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IBM Sues Amazon For Patent Infringement
Petersko writes "It appears Amazon is about to be sued for patent infringement by IBM". From the article: "Hundreds of other companies have licensed the same patents, and IBM has tried to negotiate licensing deals with Amazon "over a dozen times since 2002," Kelly said. Amazon.com, which has bought a lot of hardware from Hewlett-Packard Co. over the years but not IBM, has allegedly refused every time."
Dupe.
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
Turns out that Big Blue has a business method patent on abusing the patent system. Amazon should have seen that coming.
Our system has become based on the ridiculous premise that all inventors come up with ideas that nobody else could possibly have come up with.
.. regardless of how obvious your idea is .. you win a monopoly on it for 20 years (with possible infinite extension via mickey mouse legislators).
The patents system has devolved to be that if you are the first to file a piece of paper
Just because you are the first to invent something, doesn't mean society would have been deprived of your invention were it not for you. It just means you got there first (thanks to better resources available to you). It's like a winner of a race claiming that if it wasn't for him, nobody else would have crossed the finish line.
It should read:
Make lawyers a minimum wage job. All the lawsuits are costing the public a fortune and has placed the court system in perminate gridlock. We need to concentrate on crime not petty squabbling. Patents should be for significant inventions not every minor thing some one thinks up. Often times there's no thieft involved it's simply such an obvious idea that others are recovering the same ground and haven't a clue some suit ape patented the idea. Patents should help spur innovantion. If they don't they aren't in the publics interest. Patents are a creation for the publics interest and are not in the Constitution so when they work against the public they need to be revised. There is no inherent right to patents. I'm a big supporter of inventors rights but these aren't inventions they are similar to cybersquatting and need to removed from the patent process.
Just because you are the first to invent something, doesn't mean society would have been deprived of your invention were it not for you. It just means you got there first (thanks to better resources available to you).
The idea is to protect people who invest those resources into developing technology from people who just wait for the technology to be invented and then just selling it without any of the research costs involved.
What I do hate is that patents have turned from protecting a method of production to a concept of a product in all of its forms. That's a major difference, if I invent a new device I should have a realistic expectation that nobody else could use my design to make their own device. However, if someone goes "hey, I like what this thing does" and then invents their own way of doing that exact same thing, they should be able to. Hell, they can even learn from my mistakes and improve on the process. That's where patents facilitate innovation.
But I thought companies such as IBM only use their patent portfolios defensively, particularly concerning patents over trivial and/or obvious "inventions?" Isn't that what a number of users here have been claiming? I'm confused! ;)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
... have nothing better to do after SCO
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Ok, I understand the desire to hate bad patents and bad patent law, and I hate large corporations as much as the next guy---I made enough 'free' phone calls in my youth to prove that. But, seriously, the small guy needs patent law more than the big guy. I work creating ip as I am sure many of you do, and I have extensive experience working for startups including some without VC funding. The fact is that if I, as an individual or a very small business, come up with an idea, a patent may be my only line of protection. I don't have the money to develop it as fast as IBM or Microsoft or Google. I couldn't seek funding for an idea without ip law because the investors might just steal my idea. Patents and ip law are the ONLY protection I have from being completely screwed over.
When I was younger, I screamed 'information wants to be free' as loud as any of you. However, that was probably the dumbest idea ever to be voiced. Information is the most valuable asset in the world, and it always has been. People die for information all the time. The CIA, NSA, DIA, NRO, and all the other agencies we love to hate are solely about information. Wars are won and lost because of information. Societies succeed or disappear because of information. Information wants to cost you everything.
We may think the patent system is broken, but we do need a patent system, and we need a patent system that covers algorithms. An algorithm one of us invents is just as valuable as a widget some mechanical engineer invents.
I wanna be the first to patent the "one click lawsuit". ;)
I find it odd that your wife had to buy a textbook for her college class from Amazon, and was forced to cancel that class when they failed delivery. I don't know, maybe it's a novel expectation that a college bookstore would, you know, sell textbooks for the classes taught at that school. Or y'know, another bookstore.
By this description, it would seem that IBM is entitled to sue just about every online vendor on the web today.
For maximum patent lawsuit profits, I think they should hit the iTunes store next, then work their way down the list of all domains until the profit from the lawsuits drops to less than $10K per victim.
The potential for a cash grab is absolutely insane here, they could bankrupt just about every single online vendor on the web, though that might be counterproductive to their hardware sales, however if the lawsuit profits can be invested and grow at a rate greater than hardware sales profits, I guess that wouldn't matter and IBM could abandon hardware sales and simply manage investment funds started with lawsuit profits.
This is definitely the beginning of the end of online commerce.
This is off-topic because ideas on their own cannot be patented. Only implementations can be. In the special case where the implementation is the same as the idea (e.g. look and feel), those *should* be protected by copyright instead.
In your examples, idea for a UI, Napster, YouTube - they have their specific implementations and only those are patentable (I'm sure there are at least 50 ways of implementing user interface, napster, youtube, slashdot or digg).
If you think these ideas are somewhat original, then let me tell you that ideas are a dime a dozen. Don't worth anything at all unless it's elevated into something tangible, like an implementation.
Unless, of course, you may be confusing between an idea and an implementation. Sometimes the line is blurred but it certainly exists. Napster and YouTube - they have good business ideas. Slashdot and Digg - the idea is a "community system" (which, again is a dime a dozen), but Slashdot and Digg are implementing it differently.
As I sit there coding some piece of rather innocent software blissfully unaware of the world around me, i wonder how many patents im infringing with every line of code....
This is quite seriously scary stuff in my opinion and just goes to emphasize how we really shouldnt have software patents in the first place. Sadly, im a big fan of big blue and dislike amazon quite alot.
I wonder how many people, who code just "stumble" on the same idea. If you locked a coder in a black box and told him write a site that sells things online and make it "feature" rich, how many patents would he infringe?
The broad nature of the patents (or at least how they are described in the article) makes me pray to god IBM dont win this one.
Does IBM just want money? Do they want Amazon to buy their stuff? Could they be seeking cross licensing deals for Amazon's shit patents?
I'd be lovely if IBM descided that its time someone puts the U.S. patent office out of its missery, but I'm sure this isn't the case if they have been trying to negotiate licensing deals with Amazon. But it might still have that effect if Amazon is stupid.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
This just heavily underscores why the duration of patents needs to be drastically shortened, with no option for extension. Ten years or less would be sufficient.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I'm lost... which company is the good cop now and which one is bad cop? Oh that's right, companies don't care, they just want more money - I keep forgetting that quintessential fact about a company.
Why is it lately when I see a story about IBM suing a company, it feels like good news? Almost as if IBM is using its huge Patent portfolio to sue companies that have abused patents in the past (Like Amazon with its One Click). Maybe I've only felt that way since IBM started helping the OSS community more.
I like the idea of patents, but I loathe the way some companies abuse something that can be used to help the little man break into an industry by creating something truly innovative without having the big boys crush them. But now days, big companies like Microsoft are filing patents left and right and just seeing what sticks. It doesn't matter if they're invalid, MS will still file them and call it innovation.
What was I talking about again?
ideas on their own cannot be patented. Only implementations can be.
Unfortunately this is not true - and that's the whole problem. These days patents - especially software patents - seek to eliminate anybody from achieving the same goal as the patent holder. You don't patent the implementation of the telephone, the first claim in your application is on the idea of a two way voice communication device. Then you claim (2) "the device in claim 1 wherein the voice is transmitted by modulated electrical signal over a wire; (3) the device in claim 1 wherein the voice is transmitted by modulated electromagnetic waves; (4) the device in claim 3 wherein the electromagnetic waves are radio waves; (5) the device in claim 3 wherein the electromagnetic waves are microwaves; (6) the device in claim 3 wherein the electromagnetic waves are visible light; ..."
If you look at a patent they always start with a very generic claim describing the idea as a whole, and if you implement something that matches that idea, you infringe. The patents then go on to claim each detail of the implementation and each combination of sets of details in the implementation, the idea being that if the first claim is knocked out one of the others might be upheld. The full implementation normally comes right at the end of the list of claims.
Companies are going off and trying to patent every idea they can find, not in order to protect their own investment which is usually negligible and almost always entirely irrelevant to the first claim, but in order to shut down or extort money from anybody else who need to use the idea to get something done.
If anything, this is a perfect example of why Amazon must keep patents. Our patent system is so broke the only way to defend yourself from "evil" companies like SCO is to stock your own ammunition.
It's like nuclear proliferation, until every company in the world signs a treaty, you have to continue to stockpile patents. Amazon officials have said in numerous interviews, patents are taken whenever they can be granted under the current (broken) system to prevent someone else from patenting an idea and turning around and suing THEM.
Amazon is not playing the IP company (like SCO and others) that sits around and looks for people to sue, they sue when needed to protect their patents, which they taken whenever possible to protect themselves from being on the other end of the warhead. If we could just fix this broke system none of this would be needed. As long as the patent office will allow something like 1-Click to be patented, companies like IBM, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, eBay, and others must aggressively seek patents just to protect themselves.
Getting the 1 click patent was about protection, sure. Except it used it to stop a competitor, a competitor who wasn't threatening any patent lawsuits. I see this lawsuit against Amazon as a way to punish Amazon for their past behavior. I kinda like this lawsuit actually.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Specially software ones (you know, the patenting of ideas and concepts, that is speech).
In view of the last few days of sheer madness I find sad an discomforting that there are people out there still supporting what is clearly a rotten system.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How dare you forbid me to think for myself!
The problem with your reasoning is that it goes against the most basic grain of how human culture has developed.
The most fundamental freedom of any person (after covering the basic necesities) is the freedom to think.
If you come up with a method to solve a problem you should be fully entitled to get some kind of remuneration if your method is useful. But I don't see why if I come with my own method to solve the same problem I should have to pay you anything for it.
Notice here that I am talking about methods to do something. If that method describs a trinket then the trinket should be patentable, giving you protection for your efforts, ensuring other people can't look at your trinket and do their own to ssolve the same problem.
But what you are advocating is that by writing a program that adds 2 + 2 anybody should pay you money for the addition operator.
But not only that, there will be people claiming to have invented binary operators, then even others claiming they inveted operators, and then even others that will claim they invented mathematical symbolic languages and so on.
Software patents becomes a game of who can come with the most outrageous and broad claims and is prepared to support them with enough cash in a court of law.
The system is broken, anybody writing sofware is amply protected by copyright and should realize that at times he may "win" but in the long term we are all losing (all that money that goes to parasitic lawyers could be spent doing new, innovative products, then IT companies woue earn a living by actually doing useful things).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
'Cause a cache of a 404 page is really useful.