Why Juries Have No Place In the Patent System

flamebait? by noh8rz8 · 2012-08-28 07:46 · Score: 1, Insightful

umm, is the entire article -1 flamebait? or -1 troll? I never can tell the difference

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Re:flamebait? by DJRumpy · 2012-08-28 08:06 · Score: 1, Insightful

Well for starters, the patent systems wasn't on Trial. Samsung and Apple were on trial. The Jury didn't have to fully understand the entire patent system. They had to answer 700 questions. In every jury case, the jurors are presented with the necessary information to come to a consensus. It is the responsibility of the prosecution and defense to make sure they can come to an informed opinion given the necessary information as presented by both sides.
Any adult, given enough facts as presented by both sides, should be able to come to a conclusion as to guilty or innocent. It doesn't require an in-depth knowledge of law, but rather a simple way to judge to arguments and giving merit to one over the other. If it required an in-depth knowledge of the law, we would only have lawyers for jurors, and I think we can all agree that's not a great idea ;)
Last but no least, a very basic yet easily understandable reason. Jurors represent the common man. Just imagine if every person in the jury was technically 'in the know'. Look at similar discussions here on /. and you'll find hundreds of answers to the same question all with different viewpoints. Even the most basic questions can result in flame wars due to the depth of knowledge represented here. The more in-depth knowledge one has on a topic, the less likely you are to get a consensus and the less likely you are to be able to look at a case objectively.
Re:flamebait? by NEDHead · 2012-08-28 08:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

Aha, so ignorance breeds just conclusions. I guess creationism must be true after all.
Re:flamebait? by DJRumpy · 2012-08-28 08:15 · Score: 1, Interesting

Not ignorance. Reason.
My hands are wet with blue paint. The person next to me has his hands painted red. You are color blind. The evidence has red paint on it. You have no idea if the paint on the paper is red or blue. You are presented with evidence stating the paper has red paint which is accepted into evidence. You can only judge by the evidence provided. That is a key concept of law.
"The law is reason, free from passion" - Aristotle
Re:flamebait? by mcfatboy93 · 2012-08-28 08:15 · Score: 1

My concern is how they can judge apple, the creators of the iPhone "cough" "cough" over samsung... If the jury is supposed to be unbiased... how will you find people who have not heard of the iPhone in the US.

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Re:flamebait? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 08:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

They need to understand something about patent law and something about the subject matter. The Jury foreman actually said this in an interview:
"...wether or not the prior really did invalidate that patent, and so with that moment that I had, I relealized that the software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vise versa and that means that they're not interchagable, and that just that just changed everything right there"
Would you trust this guy to be on a jury for a case you were involved with? Obviously he was in over his head and just pulling stuff out of his nether regions. The rest of the jury followed him. And this is a guy who holds a patent and should, ostensibly, have some simple understanding of prior art.
Re:flamebait? by MickyTheIdiot · 2012-08-28 08:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

I am not sure that was the problem here.
One problem that I do see is that the jury foreman is a patent holder himself. That could of been an impact. There's a good chance he didn't like the idea that a jury could come back and say that some patents being given out right now are unfair and/or worthless.
Re:flamebait? by DL117 · 2012-08-28 08:33 · Score: 4, Informative

Guilty? Innocent? Prosecution? Defense?
"Guilt" and "Innocence" are criminal concepts. In a civil case, like this one, the jury finds "for" one party or the other. Guilty or not guilty are not concepts that exist here
There also is no prosecution. That term refers to a state prosecutor in a criminal case. There is a plaintiff and his/her/it's attorney.
Re:flamebait? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 08:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

"Objects in motion slow down because they get tired." - Aristotle
Re:flamebait? by cpu6502 · 2012-08-28 08:43 · Score: 4, Informative

A jury system is a "check" on the power of the government to enforce unjust laws. Basically weakens the ability of the government to just toss people into jail without opposition. (Unless they call it "indefinite detainment" under the NDAA.)

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Re:flamebait? by DJRumpy · 2012-08-28 08:43 · Score: 1

I was speaking generically and thinking about a criminal trial, not specifically about this case. I agree on all other points. "Prosecution" and "Defense" wouldn't play a part in a civil trial (although juries are used in both criminal and civil trials in the United States).
Re:flamebait? by jklovanc · 2012-08-28 08:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Any adult, given enough facts as presented by both sides, should be able to come to a conclusion as to guilty or innocent.
When the facts are written in legalese, like patent documents, it is easy for the average person to become confused and ignore that evidence. This case was even worse in that the foreman was a self described "expert" and the rest of the jury deferred to his judgement. In effect, this was not a decision of 12 members of a jury but a decision of one expert convincing 11 non-experts.

If it required an in-depth knowledge of the law, we would only have lawyers for jurors, and I think we can all agree that's not a great idea
That is precisely what one gets in a trial by judge. Lawyers who do not have a stake in the outcome of a case can be very impartial and in complex cases like patent law knowledge is the key. It takes years to learn patent law. Do you really think that anyone can absorb all that information in a few weeks of trial? How much of the nuances are lost due to information overload?

The more in-depth knowledge one has on a topic, the less likely you are to get a consensus and the less likely you are to be able to look at a case objectively.
That is precisely the issue in this situation. The jury foreman was well versed in patent law as viewed by a patent holder. When technical questions arose the jury took the foreman's advice instead of deciding on their own or asking the judge question. Legal definitions and complex laws such as patent law are difficult at best. 700 questions is a huge number in a legal case. It take a lot of brain power to keep them straight. Most of the people in this group are well above average intelligence and we have issues dealing with these subjects. Do you really think that someone with an IQ of 90 would have fewer issues?
Patent law is too complex for the average person.
Re:flamebait? by jedidiah · 2012-08-28 09:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

The flip side of that is that you have ignorant people that are easily swayed by propaganda into wanting to "send a message". This can be compounded by someone on the jury having an obvious conflict of interest.
Vor dire clearly failed in this instance.

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Re:flamebait? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 09:00 · Score: 1

Any adult, given enough facts as presented by both sides, should be able to come to a conclusion as to guilty or innocent. It doesn't require an in-depth knowledge of law, but rather a simple way to judge to arguments and giving merit to one over the other. If it required an in-depth knowledge of the law, we would only have lawyers for jurors, and I think we can all agree that's not a great idea ;)
I think that's the whole point of this article: judges should rule, not juries. Juries are a Bad Idea® and this patent case is the perfect example. Three weeks of trial, with a jury looking for answers to 700 questions in hundreds of pages worth of documents. And they decided within three days. Really? It is impossible to do that amount of work correctly in just three days, even if all questions are simple yes/no questions. Even when we ignore the complex issues involved.
Re:flamebait? by uncqual · 2012-08-28 09:00 · Score: 1

Look at similar discussions here on /. and you'll find hundreds of answers to the same question all with different viewpoints. Even the most basic questions can result in flame wars due to the depth of knowledge represented here. The more in-depth knowledge one has on a topic, the less likely you are to get a consensus and the less likely you are to be able to look at a case objectively.
Some of these "answers" are of course objectively wrong. Perhaps even more are the clear result of bias (sometimes the poster would even acknowledge that upon careful examination). However, most of the people making the answers and those reading them know much more about the topic than 90% of the public so can have some hope at sorting out which answers are wrong, which ones are biased, and which ones are reasonably correct and don't show too much bias. Unfortunately, the other 90% of the public would have little ability to do this because they lack the expertise.

For example, imagine how a 40 year veteran of software development in varied fields would view "prior art" vs. what someone who knows virtually nothing about what software really is and doesn't even use a general purpose computer or smartphone and doesn't even understand them.

It's like politics. Very knowledgeable, smart, and economically informed people have very different views on if the US economic system needs fixing and, if so, how to fix it. Their opinions are at least based partially on facts. All of these people know, for example, that about 50% of the federal personal income tax returns filed result in NO payment of federal income tax (i.e. >=100 percent refund of taxes withheld) and incorporate this fact into their views. Someone who doesn't even understand this fact is much less likely to have a viable proposal to a solution to how, if needed, to fix the US economic system.

These factors tend to lead me to support "expert" panels for at least certain patent cases (probably including Samsung/Apple case)

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Re:flamebait? by shentino · 2012-08-28 09:07 · Score: 1

Sounds like a blatant conflict of interest that he should have been disqualified for.
Re:flamebait? by king_grumpy · 2012-08-28 09:11 · Score: 1

They had to answer 700 question
I wonder how you can do that properly in just 3 days?
Re:flamebait? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 09:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

nonsense.
BOTH sides had patents they were trying to enforce. He could easily have sided with Samsung with respect to their patents, but he didn't.
You are attributing a motive to someone because you didn't like the outcome so now you are coming up with rationalizations for why it turned out the way it did.
Everyone is coming up with their own conspiracy theory.
Oh, its an attack on FOSS
Oh, the judge was paid off
Oh, the jury was biased against a foreign company.
Oh, we are all doomed because of round rectangles.
There are people on the other side of the coin that thought the outcome was just. What was their motive? They were just seduced by Apple?
I don't like software patents as much as the next guy. Until they change, this is the game that we have to play. This is why Google spent so much on Motorola to get its patents.
If everyone would just look around, the same BS happens in many other areas, automobile innovation, tv's, biotechnology.
Re:flamebait? by viperidaenz · 2012-08-28 09:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

My hands are wet with light blue paint. The person next to me has purple paint on his hands. You are not colour blind. The evidence has dark blue paint on it. The prosecution and/or defense is not telling you the full an unaltered truth. The judge has disallowed other evidence. Which one of us is guilty? Did I try to wash off the dark blue paint from my hands and made it light blue? Did the other guy try to hide the blue paint on his hands by mixing it with red? Are we both innocent and the wrong people are being tried? Has the evidence that was allowed been altered in some way?

Good luck solving the mystery.
Re:flamebait? by viperidaenz · 2012-08-28 09:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

Especially since he patented the TiVo, several years after it was released.
Re:flamebait? by DeadCatX2 · 2012-08-28 09:18 · Score: 1

In effect, this was not a decision of 12 members of a jury but a decision of one expert convincing 11 non-experts.
Actually it was 9 jurors, not 12.

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Re:flamebait? by HappyDrgn · 2012-08-28 09:19 · Score: 1

"Lawyers who do not have a stake in the outcome of a case can be very impartial and in complex cases like patent law knowledge is the key."
That is until the trial-by-lawyer-tribunal lobbyists come along...
Re:flamebait? by Sir_Sri · 2012-08-28 09:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

It is the responsibility of the prosecution and defense to make sure they can come to an informed opinion given the necessary information as presented by both sides.
The primary argument being that this an intractable problem. You are banking on the ability of lawyers to teach a jury portions of law they will understand enough to rule the way each side is advocating. That fundamentally mistreats jurors and the law, it limits the ability of jurors to recognize information outside the scope presented by a lawyer (who might be bad, or simply underestimates the jury), and it supposes that laws can be considered in piecemeal isolation.

Any adult, given enough facts as presented by both sides, should be able to
That is a truly profound assumption, which is the basis of much of jury based legal systems. It's quite possible this assumption is wrong. Whether it's demonstrably right or wrong is harder to say, because legal systems that don't have juries are different from ones that do on more than just the existence of juries.

we would only have lawyers for jurors, and I think we can all agree that's not a great idea ;)
um....
That's actually a good idea. In effect it is what your supreme court is, which is a 9 rather than 12 person jury of professional legal experts. Just about every country has the most important cases decided by a collection of lawyers or lawmakers for precisely the reason that it is simply not appropriate to have common people establishing definitive precedents.

The more in-depth knowledge one has on a topic, the less likely you are to get a consensus and the less likely you are to be able to look at a case objectively
A lack of consensus may be preferable to decisions based on purely superficial understandings of problems. Broadly speaking the thrust of the article is that Juries aren't capable of making good decisions about patent law, in part because of jurors themselves and in part because the legal system is constrained by having to work around these 'common people' where you are burdening them and their employers to resolve a dispute that justifies far more time and far more expertise than is available to a jury, and may broadly require addressing much deeper questions. Should rectangles be patentable at all is a question that should be addressed before a jury is ever told 'assume they are patentable and work based on that assumption', because that's an absurdly stupid process.
The three basic points he makes:
1. Juries start biased, and are being asked to overcome that bias. Which is certainly true of both professional and non professionals.
2. It's harder to prove a negative than a positive, even if the negative is better. 'He copied me, that's why I have a patent on this and he doesn't' is easier to understand than 'we knew that too, but we didn't patent it because it shouldn't be patentable at all' is an inherently worse argument to make. I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's a psychological argument about how juries perceive information and there are valid underlying psychological principles about how people perceive information that have to be considered.
3. Patent problems specifically should be handled by the people who actually issue patents. Whatever you think about juries, you should be able to have a discussion with the people who granted the patent at all about whether or not that should have happened, and the patent system itself may need to pass information up the chain to their government managers about things that are causing them problems. The thing is, patents sort of exist in their own sub legal domain already, I guess the argument about apple vs samsung is that it was outside that sub domain, but that's more of a specific problem than a problem in general with the patents appeal process.
The more science you put in the courtroom the more juries are going to b
Re:flamebait? by Anne+Thwacks · 2012-08-28 09:24 · Score: 1

Surely the idea is that you are tried "by a jury of your peers" and that means that all the jurors should be patent holders

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Re:flamebait? by hackula · 2012-08-28 09:33 · Score: 1

Most of the people in this group are well above average intelligence[...]
Let's not kid ourselves here. /. will not even let you log in if your IQ is above 65.
Re:flamebait? by Applekid · 2012-08-28 09:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

nonsense.
BOTH sides had patents they were trying to enforce. He could easily have sided with Samsung with respect to their patents, but he didn't.
The fact that he held patents at all means he should have been dismissed. There's a reason why, for example, in Oracle v Google, potential jurors that are in the technology sector or had used Java were excused. That reason: because only evidence brought into trial is supposed to be used to determine the outcome. By having patents in his head, he has information that he can't avoid tapping into during deliberation. Lawyers typically screen for that kind of thing and it's surprising they didn't. Perhaps because modern-day patents are all about corporate ownership, and the idea that an individual could hold one is outside their understanding.
That he wasn't dismissed turned out to be a gamble for Apple and a blunder for Samsung. Further reading here. Choice quote:

The foreman told a court representative that the jurors had reached a decision without needing the instructions.

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Re:flamebait? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 09:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Surely the peers should all be faceless, billion+ dollar, global corporations with huge patent portfolios, no?
Re:flamebait? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 10:00 · Score: 1

> The jury foreman was well versed in patent law as viewed by a patent holder.
Isn't that like being well-versed in automotive engineering because you own a Camry?
Re:flamebait? by QuantumLeaper · 2012-08-28 10:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's easy when the jury doesn't follow the Judge's instructions.
Re:flamebait? by Kalriath · 2012-08-28 10:07 · Score: 2

Good idea. Have them tried by Microsoft, IBM, HP, Oracle, and a couple of others.
Judge: And how do you find?
Foreman: Hang them both.

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Re:flamebait? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 10:10 · Score: 2, Interesting

The fact that he held patents at all means he should have been dismissed. There's a reason why, for example, in Oracle v Google, potential jurors that are in the technology sector or had used Java were excused. That reason: because only evidence brought into trial is supposed to be used to determine the outcome. By having patents in his head, he has information that he can't avoid tapping into during deliberation.
You're making up reasons to believe the trial was unfair because you didn't like the outcome. Stop that.
If the trial was about the validity of the patent system itself and the outcome influenced the validity of patents in a global sense, being a patent holder would be a legitimate reason for exclusion.
But that's not what the trial was about. At all. I realize you slashtards are groupthinking yourselves into believing some gross miscarriage of justice must have happened because you don't like the outcome, and therefore are reading a lot more into events than is warranted, but back in the real world the main question put before the jury was whether Samsung violated Apple's patents.
Samsung could (and did) try to defend itself by attacking the validity of those patents, but overturning them would not have threatened the foreman's own patent.

Lawyers typically screen for that kind of thing and it's surprising they didn't. Perhaps because modern-day patents are all about corporate ownership, and the idea that an individual could hold one is outside their understanding.
Are you fucking kidding me? Listen to yourself. That's the sound of blatant over-the-top rationalization. Just stop. You're making a fool of yourself.

That he wasn't dismissed turned out to be a gamble for Apple and a blunder for Samsung.
Or maybe... just maybe... both of them thought he wasn't biased and were confident enough about their cases to believe that he'd go with them.

Further reading here. Choice quote:

The foreman told a court representative that the jurors had reached a decision without needing the instructions.
You're regurgitating this crap where Groklaw abuses a statement out of context to imply the jury completely disregarded instructions? That kinda says it all.
Re:flamebait? by dgatwood · 2012-08-28 10:15 · Score: 2

A jury system is a "check" on the power of the government to enforce unjust laws. Basically weakens the ability of the government to just toss people into jail without opposition. (Unless they call it "indefinite detainment" under the NDAA.)
In a criminal trial, yes. In a civil trial, not so much. To my knowledge, tautologically speaking, no one has ever been jailed as a result of a civil trial other than for misconduct during the trial process (contempt of court, etc.)....

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Re:flamebait? by bws111 · 2012-08-28 11:03 · Score: 1

That is just idiotic. In a contract dispute, is everyone who is party to any contract excluded? No. In an auto accident case, is everyone with a drivers license excluded? No. What is this supposed 'information' he had in his head, and how did it effect his judgment?
Re:flamebait? by gmhowell · 2012-08-28 11:50 · Score: 1

Most of the people in this group are well above average intelligence[...]
Let's not kid ourselves here. /. will not even let you log in if your IQ is above 65.
You forgot to tick the 'post anonymously' box.

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Re:flamebait? by dlingman · 2012-08-28 12:52 · Score: 1

2. It's harder to prove a negative than a positive, even if the negative is better. 'He copied me, that's why I have a patent on this and he doesn't' is easier to understand than 'we knew that too, but we didn't patent it because it shouldn't be patentable at all' is an inherently worse argument to make
Isn't this rather easy to solve? If you invent it, but don't think it's patentable, or shouldn't be patented, publish it. Then nobody can patent it.
Re:flamebait? by hairyfeet · 2012-08-28 12:53 · Score: 2

Yeah no shit, not to mention jury selection can often "weed out" those with brains. There is a good reason why the old joke is "a jury is 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty" because you can get some doozys in a jury trial. I won't post the entire story but my mom hung a jury for 2 weeks before the judge finally let them go because the rest of the jury thought all Italians were in the mob like "Goodfellas".
So I can see the point of this argument, hell many of us have been total nerds for decades but how many of us are familiar enough with patent law to be able to weed out the bullshit from the truth in a case THIS huge?

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Re:flamebait? by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-08-28 13:04 · Score: 1

Aha, so ignorance breeds just conclusions. I guess creationism must be true after all.
No ignorance just breeds conclusions. It's more important to be sure than right is what he's saying.
Re:flamebait? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 13:07 · Score: 1

Bollocks
A judge is highly likely to exclude valid evidence for now good reason. This has happened in a number of highly public miscarriage of justice cases, not to mention the bullshit exclusion of prior art in the samsung/apple case due to a biased judge
Re:flamebait? by Capsaicin · 2012-08-28 13:49 · Score: 1

Samsung and Apple were on trial.
You make it sound as if this was a criminal trial, it wasn't. Samsung and Apple were in litigation.
Any adult, given enough facts as presented by both sides, should be able to come to a conclusion as to guilty or innocent.
There is no 'innocent' and again words like 'guilty' are appropriate in criminal law and this was not a criminal trial. The question was whether a person infringed the rights of a rightsholder. I'm starting to think that YANAL.
It doesn't require an in-depth knowledge of law, but rather a simple way to judge to arguments and giving merit to one over the other. If it required an in-depth knowledge of the law, we would only have lawyers for jurors.
Like duh! The jury is the tribunal of fact, not the tribunal of law (that's what the judge is doing there). The jury is not supposed to reach any conclusion as to the law. The complaint here is not that the jury interpreted patent law incorrectly, it's that they supposedly gave the mountain of facts presented inadequate consideration. Now I don't necessarily agree, but that is the accusation.
I think we can all agree that's not a great idea ;)
You're just flat out wrong on that score. Personally I believe a judge (a lawyer) unaided by a jury, which is to say a judge acting both as the tribunal of fact and of law, will often deliver sounder decisions in complicated civil litigation than a judge acting with the assistance of a jury (ie "twelve people too dumb to get out of jury duty"). But that is only as a matter of practice, from the PoV of legal/political theory I see the attraction of separating the tribunals of fact and law and of involving non-lawyers in deciding the questions of fact.
In any case what is being proposed here is a "panel of experts" not a panel of lawyer. "Experts" would be those who are usually called as expert witnesses to persuade juries as to matters of fact, but who in this capacity would not be acting for a litigant (nor be on their payroll).
The more in-depth knowledge one has on a topic, the less likely you are to get a consensus ...
Now that is true.
... and the less likely you are to be able to look at a case objectively.
Huh? Not understanding the issues or their complexity leads to objectivity?!

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Re:flamebait? by Sir_Sri · 2012-08-28 14:19 · Score: 1

Ah, but they *can* patent it. It's prior art and the patent should be invalid, but that doesn't mean it didn't get patented, and if the jury feels 'prior art' isn't central to the process or is just bogging them down they can then not consider the prior art and then what mess do you have?
Re:flamebait? by chrismcb · 2012-08-28 15:47 · Score: 2

And this is a guy who holds a patent and should, ostensibly, have some simple understanding of prior art.
Just because he holds a patent does not mean he has ANY understanding of prior art.
Re:flamebait? by lister+king+of+smeg · 2012-08-28 17:07 · Score: 1

i suppose they could have an all Amish jury they would have heard of it but would not of cared one way or the other.

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Re:flamebait? by silentcoder · 2012-08-28 22:56 · Score: 2

>But that's not what the trial was about. At all. I realize you slashtards are groupthinking yourselves into believing some gross miscarriage of justice must have happened because you don't like the outcome,
Four courts in four three countries had trials on the SAME patents. 3 out of 4 courts found in favour of the defendant. One of them found so STRONGLY in favour of the defendant that it ordered the claimant to publicly post advertisements declaring the innocence of the defendant. That's a highly unusual thing in a case not directly involving something like slander - it's the court telling the claimant that he was SERIOUSLY full of shit in bringing the suit.
1 out of the four trials finds in favour of the claimant. The Jury in this trial admits to "sending a message" - directly against the orders of the judge and also admits to reaching it's decision WITHOUT reading the jury instructions - which I'm pretty sure is grounds for a mistrial by itself.
But the truth is, that with this context, I (as a citizen of NONE of the countries involved and a customer of neither of these companies) have to conclude that the 4th trial WAS a massive miscarriage of justice. When 3/4 courts finds somebody innocent and the 4th finds guilt - all on the SAME available evidence (it's not like we suddenly discovered DNA testing for patents or something) - I believe that the odds are very good the 4th court screwed up.

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Re:flamebait? by Yoda222 · 2012-08-28 23:43 · Score: 1

So you think that the jury does not have to know the law, they only need to get a presentation of the law by prosecution and defense ? Seems fun.
Re:flamebait? by Shagg · 2012-08-29 03:44 · Score: 2

He was granted a DVR patent several years after the Tivo was released. I'd say he understands prior art very well, and has an obvious interest in prior art being ignored.

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Re:flamebait? by justforgetme · 2012-08-29 05:04 · Score: 1

Or is this whole discourse/trial frivolous to begin with?
One thing I have never heard a jury do is call the whole trial a farce. As they should have with this one. But no, they could make a company of the homeland richer while punishing the Korean competitor. Well founded blind patriotism I say....

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Re:flamebait? by justforgetme · 2012-08-29 05:30 · Score: 1

conflict of interest
finally a use of the word "of" that is actually correct! Yay!!
Oh and BTW you are correct about your point as well Sir.

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Re:flamebait? by Hognoxious · 2012-08-29 06:52 · Score: 1

Except it's not, is it?
History is replete with people who were able to sway millions into doing things that, to anyone else, were clearly retarded.
12? Child's play.

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Re:flamebait? by Hognoxious · 2012-08-29 06:58 · Score: 1

No, you're a shill and/or a prick with a JD off a cereal packet.

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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:flamebait? by Hognoxious · 2012-08-29 07:12 · Score: 1

Assuming eight-hour days, that's roughly 30 questions per hour. One question every 2 minutes.
You could barely read them out loud in that time, let alone discuss them.

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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Re:flamebait? by redlemming · 2012-08-29 09:54 · Score: 1

Like duh! The jury is the tribunal of fact, not the tribunal of law (that's what the judge is doing there). The jury is not supposed to reach any conclusion as to the law.
Unfortunately, this viewpoint neglects the fact that legal professionals, as a class in society, have ethical conflicts of interest with respect to the nature and scope of the legal system, and thus reserving decisions on matters of law to legal professionals will sooner or later produce a badly messed up legal system. A country that did that sort of thing might even get a reputation as a "Land of the Lawsuit", not that we know of any countries where that has happened ...
Government of the people, by the people, and for the people should not be government of the lawyer, by the lawyer, and for the lawyer.
A jury, if it is made up with people who have a good level of knowledge about the world they live in, can serve as a check and balance on this ethical conflict of interest. Which may be one reason why few such people end up in juries, and also why governments run by lawyers tax the sale of lifetime learning materials and call it a "consumption" tax, treating the sale of these materials the same as the sale of toys and sporting goods.
Furthermore, in the USA, James Madison gave us a Bill of Rights that provides for rights "retained by the people" (9th Amendment) and "reserved to the people" (10th Amendment). The Bill of Rights does not say that these rights are "retained by the lawyers" and "reserved to the lawyers", or even "retained by the people but only when it is convenient for the lawyers". The existence of these rights necessarily gives members of the people, including persons on a jury, the freedom to decide that the government is violating fundamental rights in passing a particular law. It would be unethical -- and, certainly a violation of their oaths to uphold the Bill of Rights -- for legal professionals to try to prevent this.
There are MANY serious problems with the patent system -- see the position paper by the League for Programming Freedom for a discussion of this -- and any intelligent person serving on a jury should ABSOLUTELY be keeping this in mind when serving in a patent case.
Another right that might be reasonably asserted under the 9th and 10th Amendments would be the right to not have one's time wasted, the human span being finite and far too short. That right was probably violated for the jurors in this case, given that nobody could reasonably expect a decision to be upheld when jurors are being instructed to answer 700 questions, and thus the time of the jurors will probably end up having been wasted. The legal professionals involved at least got paid -- and probably quite well -- for their time. Why is it wrong to steal a portion of a person's life by murdering or kidnapping them, but it isn't wrong to steal a portion of a person's life by forcing them to participate in a trial that will likely prove a complete waste of time?

Or you know... by Glarimore · 2012-08-28 07:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

we could start debating the patent system instead of patents themselves. There is a lot of talk about the validity of these patent lawsuits and not enough about the validity of the system itself.

Re:Or you know... by MickyTheIdiot · 2012-08-28 08:05 · Score: 4, Informative

The problem is the agenda of the debate is constantly controlled. Plus, you would need to discuss it in the mass media, which takes the corporate side in each and every debate.
The first time I have EVER heard patents brought up in the MSM was on CNN last weekend, and the spokemodel (oh sorry, anchor woman) talked like patents were God's gift to the earth.
Re:Or you know... by flibbidyfloo · 2012-08-28 08:21 · Score: 1

Oh yeah gosh I *never* hear anyone talking about problems with the patent system. More talk isn't what's needed.
Re:Or you know... by Jason+Levine · 2012-08-28 08:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

I think one problem is that patent lawsuits are just assumed to happen. It seems, too often, the patent office just approves patents figuring that they'd get sorted out in the courts. Meanwhile, the courts just assume that patents must be valid by default if they've been approved by the patent office.

--
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Re:Or you know... by MickyTheIdiot · 2012-08-28 08:31 · Score: 2

Outside of Slashdot, my own family, and my coworkers I *never* hear anyone questioning the patent system.
A lot of people don't care. Even though it does affect the everyday life they don't make the connection.
Re:Or you know... by CaptBubba · 2012-08-28 08:35 · Score: 1

Many of the problems in the patent system can be tracked back to specific phrasing in patent law, for example in section 102: "A person shall be entitled to a patent unless..." That means that the default is that you get one, unless it can be proven by the Patent Office that you do not deserve one. There just feels like a mismatch. It seems like there should be a requirement for showing that the invention is sufficiently new or non-obvious that it merits locking out the public from practicing it.
That would be OK if the government allocated the time and money needed to really deeply investigate the applications, but when you consider that the person in the process who bears the burden of proof is someone on a very strict quota system (often less than 15 hours per case) and the applicant can just make arguments forever if they want, and the examiner has to address them all no matter what ... yeah there's a problem in practice.
Re:Or you know... by Dachannien · 2012-08-28 13:27 · Score: 1

and the spokemodel (oh sorry, anchor woman) talked like patents were God's gift to the earth.
That's because patents are viewed as being a representation of ingenuity, or as an endorsement of an invention by the government. They're not. You can invent the most bass-ackward mechanism that totally sucks, and as long as it hasn't been done before and it's not obvious (which, since it sucks, it quite possibly won't be), you can get a patent.
But laypersons tend to view "Patent Pending" as meaning something special, rather than just an indication that someone has a right to exclude others from practicing the invention.
Re:Or you know... by hackula · 2012-08-29 00:45 · Score: 1

It would be pretty surprising if they did follow it at all, much in the same way that you probably do not follow the regulations placed on CPAs or LASIK surgery (both of which could have a very real impact, whether on your bank account or your mothafrackin eyeball!).
Re:Or you know... by Shagg · 2012-08-29 03:49 · Score: 1

and as long as it hasn't been done before and it's not obvious
From what I can tell, those are no longer requirements.

--
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.

Ugh... by denmarkw00t · 2012-08-28 07:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

We should either

1) Gut the patent system, releasing all patents into the public space or
2) Move patents to a 5-10 year maximum life before they are turned over to the public

Innovation is key, but innovation doesn't necessarily mean figuring it out on your own. Too many companies have strangleholds on great technology and methods, and the not being able to access that information only hurts those trying to compete and become viable. The idea that you can patent things as silly as a lot of what comes through in the IT world (rounded corners, click to buy, slide to unlock, etc) is stifling not only competition, but entrepreneurs, students, and people who could take it and do something better.

If your company has to bank on a patent to remain profitable, then you probably don't deserve to continue to be a company - part of being the leader is being able to continue and innovate in a space without worrying that your competitor might know how you're doing X because you're already focusing your efforts and resources on developing Y instead.

Re:Ugh... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 07:56 · Score: 1

I really like the idea I have seen on /. previously. Make patents renewable with a growing charge associated for each additional renewal. If done correctly, getting a patent would still be cheap and easy enough for everyone but it would become prohibitively expensive.
Re:Ugh... by Aryden · 2012-08-28 08:04 · Score: 1

It is when you have people different people writing software that does something very similar and the smaller guy gets sued out of business even though his product may have been better than his competitors just because an icon on one of the screens looked too close to the icon on the plaintiff's.
Re:Ugh... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 08:05 · Score: 1

Move patents to a 5-10 year maximum life before they are turned over to the public
Depends on the patent. There are things patented that should never have been patented in first place, or have very short patent lifespan. For example, most software patents (ie. just algorithmic patents) or design patents or business method patents.
On the other hand, there are patents are more worthy of the 20 years timeframe. For example, drug patents or novel internal combustion engine design.

If your company has to bank on a patent to remain profitable, then you probably don't deserve to continue to be a company
Not quite. Again, there are innovations that require longer ROI time period simply because of significant competition and small margins. It is much easier for someone else to simply copy the patents than to invest in their own. Again, take example of some widget in a ICE that makes engines 5% more efficient. The widget costs $5 to mass produce. It cost 5 years for research and another 5 years to incorporate into current designs. The purpose of the patent is to reward innovation.
On the other hand, take the "innovation" of "rounded corners". The patent of eraser on top of the pencil is more noteworthy!
Re:Ugh... by Tony · 2012-08-28 08:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

This would put patent renewal in the hands of the wealthiest, further tipping the balance in the favor of the rich.

--
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Re:Ugh... by jeffmeden · 2012-08-28 08:07 · Score: 2

Patents are basically a protection racket. Companies (like Apple, Samsung, etc.) shovel money at attorneys, into the patent office, into litigation, into licensing rights etc. in order to maintain an air of exclusivity over what is really a kind of pathetic "innovation" (rounded corners? wtf?) The narrowness threshold needs to be raised a LOT if the current system is to be kept tenable. If not, the precedent we see here (where a jury can be swayed on a pro-patent line with flimsy evidence) will cause a firestorm across the industry as every company sues every other company that hasn't bought enough protection through licensing rights. Innovation will cease to be important since every company will profit when someone buys any given smartphone (or other smartgadget).
Re:Ugh... by HapSlappy_2222 · 2012-08-28 08:19 · Score: 5, Informative

Challenge accepted.

http://www.researchoninnovation.org/WordPress/?p=9
http://archive.mises.org/7880/patents-and-innovation/
http://archive.mises.org/10217/yet-another-study-finds-patents-do-not-encourage-innovation/
http://keithsawyer.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/do-patents-increase-innovation/
I didn't really even cherry pick; I just did a Google search for "innovation in countries without patent laws" and a whole slew of studies came up.

It appears that many of the studies have shown that heavy patents don't necessarily increase innovation, but rather direct the types of innovations that are made within an industry (perhaps: innovate for a long term lock-in, not for shorter term or wide-spread improvements).

/shrug I think patents have their place, but I can't fathom a reason why a company would need more than a decade of locked-in profits after a product is released to market. I can maybe see the case for the very, very expensive and time consuming process of drug manufacturing, but in those types of special cases, shouldn't the patent be proportionate to the time invested, and not a broad "You just won the cancer game for the next 63 years!" certificate?
Re:Ugh... by shentino · 2012-08-28 08:20 · Score: 1

It's about as obvious as the patents that were involved.
Re:Ugh... by denmarkw00t · 2012-08-28 08:22 · Score: 1

Yeah, I struggled with that one - I considered the idea that time spent developing something would correlate to time allotted to the patent's life, but then companies would work on something for a year and then sit on it for 20 years to keep the patent alive once it goes out into the public.
There may be a good method, but I think we just need to do away with the current system at least, and maybe create something that treats patents as a serious thing to protect legitimate, costly innovation. Rounding a corner doesn't cost a dime. Developing a cure to Big Disease does. Currently, both can be defended as legitimate patents.
Re:Ugh... by mooingyak · 2012-08-28 08:23 · Score: 2

This would put patent renewal in the hands of the wealthiest, further tipping the balance in the favor of the rich.
I think the idea (I've actually heard it applied to copyrights rather than patents, but for this particular argument they're very similar) is to produce the following effects:
1. Dormant patent portfolios become unprofitable very rapidly which would make a dent in submarine patents
2. Costs increase exponentially so that only the most profitable patents get renewed
Even for the wealthy, this isn't a question of what you can afford, it's a question of how much you can profit from it. The rich won't hold on to a patent if it will cost them more money than they can gain to do so.

--
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Re:Ugh... by bored_engineer · 2012-08-28 08:29 · Score: 1

Wouldn't that fail in the case of a very desirable object? Let's take the gross case of the wheel, and suppose that ugg-ugg the caveman were able to live for millenia, or lived in a millenia-old society that allowed the inheritance of your renewable patents. What incentive does ugg-ugg have to build something new, beyond new riches. All he has to do is continue to charge more for his wheel. Mind you, this is not the dude who invented a wheel that fits on a specific vehicle, this is "The Wheel." I don't see that he would have any incentive to allow this in the public domain, as the increasing cost of registration will simply be passed on to the customer.
Re:Ugh... by Fwipp · 2012-08-28 08:34 · Score: 1

Presumably people would stop buying wheels once they cost $100,000 each, at which point the owner would not be profiting, and would no longer renew their patent. (I believe the idea is a geometric / exponential growth in cost, not a simple linear one).
Re:Ugh... by hankwang · 2012-08-28 08:42 · Score: 1

"Make patents renewable with a growing charge associated for each additional renewal"
Good news for you: this is already the case in most countries.

--
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Re:Ugh... by DutchUncle · 2012-08-28 08:42 · Score: 1

5-10 years is too short. The original term was 14. Maybe there should be a sliding scale depending on how much money can be proven to have been spent on the development. There's nothing wrong with relying on a patent to remain profitable; if the company invested a chunk of money developing something new, they deserve to get the use of it for a while, partly to help them pay for developing the next new thing. But they DON'T deserve to stop the entire universe from developing another thing in parallel that sort-of-looks-like the first thing (as opposed to directly copying, which is using work someone else paid for, which is the point of the patent).
Re:Ugh... by Just+Some+Guy · 2012-08-28 08:44 · Score: 1

This would put patent renewal in the hands of the wealthiest, further tipping the balance in the favor of the rich.
If a patent's cost doubled every year, few companies would renew many times past the $100,000,000 mark.

--
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Re:Ugh... by MozeeToby · 2012-08-28 08:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Allow me to introduce to you the Sam Vimes Boot Theory of Economic Injustice

Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.
Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.
Without any special rancour, Vimes stretched this theory to explain why Sybil Ramkin lived twice as comfortably as he did by spending about half as much every month.

A rich person will be able to spend the money upfront for future gain that a poor, or even upper middle class person has no chance or raising on their own. Poor people don't have investments because they cannot afford to have them, not because they don't understand the benefits of having a long term income.
Re:Ugh... by Cormacus · 2012-08-28 08:56 · Score: 1

As with most things legal, the even simpler solution is to simply follow the original intent and not grant patents that are obvious.
The entire point of the patent system is to entice an inventor to disclose non-obvious details about his/her invention in return for a temporary monopoly on its use. In this fashion society benefits by receiving valuable information that might otherwise have died with the inventor, and the inventor benefits by being granted the legal right to prevent competitors from using his breakthrough idea.
The simple fix for the patent system is for society NOT to grant these rights to people who aren't actually submitting non-obvious ideas!

--
Mon chien, il n'a pas du nez. Comment scent-il? TrÃs mauvais!
Re:Ugh... by nedlohs · 2012-08-28 08:57 · Score: 1

If you think you'd make less than $100 million per year with others able to use whatever the patent is for then yes.
Re:Ugh... by Envy+Life · 2012-08-28 09:03 · Score: 1

If a patent's cost doubled every year, few companies would renew many times past the $100,000,000 mark.
There are quite a lot of patents worth that kind of cash, and the biggest patent abusers are the companies that can afford to pay that. And then sometimes those are the very patents that would be most beneficial being released into the public domain.
Re:Ugh... by mooingyak · 2012-08-28 09:03 · Score: 1

A rich person will be able to spend the money upfront for future gain that a poor, or even upper middle class person has no chance or raising on their own. Poor people don't have investments because they cannot afford to have them, not because they don't understand the benefits of having a long term income.
If you're arguing that rich people have greater resources available to them than poor people... that's kind of the definition.
I'm not saying that patents won't cost more, I'm saying that the profit margins on patents would decrease, making them a less desirable investment for people of any level of means. This in turn would result in a greater number of patents expiring at an earlier date.
Also, IIRC when Sam Vimes was with the wealthy (widow? It's been a long time) woman, he eventually ditched the expensive boots for the cheap ones because he felt they gave him a better feel for the city. Not really that relevant, but worth pointing out that the expensive boots weren't necessarily as much better as they seemed.

--
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Re:Ugh... by shentino · 2012-08-28 09:10 · Score: 1

In which case you are still busting ass making those wheels, and the money going into the USPTO so they can hire more examiners is not going into the pockets of fatcat CEOs.
Re:Ugh... by shentino · 2012-08-28 09:11 · Score: 1

Bad news for us: The USA is not one of those countries.
Re:Ugh... by onemorechip · 2012-08-28 09:19 · Score: 1

I agree. I arrived at a very similar theory when I lived in an apartment. Any time it looked like I might be getting close to affording a down payment on a home, my rent would go up. Just enough, it would seem, to keep me from meeting my goal within the next year. While I'm sure the increases were partly due to increasing costs, I also figured that landlords need to do this to have a captive market of renters. By being very frugal, I was finally able to escape that trap after about 4 years.

--
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Re:Ugh... by MozeeToby · 2012-08-28 09:32 · Score: 3, Informative

Even for the wealthy, this isn't a question of what you can afford, it's a question of how much you can profit from it. The rich won't hold on to a patent if it will cost them more money than they can gain to do so.
This was the specific part of your comment I was responding to and my response can be summed up like this. The rich might not hold onto patents that aren't profitable, but they will hold on to patents that will profitable tomorrow, which is something the poor (or merely less rich) won't be able to do. Imagine you've invented a fabulous device that will, without a doubt, make billions of dollars, lets say a battery powered single stage to orbit rocket. You know others are working on similar designs so you rush out to patent it, even though the battery tech isn't there yet to actually make your design work. You're confident that the batteries will be available in 10 years though.
If you're rich, or a large corporation, you can pay your renewal fees, eat the cost and in 10 years you will utterly dominate the market. You'll make 10000x the cost that those patent renewal fees ran you. If you're poor however, you're left with only a few choices. You can sell your patent to someone who can afford the upfront costs of the renewal fees. You can partner with someone, who will undoubtedly demand the lions share of your profits because without their money will will get next to nothing. Either way, you're buying the cheap, leaky boots. Either way, you won't see a fraction the profit off your invention that you would if you had the money to pay for the patent renewals.
Re:Ugh... by viperidaenz · 2012-08-28 09:42 · Score: 1

Yes, in his own country. All the other countries would be using the wheel free of charge, they would just be banned from importing it to Ugg Ugg's country. There might be patents in those countries for pneumatic wheels by now. Ugg Ugg can't export his wooden wheels to those places now because they're nowhere near as good and the competition.

Ugg Ugg also carries a huge risk when ever he renews his patent. If, next year he shells out $2,000,000,000 for his patent extension and his customers refuse to pay more and move to sleds and helicopters, he is now out of pocket $2B.
Re:Ugh... by Raenex · 2012-08-28 10:05 · Score: 1

Any time it looked like I might be getting close to affording a down payment on a home, my rent would go up. Just enough, it would seem, to keep me from meeting my goal within the next year.
Owning a home can be more expensive than renting. It depends on when you buy and what you buy. If you bought at the top of the last bubble, you got walloped.
Rents respond to the market like anything else. When the market is tight, rents go up. When the market is down, there often will be no increase and you can even ask for a reduction in rent if you feel you can find an equivalent place for cheaper. Some landlords like to increase rents yearly on the theory that the tenants don't want to move, so it is essentially an inertia tax.
Re:Ugh... by MikeBabcock · 2012-08-28 10:11 · Score: 1

If you include a requirement to license, that's not so wrong. What irks me is companies who won't license their patents at a reasonable cost.

--
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Re:Ugh... by Bill_the_Engineer · 2012-08-28 10:24 · Score: 1

Why doesn't Samuel Vimes save up for the better boots? He can pay up front for the ten dollar boots that lasts a year, and set aside money during that year to buy the better boots the following year. Even if it took him several cheap boots to finally purchase the good boots, he still spends less during the ten year period than this story projects.
The problem with the "Sam Vimes Boot of Economic Injustice" story is that the reader assumes his only option is to pay a fixed price every year for the cheap boots, when it may be possible for Sam Vimes to purchase the better boots eventually.

--
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Re:Ugh... by Just+Some+Guy · 2012-08-28 10:36 · Score: 1

There are quite a lot of patents worth that kind of cash
Not really. After 4 years, that would be $1.6 billion dollars per year. Five years after that, it'd be $51.2 billion per year (or more than Apple is expected to profit this year). Two years later, it'd be $204.8 billion per year (or more than Apple's total expected revenue this year).
No, there aren't many patents worth several generations of exponential cost.

--
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Re:Ugh... by fnj · 2012-08-28 10:38 · Score: 1

OK, let's see. If you set your figure of $100,000,000 to be the annual renewal fee for, say, the eighth year, work it backwards.
Year 8: $100,000,000
Year 7: $50,000,000
Year 6: $25,000,000
Year 5: $12,500,000
Year 4: $6,250,000
Year 3: $3,125,000
Year 2: $1,612,500
Year 1: $806,250
Do you really want to hit the small inventor with almost a million dollars for his initial filing fee? And if he doesn't get into production pretty fast his costs will spiral out of control. That pretty much shuts down all small inventors. On the other hand, Apple could easily file for a thousand patents. And, for the "good" patents, they could afford to go well beyond the eighth year.
If I understand your idea correctly, I don't think I like it at all.
Re:Ugh... by bennomatic · 2012-08-28 10:54 · Score: 1

Sometimes, patents work the way they should however. My experience with patents is extremely limited, but contain, I think, a worthwhile anecdote in the argument about the patent system.

My father is an electrical engineer who found himself in a career in nuclear physics after getting his engineering degree. If you or someone you know has gotten a PET or CAT scan, odds are more than even that the work was done on one of the many machines he's had a hand in designing, building and installing in hospitals, universities and other research facilities around the world.

Most of that work was done under the umbrella of medium to large corporations, but since going it solo, he's come up with a few patents around radiation detectors, and he makes and sells his devices as a part of his consultancy. And here's the thing: he has a client base which includes companies like General Electric which, if not for the patents, could totally copy his devices and build them for distribution, undercutting and outselling him to his own client base. He's one guy in a heavily-shielded workshop, and patents allow him a significant level of predictable business which would otherwise be crushed.

Unfortunately, many patents are used by big corporations against big corporations, or worse, against small competitors. Or even worse, by trolls against everyone. But at the heart of the system is an idealistic hope for a leveling of the playing field which--if only sometimes--can act in the interests of small business people who otherwise would have no chance of making an honest living from an honest invention.

--
The CB App. What's your 20?
Re:Ugh... by mooingyak · 2012-08-28 11:18 · Score: 1

If you're rich, or a large corporation, you can pay your renewal fees, eat the cost and in 10 years you will utterly dominate the market. You'll make 10000x the cost that those patent renewal fees ran you. If you're poor however, you're left with only a few choices. You can sell your patent to someone who can afford the upfront costs of the renewal fees. You can partner with someone, who will undoubtedly demand the lions share of your profits because without their money will will get next to nothing. Either way, you're buying the cheap, leaky boots. Either way, you won't see a fraction the profit off your invention that you would if you had the money to pay for the patent renewals.
This problem is inevitable and in fact already exists. The real question is whether or not a progressively expensive patent system will exacerbate that issue, and whether or not the pains of that exacerbation will be outweighed by the pool of patents that will expire earlier. I don't disagree with your analysis, namely that the richer you are the better use you can make of your resources (IOW, having twice as much money can potentially grant you more than twice as much power), but I do dispute the assumption that it would necessarily be worse than the current system.

--
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Re:Ugh... by bws111 · 2012-08-28 11:37 · Score: 1

Quite easy to prove, no need to change anything. There are countries which have no effective patent system. Is a single one of them producing anything new that people want?
In case you are really this stupid though, here is something for you to think about. Look at your cell phone. How many billions of dollars of investment and hard work do you think are in there? I mean in total. Everything from the plastic in the case, to the chips (all the way back to the transistor), to the battery, the tiny magnets in the mics and speakers, the display, the touch screen, the countless manufacturing processes and tools for all those components, etc. Now ask yourself: how much of that stuff would have been invented if the inventor was unable to protect his invention?
In the absense of patents, the only way to protect your stuff is by not telling anyone how you did it. That is not good for anyone.
Re:Ugh... by bws111 · 2012-08-28 11:48 · Score: 1

The thing that you seem to forget is that the 'obvious' test is applied BEFORE the patent is made public, not after. EVERYTHING is obvious once someone has done it.
'Obvious' does not mean someone else could have done it. 'Obvious' does not mean that once you see how it is done (or have it described in some way) you could do the same thing. 'Obvious' means basically that there is only one way to do something, and everyone who is skilled in that art already knows what it is.
Re:Ugh... by V-similitude · 2012-08-28 12:47 · Score: 1

The computer you're using to type on would either have to be locally sourced...
If we assume the patent started when wheels became exponentially more critical for society (let's just say around the time the automobile was invented, for argument's sake), the cost by now would be far more than 100k per wheel... Automobiles came into mass production roughly in 1914, let's round up to 1920. Let's just say it started at $1 back then (about $10 in 2010 dollars). In 1930, it'd cost $1k to renew. By 1940, it'd cost $1 million to renew. By 1960, it'd cost 1 trillion dollars to renew (per year).... that's double the entire GDP of the US at that time. So, I'm pretty sure the patent would be long-gone by then. So, I think my computer and my city would be just fine.
Probably starting at $1 is a bit too generous, so let's say $1k. Then you'd have 20-30 years, at best, and only that if you were making serious (Apple-esque) money off of it. Not to mention, a single patent is not usually enough, so the costs would be a multiple of this. Maybe it'd need some tweaking, but overall, exponential costs is a good way to limit patent time and yet give enough flexibility to encourage innovation of truly successful ideas.
Of course, this all sort of misses the point. We shouldn't be patenting "pinch-to-zoom" any more than we can patent "point-and-click" or "holding something over your head to avoid getting rained on".
Re:Ugh... by ppanon · 2012-08-28 12:59 · Score: 1

The point of the patent system is to allow inventors time to recuperate their investment costs and earn a profit from their invention. It is supposed to protect inventors from more moneyed interests stealing their idea and using the advantage of existing production and distribution infrastructures to out-compete the inventor without any research expenditures because such an outcome would discourage invention. If the patent system only protects the interest of the rich, then it fails at the core goal of acting as an inducement for invention.
Instead it just acts as an additional barrier to entry protecting established actors and has the opposite effect of the intended goal. Established actors don't have as much of an incentive to invest in the production of innovations that could disturb their market position. Some obvious examples would be Kodak and Microsoft.

--
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Re:Ugh... by mooingyak · 2012-08-28 14:36 · Score: 1

The point of the patent system is to allow inventors time to recuperate their investment costs and earn a profit from their invention. It is supposed to protect inventors from more moneyed interests stealing their idea and using the advantage of existing production and distribution infrastructures to out-compete the inventor without any research expenditures because such an outcome would discourage invention. If the patent system only protects the interest of the rich, then it fails at the core goal of acting as an inducement for invention.
Instead it just acts as an additional barrier to entry protecting established actors and has the opposite effect of the intended goal. Established actors don't have as much of an incentive to invest in the production of innovations that could disturb their market position. Some obvious examples would be Kodak and Microsoft.
It's all a matter of conjecture until we check out the numbers, and I don't know an easy of getting all the relevant data, nor am I inclined to conduct the volume of analysis for a slashdot post. I'll concede that your point may be correct, but without the math to back it all up we're all just guessing.

--
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Re:Ugh... by chrismcb · 2012-08-28 17:55 · Score: 1

. The idea that you can patent things as silly as a lot of what comes through in the IT world (rounded corners, click to buy, slide to unlock, etc) is stifling not only competition, but entrepreneurs, students, and people who could take it and do something better.
This is really the problem. That too many patents are given to things that are not new or not novel.

If your company has to bank on a patent to remain profitable, then you probably don't deserve to continue to be a company -
And yet this is the main reasons patents exist. Patents are about protecting the little guy from the big guy who has more money and resources.
Re:Ugh... by gnasher719 · 2012-08-28 19:53 · Score: 1

The point of the patent system is to allow inventors time to recuperate their investment costs and earn a profit from their invention. It is supposed to protect inventors from more moneyed interests stealing their idea and using the advantage of existing production and distribution infrastructures to out-compete the inventor without any research expenditures because such an outcome would discourage invention. If the patent system only protects the interest of the rich, then it fails at the core goal of acting as an inducement for invention.

Instead it just acts as an additional barrier to entry protecting established actors and has the opposite effect of the intended goal. Established actors don't have as much of an incentive to invest in the production of innovations that could disturb their market position. Some obvious examples would be Kodak and Microsoft.
If you look at the first two sentences, that is exactly what has happened in Apple vs. Samsung. Well, Samsung is not "more moneyed", but they have plenty of money, and they certainly were using the advantage of existing production and distribution infrastructures, and they didn't have research expenditures. You are surely right that the patent system shouldn't _only_ protect the rich, but surely it shouldn't _not_ protect Apple because they have money.
Re:Ugh... by gnasher719 · 2012-08-28 19:59 · Score: 1

The thing that you seem to forget is that the 'obvious' test is applied BEFORE the patent is made public, not after. EVERYTHING is obvious once someone has done it.
I still can't figure out how a zipper works :-)
Re:Ugh... by Shagg · 2012-08-29 03:56 · Score: 1

That wouldn't change the point of the story though. Whether or not he could eventually afford the better boots, the point still stands that the person with less resources has to spend more.

--
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Re:Ugh... by Artagel · 2012-08-29 07:14 · Score: 1

Well, that would put an end to pharmaceutical development. Many drugs are not even FDA approved in 5-10 years. Seeing as each costs like a billion to develop that would be the end of that. So yeah, banking on the patent system to get time for cost recovery is just so unreasonable.
Re:Ugh... by shilly · 2012-08-30 19:28 · Score: 1

http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/everyday-innovations/zipper.htm
Et voila

overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by Trepidity · 2012-08-28 07:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't really like the idea of replacing trial-by-jury as the ultimate arbiter, and in any case it would be difficult to get such a thing passed. A more incremental reform, easily doable within current constitutional law, would be to give the USPTO approval process more teeth so fewer bad patents get issued in the first place, and therefore trial never becomes a possibility. It shouldn't approve any old stuff that comes its way, but should really take the non-obviousness and novelty tests seriously.

--
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by darkmeridian · 2012-08-28 08:11 · Score: 1

This to a trillion degrees. The USPTO and the guys challenging a patent application are much better suited to knocking out bad patents before they are even born. Even more fundamentally, however, patents on genes and software should not be patentable subject matter.

--
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by SuricouRaven · 2012-08-28 08:21 · Score: 1

That only works if they have some incentive to knocking out those bad patents. The USPTO is basically a rubber-stamping factory, depending upon the courts to fix the messes it creates.
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by Jakester2K · 2012-08-28 08:27 · Score: 1

Agree with you both.

Unfortunately, we seem to have made "never enough time to do it right, plenty of time to do it over" the overarching mantra of... well... everything.

I still haven't been given a reasonable response to the question "why does it have to become a law before it can be declared unconstitutional?" Seems to to me that question should be considered before bothering the pres to get out his pen....

Whatever happened to doing homework before class? Whatever happened to due diligence? Are these just more lies taught to us in childhood?
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by gander666 · 2012-08-28 08:36 · Score: 4, Informative

Well, I am going to blow out my moderations for this story.
What you say is fine in theory. Patent examiners are well suited to examine, and determine validity. But, they are so swamped at this point, there are far more patents to process than they can reasonably work through.
A former colleague worked at the USPTO, as an examiner, and he explained what happens. When you apply for a patent you are obligated to include the prior art that you found. In theory, they (the examiner) is also supposed to conduct a search for prior art, and to use that in their review process. But, one side effect of their being so overloaded is that this becomes a cursory search (if at all), and thus they rely on the submitted by the filer prior art declarations.
And here is how you game the system. A company tells their people to not be too diligent in their vetting and searching. Thus major prior art is not stated, and the patent moves forward, because the examiner believes that it is novel, given what he has in front of him.
Back in the old days, (mid 1990's) I worked at a company that made chip building systems. We filed lots of patents. We deserved to file for them, as we spent beaucoup bucks developing techniques to apply to chip inspection and measurement. We always were sent back to revisit the prior art by the patent examiners. My last job? Some of the stupidest business process patents sailed through, although an afternoon searching on Google would have found reams of invalidating prior art.
If you want to fix the patent system, we need to treble the number of examiners. Alas, the congress critters seem intent to not increase the funding to get to a healthy state.

--
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress ... but I repeat myself. - Mark T
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by shentino · 2012-08-28 09:18 · Score: 1

Maybe those congress critters are in bed with the lawfirms handling all these patent infringement lawsuits.
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by Dragonslicer · 2012-08-28 09:49 · Score: 1

If you want to fix the patent system, we need to treble the number of examiners. Alas, the congress critters seem intent to not increase the funding to get to a healthy state.
If I remember correctly, the Congresscritters actually did agree to giving the Patent Office more money in the last patent legislation. Where "giving them more money" means letting the Patent Office keep the money they collect, instead of siphoning it off and giving them back only a small percentage of it.
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by martyros · 2012-08-28 09:51 · Score: 1
If you want to fix the patent system, we need to treble the number of examiners. Alas, the congress critters seem intent to not increase the funding to get to a healthy state.
No, first you have to ask why there are so many patent applications. The answer to that is that most patents are granted, hard to overturn, and thus are incredibly valuable. It's a vicious circle: the USPTO has too many applications, so skimps and grants bad patents; Bad patents are incredibly valuable, so more people apply, so the USPTO is too busy.
I think what should happen is this:
- Anyone can sue to invalidate a patent
- If a patent is inavlidated, the USPTO pays the legal expenses of those who got it overturned.
That way, there would be incentive for people to actively look for bad patents to overturn; and, there would be an incentive for the USPTO not to grant patents which are going to be overturned. And once only actually valid patents get approved, then the volume of applications will go down drastically.
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TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by Gavrielkay · 2012-08-28 11:10 · Score: 1

I read a while back that the problem really started when the patent office was supposed to be self sufficient. The office depends on filing fees. Filing fees come along with applications. Applications come with some hope that they will turn into actual patents. So, the patent office makes more money by having it be generally known that most patents will be granted, not by doing real due diligence.
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by fnj · 2012-08-28 11:20 · Score: 1

Suppose I as a taxpayer don't want to pay for making half the population into patent examiners and jurors? Because your idea of a lousy trebling is ridiculously feeble and wouldn't come close to fixing anything. I doubt if you increased the force tenfold it would make the slightest degree of difference. Because the problem isn't that examining patent applications is demanding; it's COMPLETELY IMPRACTICAL TO EVEN ATTEMPT. Both the volume of applications per day, and the sum total of prior art to search, are growing EXPONENTIALLY. The certain result is a corrupt system like we have now.
Here's my counterpoint. Patents are (1) morally and ethically EVIL, and (2) not of any benefit to society or the advancement of "useful arts"; in actual fact, they are very much the opposite. If Eli Whitney didn't put his vision of the cotton gin into operation because he was scared like a little girl that everybody else would copy his idea and he would fail to get filthy rich at the expense of everyone else - then SOMEBODY ELSE less imbalanced WOULD HAVE. And those who put out the best product most efficiently will win the competition, as they should. Anybody who is so scared that someone else will steal "his" ideas knows that, if "his" ideas are any good at all, he can use trade secrets to protect them anyway. File off the markings on the IC's. Enable copy protection on the FPGA's. Lock away the source code. Keep your workers happy so they won't be tempted to reveal your secrets. If that's the way you really want to go. Just be aware that a thousand competitors will be turning all their efforts toward innovation instead of hoarding ideas, and they will probably leave you in the dust.
As it happened, Whitney did get his patent, and he still failed to get filthy rich from his monopoly. He couldn't make the machines fast enough, he refused to license his patent, others saw how to improve the machines when he didn't, and simple economics ensured that people "violated" the patent to fill the demand. He spent his profits on - you guessed it - patent infringement lawsuits.
Oh yeah - I didn't support point (1), you say? I suppose I assume anyone can see its truth. But here goes:
Mary: "Mommy! MOMMY! Billy is COPYING me! I thought of it first!". That's the full extent of the moral and ethical justification for patents. It's laughable. The wise mommy tells Mary to mind her own life and not be concerned with whether others do or say things she thought of "first". And the wise mommy tells both Mary and Billy that it's not the copying that is bad, it's the mocking that is behind it, and she will not put up with mocking in her family, but her kids had better be prepared to face mocking in the real world.
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by Hatta · 2012-08-28 11:21 · Score: 1

I think what should happen is this:
Anyone can sue to invalidate a patent
Indeed. The very concept of standing has become an obstacle to justice.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by Trepidity · 2012-08-28 11:30 · Score: 1

I believe that's technically the case, but you can always phrase it that way by making the particular device a method to achieve a desired aim. For example, goal: "an intuitive and pleasing user interface" (not patentable). Method: rounded corners ("novel" method by which one may achieve said goal).

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by bws111 · 2012-08-28 12:02 · Score: 1

Again with the stupid rounded corners arguments. There is NO PATENT for a "device with rounded corners". None. What there is is a design patent which says 'a device that looks like this'. Round corners are a part of it, but only in conjunction with smooth front and back, angular edges along the front, radial edges along the back, connectors on the side, back slightly smaller than front, etc.
There were phones, smart phones, and PDAs before iPad. Not one of them looked like an iPad. That is why it was patentable, because it was a NEW DESIGN.
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by Shagg · 2012-08-29 04:26 · Score: 1

Alas, the congress critters seem intent to not increase the funding to get to a healthy state.
Maybe their definition of "a healthy state" is different than yours and mine. From their perspective, is the patent system really broken, or is it working exactly as intended.

--
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Re:overhauling the USPTO is a better solution imo by Shagg · 2012-08-29 04:30 · Score: 1

So you're saying instead of a patent on a 2D rectangle with rounded corners, it's really a patent for a 3D rectangle with rounded corners.
Oh, that's totally different!

--
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.

P2P by fustakrakich · 2012-08-28 07:52 · Score: 1

It's supposed to be jury of your peers...

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”

Re:P2P by SailorSpork · 2012-08-28 07:58 · Score: 2

So you're saying the jury should have been full of multi-billion dollar corporations? I suppose that would make sense if corporations were legally people too...
Re:P2P by fustakrakich · 2012-08-28 08:03 · Score: 1

It's a corporate, in particular about patents, issue. People who understand fully patent law should decide the matter, not Walmart checkout people.

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Re:P2P by shentino · 2012-08-28 09:19 · Score: 1

Lern2geekhumor.
Subject line P2P, common term for people you are downloading with is peers.
Shall you make your reputation any seedier than it already is?

Unless it's in the United States by davidwr · 2012-08-28 07:54 · Score: 3, Informative

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

- Amendment VII, The Constitution of the United States of America

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Re:Unless it's in the United States by JDG1980 · 2012-08-28 08:01 · Score: 1

Yes, we all know what the Constitution says, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is good policy. We've amended it before.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by Above · 2012-08-28 08:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

Trial by Jury does not mean "trial by 12 random people off the street".
Cases like this could have jury pools drawn from experts, not laymen. That would still be a trial by jury.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by Maximum+Prophet · 2012-08-28 08:06 · Score: 1

Congress just has to define what you are allowed to sue over. If you can't sue, you can't have a Jury. ('cept in criminal cases)

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All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Re:Unless it's in the United States by kenj0418 · 2012-08-28 08:10 · Score: 1

They need to adjust 20$ for inflation though.
I can't believe those n00b founding fathers hard-coded that value...
Even with inflation, I'm pretty sure $20 in 1789 is still less than $1,000,000,000+ in 2012. (Agree with you on the hard-coding - unless their intent was to have it effectively approach zero over time.)
Re:Unless it's in the United States by sl149q · 2012-08-28 08:18 · Score: 1

There is no reason to believe that patents are somehow such a sacred and / or arcane subject that juries should not be allowed. The exact same arguement can and has been made for many parts of tort law and tax law.
These arguments are typically trotted out by the losers after the fact to justify why they lost. Or by people who think that the laws (patent, tort, tax, etc) should be simplified or reformed.
There IS some validity to their claims. But not to limiting it to patent law.
But to paraphrase Churchill - Trial by jury is the worst of all systems but better than all the others that have been tried from time to time.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by GodInHell · 2012-08-28 08:19 · Score: 1

Expert juries are an interesting concept that pops up in law reviews from time to time. However, to the best of my knowledge, they're not allowed under the common understanding of the right to a jury of your peers.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by vlm · 2012-08-28 08:22 · Score: 1

They need to adjust 20$ for inflation though.
I can't believe those n00b founding fathers hard-coded that value...
Before "they" had the brilliant idea of removing the dollar from the gold standard, there was no inflation. If you've got an axe to grind about returning to the gold standard, that's one of the stereotypical constitutional arguments. Don't kid yourself that its a new argument.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Unless it's in the United States by frosty_tsm · 2012-08-28 08:37 · Score: 1

Expert juries are an interesting concept that pops up in law reviews from time to time. However, to the best of my knowledge, they're not allowed under the common understanding of the right to a jury of your peers.
You can't say that 12 people working average jobs and earning 30k-70k are peers to Samsung and Apple.

Maybe their peers should be Sony, RIM, and Lenovo?
Re:Unless it's in the United States by GodInHell · 2012-08-28 08:45 · Score: 1

Corporations are people my friend.

Sad but true -- corporate personhood was invented to deal with issues of standing in federal court. So, to that extent we are peers to corporations. Our immortal, amoral, lobotomized siblings are our peers, and their guardians (i.e. officers and board of directors) are free to direct them to do whatever evil shit they feel is most likely to produce wealth without assessing undue cost.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by Dr+Modesto · 2012-08-28 08:52 · Score: 1

An expert (n), someone who agrees with me.

--
There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics - Umberto Eco
Re:Unless it's in the United States by fermion · 2012-08-28 08:54 · Score: 1

When I hear that trial by jury is not needed in a particular case, what I hear is that a particular defendant has not peers. In this case Samsung is such a high elite, that it should not be subject to laws of the common person. We hear this quite a bit when an elite is torn down and forced to live by the rule of law.

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"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Re:Unless it's in the United States by GauteL · 2012-08-28 09:43 · Score: 1

Trial by Jury does not mean "trial by 12 random people off the street".
Cases like this could have jury pools drawn from experts, not laymen. That would still be a trial by jury.
Isn't this actually a better fit for "trial by a jury of your peers"? After all, in the field of software/electronic engineering, 12 random people off the street is hardly going to be peers to the engineers at Samsung/Apple.
But stretching this train of thought, I wonder who would be jurors in a mass murder case.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by matrim99 · 2012-08-28 11:00 · Score: 1

You do realize that China is the largest producer of gold, right?
Most folks who believe that our currency's value should be tied to an arbitrary metal don't seem to like this fact.

--
Right. No, your other right. No, the other other right.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by V-similitude · 2012-08-28 12:56 · Score: 1

Trial by corporate peers would be an intriguing (if corruption-ridden) idea! I suppose it could work as long as both sides have ample ability to disqualify obviously-biased "jurors" (as they do already, but maybe more-so). So, I think more likely jurors would be large corporations that had no skin in this particular game (maybe a clothes retailer, or a news company, or large appliance maker, etc.). It'd be pretty hard to get a truly un-biased (and un-corrupted) jury pool, but maybe no worse than currently.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by ppanon · 2012-08-28 13:50 · Score: 1

But stretching this train of thought, I wonder who would be jurors in a mass murder case.
I guess it would depend on the murder weapon. Stabbing? Cooks, meat/fish packers, and surgeons. Axes? Lumberjacks. Gun? Veterans of police/armed forces, and hunters. Poison? Chemists, pharmacists, and doctors. Blunt object? depends on the object.
Hmm. Then again, maybe not.

--
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Re:Unless it's in the United States by khallow · 2012-08-29 13:00 · Score: 1

Sad but true -- corporate personhood was invented to deal with issues of standing in federal court. So, to that extent we are peers to corporations.
In other words, we're not peers to corporations because corporations are not recognized as people except in limited circumstances.
Re:Unless it's in the United States by shilly · 2012-08-30 19:34 · Score: 1

Spot on. Mod up. This is the history of uk fraud prosecution debates

Re:At the end of the day by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 07:56 · Score: 2, Informative

And according to Steve Jobs Apple 'unashamedly' copies others, but will get in a hissy fit if anyone else does it to them.

Solution to Patent Problem by PortHaven · 2012-08-28 07:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

"Allow any patent that is submitted into public domain, to be filed free of charge."

***

Let's be honest, most ideas are not conceived of in some big corporate lab. Most are conceived in the minds of individuals long before. Often the best ideas are conceived when an idea person is unemployed - a time when they're even harder pressed to find the $1K-$5K to file a patent.

Those individuals, usually do not have the resources to get their ideas off the ground very quickly. They might start, but then they find by the time they're working toward their goal. A big corp with lots of $$$ for lots of developers releases something similar. Worse, now they own the patent on it. The individual now can't even continue their own idea.

Happens all the time.

Re:Solution to Patent Problem by Maximum+Prophet · 2012-08-28 08:08 · Score: 1

You're not supposed to patent ideas, but machines and processes. AFAIK, the filing fee isn't that large, it's the patent search that costs so much.

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All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Re:Solution to Patent Problem by gl4ss · 2012-08-28 08:30 · Score: 1

you can already "patent" anything by publicizing it, if you intend it to end up in public domain.

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:Solution to Patent Problem by chrismcb · 2012-08-28 18:38 · Score: 1

"Allow any patent that is submitted into public domain, to be filed free of charge."
That would be called "publishing your 'patent' "
Re:Solution to Patent Problem by PortHaven · 2012-08-30 09:01 · Score: 1

No, plenty is publicized and then fades away and disappears. Furthermore, juries are often stupid and confused and unable to recognize that an idea not registered is still capable of invalidating a patent.

Re:At the end of the day by oxdas · 2012-08-28 07:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Courts in the Netherlands, the UK, and Korea found that Samsung devices were not in violation of Apple's designs. So, whether or not Samsung copied appears to depend on where you live.

Where do you get an Expert Tribunal? by Maximum+Prophet · 2012-08-28 07:58 · Score: 2

All the experts for a given technology already work for industry. Finding independent experts that are affordable and want to work on a tribunal would be a challenge.

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All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)

Re:Where do you get an Expert Tribunal? by jeffmeden · 2012-08-28 08:23 · Score: 1

Given the millions upon millions spent by both Apple and Samsung in this up to this point, and the millions more to be spent on appeals, I suspect a reasonable compromise could be had whereby each side pledges a stipend for the expert pool. There might even be a "loser pays" clause in there somewhere to add a little extra incentive to not be overly litigious.
Re:Where do you get an Expert Tribunal? by ari_j · 2012-08-28 11:36 · Score: 1

What happens when I, a garage inventory, am faced with a multinational corporation that has violated my patent? I can't afford the nonzero risk, no matter how small, that I will lose the case and have to pay for the cost of a dozen experts paid $500+ per hour, each, to listen to the case. We already have expert witnesses whose purpose is to explain in layman's terms the complicated issues in the case, and the people most capable of doing so tend to cost more per hour so the multinational corporation is hiring them while I am stuck getting on the stand and trying to explain it myself. Do you really want a system where the parties' spending power not only selects the evidence presented to the jury but also the composition of the jury itself?

Point By Point by Jane+Q.+Public · 2012-08-28 07:59 · Score: 1, Flamebait

"Reason 1: Jurors can be influenced by brand loyalty."

Duh. But the more relevant issue is: would a "tribunal" not be swayed by brand loyalty? Is there any reason to believe that would be the case?

"Reason 2: Juries are too easily swayed by âoeheâ(TM)s a copycatâ"

Quote Posner: "patent plaintiffs tend to request trial by jury because they believe that jurors tend to favor patentees, believing that they must be worthy inventors defending the fruits of their invention against copycats."

Posner may have reason to believe that, but it's still nothing more than his opinion about what someone else is thinking. It isn't actual evidence that this point is valid. Once again, I have no reason to believe a "tribunal" would be much different.

"Reason 3: Jury trials over patents are a waste of money"

Quote article: "While the companies would have blown a bundle no matter what, the jury presence added millions to the tab."

Huh? Um... excuse me, but the trial was a month long, and jurors don't get paid squat, nor are their accommodations expensive. A juror I know not long ago got locked into a 9-day trial, he got paid less than minimum wage for it, and the lunch he got EVERY DAY was a peanut butter sandwich and an apple.

Even if Posner's court is more generous than that, there is no way in hell the jury cost "millions".

In summary: While some juries might be more responsible than others, I don't have any reason to believe that "a tribunal" would be any better at judging patents than the patent office itself. After all, the patent office is full of professionals, too.

Re:At the end of the day by baldrad · 2012-08-28 08:01 · Score: 5, Informative

The problem is, that the jury admitted to skipping entire parts of the case and just awarding apple money. Not just that, but some features that apple has patented were not even apple innovations. So whether Samsung did copy or not, Apple was awarded money for things it copied. It isn't the fact that people are pro Samsung or pro Apple, it is that Apple was awarded a giant sum of money due to a broken system and an uneducated jury when it comes to patents.

Jury trials are a right... by Guppy06 · 2012-08-28 08:01 · Score: 1

but not a requirement. If you don't think a jury can handle it, don't use one.

Better still, the likes of Apple and Samsung could agree to arbitration. After all, if it's good enough to force upon consumers...

Re:Jury trials are a right... by shentino · 2012-08-28 09:23 · Score: 1

If you're a plaintiff with a truck full of smoke and mirrors, you WANT a jury trial.

Re:At the end of the day by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 08:01 · Score: 1

At least read the summary. The points raised in the article aren't so much concerned with the outcome, rather the means by which the outcome was arrived upon. At no point was there any debate on whether Samsung copied Apple, it was on whether Apple had any exclusive rights that were infringed by Samsung. The jury disregarded the documents that addressed that question. Blah blah blah, juries are inadequate for this type of thing.

Re:At the end of the day by Drethon · 2012-08-28 08:02 · Score: 1

And my thesis was flagrantly built on top of existing algorithms to improve what was there. I didn't create a whole theory from scratch...

Re:At the end of the day - sorry Simon, wrong!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 08:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

Samsung copied the same capabilities that Apple copied and put into their products.
There's a difference.

Apple copied the rectangle with rounded corners from 3000+ year old clay styluses.
Apple copied the finger swipe, pinch resize and other touch screen capabilities from other manufacturers.

Sure they put them together in a way many hadn't seen, but that doesn't make them original, that just makes them smart.
Problem is, there are a lot of smart people in the world that can put them together as well.

There's nothing original in any of Apple's products - just different packaging that can be lied about on patent applications using words like "on a tablet" or "on a phone" - these are shams, false patents - using others IP to try and bolster an otherwise failing company. (yes Apple is failing - it wouldn't be suing like it is if it wasn't).

tech cases may need special juries as well by Joe_Dragon · 2012-08-28 08:04 · Score: 1

As a court room is a poor place to learn about deep issues covering tech cases.

Re:tech cases may need special juries as well by geekoid · 2012-08-28 10:33 · Score: 1

The don't, not really. That said this took place in silicon valley,and at least 3 of the jurors are IT professionals.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:tech cases may need special juries as well by MikeBabcock · 2012-08-28 11:20 · Score: 1

The thought that a jury could decide a net neutrality case, or an rbl spam blocking case just scares me. Sigh.

--
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)

I bet with you by M0j0_j0j0 · 2012-08-28 08:04 · Score: 2

If the parts were switched in this trial, Apple would leave not paying a dime, it is an American court defending an American company with American juries versus an Asian company !

Re:I bet with you by geekoid · 2012-08-28 10:32 · Score: 1

well, considering no one on the Jury owns an iPhone, your going to have a tough time finding any merit with your premise.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

So then why...? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 08:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

Why is it that every other country where this case was brought to court denied apple's claims?

Re:So then why...? by Time_Ngler · 2012-08-28 15:56 · Score: 1

What you don't understand is the rules of the game called the U.S. justice system. It's much like the game of chicken, the only way to win is to go full speed ahead and hope the other side runs out of energy or money first. It takes money to play the game right, and come out on top. And, in this case, Samsung just didn't have their foot pedal to the metal like Apple did.

Re:At the end of the day by shurdeek · 2012-08-28 08:05 · Score: 1

Whether they copied (i.e. if there was a causal link between Apple's and Samsung's products) is irrelevant from the point of view of patent law. Patent law does not provide the defense of "independent discovery". No matter how much evidence of Samsung's knowing about the features of iphone/ipad was provided, the patent law provides no reason to consider it in the trial.

Your reaction is yet another demonstration how patent law is misunderstood.

Re:No more patents... by tgibbs · 2012-08-28 08:06 · Score: 1

I suggest that you try going a month without using any product patented subsequent to 1830, then reconsider your comment.

Re:At the end of the day by vux984 · 2012-08-28 08:07 · Score: 2, Funny

$12 billion in market capitalization loss says Samsung shareholders and the market agree with you and the jury.

Is that how you think the market works?

Really? by Comboman · 2012-08-28 08:09 · Score: 1

Despite the clamour from the android community, pretty much everyone I've spoken to who aren't emotionally invested in the result are "pro" the jury and think it was a fair result.

That's just not true. I've heard from many neutral parties and even Apple fans who believe that Apple went too far with these lawsuits and patents. Apple is a great company with great products that should be able to compete in the marketplace without resorting to legal trickery. No one should be able to own the idea of a rectangle with rounded corners or a touch screen with rows of icons. Was Samsung inspired by Apple? Sure. Was Apple inspired by others that came before it? Of course. That's how technology progress (at least how it used to before this ruling).

--
Support Right To Repair Legislation.

Re:Really? by Space+cowboy · 2012-08-28 08:26 · Score: 1

That's just not true
Excuse me ? Are you telling me you know better than I how *my* conversations went ?
I can assure you it absolutely is true.
Simon.

--
Physicists get Hadrons!
Re:Really? by mjtaylor24601 · 2012-08-28 09:27 · Score: 1

Excuse me ? Are you telling me you know better than I how *my* conversations went ?
I can assure you it absolutely is true.
Is there a -1 pedantic mod somewhere? While what you say is technically true it completely misses the point. Was implication of what you said not supposed to be "Pretty much everyone that's not emotionally invested in the results are 'pro' jury and think the result was fair, as evidenced by the fact that everyone I've talked to believes this"?
Because if that's what you were going for then the the GPs reply is right on point. If that's not what you were going for, I would counter and say: Why should anyone care about your useless personal anecdote?

--
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
Re:Really? by Space+cowboy · 2012-09-04 17:12 · Score: 1

Oh I see, you're position is that his useless personal anecdote is more compelling than my useless personal anecdote ?
You see, I didn't miss the point, I just didn't see how what he said could possibly be interpreted as anything other than "you are a liar" unless he was an idiot; which is why I responded as I did.
The fact that you presumably agree with him is not an argument in his favour.
Simon

--
Physicists get Hadrons!

Re:At the end of the day by foradoxium · 2012-08-28 08:11 · Score: 2

I would respectfully disagree and say that no, the jury didn't "see it." They blindly rubber-stamped the samsung line in efforts to expedite the amount of time they'd have to dedicate to the trial.

Have you seen a Samsung Epic 4g? Look at it..the only thing that you might be able to say is similar is the grid of icons, and there is significant amount of prior art of a grid of icons, to start with, palm. There is no way anyone could truthfully claim that phone flagrantly copies the iphone, even some 90 year old grandma.

http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-epic-4g-review/

After the verdict, I think everyone was thinking "wow..what did the jury see that I don't?" But after the jurors and foreman started talking, its apparent they did not do their duty. I'm not talking about the final verdict. I'm talking about how they decided they could just rubber-stamp every device.

It's like a student blindly answering multiple choice questions..it's apparent they weren't even reading the question when the same question is answered differently on separate occasions. In this case, they award damages for a device that they previously answer "does not infringe", and find some obviously non-infringing device to be infringing.

My fear is the expert tribunals would be packed by Radical+Moderate · 2012-08-28 08:12 · Score: 2

by patent-troll-industry-friendly political appointees, a la the SEC, FCC, etc. Although the current system of relying on lay people seems seriously flawed.

--
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.

Limitations statute. by negativeduck · 2012-08-28 08:12 · Score: 1

Like the one person mentioned about renewing. There should be a limitation based on how long you have to file a case of infringement and that time should be relatively short. To often are we seeing patents dated from 5 years ago and people begin going after deployments that are common space 6 years later. Look the suits filed against voip providers for various things. Referencing materials thought of a long time ago been deployed now for 6 years but someone picked it up in a acquisition and decided to go after it.

Likewise you shouldn't be able to go after a company for using something that you didn't even own at the time you purchased it. For a sadly stupid example if I memory a corpse I shouldn't be able to then sue for wrongful death.

Re:At the end of the day by Anon+E.+Muss · 2012-08-28 08:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

The jury saw that, and decided that that was wrong.

And therein lies the problem. The point of a trial is to decide what is LEGAL. It's great when Right and Wrong correspond to Legal and Illegal, but it doesn't always work out that way. One reason it doesn't is because right vs. wrong can be very subjective, but legal vs. illegal is supposed to be very objective.

I'm concerned that this jury simply got offended that "Samsung copied Apple", and didn't fully consider the prior art that would make such copying perfectly legal. The foreman saying they wanted to "send a message", in clear violation of the judge's instructions, calls the result into question.

--
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.

Juries in civil cases are a bad idea in general by JDG1980 · 2012-08-28 08:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

The problems with trial by jury in civil cases go far beyond the specifics of patent law. Patent cases aren't the only ones that rely upon complicated technical and/or legal issues. With criminal trials, we accept that even if juries might not always be as competent as judges, we want them as a safeguard so that the government can't throw people in jail without a representative part of the community saying so. But in civil trials, it's not about the state versus the individual; the issue is whether private party A has to pay money to private party B. Why not have these cases handled by judges, preferably trained in the specific fields at issue? Let's also consider the plight of the jurors: not everyone can easily miss work for long periods of time, and many companies don't pay for jury duty. Again, civic duty might be a plausible justification for doing this for criminal trials, but is it really right to pull private citizens out of their normal lives for months on end to hear a random business dispute between 2 companies?

It's worth pointing out that the jury's role has already been significantly weakened in civil cases. It is not uncommon for judges to order the jury to return a verdict for one particular side in a civil case. (In criminal trials, the judge can order a directed verdict for the defense, but not for the prosecution.) It's also not uncommon for a jury's decision to simply be overridden on the spot by the judge. And even if it survives that, almost all big judgments are modified on appeal. The jury isn't sovereign in deciding civil cases, so what purpose does it serve other than as another stumbling block where things can go wrong?

The US is about the only First World country that has trial by jury in civil cases. There's a reason for this. No one would come up with a system like this today; why should we stick with it just because the Founding Fathers thought it was a good idea 220 years ago?

Re:Juries in civil cases are a bad idea in general by alen · 2012-08-28 09:02 · Score: 1

We have this arbitration system that so many people think is a scam because it means they can't sue for $100 million due to a billing mistake
Re:Juries in civil cases are a bad idea in general by MikeBabcock · 2012-08-28 11:24 · Score: 1

The basic thought puzzle goes like this (numbers are random, and hardly relevant):
You need to make a situation fair and reasonable. When you begin discussing it, 80% of the people in the room leave because they don't care.
As you get into smaller technicalities, another 75% leave because they don't think its worth it.
(repeat)
What you're left with are lawyers and politicians writing the final version down into law.
We hate them, but we have these lawyers because most people just don't want to be bothered with figuring out the issues, not because the law is complicated. The law becomes complicated precisely because life is complicated and western civilization believes having specific rules makes life more fair.
The alternative is to have vague laws, and not think its bad to get arrested randomly for doing something that may be determined to be completely innocent over half the time at trial. With specific laws, this happens much less often, but complicates the law itself.

--
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Re:Juries in civil cases are a bad idea in general by ari_j · 2012-08-28 11:39 · Score: 1

Are there first world countries where judges who are subject matter experts specific to the issues in each case decide the facts of civil disputes?

even more revolutionary idea by mapkinase · 2012-08-28 08:13 · Score: 1

I have a more revolutionary idea that just sparkled blindingly bright in my mind:

What if I say that any case that a person from the street cannot comprehend should not be a matter of litigation at all?

If the intricacies of alleged Samsung's patent infringement on Apple-owned patents are so complicated that a street person like me need hundreds of volumes of documents to look through, may be there should not be such case at all?

--
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.

Re:even more revolutionary idea by ari_j · 2012-08-28 11:43 · Score: 1

How would such disputes be resolved? You have to assume that a fair, negotiated agreement is not possible because, when it is, jury trials already do not happen. You are talking about replacing what happens when a fair settlement cannot be reached. And who decides which disputes can and cannot be understood by "street people"?
Right now, if a party believes that the assumed layperson jury needs expert help to understand an issue, the party can present expert testimony to explain it and other parties can present their own expert testimony as well. Almost every civil case that is actually filed makes use of expert testimony because there is some issue that the average person off the street will not be able to understand without some explanation. That can take the form of anything from how a user interface is designed (something that I, a lifelong computer programmer, would want explained to me) to how a person's spine gets broken in a head-on collision.
Re:even more revolutionary idea by mapkinase · 2012-08-28 14:43 · Score: 1

>How would such disputes be resolved?
They will be dismissed.

--
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Re:even more revolutionary idea by ari_j · 2012-08-28 17:27 · Score: 1

How would such disputes be resolved?

They will be dismissed.
Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.

Exactly.

Justice is decided by the people by dimeglio · 2012-08-28 08:14 · Score: 1

To me, it's the job of the lawyers to educate and present in layman's terms what the case at hand is all about. If we can have jury trials for murder, where expert witnesses present complex evidence, I don't see why we can't have them for patent cases.

--
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

Re:The Jury system has no place anywhere by vlm · 2012-08-28 08:15 · Score: 1

otherwise your answers are little better than flipping a coin.

Isn't that the ideal result? Any blatantly obvious situation is settled outta court. Probably you could replace 90% of jury trials with a coin flip and the remaining 10% could actually go to a jury just to keep things honest.

Then why does anyone pick 12 random people who are screened to ensure they have no legal knowledge and no knowledge of your specific issue

Anti-corruption. Its "cheap and easy" to purchase the vote of a couple people working in your field. Really expensive to purchase every moron out there (at least in advance). If the special jury pool was selected solely of patent lawyers then every decision would be decided based on what would make patent lawyers as a whole more money, etc.

I would like to see the "jury" solution tried on the legislative and executive sides. Obviously we've had a string of morons (on both sides) in the executive so its not like you really need the prez to be a superman, just your average idiot off the street would probably do less damage. On the legislative side you'd probably have serious issues with vote buying UNLESS they legislators were anonymous, very much like some juries.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Solution is staring us in the face by quacking+duck · 2012-08-28 08:15 · Score: 2, Funny

the jury only took 2-3 days to deliberate

"they should be put before an expert tribunal rather than a jury that is easily swayed by schoolyard 'copycat' narratives."

Clearly, the solution is to have juries working at the patent office, scrutinizing each patent for 2-3 days, and patent examiners in the courtroom to accept/reject patent cases using the half-day or less they use now when granting patents in the first place.

The good with the bad by DarthVain · 2012-08-28 08:15 · Score: 1

That's what you get when you give "personhood" to a corporation, they can be judged by their peers.

Re:The good with the bad by LeDopore · 2012-08-28 08:31 · Score: 1

So, does that mean the jury for Apple vs. Samsung should have consisted of 12 corporations? What about having corps sit on criminal case juries?

--
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.

just start licensing the damn things by swschrad · 2012-08-28 08:18 · Score: 1

the endless copyright screen on Unix may be instructional. last change I had to view one, back before endless IT mergers, 14 companies from ATT through DEC to HP had copyrights on that screen.

if these cutthroat outfits today would hold their exclusivity for a year max, then license the patents to a common use pool, everybody except the lawyers would make out nicely, thanks.

--
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?

Re:At the end of the day by DShard · 2012-08-28 08:21 · Score: 1

I like apple products. I have an iPad and iPod touch. Nothing about these products is particularly innovative. There were brick smartphones before iPhone. There were app stores before iPhone. Multitouch existed in the 70's. Icon in grid layout is ANCIENT. What, exactly, is innovative and non-obvious about it? Nothing. It is the natural extension of what was _already_ coming on to the phone market. Heck, their notification center is pretty much a copy of android. Why did they copy it? because it makes sense as a UI. I am all for protecting innovators, but I fail to see any legitimate innovation.

Re:At the end of the day by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 08:21 · Score: 1

Mod down, -1, Counterfactual.

Re:At the end of the day by shentino · 2012-08-28 08:22 · Score: 1

I don't care if samsung copied or not. Nailing them for infringing patents that never should have been issued in the first place is still the wrong way to punish them.

This is nothing more than using samsung to get precedential leverage when apple goes after others.

Re:At the end of the day by sir_eccles · 2012-08-28 08:24 · Score: 5, Informative

The advantage in the UK of course is a specialized Patent Court with Judges and no juries. These Judges are patent specialists spending their time only looking at Patent cases. They are a very sharp bunch. I recall one incident in which the Judge suspended a complex case so he could go and learn some pretty high level biochemistry from the head of biochemistry at Cambridge.

Re:At the end of the day by Anubis+IV · 2012-08-28 08:27 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure you're wrong on most of that.

The South Korean courts actually found that there was mutual infringement taking place and issued injunctions against a large number of devices from both Apple and Samsung. They did not rule in Samsung's favor, as you claim, regarding the question of whether or not they infringed. Rather, they mutually ruled against both Samsung and Apple.

The court in the Netherlands, as far as I can tell, did not make any sort of ruling regarding a lack of infringement on Samsung's part, but rather ruled that Apple had infringed. So while it did go Samsung's way, it had nothing to do with whether or not they infringed.

The UK case is the only one you cited that did rule that Samsung was not infringing, but it was only regarding the iPad vs. the Galaxy Tab 10.1. You'll note that the recently concluded US case reached the same conclusion regarding the Galaxy Tab 10.1, agreeing that it did not infringe. So, that stands in direct contradiction to your claims that whether or not they infringed seems to depend on location. In fact, the the only major disagreement present in any of the cases you cited (as well as the US case) is that the South Korean court ruled that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did infringe.

Patents already have reasonable maximum life by SuperKendall · 2012-08-28 08:28 · Score: 1

Patents are already not too bad - 20 years for utility patents, 14 for design patents (like what Apple was mainly contesting). Unlike copyrights the numbers did not get blown out to absurd levels.

We should not (nor is it likely we can) throw out the whole patent system. But we do need to re-think each category of patent and see how useful it is. In particular I think that software patents have no business existing, or at least not in such wide-ranging form as we have today.

But patents, like copyright (as it originally was), are a good tradeoff - you tell us exactly how something works now in return for exclusive use of it for a while. It is releasing everything to the public space in a way many things would not be if there were no patents.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Patents already have reasonable maximum life by DutchUncle · 2012-08-28 08:49 · Score: 1

Software patents *should* exist - for novel ideas, and for limited times. They should not apply to "look and feel" and should be more narrowly defined. If I come up with a compression algorithm that is a significant savings in time and/or resources, I should get some advantage from it, but I shouldn't be able to say that ANY improved compression is an infringement.
Re:Patents already have reasonable maximum life by onemorechip · 2012-08-28 09:26 · Score: 1

The problem is when the software patent is used to protect the result -- *what* the software does -- rather than the technique or algorithm behind that result. Then others are restrained from developing better algorithms to achieve those results -- i.e., from innovating.

--
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Re:Patents already have reasonable maximum life by lightknight · 2012-08-28 19:30 · Score: 1

Actually, I think the larger problem here is that by the time a patent is granted, tech has already disregarded or adopted the material as a standard.
It's all said and good for pharmaceuticals who can use those ~5 years (best case scenario) to work on FDA approval (I imagine the generics won't touch a new drug until the FDA approves it anyways, as they can't take the hit if the FDA doesn't approve it -> lawsuits against low-margin companies can hurt), but the tech sector, when it's running full tilt, completes a revolution in ~18 months. I'm going to make a possibly falsifiable statement here, and say no other industry moves as fast as tech (not that anyone ask it to slow down, the constant stream of improvements are awesome).
But then, the USPTO has been in hell for a while. Congress's buttery fingers really botched the income flow when they (the USPTO) needed it. I swear, this government is like a teenage child sometimes; "I didn't know that diverting income / energy from various systems to other systems would have a definable impact." Gah! It's like that time I found my younger (tech wannabe, no training or understanding, just randomly plugs shit in, relies on presets to work the magic) brother playing with my fabulous home-wired network, and wanted to (get this) improve on the Gig-E throughput by making everything 'wireless.' That's right, he futzed with the switches (still missing an adapter), and starting throwing AirPort Express wireless shit everywhere. He also ripped out my hardware firewall, and replaced it with a $100 Costco POS, which dropped the connection every-time traffic went over a certain amount. Between him, one of his idiot friends who apparently lied and said I was purposefully blocking a Mac from working on the network (I was away at the time, and like any non-retarded person, changed the password to something secure; instead of contacting me, the imbeciles reset the firewall (also resets the password to the default), blowing away my configuration, and somehow configuring it to a different network (IDFK); I came back to find my network throwing up errors everywhere, but they thought it was cool because the Mac worked now; the Mac, which was connecting wirelessly, on the wrong part of the house (magically started working when they moved it to where it could receive a signal), and which also suffers from a bug whereby the IP address is not refreshed when coming out of suspend / hibernate mode; might I also add, that since these clueless morons seem to think Macs magically 'just work,' any-time there is a problem with their internet connection, they think it must be my hardware. That, and the wonderous cable contractor that they hired to put in a few new panels, apparently bitched about the job I and another contractor did before them; MoG, I studied the god damn Ethernet spec, got drilled on it, tested, know more about it than some cable jockey, and while it may not have been 'in spec' as they teach in your 30-minute employee video, it's well within mine; that's right, knowing the spec, and what you're doing, allow you to do what you want with it, including the magic of sending information of barbwire if need be (I used Cat-5 for my install, but you get the point). Bitch-ass cable jockey probably doesn't even know what a vampire tap is, probably confuse a Thickwire segment for a TV cable.
If murder were legal...and yes, I've tried to secure the comms room.

--
I am John Hurt.
Re:Patents already have reasonable maximum life by hackula · 2012-08-29 01:51 · Score: 1

I think that people could reasonably argue that copyright should be sufficient for you though. Nobody should be able to copy your code, but reverse engineering an algorithm just does not seem like cheating to me. Either way, the courts have no reliable way of determining whether or not algorithms are novel and even less to determine whether or not they are trivial. The patent system seems to have been built for very specific types of engineering. Software engineering just is not like mechanical or chemical (which is precisely why many people get pissed when you call it "engineering" at all [those people can STFU already IMHO]). Things are fluid and like language, there are no hard and fast rules. You should not be able to patent an algorithm for the same reason Stephanie Meyers cannot patent lame vampire stories; it's just too hard to determine if someone is really infringing without going all the way down to copyright. Does Stephanie Meyers lose some business to people who came out with there own vamp romance novels about characters named Fella and Fedward? Idk maybe, but that is the collateral damage of a sane IP system.

Re:The Jury system has no place anywhere by Bigsquid.1776 · 2012-08-28 08:29 · Score: 2

sigh... anon, the framers of the US constitution disagree with you. If a dozen or so randomly chosen citizens can't come to an agreement on what a law means, then the law is too complex. Otherwise laws can be written such that anyone can be thrown in the slammer or fined for arcane phrases interpreted by "experts" in ivory towers. Juries are used as a hedge against many other tricks used by powerful governments against it's citizens as well.

Re:You sir are an idiot by Space+cowboy · 2012-08-28 08:29 · Score: 2

I'd love to respond to you, but I don't understand what you've written. I suppose it's just possible that I'm the idiot here, but perhaps there's another explanation, huh ?

Simon.

--
Physicists get Hadrons!

Re:At the end of the day by Jason+Levine · 2012-08-28 08:31 · Score: 5, Informative

In fact, the judge had to have the jury correct their verdict since, in at least 2 cases, they decided to award Apple damages even after they said that Samsung didn't infringe in that instance.

--
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.

Don't scrap the patent system, redirect it by Rix · 2012-08-28 08:32 · Score: 1

The central problem with the current system is that it forces the people actually making things to defend themselves from entrenched interests. We need to redirect that fight so patent holders settle it amongst themselves rather than the wider public.

Set a patent tax at the point of final sale, and have patent holders lodge their claims against products as they come to market. Patent holders themselves will then have the burden of fighting off frivolous patents without troubling the organization actually producing things. The general public will have a direct view into the drag the patent system has on the economy, and will have to be persuaded to accept it. Non-commercial activity won't be impacted, because any percent of zero is still zero.

Re:Don't scrap the patent system, redirect it by VortexCortex · 2012-08-28 11:14 · Score: 1

Or, just abolish patents, copyrights, and other forms of artificial scarcity, and let people make money via effort instead of extortion. You're operating under the flawed assumption that patents are needed at all. The automotive and fashion industries do not have copyright or design patents, and yet they innovate in design... You have an unproven hypothesis: Patents are good sometimes. I put it to you we need to test this hypothesis. If you are of rational mind then you will agree we need to abolish patents and see what they actually provide... Considering I we have industries without such patent protection, I put it to you that there is no evidence in favour of patents being beneficial, while there is evidence for them not being needed at all. Ergo, any further discussion without first agreeing we need to abolish patent and copyright before we continue to discuss is completely useless. The taught you the Scientific Method as a child. That you refuse to use it in your day to day life should be grounds for revocation of your citizenship or voting rights.
Re:Don't scrap the patent system, redirect it by shilly · 2012-08-31 02:56 · Score: 1

Why do people speak with such authority when talking complete and utter codswallop? Of course there are design patents in the automotive industry. It takes no more than a few seconds with google to find that out. Why say something so stupidly wrong? And why write in such pompous terms? Eg "I put it to you", as though you took silk at 35; "the Scientific Method" with ridiculous faux-German capitalisation; "if you are of rational mind", as if you were a polemicist of the stature of a Christopher Hitchens. It doesn't make your argument any more convincing, but it does make you look more of a twat when you've got your basic factual assertion so demonstrably wrong. It also sits uneasily with a post that's littered with spelling, grammatical and syntactical errors.

Re:When will the whining stop? by desdinova+216 · 2012-08-28 08:32 · Score: 1

and I don't suppose that apple's actions couldn't be interpreted as "WAAAAAHHH We don't want any serious competition"

Re:At the end of the day by Artraze · 2012-08-28 08:40 · Score: 2

In so far as Samsung referenced the iPhone as a de facto standard of what users want and expect from a touchscreen smart phone, yes. Samsung did indeed set out to copy parts of the iPhone.

However, to claim that such behavior is "crap" and that the jury's decision was correct _requires_ you assume that the patents were entirely valid. If there was prior art, then Samsung no more copied Apple than Apple copied the prior art (and neither innovated). If the design was trivial and uninteresting, then Apple didn't achieve any significant innovation for Samsung to copy... It'd be like complaining that someone used the same typeface as you. Sure you probably spent more time thinking about it then they did to say 'eh... just do what they did', but on the other hand it's uninteresting and unimportant and you don't deserve an international monopoly on it.

So, no, I consider this case (or, the software parts of it) to be exactly software patents are bad and the results it achieved precisely why software parents are so dangerous. Yes, Samsung copied things. Stupid, trivial things. Stupid trivial things that don't benefit society to be disclosed (part of the social 'deal' of patents) nor do they deserve protection. Things that a smaller company without a patent arsenal to build would simply put in as a new feature and forget. Things for which being first to market is payment enough. And yet these things create a billion dollar verdict? I think that's way, _way_ off pace of the "right result".

(And of course, even if you accept the patents, there are cases where some device/patent combinations the jury identified as infringement are clearly incorrect. Oh, and that the jury set out to punish Samsung (by their own admission) rather than try for reasonable damages. Etc. So, actually, I think it was all around a pretty poor decision.)

Re:Uhhh... the Constitution? by headhot · 2012-08-28 08:43 · Score: 1

Any one can wave their right to a trial by jury. Having a jury decide a patent is like throwing the dice. Companies perhaps wouldn't mind a sophisticated arbiter.

Re:At the end of the day by oxdas · 2012-08-28 08:44 · Score: 1

I would offer the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals as a counterpoint. This court has consistently held that software patents are valid despite the opinion of the USPTO (before 1994) and the Supreme Court. I encourage you to take a look at their recent ruling on Myriad Genetics (not a software patent, but a bad patent ruling nonetheless). Bad things can happen with "expert" courts as well.

Re:At the end of the day by oxdas · 2012-08-28 08:48 · Score: 1

I encourage you to read the ruling for the Korean case. It ruled that Samsung violated the "bounce-back" patent, but was innocent as far as copying.

As for the Dutch case:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16704461

Don't allow corporations to patent anything want by runeghost · 2012-08-28 08:50 · Score: 1

How about having an expert panel actually review patent applications in the first place, and reject those that fail a real examination for prior art?

Re:At the end of the day by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 08:51 · Score: 1, Insightful

Oh come on. 2 errors on a form with 1,400 fields on it is *commendable*.

bullshit by thetoadwarrior · 2012-08-28 08:51 · Score: 1

Just because something doesn't go you way doesn't mean it's wrong. What next, only select people should decide if someone is a murderer or not?

The jury's role is to take the law as it stands and see if Samsung did something wrong. They've decided they have and to be honest, I agree.

The system certainly needs fixing but if you accept it as it is now. Samsung deserved to lose.

We could start changing things by making patents non-transferable and only valid for the person / company that inititally applied for it. That would kill off patent trolls.

Also make it so when viewing patents on the website you can easily contact them to point out prior art. This of course would be open to fanboy retardation so you would have to ask for enough information from the person that if they're a time waster you can then go punish them and at least go kick over their computer and plant pots.

Things also have a much shorter life cycle. Perhaps patents shouldn't last as long.

And given that we now have gigantic megacorporations which make it hard for the small guy to even compete, maybe patents enforceable against small businesses until they hit a certain profit level. That would have to be real small businesses, not some corporation spinning off some company that they insist never makes money.

Re:bullshit by MikeBabcock · 2012-08-28 11:28 · Score: 1

When you end up on the wrong end of the law staring down jurors and you know you're innocent but you're dependant on them deciding to agree with you, I'll let you answer your own question on who should be an arbiter of justice.
No, not every Tom Dick and Harry should be a juror on a murder case. Not just anyone should determine guilt and innocence. Most people aren't trained in issues of bias. Most people aren't educated about worldview and perspectives. Most people just see things the way they see them, and believing that's fair to the person on trial is hilarious.

--
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Re:Bullshit by MickyTheIdiot · 2012-08-29 08:30 · Score: 1

There isn't any controversy on whether physical goods have value. No one believes that harm isn't done in a robbery.
There is controversy about "Intellectual Property" and goes back to the start of the union. Some people question the idea that harm is done when IP is violated and have solid reasoning behind their beliefs.
As far as the rape trial.. you're being bombastic, but if someone says that all rapes are false then they shouldn't be on jury. If someone says that anyone accused of rape is automatically guilty, they shouldn't be on the jury either. See what I'm getting at? If you believe that patent holders rights trump everything you shouldn't be on a patent trial jury.
Of course I don't know any of that for sure, but avoiding appearance of impropriety is important too.
Re:bullshit by shilly · 2012-08-31 03:11 · Score: 1

Except that the evidence is unequivocal that juries are more likely to acquit than magistrates.

Re:At the end of the day by oxdas · 2012-08-28 08:54 · Score: 1

A little bit more on the Dutch case if you will. Apple appealed the ruling for the tablet and lost (the article), but in the original case, Apple also lost on look and feel (community design in Europe) on the phones, but I guess they didn't appeal that part.

http://www.osnews.com/story/25098/Apple_Scores_Meaningless_Dutch_Court_Victory_Against_Samsung

"expert tribunal" by ScooterComputer · 2012-08-28 08:57 · Score: 2

Screw "expert tribunal", fight to the death! Each side puts up 12 contenders (to tie it to the jury system), twelve "angry" men (or women, whichever). Then, fight it out Kirk & Spock style, ala koon-ut-kal-if-fee in 'Amok Time'. Damages are based on the number of surviving "jurors".

Because otherwise, the "experts" will just get bought off like every other "regulatory" body in the US and it won't be any fun for anyone. I'd be OK if at least one of the jurors was a VP or higher.

--
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

That would be really compelling if it was true. by Brannon · 2012-08-28 09:00 · Score: 3, Informative

But it isn't.

Also, Apple doesn't make coats out of puppies.

What good is that patent then? by SuperKendall · 2012-08-28 09:00 · Score: 1

Software patents *should* exist - for novel ideas, and for limited times.

But if the term is too limited, why would anyone bother filing? They would just keep the technique to themselves.

The problem is that it's too easy for many people to independently come on a good algorithm to use in an application. Possibly for some specialized compression there might be enough true innovation that would warrant a patent - but then how would you market and sell that algorithm in the timeframe a short patent duration would protect you for?

I just do not see any way to "fix" software patents to make them more useful.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:What good is that patent then? by Anne+Thwacks · 2012-08-28 09:35 · Score: 1

The problem is that it's too easy for many people to independently come on a good algorithm to use in an application.
No, the problem is that if many people come up with the same or similar solutions then THE SOLUTION IS OBVIOUS TO ANYONE SUFFICIENTLY SKILLED IN THE ART and is not a valid patent, but the US patent office is stuffed with morons and the US legal system is a joke, so the patents are not thrown out and massive costs payable by the people who were attempting to defend the bogus patent.

--
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Re:What good is that patent then? by dlingman · 2012-08-28 13:41 · Score: 1

The problem is that the solution is obvious to anyone sufficiently skilled in the art, but only after they've seen it in action. 20-20 hindsight.
aka "Shit - I'll bet I could make one of those." Yes, after someone spent years working to get it polished to the point that you want it, it's easy to clone it after the fact. Heck, entire gaming companies are based on that premise.

US $ was truly "golden" for only a few decades by davidwr · 2012-08-28 09:06 · Score: 1

The Gold or Silver metal content of US coins varied throughout the the first century of the United States. To make things more complicated, we had both gold and silver coins at the same time, but one metal's value against the other floated on the open market.

While there were periods of time where we were on a "de facto" Gold- or Silver-standard, and periods of time where the metal prices were stable enough against each other that we were on a "de facto" bi-metal standard, it wasn't until the Gold Standard Act was passed in 1900 that we were officially on the Gold Standard. That lasted less than 35 years. With a few interruptions, the US was on a de-facto "Gold Standard" until the late 1960s and early 1970s.

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Re:US $ was truly "golden" for only a few decades by MikeBabcock · 2012-08-28 11:18 · Score: 1

Gold standards don't eliminate inflation. The value of goods and cost of living vis-a-vis precious metals fluctuates over time, as does the value of each compared to the other of course as you pointed out.
In fact recently I was shocked to see the value of gold had overtaken platinum by some nominal amount.

--
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)

Re:At the end of the day by nedlohs · 2012-08-28 09:10 · Score: 2

Of the top of my head I see four obvious suspects for such a capitalization loss:

1. Investors/speculators agreeing with the Jury.
2. Investors/speculators thinking that other investors/speculators will agree with the Jury.
3. Investors/speculators thinking that the legal system overall will side with the Jury (appeals and future similar cases).
4. Investors/speculators thinking that it will cost Samsung lots of money (directly or just opportunity costs in having to change things) and hence make them significantly less competitive.

Only one of those involves actually agreeing with the Jury themselves. I'm sure there are a bunch more too.

Many cases are complex by wisnoskij · 2012-08-28 09:10 · Score: 1

Many if not all cases are complex.
And the jurors are not qualified, not that anyone can be qualified to hand down justice.
Still it all round is not a horrible system.

--
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.

Re:At the end of the day by Anubis+IV · 2012-08-28 09:13 · Score: 1

I encourage you to read the ruling for the Korean case. It ruled that Samsung violated the "bounce-back" patent, but was innocent as far as copying.

It was innocent of infringement so far as the look-and-feel patents went, but not so for the bounce-back patent, as you pointed out, which means that they were indeed ruled to be infringing on those devices, hence the injunctions that went out. So, yes, they did find that Samsung was innocent on some counts, but not on others. I still feel that your original statement was too broad and thus inaccurate, since it suggests that they were innocent of infringement on all counts, which is not the case.

As for the Dutch case:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16704461

Thanks for the info. I had looked around, but the only stuff I saw was some pretty bland reporting that made no mention of those details. I saw your followup post as well. I do appreciate the additional information, and I stand corrected.

Re:The US too. by shentino · 2012-08-28 09:13 · Score: 1

That plus the fact that SCOTUS has to shed load and take cases on a discretionary basis means that the CAFC can get away with rubber stamping whatever their sweethearts in the private sector want.

Well... by MedBob · 2012-08-28 09:13 · Score: 1

The dadgum questionaire that they put before them was 700 freaking questions!!!!

Don't you think that there was a failure by the judge and the court to boil it down to simple issues?
There may be finer points of law here, but the Judge should rule on those and present "The Question" to the Jury.

The Fail here was presenting The Maze to the jury. Guess they figured that if it wasn't important enough to distill down to the essence, then their attempts to walk The Maze weren't very important either...

The whole idea of juries is to reduce the jumble down to the important points that need to be decided. If it's too complex, then either reduce the complexity, or kick it back to the petitioner to submit separate points of petition.

Re:At the end of the day - sorry Simon, wrong!! by shentino · 2012-08-28 09:15 · Score: 1

If that's the case I would *love* to see a crackdown on perjury for lying on federal applications.

Right, because judges have been so good at this? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 09:16 · Score: 1

It's not just jurors that get these things wrong, judges have shown they don't understand these issues either.

Re:At the end of the day by oxdas · 2012-08-28 09:16 · Score: 1

Apple has done pretty well off the bounce-back patent. Samsung lost on that in the Dutch court as well. Samsung would be wise to just get rid of TouchWiz, It is killing them in the courts.

My original comment was only intended to address the designs and not the software patents.

Jurors bias by wisnoskij · 2012-08-28 09:17 · Score: 2

Jurors are not supposed to know the people involved in the trial, it creates huge bias.
What I want to know is how did they find so many people who did not know Apple or Samsung?
Because, of course, if a juror had a iPad and liked it (or just saw an apple ad, or read an article by someone saying that the iPad inspired these other devices) he/she would be biased towards Apple. So of course the only fair trial you could have would be one where all the jurors had never even heard of Apple or Samsung.

--
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.

Reason? by dutchwhizzman · 2012-08-28 09:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

But what if all people in the jury were color blind and one that claimed to be able to see color, claimed that the evidence had blue paint on it? Would that still be the concept of the US law?

--
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?

Re:Reason? by mwvdlee · 2012-08-28 10:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Thank god there is no such thing as "peer pressure".

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Re:Reason? by luther349 · 2012-08-29 04:30 · Score: 1

for starters a jury should not have any patent experts on it. or even patent holders how the hell was he not rejected on those bases. i head of bad ones before but totally the even patents they where told apple did not own was total bs.

We had inflation during the "gold standard" years by davidwr · 2012-08-28 09:23 · Score: 1

You can't eat gold. You can't grow crops on it. You can't plow with it. Well, you can, but plows made out of 24 karat gold aren't as good as steel ones.

If you look at the things most American consumers bought from the date our Constitution became effective until the late 1960s, we did experience changes in prices. Sometimes this was inflation, sometimes it was deflation.

Here are some examples, looking only at an "apples to apples" comparison of identical goods:
1800-1849: $20 in 1800 is worth $9.78 in 1849
1850-1899: $20 in 1850 is worth $20.02 in 1999
Skipping 1900, the year we went on the Gold Standard
1901-1932, the true "Gold Standard" years: $20 in 1901 is worth $32.71 in 1932
Skipping 1933, the year we went off the Gold Standard, and 1934, the first year of the $35/Troy Ounce fixed price of gold.
1935-1967, when Gold is fixed at $35/Troy Ounce: $20 in 1935 is worth $48.68 in 1967.

Remember, during several periods of American history, large, exploitable gold reserves were found in America and in other parts of the world. As supply goes up, the price relative to other commodities tends to go down. During other periods, the demand for gold for jewelry, industrial use, and other uses increased and prices relative to other commodities likely went up. During practically all of our nation's history, gold has also been seen as a "safe haven," which means its price goes up relative to other commodities during times of increasing instability and it goes down during times of increasing stability.

Source for inflation figures:
Inflation calculator http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Citation by davidwr · 2012-08-28 09:25 · Score: 1

Oops, forgot the citation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_United_States_dollar&oldid=503255187

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Articles makes perfectly valid points by walterbyrd · 2012-08-28 09:29 · Score: 1

Why would you consider the article a troll, or flamebait? Just because it is not worshiping Apple?

Re:At the end of the day by excelsior_gr · 2012-08-28 09:30 · Score: 1

In my opinion, there are two ways to view this case:
1. The way (as far as I understand) the jury viewed it: Apple has the patents and this is a given. It doesn't matter whether this is right or wrong, legal or illegal. Samsung infringed the patents, so it has to pay.
2. Samsung copied Apple's patents, but Apple shouldn't have the patents in the first place because of prior art/being obvious etc.
The thing is, the legality of Apple's patents wasn't on trial here. Samsung was on trial for violating Apple's patents. As you said, #2 is the fair way, but #1 is the legal way. Sad thing that we have come to viewing things this way though.

Re:At the end of the day - sorry Simon, wrong!! by mclaincausey · 2012-08-28 09:41 · Score: 1

Apple is failing? Geez, what would success look like?

--
(%i1) factor(777353); (%o1) 777353

Re:ID10T by viperidaenz · 2012-08-28 09:44 · Score: 1

That, and in the case of on icon looking another one falls under trade mark or copyright, not patents.

We The People by tpstigers · 2012-08-28 09:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

are supposed to be in charge of this country. We do not elect the judicial branch of our government, so we need juries to help keep our fingers in the system. If any aspect of the legal system is "too complicated for lay people to understand", the solution is to simplify the system, NOT to remove the people from the equation.

Re:At the end of the day by MikeBabcock · 2012-08-28 10:19 · Score: 1

Um no, the loss of capital is due to the shareholders watching what the outcome was, whether they agree or not.

Even if I think a company is in the right, when an investor sees them lose a court case, they know their value will plummet, so they sell. That's how most investors think.

--
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)

Re:At the end of the day by MikeBabcock · 2012-08-28 10:21 · Score: 1

You didn't actually read the verdict, did you?

--
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)

Re:At the end of the day by Xenx · 2012-08-28 10:23 · Score: 1

Samsung copied Apple flagrantly, not *just* copied, but *flagrantly* copied. The jury saw that, and decided that that was wrong. The result was that Apple won its case.

We're supposed to reward effort, and not reward those who cheat. Despite the clamour from the android community, pretty much everyone I've spoken to who aren't emotionally invested in the result are "pro" the jury and think it was a fair result. Samsung- (and by extension Android-) fans, deal, and move on in life. Or hate. Your call.

Simon.

Ok, so when it comes to UI design.. it's ok for everyone else to copy from everyone else.. Apple can copy from Xerox, Microsoft can copy from Apple.. KDE, Gnome, ETC can copy from both. Yet, Samsung cannot copy from Apple?

Re:When will the whining stop? by Aryden · 2012-08-28 10:26 · Score: 1

It's not a matter of fanboy whining. The issue people are talking about is that the jury ignored portions of testimony and evidence to come to a conclusion and award money. If you were on trial for murder, would you want the jury to ignore your alibi stating that you were in a bar with 100+ witnesses when the murder happened 100 miles away?

They o;y took 3 days by geekoid · 2012-08-28 10:30 · Score: 1

because their is the recorded of Google telling Samsung they shouldn't copy Apple, and Samsung doing it anyways.

So there was no reasons to devel into the technical aspect to great detail.
Remember, the Jury isn't there to regulate the patent, only to find whether or not the violate the patents as it is.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

What could possibly go wrong? by Jodka · 2012-08-28 10:39 · Score: 2

Patents are as complex as other industrial policies like subsidies or regulatory regimes. When disputes arise, they should be put before an expert tribunal rather than a jury that is easily swayed by schoolyard "copycat" narratives.

The same case could be made that voters have no place in democracy. And is: Those seeking to concentrate political and economic strength in the hands of the few and powerful pose governance as a choice between decision making by wise and altruistic "experts" or by the ignorant and selfish common people. The myth of benevolent despotism is as old as the hills.

But that rhetoric was busted long ago. "Industrial Policy" is a euphemism for corporate welfare. "Expert tribunals" are typically comprised of those expert in only cronyism and graft if not incompetent ideologues. So the plan is that a small group of politically appointed experts will assign penalties and grant awards of billions of dollars. What could possibly go wrong?

For those who are not aware, the plan to enact all-powerful government controlled by the benevolent and wise has never really worked out . The actual course has been to grant government powers and then debate our preference for rule by the corrupt few or the incompetent many. (See TFA and surrounding comments.) Perhaps instead we should all consider before granting more power to government that it will not be wielded by wise and benevolent philosopher kings. Those with the knowledge that government power by any system is often misapplied and abused are less willing to grant power to government.

Fundamentally, the choice between administering patent law with "expert tribunals" or trial by jury is a false dichotomy, for we could remedy the problem as well by abolishing patents.

--
Ceci n'est pas une signature.

Re:At the end of the day by geekoid · 2012-08-28 10:39 · Score: 1

The Jury is deciding based on the patent system, as is, not making decesion about the patent system itself.
Samsung infringed. It's pretty clear since they showed Google told them they where infringing and to change their design, and Samsung didn't.

"This is nothing more than using Samsung..."
If by nothing more you mean 1.5 Billion Dollars. If precedent is there only goal, they would have gone after a smaller fish.

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re:At the end of the day by Raenex · 2012-08-28 10:40 · Score: 1

The thing is, the legality of Apple's patents wasn't on trial here.

Yes they were, and that is why prior art was part of the trial and jury instructions.

Haven't you ever seen 12 Angry Men? by denzacar · 2012-08-28 10:43 · Score: 5, Informative

How could one person force 11 other people to vote his way? And what "send a message" are you talking about? A message about what?

Or in the Apple-Samsung case, simply by claiming to be an expert on patents, prior art AND jury duty because he filed a patent himself and was on juries three times already.
Also, there were NINE jurors, not twelve.

As for sending the message... Well, besides the "Velvin Hogan is Batman" (4th jury duty? What is he, a professional juror?) there's that literal quote of his...

"We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist," Hogan said. "We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."

Which is kind of an issue, since that is EXACTLY what the jury was instructed NOT to do.

There. Now you know.

--
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens

Re:Im sorry but... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-28 11:01 · Score: 1

When you have to have nine people agree/disagree on 700 questions, it will take more than 3 days... It should have taken MUCH longer for them to go through all that...

You're trying to pretend each and every one of the questions required independent analysis, but there were only something like 4 or 5 patents involved. Once the jury had decided a given patent was (a) valid based on what had been presented to them and (b) was definitely infringed upon, it would be pretty quick to process every question related to it. "Does product #1 Apple is complaining about match characteristic A described in design patent 14861203? Does product #2? How about product #3?" Rinse and repeat for characteristics B, C, D, and E from 14861203, and usually it's going to be pretty obvious how to answer.

Re:At the end of the day by shentino · 2012-08-28 11:11 · Score: 1

So was it ok for the jury to blatantly disregard evidence of prior art "because it was too much to wade through"?

If the patents are bogus, infringement is a moot point.

in general 3 IT professionals on this case 1 other by Joe_Dragon · 2012-08-28 11:29 · Score: 1

in general 3 IT professionals on this case but what about others that may have 1 or 0.

Now 1 is bad as you can get a very 1 sided view of things.

juries are the last hope for some sanity by kenorland · 2012-08-28 11:56 · Score: 1

Much as I despise the decision the jury came to in the Samsung/Apple trial, I still think this a jury is the best way of settling such cases. This jury did reflect the feeling and legal intuition of the community it was selected from, and its decision wasn't obviously in contradiction to the law (otherwise, it would have gotten thrown out).

The real problem with the Samsung/Apple case wasn't the jury, it was the patent office that granted these bogus patents in the first place. The patent office is filled with supposed experts who grant these patents in the first place; I don't see how putting the same kinds of experts in charge of the legal cases would improve the situation; I think it would like make things worse

Re:When will the whining stop? by kenorland · 2012-08-28 12:05 · Score: 1

And where is the guarantee that experts will be any more attentive to testimony? The jury system is imperfect but likely still better than the alternatives.

That doesn't mean we can't improve the jury system. For example, we might ask juries to provide more justifications for their decisions and allow those to be used within some limits in challenging a verdict as well.

Expert tribunal? by ek_adam · 2012-08-28 12:17 · Score: 1

They tried expert tribunals. They're called "settlement talks". They didn't work, so it went to jury.

Re:Does not follow. by tgibbs · 2012-08-28 13:56 · Score: 1

Because, for a start, if patents were completely nullified worldwide, those products would still exist.

You said, "Seems like they had it right back in 1830 when the patent office was planning on closing it's doors for good, claiming that there was nothing left to invent."

So if nothing worth patenting was invented since 1830, you wouldn't mind doing without them, would you?

And no, it is not necessarily the case that those products would still exist. In many cases, a company is only willing to take the risk and make the investment to bring a product to market because their patent guarantees them a temporary monopoly. Some of those products were invented by individuals who worked as inventors only because they could get paid for their patents. Without patents, technology development would have proceeded more slowly, because rather than patenting and disclosing their inventions, companies would have found it advantageous to keep their discoveries as trade secrets (indeed, this was the problem that patent law was created to solve) rather than sharing them with other companies that might enhance them with additional innovations. Less sharing of information means slower progress of technology.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2012-08-28 14:00 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Remove the lawyers making laws by bussdriver · 2012-08-28 18:17 · Score: 1

Remove the lawyers. I've often heard the bottom of the ocean is a good start.

Politicians generations back could write simple laws that were short and people could understand. Now we have legal coding that resembles a computer obfuscation contest where even the experts can't understand it. Take the simple banking regulation that prevented the collapse that was what? 4 pages? The new "stronger" one still doesn't do what the old one did and is massive complex and we only have to take somebody's word that it is stronger than the old one despite allowing the practice that caused depressions TWICE. (keep in mind they'll never ever call something a depression again until almost everybody on the street does first.)

--
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Re:At the end of the day by chrismcb · 2012-08-28 18:35 · Score: 1

The problem is, that the jury admitted to skipping entire parts of the case... ... uneducated jury when it comes to patents.

Perhaps they were uneducated because they skipped entire parts of the case?

None of them were iPhone owners by unassimilatible · 2012-08-28 19:52 · Score: 1

No, not one of them were iPhone owners. And the foreman's wife had a Samsung dumbphone.