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Sony UK Refused P2P Software Patent
blane.bramble writes "The Register reports that Sony cannot patent inventions in the UK that remove the anonymity of the peer-to-peer (P2P) user experience. Sony tried to patent a method of passing around user reviews of shared files, but the UK Patent Office rejected it, and then rejected it again on appeal. The article indicates the patents were rejected because the 'inventions' were not eligible for patenting. " From the article: "When a P2P user downloads a piece of content from another user's computer, be it a song or a game or a movie, he normally knows nothing about that user - or where that user obtained the content. Sony's proposal would change that experience. Sony describes a method for attaching a user history to content when it is shared among computers or other devices. When one user downloads a song, he can see who had it last and what he thought about it."
...first they invent CD malware to infect your PC, then they want to change the P2P system to identify file sharers.
Maybe we should all just give in and let Sony tell us what to watch, listen to, and buy as well?
FTA: "The patent application explains: "For example, the user, Clark Kent, may give a classic jazz music file a rating of '7' and include the user comment 'like cool man'. Also, instead of using his true identity ('Clark Kent'), Clark uses an alias, 'Superman.'" Clark may also choose to supply his email address."
Come on Sony, this is a flawed example, everyone knows that Clark Kent can hear everything with his super-hearing, and he doesn't need no stinkin' P2P applications!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
This is a neat idea. However, if the MPAA and RIAA got their filthy hands on it they could track p2p downloads. Considering Sony's history of DRM, I'm sceptical of their motives.
No, the EU doesn't care whether or not a computer program is 'novel' or 'non-obvious'- the EU just forbids software patents, algorithms, and most other mathematical constucts from being patented. For instance, if Andrew Wiles wanted to Patent Fermat's Last Theorem he couldn't- not because it's obvious (it took mathematicians 350+ years to solve), but because it's a mathematical proof.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
The UK is party to the European Patent convention which clearly says that software, organisational rules and business methods are not inventions, not patentable subject matters.
In the past ten years the European Patent Office tried to establish case law which perverted the EPC and created the EU software patent mess. As we see now, patentability advocats are on retreat thanks to the intense lobbying of software patent critics. And the courts follow.
The major task is now to gain ground and continue advocacy. What Sony proposes here is no INVENTION. So no surprise that it is not patentable.
What will be further crucial is the US getting real and abolishing software and business method patents.
It is not surprising that the court has rejected the patent. Most EU courts reject software patents or business method patents even though the EPO (European Patent Office) will grant them happily (contrary to the text and spirit of the patent convention). So that court did its job and rejected something that should never be patentable in Europe.
However, this could change in the future: the EPO is lobbying for establishing a "(European) Community Patent" process and for having a single European patent court, which would rule in case of patent disputes like this one. Given that the judges in that new court would probably come from the EPO, there is a high risk that they would grant the patent.
Time to support the FFII and the FSF Europe...
-Raphaël
Like, say, the comments feature in emule?
I would be suspicious of P2P from a media company. Especially one that gives the user more ... identity.
From TFA:
Then the RIAA could descend wrathfully on this supposed uber-pirate. Even if the guy used a psuedomym, like the article suggests, the system would probably have some sort of personally identifiable information on him that the RIAA could get the court to subpoena the information, or Sony could just give it to them.
I think the only way that I would consider this feature a good thing is if it had no "identity," which would only as useful as the comment metadata that you can already put on files you share in some systems. Either that, or if it was part of a system where you already had an identity, like that subscription thing Sony did with Playlouder that the article talkied about. This might be all that Sony was planning to do with this anyway.
Anyway, I would be hesitant to jump into this. I'm suspicious.
Also, I wouldn't want to have to deal with the implications of
This space reserved for administrative use.
Why was the first thing I thought "How are they gonna abuse it?"?
Instead of thinking that this might be a useful feature to actually discriminate between good and bad content, why was the first thing I was thinking about the question how Sony would use this feature to rip me off? The idea itself sounds quite interesting...
Riiiiiight! Defensive patent! If you patent it, nobody can implement it. Nobody could rate their fakes down into the basement when they try to poison the seeds of torrents and eMule.
gotcha!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"John Q. Public says: MUST SEE!!! h0t b3atch3s p7mp3d 1n 411 h0l3s!!!"
Since The Kid used the latest version of Jonny-Rev13wZ-it.EXE, each of your "reviews" will be unique of course. The time stamps of the reviews will be spoofed so that they are spread out over the last few years, starting with late night reviews, then adding in early morning reviews, then lunch hour reviews, then, finally, within the past few weeks, work-day reviews. Some of your reviews might even contain samples of phrases gleaned from your blog and other emails of yours floating around the internet, to add to the apparent authenticity. Then he anonymously reports you to the FBI, because undoubtedly some of those reviews are attached to material which would qualify you for special treatment in the Federal penitentiary where you will, most likely, live out your days. Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be acquitted by a jury with a high tolerance for techno-babble.
Meanwhile, you won't be able to get a date with any girl savvy enough to Google you.
Unless you must first submit a notarized copy of your "review" along with your X.509 certificate and two forms of valid government issued photo identification at the county courthouse, No, thanks.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
This is clearly a stealth attack on P2P. A wolf in sheep's clothing. By attaching a history to every file you've altered the file. That ends multi-homed downloads since every bit changed in a file changes it hash code and makes it not match any other version. As such, a file like this would only be able to be downloaded from one source, provided that they have the whole file, and stay on line long enough for you to receive it.
And just what evidence such a file on your machine might provide in court is equally dangerous. You would no longer be able to claim you ripped the file yourself, even if you were holding the CD in your hand, because their lawyer would point to its trail around the Internet in reaching you. Bad Move!!
Sony clearly does not have P2P user's interests at heart as they tout this as a must have feature for the future of P2P.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Most of the world follows a first to file policy rather than a first to invent, and even the United States is moving towards this. The primary justification for following a first to file policy is that there is a lot of difficulty in proving prior art, or more importantly proving LACK of prior art on unpatented inventions.
While it may seem unfair to inventors, going on a first to file policy is theoretically more fair and effective in the long run than a first to invent policy; If you think patent trolls and submarine patents are bad, imagine what someone (party A) could do by surreptiously inventing a tech, documenting the invention without releasing the information to the public, then waiting for someone (party B) else to invent the same tech, patent it and actually bring it to market. Party A could then retroactively coopt the patent and demand exorbitant fees from the Party B with a much stronger bargaining chip than they otherwise would have, as party B has already invested a lot of capital into manufacturing, advertising, supply chain, etc. With a first to file policy, there is a public record of the patent so party B would know in advance whether the tech is available or not, and therefore be able to know in advance what the costs involved with production (I.E. whether they will have to pay a liscensing fee on the tech.)
Although this brings up another odd conundrum with patents. They can be quite detrimental to innovation if the license holder does not bring the patented idea to market and does not actively shop out the patent to be licenced. Basically, if the tech is not in some product on the market, another party researching along the same lines would have very little way of knowing that what they are researching has been patented untill enough R&D has been done that they could independantly file a patent on the same idea. Without enough information to file their own patent, it would be difficult to search the available literature and listed patents to find if the idea has been patented yet, especially if the patent is written in an obfuscated (whether intentional or not) manner. If the tech has already been brought to market, it is likely that researchers in the field would be familiar with the competition and the workins of the competitors products and know at a much earlier stage whether the product they are developing is indeed innovative. If the patent holder is actively shopping the patent out, it is likely that the promotional materials presented would have a much more clear synopsis of what the patent actually covers than actually reading the patent itself.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman