Prior Art On Verizon Patents

greenbird sends in word that Techdirt has up information from Daniel Berninger documenting prior art in the Verizon patents being used to destroy Vonage. "...due to the fun way the patent system works, introducing that kind of prior art to the USPTO for it to review the validity of Verizon's VoIP patents will take quite a bit of time and effort — much longer than Vonage has to fight Verizon in court." From Berninger's note: "In particular, the claims in both patents were anticipated by open standards assembled by the VoIP Forum (H.323) in 1996 and published in January 1997 with the participation of members from Cisco Systems, Microsoft, IBM, Nortel, Intel, Motorola, Lucent, and VocalTec Communications, among others... The Eric Voit patent applications reflect, in particular, contributions made by VocalTec Communication to the VoIP Forum during 1996 and formally published at the same time as a separate document."

Comments

Fun way?

[E IS mC(Square)]

"due to the fun way the patent system works, introducing that kind of prior art to the USPTO for it to review the validity of Verizon's VoIP patents will take quite a bit of time and effort."

Oh okay. And I thought one of the basic ideas behind creating a dedicated body to examine and grant patents was to create a way to examine all important aspects. Clearly, prior art is not one of them - even if "the concepts in those patents were clearly discussed and published by others prior to the patent being filed. Berninger says that the ideas were discussed at the VoIP forum meeting in 1996 and published in January of 1997. The patents in question were filed after that."

Re:Fun way?

[suresk]

Actually, the USPTO has given up on even pretending to examine the patents. Applicants can now use a Fast Track process which entails them researching and disclosing prior art on their own.

Re:Fun way?

[schon]

Clearly, prior art is not one of them - even if "the concepts in those patents were clearly discussed and published by others prior to the patent being filed" Come on, while VoIP concepts may have been discussed, it's quite clear that nobody would have thought of implementing them on the internet.

Re:Fun way?

[thejynxed]

That's because they are seriously understaffed. They have NUMEROUS job offerings available for patent examiners, and the salaries are nothing to scoff at either. The lowest I saw was $75,000 USD. Instead of everyone complaining, why don't more people apply :)

Re:Fun way?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they require PhD's.

Re:Fun way?

[NormalVisual]

The USPTO's examiner positions start at the GS-5 pay grade, which can run anywhere from $38,435 - $49,964, depending on time in service. The highest grade you're likely to achieve working there after many years is GS-13 (tops out at $113,151), unless you can weasel your way into a GM rate after 15 years or more.

For the qualifications they're demanding, those are ludicrous salaries, and some of the qualifications themselves just don't make sense.

Re:Fun way?

[Anonymous McCartneyf]

Okay, so applicants can now research and disclose prior art on their own.
Another post says that Verizon deliberately refused to look for prior art, apparently for plausible deniability. If they don't look, they can't say that they knew any existed.
I hope Verizon won't be using the FastTrack process if they keep their current guidelines for searching for prior art...

i use vonage

[Anonymous Coward]

...really hope they don't end up going down. I know it's hard to believe that i'm a slashdotter (albeit an AC) and i use the phone for a good hour, long distance, every night. their unlimited plan is just great for me (and the rest of the family)

Re:i use vonage

[ganjadude]

I also use Vonage, and I am NOT looking FWD to having to use Verizon service again. I use VZW and an VERY happy with VZW but VZ the parent company I do not want strictly cause of this move

Re:i use vonage

[Butisol]

I'm torn on this. On the one hand they provide a valuable service to millions of subscribers. On the other hand they made that AWFUL AWFUL FUCKING UNHOLY AWFUL woohoo commercial. I wish they could stay in business, but maybe have all of their senior execs and marketing department executed by skinning them and drowning them in saline solution.

Re:i use vonage

[bhtooefr]

Yeah, but in some areas, Verizon is the only POTS provider.

(That's when you go to cell phones, though.)

doing Vonage's job

[TheSHAD0W]

So why hasn't Vonage been able to dig up this information? They certainly had enough motivation. Is it too late to do any good?

Re:doing Vonage's job

[Lanboy]

Vonage had 30 minutes to reply in court, to a non-technical jury. Go rocket docket. Goodnight irene.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[Jerry Rivers]

Verizon will probably buy Vonage then double the prices.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[Frosty Piss]

If Vonage held the patents, they would be playing it just as hard-ball as Verizon.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[Danse]

If Vonage held the patents, they would be playing it just as hard-ball as Verizon.

Of course. But that's not the point. People want Vonage to win because the system is broken and in serious need of fixing. It's being abused in order to squash competition, which is bad for all of us.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[Danse]

It doesn't take 30 minutes to explain to any non-technical person the concept of "the date of this article is earlier than the date their patent was filed on".

No, but it would take a lot longer than that to convince them that the documents cover the patent claims in question, especially if Verizon is claiming otherwise.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[king-manic]

Of course. But that's not the point. People want Vonage to win because the system is broken and in serious need of fixing. It's being abused in order to squash competition, which is bad for all of us

I want vonage to lose because of their shady business practices. If Verizon was to somehow also lose It'd be perfect.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[chriscappuccio]

First, Dan Berninger, who produced the research, also helped to originally secure funding for Min-X back in the late 90s. That's what became Vonage. He's not just John Q. Public to Vonage. You would probably find that he's a significant stockholder or perhaps beholden to other significant stockholders. Second, you fail to acknowledge that Vonage successfully defended themselves on many other claims, probably with his assistance already.

And, besides, it's just hard work. Verizon's lawsuit named hundreds of claims across seven patents, by the time they got to court it was only 41 claims across 5 patents, and at the end of the case, Vonage lost on only 6 claims across 3 patents. So, Vonage has to try and get more legal stop-gap measures in place until every last patent can be laughed out. Frankly, the remaining patents read like 1980s Internet RFCs (things like like "name resolution") with the phrase "telephone" scattered throughout.

Hey, look on the bright side...At least this isn't a story about Microsoft launching some of their many thousands of patents at free software authors, integrators and distributors to disrupt them as Microsoft slowly becomes useless, obsolete and convulsing in the throes of death.

Ok. So, there's a really sad part to this as well. Every person out of the non-technical population that I've discussed the Verizon lawsuit has stated some variation of an accusation again Vonage for stealing. The simple fact that they were found guilty of "patent infringement" has convinced people that Vonage simply "stole" some "technology" from Verizon. Nobody in the general population that I've talked to has any understanding of how vague and general the patents are, how this type of activity is better known as a "corporate grunge match" and how the patents have no bearing on reality. They don't quite get it. Then I explain that every large tech corporation hires researchers and inventors and of course regular employees to file patents all year long on anything significant they can think of, just to sue a competitor in the future in a game that looks exactly like this, or to protect against a lawsuit from another competitor with similar infringement claims. They still don't seem to get it. Then I explain that this could mean that ALL independent internet phone providers could face a similar legal death match, resulting in the potential loss of flat-rate long-distance phone service. And then I get a really glazed over look, and I give up.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[greenbird]

The simple fact that they were found guilty of "patent infringement" has convinced people that Vonage simply "stole" some "technology" from Verizon. Nobody in the general population that I've talked to has any understanding of how vague and general the patents are, how this type of activity is better known as a "corporate grunge match" and how the patents have no bearing on reality.

Even worse, as I understand it Vonage is using off the shelf hardware that they bought from someone else.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[bzipitidoo]

I too would like to see both sides lose, the better to hasten the end of patents. I mean, sure, It's be better if no one has to die to convince people that something is dangerous, but I don't see that happening. Intellectual property law has made technology like the wild west, with businesses both upright and shady being gunned down every other week by small-time patent trolls, or by large, organized rivals, with undertakers loving every minute of it. The bigger gangs have made truces with each other, but not peace. The govt, far from stepping in to stop the slaughter, is tacitly egging them on out of a mistaken notion that this activity increases revenue. The govt is behaving like a gun dealer who sees shootings as good for business. Courts, like hospitals, cost everyone. The defendants and plaintiffs pay for lawyers but that's all. We pay for judges, juries, officers of the law, guards, facilities including jails, record keeping, notifications, etc. That Vonage, like RIM, can be threatened with death over this issue is ridiculous. If Vonage dies, we will have fewer options. Prices will go up, such choices as remain will not be as good. Everyone suffers. But if these are at last the corpses that get law makers to reconsider, then the deaths will be worth it. RIM's near death experience helped, though the results were more along the lines of law makers deciding that hollow core bullets are too destructive, but regular bullets are still okay when the law makers ought to be considering measures to stop the destructive fighting altogether.

Re:doing Vonage's job

[squiggleslash]

Then the outcome of this might actually work out for you. The most likely scenario right now is that Vonage will go under, followed by Verizon's patents being ruled invalid (which, presumably, will entail more lawsuits from Vonage's creditors.)

Everybody wins! Woo-woohoo!

Scamming the patent office

[terrymr]

Wasn't verizon required to disclose prior art with their patent application ?

Re:Scamming the patent office

[SeaFox]

Wasn't Verizon required to disclose prior art with their patent application ?

Why would a company submit information with their patent application showing they weren't the ones that came up with the idea to begin with? Wouldn't that negate the whole purpose of applying for a patent.

Re:Scamming the patent office

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Is it fraud if there was evidence they knew about the prior art but applied for the patent anyway?

Re:Scamming the patent office

[SeaFox]

The point being that if you're aware of prior art and don't intend to deceive anyone, why would you go to the trouble of doing the application to begin with? You already know you're not going to get your application. The expectation shouldn't be on the company trying to get the patent in their own name, that's just another version of the fox guarding the hen house.

Isn't the whole point of a patent examiner to search out this evidence to start with?

Re:Scamming the patent office

[brianosaurus]

I have an invention:

A method or device for extracting a Patent Examiner's head from his or her ass before reviewing Patent Applications.

To be fair, examiners surely have some specialized knowledge that I lack, just as I have knowledge in the field of software that they, chronically, seem to lack. Software patents are debatable, but there's no doubt that tech companies with deep pockets are totally scamming the PTO with crap like this.

If Vonage goes under trying to defend themselves against a patent that will ultimately be overturned, there is no justice.

Re:Scamming the patent office

[terrymr]

From wikipedia:

"In the United States, inventors and their patent agents or attorneys are required by law to submit any prior art they are aware of to the United States Patent and Trademark Office so that the patent examiner can take the prior art into account when examining the patent application."

Now is a telephone company going to claim that they had no knowledge of discussions within a standards setting body which was setting standards for making telephone calls over IP - the very subject of this patent ?

Re:Scamming the patent office

[NormalVisual]

Software patents are debatable, but there's no doubt that tech companies with deep pockets are totally scamming the PTO with crap like this.

They're not scamming the PTO - by its actions, the PTO is encouraging such dubious patents in the quest for ever-greater funding. The PTO is scamming *us*.

So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[joe_n_bloe]

The thing that people don't get about prior art and patents is that prior art is narrowly interpreted. A published discussion, even if broad and comprehensive, about voice over IP, is not necessarily likely to count against the issuance of a VoIP patent later on. In fact, the prior art may establish that the subject is actually of commercial interest.

Saying that a patent describes "just another way" to do some obvious thing, and is therefore trivial, is missing the point. It's exactly that "just another way" that a patent is intended to protect. Patents covering radical ideas are the exception, not the norm. If you have some obvious thing you need done, but you can't find "just another way" to do it that someone else hasn't already patented, and you don't have a license covering one of those other ways, you are S.O.L.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[Aardpig]

But if the "prior art" is not exactly prior art, but is a different way to implement the same functionality, then can't Vonage use this alternative approach to replace the Verizon IP that they are infringing?

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"A published discussion, even if broad and comprehensive, about voice over IP, is not necessarily likely to count against the issuance of a VoIP patent later on."

So help me out here because I'm confused. I work in a niche research area which involves concepts of considerable commercial value. Our small startup company, which has extremely limited funds and cannot afford to take out patents, protect ourselves by publishing key algorithms and concepts. None of the board, CTO, engineers or managers believe in or support the concept of software patents. They are a nuicance to us and potential threat. Legal advice to us has indicated that by publication we are establishing a significant and defensible body of prior art. In other words we publish as an insurance policy against being patent snookered. We do not see widespread publication as a threat or impedence because we are leaders in a very narrow field and have most of the expertise to stay well ahead of the curve.

Are you saying that by publishing rigorous and detailed scientific literature about research activities we are exposing ourselves to potential crooks from the United States who can legally take out patents on our published work and deny us a market in the US?

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[Elladan]

Basically, your question is:

"Is the US patent system absolutely bat-shit psychopathic lunatic insane?"

Yes.

"Could this be used to harm or destroy our business in unpredictable and random ways?"

Yes.

Any more questions?

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

But if the "prior art" is not exactly prior art, but is a different way to implement the same functionality, then can't Vonage use this alternative approach to replace the Verizon IP that they are infringing?

Unfortunately, Verizon patented the very fundamental underpinnings of doing VoIP at all. The patent claims are so broad they don't just cover particular ways of:
  - Using a server to advertise a route from a VoIP client to another user's POTS phone.
  - Using a server to advertise a route from a VoIP client to another user's VoIP client and a backup route to his POTS phone.
  - Using a server to advertise a route to a wireless handset with a VoIP client or POTS connection.
They patented DOING IT AT ALL.

The prior art is not another way of doing something equivalent. It is a particular way of "doing it". So it infringes on the patent claims.

It also invalidates them. But getting that into "judicial notice" before Vonage dies is another can of worms.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[Coryoth]

Saying that a patent describes "just another way" to do some obvious thing, and is therefore trivial, is missing the point. It's exactly that "just another way" that a patent is intended to protect. Patents covering radical ideas are the exception, not the norm. And this is one of the weaknesses of the current patent system: it encourages "remixing" and "reheating" ideas rather than significant innovation. Pharma are great at this -- there are a lot of new drug patents, but often it is for minor improvements or obvious additions to existing medicines. The point being that, by making a small change or minor improvement, the company can claim a patent and block generic versions, and extend the profitability of largely tried and tested drugs. In 2006 less than a quarter of all drug patents were for truly novel drugs involving "new molecular entities"; the vast majority were modifications of existing drugs. This, of course, makes perfect sense. Why expend R&D money on risky ventures when you can invest it in making minor changes, get a new patent, and reap the cash from drugs you already know will work and sell well. As long the current patent system rewards minor remixing of ideas as much as truly novel ones the result will be a lack of significant innovation.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[tbo]

Perhaps people think someone should take this fight to the Supreme Court and get some sense back into interpretation of patent law.

It's not the Supreme Court's job to fix stupid laws, only unconstitutional ones. Patent law is actually pretty clearly within the constitutional domain of Congress. It's up to Congress to fix the law, not the courts.

Think about it--do you really want the least representative branch of government in charge of making laws AND ruling on their validity? There's a balance of power for a reason...

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[LongestPrefix]

You're right -- it's a particular way of doing it. But the Verizon way of doing it certainly isn't the only way to do VoIP. For example, if you study the judge's "Claim Construction" (cached here, and available through the U.S. District Court "PACER" system), it's clear that the IP address of the called user's VoIP device must be returned to the calling party. But in many VoIP systems, that IP is not returned to the calling device.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[TechnicalFool]

So, Verizon has everyone from Vonage through Skype and Buddyphone to Teamspeak by the short and curlies? There must be a limit somewhere.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[NoOneInParticular]

As Elladan is saying in a sibling post: the USPTO is batshit insane. Though actually they aren't. The USPTO forms a racketeering scheme: the only way you can keep out of their claws is by paying them off, i.e., applying for patents yourself. This will only give you very limited protection, but that's all you're going to get. The USPTO has 'customers', like Verizon, which pay them money to rubberstamp their patents. The fallout, like killing companies such as Vonage, is for the economy to swallow. It'll destroy the US economy at some point in time, and all we can do is point and giggle.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[greenbird]

It's not the Supreme Court's job to fix stupid laws, only unconstitutional ones. Patent law is actually pretty clearly within the constitutional domain of Congress. It's up to Congress to fix the law, not the courts.

Now wait a minute. It was the the court system that expand the scope of patents to cover ridiculous things like business processes and software but it's not up to the court system to control what in created. The expansion of the scope of patents is allowing patents on tax deductions for gods sake. And software is mathematics. There was plenty of precedent prior to the expansion of scope that math formulas were not patentable.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[tbo]

It was the the court system that expand the scope of patents to cover ridiculous things like business processes and software but it's not up to the court system to control what in created.

Are you saying it was the courts (and not the USPTO) that decided to extend patent coverage to business process, etc.? AFAIK, that's not the case. The courts may have upheld a USPTO decision, but it was almost certainly the USPTO's call in the first place.

And software is mathematics.

Software is no more mathematics than your car's engine is. Hunk of metal + detailed design = car engine. Hunk of silicon + lots of code = computer implementation of an algorithm. Equations are math, but algorithms are processes for manipulating data, and that's an important distinction. There may be multiple algorithms for solving the same equation, with some more efficient than others. You can't patent the solution, only the process by which you arrive at it.

It's very true that the USPTO has let the bar of obviousness get way too low, but that doesn't mean the basic idea is mistaken.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[Targon]

The problem is that in the USA, many lawsuits are allowed to go forward, even when there is a clear case of prior art. So, even if you have evidence of prior art, the judges may not bother to read the evidence that should have the patent(owned by someone else) invalidated. You have a good system that SHOULD work, but things here in the USA are very broken.

The sad thing is that a good percentage of the people in the USA have little to no faith in the justice system here. I would say it is upwards of 25 percent at this point, possibly as high as 35 to 40 percent. The image of judges who are asleep while supposedly hearing evidence is planted firmly in our mind. Or "old men and women who have no clue about technology" judging a case that is all about technology. This may not be true all the time, but it is too common here.

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[greenbird]

Are you saying it was the courts (and not the USPTO) that decided to extend patent coverage to business process, etc.? AFAIK, that's not the case. The courts may have upheld a USPTO decision, but it was almost certainly the USPTO's call in the first place.

Good point. I was thinking more along the lines that the Patent office change what could be patented pretty much arbitrarily without any changes by the legislator and the courts have so far supported these changes.

Software is no more mathematics than your car's engine is.

No software is math pure and simple. A processor does math with numbers, moves them around to different places and transmits the numbers to peripheral devices. It does nothing more so it can be nothing but math. A program just tells it what math to perform and which numbers go where. Higher level languages simply change the symbolic representation of the math to present it in a more human understandable format. There's nothing in a car engine that does math that makes stuff blow up so it can run (Hmmm...there's a processor now but it just replaces what use to be mechanical controls and certainly isn't essential to the primary function).

Re:So, the deal with patents and prior art ...

[tbo]

No software is math pure and simple. A processor does math with numbers, moves them around to different places and transmits the numbers to peripheral devices. It does nothing more so it can be nothing but math.

Algorithms are different than pure math, hence the distinction between math and computer science. Also, information is physical. You can even use information to do work and compress a gas, just like you can use gasoline exploding in a car engine to do work. Your processor manipulates real, actual information, so there's more involved than just an equation in the abstract. I say this as a physicist who does research in the field of quantum information--the line between information and the physical world is not clearcut.

Suppose we approach it from another perspective--quantum teleportation (yes, this is for real, although it's at a very primitive stage and probably always will be). Using quantum teleportation, you can (in principle) take a pile of unordered particles, mix in some quantum information and some classical information, and get a car engine. The car engine in action can be described entirely mathematically as a unitary operator *.

Of course, we're both really just trying to split hairs, albeit in different ways. The USPTO has taken the view that computer programs are not math in the abstract, but, when combined with a processor capable of executing the program, are for legal purposes a machine that takes an input and spits out an output. This is not an unreasonable thing to .

* assuming the car engine is a closed system.

no

[Lanboy]

The submitters of these patents are midlevel tech specialists. They get a 1000 dollar bonus per patent, they have no tools or desire to look for prior art.

Re:no

[|Cozmo|]

Not only that but at least where I work we're not allowed to look for prior art. The lawyers won't let us due to liability for double damages should it be discovered in the future that we're infringing on someone else's patent and it was possible that we knew about it.

Re:no

[NormalVisual]

The lawyers won't let us due to liability for double damages should it be discovered in the future that we're infringing on someone else's patent and it was possible that we knew about it.

And the lawyers don't get hammered for recommending such a willful disregard of due diligence? There's part of the problem right there. It sounds to me like they're effectively advocating fraud against the federal government.

Re:no

[|Cozmo|]

They're the ones that do the research. These are patent lawyers that know what they're doing, but OTOH that probably means it includes a bit of what you're talking about since making these patents go through is very important to them.

Re:no

[NormalVisual]

They're the ones that do the research

That makes a bit more sense of their recommendation, but I'm not betting money that a lawyer is going to be able to do a better job than an engineer when looking for prior art that has to do with the engineer's field of competence, unless he's just limiting himself to previously granted patents.

The excuse...

[EmbeddedJanitor]

We're all human and even patent examiners make mistakes!

Well I don't buy it! I think the USPTO is broken in a few ways.

First off, the examiners are likely working to some sort of quota: Gotta process 10 claims a week or whatever. They can spend a reasonable amount of time investigating the application, or they can process it quickly. If they find some prior art, they send it back to the applicant who will send in a more supporting paperwork resulting in more work for the examiner to clear the patent application. The shortest route to clearing the patent is to just grant it. Come Friday and you're a few behind for the week, well they get slipped through double-quick.

Secondly Uncle Sam makes a bundle out of the USPTO. Each examiner can crank out a few grand's worth of work a day. Make it harder to get patents and less people will apply (and the processing costs would increase). It is easier to just make patents as easy to get as one of those credit card college degrees.

Thirdly, the USPTO is not held accountable to any quality measures. USPTO does not wear the costs of bad patents. Heads don't roll if patents get overturned. The lawyers love it. All the patent applications bring in money. Bad patents == more work. Nobody is motivated to improve patent quality.

Basically everything is stacked to delivering poor patents. I have a few patents, more than half of which I think are crap. I recently searched one of my patents and was suprised to see that other patents were granted for the same idea, even though the application quoted my patent. This really sucks. A patent is supposed to be property, but here the USPTO have clearly sold the same property many times over.

Is there a solution to this all? Perhaps. Firstly, patent quality needs to improve. That can only happen if the USPTO is help accountable. For example, if they grant a patent that is later overturned, then the USPTO could be held accountable for costs and losses incurred.

Re:The excuse...

[shofutex]

I met a couple of people who worked at the USPTO. They claimed they work on a quota system and all they had to do was a few quick Google searches and then grant the patent. As long as they met their quota they seemed to be able to be bums the rest of the week...

Granted, these particular folks would probably be bums at any job...

Re:The excuse...

[dwandy]

That can only happen if the USPTO is help accountable

While I am no opponent of accountability this is suing yourself.

The USTPO is *you*. They are supposed to represent the commons: To ensure that the patent system delivers the balance between commercial interests and The Public Good (tm).

Holding them accountable is ... errrm... how exactly can you hold them accountable?
Firing individuals makes it harder (more $$$) to attract new-hires -- so a more costly IP system with high turn-over and low knowledge transfer whch equates the a lower quality system
Suing the USTPO is suing yourself -- the guv *is* your money afterall -- while an individual *might* "win" at suing the guv, the public and the economy *always* loses, so while lawyers win at this, you will (like the lottery) lose on averages

I have a few patents, more than half of which I think are crap.

revoke them or at least assign them to some commons... Please! else you are a patent troll... and it sounds like you are interested in patent reform, not patent profiteering.

Firstly, patent quality needs to improve.

Never happen. It is an actual impossibility over time. I'll discuss if someone is interested in my hypothesis, but it's more than 2 sentences...

Re:The excuse...

[Simon80]

Suing the USTPO is suing yourself -- the guv *is* your money afterall -- while an individual *might* "win" at suing the guv, the public and the economy *always* loses, so while lawyers win at this, you will (like the lottery) lose on averages

This isn't a valid argument - right now the public is bleeding money to lawyers, because of lawsuits over patents. If the patent office were made liable to pay for these damaging costs whenever they are the result of its own mistakes, then it would have an incentive to limit the amount of mistakes it makes.

Re:The excuse...

[Nullav]

They claimed they work on a quota system and all they had to do was a few quick Google searches and then grant the patent.

Well I know where I want to work now.

Re:The excuse...

[Anonymous Coward]

The USTPO is *you*.

The USTPO was the Man of the Year. He's been very busy lately, give him a break.

Re:The excuse...

[Lonewolf666]

The USTPO is *you*. They are supposed to represent the commons: To ensure that the patent system delivers the balance between commercial interests and The Public Good (tm).

What balance?
The patent system is supposed to promote The Public Good (tm) by encouraging innovation. It is not supposed to be a favour for "commercial interests". If it fails that purpose (and cannot be fixed as you suggest), patents should be abolished.

Holding them accountable is ... errrm... how exactly can you hold them accountable?

On an organizational level, making the USPTO pay for bad patents means the management cannot show good financial results if lots of patents get overturned in court. This does not immediately save taxpayer money, but if it causes a change towards better patent quality a lot of the current trouble would go away.
On an individual level, the examiner who issued a crap patent could have it counted against his quota in some way.
I think these measures are worth a try, if they fail see above ;-)

Re:The excuse...

[walt-sjc]

The solution is to eliminate "software" and "business process" patents. There is no reasonable way that patent examiners can possibly identify all possible prior art and identify cases where something is "obvious to someone in the field."
To be very honest, when faced with a problem there is very little that wouldn't be "obvious" to a competent developer. Additionally, software has specialties much like medicine, and the USPTO can't reasonably have people on staff or pay enough consultants to do the research on it. Remember - an individual can get a patent for as little as $100. Even the corporate filing fees are not NEARLY enough to do due diligence on an application. We need to realize that it's not possible and that these patents are not reasonable to grant at all.

Let's get back to patents on real physical stuff again, where real innovation still exists. I don't like the mathematical algorithm patents either. Again, we have about 5 billion people in the world - anything one person can think up has got to be pretty obvious to a few hundred thousand at least if faced with solving the same problem.

Re:The excuse...

[Bastard of Subhumani]

The patent system is supposed to promote The Public Good (tm) by encouraging innovation. It is not supposed to be a favour for "commercial interests".

GP never said it should. The excerpt you quoted contained the word "balance" which to me implies being neither for nor against.

Maybe you should try to understand (or at least read) what you're replying to before posting your "OMG noes!!! k0rporationz are teh B4D!" rants (which will doubtless get modded up). Seems your tinfoil hat is either blocking your eyes or restricting the blood flow to your brain.

And explain me this - how are commercial interests in and of themselves against the public good? If a business invents or develops something good and sells it the customers are happy, the employees have jobs and the owners make a profit. Who loses in that scenario?

Re:The excuse...

[thebdj]

We're all human and even patent examiners make mistakes!
Well I don't buy it! I think the USPTO is broken in a few ways.

First, you'd better buy it. People make mistakes. The fact is it happens. Broken system or not. I do have to agree the system is pretty broken.

First off, the examiners are likely working to some sort of quota: Gotta process 10 claims a week or whatever. They can spend a reasonable amount of time investigating the application, or they can process it quickly. If they find some prior art, they send it back to the applicant who will send in a more supporting paperwork resulting in more work for the examiner to clear the patent application. The shortest route to clearing the patent is to just grant it. Come Friday and you're a few behind for the week, well they get slipped through double-quick.

First, they are on a quota system. It varies by grade-level and by what sort of material you are reviewing (referred to as an art). Usually the patents that require extensive research get it, because for each one that takes forever to do, there is usually one that takes no time at all. There are so many patents that come through that are rejected on their face value alone, this is really a non-issue.

Secondly Uncle Sam makes a bundle out of the USPTO. Each examiner can crank out a few grand's worth of work a day. Make it harder to get patents and less people will apply (and the processing costs would increase). It is easier to just make patents as easy to get as one of those credit card college degrees.

The problem with part of this is that increasing costs could push out small inventors, though they have a separate fee than people with company assignees. For the large corporations, there isn't much of a way to make patent cost prohibitive. The large companies are loaded with cash and the potential to be made from a patent is so large that these fees could be pretty astronomical. Receiving a patent is not as easy as it looks to everyone on the outside. You see these "bad" patents and instantly think, oh god, they will give you a patent for anything; however, for each bad patent there are those that have gone through the system for years, with various continuing applications filed, which never see the light of day. Some patents get so neutered by the system they are practically worthless by the time the USPTO is done with them.

Thirdly, the USPTO is not held accountable to any quality measures. USPTO does not wear the costs of bad patents. Heads don't roll if patents get overturned. The lawyers love it. All the patent applications bring in money. Bad patents == more work. Nobody is motivated to improve patent quality.

You know why? Because a patent might not get overturned for YEARS. Also, putting this short of extra pressure on your examiners defeats the purpose and actually would probably result in worse examinations in the long run. The real problem is the redistribution of money. Congress re-appropriates a large amount of the USPTO fees to other agencies, money that could hire more examiner, which in turn would give examiners more time to examine patents. The count-system (quote system) needs to be adjusted to also include providing counts for actions that currently do not provide counts, but that do require a large amount of time to prepare for.

Basically everything is stacked to delivering poor patents. I have a few patents, more than half of which I think are crap. I recently searched one of my patents and was suprised to see that other patents were granted for the same idea, even though the application quoted my patent. This really sucks. A patent is supposed to be property, but here the USPTO have clearly sold the same property many times over.

Are you sure your patents are the exact same as another one that has it quoted? Provide me an example, and I guarantee you I can tell you why the patent is different. Remember there are some patents that are alm

Re:The excuse...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly true. Many junior examiners are forced to reject (via prior art) every claim that comes their way. This depends on their boss, but I can vouch that this *is* the current practice being taught in the Patent Training Academy (newbie examiners).

Instead of having b.s. allowances, you'll see b.s. rejections (ridiculous prior art gets cited).

Re:The excuse...

[Lonewolf666]

To me, "balance" implies that the interests of the patent holders have a similar value as the public good, and the public has to accomodate them. This is completely wrong. Being granted a monopoly (which a patent does for a time) is a privilege, not a right. The "natural" thing to happen would be that once the invention is out, others can study and copy it.

Patent law was designed to give the inventor temporary protection from this form of competition, in the hope that it would make pursuing invention more worthwile and thus promote technical progress. But I think that is not something the inventor has a right to. It is something society grants in the expectation of getting a return.

And explain me this - how are commercial interests in and of themselves against the public good? If a business invents or develops something good and sells it the customers are happy, the employees have jobs and the owners make a profit. Who loses in that scenario?

In combination with patents:

1) Everyone who makes the same invention independently loses. Because they cannot make a profit from their investment, which they deserve as much as the other guy who just ran to the patent office a bit faster.

2) When 1) happens, the customers lose because lack of competition means higher prices.

Now both of these problems would be tolerable with a patent office that only grants patents for significant technical improvements. Which seems not to work anymore these days thanks to sloppy reviews and ridiculously low standards for patent applications. As a result, patents are becoming a tool for sabotaging the competition rather than protecting innovation.

And if you had bothered to read all of my post, you would have noticed that I propose trying to fix the patent system first before removing it altogether.
Seems your own tinfoil hat is either blocking your eyes or restricting the blood flow to your brain....

Re:The excuse...

[Anonymous Coward]

They claimed they work on a quota system and all they had to do was a few quick Google searches and then grant the patent. As long as they met their quota they seemed to be able to be bums the rest of the week...

That's not been my experience. Our company has had a very difficult time getting any claims by the patent examiners. The prior art which has been cited against us thus far (we're on our 7th patent or so) have not been particularly relevant, and we've easily overcome them. On the flip side, the examiners seem to reject before they accept, and that's a process that takes years to deal with, and is, of course, very expensive -- especially for a smaller company like us which is actively developing the products underlying our patents.

Re:The excuse...

[MrNiceguy_KS]

If you don't think that this is a dream job, just think of being able to use this excuse:

"This website is work related! I'm checking for prior art on this patent for delivery of pornographic media."

Re:The excuse...

[samkass]

1) Everyone who makes the same invention independently loses.

A lot of things seem pretty obvious once the idea is "out there" and people know what's possible. Proving independent invention is pretty hard.

Because they cannot make a profit from their investment, which they deserve as much as the other guy who just ran to the patent office a bit faster.

In the United States, it's not who files first, but who can show they invented first. Running faster makes no difference.

Now both of these problems would be tolerable with a patent office that only grants patents for significant technical improvements. Which seems not to work anymore these days thanks to sloppy reviews and ridiculously low standards for patent applications. As a result, patents are becoming a tool for sabotaging the competition rather than protecting innovation.

Theoretically, a patent is not viable if it's "obvious to one trained in the art". This is also extremely hard to prove, since a lot of things seem obvious in retrospect. One test that courts have used is that if a business has made substantial money selling a product based on the patent, then the patent is assumed to be innovative because otherwise someone else would have made that money.

Re:The excuse...

[NoOneInParticular]

I've been in science for a while, and it's startling to discover how many non obvious things are independently invented. Take for instance backpropagation for neural networks. This was independently invented by Rumelhart & Mc.Lelland, Werbos, Hinton, and some others. After years of reflection on this invention, consensus now is that it actually Newton who was first. Evolutionary computation was independently invented by people in the fifties, sixties, seventies until finally it gained mainstream traction in the eighties. I personally have discovered many things that I later discovered to be concurrently developed. I.e., it was unknown when I worked with it, only later papers came out on the exact subject I've been studying, coming up with the same solution I converged on. Next to this, I've been doing lots of commercial research, in which we didn't disclose, and found out later that although academia never published on it, people in other commercial enterprises developed essentially the same thing, simply because the problem was there. All this stuff was non obvious, there was no prior art, and many people came independently to the same conclusion. If any of this stuff was patented, many bright people would have been cut off from using their own innovations.

Many more examples exist, and it really questions the assumption on granting patents that the stuff patented would be undisclosed without such patents. As far as I can see, it's an arbitrary payoff to the first guy that bothers to patent things, and cuts off innovation in that area until the patent expires. Given that the fundamental assumption underlying patents is false in this day and age where a multitude of people are studying any part of science, the question should be asked if the patent system actually serves a purpose still.

Re:The excuse...

[Hognoxious]

Funny? If anything's insightful it's the parent.

software patents...

[3seas]

... since they are in essence acts of fraud and the patent office is supporting them....

Consider who you are dealing with.

The way to win the software patent game is to not play it, don't participate. Let it fall upon itself to flush out the reality of software not being patentable.

By fighting againts software patents via prior art, you are doing so in a supporting the existance of software patents.

The real fight is exposing and getting the general population to recognize that due the nature of software it is simply not patentable and any organization supporting software patents are commiting fraud against others.

Re:software patents...

[kcbrown]

The real fight is exposing and getting the general population to recognize that due the nature of software it is simply not patentable and any organization supporting software patents are commiting fraud against others.

But the elected officials don't listen to the general population, only to those who give them a big wad of cash or who put them up on TV. Haven't you guys figured that out by now?

The desires of the general population don't mean shit when the big corporations want something else, because any politician who goes up against big corporations will suddenly find himself losing the next election. The corporate-owned mass media will see to that.

The only way the patent situation is going to change is if big corporations suddenly find it to their advantage to have it changed. That's not the situation we face today, as the Verizon versus Vonage case so clearly illustrates.

Re:software patents...

[hxnwix]

The way to win the software patent game is to not play it, don't participate. Not according to common corporate wisdom, where they often serve as the only defense against the baseless, overly broad, conceptual patents held by competitors. To wit, Intel and AMD cross license their patent portfolios (perhaps with some exclusions). Can you think of any rivalry more unrestrained, underhanded and unrelenting? Can you imagine the slice & dice that would occur if only one of them dropped all of its patents on the floor as it took a flying leap towards a pie in the sky?

It would be nice if they would step up and admit that the situation is expensive, and, what's more, bullshit. But, that would be patently smart, and considering the Itanium and the p4, I think that's one patent they aren't sharing. ^G

Re:software patents...

[surprise_audit]

The real fight is exposing and getting the general population to recognize that due the nature of software it is simply not patentable and any organization supporting software patents are commiting fraud against others

Well, I think that fight is just about over, if Vonage is forced to close down operations. If that happens, the smart thing for Vonage to do would be to mail out letters to all their subscribers telling them they've been screwed over by the patent system. The smart thing for Verizon to do would be to quietly absorb all Vonage subscribers, without a rate hike or loss of functionality. I'm not holding my breath waiting for either of those, though.

Hopefully Vonage can get the prior art in front of a reasonable judge and persuade him/her that multiple VOIP competitors is a good thing.

Re:software patents...

[deblau]

The way to win the software patent game is to not play it, don't participate.

Good luck when you get sued for patent infringement. I seriously doubt the judge will buy your argument that we should all bury our heads in the sand.

Re:software patents...

[3seas]

Get a clue!

http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html

Software is NOT patentable.

Re:software patents...

[3seas]

The way it works is that each company interested takes their patent portfoilo and measures it height. the company with teh biggest stack gets paid by the others based upon the difference in height. The payment is protection money.

The consumers are not allowed to see this and are otherwise just the crowd that has no choice but to suffer it.

But the great consumer has the most power.... not to buy.

People are smart, society is stupid, or so that seems to be the problem.

but if you pile up the camels back enough it will break.

by not participating you don't help the fraud of software patents contiunue

Re:software patents...

[deblau]

I don't know about untested and/or unacknowledged scientific theories. I do know about the law, and under the law, software IS patentable.

Eolas v. Microsoft, 399 F.3d 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Page 24 of the PDF. I quote:

Without question, software code alone qualifies as an invention eligible for patenting under these categories, at least as processes. See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526 (Fed. Cir. 1994); AT&T Corp. v. Excel Communications, Inc., 172 F.3d 1352 (Fed. Cir. 1999); MPEP 2106.IV.B.1.a. (8th ed., rev. 2 2001).

The section of the MPEP cited has been moved in the latest edition to 2106.01, which is where the link points.

The Supreme Court hasn't directly said software alone is patentable, but they've explicitly said they're not ruling it out (until they get a case where they have to decide it to reach a conclusion). In other words, the Federal Circuit's law is correct (for now). Here's the quote from Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981):

Our earlier opinions lend support to our present conclusion that a claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become nonstatutory simply because it uses a mathematical formula, computer program, or digital computer. In Gottschalk v. Benson we noted: "It is said that the decision precludes a patent for any program servicing a computer. We do not so hold." 409 U.S., at 71. Similarly, in Parker v. Flook we stated that "a process is not unpatentable simply because it contains a law of nature or a mathematical algorithm." 437 U.S., at 590. It is now commonplace that an application of a law of nature or mathematical formula to a known structure or process may well be deserving of patent protection. See, e. g., Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kalo Inoculant Co., 333 U.S. 127 (1948); Eibel Process Co. v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45 (1923); Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U.S. 780 (1877); O'Reilly v. Morse, 15 How. 62 (1854); and Le Roy v. Tatham, 14 How. 156 (1853).

Until and unless Congress changes their mind or the Supreme Court says otherwise, software IS patentable.

It's more basic then this

[hcmtnbiker]

The article links to a wikia article on the subject, which provides a very nice summary of the arguments. My question is how is this stuff even patentable?

Patent 6,282,574 clearly states that no one except Verizon can legally translate an IP to a telephone number and vice versa. The rest of the patents are basically saying Verizon owns the only right to transmit other various phone communications over TCP/IP.

WTF? How can someone be awarded a patent for their idea for an application layer protocol that depends on something like TCP/IP to even opperate?

Re:It's more basic then this

[dgatwood]

Wow. So Verizon invented the mapping table. Whod'-a-thunk it?

Re:It's more basic then this

[Anonymous Coward]

Patent #1 - 6,282,574 - Method, server and telecommunications system for name translation on a conditional basis and/or to a telephone number

Upheld - claim 27 of the '574 patent.
26. A method comprising:

receiving a name translation request at a server coupled to a public packet data network;

translating a name included in the request into a destination telephone number associated with a name included in the request; and

transmitting a reply containing both the destination telephone number and a packet data network address of a telephone gateway coupled between the public packet data network and a telephone network through the public packet data network to a calling device.

27. A method as in claim 26, wherein the address is an Internet Protocol address.

Claim 26 is spurious because the phone companies had been doing network-based address translation over public packet networks for many years. This is how 800 number lookups worked, for example - the 800 number is mapped to an area code+local exchange number suitable for routing over the PSTN. The classic telecommunications packet networks used by the phone companies are different than the TCP/IP data networks we're familiar with - the links are synchronous and connections have to be set up and physically reserved in advance. But they're still packet-based.

As for Claim 27, that seems to be a good description of the Domain Name Service which existed for decades. Now, Verizon's lawyers may argue that it means something other than that. Tough, it's ambiguous because the terse way it was drafted ("A method as in claim 26, wherein...") can be interpreted in any number of different ways. They shouldn't be allowed to impose the most convenient interpretation for themselves many years after the fact.

Re:It's more basic then this

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Not quite.

Claim 26 is using a domain name server (or some other database server connected to the internet or some other PUBLIC net) to translate a name to a (POTS bridge server address, phone number) tuple.

It doesn't cover the old 800-number translation because that request went to a server that was connected to a phone-system internal net that wasn't accessible to the general public. This claim covers emulating the behavior using a publicly-accessible server.

(In other words they're patenting letting the general public use open standards - such as a domain name server hack - to create a cooperative replacement for a necessary internal component of their for-pay services.)

Claim 27 is ditto when the bridge server's address is an IP address.

Re:It's more basic then this

[Cocoshimmy]

It's perfectly legal to patent something that relies on one or more other patents to operate. In fact, you can create a patent for your invention but you still may be prohibited from producing said invention before you get licensing permissions from the other patent holders on which your invention is dependant on. For example, one could patent a mp3 player which runs on a powerpc chip. However, you can't produce and sell it until you get permission from Fraunhoff(for mp3) and IBM (powerPC). Similarly one could create a patent for VOIP which relies on TCP/IP (regardless of whether TCP/IP is patented or an open standard)

Anyways, I hope that the court seriously recognizes the new evidence being presented as prior art, throws the case out and awards Vonage reasonable lawyers fees and punitive damages.

Re:It's more basic then this

[syukton]

It seems like the best way to solve this problem is a middle step. If only verizon can translate an IP to a telephone number, Vonage should translate IPs to VonageNumbers which are then translated to IP numbers. Vonage can easily claim both steps as their own. Since the correlation is indirect, I think it would sidestep that claim of the patent. Another middle step would be converting the phone communications into generic encrypted data packets and adopting encrypted data transfer services as another branch of business. Then they aren't transmitting phone communications over TCP/IP, they're transmitting generic encrypted data packets over TCP/IP. It may be more involved than all this, but it seems like a viable-enough workaround.

Re:It's more basic then this

[syukton]

Actually, I just looked at the patent and it never even mention the words "encrypt" or "encryption" so it seems workable.

All Vonage has to do...

[rs79]

(IANAL)

I assume all Vonage has to do is say to the judge "We have found prior art. We'd like the injuctions extended until we can invalidate the Verizon patent. We can show you the prior art and we have an extremely good chance of winnnig".

What reasonable judge wouldn't go along with this line of thinking?

I just bought a router that has two phone ports for Vonage and I've been waiting to turn them on. As an aside I'm sorta freaked I can buy a router for $100 with a $50 rebate. I'm used to writing very big checks for routers.

But I guess that was in a different century.

Re:All Vonage has to do...

[stinerman]

What reasonable judge wouldn't go along with this line of thinking?

Now the hard part is finding a reasonable judge.

Re:All Vonage has to do...

[king-manic]

If the judge thought vonage had a strong chance of being right, then he wouldn't have granted Verizons motion to stop vonage from "infringing".

Re:All Vonage has to do...

[terrymr]

The judge in the blackberry case still imposed an injunction after the patent office invalidated the patents. Blackberry was forced to license invalid patents in order to stay in business.

Re:All Vonage has to do...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're completely correct. The parent article is incorrect. Patent litigation doesn't have to WAIT for the USPTO to evaluate prior art and then render the patent invalid; the major POINT of most patent litigation is to prove that there is applicable prior art (for the person attacking the validity of the patent).

The USPTO only issues the patent initially -- it's exactly like Congress passing a law. If Congress passes a law, and that law is unjust or unconstitutional, when someone challenges the law in court, it can be rendered null. That's called checks and balances. You don't have to wait for Congress to say "oh you're right, that's a bad law." That's the whole point of the court.

Similarly, if there exists prior art or the invention covered by a patent does not satisfy non-obviousness conditions during the course of patent litigation, the court can immediately find the patent without merit with respect to the case at hand. That doesn't mean the patent is invalid in all other cases (only the USPTO can actually retract the granting of a patent), but it DOES mean that you'll have a hell of a time enforcing that patent against any similar institutions.

However, most people have no clue how patent litigation really works anyway. The patent holder has a (moderately) narrowly-defined patent, and attempts to broaden the interpretation of that definition as much as possible. For example, I might argue that my definition of a "telephone" also covers a "wireless telephone". Meanwhile, the opposing party attempts to show how that narrowish definition is in conflict with prior art, or how their product or the source of the complaint doesn't actually conflict with the narrowish definition. For example, I might say that my phone is not a "telephone" or a "wireless telephone", but an "uncorded interpersonal communication device". Obviously the definitions are more technical and nuanced than that, but you get the point.

If this prior art DOES in fact apply to the case at hand, you can be sure that Vonage's lawyers have dug it up. Sad truth is that recent patent rulings favor patent holders anyway, establishing a precedent that encourages holders of frivolous or over-broad patents to sue and win. So big companies are just buying up patents and shooting off the litigation. No big surprises there, eh.

Re:All Vonage has to do...

[Rydia]

Mod parent up. The judge hearing a case absolutely has the right to declare a patent invalid as preempted by prior art. The article is idiotic grandstanding.

Bit of grandstanding at the end of the comment, too, but ah well. C'est la vie.

Re:All Vonage has to do...

[Cocoshimmy]

Perhaps at the time that is what the judge thought. However, things have obviously changed significantly since then. In light of this new evidence it would be highly irresponsible for a judge not to reconsider his position (or for a judge at the appeals hearing to reconsider the previous ruling).

Re:All Vonage has to do...

[NormalVisual]

Sad truth is that recent patent rulings favor patent holders anyway, establishing a precedent that encourages holders of frivolous or over-broad patents to sue and win. So big companies are just buying up patents and shooting off the litigation.

...which then brings up the question of why we continue to fund the USPTO when the patent arm of the agency is of such obviously questionable benefit. Might as well just have patents set up like copyrights/trademarks where you send your paperwork in, it's duly recorded somewhere, and you progress from there. We'd still have the same number of patent infringement suits, but we wouldn't be pissing away $2 billion of federal money each year for a bunch of engineers to rubber-stamp applications without researching them.

Re:All Vonage has to do...

[c]

> What reasonable judge wouldn't go along with this line of thinking?

IIRC, in the NTP vs RIM case, something like seven out of the eight patents being disputed were rejected after re-examination and, even though the last one was still under review, the judge still refused to postpone an injunction.

Now, I'm thinking that we're not talking about a "reasonable judge" there, but defendants don't get a multiple choice form when the show up at the court:

    Judge preferrence:

      (a) reasonable
      (b) techno-ignorant lunatic
      (c) sleeps during trial
      (d) I feel lucky

It's worth getting the patents re-examined, but after RIM vs NTP, no sane legal team would count on the PTO coming through on time.

c.

Re:Cisco Kid Was a Friend of Mine

[CowTipperGore]

Vonage is a big Cisco customer. Why didn't Cisco save their customer to pay them more money later by reporting they had prior art that invalidated Verizon's patent?

Maybe Verizon is a bigger Cisco customer than Vonage is.

Verizon is a huge Cisco customer, both using their equipment and reselling it.

what is it with stupid questions?

[plasmacutter]

Patent 6,282,574 clearly states that no one except Verizon can legally translate an IP to a telephone number and vice versa. The rest of the patents are basically saying Verizon owns the only right to transmit other various phone communications over TCP/IP.

WTF? How can someone be awarded a patent for their idea for an application layer protocol that depends on something like TCP/IP to even opperate?

you apparently want me to spell it out so i will..

c - o - r - r - u - p - t - i - o - n

There's only one thing left to say....

[8127972]

.... Boo hoo, hoo hoo hoo

A fine place for bums

[EmbeddedJanitor]

With zero accountability the USPTO basically encourages bums and benefits from having slack employees. It can't improve without getting some quality metric in.

Sure these folk would have been bums anywhere else, but then they'd probably have been fired too!

A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[tlambert]

A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

http://usptocareers.gov/jobsearch.asp

Key requirements (redux):

- US Citizenship
- Ability to travel
- BA or BS from a community college accredited by ABET _or_ 2nd year coursework in 5 of 7 areas: physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology
- Registered as a professional engineer by a state, DC, Guam, or Puerto Rico
- Pass a written test for "Engineer In Training" or professional registration test
- 60 semester hours of courses in basic sciences/physics/math/engineering

So you've got to really want to be a patent examiner, be willing to live with a salary far below what you'd get in private industry with the same paper qualifications.

And then you get to do the scut work for a couple of years.

If you want to have your pay grade go up, you need time in grade and even more qualifications.

So it's pretty much the same deal that entry level teachers get, only you don't get the summer off.

-- Terry

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[dodobh]

Remove the US citizenship requirement, outsource it globally, preferably to two or three countries.

Or just pay people well, but that's a lot tougher in government.

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[innerweb]

So you've got to really want to be a patent examiner, be willing to live with a salary far below what you'd get in private industry with the same paper qualifications.

... or you may be stuck with the degrees, no job in your career or choice, lost taste ion career of choise, or maybe the benefits are very attractive. Who knows? I work with people who make less than $20k per year, and a few like it, but most are stuck. Ever think about the person preparing your food in the average restaurant. It may make you loose your appetite. Ever wonder why hard programs have such a high wash out rate (and produce some of the brightest)? Or why when programs get watered down to make it attractive to enough people (lets say for less pay), the first thing to go is quality? There probably are those who really want to be a patent examiner. There are probably many more who are stuck in a job that is the best they can do at the moment, not a job that inspires them.

Of course, wanting to be a patent examiner before you start working there may not mesh with the realities of actually being a patent examiner in real life. From people I have chatted with, they do have quotas, and they do have minimal checking requirements. If I have understood correctly, the burden of the effort is on the submitter and anyone wishing to fight the claim. Maybe the part that is broken is the part that allows patents to be invalidated.

Just some rambling from me...

InnerWeb

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[backbyter]

Actually the link provided will show that the starting levels are:

Patent Examiner, GS-5/7/9 ($38,435/$47,610/$55,518)
or
Patent Examiner, GS-11 ($63,885)

Rates above are for starting salaries (Step 1 of 10 in each grade with step 10 being $11k-$19K higher than base)

You're not going to be staying at these beginning levels very long unless you're very slow.

As you gain proficiency (and pass qualification testing) you're looking at making up to $133,702 (GS-14, Step 10) without being in a supervisory position.

The above are BASE salaries. Now add in "bonuses" of up to 30% (IIRC) for exceeding your quotas. Miss your quotas and expect "counseling".

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[yada21]

You may as well get rid of patents as offsource them.

1) send application to india or china.
2) filter out good ones
3) reject, and file under own/brothers/uncle's name
4) profit!!!!! (for them)

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[thebdj]

A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start Actually, starting examiners are typically taken at GS-7, with a starting pay around $56,000. I should know, I was one before I left that nut house. You would have no way to pull people into the NoVA/Maryland/DC area with $38k, which would be like taking an engineering job in the midwest at about $25k. Trust me, the salaries are relatively comparitive to starting salaries for engineers coming out of college.

Key requirements (redux):

- US Citizenship
- Ability to travel
- BA or BS from a community college accredited by ABET _or_ 2nd year coursework in 5 of 7 areas: physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology
- Registered as a professional engineer by a state, DC, Guam, or Puerto Rico
- Pass a written test for "Engineer In Training" or professional registration test
- 60 semester hours of courses in basic sciences/physics/math/engineering I do not know which section you took this from, but for EE or CIS, the requirements are basically a degree. Nothing more to it. The minimal requirement at the USPTO in most areas is a BS in an appropriate area of study.

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[Skater]

Even $64K/year in Washington, DC (well, Alexandria, VA) is not much money. Sure you can live but don't think it's the "high life" - you certainly won't be buying a house or even a condo any time soon on that salary.

And getting to Step 10 is 18 years, I think - you can only increase one step per year for the first three steps, then one step every two years, then one step every three years. Sure you can usually go up in grade each year, but don't think patent examiners are making a lot of money.

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[Overzeetop]

Been a long time, but at one point, there were merit raises which could be made "out of step".

Also, you (use to) go up to the next-higher by 2 steps with each grade promotion.

Finally, there are locality adjustments (ddidn't look to see if the pay mentioned included locality).

Oh, and the benes are pretty good - almost 10 weeks of leave per year once you hit 12 years in (2.6 weeks sick + 5.2 weeks vacation + 2.1 weeks holidays + usually 1/2 day xmas eve).

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[The_Rook]

and don't forget, in the federal civil service, you can take vacation time in hours. so if have a lot of vacation time, you can take a half day off every friday afternoon or skip monday mornings.

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[dodobh]

I was thinking Europe, actually. Those Europeans have more of a clue than the Indians (and I say this as an Indian).

Re:A patent examiner is GS-5 $38K job to start

[yada21]

With all their socialist welfare states, I don't see any savings in going to Europe.

Democracy?

[dwandy]

The desires of the general population don't mean shit when the big corporations want something else,

what happened to democracy?

This has actually been my point for quite some time now, that "one (wo)man, one vote" doesn't mean shjit anymore. "One million dollars, one policy" is more like what we're calling democracy today. While far from perfect, Canada has been trying hard to limit the impact of political contributions by (at least) limiting individual contributions. There's still lots of work to be done in this area, but high level corruption* is the fundamental flaw in a democracy.

* and some might mock place like Mexico for it's street level corruption, when America has corporate and political corruption...which impacts everyone: not just those that partake.

Take II

[rs79]

If Verizons patent holds I think I'd be using the worlds "anti trust" a lot. And loudly. Like, in caps even.

Too Late

[fozzmeister]

OK Bogus patents bring down a company, surely though if those patents are overturned due to prior art after going bust, those previous share holders can take Verizon to court for massive damages?

Re:Too Late

[aminorex]

I think you'd have to show that the defense of the patent was not in good faith in order to claim damages. I bet VZ is shredding their SMTP server hard drives as we speak.

The judge, OTOH, is definitely impeachment material. Allowing the court system to be abused in order to destroy publically held companies is aggregious.

Re:Too Late

[aminorex]

I have since learned that VZ also filed other patents in the same time period which referenced the documents describing the prior art. I think it's a pretty slam-dunk case that VZ is in bad faith, and in an investor lawsuit, they should fork over about 2bn usd.

Re:Too Late

[rayk_sland]

Yes and the customers, too.

USPTO and prior art searches....

[N Monkey]

Oh okay. And I thought one of the basic ideas behind creating a dedicated body to examine and grant patents was to create a way to examine all important aspects. Clearly, prior art is not one of them - even if "the concepts in those patents were clearly discussed and published by others prior to the patent being filed. Berninger says that the ideas were discussed at the VoIP forum meeting in 1996 and published in January of 1997. The patents in question were filed after that."

IANAPL but I have written quite a few patents and had them filed at the USPTO, EPO, Japan, and Internationally.

In my experience, whenever the USPTO has done a prior art search, it appears they only looked at previous US patents. I've never received any references to international patents and certainly not scientific papers so I assume they don't bother searching those.[shrug]

This is in stark contrast to the EPO etc, who will fire all sorts of references back at you (including those from smaller scientific journals) and make you explain why your invention is, or more usually the just the claims are, novel.

Re:USPTO and prior art searches....

[msuarezalvarez]

What do you mean by `file a patent internationally'?

Re:USPTO and prior art searches....

[N Monkey]

To file it with the WPO. What this technically does, OTOH, I don't actually know.

Fine invalid patents...

[mutube]

Maybe the part that is broken is the part that allows patents to be invalidated without cost.

(My addition in bold)

Charging fines for patents invalid at time of submission would cut perhaps be enough to make companies stop and think. But how to do this without hurting smaller inventors who do not have the resources to check thoroughly?

USPO should pay BOUNTY

[ScrewTivo]

Fixing a screw up should be more important than screwing up more. If businesses are being squashed because of "system failure" than the USPO should fix it fast. There could be a bounty paid to citizens that expose an invalid patent. The USPO would get much needed help reviewing patent applications and the bounty should be paid by the patent submitter. That would cause many bogus patent seekers to rethink their shoddy work.

Re:USPO should pay BOUNTY

[__aayurq3262]

"...due to the fun way the patent system works, introducing that kind of prior art to the USPTO for it to review the validity of Verizon's VoIP patents will take quite a bit of time and effort -- much longer than Vonage has to fight Verizon in court." Vonage doesn't need to bring its prior art to the US Patent Office and wait for a decision. They will just bring it directly to the judge/jury who have the power to determine that the VoIP patents are all invalid. Claiming that patents are invalid is a standard defense in any litigation. If Verizon's patents are found to be invalid in this case, then Verizon can never sue on them again. If Verizon's patents are found to be valid, anyone who is ever sued later can still claim they are invalid and bring up more prior art. Anyone who is not sued can also try to have the patents declared invalid by having them reexamined at the Patent Office.

Re:USPO should pay BOUNTY

[greenbird]

Vonage doesn't need to bring its prior art to the US Patent Office and wait for a decision. They will just bring it directly to the judge/jury who have the power to determine that the VoIP patents are all invalid. Claiming that patents are invalid is a standard defense in any litigation. If Verizon's patents are found to be invalid in this case, then Verizon can never sue on them again.

You're missing a key point here. If an injunction is issued on the supposed infringing companies they no longer have any money to fight in court for the year or more it will take to defeat the patents. So Verizon wins by default.

Not so much...

[Lanboy]

They have SOME cisco to be sure. They went with Juniper for a lot of the core, they replaced the ATA186s with motorollas and the linksys deals arent a huge moneymaker for the linksys arm. They use Juniper firewalls, and certainly don't use cisco VOIP call gateways.

Verizon on the other hand, thru its FIOS and its many mergers is a freaking huge customer and there is more money on the table for Verizon in a year than Vonage for a decade.

The reason Cisco shouldn't be giving Verizon high fives all around is the fact that these same patents cover Cisco's entire VOIP line of business. Im sure Verizon has no real expectation of them holding up that long, just long enough for vonage to go under.

Of course an aquisition by a competitor with deep pockets (Sprint) might teach Verizon a costly lesson.

So there is hope

[kilodelta]

The judge in the case could vacate the judgment, or an appeals court could do the same base on prior art.

Then Vonage could make their case about prior art to the USPTO and hopefully nullify the Verizon patents.

It'll be expensive but then Vonage should turn around and file suit against Verizon for the harrasment. Oh, and don't for a moment think Verizon isn't engaging in anti-competitive behavior here, they are.

Vonage needs to be able to countersue.

[AugstWest]

The process of proving prior art to the patent office will take far longer than Vonage can last.

Verizon is using this time sink to shut down competition, despite knowing their patents are bogus.

Basically, once the patent is proven worthless, what is left of Vonage needs to be able to sue Verizon for harassment, etc (iaobviouslynal) for abusing the patent system to cause predatorial harm.

There must be some evidence in the form of emails or memos within Verizon that prove they know this.

Too Broad

[AmigaHeretic]

It seems to me the patent is just too broad.

Like they are trying to patent getting from one house to another house by means of a "road" and a "wheeled vehicle".

There by saying anything, whether you pushed yourself down the street in a childs little red wagon to you creating a BRAND NEW hydrogen fuel cell vehicle just TODAY that NO one has ever thought of OR seen before, that this is "their" patent and they own these things because it's a "vehicle" that "travels" on a road. BS.

Unless, Vonage "stole" code from Verizon to accomplish this miraculous feat of getting voice from the internet to a phone then this whole thing is crap. It's just too broad to patent.

Re:Too Broad

[gdrumm0356]

I agree.
Another thought, ARPA sponsored the net, and by rights owns TCP/IP.
Why doesn't the Gov patent it, and support the US Gov on
royalties from the M$/Sun/IBM's of the world?

OK COWARD!!! Re:software patents...

[3seas]

http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/theme_a/ mod02/www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/index.shtml

real motive behind 9/11

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2704stock market.html

what kind of games would such a coward as you play?

BTW I'm Not Stallman... Re:software patents...

[3seas]

If I were Stallman I wouldn't say software will only be free when it is easy enough to create that anyone can and will upon need or inspiration, create the software they need or are inspired to create..

No different than how anyone who needs to calculate something can use a calculator today. Unlike the time of Roman Numeral where only elite accountant could handle the then large stock and coin of trade.

Re:See it as a chance

[gnew18]

Vonage is not , unfortunately, a Major company. They only have 1700 employees and only 2.2 million customers. I heard they announced plans to declare bankruptcy today 17 April (Maybe a rumor). Can anyone say Preston Tucker? I am / was a vonage customer. I liked the service. Verizon has its own VoIP company called VoiceWing . They will happily take over Vonage's customers. While we complain, no one seems to be able to launch an internet campaign to shame Verizon into stopping this crap.

Been there, done that!

[gdrumm0356]

We installed VoIP in late 97, or early 98 at USSTRATCOM, Offutt AFB, Bellevue,NE.
Worked fine if a little shaky, of course we only had software AD/DA at the time,
VS a box with the same software in it...