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IBM Files the Patent Troll Patent
An anonymous reader writes "It's all or nothing over at IBM as the company goes for the gold and files the patent troll patent. Forget the Hyperlink patent or the POS shutdown patent, IBM wants the patent patent. Its idea is centered around an approach to managing patents from inventor training to filing and protection strategies, including competitive monitoring. At least in theory, IBM could get approval to own the idea of how to manage patents and make a business out of IP. The next time you file a patent, you may want to contact them as you may need a license to file for filing."
So basically this is a "metapatent." Someone should patent the idea of doing metapatents! And someone else should patent the idea of the idea of doing metapatents!
I was walking in an icy parking lot when it hit me:
1. File a business method patent on "keeping a parking lot so icy that it's hard to walk safely in it."
2. Sue people for violations.
This led to my revised idea:
1. File a business method patent on patent trolling.
I thought I was joking. The thing is, if I blogged about it (and I may have), I wonder if it's prior art?
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I should patent the idea on patenting an idea about patenting patents and patent management.
Frist
More important than yet-another-silly-patent, this year there will be opportunities to fix this mess somewhat. In the USA, the Supreme Court is to hear the i4i v. Microsoft case, and in Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal will decide if Amazon's 1-click patent is valid patentable subject matter.
Background info:
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
For contributory infringement, due to having approved a patent whose filing infringes upon IBM's patent rights
Perhaps would teach them a lesson about obvious patents?
Talking about it != an actual implementation.
Does your "blog" have a copyright notice? Contact a lawyer, it's time to SUE!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Of course, ORACLE will file...
From nations such as China ignoring our IP to bigger International Corporations roping off the industry to prevent newcomers from competing; I'd say the whole damn system is just broken. I think many of us can agree to that. The real question is, what can we replace it with? Or, should be just drop the whole damn thing and hope for the best? I tend to think the latter, I'm not 100% sure about that.
Life is not for the lazy.
pfft like having an implementation ever stopped anyone filing a patent.
Direct Link to Patent Application
Enjoy
...one could patent a step necessary in obtaining patents, and then refuse to license it to anybody.
After reading TFA and finding effectively nothing about the patent itself, other than typical "oh-no-patents-are-bad" scaremongering, I finally found one single link to the patent in question. The title (conveniently not mentioned in TFA) is "Intellectual Property Component Business Model for Client Services". From that alone, it appears the patent covers only a particular method for managing IP. It doesn't directly relate to actually filing patents at all.
Looking at the abstract and claims, it describes a "computer system" (probably implemented as an application like any other) with a large number of modular parts that manages each step of IP creation, organization, administration, and enforcement.
It includes a module to keep track of what is or is not a current patent, and where.
It includes a module to keep track of who's licensing what, and with what conditions.
It includes a module to take a business plan and figure out what IP will be necessary to enact that plan.
Skimming through the other claims, it appears to be pretty benign: It's an application to sort out the mess of IP every big company has. Heck, as a final product, it might even cut down the number of patent trolls, because companies can more easily show all the IP that a particular product uses, and know that what the troll is claiming is not in the product.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I have no idea, but copyright wouldn't allow me to sue them unless they used my exact wording in their patent, because copyright protects expressions, not ideas.
IANAL, but I talk to one sometimes.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
its as if they are doing this consciously, to break down the patent system by showing how absurd and illogical it is. it is SO extreme that, well, extreme.
Read radical news here
there are 3 independent claims, 1, 10, and 18
1 is below
It is a bit hard to follow, but claim language is the precise definition of what the patent covers; if you have something that omits only one of the items below, then you are not infringing Given the many, many steps in the claim 1, I don't see it having much value - for instance, the claim language says that there will be guidelines for IP counsel; if you did everything exactly as the IBM patent said, but omitted this step, you would not be infringing. 1. A computerized system for an intellectual property (IP) framework, including:a strategic planning computer module for formulating business strategies for creating and managing inventions and IP rights, said strategic planning module including at least one electronic database having data for formulating said business strategies;an invent computer module for managing creation of said inventions based on said business strategies;an IP creation computer module for determining value of said inventions and creating an IP portfolio, said creating of said IP portfolio including creating said IP rights based on said determining of said value and said business strategies;an IP administration computer module for managing said IP rights based on said business strategies including extension, maintenance and retirement of said IP rights, measuring performance of said business strategies, creating and modifying budgets, and setting guidelines for IP counsel;a defend computer module for defending against infringements and invalidations of said IP rights based on said business strategies and monitoring market and competitor actions to develop risk management plans;an influence computer module including a standards influencing unit, a legal and regulatory influencing unit, and a policy influencing unit; anda capitalize computer module for identifying potential licensees and potential assignees of said IP rights, and managing licensing negotiations, cross-licensing negotiations, and assignment negotiations based on said business strategies,said business strategies provided by said strategic planning computer module being input into at least one of said invent computer module, said IP creation computer module, said IP administration computer module, said defend computer module, said influence computer module, and said capitalize computer module,said inventions provided by said invent computer module being input into said IP creation computer module, andsaid IP rights provided by said IP creation computer module being input into at least one of said IP administration computer module, said defend computer module, said influence computer module, and said capitalize computer module.
It's time for me to file the PTPP, so big blue will have to come to me first.
IBM: "I'd like to File a Patent Application on how to get a Patent"
Patent Examiner: Okay but what is the patent application for exactly?
IBM: How to get a patent.
PE: Let me get this straight, you want a patent on patents?
IBM: Well not exactly, on how to get a patent.
I'm not feeling funny enough to take this all the way but you get the idea.
Considering all the patent trolls around, couldnt this have some kind of prior art problem?
"prior art"... art != implementation
No, the **AA has already established that IBM has criminally violated your rights.
As a red-blooded American, you *MUST* seek a high fine and jail sentence for the THEFT of your intellectual property.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I need to investigate this title.
Perhaps it's just me, but whenever I see "POS", the term "point of sale" is never the first thing that comes to my mind.
That's OK because I have already patented the process of patent patenting. Therefore, any patent patenters who attempt to patent their patent patenting process will need to first license my patent patent patent.
the dude or dudess that invented spear heads, using flint tools.... the dude or dudess that invented fire the dude or dudess that invented the wheel.... you get the idea they all had to sue this IBUM idea
You can't sue people for violations of your patent if they don't actually commercialize it.
Well, you could, but you'll just get laughed out of court and end up paying for all the patent lawyers.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
which took me 2FH, I believe this falls into the patent tools arena, sort of like TurboTax (if they had been the first to patent a computerized way to aid in the preparation of taxes) for patents. Some of it seemed either ironic or sarcastic, like the figures describing the computerized system -- 1400 -- a veiled reference to one of IBM's most famous computer lines. It would only be useful if someone else tries to market a PatentMaker app. Without the computerized part, it would be like trying to patent a cookbook.
The rest of the world will probably put the US into quarantine to avoid contamination by our lawyers. We don't have any money left to buy anything from them anyway and who needs a nation of moochers.
I patent the use of the letter "E" on line $0.02 per use pay in 7 days or $45 late fee.
The way a patent works is the claims in the patent need to be invalidated for the patent to be invalidated. So unless IBM is claiming exactly what you may have blogged about and you blogged about it more than a year ago, it would not be prior art. Even if you did blog exactly what they were claiming, if they changed the wording semantics a little they could get around that. Also they have made it easier to get stupid patents.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
When I ask people who's the first dork they can think of they all answer:
- You!
Now I've found out there are plenty of other dorks around, but obviously I was the first one, now ...
2) ...
3) profit!
This led to my revised idea:
1. File a business method patent on patent trolling.
I thought I was joking. The thing is, if I blogged about it (and I may have), I wonder if it's prior art?
Was that before April 2007? If not, Halliburton beat you to it:
Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
If only someone had been a bit faster, they could have headed this off by filing the patent troll patent troll patent!
If anything, this proves how ridiculous the whole patent process became.
Patents are supposed to encourage innovation. Not stifle it. They're supposed to encourage publishing and give someone an incentive to invest into R&D without fearing someone else reaping the rewards. Instead it has been perverted into a get-rich-quick scheme where the winner is not who invests into R&D but who comes up with trivial ideas and locks them up in a patent so nobody else may use it without coughing up dough.
So the first thing that has to fly out of the window are nobrainer patents like one-click. If someone can dream it up in a drunken stupor after a night out, it should not be patentable. Patents are supposed to protect investment, and a three digit bar bill is NOT an investment!
Second, treat patents as investments. In other words, let those that developed it earn their reward and then let it go free. Anyone who files for patent has to prove how much he spent on it, he will be allowed the exclusive rights until X+interest amount of money has been earned (the licensees will be very interested in providing the info when that sum has accumulated) and then the patent is gone. I admit that it may be hard to determine that sum in most cases, but it's worth a try and should pretty much mean the end to patent trolling and one-click patents.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is MY invention: Phone-y-Arm
I'm going to patent it.
Then sue everyone holding a cell phone to their ear while driving.
Yo dawg! I heard you like to sue while you troll, so we put a patent in your patent so you can troll when you sue.
... you look like that actress.
Not sure if that's a good intro.
Somebody had to file this. Now how long before somebody patents getting money for patent trolling?
Oops... Prior Art.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If this finally gets the courts to see how broken the patent system is and force lawmakers to re-think or scrap the whole system it'll be a big win for all concerned.
At this point, big players like MS, Apple, IBM and Intel may have realized the the risk of loss from patent trolls might be greater than any potential gains from licensing their technology.
...to file a patent on filing patents against people who file patents.
No, wait....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Heres an idea to reduce patent trolling - have the cost of filing a patent increase proportionally to the number of patents that entity already holds. Throw in some conditions so you can't get around it by starting a subsidiary for each one or something. Startups with a good idea can easily get it patented, because its cheap. Entities like IBM would only be willing to pay to patent things truely patent worthy. If IBM wanted it cheaper, they can release some of their existing patents.
Sanity test.
Fail to scan the summary *before* clicking the link == fail.
It's a samzenpus submitted "story". Apparently in a fit of anti-discrimination stupidity Slashdot decided that trolls should be allowed to be editors - and samzenpus got the job. At least it's consistently wrong - from naming the author to interpreting meaning.
Dear Cowboy - please stop by sometime, the bots you left in charge are all broken.
1. File a business method patent on "keeping a parking lot so icy that it's hard to walk safely in it."
I would like to cite the parking lots at several places I have worked or studied, as prior art.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I suppose the fee for filing a patent can be increased to a million dollars or so, so that we can pay for a sufficient number of real experts with enough time to show how a given patent is actually obvious.
But money only works up to a point. Examining patents is much less interesting than actually developing new stuff, and the real experts are probably paid well enough for developing stuff. If you tell them that examining patents is a citizen's duty to protect the country from patent trolls, maybe they will more likely listen, but I still doubt it.
Yo dawg, I heard you like patent, so I put a patent in your patents so we can troll patent while you troll patent.
I'm rooting for IBM in this case. If they get this patent, they would step on so many corporations' toes that it could possibly generate some 'lobbying power' against sw patents in general.
Seriously, just look at Apple. They seem to be able to patent the vaguest of patents even if there is documented prior art.
Wonder why companies are moving R&D offshore? Wonder why the only part of the company that is left is a post-office box? Patents for ideas are non-patents. Imagine if I find a better way to calculate the square root of an arbirary number. I could patent it and then charge a royalty fee for it's use. So, it's time to abolish software patents, or DIE.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
The recent Intellectual Ventures suits present just one example showing that the NPE ("patent troll") business model is fast becoming dominant in the world of IP. Thomas Edison held over 1,000 patents, but practiced none of them. He invented, which is what he did best, and let others manufacture products from his inventions. If an inventor cannot sue for patent infringement and recover damages, they why should anyone invent anything? Only vigorous patent enforcement rewards inventors for their inventions and incentivizes others to invent.