US Dir. of Citizen Participation Patents the News

theodp writes "Ex-Googler and now White House Director of Citizen Participation Katie Stanton is charged with promoting open public dialogues. Last Thursday, Stanton and Google snagged a patent on displaying financial news. Google explains that Stanton's invention — Interactive Financial Charting and Related News Correlation — will 'facilitate and encourage the user's use and understanding of financial information,' which does jibe nicely with Stanton's appointment to Obama's New Media Team. Too bad it'll be encumbered by a Google patent until 2027."

Comments

Prior Art?

[longacre]

Google isn't the only site that displays news on stock charts this way, and I don't think they were the first.

Examples:
SmartMoney
MarketWatch

Re:Prior Art?

[Grond]

It does exactly what is described in the patent...Of course, the product is no longer sold, so that properly means you can reinvent the wheel where software is concerned

No, you can't, that's the whole point of prior art. Patents do not allow someone to take inventions out of the public domain. It (generally) doesn't matter if the prior art is still on sale or not.

More specifically, if there was software that did exactly what is claimed in the patent (i.e. is anticipatory prior art), and that software was in public use or on sale in the United States more than a year before this patent was applied for, then Google's patent is invalid as anticipated under 35 USC 102(b). If it didn't quite do what's claimed in the patent, then it is still probably strong prior art for invalidity due to obviousness.

Unfortunately since the patent has already been granted the Patent Office will only consider prior art in the form of patents and printed publications. Invalidity on the basis of other kinds of evidence, such as a copy of the software, generally only comes up in court cases. Was there a manual for the product that described this feature? Or perhaps an advertisement or product review that described it? Submitting prior art to the Patent Office is free, but whether they act on it is up to them. You can request reexamination, but that's not free.

If you're interested in submitting prior art to the Patent Office, you should contact a patent agent or patent attorney about preparing the necessary forms and documents.

Re:Misleading title

[Dredd13]

Also, while we're rattling off the factual errors, she's no longer the Director of Citizen Participation. She moved to a position in the State Department a couple months ago.

Patented status (mostly) irrelevant to govt use

[Grond]

As others have pointed out, this patent is basically describing the sliding, adjustable window and news flags features of Google Finance, so it's unlikely that this patent would play much of a role in Ms. Stanton's new job. But if the government wanted to use the invention described in the patent for some reason, it has an automatic license to do so. 28 USC 1498(a) gives the federal government (NB: not state governments) a license to use any patented invention. The patent owner can sue for reasonable compensation but cannot enjoin the government from using the invention.

As a side note, 28 USC 1498(b) gives the government a similar right to use copyrighted works. In that case the copyright owner's damages are limited to reasonable compensation plus the minimum statutory damages, so no overinflated damages for government copyright infringement.

Re:Patented status (mostly) irrelevant to govt use

[dissy]

As a side note, 28 USC 1498(b) gives the government a similar right to use copyrighted works.

Best argument I've heard yet for ignoring copyright! I mean, we are talking about a government by, of, and for the people, right?

I hope not. At this point, a corporation is more of a person than I am in the eyes of the law :{

Calculating patent term

[Dachannien]

Patents filed these days receive a 20 year term from the earliest effective filing date. In this case, the application was filed 24 February 2006. That would mean its expiration date (assuming the assignee pays the maintenance fees) would be 24 February 2026.

However, due to delays by the USPTO, there is a patent term adjustment. The USPTO calculated it at 686 days, which would mean that the patent actually expires (approximately) 11 January 2028.

Finally, a recent court decision (Wyeth v. Kappos) concluded that the USPTO was calculating patent term adjustment incorrectly. This means that the patent may be due a (slightly) longer adjustment. Ultimately, I'm not entirely sure what the correct expiration date is at this point.

In any case, the expiration date is definitely not in 2027.

close...

[Anonymous Coward]

we are talking about a government by, of, and for the rich people

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Government Employee?

[e9th]

Ms. Stanton was working for Google, not the government, when the patent application was filed back in 2006.

documenting Obama on http://en.swpat.org

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

    Obama's administration submitted a Bilski brief, and Obama's made a statement about wanting to enforce US patents overseas. I'm starting to document the administration's software patent related stances here :

• http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Obama_administration

    swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.

Re:Misleading title

[TheRaven64]

In short, no. Estopel only applies to statements made about your actions. If you say 'I would never sue someone under this law' then that is very different from saying 'I believe that this law is unjust'.