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Software Patents Not So Abstract When the Lawsuits Hit Home

Posted by timothy on from the complaints-department dept.

no_such_user writes "It's easy to ignore the controversy surrounding software patents, especially if you don't have the passion for technology which Slashdot readers do. But as Dana Nieder discovered, it's not all about major corporations and obscure patent trolls. Her daughter uses a comparatively inexpensive assistive communication app on their iPad, which is being threatened by the makers of a multi-thousand-dollar hardware device."

24 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Bit more info by maxdread · · Score: 5, Informative

    A link to the actual complaint for anyone to read over (legal speak makes my head hurt so don't count on me to read it).

    http://news.priorsmart.com/semantic-compaction-systems-v-speak-for-yourself-l5vv/

    1. Re:Bit more info by Svartalf · · Score: 5, Informative

      They're suing over a dynamic interface keyboard that's on-screen or otherwise.

      That's what they're suing them over.

      They have prior art that they've not contemplated here. This program existed in it's earliest form in 1996. Which was a dynamic interface keyboard for assistive purposes.

      I tire of this bullshit. What was done to "reform" patents did nothing of the sort.

      --
      I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
    2. Re:Bit more info by kanweg · · Score: 5, Informative

      That is not Novelty destroying, I think. The first claim says that they keys contain polysemous symbols. Not being a native speaker, I had to look that word up. This is what Wikipedia says:

      A polyseme is a word or phrase with different, but related senses. Since the test for polysemy is the vague concept of relatedness, judgments of polysemy can be difficult to make. Because applying pre-existing words to new situations is a natural process of language change, looking at words' etymology is helpful in determining polysemy but not the only solution; as words become lost in etymology, what once was a useful distinction of meaning may no longer be so. Some apparently unrelated words share a common historical origin, however, so etymology is not an infallible test for polysemy, and dictionary writers also often defer to speakers' intuitions to judge polysemy in cases where it contradicts etymology. English has many words which are polysemous. For example the verb "to get" can mean "procure" (I'll get the drinks), "become" (she got scared), "have" (I've got three dollars), "understand" (I get it) etc.

      The program you linked to only shows letters on the keys.

      Bert

    3. Re:Bit more info by Svartalf · · Score: 4, Informative

      And...we won't get into the fact that Apple patented the base concept in 1992

      --
      I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
  2. Money wins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In our (North American at least) justice system, it is money that wins the day. If you cannot afford to do legal battle, you lose. Very sad, but until we change it, it is the way things are.

    My only suggestion is if you need the app, make sure you have it and a backup on your ipad. The company may stop producing and supporting it, but if you already have it and it is working, then keep it. (ps. Don't screw around with that ipad, in case you corrupt something and lose the 'irreplacebale' app.

  3. Patent links by CapitalR · · Score: 5, Informative

    And here are links to the patents in question:
    http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5748177.PN.&OS=PN/5748177&RS=PN/5748177
    http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5920303.PN.&OS=PN/5920303&RS=PN/5920303

    1. Re:Patent links by timholman · · Score: 5, Informative

      anybody that speaks "patent" know if they have a decent patent or can "we" rip these patents apart like Mouse Dresden does to Vampires??

      (just for "fun" lets see if we can come up with prior art and such)

      You're wasting your time. Prior art can be found for the great majority of patents. (I do this part-time as a consultant.)

      But prior art is irrelevant unless you can afford a couple of good attorneys who bill at $500 / hour, and are willing to devote months if not years of your life to a legal battle. Is it worth $100,000, or even $1,000,000, to invalidate the plaintiff's patent? You can win the battle but lose the war when your small business goes bankrupt from the legal costs.

    2. Re:Patent links by Svartalf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most of the litigators I know that're good in this space happen to bill at $350/hr. The only bunch I know of that charge $500/hr are people from places like Cravath. Most of the companies that hire those sorts of lawyers don't bother with idiot lawsuits like this one.

      As for months of a legal battle, it depends on the "big company" as to whether or not they're willing to piss $100k-1mil on the floor and lose the patent that they spent some $20-50k on getting, along with possibly losing a countersuit if one's filed.

      In this case, though, there's a dead-on, you lose piece of prior art involved- Apple patented the base concept in 1992. This isn't some almost item. It's the same concept/implementation- all that's differing is the verbiage in the patent copy for what they're doing and why. I'd put up a fight and counter-sue for damages due to this BS for bringing a frivolous lawsuit (Because it is...).

      --
      I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
    3. Re:Patent links by Grond · · Score: 4, Informative

      But prior art is irrelevant unless you can afford a couple of good attorneys who bill at $500 / hour, and are willing to devote months if not years of your life to a legal battle.

      Patent attorneys, even good ones, do not universally bill $500/hour. There are perfectly competent patent attorneys who bill half or even a quarter of that. But moreover, litigation is not the only route to invalidating a patent. If appropriate prior art is found (e.g. patents and printed publications), reexamination at the Patent Office costs far less than litigation, often results in invalidation or substantial narrowing of the patent, and any co-pending litigation is typically stayed during reexamination.

      Is it worth $100,000, or even $1,000,000, to invalidate the plaintiff's patent? You can win the battle but lose the war when your small business goes bankrupt from the legal costs.

      That's one reason I favor greater use of fee-shifting in patent cases (i.e. patentee pays the other side's attorney's fees if the patent is invalidated). But who's to say that the patentee would get an injunction in this case? Since they don't make an iPad app it's quite possible that the court would only award a reasonable royalty or perhaps lost profits. That means the app will have to be more expensive but it doesn't mean it would be removed from the market. Similarly, the defendant many be able to settle for a reasonable royalty without incurring significant litigation costs. The author of the article assumes that the result will be the end of the app, but this is not necessarily true.

  4. Patents in question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The patents in question, from USPTO website.

    #5748177 Dynamic keyboard and method for dynamically redefining keys on a keyboard

    A dynamic keyboard includes a plurality of keys, each with an associated symbol, which are dynamically redefinable to provide access to higher level keyboards. Based on sequenced symbols of keys sequentially activated, certain dynamic categories and subcategories can be accessed and keys corresponding thereto dynamically redefined. Dynamically redefined keys can include embellished symbols and/or newly displayed symbols. These dyanmically redefined keys can then provide the user with the ability to easily access both core and fringe vocabulary words in a speech synthesis system.

    #5920303 Dynamic keyboard and method for dynamically redefining keys on a keyboard

    pe1 A dynamic keyboard includes a plurality of keys, each with an associated symbol, which are dynamically redefinable to provide access to higher level keyboards. Based on sequenced symbols of keys sequentially activated, certain dynamic categories and subcategories can be accessed and keys corresponding thereto dynamically redefined. Dynamically redefined keys can include embellished symbols and/or newly displayed symbols. These dynamically redefined keys can then provide the user with the ability to easily access both core and fringe vocabulary words in a speech synthesis system.

    ---
    Seems a bit broad IMO, allowing such dynamic functionality across key redefining, and then pasting on 'as it applies' to "a speech synthesis system".

    For what it's worth, seeing as a few hundred dollar iPad app is allowing a little girl to speak vs. a $9000 piece of hardware from the suing company, I hope this goes viral to the point that the Semantic Corporation (plaintiff) is forced to drop the lawsuit just to save PR face.

    1. Re:Patents in question by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Drop a lawsuit to save PR face?

      Muahahahahahahah... oh boy. Sorry, but this was just ... you really are one funny guy. The days when companies cared what people thought about them are over and gone. Ever since they noticed that the average consumer has the memory of a gold fish and any dip in sales due to bad press is at best temporary. If the consumer notices at all.

      For reference, see Sony.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Patents in question by Svartalf · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually...it'd be more than PR they'd save. Apple patented the base concept in 1992

      --
      I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
    3. Re:Patents in question by Svartalf · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No... That patent's no longer enforceable. This is 2012. 1992 + 17 = 2009. It expired as a concern several years ago. It also makes anything close to this that doesn't come up with a truly new, patentable twist (the subject patents aren't...) unpatentable. :-D

      --
      I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
  5. Re:Common sense? by JoeMerchant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The dead obvious clause "readily apparent to one skilled in the art" or somesuch, has been ignored for about 20 years now...

  6. Seriously? by ledow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hunt down an online programmer in another country.

    Pay them a few hundred.

    They will knock up an app that's better, works on everything, and can be extended and customised later and you'll have the source too.

    The problem here is not the app or some "big bad company", but that the legalities mean that your app will always be at risk and specialist support apps are INCREDIBLY expensive and crap (ask Stephen Hawking).

    Whether the patent is valid or not, you'll never know. They could really have a legitimate legal claim and the app-maker could have deliberately infringed their patents in order to make a quick buck. You don't know and can't guarantee anything.

    I've worked in schools that have paid thousands for a simple flashcard app for hearing-impaired children. It was literally a VB4 app that I could replicate in an afternoon if I sat down with a licensed clipart library. But if I made one, I wouldn't be able to sell it because schools would only ever buy from established, recognised institutions, etc.

    Get yourself a programmer. In fact, turn the blog post into a plea for someone to create the programme for you. If they create it in a country that doesn't recognise software patents, there is NOTHING they can do about it and the author can put it on their website and charge what they like and you can tell all your friends to buy it from him. Plus, you'll get EXACTLY what you want.

    Don't fight the patents - you don't have the money or inclination, just a single sob-story that has zero real weight. Sidestep the patents instead, and also hit that company where it hurts at the same time. And as your child grows, make the app grow with her and fix the problems she experiences.

    If something is crap, expensive, liable to infringement / removal, etc. then you get around this by using SOMETHING ELSE.

  7. It's emotional testimonies that make terrible laws by sco08y · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We already know that patent laws are fucked up.

    We don't need more emotional testimony dumped into our political and legal processes. It's already fucked up enough from this nonsense. "My cute wonderful 3 year old sweetie who is disabled and just found a way to speak and now a company wants to take that away for profit!"

    The moment someone says that such and such a law has "hit home" is the moment we need to tune them out.

    Because they're now useless as an even remotely objective source of information. Our worst laws are, by and large, the most popular, usually mandates that accomplish the opposite of what they're intended to do or simply fail miserably with terrible side effects. Which then stirs up another emotional mob that tries to fix the new problem!

    We think there are cigar smoking villains in back rooms writing our laws when in fact the real authors are nitwit staffers transcribing the rantings of mobs of emotional idiots. We think that rich villains buy politicians, when, by the numbers, it's almost entirely a case of politicians purchasing voters.

    We seriously need to take a deep fucking breath, rip out about 90% of our laws, and start over.

  8. Smith Corona model by Dr.+Tom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When the IBM PC killed the typewriter dead, did Smith Corona sue? No, they adapted, and now sell printer supplies and specialty paper. Before they made typewriters, they made guns. That is one adaptable company. All companies could learn a lesson here. Be flexible. Adapt. The market changes, that's just a fact of life. Litigation to save a dead product is ultimately just pissing money away. Make something new, better, different. Especially in this climate where a claim like this will get you fried in the hot, boiling oil of public opinion.

    1. Re:Smith Corona model by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why adapt or die, when you could just manipulate the law to keep innovation from affecting you?

      --
      Palm trees and 8
  9. Mere firstness quality of implementation by aeschenkarnos · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Patent and copyright are both broken in that they reward mere firstness infinitely more than quality of implementation. They get the whole concept ass-backwards. Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's implementation and marketing where the real work lies. Any fool can have a brilliant idea, indeed we all have them every time we discover something that doesn't work as well as we would like, and in fact I had three yesterday. Probably all three have already been solved in one way or another by other people, but the fact that I don't have, or even know about, a solution implies that the solution isn't good enough or hasn't been marketed well enough. There may be plenty of possible better solutions than mine already thiught of, that the patent system is making non viable because some asshole got there *first* with their half-assed device.

    The patent system is even worse than that. At least in the story in the article, the plaintiff has actually implemented *some* kind of solution, however ridiculously expensive. The current US patent system rewards trolling: *not* implementing *anything*, just sitting on the patent until some poor bastard actually bothers to think up a viable solution and produces it, then springing out to snatch a share of *their* work.

    And this is the system the US is frantically, despertely attempting to foist onto the rest of the world.

  10. Re:It's emotional testimonies that make terrible l by jpapon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We think there are cigar smoking villains in back rooms writing our laws when in fact the real authors are nitwit staffers transcribing the rantings of mobs of emotional idiots. We think that rich villains buy politicians, when, by the numbers, it's almost entirely a case of politicians purchasing voters.

    An interesting thought, but one that seems to go against most of modern history, in which the rich have almost all of the power.

    --
    -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
  11. Re:Yes this is horrible but... by GPierce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This isn't a solution, but it is something to think about. (It's not totally accurate, but it's a reasonably close description - and there were actually several enclosure acts, not just one.) It could be argued that the enclosure acts were the beginning of our modern concept of "property".

    In the 18th century, our then Lords and Masters took over by passing the Enclosure Acts which ran the peasants off of the commons - producing three generations of property-less rabble. They also passed rules regarding privately held land. If you wanted to establish title to the ground that your family had "owned" for several hundred years, you had to enclose your property with a fence or a hedge. The catch was that the cost of the enclosure was ten times the value of the land.

    The smart peasants sold their land for a few bucks, got on a boat and came to the "new world". Their goal was to get a chunk of land, draw a circle around it and not have any one screw with them again. The Native Americans never had a chance.

    Just as the European nobility "invented" property, our current nobility has invented "intellectual property" and is in the process of producing new generations of property-less rabble.

     

    --

    When you are dancing with wolves, never limp
  12. Prior art by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wrote, and my company shipped, a free icon/text configurable speech generation system for the Amiga that does essentially what the iPad app in question here does at least two years before the date of the patent in question (the complaint dates the patents 1995 and 1997 -- Talkboard hails from 1993 and before, though I can only document it to 1993 -- that's the copyright date in the archive.) The application is called "Talkboard" and is still available from our company's historical archive.

    Talkboard presented a layered interface pretty much just like the one in the iPad app, It used a synthesized voice and provided for unusual phonetic construction so as to obtain the best clarity (the Amiga's text-to-speech could be.... quirky.) You could load and save phrase banks, and one phrase bank could partially replace another or completely replace another. Single words or short phrases or entire complex sentences could be stored for 1-click or multiple click retrieval. The phrase could be represented by any shorthand that was convenient. It came with presets, but was really intended to be customized by the end user - what a kid has to say and an adult has to say tend to not be the same things in most cases. It could also be driven from ARexx, a system-wide scripting facility, and could dynamically change definitions based upon whatever criteria you needed it to.

    As far as I can tell, there's nothing unique, new or even interesting in the two patent claims.

    Hopefully that's of use to the EFF or the defending party.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  13. Tell them! by KingSkippus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hopefully you're not just posting this on Slashdot, which is about three degrees away from the people being sued. I'd suggest using the Contact Us link on the company's home page to tell them. That's information their lawyer might find very useful and help in their defense.

    1. Re:Tell them! by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, I stuck it on the page the article linked to as well right after I posted it here.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.