Microsoft's Internal Advice About Patents

BigPoppaT writes "Eric Brechner writes a best practices blog called Hard Code for Microsoft under the name I.M. Wright. His most recent post sounds like an endorsement of open source development (and does end with a call for Microsoft developers to participate in the shared source community). But even better is his advice regarding patents: 'When using existing libraries, services, tools, and methods from outside Microsoft, we must be respectful of licenses, copyrights, and patents. Generally, you want to carefully research licenses and copyrights (your contact in Legal and Corporate Affairs can help), and never search, view, or speculate about patents. I was confused by this guidance till I wrote and reviewed one of my own patents. The legal claims section--the only section that counts--was indecipherable by anyone but a patent attorney. Ignorance is bliss and strongly recommended when it comes to patents.' Interesting advice from inside Microsoft. I wonder if Ballmer would agree that ignorance should be 'strongly recommended when it comes to patents'?"

Comments

never search

[TheMeuge]

The reason you never want to search, is that you could find prior art. If you find prior art, filing for the patent would place you in an inextricable position. If the patent is approved, and you subsequently try to litigate to "protect" this new patent of yours, the records of your fact-checking can (and will) be subpoenaed, at which point you will not only lose the case, but will likely be subject to a counter-suit.

If you don't search, you've got a lot more room to maneuver in court.

Re:never search

[quanticle]

The other issue is that, if you're creating a new product, and you know that its covered by a patent, you're willfully infringing on the patent, and are vulnerable to additional liabilities. If you can prove that you didn't know about the patent when you created the product, then you're not going to be hit as hard if you're found infringing.

Re:never search

[seanadams.com]

As a developer, the reason you don't search for patents (unless directed to by your own lawyer) is that you can be liable for treble damages if you willfully infringe a patent. Also if it is shown that your knowledge of the patent somehow helped you in your R&D, it becomes much harder to construct certain kinds invalidity and non-infringement defenses.

Re:never search

[whoever57]

The reason you never want to search, is that you could find prior art

True, but you also might find a patent that an existing product might violate. That could put your company in the position of having to pay triple damages for willful infringement.

This aspect of patent law shows how broken the system is. The concept of a patent is publication in exchange for a limited monopoly. If no-one can actually read the patent (because of the willful infringement problem), then publication is really a myth.

Re:never search

[PatentMagus]

In more detail, if you search and find applicable prior art, then you have a duty to disclose it to the USPTO. Failure to do so is considered perpetrating a fraud on the USPTO. If anyone proves that you did not disclose, then your patent is invalidated because of the fraud.

So, what's applicable prior art? Anything an attorney can convince a judge/jury is. The only real defense is to ignore the literature and pursue a Kazinski-esque existence. On the other hand, finding evidence of the fraud can be tough. Many people regularly purge their browser cache and search history. Also, it takes someone who understands a bit about evidence and a bit about technology to spelunk for the evidence. Those folks tend to be expensive and rare.

Re:never search

[StormReaver]

"If you don't search, you've got a lot more room to maneuver in court."

More importantly: if you are sued for patent infringement, and it comes out that you did a patent search, you will likely be sued for triple damages. You MAY be able to survive a court loss for normal damages, but you're far less likely to be able to survive a court loss for triple damages.

Re:never search

[MozeeToby]

If you can prove that you didn't know about the patent when you created the product

Actually, you need to prove that you performed due dilligence to avoid a multiplication of damages. It isn't enough to pretend that patents don't exist; the courts aren't quite that stupid (yet).

Re:never search

[PoderOmega]

It is interesting how the whole "willfully" thing works. For OSHA violations you never want to say to the OSHA inspector "I told employee X not to run that cable there!" because that shows you knew abut it. If I recall correctly, a willingful violation is a minimum 10K fine. If you play ignorance the minimum is a $0 "warning" (but the maximum can go up to hundreds or thousands based on the severity of the violation).

Re:never search

[Anonymous Coward]

That could put your company in the position of having to pay triple damages for willful infringement.

I didn't know willful infringement was three times as bad!

Re:never search

[jay2003]

To expand on the treble damages issue: The reason to have your legal counsel search is what the legal counsel finds out is protected by attorney / client confidentiality. Development teams should not search for or discuss patents outside of privileged discussions with counsel.

Re:never search

[The Empiricist]

The other issue is that, if you're creating a new product, and you know that its covered by a patent, you're willfully infringing on the patent, and are vulnerable to additional liabilities. If you can prove that you didn't know about the patent when you created the product, then you're not going to be hit as hard if you're found infringing.

That is indeed a core reason why engineers are often discouraged from looking at patents. Another reason is that they have a tendency to document their thoughts with emails that say things like "I think we infringe this patent," even when they have not properly analyzed the claims of the patent or its validity (you really need a qualified lawyer for that kind of work).

On the other hand, it is really stupid advice perpetuated by lawyers with little to no training in risk management. If reading a patent trebles the potential damages, but reduces the probability of infringement to less than one-third of the original probability of infringement, then reading the patent is better than ignoring it.

Often times, the possibility that you might infringe a patent is pretty clear from a cursory reading (which is all you can handle when wading through hundreds of possibly relevant patents). In many cases, you can at least tell whether a patent might be related to the work you are doing. Those that are too far out-of-field can be ignored while those that look suspiciously familiar may require referral to a qualified lawyer.

True, one of those out-of-field patents may come back to bite you because of broad claims. But, if they are not clearly related on their face and the most relevant patents were reviewed in more depth, then you have a pretty solid defense against claims of willful infringement. If, in the process of reviewing all those patents, you managed to engineer around or negotiate licenses for a few patents that appeared closely-related, you may have considerably decreased your risk of being sued. You just have to make sure no one sends around any emails that say "I think we infringe this patent."

Re:never search

[Zordak]

This is flat wrong. You have no duty to search for relevant patents. You can only be nailed for willful infringement if you actually knew of the patent you're infringing and did not reasonably believe you didn't infringe. It is up to the plaintiff to prove that you knew about the patent---usually by showing the letter he sent you that says, "You infringe my patent." You then show the letter you got from your patent attorney that says, "My reasonable opinion is you don't infringe this patent," or "My reasonable opinion is that this patent is invalid over X,Y,Z prior art."

Note that willful infringement has nothing to do with whether you infringe. You can infringe and get hit for very substantial damages on a patent you knew nothing about. In that case, searching might have saved you some pain, as you would be aware of what you were facing.

DISCLAIMER: I am a patent attorney, but I don't represent you. This is not legal advice and you don't get to rely on it. Yes, my .sig already says that, but some people turn them off.

Re:never search

[tilandal]

That is part of it but the bigger part is you are an engineer. It is not your job to search for patents. Patents are a never ending black hole as far as time goes. You develop the product. Leave the legal matters to the company lawyers. That is what they get payed for.

Re:never search

[serutan]

That exact advice and reasoning were stated explicitly in an employee training I took at Microsoft. Incredibly, the words of Steve Martin: "I forgot armed robbery was illegal!" appear to have some actual weight.

Re:never search

[Znork]

Often times, the possibility that you might infringe a patent is pretty clear from a cursory reading

Of course, with the quality of patents granted, the language and the overly broad claims means someone reading patents may very well conclude that there is no software they can possibly write without 'the possibility that they might be infringing a patent'.

When even the patent office can barely tell what it and what isn't valid, the average software engineer has no chance; if you have pockets deep enough, hand the code to the lawyers and they can analyze it. They're probably better at reading code than the programmers are at reading patent claims.

Re:never search

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is different in Pharma compared to the software industry but in Pharma we most definitely have an obligation establish freedom to patent (i.e., make sure the molecule we are patenting hasn't already been patented). In our case this is done via a series of searches in both text format and via chemical substructure searches of the patent literature.

The current standard is "best effort" which is generally interpreted as searching across all the databases your company subscribes to (chemical patent DBs are EXPENSIVE) using a information science expert for the searching and a PhD chemist to establish the relevance of the search results.

Maybe this is unique to Pharma, but we'd never get a patent granted without a prior art search.

(Not a patent attorney, but I lead the Information Science group at my company which does the searches with them)

Re:never search

[Anonymous Coward]

don;t forget that you are told you can't understand it unless you are a patent lawyer. Personally i think its all a conspiracy to up the total number of billable hours for lawyers. After all no matter who losses a patent case the lawyers always win.

Re:never search

[Anonymous Coward]

ignorance of the law is no defense.

Re:never search

[jrumney]

Not so much that you COULD find prior art, as you WILL find prior art for some part of your software design for any non trivial implementation.

Re:never search

[The Empiricist]

Of course, with the quality of patents granted, the language and the overly broad claims means someone reading patents may very well conclude that there is no software they can possibly write without 'the possibility that they might be infringing a patent'.

Methinks that I should have phrased it as "often times, the possibility that you might be infringing a particular patent is pretty clear from a cursory reading of that patent." It does make a difference whether you are assessing the risk of infringing any patent versus the risk of infringing a particular patent. After all, if there are 1,000 patents that relate to your work, and if for each patent there is only a 0.07% chance that you infringe it, then there is a 50% chance that you infringe at least one of those patents.

Re:never search

[baxissimo]

The question wasn't about applying for a new patent. The grandparent said you needed to do a due diligence search just to make a product.

Re:never search

[jonaskoelker]

If reading a patent trebles the potential damages, but reduces the probability of infringement to less than one-third of the original probability of infringement, then reading the patent is better than ignoring it.

True, but you have to know before reading it what the effect on the expected damages are from reading it. But you can't do that very well without reading it.

So you really have to evaluate the average risk of reading a patent over all patents your employees would read [which probably depends on patent titles and their personalities].

Re:never search

[jonaskoelker]

They're probably better at reading code than the programmers are at reading patent claims.

Who does best; programmers operating a dictionary, or lawyers operating a computer? :P

Re:never search

[Anonymous Coward]

we most definitely have an obligation establish freedom to patent

Well, there you're talking about something quite different - you want to get a patent too! THEN you have an obligation to do a search and not infringe on other patents, sure. Getting a patent is not even vaguely comparable to producing a product, at least not in the software industry!

The OP was talking about avoiding "wilful infringement" claims: Real software producers want to write software without ever worrying about patents and certainly without having to seek an expensive, near-useless patent themselves.

Maybe in the pharma industry the first thing you do is think "better get a patent", but then there's a reason the pharma industry is big, bloated and slow and dominated by an oligopoly of large coporations - patents!

Re:never search

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I work, there's one Ph.D that keeps searching related patents in spite of being repeatedly told by the owner not to. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if he did it on his own time, but he does it at work.

Re:never search

[ITEric]

IIRC, products should be developed prior to any patent search, but searching after the fact can help with the approval process. If the applicant can reference existing patents, comparing similar products while contrasting features/methods/design/etc. to demonstrate uniqueness, it should help with getting the application approved.

That being said, the search itself should be conducted by a patent attorney since the odds are that the developer is likely to work on similar projects in the future.

Re:never search

[Zordak]

The GP I responded to said:

Actually, you need to prove that you performed due dilligence to avoid a multiplication of damages. It isn't enough to pretend that patents don't exist; the courts aren't quite that stupid (yet).

Like I said, that's not true.

Re:never search

[Zordak]

It's always possible that I'm wrong (I don't usually prosecute biochemical stuff), but I think somebody lied to you. I've never seen or heard of a pharma exception where you're required to do a prior art search before you file a patent. I know that lots of them do, and they file IDS's with hundreds of references sometimes, but that's not because they have to. It's because they want all those references on the face of the patent to make it stronger. Has somebody ever shown you the law that says pharma patents are required to search for prior art? Normally, that's the patent office's job. You're just required to disclose the prior art if you know about it. I'm guessing somebody is passing off internal company policy to you as a patent rule.

Of course, Dudas really has the hots for requiring prior art searches and IDS's characterizing the prior art (meaning, providing a roadmap for a defendant's invalidity argument), but so far the courts have managed to keep him on a leash. And I'm really hoping Obama tosses the guy out on the street and appoints somebody who is maybe even legally qualified. Wouldn't that be awesome! Just think---we could have an actual patent attorney running the patent office again.

Re:never search

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again wrong. When someone sends you a cease and desist letter, you either get counsel to write an opinion letter which will tell you (1) whether he thinks the patent is valid and (2) whether he thinks you infringe. If you assert the advice-of-counsel defense, the law is very settled that the patentee can get that letter, despite attorney client privilege and work product. Now this is called "opinion counsel", and there is a per se allowance on opinion counsel's letter. However, the law is not so settled on trial counsel and in-house counsel. In Re Seagate (think it was Fed. Cir. 2007 offhand) says no, but judges and special masters are still allowing it.

-- I'm a patent attorney (not yours though). This is not legal advice and you don't get to rely on it. (and I'm not Zordak from above)

Re:never search

[jeffrlamb]

I can't decide if I find the post more informative or the extra disclaimer more funny. I'd be interested in the original author's viewpoint on the circumstances he finds himself in that compels him to double-disclaim a post of this nature.

Re:never search

[Zordak]

Because in Texas, about the only person left that you can still sue is a lawyer. And negligent misrepresentation is a valid claim against a lawyer. Meaning that if somebody is so astronomically stupid as to take a post by "Zordak" on Slashdot as legal advice, and it goes badly for him, he could sue me. And then I would file a motion for summary judgment, and point out that there were TWO disclaimers on the post in question, and then I would file a motion for sanctions, and then I would offer my opinion that under Buck v. Bell, the plaintiff almost certainly qualifies for forcible sterilization and that he ought to be so sanctioned.

Re:never search

[jonaskoelker]

While I like the Insightful moderation, I really don't think my post deserves it unless the mod wanted to karma-hack.

Interpreting legalese is not as simple as looking up the words in a dictionary.

For starters, you need to look in a legal dictionary. When the law uses words, it seldomly uses them in the same way everyone else uses those same words.

Secondly, you need context to interpret the words in. Reading a law in the books is one thing; seeing how it plays out in the courts is a different thing. When laws contradict, which ones win? The human rights declaration (which I suspect has been codified in laws or at least has parallels in many laws) says that you're free to own property, but you're also guaranteed an education. How can you be provided with an education if the government can't tax you? As a simpler example, everyone is allowed to practice religion as they see fit, but that doesn't give them the right to perform human sacrifice [assuming killing someone is illegal even when consented].

Thirdly, the words might mean something completely different in practice than what it says in the legal dictionary. I'm told that when the danish constitution says "King", it very often in practice means the prime minister and/or the government. I'm not sure how you're to know when it means what, but law students apparently do know.

Re:never search

[Anonymous Coward]

The differences with software development:
          1) There's no nice automated way to do a algorithm search like there apparently is for molecular designs.

          2) A few (expired now) patents were issued TWICE (i.e. LZW was issued to both IBM and Unisys).. even the patent office couldn't tell they were describing the same algorithm. They're wordy and designed to be intentionally broad and vague!

          3) If they did pharma the way they did software, there'd probably be a patent covering any molecule with carbon in it's structure, things like that.

          4) They don't actually have to make any software, or even know how to begin. I assume you at least have to know how to make a given molecule before it's patented. In software, people have gone along patented software *ideas* that they never implemented (even as a prototype), and in some cases obviously have no intention to (i.e. they're strictly a patent troll.)

Duty to Disclose

[pll178]

"Generally, you want to carefully research licenses and copyrights (your contact in Legal and Corporate Affairs can help), and never search, view, or speculate about patents."

The reason why patent attorneys recommend against searching for patents is that once you know about a patent that is relevant to the one that you are filing, you have a duty to disclose it. If you fail to disclose it, there are serious consequences (e.g., invalidity, etc.).

Re:Duty to Disclose

[tambo]

The reason why patent attorneys recommend against searching for patents is that once you know about a patent that is relevant to the one that you are filing, you have a duty to disclose it.

Hmm... your statement is correct, but it's not really "the reason why patent attorneys recommend against searching." I certainly wouldn't recommend a client not search for this reason, and I've never read that motivation expressed.

If prior art is out there that might render your invention non-novel or obvious, it's much better to discover it as early as possible. If the prior art is found early, the application can be drafted or prosecuted differently. If found late, added expense may be involved (e.g., a refiling or reexamination), or the bought-and-paid-for patent may have to be abandoned. Worst-case scenario, the patentee may waste tons of money developing a product line and suing a potential infringer, only to have the patent invalidated at trial.

Contrary to popular belief (especially here), neither patent owners nor patent attorneys are in favor of bad patents.

- David Stein

Re:Duty to Disclose

[Anonymous Coward]

Contrary to popular belief (especially here), neither patent owners nor patent attorneys are in favor of bad patents.

Likewise, generals aren't "in favor of" trained killers and mechanisms design to inflict massive death and suffering. They just want to have more of them than the other team does.

I think the popular belief comes from the appearance that behemoths like IBM can squeeze more value out of a patent than they really should. Thriving companies that can afford to enforce their patent rights sometimes sell patents to giants like IBM because "they're worth more to IBM than they are to us, because IBM can exploit them in ways we can't." If there's value in a patent beyond the legal rights it confers, then why wouldn't there be value in a worthless patent that confers no sustainable legal rights?

Troll resistance

[Tenek]

In the age of patent trolling I suppose it's best to protect yourself by any means necessary - you might make it easier for someone to claim you ripped them off if you've already accessed all the details about their work. It might be counterintuitive, but that's why you pay lawyers the big bucks. They can worry about it for you.

Treble damages

[MadCow42]

Generally, I believe that if you are aware of prior art, you're liable for treble (triple) damages. If you're ignorant, you're only liable for normal damages.

MadCow.

Re:Treble damages

[Red Flayer]

Generally, I believe that if you are aware of prior art, you're liable for treble (triple) damages.

Well, that's the trouble with trebles.

Should you, by some chance, become aware of related patents, you can dismiss the treble problem by beaming them over to Redmond.

What? Like 90% of slashdot considers Microsoft to be far worse than the Klingons anyway.

Re:Treble damages

[Anonymous Coward]

No. If you willfully infringe the patent you can be liable for treble damages.

If you know about the prior art and it's relevant to your patent application a court might find your patent unenforceable for inequitable conduct if you fail to disclose the art to the patent office during prosecution.

IANAL.

Re:Treble damages

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. Treble damages is for willful infringement. Prior art includes patents and stuff in the public domain (which is no damages).

Re:Treble damages

[MadCow42]

Tribbles... the trouble with TRIBBLES. :)

Re:Treble damages

[Hal_Porter]

One of things I have found in my career is that ignorance is an excellent strategy. Ignorant people aren't asked to work evenings and weekends because they fuck shit up. That means more free time to play FPS games, sniff petrol and argue on the Internet.

Re:Treble damages

[PitaBred]

The treble was punnier when you didn't explain it

Re:Treble damages

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not really on board with this "humor" thing, are you?

Re:Treble damages

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, duh. Equally obvious: anyone who would have gotten the joke already knows the correct word, and it would not have been funny if he had spelled it correctly.

Why was this modded up? Are Trekkies really so anal that they need to ruin humor that was intended for them?

Adult literacy classes can help you too!

[RingDev]

The author is talking about using other peoples' code, which may be copyrighted. They are recommending that the developers should investigate IF the open source tool is protected, and if so that they should respect those limitations. But if they do not know if there are patents on the technology, they should contact the legal department, because the majority of USPTO listings are written like crap with legalise, jargon, and intentional vagueness written in.

What they are trying to prevent is some developer who finds some OS tool online, checks the USPTO database for any claims, and not finding anything obvious, uses the tool with out any concern for the IP owner.

I'm all for flaming MS when they f'up, but this sure seems like good advice. When followed, it protects MS from lawsuits and IP holders from being infringed upon.

-Rick

what exactly is strongly recommended?

[v1]

I wonder if Ballmer would agree that ignorance should be 'strongly recommended when it comes to patents'?"

Makes you wonder if they think that constitutes "plausible deniability"?

Your honor, you see, we can't possibly have knowingly broken the law, we have a company policy of delibrate ignorance."

Re:what exactly is strongly recommended?

[CodeBuster]

But don't you see? That is precisely the problem. The only sane strategy for any company is deliberate ignorance. The law says that you have a duty IF you know about the patent, but it does not say that you have a duty to search out relevant patents. Ignorance, even though deliberate in this case, is entirely rational and financially sound business because of the perverse incentives created by our backwards patent laws. I think that Steve Ballmer would whole heartedly agree with this policy because it makes good business sense and arranging one's legal, tax, and financial affairs, according to the laws, so as to avoid or minimize losses is a perfectly sound and acceptable strategy which the courts have confirmed on numerous occasions.

Re:what exactly is strongly recommended?

[Sentry21]

Your honor, you see, we can't possibly have knowingly broken the law, we have a company policy of delibrate ignorance."

That seems to sum up pretty much the entirety of their strategies in all of their markets, so yeah, I'd believe that.

Wow, what a messed up summary.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

The article wasn't that close to the summary, guess I should expect that here. I don't see any endorsement of anything open source at all. Codeplex is devoid of any meaningful opensource programs. The patent subject is only briefly tocuhced upon as a warning when using third party stuff. Its mostly a indictment of the Microsoft NIH culture. Which I had always suspected. Their experience is rarely a seamlessly integrated one. But mostly it just game me new reasons why I don't want to work for Microsoft.

Re:Wow, what a messed up summary.

[overshoot]

I don't see any endorsement of anything open source at all.

Linux has come under quite a bit of criticism [1] for Linus' "don't look at patents" advice.

[1] As in, NBMers claiming that this proves that Linus and the gang know they're infringing MS patents.

Re:Wow, what a messed up summary.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

The article doesn't say " Linus is right, no one should ever look at patents when developing software". Instead it says " We are a large cooperation with a legal department that will take care of any patent issues, we do not want our developers making adhoc decisions about them. ". Big difference.

Re:Wow, what a messed up summary.

[dedazo]

Codeplex is devoid of any meaningful opensource programs.

Hmm, I think I'm going to go with an "O RLY?" here. There are some projects on Codeplex that are released under some of Microsoft's more restrictive licenses (and the vast majority of those are Microsoft's own), but by and large there are enough projects there licensed under BSD/MIT/GPL/etc that your statement is nothing more than a gross generalization. Works great with the mods, though.

the Microsoft NIH culture

Like any other large software company, Microsoft does of course buy a lot of code that they later incorporate into their products. Of course companies like Google and IBM don't do that at all... oh wait.

Re:Wow, what a messed up summary.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Take a look at their most popular downloads. Not a who's who in OSS. All of the top projects are built in and around the Microsoft universe. If they are serious about breaking the NIH syndrome, they need to step out of their sandbox.

Thats a blog about Microsoft culture written by a Microsoft employee. I commend his brutal honesty. If you had read the article, you would have remarked on how there is a strong aversion to using code from other Microsoft products. Developers at Microsoft, don't want to use code written by an unfamiliar Microsoft team and apparently get away with reimplementing the same functionality. That's messed up beyond belief. IS Google or IBM that way as well? I don't know. I should hope not,but to an outsider it paints a pretty grim picture.

Re:Wow, what a messed up summary.

[jonaskoelker]

Developers at Microsoft, don't want to use code written by an unfamiliar Microsoft team and apparently get away with reimplementing the same functionality.

Could it be poor documentation or a too fast release schedule from the other team? Didn't the antitrust trials establish that Microsoft doesn't write documentation, not even for internal use only?

Remember Hanlon's Razor: always try explaining things by incompetence before you move on to extreme incompetence.

Re:Wow, what a messed up summary.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I don't want to explain it and I just know I don't want to experience it.

And besides Good code is self documenting, unless its awesome code. And if its awesome code, you should definitely use it.

Never look at patents

[overshoot]

is standard advice from Corporate legal departments. As in, I've lived under the exact same policy in every company I've worked for in more than 35 years as an engineer.

I have something like 20 patents in my own name, and if they could I think that our Legal department would have me forget them too.

One does wonder, though, how they are supposed to "advance science and the useful arts" by publication if the publication is supposed to be write-only.

Re:Never look at patents

[villageidiot357]

The advice I was given, and I believe the poster as we, was not to read the claims. The claims (should) be the only difficult part to read, as its in lawyer speak.

Re:Never look at patents

[Ant P.]

One does wonder, though, how they are supposed to "advance science and the useful arts" by publication if the publication is supposed to be write-only.

They're only write-only in the country the patent was filed in. Others are free to take those ideas and advance their own science and useful arts with them while the originating country litigates itself to death.

Irony

[doconnor]

Ironically, the original purpose of patent was to get them published to help others learn new techniques and ideas and expand on them.

How Pointless is That?

[ewhac]

The legal claims section--the only section that counts--was indecipherable by anyone but a patent attorney.

Then it shouldn't be a valid patent. Further evidence that the patent system in the US needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.

Patents are ensconced in the Constitution, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." Even after a patent expires, it is supposed to contribute to humanity's corpus of knowledge and science. How does a patent, written in language that can't be understood by an actual person trying to actually get something useful done, serve to promote the progress of science and the useful arts?

Schwab

Re:How Pointless is That?

[XLawyer]

The claims may be hard to understand, but the part that precedes it--the disclosure--is less so. And it has to be detailed enough to enable a person having ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention. The connection between the two is that the claimed subject matter is supposed to be a subset of the subject matter disclosed elsewhere.

Re:How Pointless is That?

[geoffspear]

He doesn't know what he's talking about. Any random Slashdot poster can understand any arbitrarily complex patent and explain why it's invalid because a common household item is prior art.

Re:How Pointless is That?

[langelgjm]

Then it shouldn't be a valid patent. Further evidence that the patent system in the US needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.

The GP probably means that the legal claims section is the only part that matters in court. Patents also contain detailed descriptions and illustrations which you don't always need to be a lawyer to understand.

Re:How Pointless is That?

[tambo]

Then it shouldn't be a valid patent. Further evidence that the patent system in the US needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch.

If I were to look at your code (presuming you're a coder [for the sake of argument], and presuming I'm *not* a coder [which I am, actually]) and say, "I can't understand this - you must be a terrible coder and your programming language must be broken," would that be fair?

The patent claim attempts to do something unique in the domain of language: it attempts to describe, in the simplest and logically clearest possible manner, the bare minimum requirements of an enabled invention. That's not exactly easy... in fact, it's been called the most difficult type of legal drafting.

The complexity of claim language arises from 170 years of claim-oriented patent drafting. (That's not an exaggeration - the concept of a patent claim arose in the Patent Act of 1836.)

The language of the patent claim has evolved dozens of times as practices have changed (peripheral claiming, acceptable claim styles, rules of interpretation derived from case law.) It may be incomprehensible to you, but those trained in patent law understand not only what a claim covers, but [i]why[/i] it's written that way.

Patents are ensconced in the Constitution, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts." Even after a patent expires, it is supposed to contribute to humanity's corpus of knowledge and science. How does a patent, written in language that can't be understood by an actual person trying to actually get something useful done, serve to promote the progress of science and the useful arts?

A person having "ordinary skill in the art" (i.e., in the technical field into which the patent falls) should be able to read the specification (and review the figures), understand the invention, and be able to practice it without undue experimentation. That's a legal requirement of a patent, and if it's not met, the patent examiner may reject it as insufficiently disclosed. The claims, on the other hand, define what's covered by the patent... in light of the specification.

- David Stein

Re:How Pointless is That?

[jonaskoelker]

why it's invalid because a common household item is prior art.

And that of course includes all the one-of-a-kinds you build out of duct tape and solder in your basement according to the patent.

Re:How Pointless is That?

[ScrewMaster]

And it has to be detailed enough to enable a person having ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention.

That's the theory. In practice, it's very different: patents are often written in as obscure a fashion as possible. Of course, such patents should not have been granted in the first place. But that's another issue.

35 USC 284 & 35 USC 154.(d)(1)(B) & 35 USC

[tlambert]

Willful violation invokes statutory damages:

35 USC 284

When the damages are not found by a jury, the court shall assess them. In either event the court may increase the damages up to three times the amount found or assessed. Increased damages under this paragraph shall not apply to provisional rights under section 154(d) of this title.

When that doesn't apply, then you have to consider provisional damages:

35 USC 154.(d)(1)(B) Provisional damages:

(d) Provisional Rights.--

(1) In general.-- In addition to other rights provided by this section, a patent shall include the right to obtain a reasonable royalty from any person who, during the period beginning on the date of publication of the application for such patent under section 122 (b), or in the case of an international application filed under the treaty defined in section 351 (a) designating the United States under Article 21(2)(a) of such treaty, the date of publication of the application, and ending on the date the patent is issued--

(B) had actual notice of the published patent application and, in a case in which the right arising under this paragraph is based upon an international application designating the United States that is published in a language other than English, had a translation of the international application into the English language

The intent of willful ignorance is to insulate the company against statutory and provisional damages. As an engineer, this protects you, as well:

35 USC 271.(b):

(b) Whoever actively induces infringement of a patent shall be liable as an infringer.

-- Terry

it's the optimal strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

my current employer (not microsoft) has the same policy: implementors should stay as far away as possible from other people's patents, while filing for as many of our own as we can.

Yes, it's completely inconsistent with the constitutional justification for the patent system, but it's the optimal strategy for any decent sized technology company given the rules as currently defined, and, as a whole, means that those of us in the trenches never have to worry about patents.

Happy Belated Hallowe'en !

[Brad Eleven]

I'm struck by the stark contrast between TFA's ideas and the Hallowe'en Documents.

Advancing What?

[Anonymous Coward]

One more way patents do NOT advance science or the arts. Anybody in a position to learn from and/or comprehend a patent is extremely dissuaded from doing such. Patents are a black hole sucking not just money and time but also information. Sure that information may leak out eventually but long after its immediate utility to us. All patents suck. We don't need them for health care - the FDA approves drugs and that is a HUGE hurdle to help protect market share. Software has copyrights - blah - but it does not need patents. Business methods, algorithms, "ideas" all ought to be off limits. I see no utility for patents. Sure ideas will get "stolen", BFD. That's what they are there for.

Re:Advancing What?

[sbeckstead]

Actually it's only the legalese that is incomprehensible. The description of the patent itself is quite clear and in fact must be "Clear enough that a user skilled in the art may be able to duplicate the device/software being patented" and I find it to be so at least with my own patent because they (our patent attorneys) used my carefully written final functional specification to write the patent document. So given that spec if you knew how to write windows drivers and understood SNMP protocols you could duplicate what we did. I relly don't know why I bothered to reply to an anonymous coward who obviously know nothing about the patent system.

With Patents, Ignorance is Bliss

[CodeBuster]

As I understand the issue of searching for or viewing patents under the current US laws (IANAL), once one has knowledge of an existing patent then one is charged with an affirmative duty (legal speak for it's your responsibility) to ascertain the scope of the patent and avoid infringement. Now, because it frequently requires the services of a patent attorney to ascertain the full scope of the patent, which is expensive, AND the willful infringement of an existing patent (i.e. you knew about it and infringed anyway) results in much higher damages in the event of a lawsuit there are powerful disincentives, namely the two mentioned above, against searching for any existing patents. In other words, it is better from a legal and financial standpoint to remain willfully ignorant of any existing patents and negotiate a settlement when or if a patent holder shows up. This is closely related to the issue of defensive patents and maintaining a portfolio of patents merely for use as fodder in settlement negotiations.

Re:With Patents, Ignorance is Bliss

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but there seems to be a strong tendency for engineers (programmers in particular) to assume that they know everything about everything. As a result you can get some massively stupid moves made. Having a programmer say something like "I think our new technique to do X will infringe on this pattent I found on Y" to anyone who isn't a company lawyer is a legal disaster, but it's the kind of stupidity that happens when you let non-lawyers play lawyer.

Re:With Patents, Ignorance is Bliss

[PitaBred]

If the law isn't comprehensible by the people governed by it, is it really a just law?

Re:With Patents, Ignorance is Bliss

[CodeBuster]

I don't know, maybe, but complex laws combined with the often ambiguous circumstances of everyday life are also good reasons to NEVER talk to the police or answer their questions. Talking to the police before you talk to your attorney can NEVER do you any good when and if the case goes to trial and if they are going to charge you and arrest you then NOTHING that you can say is going to change their minds about it. Remember the words of Cardinal Richelieu, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

common practice

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as i know, and i have experience in two large mainstream software companies, this is common practice. All the engineers and software guys are explicitly instructed to ignore and actually avoid reading anything about patents that might be even remotely relevant to company.
I have heard couple reasonings behind this, but it has always boiled down to this : IF the case is taken to court, patent violation is easier to defend when claiming ignorance of its existence.

I. M. Wright?

[ettlz]

Does this person by any chance know U. R. Rong?

Re:I. M. Wright?

[bloobloo]

It's a pen name. I'm pretty sure he's aware of what it says.

Learned from Stacker

[EditDistance]

Microsoft paid Stac Electronics triple damages for willful infringement in the Stacker case.

Unwinding with some Microsofties at a conference, one of the folk claimed to be fairly close to the technical end of it and said: "we thought we were okay because the patent was very specific about the data structures and the algorithms applied to them. We didn't replicate the data structures at all because there better alternatives. The court didn't care". (Actually Microsoft's will-we-won't-we license it dance was pretty despicable, got a deserved kicking IMHO).

The advice Microsoft is giving here is pretty standard in large engineering companies. Yes, this behavior means patents are largely a self-serving scheme that gives employees a small bonus and makes jobs for corporate legal departments. Yaboo, patents suck...

To compound my cynical view of patents, I recently discovered a colleague had been granted a patent in an area I'd been working on independently and I could not make head nor tail of it because of the lawyer translation process. I went and spoke with my colleague and we had no problem having a technical discussion about the problem and our not so different approaches. Why, why, why, do we put up with the pretense?

Re:Learned from Stacker

[PitaBred]

Because we're engineers and just want to get things done. Everyone else is much more worried about how to make money off of our work, and how to lock it up so that no one else can use it.

Re:Learned from Stacker

[ScrewMaster]

Well, my experience is that a lot depends upon the quality of the inventor's description of his work. I have a couple of patents, one for some work I did for a division of Westinghouse. I spent a couple of days on a clear, detailed summary of the invention and sent it off to their legal department. Their patent lawyer called me up the next day ... not to ask questions, but to compliment me on the thoroughness of the document. He took what I wrote, added some appropriate legalese, and sent it off to the Patent Office. His comment was that most of the "inventors" he worked with were incapable of that level of documentation, and he was often forced to fill in the gaps as best he could. My point being that it's not always the lawyer's fault if a patent isn't as clear as it could be.

That's not to say that there isn't a lot of deliberate obfuscation going on. The USPTO should simply reject such patents.

Re:Learned from Stacker

[austincheney]

If you are not concerned with how your invention can be monetized then you are ultimately not concerned with the use or result of your invention, licensing aside. I would say that significantly degrades your quality of service in regards to end product. Even open source software returns revenue in some indirect manner if it is successful.

Re:Learned from Stacker

[Anonymous Coward]

While the patent itself is largely unintelligible, having filed one means that you can then publish the technique in a human-readable venue (like, say, an academic/engineering conference).

Re:Learned from Stacker

[PitaBred]

Since Linus was more concerned with making his code work on an x86 machine than monetizing it, that must mean that Linux is a much lower quality OS, and therefore corporations stay away from it in droves because of it's incapability... oh, wait... no.

You don't understand the engineering mindset. The drive is not for money... it's to create something that works elegantly, something that's clever, something that fills a need. It's not for personal gain, other than perhaps accolades from other people saying "that's cool, man!".

The best engineers aren't concerned with selling their inventions, they're concerned with making them. See Da Vinci, Bernoulli, etc.

Re:Learned from Stacker

[austincheney]

Are you deliberately trying to be dense in order to make a point? Linus completed more than 2-5% of the work on the original Linux kernel, which was a significant breadth of work. Linus, as a result, was certainly not a sole inventor, project director, or business owner. Therefore he did not direct the business aspect of the product. This was an extremely poor example. You don't understand the engineering mindset. You don't know who I am or what I invented. The reality is that there are costs associated with every project: time, money, and resources. Profit could be so indirect as promotion in the person's employment. If you do not attempt to recover costs for your work, at least to break even, then your work obviously exists in a vacuum with a lower quality of service. Engineers who justify this attitude do so because they have no business skills and not for some glorious moral as you would have me believe.

This isn't just Microsoft

[Rossman]

Many companies that apply for patents on their IP have the same policies. This isn't really noteworthy except the absurdity of the whole IP / Patent system.

Oh NO you don't!

[3seas]

Richard Stallman already said about Patents, to not look at them....

So again MS Does NOT get the credit for that advice.

Funny if there is anything they do get credit for its trying to take the credit for the works of others.

Quick someone patent "taking the credit for the works of others"....

Yes!

[jonaskoelker]

It's his twin brother. They easily get into arguments.

You can't!

[jonaskoelker]

Quick someone patent "taking the credit for the works of others"....

Taking credit for the works of others increases (on average) public good will, which you can capitalize.

As such, your invention is a business method patent, and violates claim one of my business method patent no. 10583614: "the business method of patenting business methods".

Patents as a hazard to navigation

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with patents in the "business methods" area such as computer programming is that between overly generic claims and the failure of non-practitioners in the USPTO to recognize the obvious, it is easy to run afoul of patents just be doing what one is taught in school. Reading patents makes this problem worse because it activates the treble damages and fraud issues and does not convey the sort of illumination found in patents in other fields such as biotech.

Quite simple

[mahadiga]

Closed source + Patents = Oxymoron
Open source + Patents = Intellectual Property

Look for prior art, ignorance is a weak defence

[austincheney]

I have been reading the comments, but the most important thing nobody has mentioned. If your art is not original then why the hell would you apply for a patent? If you know your art is not original and are granted a patent then you deserve an ass kicking. As a result is not better to look for prior art to know that you should not apply for a patent? If you look for prior art and do not find any prior art then you are not susceptible to treble damages and should feel good that your patent is indeed ethically legitimate. Why the hell are you guys trying to offer advise based upon conduct of ignorance in order to protect conduct that is not likely ethical? Seriously, what the hell... Ultimately, you, as an inventor, can only look so far at which point the patent lawyer and patent clerk must take over. Nonetheless, you, the inventor, know the subject of the work and areas of conflict better than anybody else. As a result a quick search can do an amazing amount of good to determine the credibility of your patent application before you even attempt to file for a provisional. I did look for prior art in my invention and as a result I do feel damn good that my patent is legitimate and that residual works will be worth of patents as a result. Honestly, who wouldn't want that?

Re:Look for prior art, ignorance is a weak defence

[dexmachina]

"Why the hell are you guys trying to offer advise based upon conduct of ignorance in order to protect conduct that is not likely ethical?"

Did you somehow miss the fact that this article is about Microsoft?

Re:Look for prior art, ignorance is a weak defence

[austincheney]

I was not referring to the article. I was referring to the comments.

I think you misunderstood the reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

The main reason corporates discourage engineers from searching patents, especially during R&D, is because this often leads to inadvertent patent violation. If you - or anybody in your organisation have seen the patented solution, your solution could be influenced, even if you don't 'steal' the entire idea.

So, use normal research sources (e.g ieee/acm papers et al), but don't use patents.

I've just started a project where I need to re-implement some very low level compiler functionality in a commercial project. One of the people previously working there has essentially stolen one function from a GPL project and I've been asked - as an external consultant - to rewrite it. They gave me access to a SCM branch that has the offending function scrubbed and I was asked to not look for examples anywhere.

My point is that you should be careful about looking at incompatible-licensed code as well - not just patents.

Ultimately, patents can also be rubbish. Peer reviewed research papers are much less likely to mess your thinking up.