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Test for "Obvious" Patents Questioned
bulled writes "News.com is running a story about a case coming before the US Supreme Court on testing new patents for 'obviousness'. The decision has potential to significantly impact the High Tech industry." From the article: "Several Silicon Valley heavyweights, including Intel and Cisco Systems, have submitted supporting briefs that urge the Supreme Court to revise an earlier ruling. That ruling, they claim, has helped make it easier to obtain patents on seemingly 'obvious' combinations of pre-existing inventions."
Most patents, especially for software, are obvious after the fact. Programmers look and say, man, that's so obvious!
But is it? Look at the battery problem mentioned in the article. Now we look and say duh, of course it makes sense to wrap batteries in a metal cylinder. But until that point no one had thought of doing it. The solution stared at them in the face, but no one ever sat down to think it through.
Same with a lot of software patents. Yes, when you look at them, they seem totally brainlessly obvious. But then why hadn't anyone thought of it until that point? Why did the idea not exist, or at the very least have a patent pending? Because until someone sat down and thought of how to best implement something, it simply hadn't been thought of seriously until then.
Ask anyone who has submitted a patent application whether they felt their patent was frivolous. I imagine you'd find the vast majority of them holding the belief that they did something novel.
1. Patent "obviousness" test algorithm
2. Collect royalties recursively from patent office
3. PROFIT!
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
At the end of the day the real test of whether something should be patentable or not should be related to the reason patents were instituted in the first place...to incent investment in R&D by rewarding that investment in innovation. The reward, in the form of artificial protection from competition for a limited time, is enough to ensure the investor(s) profit from the investment. Obvious or not, if a company or individual has invested significant time/money in a program aimed at solving a problem and come up with a new and unique (even if obvious by hindsight) solution they should be rewarded not for the idea, but for the investment, thus incenting investment in innovation.
The fundamental problem with the patent system today is that it has been warped over the years into something it was not intended to be. Remember, the patent system is not something that has to exist; it is something that we as a society agree to have in order to incent individuals and companies to perform activities that are of benefit to society.
There appear to be two basic uses for the patent system that unfortunately are sometimes at odds with each other.
[Aside: When I worked for a large s/w company we were encouraged to regularly trawl through our developed code for potentially patentable algorithms, this is clearly a case of (2) not (1)]
Surely the only useful purpose for a patent system is to incent companies to make investments that would otherwise not have been made. If a company got a clear benefit from an investment and would continue to benefit whether granted a patent or not then there is no point in society (i.e. the rest of us) granting them a patent! What they have is a trade secret that should be protected by other laws (copyright?); it should not be a patentable innovation. Other companies should have the right to make a similar investment to develop a similar solution (or license the technology from the original company if that is agreeable and makes more economic sense)
Today, if a company has a trade secret that they feel they could make money off they typically have to patent the trade secret (even if only defensively) and then license it. This behaviour (licensing developed solutions) should be incented but not using the same system as that which incents investment in innovation.
So here is my strawman proposal...
In most of the rest of the world, the required 'patent step' is significantly higher than in the US, where it seems to have been reduced to 'anything that at least some first-year students might not have thought about immediately'. :-(
About 10 years ago I was asked to do patent reviews on a group of 10 patents which company A would like to use to sue company B:
Of those valid US patents, 4 were really, really obvious, i.e. more or less the only reasonable way to solve a particular problem. AFAIK this means that the patent is automatically invalid, right?
The next group of 4 all consisted of taking a standard textbook algorith, without _any_ additional tweaks, and implement it as a VLSI chip.
The final 2 patents actually covered somewhat neat ideas.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Actually, that's never been the stated purpose of patents. The government is not supposed to be in the business of enriching individual people or corporations, and they are well aware of it. The rationale for patents, as for any regulation, is to attempt to optimize the entire system. In the case of patents, by encouraging innovation. That's the party line, and pretty much every party around the world toes it.
There's a bit of a problem with it though. There is actually little to no real evidence of patents being beneficial to the economical system. For any technological discipline. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence of it actually inhibiting progress in a number of areas, the most blatant case being software patents. Patents have become a tool for the large companies that are on top to stay on top, and not to have to actually compete on the merits of their products. The basic tenet in the belief of the beneficial nature of patents is the belief that progress moves along in giant leaps of imagination, or immensely costly research, that is so rare that it needs protecting. For the most part this is just not true. Progress is slow and gradual and constantly builds on existing solutions. Patents are not beneficial in such a system.
The most popular poster child argument for patent proponents is pharmaceutical companies. "If there were no patents, no drugs would be developed due to the great cost, and where would we be then?" they ask. This doesn't hold up under scrutiny though. Analysis of the higher cost of patent encumbered drugs and the research budget of drug companies will show you in no uncertain terms that the state could spend several times the amount of money that the pharmaceutical companies spend on research, and our society would still save money because the price gouging is so brutal on patent encumbered drugs. The state funding drug research itself would also bring with it the not inconsequential benefit of the ability to concentrate on beneficial drugs, rather than drugs that will make a profit.
There are actually few rational arguments for any sort of patents, and very substantial arguments against them. Overwhelming arguments in the case of software patents. However, the companies that profit the most from the oligopoly maintaining power of patents are among the most powerful legal entities, and lobbying groups, in the world. Just about everyone except for patent attorneys and mega-corporations with huge patent portfolios oppose software patents. In spite of this they almost got legalized in the EU, and the proponents of them are trying again from a different angle now. Frustrating to say the least.
With the current mess I would agree. However were the current tech market not so frankly corrupt, suing for a fast buck with frivolous patents there may be some merit to software patents.
I would think that such patents should be reserved for seriously massive innovations, not navigating a menu or button placement ffs. As an example had Gary Kildall patented some of his (at the time) massive innovations, he might have been able to get a truly fair due, instead of being ripped off and left in the wake of vast corporations taking his work and making billions.
We're all very familiar with his work now, but back then he was pretty much the only guy doing a lot of the work.
Software patents are here to stay, but they're screwed up royally.
I have a few issues with this reasoning:
If no patents existed, everything would become a "trade secret". Essentially, every factory would become a Willy Wonka factory, where no one knows how a product is created - it just pops out. Key technologies could be lost if a person dies or a factory burns down.
Second, maybe I'm too cynical, but I see zero evidence that a government body could do as good a job with drug development as the free market. There are many, many failed drug companies - they took a risk on a new technology and failed. Politicians would be under fire for "wasting" money if they went down this path, and so government drug development would proceed down the safest path, where the employees and politicians would be as concerned about covering their asses as anything else. Not to mention that government departments tend to be chronically underfunded, full of corruption and nepotism, and very slow to react.
I think that there needs to be an additional test for a patent: would it become a trade secret if it weren't disclosed in a patent? This would allow a novel manufacturing process to be patented (even the software controls!), but would prevent things like Amazon one-click. Presumably, Amazon would have done the one-click thing with or without a patent system... so why should they get the protection? How does society benefit? Many of these software patents are asinine because they are right out there in plain view, and there is ample incentive for the companies to do them without the patent system. Apple's "look and feel" is a prime example. Does anyone argue that Apple now spends less time on look and feel since Microsoft won that case?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.