art where the word Unlimited actually means Limited.
That actually sounds pretty novel to me.
One patent "covers a method for subscription-based online rental that allows subscribers to keep the DVDs they rent for as long as they wish without incurring any late fees, to obtain new DVDs without incurring additional charges and to prioritize and reprioritize their own personal dynamic queue -- of DVDs to be rented,"
This seems easy to fix. They could charge a late fee if you keep a movie over 5 years. Frankly it seems funny that the patent specifically excludes late fees. It is not like they are inherrently necessary when renting anything.
They could also add a minimal fee to rent additional DVDs. It could be like $19.99/month plus $0.01 for each additional DVD rented. No one would care and they could even have a policy that they will not charge the additional fee until the account is canceled or it reaches 1000 DVDs. At that point it would only be an additional $10 and they could waive that fee by saying those customers are valued in some way.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
The patenting of ideas is already up for the test of presidence in the courts.
Well you're in better company than I am at this point -- the PTO used to agree with me, but now it agrees with you.
I think the problem with saying that business processes are patentable simply by virtue of being finite automata is that just about anything would qualify here -- e.g., using assembly lines in manufacturing, or routing calls to the appropriate representative, or offering discounts to college students and senior citizens, or making a sandwich with the mayo directly on the bread to prevent tomato-moisture from seeping through and making the bread soggy.
The effect is, IMHO, the opposite of what we want... instead of incentivizing innovation, it stifles it, because every new business will be forced to undergo extensive (and expensive!) research to make sure they're not violating these kinds of mayo-directly-on-bread patents.
(You can argue that the "non-obviousness" requirement to patents would prevent this, but I think there's ample evidence that this requirement is construed so narrowly as to be more or less meaningless.)
I preferred the old "if it's just an idea, you can't patent it" way of thinking.
Don't stand for this. I am a Netflix customer and here is my email to them.
Netflix,
I cannot express with enough emphasis my disappointment with your decision to sue Blockbuster because they had the audacity to compete with you. I have been a Netflix member for several years and while I find your service superior to Blockbusters (which I canceled after 2 weeks) I do have something it appears you do not believe to be common among your subscribers. That thing is a conscience.
If you continue to pursue this shameful attempt to intimidate future startups from trying to compete I guarantee you that I will cancel my account. We Internet users, which constitute a large part of your subscriber base, actually follow these events with keen interest and typically find this practice of yours reprehensible. Patenting a business model, while successful on your part, is seen by many as an abuse of the system.
I ask you, on behalf of many of your subscribers, to end this, UN-American attempt to eliminate competition through dodgy manipulations of our legal and patent system.
In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Vin Diesel could use to kill you, including the room itself.
During a class in which we were discussing the Constitution, U.S. Law, and landmark Supreme Court cases, one student voiced some confusion about why the lawyers in some particular case -- one that was patently absurd to common sense and plain reading of the Constitution and laws in question -- would even take the case, since it didn't at all seem to pursue Justice.
The professor, who was also a litigation attorney, interrupted the student before he finished speaking and said, "Don't think for a moment that it is about Justice. That's naive. Legislation may be about Justice, but litigation -- for the lawyer -- is an industry by which they earn their money to buy a house and car, and to buy things they like. Lawyers working for Justice work for non-profits."
He went on to compare lawyers to cobblers -- they make shoes that sell, not that are perfect for the foot. The better the cobbler is, they more they will be able to achieve Just ends as an aside while they're performing their craft of forging a fine lawsuit for their customers -- if they care about that at all.
There are very few people in any field who perform their functions primarily out of idealism. It is as likely that you'll find a lawyer who is seeking first and foremost to forward Justice as that you'll find an IT guy who is ideologically attached to his specific employer's technological well being. More likely, it's a way for him to earn money utilizing some (fairly) specialized skill to pursue his real interests (gaming, golf, whatever).
As a final note, it does seem to me that there are certain fields that are more likely to generate idealogically motivated workers. Most of them become most apparent (as my professor said) in the pro bono arena (because it becomes obvious that the person isn't working for money). I should also point out that a fair number of lawyers may become lawyers for ideological reasons, but may also be willing to take cases that are lucrative even if not towards their certain ideological end.
I don't believe Netflix has much to worry about. After a horrible experience of nearly everything in my queue being marked as "Short Wait" or "Long Wait" and then being sent the wrong movies entirely, I cancelled my Blockbuster account forthwith and returned to Netflix, citing those very reasons to them. That was last week. I have since enjoyed 5 movies from my Netflix queue with no delay. No, I'm not on Netflix's payroll, just a satisfied customer.
After seeing your post, I looked into it and from what I read, I was VERY interested in switching from Netflix to Intelliflix. Then at the last minute I found this:
e /display_~reviews
http://www.epinions.com/Intelliflix_Online_Servic
Almost everyone gave them 1 out of 5 stars. Their best rating is a 3 out of 5. After reading all the reviews at epinions, I wouldn't even think about signing up with intelliflix.
It seems so obvious that patents like this only serve as legal ammunition to attack competitors. To most of us, the concept of patenting "Doing X over the internet" is ridiculous, but why is it so ? Does anyone have an example of a patent that has actually benefitted the world at large ?
From what I've seen, patents serve to "protect" the intellectual property, but really how can you own an idea ? You can invent something and be the first to market, but to use the legal system to keep everyone else out of the game is just plain retarded. If someone's business model is so fragile that they must protect their ideas with patents, then in my book they deserve to suffer everything we throw at them. If they can't stand up to the competition on level ground then they should die and let the stronger entity take their place.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I hear all these stories on /. about the US patent system being broken. What about the Canadian patent system? Anyone here have any problems?
Patenting business models is ridiculous. End of story.
What if someone had patented the drive through window? What if someone had patented online MP3 stores? Hell, what if someone had patented the "business model" of operating a cell phone company? Would the world be better served if there was only a single company that could have a drive through window? Would we be better served if there was only a single corporation to buy MP3's from? Would the world be better served if only one corporation was allowed to cell cellular devices?
The simple fact of the matter is that "business models" are naturally sought after and vigorously pursued in a competitive environment regardless if there is patent protection or not.
People certainly balk at spending a billion dollars to bring a drug to market and through FDA approval only to have it instantly reproduced as a generic. There is certainly a good argument for these sort of patents for clearly novel and expensive to develop products. The same is not true for "business models". Business models don't require a multi-billion dollar lab and 15 years of R&D, testing, and validation by the FDA. Business models naturally develop as corporations seek to out do and one up each other.
The fact that efficient business models are quickly copied is a GOOD thing. Efficient business models SHOULD be copied so that the entire economy experiences increased efficiency and competition. Hell, that is what has made the American's so damn good at business. They might not have had a monopoly on good businesses ideas, but they are damn good at copying a winning business models and running with them resulting in mind numbingly high work productivity. When Japan started to beat on America in the 80's it was because the Japanese had started to copy and improve upon winning business models. The idea of developing a business model and having the rest of the market scramble to keep up is what drives us forward, not what holds us back.
1) Patent "the process of exchanging goods or services for finiancial reimbursement"
2) Sue the entire world, muahahahaha
3) Profit!
Then you can sue your lawyers for trying to get reimbursement for their services, and you won't ever have to pay them! Sweet!
Did you ever see the MadTV 'money' infomercial...
*loosely quoted from many years ago*
"Hey _____, you look particularly happy today. What's your secret"
"I've got a miracle cure that's solved all my problems. It's called 'Money'!"
"Where can I get said money?"
"Just go into your wallet and take the money from it"
"But what if I don't have any money in there"
"Just go to your ATM machine and get some money"
"But how does the money get in there"
"Simply go to your bank and deposit some money"
"But how do I get that money?"
*looks around a bit* "Bye!" *walks away*
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Take a look here:
e /display_~reviews
http://www.epinions.com/Intelliflix_Online_Servic
I don't know about you, but I could pre-order movies to rent from my old library's website, just input my library card number, verify my address, and I can choose whether or not to pick it up or have it delivered for a tiny shipping fee. I haven't physically used my library card in well over five years due to this, so this predates anything Netflix has ever done.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Just imagine how cheap Coca-Cola would be if they patented the formula in 1920.
There is nothing, and always has been nothing, preventing you from making an exact flavor replacement of Coca-Cola. The only thing that is protected is the name.
Obviously, when Coke first came about, we didn't have the modern chemical analysis tools of today. But still. We now do have those tools, the formula is generally known, no big deal. Has nothing to do with anything, really. Coke has always been about branding, really.
C//
'Nuff said.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
The key to this stuff doesn't reside in any one nation, it resides in the World Trade Organization, and that is run by huge international financial institutions, and they want tons of patents, on everything, and eventually they will get their way. Today, individual nations want in to the WTO globalism deal, and when they don't toe the line they get the smackdown. I don't think people realise just how far this has gone with the totally unelected body running all our lives.
Must get away from the Queue and use a Stack to order what movies a user wants.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Physical inventions are granted protection because there is a material cost to it's development. Were there no protection, there would be little incentive for smaller entities to make that investment in new product development.
Business methods have no material cost to development, and as such the ideas will continue to be plentiful even without patent protection.
Given those two things, can you explain to me how business model patents benefit the citizens at large? Remember, we have the patent system to benefit society through a steady flow of new ideas and inventions, not to benefit the patent holders, commerce, or even the economy.
I'm copying that, editing it and sending it myself. (Please don't sue me for this.) Let's all send something similar.
I'm trying to see which service is better. For Netflix: Pro's... Netflix is fast. Con's... Netflix has crappy envelopes. For blockbuster's service: Pro's... Better envelopes, a coupon once a week for a free in store rental. Con's... The coupon defeats the purpose of the service, the service is very slow. Winner: Netflix. I'm cancelling Blockbuster at the end of the week.
MadOgre.com
"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" - Article I, Section 8, US Constitution.
..." variety, the type you can 'innovate' in a single evening while having a beer with your buddies.
The reason for granting time-limited exclusivity (patents, copyrights) is not that innovators have a right to protect an investment, as the GP says. The reason is that without time-limited exclusivity, there would be a lot less incentive for innovators to innovate in the first place. This is especially true for innovations that require a substantial investment of time and money.
To the extent that certain innovations do not require this investment, they are less deserving of exclusivity. Society as a whole gains when a drug company finds it worth its while to spend a billion dollars to develop a new drug that they can patent and sell above cost for a limited time (until generics enter). But society loses (from lack of competition as you point out) from patenting innovations of the "wouldn't it be cool if
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Although I don't have much respect for the US patent system, I have to wonder how else would Netflix protect their novel business model from a competitor like Blockbuster? BB has several major advantages already: a huge, existing inventory of movies and actual stores. How can Netflix compete with that without protecting their novel business model?
For the factual counterpoint:
1) ordering things from a company by mail is not novel
2) ordering things using the web from a company is not novel
3) renting items (DVDs especially) is not novel
4) per 1-3, Netflix's DVD rental business is not novel
The only unique thing when Netflix came out was the subscription based service that allows for 'x' items to be "out" at any one time. Is that patentable? I don't believe it is nor should be.
Now to answer a couple of your other questions:
Who says you can "protect" your business model? All business models at their core have selling something to a customer in exchange for something. If that's not your business model, I present a business that won't survive long.
As for how Netflix would compete? Why, they compete like they always have, by offering choices among 40,000+ movies, with a "convenient" mail based system with no late fees, and, of course, their customer service and price.
Last point: BB's stores generally only stock hundreds to very low thousands of movies. There's a considerable selection usually not available in your local store. This also means BB can't take advantage of its inventory, as it doesn't have these and would have to acquire a larger selection.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
check my posting further up. To summarize:
1) ordering things from a company by mail is not novel
2) ordering things using the web from a company is not novel
3) renting items (DVDs especially) is not novel
4) per 1-3, Netflix's DVD rental business is not novel
Oh, and I believe there were passes and other things back in the 80s with VHS tapes. But that's so long ago and predates the web entirely, that I have nothing to back it up except my memory.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
So shouldn't service providers have a say in patent fights like this? (Not that I find anything at all novel or original in the NetFlix patents under discussion here.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Netflix is a good service, but there are alternatives... if you think their actions are immoral/dumb/stupid/wrong/Evil, leave their service and *force* them to become a company that makes profits through lawyers. Companies with business models like that tend not to be very successful at selling products.
Curious, how many of you are complaining, but still think it's OK to give them your money? Vote with your (virtual) feet if the issue is that important to you.
"God is dead!" - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead!" - God
Its easy to suggest solutions to problems you don't understand. Patents are for the general public because they are vested to the public after a term of years. Otherwise, the idea might have never been released. This is the tradeoff, you disclose your novel idea to the public, and you get a limited monopoly on the idea. Its not unreasonable at all, especially if you spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing the idea.
Unlike some of those that have commented in this thread, I am not categorically against patents. I do however think that the public's part of the bargain has become too small for some categories of patents - especially with regards to business processes and pure software. 17 years of monopoly on commercial exploitation of an idea seems a bit absurd when the idea in question should be rather obvious to a practitioner in that particular field. The number of examples of 'patently silly' patents out there suggests that the obviousness test is way too low in too many cases, and I also think certain types of patents should have a shorter term of protection.
Not to mention that patents are written for lawyers and not for practitioners - the LZW patent is of little use to a programmer that wants to understand how the LZW compression algorithm works. One usable reform would be to require the patent to contain a description of the invention that is actually usable for a practitioner in that field.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Companies shouldn't be able to patent business practices, which for the most part are policies rather than innovations. This has been going on for too long now, where basic common sense is being owned by corporations.
Business method patents are as bad as software patents...well, not quite, but at least as absurd.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Just because something doesn't advance science doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't be patentable.
Actually it does, if you go by the Constitution. The purpose of patents is to reward people for the material investment in an invention to encourage people to share their ideas so that others may be built on them instead of hiding them to profit purposes. This is also why patents expire.
Nothing in a business model merits special protection on the level of government-granted monopoly power. They are purely ideas and are impossible to keep secret in the first place. To protect the free market, we should not allow anyone who finds a business niche to fill to be the only person allowed to fill that niche for 14 years without paying a tariff to the first person. Patents are harmful enough to the market without granting them for just about anything that comes along, including purely intellectual endeavors.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
My Library has been doing this for Years. They don't charge me unless I forget to renew. One could argue that the subscription fee paid before the Netflix loan is equivalent to the late fee I would pay the library after I forgot to renew. If they don't have what I want, I give them a list and they call me when it comes in. Netflix's patent is just a slight variation of a practice that's hundreds of years old. Ask any librarian. Certainly not worthy of a patent!
You could look it up in Books in Print - or maybe you can't as it seems to be a subscription service. There are library catalogs available on line where you can look up books (and some other databases covering books) but amazon.com seems to have become the de-facto standard. If you want to refer to a book and unambiguously give someone access to information about that book, you can either type it all in, or point to the amazon.com entry for it. Which is easier?
...RedOctane was doing this with games for a year or two before Netflix popped up, IIRC.
Actually, that's just one symbol. There are a ton of organizations that issue hechsherim. And people will find that some are more reliable than others. There are some pages here and here that list a bunch of them. The one for Calgary Kosher is great.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Does this shit go on in Canada? My wife and I are seriously considering moving there. This is just one of the reasons.
If I go to a few more Canucks, Maple Leafs, Canadians hockey games I think I'll know the national anthem.
template for use on /. every day from now on:
X tells us that Y is reporting that Z is suing J for using their I. The lawsuit contends that the patent - which was awarded two days ago and reads "Any method for doing something quite ordinary and sensible but this time using the internet" - is being infringed upon because J decided to open a website that has turned out to be profitable. In a prepared statement, lawyers for Z related the fact that OSS systems would "not be targeted or affected."
The economics equations of the 21st century are:
p(rofit) = LWST(J + Z(I))
b(ankrupt) = LWST(J) + Z-I
Come on. You don't see department stores suing each other over that whole "let's make a wedding registry" thing! They're 'online'; i.e., linked Canada-wide up here... Somone's going to sue me for putting a gift wish list on my blog that people can refer to. "Every time someone buys something off that list, you are stealing money from advertisers that pay good money to put ads on peoples' wish lists on Amazon! We invented wish lists!"
Seriously, bloody lawyers are just creating jobs for themselves, and business has become litigation instead of creating a USEFUL product that people want. These idiots talk in the press about "the consumer", and fail to realize that they are in fact a member of that species, too. They are the same dicks who stiff on the bill at the restaurant and expect you to pick up the slack. Patents are not an excuse to avoid competition.
I think that entirely misses the point. The problem isn't these companies trying to make a profit with any legal means possible, but the system itself which rewards this behaviour.
The problem here is patent legislation. Attacking companies that have filed patents according to the law will not in any way change that, even if it somehow succeds in driving them out of business.
"The US should never have gone down the road of allowing patents on software and business processes."
I think thats what they had in mind by setting the 'technical' requirement. I think the original framers of patent law looked around, decided which parts of industry 1) required huge investment, 2) could be easily copied once released, 3) took a long time to recoup the development costs, & 4) the time to recoup was longer than the time to copy. I think they had difficulty framing those limited conditions in a law, and so specified it as 'technical' inventions - the ones that had the problem they were trying to fix.
So business processes and software and any other thing with a 1) low investment, or 2) not easy to copy, or 3) easy to recoup the cost before copied, don't fit that and should never have been allowed.
I mean they're giving patents to people who make NOTHING but legalistic paper documents now. How *untechnical* is that!
Um patenting ideas HAS been done. Just look up patents on time travel and teleportation for examples of patented concepts that have no working proof.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/poor-mozart-died- a-rich-genius/2006/04/05/1143916594763.html
FOR centuries he has been portrayed as an impoverished genius, who wrote begging letters to friends and ended up in a pauper's grave. But a new exhibition claims that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived a solidly upper-crust life and was among the top earners in 18th-century Vienna.
Documents on display at Vienna's musical society, the Musikverein, reveal that he earned 10,000 florins a year, a huge sum.
"His income put him in the top 5 per cent of the population," Otto Biba, the exhibition's curator, said. "During this period you could lead a very comfortable upper-class life on 500 florins a year. A labourer earned just 25 florins a year."
"The 21st century needs to rescue Mozart from the lingering 19th-century romantic image of him as a struggling artist. The truth is that Mozart was a genius, but a genius who earned lots of money towards the end of his life. Sometimes he had heavy debts too. It must have been through gaming; there isn't proof, but there is no other explanation."
Mozart gained income by giving piano lessons and concerts and working as a private imperial musician. He had a billiard table and regularly visited his hairdresser. He also had a generous parking space for his carriage and lived for most of his time in Vienna in a seven-room apartment, the exhibition shows.
The documents on display include an invoice for 800 florins from his royal patron, Joseph II.
The composer lived in Vienna between 1781 and 1791, the year of his death, aged 35. He was interred in a regular communal grave in accordance with contemporary practice, Mr Biba said.
The exhibition, Mozart: A Composer in Vienna, runs until June 30. It displays bills and receipts from the last decade of Mozart's life, and is part of a year of events in Austria celebrating the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth in Salzburg on 27 January 1756.
The Guardian
-Sj53
They have a patent for not charging latefees. WTF? That's the most insane thing I've ever heard. I'm going to patent cars that don't use internal combustion engines or batteries and then sue everyone when they try to make a fuel cell car, or any car that uses another technology that hasn't been invented.
Brilliant.
Although, since I'm not charging late fees right now I suppose I'm violating netflix patent.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I've recently filed two patents:
1)Walking by starting out with your right foot before noon EST on even numbered days.
2)Walking by starting out left foot from 1-3 on odd numbered days of the month EST.
I'll be by later to collect on you all.
This is a distinctive pattern I've developed and you may not infringe upon it.
A patent on an ordered list? They'll give patents for anything now. Can't someone with half a clue get into power in the US and clean stuff up?
Uhm... while slavery did help the South as a society, somehow I don't think the massive population of slaves benefits the same way from the boost to society that just "a few guys" did.
That's genius .. they patented the 'Mailing and response envelope' .. there has to be someone that did this prior to 2003. They patented a fsucking envelope! ... that's so stupid .. I think I should patent a similar thing .. it's called the 'Mailing and response box' .. hmmm
1) Call Netflix
/. alone. How many do you think would need to cancel to get the message across?
2) Cancel your subscription
3) Explain why
The way to deal with companies that have abhorrent business practices is to not do business with them, and abuse of the patent system is an unforgivable offense. There must be thousands of geeks with Netflix accoutnts on
Jeff Schnitzer
I'm just wondering about the concept of development costs, as they seem central to your premise. Was the Netflix model the result of an in-depth R&D process, the same way a new drug molecule is? Does it matter whether it was or whether it was an idea someone throught up on the crapper? Because even if they did research into whether the idea was marketable or a good business model, the idea still had to have its origins somewhere, probably somewhere humble, and not as the result of "business model R&D".
I struggle with business model patents, but perhaps an idea is for business model patents to have a more limited period of protection than other types of patented ideas? I know there are a lot of people out there who, for example, want pharmaceutical products to have a shorter protection period so manufacturers can produce lower-cost generics sooner, but I think that the concept of development costs takes a much more concrete form when it comes to something like drug product development compared to the development of Netflix's business model. At its heart I think you are right that we are doing a bit of line drawing, but it is a valuable exercise to engage in.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
Oops. You failed to follow the instructions and instead misinterpreted the title of the invention to be the patented invention itself. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to you. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
US Patent No. 6,966,484 to Calonje, et al.; and
This is just a patent on their envelope that they use to both send and return the DVDs. I have no idea if blockbuster violates this but a different envelope could easily be designed.
US Patent No. 7,024,381 to Hastings, et al.
This patent is more interesting. They patented a method that uses a computer system to take the consumers choices for dvds and put the into an ordered list and then ship the dvds to the customers. Also included is using a periodic payment in the renting method.
Just a quick look at the patents shows that blockbuster is clearly infringing on them. However, blockbuster could change the way it operates and get around them. They would have to no longer use any sort of ranking system for movies instead you would need to go online an select the exact movies you want netflix to send once they receive your old movies. Also they would have to find a way around the periodic payments possibly by making it a pay per movie rented such that if you did not rent movies you would not have to pay.
So basically if Blockbuster moved its current in store business model online - where you choose exactly what movie you want from what they have in stock, you pay for that movie and it is then shipped to you - they would not infringe on the patent. Blockbuster could even price it such that the first 3 movies are $4 and then next 4 are $0.50 or something so that it would essentially be the same as 1 price for unlimited movies. The biggest problem is that blockbuster will not be able to automatically send out the next movie on your list - you would have to go and pay for it first.
Those are just my insights from reading the claims but I could be way off. IANAL.
I do think that the rewarding somebody for releasing a process or method instead of keeping it a trade secret is a large part of the reason patents should exist in some fields. But this reasoning is completely inapplicable to the field of business methods, because it is practically impossible to execute a business method secretly. If NetFlix thought they could make money doing what they do, they would have started to do it regardless of whether they could patent it. And if they couldn't patent it, the certainly couldn't have kept it secret.
I seem to recall studying finite automata in a math course. Are you saying we can patent math?
Not that I care whether this guy makes 5 cents or $5 million from this referral, but if his post made you say to yourself, "Hmmm, sounds interesting, I think I'll pick that book up," can you please explain to me how exactly that's not a legitimate referral? He got you interested in a book that you otherwise would not have known about, and if Amazon is willing to give him something for that, something which doesn't cost you a thing, then I say more power to him.
Are you really so petty that you don't want anyone to ever get any kind of perk for doing something for you? If you don't want to read the book, don't buy it. And before you go spouting off about how this will lead to people trying to make Slashdot their own personal marketplaces, I don't buy your slippery slope argument. The ability to do this as been around all along, and so far, it hasn't happened yet, and the link that was posted was directly relevant to the subject matter at hand.
In other words, DON'T mod this comment's grandparent down, but instead, mod this comment's parent down as a troll! And after that, go ahead and mod this comment down as offtopic, since at that point, it will be (and I have some pretty good karma to burn...)
This looks like a recipe to me...
Now, with a more desireable mouth melt! mmmmm :-)
Yeah, 1987 is old, but I wanted a cookie example unrelated to "non-obvious inventions" about persisting web-browser session state.
United States Patent: 4,664,921
Seiden, May 12, 1987
"Dual-textured cookie products containing narrow melting range shortenings"
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION "Traditionally, fresh homebaked cookes have exhibited a slightly crisp outer surface texture and a chewy, more ductile interior, while commercially prepared cookies have exhibited only a single texture, in most cases relatively hard and crisp. A recent development in the cookie industry is a storage-stable, crumb continuous dual texture cookie which closely approximates homemade yet does not deteriorate when stored in a warehouse or on a store shelf for reasonable periods of time.
Abstract "This invention comprises crumb-continuous cookie products having distributed therein discrete regions of storage-stable crisp texture and discrete regions of storage-stable chewy texture in which the crisp regions contain a shortening having an SCl at 21.degree. C. of from about 14.0 to about 20.0 and an SCl at 33.degree. C. of from about 0.0 to about 8.0 and the chewy regions contain a shortening having an SCl at 21.degree. C. of from about 12.0 to about 18.0 and an SCl at 33.degree. C. of below about 2.0. The shortening system having these melting characteristics provides a more tender crumb texture, more desirable mouthmelt and dissipation and better flavor display in the cookie."
Recipe Excerpt "The use of beta prime stable shortening for cookies, while not essential to the production of an acceptable cookie, is greatly preferred. If a shortening which is unstable in the beta prime form, for example, partially hydrogenated Canola oil, is used, the initially small beta prime crystals will gradually transform into large and higher melting agglomerates of beta crystals. The high melting large and grainy beta crystals detrimentally affect the taste and mouthmelt of the cookie. To produce cookies with good mouthmelt and dissipation and flavor display that will retain these characteristics under adverse storage conditions, it is greatly preferred that the solid glycerides present remain predominantly in the beta-prime form."
I think it's colloquially called "reinventing the wheel" in these boroughs.
Then show me. I have never seen intelligent or sane of mind patents in my life. Maybe because I see the extreme examples like the combover patent, but also in my field of work I still have not seen a patent worth taking seriously. For example, this one and this one, other than demonstrating how poorly patents are screened, since they are about the same thing really, are fatally flawed and describe an apparatus that cannot work: you cannot control the power output of a fuel cell by changing the air flow into it any more than you can control the speed of your car by changing the gasoline level in your tank. Quite tellingly, no actual prototype has been presented.
I am not excluding that there is a legitimate use of patents (likely the one originally envisioned by Jefferson & Co.), but it seems to me there is more abuse than use. The baby's drowned in the bath water.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I said for the benefit of society. Society works better if individuals have a well-defined set of rights. As for the vocabulary, for "society" I mean "everybody", you seem to have understood "the ruling class".
They cannot copy me immediately. The WMV and WMA formats have been out there for years and still mplayer fails on them at times. Flash has bunches of books documenting how it is programmed, but free players are still in their infancy (you probably noticed I am on AMD64). This living in a software-patent-free continent. The gist being, just because the idea is out, it does not mean that implementation is just as fast. In fact, implementation is usually the hardest part: learning C perfectly takes much less than programming the whole GCC from scratch.
If the method is so easy to implement, it is probably trivial and should not be patented at all. If it is more complex, it requires (a lot of) reorganization and formation, which you just cannot do "immediately".
It's the competition, baby. You have to deliver. Sharing knowledge is simply the most efficient way of doing things. It does not benefit directly the inventor (who may be however be hired by a leading company, or found his start-up to show he's right and wait for a hefty buyout check, or be rewarded in other ways), but benefits everybody else. Sometimes really important inventions are not patented anyway because the best inventors are more interested in the science than in the money (they are scientists after all: Einstein did not patent laser, for instance). The point of market competition is to benefit society, if you want to benefit a company look up "monopoly".
20 years seem to be a way too long time for an innovation cycle. 20 years ago I used to try to understand what that Vic20 my cousin had bought was.
What if my method is so generic that no one else can bypass it? People are patenting mouse clicks these days. And anyway, if someone else is first on the market, I have to provide a better service anyway. If there is a patent, I cannot improve the idea, I must ignore it totally.
Please, please. Use the proper word. These days we proudly go by the name of coglioni , thanks to our nanito en jefe.
Well, not much but I do have a few things.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
stupid, simply stupid. Patents used to mean a tangible invention, not an idea, not a process but a physical thing you can hold. What their saying really is "no one else should get to have a monthly rental service".
If this isnt about money but about patenting a business model then why hasnt Netflix sued Blockbuster already? Blockbuster Online has been around since like late 2004 (I've been a customer since Fed. 2005). Why all of a sudden does Netflix wanna take action now. I'm guessing Netflix played the "wait-and-see" card.
1.If Blockbuster Online failed then Netflix wouldn't bother with a lawsuit.
2.If Blockbuster Online takes off then Netflix would sue them.
Option 2 happened.
If I had a patent like that I would have sued Blockbuster Online AS SOON AS I FOUND OUT ABOUT IT! Instead they chose to to wait til after Blockbuster Online built up a good size customer base, sue them and run them out of businees, then offer Netflix free trials to former Blockbuster customers.
I think it's colloquially called "reinventing the wheel" in these boroughs.
No, I think you missed the point. You can easily get around a patent by using a little creativity. For example, Barnes & Noble was able to get around Amazon's (stupid) one-click patent by adding a confirm page. If you are creative, then there is going to be a way around the patent.
With that said, I agree that there are a lot of absurd patents. And I think business method patents aren't even worth the paper they are printed on. There is a large backlash against these types of patents that is currently ongoing though (thank god).
This is a good patent. It tells how to grow a layer of gallium nitride crystals on silicon substrates (disclaimer: I am a former employee). While it may not seem like a lot, silicon power transistors for wireless applications only work to about 2.5 GHz. Gallium Nitride power transistors work at higher voltages, higher temperatures, and higher frequencies. And the company has spent over $50M developing this technology.
Now before you ask where its implemented, realize that high power RF transistors technology take a long time to even get designed into a system. And thats a long time before there is even actual implementation. And a long time before you most likely even consider buying into the implementation.
Look, there needs to be patent reform. But dismissing patents outright achieves no results. I only hope that one day people will realize that all patents aren't all created equally.
Yes: actual people from the actual patent office are coming to my workplace to talk with me (among others) about patents and our thoughts on them. Now, my first instinct is to say "I think all patents suck and if you guys shut down we'd be better off" (note: my company has been under frivolous patent attack). However, I don't think that's the most effective way to go about it. I've been trying to think how I can have some positive effect without totally turning them off. Is there anything I could say in a couple hour meeting with patent office public relations that might have the tinyest positive effect on this mess?
I'm at a loss.
Can we start building the asylum yet? Or did Wonko already patent that one? -Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
Jefferson is often said to be in support of patents, but this is not the whole truth, or even close enough to call it partial truth. At first, Jefferson opposed patents and questioned their need. Then, while running the patent office, he saw how independent inventors were encourged by the laws protections and that it helped innovations. At the same time he warned that the amount of frivolous applications were "likely to cause more inconvenience than is countervailed by those really useful." While in charge of the office he kept very strict rules for patents, but when he left a much weaker set was adpoted. This weaker set was revised once, but not to the same level Jefferson used.
:inventions couldn't be an old invention built with a different material :inventions had to be useful :inventions had to be new; it couldn't be just another application of something that was already invented
Some of his strict guidelines (which I think we need):