Slashdot Mirror
'Unpatent' Begins Crowdfunding Challenges To Bad Patents (unpatent.co)
"Unpatent is a crowdfunding platform that eliminates bad patents," reads their web site. "We do that by crowdsourcing the prior art -- that is all the evidence that makes clear that a patent was not novel -- and filing reexamination requests to the patent office." An anonymous Slashdot reader reports:
"Everyone in the world can back the crowdfunding campaign against the patent," explains their site, which includes a special section with "Featured stupid patents". The first $16,000 raised covers the lawyers and fees at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and "The rest is distributed to those who find valid prior art...any evidence that a patent is not novel. We review all the prior art pieces and reward those that may invalidate a claim... Then, we file an ex partes reexamination to the USPTO."
Their team includes Lee Cheng, the legal officer at Newegg, "worldwide renowned as the patent trolls' nightmare," as well as Lus Cuende, who created his own Linux distro when he was 15 and is now CTO of Stampery, a company using the Bitcoin blockchain to notarize data.
They're currently targeting the infamous US8738435 covering "personalized content relating to offered products and services," which in February the EFF featured as their "stupid patent of the month." Its page on Unpatent.co argues that "Taking something so obvious such as personalizing content and offers...and writing the word online everywhere shouldn't grant you a monopoly over it." Unpatent's slogan? "We invalidate patents that shouldn't exist."
Their team includes Lee Cheng, the legal officer at Newegg, "worldwide renowned as the patent trolls' nightmare," as well as Lus Cuende, who created his own Linux distro when he was 15 and is now CTO of Stampery, a company using the Bitcoin blockchain to notarize data.
They're currently targeting the infamous US8738435 covering "personalized content relating to offered products and services," which in February the EFF featured as their "stupid patent of the month." Its page on Unpatent.co argues that "Taking something so obvious such as personalizing content and offers...and writing the word online everywhere shouldn't grant you a monopoly over it." Unpatent's slogan? "We invalidate patents that shouldn't exist."
thou
There goes my patent on [a-z0-9]*
Like a "bug bounty": doesn't this just encourage people to make stupid patents for the explicit purpose of Unpatent fighting them?
The problem is that the patent system is broken. You are just treating the symptoms, not curing the disease. You are making the lawyers lot of money though I guess, which is probably why the Newegg lawyer thought of this brilliant idea.
If this is implemented well it could help society a great deal. Another answer to the previous techies helping the world post. If implemented poorly it'll just disappear and no one will give it much thought.
In one of those "If I had a billion dollars" discussions one of my friends raised the possibility of buying the rights to old media, stuff like Star Trek TOS, M.A.S.H etc, and either changing the copyright restrictions to something like CC-BY-SA or just public-domain-ing the whole lot. Perhaps maintaining an online library for people to download and share it.
Mind you, just the media (movie/show/music) in question, not the overarching IP rights. JJ Abrahms can still make Star Trek Movies and copyright them all he wants, but Star Trek TOS would be free & legal for anyone to torrent, share, remix, HD remaster, broadcast etc. In other words, anyone could do whatever they wanted with the original show, but would still get shut down for seeding copies of the latest Trek movie (until that too, was bought & public-domained).
Not self sustainable.
To challenge the copyright cartels, the kind of rights holding group you envision needs to charge a simple one-off use fee if you intend to use the owned property to create a derivative work, to obtain a suitable license. That fee money is used to purchase additional properties that should be in the public domain.
As long as the fee is minimal (say, 10$, to make as many derivative works as you want), and retains some level of viral permanence (derivative works are given reciprocity for the group to be given authority to charge for additional licensing for people wanting to make yet more derivative works with both groups agreeing that neither has full control over the work, and thus neither party is able to create an exclusivity agreement to the works covered--EG, all agreements are inclusive, not exclusive) it would do a great job of assuring low cost licensing of properties, while keeping the likes of Disney from turning it into yet another Princess Powergrab for 170 years.
Such an org would need to have a very hard-lined, and restrictive charter to prevent it morphing into the MPAA on cocaine and crack though. (EG, even its own lawyers would be legally disbarred from trying to change its mission.)
Expect the MPAA, RIAA, and assorted vermin to rail against the very notion of such an org, in much the same way that Microsoft railed against the viral nature of the GPL though.
Agreed, this is what Slashdotters have been saying for over a decade now, but still there is no political apetite from either side of politics in just about all western countries from actually addressing this at the cause.
Meanwhile patent wars are being fought all over the world hurting consumers world wide because at the end of the day they are the ones that are paying for this nonsense. At least there is someone out there trying to fix something. Yes it's like pissing into the ocean but if a few stupid patents get squashed that's still better than none.
Make SELinux enforcing again!
IMHO, the fix is to require the patenter make a working prototype showing the invention. If you haven't made it, you haven't solved the real world problems, so you haven't invented anything. It also clearly demonstrates the 'new and novel' part of it. So the patenter cannot go back and pretend that some minor wording was the invention.
The trick of writing vague broad patents collapses when you have to make a concrete invention.
How many patent trolls would there be if they had to make the inventions and not just write a lawyer document?
All patents are bad patents. The ownership of ideas is immoral and should be abolished.
There is one fact which is rarely pointed out when discussing patent trolls, but I think it's important.
Over 80% of all patent suits are filed by just four trolls.
Obviously some patent litigation has to do with legitimate disputes, so those four trolls do probably 95% of the trolling. If you put those four out business, that takes care of 95% of the problem. It also shows other potential trolls that trolls end up broke.
The people behind this initiative don't just yip yap about patents on Slashdot for a few minutes, they are professionals who have actually fought these trolls. They understand the problem better than you or I do. If they think this approach will help put the four major trolls out of business, they're probably right.
@"The people behind this initiative don't just yip yap about patents on Slashdot for a few minutes, they are professionals who have actually fought these trolls"
Great they system works! Trolls file bogus patents and these heroes fight the patents... no need to reform or anything!
You can have *both*, and the loud crowd voices on Slashdot are probably more influential when patent reform is discussed than individual lawyers in individual cases. I say kudos to them for fighting individual bad patents, but US Corps LOSING to ridiculous patent troll patents is what showed the politicians how broken the system is. So overall they may be having a negative effect, giving the gloss of a 'working system', when it simply isn't.
The USPTO head once tried to define his job as issuing patents and letting the courts decide if they were new, novel and prior art. I remember that asshole claiming more patents = more innovation = he should allow all patents. They twiddled with the system since, but the problem remains. You don't have to make the product you are patenting, so there is no evidence you have got it to work. The "new and novel" tests have been undermined, and "non-obvious" has all but been removed under the claim that "everything is obvious in hindsight", which is a bogus claim.
This is just minor busy work, the major work needed here is lobbying.
Visiting .co domains such as unpatent.co also enables the lawful evil psychopathic type to track your online activity... Just saying.
GP here. If this was a reality, why would we need to charge a fee for licensing if we're copying the crowd-funded model? Assuming this got off the ground and people were donating for stuff to be made CC-BY-SA-esque/Public Domain (+ operating overheads), you'd only chase those pieces of media which are important to the 'crowd' as it were.
Of course, the biggest problem is getting the rights-holders to actually sell-up. Assuming they caught wind and weren't happy with the idea they could simply make it cost-prohibitive to purchase or flat-out refuse to sell.
Yes, the same patent office that happily granted the patent is going to look at a raft of "prior art" publications, a long legal brief from parties with a known axe to grind and say "why yes, you've clearly raised a substantial new question of patent ability." Hardly.
Keep in mind that inter partes reexams are increasingly not even instituted, and those often involve billion-dollar businesses having put a patent under a microscope for years, deposed the inventors in litigation, spent millions in legal fees, and the like. Oh, but your $16k and a dream is totally going to be enough.
Crowdsourcing is not some magic remedy for an otherwise flawed plan.
and that's when I realized I'm old. How does this hodge-podge of words mean anything? Notarize data? What the unholy fuck?
There are already statistics that show some applicant/lawyer teams especially able to are able to push questionable patents thru the system.
Similar story for which districts to sue folks.
I wonder if there are any statistics as to which patent examiners approve which patents.
Perhaps the system forces some examiners to work in fields they shouldn't.
Such statistics might make it easier to raise a systemic challenge instead of slogging it out patent by patent or claim by claim.
On the other hand, the patent office is really vulnerable here, and they might respond in the short term by digging in their heels instead of looking at the actual merits with the eyes of someone who has a clue like the should always have done.
Mechanical devices should be an easy target. Let's start there.
Gears and levers already exist and are already capable of doing the operations they can be assembled to do. Fixed!
Next up, let's invalidate all of the "X, but with Y" patents. Travel was already possible without airplanes, therefore airplanes were not novel. Fixed!
That's two huge classes of patents made invalid by very simple, very irrefutable logic. Tackle those first, and you'll take the funding away from the trolls and they won't be able to fight.
Ftfy.
Just because gears exist doesn't mean it's impossible to invent a something new which uses gears in a useful new way. Just because computers exist doesn't mean it's impossible to invent something new which uses computers in a useful new way.
Further, it's obvious that the exact same device can be made of steel or aluminum. Switching from one metal to anothet doesn't make it a different device. Less obvious is that anything which can be built into software by a compiler can also be built as hardware. The most popular programming language of all time is C. Most often a C program is compiled as software, but C can also be burned as hardware. The exact same source code, the exact same definition of same machine, expressed as either physical devices or expressed on spinning rust. The distinction you wish to make between hardware and software simply doesn't exist.
They want to destroy patent system totally.
Over 80% of all patent suits are filed by just four trolls.
Interesting. Can you please list them?
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Their website is in Colombia. Why is a fighter of US Patents registered in Colombia?
"Notarize"
"have (the signature on a document) attested to by a notary."
To notarize something, usually by a solicitor, is to say that that something existed, was seen, what the content of it was, and prove that it existed. You notarize things like contracts and wills and things like that, but there's no reason you can't notarize data itself.
Using the Bitcoin blockchain you would be able to provide proof of the time/date of that notarization, what was notarized and by whom, with virtually-certainty that in the future that proof will still be around and intact and provably unfalsified (i.e. people can't tamper with it to make it look like you signed a different document yesterday, etc.) and you could even provide proof of WHO you were by being in possession of the private wallet associated with the transactions that provide the proof in the blockchain.
In the same way that we will know Satoshi (the inventor of Bitcoin) if he ever reveals himself, because only he would have the ability to make transactions from his original wallet (which address is well-known but nobody else can fake).
Which is probably why that guy that CLAIMED to be Satoshi has been very quiet the last few months because he actually WASN'T able to demonstrate a transaction from one of the original wallets.
[ Sorry in advance for the stupid l33t spelling, but the lameness filter won't let me write the word tr0ll.]
I wonder about "patent tr0lls". The inventor patents Invention X, then wants to monetize their invention. They can build a business (slow and risky) or they can sell their patent to someone else, such as a manufacturer, in exchange for money. Whether or not they get a lot of money or a little money is not important; what is important is that they agreed to the sale. The patent now belongs to Company Y. Company Y makes a warehouse full of Xs, but realizes they aren't selling. They now own a warehouse of valueless junk, plus the rights to X. They need money, so they sell the rights to X to "Patent Tr0ll Z". Again, the amount isn't important as long as they voluntarily agreed to the sale.
So now Z has no boxes of X, no real way to make more Xs, but they have the patent and want to monetize it. Companies A, B, and C start making widgets W, which have a tiny little sliver of concept that coincides with patent X. Tr0ll Z recognizes the concept and sues them. They invested in patent X in order to make money. They did not steal the patent from the inventor. They did not steal products from the warehouse of company Y. So why are the patent tr0lls evil in all of this?
If the tr0lls were stealing innovations, or tricking people into surrendering their rights, then they'd be guilty of fraud. But when everyone involved in the invention agreed to the terms of the sale of the rights, it seems like a legitimate way to execute a business transaction. They may be sleazy and undercut inventors or manufacturers, but those are all governed by contracts, voluntarily entered into by all parties. So I'm asking: what are the tr0lls doing that is unethical?
John
My understanding is that patent trolling is where you acquire patents not because you want to use the patent to produce anything but because you think the patent has scope to be used to aggressively pursue other businesses that do produce something. That alone might not be an issue (depending on your opinion) but it is then combined by interpreting patents in the broadest manner possible and then threatening businesses with expensive legal process if they don't pay you to leave them be; sometimes this is made even more ridiculous by sitting on ambiguous patents while you watch firms grow reliant and big on things you think you can extort them over with the patent before extorting them.
I suppose what I'm saying is that in a perfect world where patents were always clear, valid, and consistently interpreted then patent trolling would be a non-issue and the behaviours you discuss would go on and be fine; it's the real world issues with the system that make patent trolling an issue.
Not at all.
There's only one place notaries are truly effective: in court. (There may be some spillover respect in terms of getting laypeople to accept things, but you might as well have certificates that say "Zuul guarantees authenticity" for as much sense as that makes.) And they only do two things: 1) attest to a copy being true and correct; and 2) attest to the identity, competence, and willingness of a signature. In that context, the notary says "yes I notarized that, see, here it is in my logbook, I remember doing it, etc." I'm at a loss to understand why a blockchain would be implicated in "what the content of it was" "proof of time/date" "by whom" "WHO you were" etc given that these will always be direct testimonial issues AND that notaries are explicitly not responsible for actual content in almost every US state.
"Stupid patents" highlights include many currently assigned to Acacia. Will this project actually involve patents that the owners of the site haven't previously been threatened with?
The Constitution says:
"The Congress shall have Power ...
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
The patent system as it is constituted does the exact reverse. It does not "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" but instead *impedes* the "Progress of Science and useful Arts". If someone brought a case to the Supreme Court, perhaps they would have a chance to declare it unconstitutional and force Congress into a rational system that indeed promotes science.
Because you're against 99% of the black population if you're against bad parents.
Actually, I think the main reason they're considered evil is because their behavior is fundamentally a legal form of extortion--it would be like if I started claiming you trespassed on my property...because your shadow happened to possibly cross just slightly into it, maybe. These are not companies that in their behavior can be distinguished from Investment Company Q which will actively do things like try to find a company to license the patent out to, or offer Companies A, B and C a chance to license X because it's actually better for the job than widget W.
This is in fact quite possible and has happened. Sometimes the reason X didn't sell in the first place has been as simple as Company Y not knowing how to sell it. Occasionally, this is a systemic and endemic problem for Company Y, and the patent ends up being sold off by Company Y's creditors who just want all of Company Y's remains sold after Y experienced the fate of any company that couldn't even sell water in a desert.
The thing that distinguishes Z from Investment Company Q? Q is making an effort ahead of time to make money off of Invention X. Z is just going to sit on the patent and wait until it can sue somebody claiming infringement, and tend to hope to get paid to just go away. As long as they figure it's cheaper for them to get bought off...
Given access to the pixels in a bit-mapped character, how would you blink a cursor? You'd XOR the pixels in the cursor. It's trivial. Give a kid access to the logical operations available on 8-bit microprocessors and she'll probably reinvent this within a week. But cadtrack was granted U.S. Patent 4,197,590. They filed a lawsuit against Commodore computers. A US judge filed an injunction against Commodore blocking its sale of the Amiga CD32. This cemented Microsoft's virtual monopoly on desktop computers, setting back the PC industry a decade. (Amiga had unix-like pre-emptive multi-tasking, Windows 95 color windowed desktop, multimedia capabilities, stereo sound, built in speech synthesizer.. in 1985 when you were still looking at the A:\> prompt and that ugly green blinking cursor.)
If I could get a tax break for donating to challenge patents I'd be really all for it. Could they get 501(c)(3) status?
I agree there are perfectly reasonable and legitimate reasons to sell a patent, and for the buyer to license it.
The few companies who file the vast majority of patent suits (the trolls) are characterized by attempting to retroactively license questionable patents and engaging in various forms of generally predatory conduct in so doing. This combination of factors has a siginificant subjective element, you know when someone is being a slimeball even though you can't establish a rigorous definition of "slimeball".
Because it's tough to define "patent troll" in a rigorous way that excludes legitimate licensing, I think it's helpful to look at the actual behavior of the four problem companies, their actual business models, and figure out how to go after the four existing trolls. That doesn't require a rigorous, legalistic definition of "trolling", you simply figure out how to stop those four specific entities.
Its a bit like how an insurance company works. For every person wanting to make a derivative work, there is a subtle risk that somewhere in the chain there will be litigation. This small fee helps cover that, and provides the slush to protect the properties it manages licensing for.
I noticed that a couple of the patents featured on the site are listed as expired? Can someone explain why there's a point to invalidating expired patents? Doesn't the expiration effectively place that invention into the public domain?
> Not worth the cost to build and store it in the USPTO? Then its not worthy of government force backed patent protection.
A *PGA costs several dollars. The patent process costs several thousand dollars. Burning a PGA wouldn't change the cost of the patent at all.
> It's not a big deal, so you should give in to me.
It's not so much "giving in to you" as rolling my eyes at you.
I know, make them send a self-addressed, stamped envelope too, that'll fix the greedy bastards. â--"Ìâ--" You have some strong opinions, undiluted by any understanding of facts. That, by itself, is nothing bad. I once knew no facts at all! I didn't even know mybown name. When people gave me the facts, I -learned-. One can choose to learn, or one can choose to stubbornly defend ignorance against the full assault of knowledge.
Btw, care to cite where ANYONE, much less me, objected to burning a PGA? Pretty sure I never did.
They're currently targeting the infamous US8738435 covering "personalized content relating to offered products and services,"
Didn't US8738435, based on a 1996 application, expire in June 2016?
Ideas cannot be patented.
Novel and useful implementations of ideas can be patented.
All of these "stupid" patents are to be found only in the USA. They are either not applied for elsewhere, or if applied for are not granted. The problem is that the USA has a low threshold for "non-obvious" and a high threshold for "prior art" and "enabling description" Thus if someone puts in writing what is so obvious that most people wouldn't even bother to write it down, they can patent it in the USA. Similarly, if they write a wishlist of what might one day be possible, they can patent it.
EXAMPLE
"Technology is not yet available. Technology B is not yet available. When they are, I claim exclusive rights to combining technology A and B in one product or system."
Patents are -not- to protect your ownership of an idea, or to help you make lots of money.
Patents are to encourage people to -disclose- ideas so that they may be recorded and not lost, as happened many times in history (and before).
And it is part of the reason the U.S. (and now others) has advanced so far, so fast.
The normal way is to keep things a trade secret, which is great for the inventor but -not- so great for the nation or for humanity.
But a way to record prior art, that was never patented, would make things work much better! 8-)
[ Sorry in advance for the stupid l33t spelling, but the lameness filter won't let me write the word tr0ll.]
Yet it has no problem letting me say "NIGGERS"! Figure that one out.
Seriously, in what universe is that an internally consistent position? Something is definitely broken here. Either there should be no censorship *of content* at all, or the private entity enforcing the censorship on its wholly-owned site (so yes, they can do that) should at least show its readers the common courtesy of making sense. Of course, next thing ya know, the editors will actually make an effort to copy-edit. Note that proper copy editing is more than just spell-checking, though it's not really much more to anyone with a basic command of English grammar.
It appears to be tied to a word count. I think that if I had cut back to one instance of the T-word, it would have been fine.
But it appears to be following the same pattern as any authoritarian's response to criticism: whether it be Chinese citizens talking about Falun Gong, or slashdotters complaining about trolls, those in charge trot out the Great Firewall and censor them.
John
When they learn to create a web site that works without Javascript loaded from a dozen external domains, I'll be glad to take a look.
Lordy, but I'm tired of web developers who don't create POSH sites that degrade gracefully when scripting is disabled. For a handful of RIAs that's understandable - they can't do anything useful without scripting - but for everyone else it's inexcusable laziness.