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Best Approach To Keeping a Virtual World Protocol Free to All?
arkowitz writes "I invented a protocol called CICP for interacting with virtual worlds, and filed a provisional patent application on it March 20 of last year. I have since declared the protocol open and public, and contributed an implementation of it to the Sun Wonderland project, which is GPL; and made public the LSL code and accompanying Java servlet for the Second Life implementation of the protocol. I've been collaborating with a fellow in Finland named Tommi S. E. Laukkanen on a new protocol called MXP: Metaverse Exchange Protocol (here's a full description at cybertechnews.com). MXP is and will always be public domain; we intend it to enable an open and ubiquitous metaverse. My question is this: is there any reason to complete the patent app for CICP, which could potentially cover MXP as well, and release it to the public domain? The full app is due by March 20 and the legal work would probably cost my company $10k. Would finishing the patent protect the open and public protocols from patent trolls, or would it be a waste of money? Also, what kind of document would I need to make official the public-domaining of the app?"
Best Approach To Keeping a Virtual World Protocol Free to All?
But I'm guessing you haven't been awarded the patent? I think you've done more than most people would have. If you're worried about someone suing you for using a protocol, why not just upload all the documentation for it to a SourceForge Project or make it available on your site and date it? I'm guessing it's a bit more tricky than software as you need the required documentation to define a protocol but why shouldn't that be releasable under the GPL? If you really wanted to ask for help, you could seek help from the EFF in establishing prior art now.
Also, what kind of document would I need to make official the public-domaining of the app?
If you have the source code, just drop it on SourceForge or make it available for download on your site with a copy of the GPL as a license file. Frankly, I'd be more concerned about it being adopted and supported widely rather than having it be a GPL protocol. I wish you the best of luck--I think something very neat could come of this!
My work here is dung.
If you have kept the rights then you don't have to do anything special to keep it free for all. Just tell people that it is.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Sounds REALLY COOL (but then, im one of those that actually read the book). Id say with the current environment on software patents, it would be critical to your goals to aquire the patent so that no trolls could come and attempt to bite us in the ass in the future as has happened to some media formats (and to our collective arses).
So go, go, go do the patent thingie to appease the trolls. Yes, they may be in the way of the dodo, but we will never know until they are gone and this are some fiesty and angry troll-dodos with wads of cash to buy senators and presidents....
NO SIG
Your company presumably has one. You know damned well it's a waste getting any legal advice from /. so why bother?
TALK TO YOUR DAMNED PATENT LAWYER!
Infuriate left and right
A patent merely helps you argue your case.
It guarantees absolutely nothing.
A patent troll may be able to outspend you in
court.
The only reason to finish the patent process would be to establish your freedom to continue down that path without anyone else patenting your own technology, and then blocking your from using it.
I don't know if an abandoned patent application is sufficient to give you that protection. Finishing it and then not keeping it up is definitely going to do it (usual IANAL disclaimer).
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
You need a better name for a GPL project than that, I recommend "Black Sun" - and if you haven't read Snow Crash then shame on you.
You are, to some extent, talking about creating two different things: public domain Vs. GPLed.
If you release something to the public domain, I (or anyone) is perfectly free to take it and make a proprietary version which may or may not be fully compatible with the PD version.
If you release it under the GPL, it's very difficult for someone to do that without violating the license.
That said, you need to talk to a good intellectual property lawyer, not Slashdot. You'll only get one shot at doing this so that it comes out the way you want, and a good lawyer's guidance through the process will make your success a lot more likely.
Assuming your invention is not already covered by someone else's patent, then essentially, no. IANAL, naturally, but I think you basically would just want to get a good description of the patentable claims, probably with a reference implementation, out there.
If I understand the legal situation correctly the formulation is something like your prior art has to be 'published'. My guess would be the more prominently, the stronger its claim is. In other words ideally in some "major" print publication dealing with the subject matter might be ideal.
An RFC might not be a bad idea either. Or two as the case may be.
Getting a patent issued in any case is not strictly required and as you observe, kind of expensive and time consuming as well. The only thing having a patent would likely do for you is allow you to refuse to license purely commercial implementations or collect royalties from them. Doesn't really sound like either of those things are on your agenda.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
My gut says that if you're expecting this one patent to protect you from anybody filing an opportunistic lawsuit against you then it's a waste of money.
It's certainly not illegal to invent a new protocol/new software and give it away for free. If someone later patents the same thing and comes to get you, then what you did is prior art. The thing is, just saying it doesn't make you immune from lawsuits -- the point of the lawsuit is to prove that you don't owe anybody anything. Likewise, your one patent wouldn't stop anyone else from writing a slightly different patent and trying the same thing. In other words, so long as software is patentable, you'll never be safe from patent lawsuits.
Maybe the thing to do is to file a copy of your specifications and your software code with the U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright protection for software is automatic, just like it is for written works or anything else. Registering your copyright does confer certain advantages, however. In this case, the point would be to grant you a recognized legal document establishing that your work was completed before any future patents came into being. It would certainly be cheaper than $10,000.
The real thing you have to worry about is the likelihood that there are already 200+ patents on the books covering the ideas that you have implemented. No patent registration will protect you against that.
Breakfast served all day!
Also, what kind of document would I need to make official the public-domaining of the app?"
See. A. Lawyer.
Nobody on Slashdot is a legal expert, except in their own minds. The exceptions are the few actual lawyers who hang out here, and they all know better than to offer legal advice based on the kind of vague information you're providing.
This point gets made every time we have one of these give-me-legal-advice Ask Slashdots. It's vaguely possible that the submitter hasn't heard this before. But why do the editors refuse to hear it?
That said, I hope all software and business patents are abolished as soon as possible.
I like, totally don't even know what a Virtual World Protocol is? Is that like AOL? *giggle*
Hey, will you like drive me to the mall? I'm supposed to be meeting Bobby there and we're so totally gonna make out! Thanks, you are like so cool. I'm so glad we're friends and you like fix my computer all the time. Hey, why do you look so sad?
Is it because of that Virtual World Protocol thingie? Maybe you can get a new one at Gamestop at the mall! Also, like, I'm totally gonna get my bellybutton pierced at Claire's! Oh my God, you know my mom's gonna freak, but I totally don't care!
Hey hey calm down. I have something important to tell you ...
I RAN OVER YOUR CHIHUAHUA AND NAILED IT TO THE WALL IN YOUR ROOM.
So, now how do you feel?
Why are you bothering to patent it? Doesn't that kinda contravene the point of making it "open" and "free for all"?
I mean, once you publish it and implementations using it, it becomes prior art and no one else can patent it, either.
Besides my general distaste for process, software, and business-method patents, I have to ask:
Is it really worthy of patent protection? Is it really that new and novel to deserve 20 years of government-mandated monopolistic protection? Do the development costs justify it?
I've yet to see anything protocol-related that is nothing more than an inductively-developed solution to a problem , or a variation on a existing one, that anyone with ordinary skill in the industry could come up with.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
From DefensivePublications.org ...
[emphasis mine]
Honestly? The chances that anyone will ever be interested in even implementing your protocol, much less copying it in a way which your patent would protect, is close to zero.
The only reason you have for patenting it is an over-inflated sense of its worth. So no, I wouldn't spend $10k on a patent.
SIX INCHES OF AIR.
Seriously. Unplug it. Protocol free!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
(I'm nothing close to a lawyer, as probably goes without saying here. An IP lawyer is necessary if the answer to this question has any significant value to your business.)
As far as prior art goes, there may be a minor practical benefit to registration. Publishing your stuff publicly is enough to establish that your thing exists and is public domain, and will prevent someone else from legitimately patenting it. However, having an actual patent registered might make it more likely that a patent examiner would find your prior art and reject any subsequent attempts to patent the same thing (your sourceforge project is less likely to come to the examiner's attention, so a crappy patent might get granted that later has to be invalidated).
However a bigger benefit is probably a defensive one. Although publishing your stuff online establishes prior art, someone could patent an extension of it to cover some case it doesn't currently handle, and use the patent to prevent you or your users from implementing any similar extension. This is sort of the "embrace and extend" approach, where a commercial entity extends free systems and prevents (in this case through patents) the free systems from implementing similar extensions. If your stuff is patented, you can use the patent defensively to prevent this, since they would be unable to use their extension to your patented stuff without reaching a patent agreement with you, in which you could demand some sort of cross-licensing.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It wasn't mine. Noisy little bugger just wouldn't go away. Thank you. It should make a nice trophy.
Unless you make a server and a client which implements this in an awesome manner (i.e. better than SecondLife), nobody gives a shit.
An important caveat I forgot: If you do plan to use patents on open-source software defensively, it's fairly tricky to figure out the right way to do it. You cannot just give a blanket grant to anyone to use the patent for any purpose, since then it loses its defensive value: you have to be able to retain the right to threaten the extension-patenter with a patent-infringement suit. But at the same time you clearly don't want normal users to feel thus threatened.
You instead need to take an approach that grants a royalty-free patent license, but conditional on a reciprocal grant of any relevant patents the other party holds (for some definition of "relevant"). The in-development Open Patent License was an attempt to codify this in an off-the-shelf license, but seems to have died about 1 1/2 years ago. I'm not sure if there are any current such licenses.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Looks like all the east-coast 12 year olds got out of school and just got online. Seems the trolls get thickest this time of day...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
You put source code into a PDF file?
Stop the patent filing process immediately.
Stop the development process immediately.
Stop working in any computer-related field immediately.
And stay out of Second Life!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Come on, people. This is a family website. Who thought it was appropriate to tag this article with "ianal"?
I'm not a lawyer (anymore), but I think such vulgarities should be placed somewhere else.
- J. Thompson
No one can file a patent on an item that is publicly disclosed, so your disclosure here & elsewhere including the USPTO has already assured that it is now public & "free", given the GPL type structure.
No need for a patent at this point.
not true, it will also make you a star on the Internet! Do it and post it on your website, then link it to us!
My grandfather was an inventor. He made several small items that he sold with varying success.
He would take all his information, get it notarized put it in an envelope.Get two people ti sign and data across the flap, and then put that in another envelope he would mail to himself and not open.
This gave him proof with a date on it. The few times protection came up, it was enough for the courts. Cost him very little money.
Another thing you can do is just do the patent yourself and send it in. A few hundred bucks, you still get the pending protection even if it is eventually rejected.
Considering you are distributing it into Open license, it will be very hard for anyone to claim infringement without some really good proof.
Now, what that 10G should get you is a good patent search to be sure no one has already patented it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Welcome to marklarg.
The GPL license includes some restrictions on use and redistribution (if don't want it to remain free to all, you could use the BSD license..(IANAL, all the rest, so this is only my personal understanding.)
Being a usual /.er, I haven't read the article, but it sounds like you're talking about a protocol layout--a communication schema. In that case, talking to the IP lawyer would be a good way to go. However, in dealing with the lawyer, don't let them decide "the plan"--you should lay out your plan, and say "Can you make this happen?"
My suggestion for "The Plan" is this:
that leaves a few questions for the IP attorney:
Details like community involvement; retaining the project as a company project only or not; taking donations or "selling"; etc. will come later. None of these are new questions; you might want to talk to some big OSS project administrators to see how their choices are working.
Good luck! It sounds like a lot of fun to be involved in.
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway
Even when there's prior art it doesn't mean somebody else can't patent it and try to sue you.
You'll win ... but in the USA at least you'll ruin yourself in the process.
No sig today...
Definitely need a new name. MXP has been used by zuggsoft as the name of their Mud eXtension Protocol for quite some time.
No, the GPL will not "make official the public-domaining of the app". The GPL is a copyright license that imposes all kinds of terms on those making derivative works, while something being in the public domain means there are no copyright-based restrictions on those making derivative works. A BSD-style license would be more like releasing it into the public domain, but still quite distinct.
Strictly speaking, there is, AFAIK, no way in the US to release a copyrightable work to the public domain officially. When you say that a work that you control the copyright is in the public domain, you've mostly just issued a gratuitous public license for other people do with it what they want, that is as revocable as any other gratuitous license, but may be enforceable to the benefit of the licensee (e.g., anyone who acted under the purported release into the public domain) under the principle of promissory estoppel.
Anyhow, asking Slashdot for this kind of business/legal advice is like asking a forum of MBAs or lawyers for programming advice.
Let me ask you this; are you willing (or able) to spend the money to defend your patent in court? A patent is only as good as the person's/company's willingness to defend it. Otherwise, don't bother wasting the money to patent it.
Just publish it in a public space: blog, user group etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Publish your code in a reliant peer reviewed journal detailing the protocol.
You you have dated prior art in the public domain.
Version 3 was updated for this specific problem. Otherwise, how can the community have any assurance that your contribution will remain free from your own patents? Supposing your company and its patents were bought and the new owners decided against letting the community freely use those patents?
The patents themselves may be a waste of time and money. They are for software, are they not? And it is not clear that software should be patentable. (I'm of the opinion it is clear that software should not be patentable.) If software and business processes and such are not patentable, then those patents will be of no value.
Suppose software can be patented. Even then, why obtain them at all? If they are for purposes of establishing prior art so that no one else tries to patent the same thing, there are other, cheaper ways to achieve that, such as publishing.
Patents might be useful for fighting patent holders who have something to lose. Fight fire with fire. If they come knocking, demanding that you pay them for the use of their patents that you are allegedly infringing, don't pay. Buy them off by offering to cross license, with the implied threat that you can sue them just as easily as they can sue you. I'm guessing they will deal. I think that's how all large patent holders operate. I don't really know how useful this approach is. It may be that it is unnecessary, and prior art is sufficient to keep those kind of sharks at a distance. However, the entire approach may be fundamentally flawed. It's just like stockpiling ever more nukes and missiles, to achieve Mutual Assured Destruction. All sides benefit if they don't have to devote resources to such ends. It may also be possible to get the protection of all the patents of patent hoarders, in exchange for contributing a few. Don't know about that idea either.
That leaves the troll who has nothing, and who therefore can't be bought off with a cross licensing offer. I doubt that anything-- patents, legal precedents, threats to counter sue-- will be much use against that. Anybody can sue for any reason. Hope it doesn't happen. Maybe there are things that could be done to make yourself look like a difficult target. Maybe patents are one of those things. Perhaps merely not having deep pockets, like RIM does, is enough. But if a troll does attack, it may come down to deciding whether to buy them off or fight.
IANAL. These are just my guesses.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Im using a Wiimote+nunchuck as a security system. It's kinda cool, really.
I pair the wiimote to the computer. Then, I pair some bluetooth headset to the computer. Then I make a script that watches the acceleration on the wiimote (easy to do), and if the acceleration changes by more than 3 on a scale from 00-ff, send sound to BT headset. I can also make it scream via local speakers, or fire emails or whatever.
The cool thing, is when I set it up, I just wrap the cord around the machine and plate the wiimote+nunchuck on the keyboard and over the trackpad.
Good luck touching that laptop without making it scream.
A provisional application is not published and for all intents and purposes completely disappears 12 months later unless you file a non-provisional claiming priority to it. An unpublished provisional application is useless as prior art.
You can publish your invention to keep others from patenting it (if they manage to independently invent it, but you'll never be able to establish a date as early as your provisional unless you file something.
Sorry, but that's the law
This is a question you should be asking a patent attorney, not a bunch of geeks. I guess if you can find a geek patent attorney that would be ok...
Burn it on DVD, send it out in a letter to yourself.
Publish the description of the protocol, in detail, along with any extensions or modifications you've thought up. Don't just chuck it up on some random website; publish it somewhere which is likely to stick around and be publicly noticable. If you put it up on Sun's Project Wonderland website that might be sufficient. The provisional application will protect you (in theory) from trolls who might read it and patent it themselves, and a year from first publication nobody (including you) will be able to patent it.
In fact the patent office is so broken that even if you actually get a patent, some troll might get a patent on it anyway. Nothing you can do about that, unfortunately.
Don't get your free patent advice from Slashdot.
I get so bored and annoyed by some of the silly advice here, I dont pracice law, but hold a Doktor Recht. I do consult on IP issues.
Both in the EU and USA patent requires originallity and is absolutely barred by prior art.
That means all you need to do is establish prior art in a copy(left|right)ed document and publish it, by donating a copy to a copyright library eg Library of Congress, University of Cambridge, Universität Basle for example.
The date of publication, entry into the public catalog establishes the prior art.
You do not need to patent, and if you do you (theoretically) publish the details of your invention. That is why there are so many un-patentable Trade Secrets.
If you want your VR system to succeed, then just built it - a hundred other groups are doing the same. If you want it open, post the source and docs somewhere like Sourceforge. If you really want people to use it, post the code under BSD instead of GPL.
Defensive patents are interesting, but the patent system is so broken that a better approach is a simple defensive publication of the architecture and protocols. Frankly, no matter how you built it, you're basically guaranteed to be infringing at least dozens of patents...
I to am sitting on an expiring provisional patent for a large scale VR protocol, actually VR over P2P. We decided some time ago to stop wasting our effort on the broken patent system and focus on releasing the system.
We're going this route, building a AAA game platform integrated with P2P MMO back end, all in cross platform code. We're not posting code or docs until we deploy publicly so we can enjoy first mover advantage, but we plan to open the source in phased releases as we grow - the only part we currently plan to retain control over us the underlying PKI.
All that matters in the end within the VR domain is who can build the first massively scalable system that can also be a fun place for a broad cross section of the public. If anyone builds such a system with closed source and/or protocols, it will be recreated with open source and protocols.
I read the spec and looked at the web pages and, frankly, I don't understand what the point is. WHat's the problem this protocol solves. Why would you use it?
Well, you could just make it run on Plan9, that would accomplish your goal...sort of.
You cannot patent the invention *and* release it under GPL.
From the US Patent office: The patent grant excludes others from making, using, or selling the invention in the United States. You cannot enjoy that protection and allow others to use it for free.
If you do not defend your market exclusivity, a competitor can apply to have your patent overturned/revoked. It would be a slam-dunk.
If your aim is to give it to the world, then do so, literally. The true value of software comes from the number of people using it; which means if you can design something useful and provide free high-quality tools implementing it that people can use and keep an active community behind the project so the project doesn't become obsolete then you will accomplish more than with money and a lawyer. Also I suggest a license that is as unencumbered and straight-forward as possible, such as MIT or BSD; as people will feel more comfortably including it in commercial software.
Parent needs to be about +7 informative. It's exactly what the OP needs.
Note that you can file provisional patent applications on any improvements that you make to the original "invention". Do so, and attach full source code for the reference implementation as an "exhibit".
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
If you don't want it to be patentable, then publish it promptly. Also, your protocol is covered by copyright. Go to copyright.gov and spend the $35 to register it. You can always whip out that copyright registration to support an argument that someone else wasn't the first inventor.
... Patenting the protocol itself is pretty weak unless the specification clearly states what each message is supposed to do. In fact, it is the effects on the server farm and client machines that is patentable (if anything is).
As for defensive patents
Besides, I think what you are after is a patent application that the various examiners will find when they do searches. It need not lead to a patent. That costs $500 per application. Both of your protocols can be submitted in the same document. You only need one claim and it can be narrow as hell so that no one can infringe it. You could also do an early publication request. Once the UPSTO publishes your protocol documents, that about does it. They are published and the examiners are more likely to find them. Of yeah, just as web sites can be optimized for search engines, so can patent apps be optimized for patent searches. Include the buzz words/phrases you expect other people to so that the app pops up in the search.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
Patent guarantees,
Nothing. A Patent troll may
Outspend you in court.
I seem to recall using MXP nearly a decade ago for my MMORPG's...
First google result "MXP Protocol" and wikipedia result!
2) As proof, what I am about to tell you is not legal advice, nor is me telling you this creating an attorney/client relationship
3) Hire an attorney.
That all said, a patent is not a freedom to operate document. If you have a patent on ABCD, and someone has a patent they claim covers ABC, nothing stops them from coming after you. They may win, they may not, but your patent does not protect you. It only allows you to prevent others from doing ABCD (it is a 'negative right'). Secondly, if you do want to ensure no one can own it, publish it yesterday. The longer you delay, the worse off everyone is because publications are an absolute bar to someone else patenting your invention only a year or more after the publication. Each day you wait pushes that statutory bar another day. Now, without reading your links, your 'publication' here - or more specifically whenever you put those up - is sufficient. You do not need to make it a peer journal or anything like that. It just needs to be available to the public.
Seriously, don't heed most of the advice here. It is just plain, outright wrong.
Again, get a lawyer, talk to him or her, and I'll bet you they give you the same advice. Not that I'm giving you advice.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Don't bother reading any further, I went ahead and filed for patent on this while he was waiting for his. In Canada, you don't wait for patents, you get them as you file for them.....ok, let me see now, where did i place my bank book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_What_The_Fuck_You_Want_To_Public_License
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, December 2004
Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar
14 rue de Plaisance, 75014 Paris, France
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified
copies of this license document, and changing it is allowed as long
as the name is changed.
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
Exceedingly simple, exceedingly thorough IMHO!
Not sure about patenting tho
If you are interested you can read MXP details from: http://www.bubblecloud.org/wiki
If you have a patent you have the option of suing the trolls. That discourages them.
I have seen cases where patents are issued for "inventions" that were allegedly previously published in big-name publications (e.g. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory).
As a real-world matter, getting and abandoning a patent has a significant advantage over other methods of publication: if somebody else tries to patent your invention later, the Patent Office has a better chance of rejecting their application. The fact is that the USPTO examiners are pressed for time and usually only search their own patent and patent application databases for prior art because it's quick & easy for them. Anyone who's ever been involved in a patent application will remember that the examiner raises prior-art objections by throwing patents or apps back at you, not journal articles or websites.
Obviously, helping the USPTO to reject a patent in the first place is much better than the expense, time and anxiety of trying to overturn somebody else's patent later. Naturally there's no guarantee that the examiner's search will actually turn up your patent or application, but being in their data base improves your odds significantly.
The parent complained about your PDF, but I have a different complaint.
Your MXP demos are Windows-only executables and nothing else ... that's not a good start if your goal is interoperability between worlds.
Most virtual world servers are Linux or BSD boxes, for reasons that should be obvious, and I hear that something called a Mac is relevant too. So do something about it properly --- provide a non-SVN source release download (because SVN is a moving target) so that MXP can be evaluated in a platform-independent manner.