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Inventor Has Waited 43 Years For Patent Approval
An anonymous reader writes "If you think the average wait of 28.3 months for a patent to be approved is ridiculous, don't complain to Gilbert P. Hyatt. The 76-year-old inventor has been waiting over forty years for a ruling on whether his electronic signal to control machinery should be granted a patent. 'It's totally unconscionable,' said Brad Wright, a patent lawyer with Banner & Witcoff in Washington who specializes in computer-related applications and isn't involved in Hyatt's case. 'The patent office doesn't want to be embarrassed that they might issue a broad patent that would have a sweeping impact on the technology sector. Rather than be embarrassed, they're just bottling it up.'"
Every company that uses any kind of automation would have to pay him.
I don't give a fuck about the problems with Obama-care, but I do care about the problems with ./ beta
Haven't carried out a detail search on the said patent, but if TFA's description is to be believable
electronic signal to control machinery
...that gonna be one heck of a very broad and very VERY valuable patent !!
'The patent office doesn't want to be embarrassed that they might issue a broad patent that would have a sweeping impact on the technology sector. Rather than be embarrassed, they're just bottling it up.'
Oh sure! With the issuance of that patent now many manufacturers / users of devices that use that technology may start receiving lawyer's letter demanding $$$, if that patent ended up being sold to some patent trolls.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
There is a joke in there somewhere.
Seems like prior art should be easy to find, people have had relays on things longer than 43 years, or is this patent going to try and distinguish between electronic and electromechanical controls?
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
But they'll let Amazon patent "one-click" shopping?
Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp
He pissed the patent office off and sued them, now his patents get delayed.
California asked him for taxes on his millions, he sued them for even more.
He's trying to patent controlling machines electronically, the only reason it hasn't been rejected is so that he can't appeal. I agree this isn't a good way for the government to behave and oppose it on that grounds but I have zero sympathy for someone who apparently wants to make today's patent trolls look like mere children. (And any law that would allow him to claim historical royalties for a patent application that was confidential is retarded.)
... was not telling him to bugger off 43 yeasrs ago. That was in 1971. As a trainee I was working on aligning servo motor controls in 1967 - it used them thar new-fangled transisitor things {bloody wickless wonders}
"The patent office doesn't want to be embarrassed that they might issue a broad patent that would have a sweeping impact on the technology sector."
Unless you're Apple. Then they're like "ROUND CORNERS? ARE YOU A WIZARD?" *granted*
As Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor#Gilbert_Hyatt) says:
Gilbert Hyatt was awarded a patent claiming an invention pre-dating both TI and Intel, describing a "microcontroller".[9] The patent was later invalidated, but not before substantial royalties were paid out.[10][11]
And from http://www.intel4004.com/hyatt...:
"This patent was later invalidated in a patent interference case brought forth by Texas Instruments, on account that the device it described was never implemented and was not implementable with the technology available at the time of the invention. "
I know that 1990 (when that microprocessor patent was granted) is pre-Slashdot, but srsly, what's happening when patent trolls' whinging is front page news here?
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
Not "43-years". Bonus points for not saying "28.3-months", and for getting "76-year-old inventor" correct.
What value has this man added to a single piece of equipment sold in the last 40 years? What part of these machines relied on his effort or ingenuity? If his patent had never been filed, are we to seriously believe that progress would have been held back by so much as an hour.
Let drop this passive-aggressive geek myth of the vital "small-guy" inventor and the civilization changing ideas which supposedly emerge from his superior brain. It is far, far easier, and far, far better for society as a whole to simply regard all patent holders as parasites, and simply stop issuing them. Inventors can start their own companies or get a job like everyone else.
Reward belongs to those who add value. To those who produce things; produce wealth. it does not belong to the people who "thought" of doing so, or who had some "bright idea" sometimes in the 1970s. It belongs to the three generations of people since who put their -- unpatented -- ideas into action and made them a reality. To the people who competed based on the merits of their results, and not the entitlement they felt their intellects deserved.
It's time to put patents away. All patents. Our society will make better progress without them. Inventors are not worth the price being paid to parasites.
May the Maths Be with you!
was waiting in line at the damn post office to mail the application in.
Most of his patents are obvious and follow the natural progression of the state of the art at the time.
We could, and often do, argue all night whether the patent system should cease to exist in it's current form.
For the purposes of this argument, we are forced to stipulate that it presently exists. This is about a government patent office holding a grudge against an inventor for friggin' decades.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
[nt]
Just because that's the topic the patent is related to doesn't mean he's trying to patent the entire topic.
This is about a government patent office holding a grudge against an inventor for friggin' decades.
Oh come on! Talk about the culture of complaint, whinge, whine, they're all against me ... Whatever happened to the good old fashioned virtue of Patience. "All good things come to those who wait." In this case they guy only had to wait ... what was it? ... Oh, right ... yeah.
Nice weather we've been having lately, isn't it?
The Chicago Tribune writes an article involving a patent application but does not include the number of the patent application.
he might a writer told them his story and the writer agreed to write about it, hoping to make some quick cash. This guy is obviously an ass, based on the story, and since his claims are unverifiable probably not very honest either.
No, he didn't.
"SCOTSO", is that some Scottish demonym?
Quit making up cutesy acronyms that not even a google search reveals.
From browsing the list of his patents it looks like most of them are written with overly generalized broad claims which don't actually describe anything that wasn't obvious at the time. This gem filed in 1972 describes a "Machine control system operating from remote commands". Whoopty do. Remotely operable computers existed before the filing date. Why the USPTO awarded him so many patents on obvious things is beyond comprehension.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Why should we all accept lower growth so that this man, who is already extremely wealthy, can be made even wealthier? What sort of justice is that?
.: Semper Absurda
In case you are not joking, he means "Supreme Court Of The State Of". Americans love their acronyms for whatever reason even if it makes communication much harder. This specific example was modeled after the common acronym SCOTUS (Supreme Court Of The United States), so people who know that could understand (screw the rest). In fact, SCOTUS is one of the more "appropriate" acronyms, as it actually means "Darkness" in Greek, which is where the current SCOTUS is taking us...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
SCOTSO is the state equivalent of the federal SCOTUS. Pretty clear extension of POTUS/SCOTUS terminology. You sir, are a nitpicker.
scotus, potus - again sounds like hocus pocus to me.
But, whatever...
Single-chip computers were in existance in the early 80's; I used them (from Intel, Motorola, and Hitachi) in a bunvh of designs and even the original PC/AT used one (the keyboard controller, which replaced the shift-register scheme of the PC and PC/XT) so this is hardly obscure "prior art"
As for radio controls of machines, TESLA HIMSELF demonstrated that one! (he not only remotely-controlled machines, but he also remotely-powered them. The patent office USED to allow people to patent true breakthroughs, like the lightbulb, the airplane, the semiconductor, etc. In recent years, however (particularly since they started allowing software and "business method" patents) they seem to thingk ANYTHING can be patented even it there's both "prior art" AND it's obvious to people in the particular field.
Which is interesting in light of the 11th amendment
This sounds a lot like a submarine patent. The idea is that you file a patent on some generic idea, not necessarily realisable, and then continue it for years, sometimes decades, until the state of the art has advanced to the point where it can be realised. At that point your submarine patent emerges and you've now patented a field that others have spent years developing for you. The notorious Jerome Lemelson made a billion-dollar business out of this.
Nevada's Supreme Court would have sufficed then. I guess some people like typing in all caps...
You assume that patents do anything to prevent MegaCorp from competing. You also assume that it is Joe Inventor filing most of the patents, and not said MegaCorp. In practice, neither of these things are true, and the primary beneficiaries of patent litigation are lawyers.
Patents are the right to squash competition. Competition in the ideal sense is a very efficient way to allocate resources. If one company is first to market, and a competitor makes a product which is "better, faster, and shinier," what exactly is wrong with letting the market decide who gets rewarded?
Your argument hinges on the role of patents in encouraging people to bring products to market, which is actually an orthogonal process. Patents are intended to promote the disclosure of ideas. All well and good, but maybe an automatic monopoly isn't necesarily the best way to accomplish either of those things.
There are two really big problems with patents. The first is that almost all knowledge is derivative of other knowledge. Certain persons with an excess of self-interest will argue that such a thing as originality exists in some distinguishable form. I submit that even for the invention of fire there was prior art, and every invention since then was either an incremental adaptation or based on some other preexisting knowledge. Keep in mind that the ones who add to our knowledge of the world are called scientists, not inventors.
The second problem is embodied in the phrase "intellectual property." Jefferson noted that there is nothing less suited to ownership than an idea. I could not possibly improve on his argument.
Patents are a granted right, not a natural one. You are as free to pursue financial gain by sweat of the brow or toil of the mind with or without their existence. I'm not, frankly, interested in pursuing a discussion of whether there is some better way to encourage inventors, but the discussion is not advanced by conjuring a trivial and misleading hypothetical situation, ignoring actual practice, and presupposing the necessity of some legal instrument unknown through most of human history.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Doesn't change the fact he owed taxes and wasn't paying them.
Never said he was a troll, just a dick.
Perhaps if he was nice to people he'd be a billionaire by now.
Harry Reid called all the people with complaints about ObamaCare liars.
In Dilbert-land, Wally was all: "Genius!"
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
scotus, potus - again sounds like hocus pocus to me.
But, whatever...
All right, some budding musical genius make that into a song.
--- Mercutio was right.
This guy is nothing but one of the oldest living patent trolls. Because of the age of these patent applications no one will EVER get to see any information pertaining to them. All this is is a media grab. Time to move along slashdot.
Supreme court of the state of oregonahomaho? Why didn't you say so?
SCOTUS is bog-standard, IANAL but AFAIK you should be able to figure out SCOTSO Nevada. If he had said SCOTSN you might have had a point. IMHO.
moox. for a new generation.
...sounds suspiciously like what (Baudot) teletypes had been doing for decades around 1970, the approximate date TFS indicates.
Seems broad, all right... and obvious, and like there would be prior art.
But since it's secret... who knows.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If this guy's really been at it for 43 years without ever appealing a patent office rejection, he doesn't really want a patent. He's another Lemelson looking for somebody to sue.
Article seems to be talking about patent application 05/302771, and the status of the case is miles away from the way it's described in the article. This patent has been through several levels of non-final and final rejections, appeals, and court actions. Through the USPTO's public PAIR (Patent Application Information Retrieval) system, you can access hundreds of pages of information and history on the case, including what are now several hundred pending claims. Even if the application itself hasn't been published, the file history is ripe with lots of information. You can see the patent examiners' rejections and there's a 494-page appeal brief filed on behalf of the Applicant, from which you can see many of the pending claims. The patent office rejections appear mainly under section 112 on the basis that the claims aren't adequately supported by the patent disclosure. It's not as if he just applied for the patent and waited 43 years - he's been trying hard not to take NO for the answer.
In addition, there appear to be about 150 additional patent cases filed as continuations on dates between 1977 and 1995 - some still pending and some abandoned. Most of them aren't accessible under the public PAIR system because of the pre-1995 filing dates. Presumably there's no continuations filed after 1995 because under the post-1995 rules, the application would expire 20 years from the earliest filing date, so they'd expire before granting. If many of these continuations have hundreds of claims like the parent case, there could be tens of thousands of claims that he's trying to get granted.
Clear to you does not mean clear to me.
(And I am a US native, and a writer by trade.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Controlled torpedoes with electronic (tone) signals
SO I guess this guy will ave to pay her off first...
Patents also cover inventions demonstrated to work, not just ideas.
They also tend to be specific
Software pattens that are utter crap go through like water through a hula hoop.
"Even Hyatt said he's not sure whether he would replicate the shock of getting a patent in 1990 on a "single chip integrated circuit computer architecture" a ruling that effectively gave him a financial claim to most microprocessors, the digital backbone of every personal computer in the world
Did he actually devise methods to overcome the technical obstacles before an actual chip could be fabricated. I'm thinking laminar flow etc. If not then he's just another patent troll. ps.The US patent system is fucked, you do know that already ?
... It doesnt have rounded corners.
I think independent invention should be proof of obviousness.
Really? Newton and Leibniz independently developed calculus. Are you seriously going to claim that was proof of obviousness? Two of the finest minds humanity has ever had, came to the same ideas roughly concurrently but that does not remotely imply that it was obvious to anyone with "ordinary skill in the art". You have to examine what the state of skill in the art is before you can come to any conclusions about what is obvious to most.
An averagely skilled engineer, faced with the same problem could solve the problem in under the time it takes to do a full patent search, and apply for the patent including all the time to write the patent and get it through all the steps - patents are not actually fostering innovation at all.
You are basically implying that an engineer of average skill is unable to develop anything innovative. I fundamentally disagree with your premise. Length of time it takes to solve a problem has little to do with the level of innovation involved. Some problems take longer to solve than others but it does not automatically follow that those are more difficult problems. Many extremely valuable insights do not require years of effort to develop into something useful. Conversely, many insights that do require years of effort ultimately aren't all that valuable. Time is a poor proxy for difficulty.
Patents are intended to promote the disclosure of ideas. All well and good, but maybe an automatic monopoly isn't necesarily the best way to accomplish either of those things.
The primary purpose of patents is to combat the free rider problem. Disclosure of the ideas is arguably a second order effect here. It's valuable in the long run to let people build off the work of others and to do this you need to disclose how things work and prevent people from reinventing the wheel so to speak. We give a temporary monopoly in exchange for them disclosing the idea but that is the mechanics of the solution, not the problem they are actually trying to solve. I don't have a problem with your argument that disclosure/monopoly is the best way to solve the problem. It might not be the best way, but on the other hand I haven't heard any alternatives that are better aside from some badly needed refinements to the current system.
Keep in mind that the ones who add to our knowledge of the world are called scientists, not inventors.
Scientists figure out the laws by which the world operates but they do not figure out how to actually apply that knowledge to real world problems. Understanding F=MA is useless by itself. Engineers unquestionably add to our knowledge of the world. Science and engineering are linked at the hip and you cannot have one without the other. Scientists are NOT the only ones who add to our knowledge of the world.
Insane clown posse did it years ago...back when I was in high school.
The patent office can't actually categorically deny a patent. The claimaint can "reformulate" the idea and resubmit with the same initial submittal date, change the idea to an existing product making money and then claim he thought of it first and have the legal proof because of the date of the initial patent.
Perhaps there's a barrister out there who's bored at work?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
OK. So let's say a chef starts his or her own restaurant. MegaCorp sees the menu, likes it, and uses its massive financial and market power to create their own version which is better, faster and tastier. MegaCorp gets a 3% rise in stock prices, the chef gets nothing. Explain the difference to me?
What you are describing is a trade secret which is protected to a degree but if the secret is discovered then it is free for anyone to use. That is a tactical choice by the chef. If it was truly innovative in some way then the chef could seek a patent and there would be nothing wrong with that. There are patents on food products out there. If the chef did not elect to do that or if his innovation was something like "add more salt" then perhaps it wasn't really so innovative after all. The purpose of patents is not to prohibit competition. The purpose of patents is to combat the free rider problem.
Explain why inventors get monopoly protections from competition and other entrepreneurs and workers don't?
The free rider problem demonstrably does not prohibit people from starting businesses or continuing ones that already exist. My company makes wire harnesses and there are plenty of companies out there that do that too. If we invent some clever machine that gives us an advantage, then we might consider applying for a patent. The free rider problem demonstrably damages the ability and incentive to create new and innovative ideas when they can be freely copied by others who did not have to pay for their development.
I would liken this to a cook at home with a secret recipe which they don't even serve to guests. The resulting "suffering" of society does not bother me.
It should bother you. Neither science nor engineering can work effectively without disclosure and sharing of ideas. But economics plays an important role and there are lots of important things that would never be developed if there was nothing in place to combat the free rider problem. The patent system is imperfect and needs reform badly but fundamentally the idea of it is sound and it combats a serious barrier to human development in spite of its flaws.
It's not as simple as what bad, how good.
The McCormick reaper is an example of how good.
At the time, many folks were tryng to build a harvesting machine with the technology commonly available.
(Say blacksmithing and gunsmithing.)
McCormick was the one that actually figured out how to make a working machine.
It was clear that the invention was non-obvious because many had tried and failed with the same technology.
Intermittent wipers is an example of what good.
Given the idea that one could make slower wiper speeds by periodically stopping the wipers, making one was obvious.
GIven the problem and technology, many had failed to see the opportunity.
The patent teaching this what was very useful.
A problem may be solved on an old technology. (Computers with discrete transistors.)
A new technology comes along and someone wants to patent solving the old problem on the new technology. (Put the computers on IC's.)
GIven the old problem, it may be obvious how to move to the new tech.
The invention (insite) to make this useful at the time was finding the right market. (Calculators for the 4004 market.)
Perhaps what makes a patent on putting this computer on a chip smell is that it is does not teach how or what, but rather why.
An even less useful class of patent is made by looking at evolving new technologies, and patenting useful old things built with the new technologies.
Consider a patent on putting a computer on a chip by a person who both
1) has no ability at the time to actually do it and
2) has no clue for a killer app to make it useful.
Such a patent doesn't teach how, what, or why.
The actual why (trolling) is obvious.
THe PTO has to deal with a wide variety of lawyers writing patents to slip through whatever screening process they set up.
I perhaps a good criteria is a clear picture as to the what, how, and why for the gadget being claimed.
This combined with a certainty the the inventor can likely make the what, how, and why happen at the time of the filing.
(Can he actually explain what it is, build it and is it useful now?)
SCOTSO is the state equivalent of the federal SCOTUS. Pretty clear extension of POTUS/SCOTUS terminology. You sir, are a nitpicker.
And I'll play a MODENS/PONENS against your POTUS/SCOTUS. Maybe even give you a PoTW from Shakespeare's Macbeth [http://www.potw.org/archive/potw283.html].
The joke is that drainbramage expects to be taken seriously with his off-topic remarks.
Or maybe the username is part of the joke.
At any rate, remember this. Being right about an argument and "winning" an argument are two different things. Yes, you have free speech. But if you actually want to enact change, you need to think about when and where to say something. Shouting out "OBAMACARE SUCKS!" at every opportunity will only serve to make some people automatically side against you. And even though (for the sake of argument) you are right in your assertion, the bull-headedness of the opposing side will ensure that you still lose the argument (and thus from your perspective, we all lose).
Calculus isn't an invention, it's a discovery.
Every invention is a discovery. However not every discovery is an invention. If you invent something you are discovering a configuration of the world around us. You are rearranging atoms into some useful form but the possibility for that form existed before you invented it. An invention is merely a pragmatically useful subset of discovery. Invention has as much to do with economics as it does physics.
Calling them the "finest minds" seems a bit of hyperbole, they made great discoveries, but you don't need the finest minds to do what they did
And yet no one else did do what they did before them. Why is that? Why did no one figure out relativity before Einstein? Just because you understand it now does not mean that it is obvious then. You're looking at things retrospectively. Sure, it is reasonable to suppose that sooner or later someone else would have come up with the same theories but the fact remains that Newton and Leibniz did it first. You and I didn't come up with it independently despite knowledge of calculus now being commonplace. We had to be taught calculus by someone else who had already been taught calculus. Looking at things retrospectively makes them seem more obvious than they really are.
Oh, and if you think Newton wasn't one of the smartest men in history, you really need to look more closely at what he did. It's no exaggeration to say he greatly advanced human knowledge and laid key parts of the foundation upon which all modern science and engineering rests. The fact that he pursued some dead ends doesn't devalue the things he was right about. If you can find me anyone who wasn't wrong about some things I'll go dive headfirst into the nearest snowbank.
The ordinary undertaking of ordinary engineers do not need external incentives. They would make those innovations without the patent incentive.
Baloney. You've fallen into the fallacy (common here on slashdot) that engineers would do their work without any external incentives which is demonstrably nonsense in most cases. They need salaries at a minimum which obviously is an external incentive. Certainly there would be some level of advancement but it would be slower because of the economic problems. Engineering is inseparable from economics and if you believe otherwise you are deluded. You also have danced around the question of how you would solve the free rider problem which is very real and there is a huge body of research regarding its effects on economies. If you have an idea that is better than patents (and copyright for written works) to solve this problem then I'm all ears but any claim that we would be in the same place without some tool to combat the free rider problem is absurd.
If any engineer in the fields could come up with the same solution in 6 hours, then it's obvious.
That is nonsense because you are applying a retrospective view of the problem. If it was so easy to accomplish and so obvious then why wasn't it done previously? The value of an insight has NOTHING to do with how long it takes to complete. The value of an insight has to do with the socio-economic value that can be gained from the invention. In fact many of the greatest insights are the ones where we immediately think "of course it works like that" even though no one did previously.
Look closer.
Microprocessor? that was in 1989. It was thrown out and he kept taking them to court, meanwhile he claims 'patent pending' and extorted royalties out of companies. Which he keeps even after the courts agreed with the patent office.
I mean, a patent for the microprocessor in 1989? come on.
He also patent the 'Kernel' ... in 1996
And he owes the taxes, and it's still in court, and he will probably loose.
This guy uses courts like a club.
He tries to patent things that are just ideas, and then sues everyone when denied.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Say I open up a pizzeria in a country where pizza is not popular. I spend a lot of time and money advertising and selling pizza to these people and start to build a successful business. Once it becomes popular there, Pizza Hut builds several franchises there.to capitalize on the newfound market. That's the free rider problem, and it applies to a business absent technological innovation.
You are correct that that is a version of the free rider problem but you are ignoring the key difference. Extending a market for a product that already exists is not the same thing as inventing a completely new product. The mere fact that a second business comes along to capitalize on the market extending actions of the first does not damage the economy as a whole. Some new people get to enjoy pizza but pizza already existed prior to them enjoying the product. If the new pizza company could not protect their new market then it probably wasn't a good idea to develop the market but society isn't worse off.
Here is a better example. Developing a new drug to combat a disease costs many millions of dollars. At the end of the day you have a chemical formula. If you develop that drug your costs are Cost of Development + Cost of Manufacturing + Cost of Distribution. Anyone who copies that drug only has the Cost of Manufacturing + Cost of Distribution. The copier has an immediate and unbeatable cost advantage. That being the case, why would you ever invest the money to develop the drug, knowing that you will get economically crushed in the market place by others undercutting your price? In this case the world never gets the benefit of that new drug because it would be unlikely to be developed. Furthermore because the drug doesn't get developed then no one else can build off of their work to make even better drugs. Substitute drugs for any other innovative and new product that requires a substantial investment to bring to market and the argument is the same. Batteries, semiconductors, driveshafts, automobiles, etc.
I know someone will bring up open source software so let me nip that here. Software is a unique case because it is an intangible product with close to zero marginal cost of manufacturing and, with the internet, distribution as well. Furthermore, its possible to build economically viable businesses without selling the software because software is merely instructions for a machine and it is covered by copyright. Important to be sure but you can build software with the intent to bring in revenue elsewhere. That's not generally possible with tangible products like cars or semiconductors - the sort that you generally get a patent for. With tangible products you need to recover the revenue more or less directly and the cost of manufacturing and distribution are far more substantial in those cases. We really should not be allowing patents for software because it really screws the system up. You don't need patents to combat the free rider problem with software. Copyright serves this purpose well enough.
Considering a patent only lasts 20 years from your filing date, it's already expired the second its approved.
>This is Slashdot. Nothing written here about patents is believable.
It's actually a cult of make-believe. But not make-believe about patent law -- make-believe about the qualifications of many of the posters to comment intelligently about patent law. I call it the "Joel Spafford" syndrome, named after the blogger who posted an unintentionally hilarious 'yes-I-got-them-and-you-can-too!" rant about how he'd found prior art that he'd thought had 'finally rejected' a Microsoft patent -- and has probably still not realized that (much less why) he did nothing of the sort.
.
I think part of the problem is that so many posters here are used to being the smartest person in the room when it comes to technology. And when faced with something they know little about -- like patent law -- they naturally assume that, because patent documents contain technical contents, they have some idea of how or why the law works. They don't even realize that patents not tech documents -- a patent app is a legal document that has technical content. That's one reason why an IEEE publication and a patent application that describe the same subject matter usually reference very different feature sets.
So you wind up with authoritative-sounding gibberish here, like "I think if two people invent the same thing, that should be evidence of obviousness," "Design patents are basically trademarks," and my favorite, "You can't patent math!" (and it's even sillier corollary, "Because all software is math, you can't patent software."). No, no, I'm not making this up! These are all actual quotes (or at worst close paraphrasings.)
I've said it here before: There is a core of educated, rational patent professionals on Slashdot, people who have training in patent law and who at least understand the basics of the patent system. But they're often drowned out by the arrogant numbskulls who respond to every /. patent-related article with the most cringeworthy comments, and who have no clue about silly they sound. You know who you are and /.'s credibility as a forum for discussion of issues related to patent law will remain in a class with that of, say, a Rush Limbaugh segment about climate change, until they accept the fact that they're simply unqualified to comment on the topic and would be better served by trying to learn something from the patent attorneys & agents who are lured into posting here. Oh wait, I forgot -- when it comes to patent law, anybody who knows what they're talking about is not to be trusted. Woops -- guess you can figure out how this forum got into such a state.
See below. And above, for that matter.
The stated goal of the patent system was to improve technology by making stuff public in return for a limited monopoly. (The alternative was having everyone keep their stuff as trade secrets, which could get lost if the right people died at the wrong time.)
If you have two people independently invent the same thing then that seems to indicate that it wasn't in danger of being lost and so therefore shouldn't be eligible for protection.
In the real world once a patented idea has been made public it becomes very difficult to prove independent invention, so the window for this sort of thing to happen would be very small--basically from the time someone starts working on something until the time that someone files for a patent on it.
Bog standard to you in your country maybe. The rest of the world has to infer what you guys mean. We normally don't complain. You're welcome.
Umm, if you do the rearranging, it's creation (or invention if you were the first to do the rearranging), not discovery. Invention is man-made, artificial, and not found in nature. Discovery is finding something that already exists in this world, you did not create it or shape it. For eg, "you found (discovered) a bird with eight wings in your backyard." You didn't create the bird yourself, God did that. You just found it.
Do we need more proof that the patent system is detrimental?
Let's assume the inventor won't release his invention until patent is approved - therefore we loose the advancement. It might be tiny advancement or it could be huge.
There's also examples when inventors, developers, startups don't pursue their goals because of a patent.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
bahaha you made my day :-D