Thank you for responding. I see where your coming from, I do, but I disagree.
You view it as "working around for no good reason" but the exclusivity right granted by patents are how they are supposed to promote the useful arts and sciences. You having to work around it means you have to come up with a new and different way of doing it. If it's worse, and the person that has the patent came up with THE best way to solve a particular problem, shouldn't they be rewarded for that ingenuity? If it's not THE best way to do it, maybe their patent will force you to find a better way, thereby promoting the arts and sciences.
Removing existing products from the market doesn't have any impact on the promotion of arts and sciences; designing around the existing patents is what causes that.
As I've said in response to others, I don't see why software should be treated any differently than any other technology area. You haven't given me a reason they should.
First, thank you for your well-thought out response. I sincerely mean that, and I really do appreciate actual debate on this. You raise some fair points, although I disagree that smaller companies interacting doesn't benefit anyone; they may form a partnership based on a mutual use of their respective technologies and establish a market foothold that neither could individually.
Second, and I realize this is a little unfair to raise it at this stage, but I don't see how software patents are special or should be treated with any differently than any other technology. None of your examples hinge on the technology being software - those scenarios apply in the biology world or semiconsiductor world as well. Why is it that software patents specifically should be abolished? Or are you arguing that the entire patent system should go?
And, for what it's worth, there ARE problems with the system, patent trolls being the primary one. I am not defending the patent system as being perfect, far from it. I'm just saying that software is no different than any other field and inventors that innovate in the software field are entitled to no less protection than someone that develops hardware, or a new drug.
To the extent developers feel otherwise, I haven't seen a calm, and rationale counter-argument.
I was a software developer, and still occasionally write software as a hobby. My problem is that unlike a coding project, there is no architecture - no design aspect - of software developers' responses to the software patent "problem." Instead it's all weeping and gnashing of teeth and banging away furiously on the keyboard.
No one is forming cogent, well-thought out rebuttals to the "problem," so no, I don't think they have a point. They don't bother understanding the enemy as it were - as evidenced by the oft repeated fallacy of quoting the abstract instead of the claims, or failing to look at the file history - and instead just write mad. I don't respect that approach, or lend its arguments it much weight.
As one of the few other patent attorneys on here - that has stopped coming here regularly because of the torch and pitchfork attitude the OP is pushing - I 3 the eff out of you right now.
Ya know, it's not like Engineers have been given some magical glasses and are the only people that see how messed up the system is. Plenty of lawyers and judges do too (Congress I can't speak for).
Are you forgetting that to be a registered patent attorney you have to have a science-based background?
Except that patent trolls don't file patents; they look at the existing and emerging markets and then buy old patents that - with a stretch - cover those markets.
Why would a patent troll start now, roll the dice, and wait 4 years for whatever might come out of the patent office? Answer: they wouldn't. They go after established deep pockets (or small fries first to fund the suits against the established deep pockets) and make money now.
Check out my userid - I know what the slashdot *effect is, but just because I read/. back in 1999 doesn't mean all techies did. In fact, I know several that avoid this place like the plague, mainly because of the torches and pitchfork approach you seem to subscribe to.
Get over it. They didn't lie. They just didn't care enough to carefully study how slashdot's moderation system worked.
Of course, maybe they didn't actually lie, and instead they just haven't spent more than a minute on this site - what they did see was just the gist of the mod system.
But I'm sure the scenario where they are two malicious, hand knotting, mustache twirling, evil engineers is much more likely.::eyeroll::
By the way, this whole post shows what's wrong with your attitude. Not only do you have it completely backward, but talk like you know what you're talking about, you then acknowledge that you can't be bothered to actually read up on it.
No, you are missing the whole point. You are saying "the system needs to be cheaper for the common man" and I'm saying "it's already that way!"
But your position that -- because I know you didn't know fees were that low -- "patents cost too much to get for the everyday man; we should lower them" does not work with your position of "it should be a quick turnaround." The reason it takes so long is because there are not enough examiners. If you lower fees, as you propose, there is no additional money to hire examiners. Even assuming you DID know that fees were that low, there is still no additional money to hire additional examiners. You cannot lower fees, or keep them at their current rate AND speed up examination. THAT was my point.
Furthermore, I never said the system was perfect. Far from it. And I live it every day, so I know I see issues that you haven't even considered. But a) you come across as blinded by your anti-patent bias and b) your proposed system -- even as a general idea -- is no better than the existing one and in fact has glaring contradictions (none of which you chose to respond to) that would make it WORSE than the existing system. So yeah, I'm going to trash your "general idea" when compared to the existing system.
As for the shoplifter, I simply do not believe that any place bans someone for life after one offense. I'm sure you could find some place somewhere, but the punishment doesn't fit the crime, just as your assertion that if there is one negligently untrue statement in a patent it should auto-ban someone for life. If you think patents are expensive now, how much do you think it will cost to verify every, single, sentence to make sure you didn't accidentally say something untrue?
I'm done. You accuse me of lying, which, is bullshit. I'm not trying to intentionally deceive you - I'm trying to show you that your bias is unreasonable and in your fervent passion to come up with something better, you are throwing the baby out with the bath water and not thinking critically about how your system would actually work. When I shot holes in it, you had no response.
That is half the cost that a "large entity" would incur. Furthermore, the recent patent law, which sparked this whole debate, created a "micro entity" which is entitled to a 75% reduction in fees, i.e., it'd cost $325 for a guy in his garage. You can thank Obama now.
with a short approval process
Define short and where does the money come from to pay for the Examiners now that nobody is paying fees?
and should be able to be filled out completely by a person with a 6th grade education
You complain about patents on obvious things, yet a patent should be able to be filed by a person with a 6th grade education? WTF?! Can you wrap your head around how hypocritical that is?
and access to a library for prior-art searches and such. If any statement on an application is found to be untrue (i.e. insufficient listing of prior art) then future fees for that applicant will be $10,000 (by applicant, that includes the company listed, not just the inventor).
So what if that prior art is not in the "library." Are they penalized because the library is not complete? What if they do a reasonable search, but don't uncover an analogous idea in another technology area? What if, because they only have a 6th grade education, they can't understand the other technology area's teaching. For example, what if the idea is a lock/key type mechanism and there is an analogous technique in gene sequencing. What if I think it's analogous and you don't? Who's right and are they penalized 10,000 from now on? Doesn't that impact their job prospects in the future? What company is going to want to hire someone that automatically incurs a 10k penalty on their applications?
If any are provably negligently or fraudulently untrue, then all patents by that applicant will be rescinded and no further applications will be accepted from that applicant, nor any applicant who acquires any future interest in that company (including stock ownership).
Where to even begin with this. If I caught you shop lifting, does that mean you can never shop again? Especially on the negligently part. Negligence means you didn't mean to do it. And you're going to exact that punishment on them? I refer you again to how that negatively impacts their employment potential.
but back then, there was no easy way for him to publish. But a patent should be not just a commercial tool of profit, but a repository for knowledge, and so many people now are purposefully excluding their ideas from that repository because it's inconvenient and expensive, the opposite of what it should be.
The Patent Office has forum for exactly this called the Statutory Invention Registration. It allows someone to publish and invention (but give up any rights in it). Been around since the 80s.
Since you're going to debate the constitutionality of patents and copyrights, let's quote it, shall we?
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;
Inventors and Authors have the exclusive right - they can block others from doing - their respective writings and discoveries. And you ARE aware that movies and sound recording didn't exist in 1787, right? England had patents and copyrights before we did (patents in general date back to 500BC) and that's what this is talking about, albeit not explicitly called "a patent." And if you are going to be strictly constructionalist, there are literally thousands of things that a
I disagree. If I have a patent on something, I have disclosed it to the world, thus promoting the sciences by making my work known. Additionally, you have to design around it, thereby making new discoveries or thinking of new ways to solve the problem, also promoting the sciences.
Face it, you're anti patent. It doesn't really matter what I say, you are. Thanks for the "debate." Have a nice day.
I think the frustration on your part is that there are multiple issues here. One, the system is broken (that you assert litigation is a necessary and vital part of the process is proof of that to any non-lawyer).
On the contrary, I never said it was necessary or vital. I just said that it would be the easiest way to prove fraud. I will also say that any patent attorney that wants to keep his license will not file a patent application based on his client stealing/copying an invention. People say it happens, but there are very very few cases of this.
The other is that the broken system isn't even being followed consistently and logically (again, to those who read the patents (not just the summaries) and look at what was out there when the patent was filed for. One issue is that body of knowledge is prior art. Note that for on-click, there was massive market pressure to "simplify" the checkout process to encourage online shopping. Others have tried simplifying, with limited success. Going to a one-click purchase would have sounded dimple and obvious to a lay person a year before it was filed for. And given the "one click" goal, a person from the industry of average capability would likely have come up with the implementation Amazon used. It was obvious, and not novel.
And yet, no one had done it before. No one. Erego, not obvious. You are looking at it in hindsight, which you can't do. If it was sooooo obvious, how come there aren't a dozen similar filings?
What are you even talking about? My point was that the claims are what matter, and no claim that took an obvious idea and added "on a mobile device" was ever granted based on just that. Patent Examiners do their jobs; YOU aren't reading what they are. You look at the title and say "It's obvious!" even though the title means nothing legally. It's the claims that matter!
Your reliance on one-click is not surprising - people love to bitch and moan that it shouldn't have been granted and ignore the fact that it has been examined twice and still come out. Hundreds of prior art references have been reviewed and none apparently teach or make obvious the claims as allowed. You're doing EXACTLY what I am complaining about. You take a six element claim, ignore it all and distill it down to a five word sentence and then bitch that that is obvious. THAT'S NOT HOW PATENT EXAMINATION WORKS.
And, it wasn't allowed just because it was "running a tab - on a computer." I've listed the elements of claim 1 below. Let's talk about tabs first. With a tab, you leave a credit card at the bar. As you order, the bartender adds the drink to the order. The credit card isn't charged with each drink, it's just there as security. At the end of the night, they ask "put it all on the card" and assuming you say yes, run it all through and you pay. In the system thousands of years ago, it was just you had an in with the place and there was no credit card. They just knew you and kept a list of everything you ordered. At some point, e.g., end of the month, you came in and paid your tab.
None of these are the one-click patent. I've pasted in the claims below for reference, and will go element by element showing how a tab on a computer isn't one click.
Claim 1 reads:
1. A method of placing an order for an item comprising: under control of a client system, displaying information identifying the item purchasable through a shopping cart model; and
in response to only a single action being performed, sending a request to order the item along with an identifier of a purchaser of the item to a server system;
under control of a single-action ordering component of the server system, receiving the request;
retrieving additional information previously stored for the purchaser identified by the indentifier in the received request; and
generating an order to purchase the requested item for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received request using the retrieved additional information; and
fulfilling the generated order to complete purchase of the item whereby the item is ordered without using the shopping cart model.
Analysis First, there is no "shopping cart model" in a bar with a tab (element 1) and an identitifier isn't sent with the order.
There is no "single action performed" in a bar - there is 1) order and 2) indicate payment. One-click apparently only has one of these.
There is no single-action ordering server system.
Arguably there is "previously stored user information" but it's retrieval isn't based on an identifier.
And the tab order isn't fulfilled using the additional information.
A tab on a computer is not one click, and your - and everyone else's - insistence on ignoring the claims (my original point) and distilling an entire claim down to one idea is why this place never has a good patent discussion. It's more weeping and gnashing of teeth than actual debate. So thanks for your contribution to that.
What's frustrating is that there are indeed patents which claim some common technique "on the internet" or "on a mobile device". How they got to be that way, I don't know. I doubt the "inventor" started out trying to patent technique without the "on a mobile device" and then added it on after initial rejection, if that's what you're implying. No, the "inventor" stuck it there in the first place to pre-empt any prior art claims.
I'm going to call bull on this. I know it is bandied about on slashdot all the time, but seriously, show me patents on bubble sort "on a mobile device" or shopping "over the internet" that are literally that broad. Most times people read patents on here, they ignore that every claim limitation matters. EVERY. And that most of the "broad" patents are actually not that broad when you look at the claims.
I totally get that you may look at something and say "that's obvious." Everyone had differing levels of skill in the art and what is obvious to you could be pretty inventive to someone else. I get that. But patent examiners aren't dolts. They aren't. I've spoken to many, MANY examiners over the years and they routinely reject claims for being too broad and they combine references that have some remote relation to each other to find that doing X here would have been obvious to do it in Y situation. I have NEVER, in my eight years doing this, EVER, had an examiner say "wow, no one ever thought you could do this on a mobile device/over the internet/one a computer" and somehow allowed it. It doesn't happen.
It's easy to say, so I'm asking you to put up: show me a patent that over the Internet or on a mobile device was THE point of novelty.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for responding. I see where your coming from, I do, but I disagree.
You view it as "working around for no good reason" but the exclusivity right granted by patents are how they are supposed to promote the useful arts and sciences. You having to work around it means you have to come up with a new and different way of doing it. If it's worse, and the person that has the patent came up with THE best way to solve a particular problem, shouldn't they be rewarded for that ingenuity? If it's not THE best way to do it, maybe their patent will force you to find a better way, thereby promoting the arts and sciences.
Removing existing products from the market doesn't have any impact on the promotion of arts and sciences; designing around the existing patents is what causes that.
As I've said in response to others, I don't see why software should be treated any differently than any other technology area. You haven't given me a reason they should.
First, thank you for your well-thought out response. I sincerely mean that, and I really do appreciate actual debate on this. You raise some fair points, although I disagree that smaller companies interacting doesn't benefit anyone; they may form a partnership based on a mutual use of their respective technologies and establish a market foothold that neither could individually.
Second, and I realize this is a little unfair to raise it at this stage, but I don't see how software patents are special or should be treated with any differently than any other technology. None of your examples hinge on the technology being software - those scenarios apply in the biology world or semiconsiductor world as well. Why is it that software patents specifically should be abolished? Or are you arguing that the entire patent system should go?
And, for what it's worth, there ARE problems with the system, patent trolls being the primary one. I am not defending the patent system as being perfect, far from it. I'm just saying that software is no different than any other field and inventors that innovate in the software field are entitled to no less protection than someone that develops hardware, or a new drug.
To the extent developers feel otherwise, I haven't seen a calm, and rationale counter-argument.
I was a software developer, and still occasionally write software as a hobby. My problem is that unlike a coding project, there is no architecture - no design aspect - of software developers' responses to the software patent "problem." Instead it's all weeping and gnashing of teeth and banging away furiously on the keyboard.
No one is forming cogent, well-thought out rebuttals to the "problem," so no, I don't think they have a point. They don't bother understanding the enemy as it were - as evidenced by the oft repeated fallacy of quoting the abstract instead of the claims, or failing to look at the file history - and instead just write mad. I don't respect that approach, or lend its arguments it much weight.
Is there any patent you think isn't a troll patent? Seriously.
I <3 the eff out of you.
Alas, I should have previewed.
As one of the few other patent attorneys on here - that has stopped coming here regularly because of the torch and pitchfork attitude the OP is pushing - I 3 the eff out of you right now.
Ya know, it's not like Engineers have been given some magical glasses and are the only people that see how messed up the system is. Plenty of lawyers and judges do too (Congress I can't speak for).
Are you forgetting that to be a registered patent attorney you have to have a science-based background?
Please get off your high horse.
Except that patent trolls don't file patents; they look at the existing and emerging markets and then buy old patents that - with a stretch - cover those markets.
Why would a patent troll start now, roll the dice, and wait 4 years for whatever might come out of the patent office? Answer: they wouldn't. They go after established deep pockets (or small fries first to fund the suits against the established deep pockets) and make money now.
So are you saying that all the people that reviewed the patent also knowingly lied?
You are making a lot of assumptions. Occam's Razor, dude.
Check out my userid - I know what the slashdot *effect is, but just because I read /. back in 1999 doesn't mean all techies did. In fact, I know several that avoid this place like the plague, mainly because of the torches and pitchfork approach you seem to subscribe to.
Get over it. They didn't lie. They just didn't care enough to carefully study how slashdot's moderation system worked.
Try being a patent attorney on this site. :)
how do you really feel?
Of course, maybe they didn't actually lie, and instead they just haven't spent more than a minute on this site - what they did see was just the gist of the mod system.
But I'm sure the scenario where they are two malicious, hand knotting, mustache twirling, evil engineers is much more likely. ::eyeroll::
Seriously, go back and read some of my comments.
Software ~= hardware, and yet no one seems to have a problem with hardware being patentable.
By the way, this whole post shows what's wrong with your attitude. Not only do you have it completely backward, but talk like you know what you're talking about, you then acknowledge that you can't be bothered to actually read up on it.
FFS man, you are making slashdot worse. Congrats.
No, you are missing the whole point. You are saying "the system needs to be cheaper for the common man" and I'm saying "it's already that way!"
But your position that -- because I know you didn't know fees were that low -- "patents cost too much to get for the everyday man; we should lower them" does not work with your position of "it should be a quick turnaround." The reason it takes so long is because there are not enough examiners. If you lower fees, as you propose, there is no additional money to hire examiners. Even assuming you DID know that fees were that low, there is still no additional money to hire additional examiners. You cannot lower fees, or keep them at their current rate AND speed up examination. THAT was my point.
Furthermore, I never said the system was perfect. Far from it. And I live it every day, so I know I see issues that you haven't even considered. But a) you come across as blinded by your anti-patent bias and b) your proposed system -- even as a general idea -- is no better than the existing one and in fact has glaring contradictions (none of which you chose to respond to) that would make it WORSE than the existing system. So yeah, I'm going to trash your "general idea" when compared to the existing system.
As for the shoplifter, I simply do not believe that any place bans someone for life after one offense. I'm sure you could find some place somewhere, but the punishment doesn't fit the crime, just as your assertion that if there is one negligently untrue statement in a patent it should auto-ban someone for life. If you think patents are expensive now, how much do you think it will cost to verify every, single, sentence to make sure you didn't accidentally say something untrue?
I'm done. You accuse me of lying, which, is bullshit. I'm not trying to intentionally deceive you - I'm trying to show you that your bias is unreasonable and in your fervent passion to come up with something better, you are throwing the baby out with the bath water and not thinking critically about how your system would actually work. When I shot holes in it, you had no response.
Have a nice day, I'm out.
Patent applications should cost no more than $500,
A patent application right now costs $650 for a guy in his garage (filing fee + search fee + examination fee, all as small entity).
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee092611.htm
That is half the cost that a "large entity" would incur. Furthermore, the recent patent law, which sparked this whole debate, created a "micro entity" which is entitled to a 75% reduction in fees, i.e., it'd cost $325 for a guy in his garage. You can thank Obama now.
with a short approval process
Define short and where does the money come from to pay for the Examiners now that nobody is paying fees?
and should be able to be filled out completely by a person with a 6th grade education
You complain about patents on obvious things, yet a patent should be able to be filed by a person with a 6th grade education? WTF?! Can you wrap your head around how hypocritical that is?
and access to a library for prior-art searches and such. If any statement on an application is found to be untrue (i.e. insufficient listing of prior art) then future fees for that applicant will be $10,000 (by applicant, that includes the company listed, not just the inventor).
So what if that prior art is not in the "library." Are they penalized because the library is not complete? What if they do a reasonable search, but don't uncover an analogous idea in another technology area? What if, because they only have a 6th grade education, they can't understand the other technology area's teaching. For example, what if the idea is a lock/key type mechanism and there is an analogous technique in gene sequencing. What if I think it's analogous and you don't? Who's right and are they penalized 10,000 from now on? Doesn't that impact their job prospects in the future? What company is going to want to hire someone that automatically incurs a 10k penalty on their applications?
If any are provably negligently or fraudulently untrue, then all patents by that applicant will be rescinded and no further applications will be accepted from that applicant, nor any applicant who acquires any future interest in that company (including stock ownership).
Where to even begin with this. If I caught you shop lifting, does that mean you can never shop again? Especially on the negligently part. Negligence means you didn't mean to do it. And you're going to exact that punishment on them? I refer you again to how that negatively impacts their employment potential.
but back then, there was no easy way for him to publish. But a patent should be not just a commercial tool of profit, but a repository for knowledge, and so many people now are purposefully excluding their ideas from that repository because it's inconvenient and expensive, the opposite of what it should be.
The Patent Office has forum for exactly this called the Statutory Invention Registration. It allows someone to publish and invention (but give up any rights in it). Been around since the 80s.
Since you're going to debate the constitutionality of patents and copyrights, let's quote it, shall we?
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;
Inventors and Authors have the exclusive right - they can block others from doing - their respective writings and discoveries. And you ARE aware that movies and sound recording didn't exist in 1787, right? England had patents and copyrights before we did (patents in general date back to 500BC) and that's what this is talking about, albeit not explicitly called "a patent." And if you are going to be strictly constructionalist, there are literally thousands of things that a
Alright. Time to put up or shut up: Describe a patent system that promotes the arts and sciences. I'd love to hear your idea.
I disagree. If I have a patent on something, I have disclosed it to the world, thus promoting the sciences by making my work known. Additionally, you have to design around it, thereby making new discoveries or thinking of new ways to solve the problem, also promoting the sciences.
Face it, you're anti patent. It doesn't really matter what I say, you are. Thanks for the "debate." Have a nice day.
are you a patent attorney? have you ever been involved in a patent case? Or are you just saying that out of your ass?
So in other words, you just hate all patents, right? Got it.
I think the frustration on your part is that there are multiple issues here. One, the system is broken (that you assert litigation is a necessary and vital part of the process is proof of that to any non-lawyer).
On the contrary, I never said it was necessary or vital. I just said that it would be the easiest way to prove fraud. I will also say that any patent attorney that wants to keep his license will not file a patent application based on his client stealing/copying an invention. People say it happens, but there are very very few cases of this.
The other is that the broken system isn't even being followed consistently and logically (again, to those who read the patents (not just the summaries) and look at what was out there when the patent was filed for. One issue is that body of knowledge is prior art. Note that for on-click, there was massive market pressure to "simplify" the checkout process to encourage online shopping. Others have tried simplifying, with limited success. Going to a one-click purchase would have sounded dimple and obvious to a lay person a year before it was filed for. And given the "one click" goal, a person from the industry of average capability would likely have come up with the implementation Amazon used. It was obvious, and not novel.
And yet, no one had done it before. No one. Erego, not obvious. You are looking at it in hindsight, which you can't do. If it was sooooo obvious, how come there aren't a dozen similar filings?
What are you even talking about? My point was that the claims are what matter, and no claim that took an obvious idea and added "on a mobile device" was ever granted based on just that. Patent Examiners do their jobs; YOU aren't reading what they are. You look at the title and say "It's obvious!" even though the title means nothing legally. It's the claims that matter!
Your reliance on one-click is not surprising - people love to bitch and moan that it shouldn't have been granted and ignore the fact that it has been examined twice and still come out. Hundreds of prior art references have been reviewed and none apparently teach or make obvious the claims as allowed. You're doing EXACTLY what I am complaining about. You take a six element claim, ignore it all and distill it down to a five word sentence and then bitch that that is obvious. THAT'S NOT HOW PATENT EXAMINATION WORKS.
And, it wasn't allowed just because it was "running a tab - on a computer." I've listed the elements of claim 1 below. Let's talk about tabs first. With a tab, you leave a credit card at the bar. As you order, the bartender adds the drink to the order. The credit card isn't charged with each drink, it's just there as security. At the end of the night, they ask "put it all on the card" and assuming you say yes, run it all through and you pay. In the system thousands of years ago, it was just you had an in with the place and there was no credit card. They just knew you and kept a list of everything you ordered. At some point, e.g., end of the month, you came in and paid your tab.
None of these are the one-click patent. I've pasted in the claims below for reference, and will go element by element showing how a tab on a computer isn't one click.
Claim 1 reads:
1. A method of placing an order for an item comprising:
under control of a client system, displaying information identifying the item purchasable through a shopping cart model; and
in response to only a single action being performed,
sending a request to order the item along with an
identifier of a purchaser of the item to a server system;
under control of a single-action ordering component of
the server system, receiving the request;
retrieving additional information previously stored for
the purchaser identified by the indentifier in the received request; and
generating an order to purchase the requested item for the purchaser identified by the identifier in the received
request using the retrieved additional information; and
fulfilling the generated order to complete purchase of the
item whereby the item is ordered without using the shopping cart model.
Analysis
First, there is no "shopping cart model" in a bar with a tab (element 1) and an identitifier isn't sent with the order.
There is no "single action performed" in a bar - there is 1) order and 2) indicate payment. One-click apparently only has one of these.
There is no single-action ordering server system.
Arguably there is "previously stored user information" but it's retrieval isn't based on an identifier.
And the tab order isn't fulfilled using the additional information.
A tab on a computer is not one click, and your - and everyone else's - insistence on ignoring the claims (my original point) and distilling an entire claim down to one idea is why this place never has a good patent discussion. It's more weeping and gnashing of teeth than actual debate. So thanks for your contribution to that.
What's frustrating is that there are indeed patents which claim some common technique "on the internet" or "on a mobile device". How they got to be that way, I don't know. I doubt the "inventor" started out trying to patent technique without the "on a mobile device" and then added it on after initial rejection, if that's what you're implying. No, the "inventor" stuck it there in the first place to pre-empt any prior art claims.
I'm going to call bull on this. I know it is bandied about on slashdot all the time, but seriously, show me patents on bubble sort "on a mobile device" or shopping "over the internet" that are literally that broad. Most times people read patents on here, they ignore that every claim limitation matters. EVERY. And that most of the "broad" patents are actually not that broad when you look at the claims.
I totally get that you may look at something and say "that's obvious." Everyone had differing levels of skill in the art and what is obvious to you could be pretty inventive to someone else. I get that. But patent examiners aren't dolts. They aren't. I've spoken to many, MANY examiners over the years and they routinely reject claims for being too broad and they combine references that have some remote relation to each other to find that doing X here would have been obvious to do it in Y situation. I have NEVER, in my eight years doing this, EVER, had an examiner say "wow, no one ever thought you could do this on a mobile device/over the internet/one a computer" and somehow allowed it. It doesn't happen.
It's easy to say, so I'm asking you to put up: show me a patent that over the Internet or on a mobile device was THE point of novelty.
I find your faith in litigation disturbing, but unsurprising.
Experience. I has it. :-P [sic, if you couldn't tell]