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Group Attacks Bad Software Patents Before They're Approved

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-on-our-watch dept.

Curupira writes "Ars Technica discusses how the Linux Defenders group are exercising the rights granted by the America Invents Act to identify and fight the patents that potentially threaten Linux and open source software. From the article: 'In a session at LinuxCon today, Linux Defenders director Andrea Casillas explained how the group is using rights granted by the new law to fight patent applications. A project of the Open Invention Network, Software Freedom Law Center, and Linux Foundation, Linux Defenders examines the 6,000 new patent applications published each week, attempting to identify those that are potentially threatening to Linux and open source. Then, the group looks for prior art that would invalidate at least some of the claims in the patents.'"

4 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Good intentions but potentially harmful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Patent attorney here.

    While it seems like this is a great idea, getting more prior art in front of the PTO is may not be the best strategy. It allows the patent applicant to try to amend the claims or argue around the prior art. A lot of the the time, the examiner responsible for a patent application is not particularly worried about the quality of the patent being issue but is more concerned with just getting the application off his/her docket. This makes it reasonably likely that the examiner will either ignore the new prior art or accept whatever dubious amendment/argument that the patent owner submitted. Once a patent is allowed over prior art that was made of record, it is much more difficult to use that prior art again later.

    I would suggest that a better strategy is to just record and publish lists of prior art after the patent issues. Then, later on if the patent is asserted, there is easy access to fresh prior art that can be used to kill a patent.

    1. Re:Good intentions but potentially harmful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Patent Examiner here:

      Don't forget that the amount of time that we get to examine an application hasn't changed since the 1970s in most areas. In many areas there is at least two orders of magnitude more prior art and case law to consider now, but the quota is exactly the same. Yet raising the hours of examination per application is a non-starter because the Office is busy trying to dig itself out of the backlog hole which they dug by the Office (and Congress) falling prey to the trap you mentioned.

      Also look out for the next few years as senior examiners retire instead of dealing with the new Patent Classification scheme.

      Very, very few people in the Patent system don't care about issuing shitty Patents. I'd feel pretty awful if anything I've issued got overturned in court.

  2. Re:Very interesting... by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's a tight race in douche-baggery between Oracle and Apple, but I think Apple has the upper hand in useless patents.

  3. Re:Can I patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A sarcastic post attacking a company, practice, or person scorned by the majority of Slashdotters, will often be modded up even if the idea has been posted 500 times before.

    Moderation on this site basically sucks. Mods are supposed to facilitate give-and-take discussion, not vote for what posts they agree with.