And I think she's choosing now to downplay all that to avoid embarassment, or maybe to avoid feeling like she betrayed people - instead of owning up to mistakes and potentially doing a lot of good.
That's true, but if every person who was ever wrong acted conciliatory and apologetic instead of defensive, we'd live in a very different and utopian society.
I agree that this does harm, but it's mainly because there are real anti-vaxxers who don't get any vaccines, primarily out of religious belief.
There's lots of people who don't get vaccines because they think it'll give their kids autism. Which they think because people, including Jenny McCarthy, told them it did. She held onto this belief, virulently, in the face of a lot of evidence - supporting Dr. What's his name long after it made any sense.
Yeah, but the problem is that if you say "you're listening to someone who is well-meaning, but wrong, and here's why," they'll listen. If you say "you're listening to a liar who wants to kill kids," they won't listen. You're misrepresenting her position in the latter, which reduces your credibility, even if you're 100% right about the science.
Yeah... Uh, go back to 2008 and listen to her talk, in fairly certain terms, about how vaccines (and fungus and who the hell knows what else) cause autism and mental regression in children. This was when this wave of anti-vaccination scare was just getting going, and she played a big part in popularizing it.
I don't know if it's in that video, but I remember her saying, pretty much "Would you rather your child have measles, or autism?"
It's referenced in the BA piece. The full quote is:
People have the misconception that we want to eliminate vaccines. Please understand that we are not an antivaccine group. We are demanding safe vaccines. We want to reduce the schedule and reduce the toxins. If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f--king measles.
That's consistent with her stated belief that there are too many vaccinations, given too quickly, and doesn't show any change in her position.
Again, the fact that she's now moderated some of these views doesn't mean she didn't do real harm.
I agree that this does harm, but it's mainly because there are real anti-vaxxers who don't get any vaccines, primarily out of religious belief. The ones who are following McCarthy aren't in that camp, but are simply misinformed and gullible people who want to do the best they can for their kids. Their minds can be changed, but not with hyperbole and misrepresentations.
Uhh.. The point of the article is that her op-ed is disingenuous and doesn't correspond to what she has said over the years. Quoting from that op-ed to argue that the article writer isn't giving her true position... well, that's not really grasping the chain of argument here.
The reality is that she's been virulently anti-vaccine over a long period, has played a real part in convincing others to forego vaccination, and is now trying to sell us on something like "she didn't really mean it that way", and pretending she's always held some more moderate position. I mean, go read stuff she wrote years ago.
Why aren't there any tests out there on the safety of how vaccines are administered in the real world, six at a time? Why have only 2 of the 36 shots our kids receive been looked at for their relationship to autism? Why hasn't anyone ever studied completely non-vaccinated children to understand their autism rate?
These missing safety studies are causing many parents to approach vaccines with moderation. Why do other first world countries give children so many fewer vaccines than we do? What if a parent used the vaccine schedule of Denmark, Norway, Japan or Finland -- countries that give one-third the shots we do (12 shots vs. 36 in the U.S.)? Vaccines save lives, but might be harming some children -- is moderation such a terrible idea?
That seems to coincide with what she's saying now - that she's in favor of slower and reduced vaccination schedules.
Similarly, here's the transcript of her Larry King appearance, where she says (emphasis added):
CARREY: We are not saying don't vaccinate. That's the thing we want to get really clear right now with...
KING: Let's make it clear.
MCCARTHY: Yeah, we're not.
CARREY: This is the thing. There's a lot of misdirection going on. We hear the Campbell Browns and people like this that are saying, you can't not vaccinate. No one has ever suggested not vaccinating.
MCCARTHY: Go back to 1989 schedule when shots were only 10 and the MMR was on that list. I don't know what happened in 1990, there was no plague that was killing children that we had to triple the amount of vaccines.
Again, that's not anti-vaccination generally, that's opposed to the current schedule. Farther down in the transcript:
HANDLEY: Larry, it's on the old schedule. We welcome the people doing the measles and mumps shot.
KING: You want the measles and mumps shots...
HANDLEY: Absolutely.
CARREY: Vaccinate for the measles, vaccinate...
KING: So people are overreacting in canceling that vaccine.
CARREY: Absolutely, and vaccinate for polio. That is on the '89 schedule. But what happened after that?
MCCARTHY: But things like the rotavirus which is a diarrhea vaccine, we say really?
CARREY: If you have access to clean water and health care, it's very difficult to die of diarrhea.
Again, that was 2011. If she's in favor of measles, mumps, and polio vaccinations, it's tough to claim she's anti-vaccination, and you can't really claim she's changed her story by saying she's not anti-vaccination now.
Now, let me be clear - I disagree with her about the science, and don't believe that the vaccinations contain toxins that must be "cleaned out" between rounds, nor do I think there's any link between autism and vaccination. I also think that many of the new vaccinations are great and should be given to kids, such as the HPV vaccination. But this isn't a dichotomy - she's clearly not "anti-vaccination" in any general sense, and she doesn't appear to have changed her argument at all from "let's space out vaccinations and return to the fewer number that were given in the 80s". I can disagree with her without having to call her a liar.
I have a simple question to all the anti-tech, anti-medicine, natural-healing, doctors-are-evil, the pharma-companies-are-screwing-us-over, homeopathic, pro-farmers-market, anti-soy, i-hate-genetic-engineering, chemical-additives-are-evil green whackjobs.
Then why are you asking it on Slashdot? Isn't this really just shouting to an echo chamber, and not really attempting to get a response?
McCarthy is being highly deceitful when she says the only wants "safe" vaccines. What she means by safe is: 100% effective with no side effects and no unexpected reactions in anyone. No medicine ever attains that level of "safe." Not even the aspirin you take for a headache. No, vaccines aren't 100% safe, but they are about 99.999% safe. They are certainly much safer than getting the diseases they prevent. If she wants to wait until something is 100% safe before using it, she would have to avoid all modern medicine. That includes the botox that McCarthy loves getting injected with. (Vaccine toxins are bad but botulinum toxin fights wrinkles so it's good!)
Except that's not what she means. From her op-ed:
For my child, I asked for a schedule that would allow one shot per visit instead of the multiple shots they were and still are giving infants.
If, as you say, she refused vaccines until they were 100% effective with no side effects and no unexpected reactions, then she wouldn't be vaccinating her child at all. Instead, she is vaccinating him, just at a slower rate. She even quotes another blogger, saying:
You either fall in line with 40-plus vaccines your doctor recommends on his or her schedule or you’re a wack-job ‘anti-vaxxer.’ Heaven forbid you think the gray zone is an intelligent place to reside and you express doubt or fear or maybe want to spread the vaccines out a bit on this tiny person you’ve brought into the world.
Now, that may not comport with the science, nor is it what the AMA or APA advise, but it's a far cry from being "anti-vax" or lumping her in with people who are opposed to all forms of medicine and use "prayer" instead. Consider this parallel - there are plenty of people who are anti-GMO food, even though there are no scientifically proven adverse effects from it. But we don't brand them "anti-food".
No, this whole thing is a hit piece, trying to lump her in with the real anti-vax loonies, and in doing so, it does a disservice to people like her who don't understand the science behind vaccinations, and nonetheless want what's best for her kids. This is not a religious fight with people who will never change their minds, but rather an argument with a bunch of well-meaning idiots who can still be educated... unless we treat it as a religious fight and refuse to try to enlighten them.
Well, you admit that this - "the only difference is that they specified the post operation action" - is not in the prior art video.
That's not innovative! That is clearly obvious! Having an onscreen toggle do something is not innovative, what would even be the point of having such a thing if it didn't do anything?! And using that toggle to "unlock a phone" is an idea, not an implementation of an idea and you cannot patent an idea. The patent system is designed to share ideas while protecting innovative individual implementations of that idea.
There's also the feature about continuous movement of an image corresponding to a finger position. That's not in the video.
There's clearly 3 frames of movement there that follow the touch, whether that is the refresh rate of the screen or just how many animation frames they have doesn't really matter, sure the iPhone has a higher refresh rate and more frames but that doesn't make it different.
You're confusing two concepts: "different" and "innovative", or in legal terms, "new" and "nonobvious". Something can be new, but obvious - and similarly, something can be different, but not innovative. As I've said and as you admit, both of the features we're discussing are not shown in the prior art reference - they are different, period, full stop. Whether they're innovative is a separate question, and nothing about that is implied by admitting that, yes, the video shows three frames of movement, while the patent claims "continuous" movement.
So, yes, the patent claim is different from the video. The claim has at least those two features that are not shown in the video. But I'm sure you can find them elsewhere in other prior art references, no? If so, you can use the combination of the two references to show that everything recited in the patent claim is known. That's the legal process - you can't simply pound the table and say "clearly obvious", because without using prior art references, at best, all you've done is shown that it's obvious now to someone who has lived with iPhones sliding-to-unlock for years. Show me that it was obvious in 2006. And that requires evidence, not just you saying that it's "clear".
If that happened, and my employer blamed me publicly (explicitly or implicitly), I would be seeking large monetary damages, even if the flaw was my fault. My argument would be that I'm employed to write software, not write flaw-free software, and if the company causes me damages (in current or future income) by stating or implying that I did not perform by work duties appropriately, then that is slander, and they are liable. In this case, the "lie" would be to imply that my work product was supposed to be flaw-free, which I never asserted or consented to, regardless of what they desired.
With all due respect, that's not only not slander, and you'd lose any such suit, you'd also make yourself permanently unemployable - no company would ever touch you with a ten foot.
Implying that someone is unable to perform one's occupation is textbook slander, and the company would find themselves writing a large check.
Not if, as you acknowledge, you are unable to complete the services for which you were paid. While you may think that you weren't hired to make bug-free software, the employer - and any jury - would disagree.
I could see two potential outcomes, if blaming engineers for product flaws becomes commonplace...
First, engineers will (or should) demand an indemnity clause as part of their employment contract, where the company agrees not to blame them publicly for any product flaws, and/or take any action which would identify them. Depending on the repercussions for the test cases, this might become a necessity for employees.
Although it would be a good idea, it'll never happen... at least not until get you get Engineer Unions who refuse to work unless a company implements those clauses and prevent any scabs from working. And with the libertarian bent of most Engineers, that will never happen. Otherwise, you'll simply have the engineer refuse to sign the company's boilerplate employment agreement because it doesn't include an indemnity clause; and the company will show him the door and bring in the next candidate who will sign it.
Second, I could see some significant lawsuits for slander, since the company is causing real (and substantial, and more importantly provable) financial loss for the engineers they blame for product deficiencies. Unless they have a pretty solid intentional negligence defense, they could (and absolutely should) find themselves paying out a few million more to each engineer they throw under the metaphorical bus.
Not necessarily, depending on what was said. Slander requires that the statement be false. Did the engineer screw up? If so, then it's not slander. The only way it would be is if the engineer did nothing other than follow explicit instructions from his superiors, and considering that he apparently made a change without changing a part number, that would seem unlikely.
Also, there's no such things as "intentional negligence" - that's an oxymoron, and would mean that you intended to do something by accident. What you may be thinking of is gross recklessness.
Companies are responsible for their products, not the people they employ to make/provide them. Companies reap the rewards when they work, and bear the responsibility when they don't. Absent malicious negligence, naming/blaming individual employees is irresponsible at best, and should absolutely expose the company to civil liability.
There's a gloss here - these are Professional Engineers, with certifications, licensing, and ethical requirements. PEs are also responsible for the things they sign off on, and may be held professionally accountable for their screw-ups. Now, that said, yes, the company is the one who is civilly liable for any damages from their products and no customer can sue the engineer directly, but that doesn't mean that (a) the company can't sue the engineer if they really were reckless; and (b) the company can't even name the engineer.
The USPTO is calling it innovation, this exact thing has already been implemented as per the video with the difference that it is "on a handheld device".
Try it this way: what part of this is not covered in prior art and is thus innovative?
Well, you admit that this - "the only difference is that they specified the post operation action" - is not in the prior art video.
There's also the feature about continuous movement of an image corresponding to a finger position. That's not in the video.
Now, might there be another reference that shows those? Sure. Go find it.
we make the patent office show that every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art before we throw it out as not new or obvious.
Which is why the patent system if obviously completely screwed up, all you need to do is take an existing idea and add "on a handheld device" and they call that innovation and you can patent it.
Uh... I think you may be confused. Let's run through it together.
The test: "show that every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art"
The example: "existing idea" + "on a handheld device"
Application of the test:
Does "existing idea" exist in the prior art? Yes.
Do "handheld devices" exist in the prior art? Yes.
Conclusion: "Every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art" and therefore the patent is invalid.
So what exactly is screwed up there, and who is calling that "innovation"?
You really think that's a good system?
Considering that your example fails the test and would be invalidated, I don't see why it's not.
Thanks. That does make things clearer in that regard for US law.
The wiki well may be valid as a generalised international version though - would you think so? (a lot of us on/. are not from the US).
It is, with very slight glosses... Instead of being "obvious", Europe and a few other countries say that something "lacks inventive step". And there are also a few registration-only systems, in which patents are not presumed valid, and no examination occurs. But generally, the various tests for whether something is "new" or whether it is "nonobvious"/"has an inventive step" are identical everywhere. That's a result of the Paris Convention treaty, decades ago.
Is the Federal Circuit jurisdiction nationwide in the US?
Yes, but it's really specific to patents. Like, patent appeals only go to the Fed. Circ., rather than, say, the 9th Circ. or the 1st Circ. Basically, the numbered circuits are regional; the Federal Circuit is subject matter based. They handle patent appeals, other article I appeals (federal claims, trademarks, government contracts, veterans stuff, etc.), and some weird article III stuff, like natural gas and petroleum .
Cutting this short, simply because it's late and I finished the application I was drafting, but I was enjoying this debate...
You're a patent lawyer, where would your boundary be?
The original prohibitions on patent eligibility expressed by the Supreme Court of "laws of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract ideas" were not in the statute, but were a clumsy interpretation as SCOTUS wrestled with a more fundamental problem: patents allow the patent owner to seek an injunction, ordering people to stop infringing... If the patent claims a previously undiscovered law of nature such as, say, gravity, how do you order people not to fall? Similarly, if the patent claims a mere abstract idea or mathematical algorithm that could be done in someone's head, then how do your order people not to think?
For example, if the patent claims a diagnostic method involving noticing that a patient has a blood level of X of n ppm, and determining that therefore they have disease Y, and I tell you I have a patient with a blood level of X of n+1 ppm, you just infringed the patent, simply by recognizing that fact. How can a court order you not to think of something? Or, conversely, how can a court fairly order you to pay royalties for thinking, or for falling, or otherwise involuntarily infringing a patent?
... which gets to the real point. Patents shouldn't be able to claim something that can be infringed involuntarily - whether that's a law of nature that one uses constantly without realizing it, or a mental algorithm that one can infringe merely by being told about it. So, that's my boundary - if the claim can be infringed through mental steps alone or otherwise involuntarily, then it should not be patent eligible. If the claim requires programming a computer to do something, however, then one may avoid infringement simply by not programming the computer to do that thing.
Mind you, this is all about patent eligibility under 35 USC 101... We've been talking about novelty under 102 and nonobviousness under 103, and those are separate and independent requirements. I agree that the quality of examination needs to be better. Part of why courts keep falling back to 101 for invaliding patents is because they can't believe that the patent isn't obvious under 103, so they refuse to hold them valid, but they don't have any good prior art to point to, so they instead wave their hands and claim it's abstract, without ever defining what "abstract" means. That's just bad law.
My apologies I haven't expressed this well. I'm talking about how you have expressed something and the name you have called it. I'll try again.
Wikipedia says if an invention has been described by "prior art" it is invalid, while you say that everything in the patent must be taught and it is called "anticipatory prior art". You took someone up on their use of the phrase "prior art" and said he had to refer to "anticipatory prior art". I think that wikipedia shows otherwise. I don't see anywhere on the wiki as it being described specifically as "anticipatory prior art". I don't see anywhere on the wiki that every claim must be described - it simply says it must sufficiently described.
Ah. Wiki has attempted to dumb things down a bit, but unfortunately, appears to have created confusion. Here's the real definition:
A claimed invention may be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 when the invention is anticipated (or is “not novel”) over a disclosure that is available as prior art. To anticipate a claim, the disclosure must teach every element of the claim.
“A claim is anticipated only if each and every element as set forth in the claim is found, either expressly or inherently described, in a single prior art reference.” Verdegaal Bros. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 814 F.2d 628, 631, 2 USPQ2d 1051, 1053 (Fed. Cir. 1987).
I'm not referring to a legal definition so it's a moot point bringing it up.
This thread started with my post about legal definitions, so if you'd like to change the definition to a colloquial one, it would be good if you'd inform me first.
And it was trivial and it's relationship to obviousness I was referring to. Not obviousness in and of itself. Your analogy is not suitable.
But trivial and obvious have little to do with each other. E=MC^2 is trivial, but not obvious.
"But a machine patent is fine? What about a machine modeled in a virtual environment? What about an FPGA executing software? Where do you draw the boundary?"
In order:
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe - as long as the software you refer to is for reconfiguring the FPGA logic and not a higher level program - there is a pretty clear distinction.
You can make an FPGA as complicated as you want and its reconfiguration can be a "higher level program". In fact, forget even field programmable arrays - from a purely theoretical basis, you can make a fixed (albeit huge) circuit that will execute a specified program, even a "higher level one". You could hard code Diablo III, if you had enough transistors and an infinite amount of patience. Are circuits patent eligible?
In regards to software that would be the boundary. So 99.9% of software would not be protected by patents.
What's your boundary? You said "higher level program", but as noted above, any program can be high or low level, depending on the circuit you execute it on. Your argument would seem to imply that the exact same program - say, Mr. Bilski's hedging algorithm - would be unpatentable if you wrote it in C, but patentable if you built it on a bread board.
"Well, technically, the US patent is valid anywhere outside the US."
You better tell Europe that, because they seem have firmly invalidated it.
I say it's valid only when other countries let it be valid - the US has no intrinsic jurisdiction overseas.
Sorry, typo - isn't valid anywhere outside the US. As you note, patent law is country specific.
I'm simply pointing out the subtle differences in definitions. You're welcome to edit wikipedia to reflect a more exact or correct view in their opening sentence.
There's actually no difference in the definition from what I said. Here's wiki:
"Prior art constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality"
and here's me:
"Prior art" is "anything in the relevant art, that's prior."
That's same thing.
Then you jumped ahead to the next sentence. Again, wiki:
"If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid."
and me:
"[A]nticipatory prior art... is art that teaches everything in a patent claim."
In other words, anticipatory prior art is prior art that describes an invention. If an invention is anticipated, it is not valid. That's also the same thing.
Wiki is correct, I am correct, and you seem to be confusing the matter by comparing parts of one sentence to parts of a different sentence. Hope this all helps.
No, but it would mean that it was "new". Instead, the patent would be "obvious",
There is no "instead of". Novelty and obviousness are closely linked.
No, they're literally two different statutes - 35 USC 102 and 35 USC 103. They are separate and independent requirements for patents, and patents must be both new and nonobvious to be valid. In particular, something can pass 102, but fail 103 and be invalid - in such a case, it is "new", but "obvious".
Except that there are slight differences between what's shown in the Microsoft video and the patent claim.
And a whole bunch of engineers and software developers here are voicing their technically informed opinion that those differences should not matter.
And those differences do not matter for obviousness, but do matter for novelty. Frankly, I'd expect better from a bunch of engineers and software developers since we're trained to think logically and accurately: if A is different than B, then A!=B. If that difference is trivial, then AB, but no matter how much you stomp your feet and cry about it, A!=B.
Novelty requires only that A!=B. If A!=B, then it is novel. Non-obviousness requires that A!B. If AB, then it is obvious. And any engineer or software developer worth a damn should understand that distinction.
I don't know what you're doing other than restating points that are both obvious and irrelevant.
Except that it's a point that you keep refusing to understand - novelty is not the same thing as non-obviousness. And it's not irrelevant, because if you ever want to reform the patent system, then you have to talk to legislators in a way that shows you understand the current system and can explain how you disagree with it. Right now, what you're doing is equivalent to telling a programmer that it's irrelevant whether a language is procedural or object-oriented... you're destroying any credibility you have with them. Similarly, no one knowledgable about patents is going to give your words any weight if you keep confusing the different legal requirements.
Ah, there's your problem: you're confused about what Slashdot is and who is on it. Slashdot is a site for developers and engineers, and we use language appropriate to our audience and our interests. We're smart enough to use legal and legislative language when in those other forums, and to know the difference. You apparently are not.
Perhaps you missed the whole section of Slashdot that deals with legal rights - you know, yro.slashdot.org - as well as the sections that deal with intellectual property law? It's okay, I understand: you've only been on Slashdot since 2012. Takes a while to really learn how much it covers. Well, let me extend a welcome to you!
When I referred to trivial it is to bring attention to the fact that there is a curve that you can plot that shows the relationship between complexity and obviousness.
Not legally, no. Basically, you're redefining "obvious" to equal "complex", which is fine, but it has no meaning to the legal definition of "obvious". It's like if you redefined "guilty" to equal "poor" and claimed that all poor people are criminals. Under your definition, sure, but not under the legal one.
I really don't like that software patents are allowed at all.
But a machine patent is fine? What about a machine modeled in a virtual environment? What about an FPGA executing software? Where do you draw the boundary?
This patent isn't valid in half of the world - where they recognise that Apple did not invent anything new.
Well, technically, the US patent is valid anywhere outside the US.
"In the United States, there is a duty to disclose to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office any known prior art that is material to the patentability of any claim of a pending U.S. patent application. " from http://www.tms.org/pubs/journa...
Yes, any known prior art. There's no duty on the patent applicant to search for any art. See MPEP 704.01. And accordingly, the statement "the patent office assumes when a patent is filed for that company did the work to see if it was done before" is false. As I said.
You are a lying troll. The examiner examins the prior art, but doesn't search for more, because the duty is on the applicant to disclose.
You're absolutely wrong. Abusive, too, which is hilarious, given how wrong you are.
Even from your own link " then searches the prior art as disclosed in patents"
I find it amusing that you call me a "lying troll", and then two sentences later quote out of context. Here's the full quote: "The examiner, after having obtained a thorough understanding of the invention disclosed and claimed in the nonprovisional application, then searches the prior art as disclosed in patents and other published documents, i.e., nonpatent literature (NPL). Any document used in the rejection of a claim is called a reference."
They search all published documents, including via Google Scholar.
So they "search" for the prior art that's disclosed, and are not instructed to search for new or undisclosed prior art. You are 100% wrong, and have been corrected on this multiple times, so I can only assume you are a lying troll (a genuine error would have been recognized and corected - even your own cite proves you wrong).
The part you clipped out from that quote actually proves you wrong, as it explicitly describes how they search beyond just patents.
But here's the best part of your post:
Posted anonymously because I also modded your lying trolls as such.
Re:I'm not entirely sure how it merited a patent i (Score:2) by AK Marc (707885)
"If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid." vs "That doesn't mean they're anticipatory prior art, which is art that teaches everything in a patent claim."
It would help if you actually read the rest of my post rather than just one sentence. For example, that sentence follows this one: "The Model T is prior art for the Tesla Model S. That doesn't mean they're anticipatory prior art, which is art that teaches everything in a patent claim."
Do you disagree with that? Or do you really think that the existence of the Model T means that Elon Musk can't get any patents?
As mentioned in a different reply, I see non-continuous movement: slider at the left side; slider in the middle; slider at the right side. Three images, replaced in succession, as I said.
Only a lawyer could look at this video and state that Apple's slide-to-unlock is an entirely new invention worthy of tens of millions of dollars in licensing fees just because their animation has a few more frames.
Really? Can you find one doing that? I've looked through the thread, but haven't seen anyone saying that. I mean, there's that strawman you just brought in with you, but he's not saying much.
The test for obviousness - whether one or more pieces of prior art, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element of the patent claim - is crafted that way to avoid hindsight. The problem is that, going by the colloquial definition of the term, everything looks obvious in hindsight. Steam engines? Pff, I could draw a diagram of one on a napkin right now - does that mean that they shouldn't have been patentable back in the 1800s? Of course not... we have the benefit of having learned about them and lived around such technologies. Same thing with AC current, packetization of data, etc. And patent validity is supposed to be based on the time of filing, not years later looking back.
So, by requiring prior art references as evidence that the technology was known or an obvious combination of elements, we avoid accidentally using the benefit of hindsight (and public release of the product in the interim) to call something obvious, even if it wasn't at the time of filing.
There are two separate and independent requirements for a patent* - (i) that the patent claim be new; and (ii) that the patent claim not be obvious. Again, these are separate and independent: you must meet both in order to get a patent. Okay? It's a Boolean AND.
(i) Something is "new" if it hasn't been done before. If you claim A+B+C+D and only A+B+C has been done before, then A+B+C+D is new. Congratulations, you meet the first test.
(ii) Something is "obvious" if a combination of prior art references teach everything in the patent claim. You claim A+B+C+D and you admit that A+B+C is in the prior art. D is also in the prior art. Therefore, (A+B+C) plus (D) teaches everything in the patent claim. Therefore, it's obvious, and you fail the second test.
If the requirement for a patent is passing (i) AND (ii), and you passed (i) but failed (ii), do you get a patent?
No.
Does that help to clarify why you're wrong?
This just seems to indicate that Apple's patent is invalid. They have a slide lock, like on a gate. It's on a touch screen, not a new device. It unlocks, also been done.
Yes, it certainly seems that way, although I haven't read the specification in depth or looked at the dependent claims.
Where is this new part you talk about. If every part of the patent has been done before, but not together, then how is it new. My A+B+C+D has not been done together before so what's the difference?
For something not to be "new" requires that it literally has been done before - every single part of it. If no one ever made a plaid green and yellow computer before, then such a plaid green and yellow computer would be "new", by definition, because it's not a copy of something old. But remember, that's just one of the two tests that it has to pass to be patentable.
If every part of the patent has been done before, but not together, it is new, because no one has ever put that combination together. However, it is obvious, because every piece of it already existed. Accordingly, it fails the second test, and yes, is invalid.
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And I think she's choosing now to downplay all that to avoid embarassment, or maybe to avoid feeling like she betrayed people - instead of owning up to mistakes and potentially doing a lot of good.
That's true, but if every person who was ever wrong acted conciliatory and apologetic instead of defensive, we'd live in a very different and utopian society.
There's lots of people who don't get vaccines because they think it'll give their kids autism. Which they think because people, including Jenny McCarthy, told them it did. She held onto this belief, virulently, in the face of a lot of evidence - supporting Dr. What's his name long after it made any sense.
Yeah, but the problem is that if you say "you're listening to someone who is well-meaning, but wrong, and here's why," they'll listen. If you say "you're listening to a liar who wants to kill kids," they won't listen. You're misrepresenting her position in the latter, which reduces your credibility, even if you're 100% right about the science.
Yeah... Uh, go back to 2008 and listen to her talk, in fairly certain terms, about how vaccines (and fungus and who the hell knows what else) cause autism and mental regression in children. This was when this wave of anti-vaccination scare was just getting going, and she played a big part in popularizing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I don't know if it's in that video, but I remember her saying, pretty much "Would you rather your child have measles, or autism?"
It's referenced in the BA piece. The full quote is:
People have the misconception that we want to eliminate vaccines. Please understand that we are not an antivaccine group. We are demanding safe vaccines. We want to reduce the schedule and reduce the toxins. If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f--king measles.
That's consistent with her stated belief that there are too many vaccinations, given too quickly, and doesn't show any change in her position.
Again, the fact that she's now moderated some of these views doesn't mean she didn't do real harm.
I agree that this does harm, but it's mainly because there are real anti-vaxxers who don't get any vaccines, primarily out of religious belief. The ones who are following McCarthy aren't in that camp, but are simply misinformed and gullible people who want to do the best they can for their kids. Their minds can be changed, but not with hyperbole and misrepresentations.
Er, sorry - here is the Larry King transcript referenced in my last reply.
Uhh.. The point of the article is that her op-ed is disingenuous and doesn't correspond to what she has said over the years. Quoting from that op-ed to argue that the article writer isn't giving her true position... well, that's not really grasping the chain of argument here.
The reality is that she's been virulently anti-vaccine over a long period, has played a real part in convincing others to forego vaccination, and is now trying to sell us on something like "she didn't really mean it that way", and pretending she's always held some more moderate position. I mean, go read stuff she wrote years ago.
I did. Did you? Here's a quote from her in January 2011:
Why aren't there any tests out there on the safety of how vaccines are administered in the real world, six at a time? Why have only 2 of the 36 shots our kids receive been looked at for their relationship to autism? Why hasn't anyone ever studied completely non-vaccinated children to understand their autism rate?
These missing safety studies are causing many parents to approach vaccines with moderation. Why do other first world countries give children so many fewer vaccines than we do? What if a parent used the vaccine schedule of Denmark, Norway, Japan or Finland -- countries that give one-third the shots we do (12 shots vs. 36 in the U.S.)? Vaccines save lives, but might be harming some children -- is moderation such a terrible idea?
That seems to coincide with what she's saying now - that she's in favor of slower and reduced vaccination schedules.
Similarly, here's the transcript of her Larry King appearance, where she says (emphasis added):
CARREY: We are not saying don't vaccinate. That's the thing we want to get really clear right now with ...
KING: Let's make it clear.
MCCARTHY: Yeah, we're not.
CARREY: This is the thing. There's a lot of misdirection going on. We hear the Campbell Browns and people like this that are saying, you can't not vaccinate. No one has ever suggested not vaccinating.
MCCARTHY: Go back to 1989 schedule when shots were only 10 and the MMR was on that list. I don't know what happened in 1990, there was no plague that was killing children that we had to triple the amount of vaccines.
Again, that's not anti-vaccination generally, that's opposed to the current schedule. Farther down in the transcript:
HANDLEY: Larry, it's on the old schedule. We welcome the people doing the measles and mumps shot. ... ...
KING: You want the measles and mumps shots
HANDLEY: Absolutely.
CARREY: Vaccinate for the measles, vaccinate
KING: So people are overreacting in canceling that vaccine.
CARREY: Absolutely, and vaccinate for polio. That is on the '89 schedule. But what happened after that?
MCCARTHY: But things like the rotavirus which is a diarrhea vaccine, we say really?
CARREY: If you have access to clean water and health care, it's very difficult to die of diarrhea.
Again, that was 2011. If she's in favor of measles, mumps, and polio vaccinations, it's tough to claim she's anti-vaccination, and you can't really claim she's changed her story by saying she's not anti-vaccination now.
Now, let me be clear - I disagree with her about the science, and don't believe that the vaccinations contain toxins that must be "cleaned out" between rounds, nor do I think there's any link between autism and vaccination. I also think that many of the new vaccinations are great and should be given to kids, such as the HPV vaccination. But this isn't a dichotomy - she's clearly not "anti-vaccination" in any general sense, and she doesn't appear to have changed her argument at all from "let's space out vaccinations and return to the fewer number that were given in the 80s". I can disagree with her without having to call her a liar.
I have a simple question to all the anti-tech, anti-medicine, natural-healing, doctors-are-evil, the pharma-companies-are-screwing-us-over, homeopathic, pro-farmers-market, anti-soy, i-hate-genetic-engineering, chemical-additives-are-evil green whackjobs.
Then why are you asking it on Slashdot? Isn't this really just shouting to an echo chamber, and not really attempting to get a response?
McCarthy is being highly deceitful when she says the only wants "safe" vaccines. What she means by safe is: 100% effective with no side effects and no unexpected reactions in anyone. No medicine ever attains that level of "safe." Not even the aspirin you take for a headache. No, vaccines aren't 100% safe, but they are about 99.999% safe. They are certainly much safer than getting the diseases they prevent. If she wants to wait until something is 100% safe before using it, she would have to avoid all modern medicine. That includes the botox that McCarthy loves getting injected with. (Vaccine toxins are bad but botulinum toxin fights wrinkles so it's good!)
Except that's not what she means. From her op-ed:
For my child, I asked for a schedule that would allow one shot per visit instead of the multiple shots they were and still are giving infants.
If, as you say, she refused vaccines until they were 100% effective with no side effects and no unexpected reactions, then she wouldn't be vaccinating her child at all. Instead, she is vaccinating him, just at a slower rate. She even quotes another blogger, saying:
You either fall in line with 40-plus vaccines your doctor recommends on his or her schedule or you’re a wack-job ‘anti-vaxxer.’ Heaven forbid you think the gray zone is an intelligent place to reside and you express doubt or fear or maybe want to spread the vaccines out a bit on this tiny person you’ve brought into the world.
Now, that may not comport with the science, nor is it what the AMA or APA advise, but it's a far cry from being "anti-vax" or lumping her in with people who are opposed to all forms of medicine and use "prayer" instead. Consider this parallel - there are plenty of people who are anti-GMO food, even though there are no scientifically proven adverse effects from it. But we don't brand them "anti-food".
No, this whole thing is a hit piece, trying to lump her in with the real anti-vax loonies, and in doing so, it does a disservice to people like her who don't understand the science behind vaccinations, and nonetheless want what's best for her kids. This is not a religious fight with people who will never change their minds, but rather an argument with a bunch of well-meaning idiots who can still be educated... unless we treat it as a religious fight and refuse to try to enlighten them.
Well, you admit that this - "the only difference is that they specified the post operation action" - is not in the prior art video.
That's not innovative! That is clearly obvious! Having an onscreen toggle do something is not innovative, what would even be the point of having such a thing if it didn't do anything?! And using that toggle to "unlock a phone" is an idea, not an implementation of an idea and you cannot patent an idea. The patent system is designed to share ideas while protecting innovative individual implementations of that idea.
There's also the feature about continuous movement of an image corresponding to a finger position. That's not in the video.
There's clearly 3 frames of movement there that follow the touch, whether that is the refresh rate of the screen or just how many animation frames they have doesn't really matter, sure the iPhone has a higher refresh rate and more frames but that doesn't make it different.
You're confusing two concepts: "different" and "innovative", or in legal terms, "new" and "nonobvious". Something can be new, but obvious - and similarly, something can be different, but not innovative. As I've said and as you admit, both of the features we're discussing are not shown in the prior art reference - they are different, period, full stop. Whether they're innovative is a separate question, and nothing about that is implied by admitting that, yes, the video shows three frames of movement, while the patent claims "continuous" movement.
So, yes, the patent claim is different from the video. The claim has at least those two features that are not shown in the video. But I'm sure you can find them elsewhere in other prior art references, no? If so, you can use the combination of the two references to show that everything recited in the patent claim is known. That's the legal process - you can't simply pound the table and say "clearly obvious", because without using prior art references, at best, all you've done is shown that it's obvious now to someone who has lived with iPhones sliding-to-unlock for years. Show me that it was obvious in 2006. And that requires evidence, not just you saying that it's "clear".
If that happened, and my employer blamed me publicly (explicitly or implicitly), I would be seeking large monetary damages, even if the flaw was my fault. My argument would be that I'm employed to write software, not write flaw-free software, and if the company causes me damages (in current or future income) by stating or implying that I did not perform by work duties appropriately, then that is slander, and they are liable. In this case, the "lie" would be to imply that my work product was supposed to be flaw-free, which I never asserted or consented to, regardless of what they desired.
With all due respect, that's not only not slander, and you'd lose any such suit, you'd also make yourself permanently unemployable - no company would ever touch you with a ten foot.
Implying that someone is unable to perform one's occupation is textbook slander, and the company would find themselves writing a large check.
Not if, as you acknowledge, you are unable to complete the services for which you were paid. While you may think that you weren't hired to make bug-free software, the employer - and any jury - would disagree.
I could see two potential outcomes, if blaming engineers for product flaws becomes commonplace...
First, engineers will (or should) demand an indemnity clause as part of their employment contract, where the company agrees not to blame them publicly for any product flaws, and/or take any action which would identify them. Depending on the repercussions for the test cases, this might become a necessity for employees.
Although it would be a good idea, it'll never happen... at least not until get you get Engineer Unions who refuse to work unless a company implements those clauses and prevent any scabs from working. And with the libertarian bent of most Engineers, that will never happen. Otherwise, you'll simply have the engineer refuse to sign the company's boilerplate employment agreement because it doesn't include an indemnity clause; and the company will show him the door and bring in the next candidate who will sign it.
Second, I could see some significant lawsuits for slander, since the company is causing real (and substantial, and more importantly provable) financial loss for the engineers they blame for product deficiencies. Unless they have a pretty solid intentional negligence defense, they could (and absolutely should) find themselves paying out a few million more to each engineer they throw under the metaphorical bus.
Not necessarily, depending on what was said. Slander requires that the statement be false. Did the engineer screw up? If so, then it's not slander. The only way it would be is if the engineer did nothing other than follow explicit instructions from his superiors, and considering that he apparently made a change without changing a part number, that would seem unlikely.
Also, there's no such things as "intentional negligence" - that's an oxymoron, and would mean that you intended to do something by accident. What you may be thinking of is gross recklessness.
Companies are responsible for their products, not the people they employ to make/provide them. Companies reap the rewards when they work, and bear the responsibility when they don't. Absent malicious negligence, naming/blaming individual employees is irresponsible at best, and should absolutely expose the company to civil liability.
There's a gloss here - these are Professional Engineers, with certifications, licensing, and ethical requirements. PEs are also responsible for the things they sign off on, and may be held professionally accountable for their screw-ups. Now, that said, yes, the company is the one who is civilly liable for any damages from their products and no customer can sue the engineer directly, but that doesn't mean that (a) the company can't sue the engineer if they really were reckless; and (b) the company can't even name the engineer.
The USPTO is calling it innovation, this exact thing has already been implemented as per the video with the difference that it is "on a handheld device".
Try it this way: what part of this is not covered in prior art and is thus innovative?
Well, you admit that this - "the only difference is that they specified the post operation action" - is not in the prior art video.
There's also the feature about continuous movement of an image corresponding to a finger position. That's not in the video.
Now, might there be another reference that shows those? Sure. Go find it.
we make the patent office show that every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art before we throw it out as not new or obvious.
Which is why the patent system if obviously completely screwed up, all you need to do is take an existing idea and add "on a handheld device" and they call that innovation and you can patent it.
Uh... I think you may be confused. Let's run through it together.
The test: "show that every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art"
The example: "existing idea" + "on a handheld device"
Application of the test:
Conclusion: "Every element of a patent claim existed in the prior art" and therefore the patent is invalid.
So what exactly is screwed up there, and who is calling that "innovation"?
You really think that's a good system?
Considering that your example fails the test and would be invalidated, I don't see why it's not.
Thanks. That does make things clearer in that regard for US law.
The wiki well may be valid as a generalised international version though - would you think so? (a lot of us on /. are not from the US).
It is, with very slight glosses... Instead of being "obvious", Europe and a few other countries say that something "lacks inventive step". And there are also a few registration-only systems, in which patents are not presumed valid, and no examination occurs. But generally, the various tests for whether something is "new" or whether it is "nonobvious"/"has an inventive step" are identical everywhere. That's a result of the Paris Convention treaty, decades ago.
Is the Federal Circuit jurisdiction nationwide in the US?
Yes, but it's really specific to patents. Like, patent appeals only go to the Fed. Circ., rather than, say, the 9th Circ. or the 1st Circ. Basically, the numbered circuits are regional; the Federal Circuit is subject matter based. They handle patent appeals, other article I appeals (federal claims, trademarks, government contracts, veterans stuff, etc.), and some weird article III stuff, like natural gas and petroleum .
You're a patent lawyer, where would your boundary be?
The original prohibitions on patent eligibility expressed by the Supreme Court of "laws of nature, natural phenomenon, and abstract ideas" were not in the statute, but were a clumsy interpretation as SCOTUS wrestled with a more fundamental problem: patents allow the patent owner to seek an injunction, ordering people to stop infringing... If the patent claims a previously undiscovered law of nature such as, say, gravity, how do you order people not to fall? Similarly, if the patent claims a mere abstract idea or mathematical algorithm that could be done in someone's head, then how do your order people not to think?
For example, if the patent claims a diagnostic method involving noticing that a patient has a blood level of X of n ppm, and determining that therefore they have disease Y, and I tell you I have a patient with a blood level of X of n+1 ppm, you just infringed the patent, simply by recognizing that fact. How can a court order you not to think of something? Or, conversely, how can a court fairly order you to pay royalties for thinking, or for falling, or otherwise involuntarily infringing a patent?
Mind you, this is all about patent eligibility under 35 USC 101... We've been talking about novelty under 102 and nonobviousness under 103, and those are separate and independent requirements. I agree that the quality of examination needs to be better. Part of why courts keep falling back to 101 for invaliding patents is because they can't believe that the patent isn't obvious under 103, so they refuse to hold them valid, but they don't have any good prior art to point to, so they instead wave their hands and claim it's abstract, without ever defining what "abstract" means. That's just bad law.
My apologies I haven't expressed this well. I'm talking about how you have expressed something and the name you have called it. I'll try again.
Wikipedia says if an invention has been described by "prior art" it is invalid, while you say that everything in the patent must be taught and it is called "anticipatory prior art". You took someone up on their use of the phrase "prior art" and said he had to refer to "anticipatory prior art". I think that wikipedia shows otherwise. I don't see anywhere on the wiki as it being described specifically as "anticipatory prior art". I don't see anywhere on the wiki that every claim must be described - it simply says it must sufficiently described.
Ah. Wiki has attempted to dumb things down a bit, but unfortunately, appears to have created confusion. Here's the real definition:
A claimed invention may be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 when the invention is anticipated (or is “not novel”) over a disclosure that is available as prior art. To anticipate a claim, the disclosure must teach every element of the claim.
“A claim is anticipated only if each and every element as set forth in the claim is found, either expressly or inherently described, in a single prior art reference.” Verdegaal Bros. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 814 F.2d 628, 631, 2 USPQ2d 1051, 1053 (Fed. Cir. 1987).
"Not legally, no."
I'm not referring to a legal definition so it's a moot point bringing it up.
This thread started with my post about legal definitions, so if you'd like to change the definition to a colloquial one, it would be good if you'd inform me first.
And it was trivial and it's relationship to obviousness I was referring to. Not obviousness in and of itself. Your analogy is not suitable.
But trivial and obvious have little to do with each other. E=MC^2 is trivial, but not obvious.
"But a machine patent is fine? What about a machine modeled in a virtual environment? What about an FPGA executing software? Where do you draw the boundary?"
In order:
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe - as long as the software you refer to is for reconfiguring the FPGA logic and not a higher level program - there is a pretty clear distinction.
You can make an FPGA as complicated as you want and its reconfiguration can be a "higher level program". In fact, forget even field programmable arrays - from a purely theoretical basis, you can make a fixed (albeit huge) circuit that will execute a specified program, even a "higher level one". You could hard code Diablo III, if you had enough transistors and an infinite amount of patience. Are circuits patent eligible?
In regards to software that would be the boundary. So 99.9% of software would not be protected by patents.
What's your boundary? You said "higher level program", but as noted above, any program can be high or low level, depending on the circuit you execute it on. Your argument would seem to imply that the exact same program - say, Mr. Bilski's hedging algorithm - would be unpatentable if you wrote it in C, but patentable if you built it on a bread board.
"Well, technically, the US patent is valid anywhere outside the US."
You better tell Europe that, because they seem have firmly invalidated it.
I say it's valid only when other countries let it be valid - the US has no intrinsic jurisdiction overseas.
Sorry, typo - isn't valid anywhere outside the US. As you note, patent law is country specific.
I'm simply pointing out the subtle differences in definitions. You're welcome to edit wikipedia to reflect a more exact or correct view in their opening sentence.
There's actually no difference in the definition from what I said. Here's wiki:
"Prior art constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality"
and here's me:
"Prior art" is "anything in the relevant art, that's prior."
That's same thing.
Then you jumped ahead to the next sentence. Again, wiki:
"If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid."
and me:
"[A]nticipatory prior art... is art that teaches everything in a patent claim."
In other words, anticipatory prior art is prior art that describes an invention. If an invention is anticipated, it is not valid. That's also the same thing.
Wiki is correct, I am correct, and you seem to be confusing the matter by comparing parts of one sentence to parts of a different sentence. Hope this all helps.
There is no "instead of". Novelty and obviousness are closely linked.
No, they're literally two different statutes - 35 USC 102 and 35 USC 103. They are separate and independent requirements for patents, and patents must be both new and nonobvious to be valid. In particular, something can pass 102, but fail 103 and be invalid - in such a case, it is "new", but "obvious".
And a whole bunch of engineers and software developers here are voicing their technically informed opinion that those differences should not matter.
And those differences do not matter for obviousness, but do matter for novelty. Frankly, I'd expect better from a bunch of engineers and software developers since we're trained to think logically and accurately: if A is different than B, then A!=B. If that difference is trivial, then AB, but no matter how much you stomp your feet and cry about it, A!=B.
Novelty requires only that A!=B. If A!=B, then it is novel. Non-obviousness requires that A!B. If AB, then it is obvious. And any engineer or software developer worth a damn should understand that distinction.
I don't know what you're doing other than restating points that are both obvious and irrelevant.
Except that it's a point that you keep refusing to understand - novelty is not the same thing as non-obviousness. And it's not irrelevant, because if you ever want to reform the patent system, then you have to talk to legislators in a way that shows you understand the current system and can explain how you disagree with it. Right now, what you're doing is equivalent to telling a programmer that it's irrelevant whether a language is procedural or object-oriented... you're destroying any credibility you have with them. Similarly, no one knowledgable about patents is going to give your words any weight if you keep confusing the different legal requirements.
Ah, there's your problem: you're confused about what Slashdot is and who is on it. Slashdot is a site for developers and engineers, and we use language appropriate to our audience and our interests. We're smart enough to use legal and legislative language when in those other forums, and to know the difference. You apparently are not.
Perhaps you missed the whole section of Slashdot that deals with legal rights - you know, yro.slashdot.org - as well as the sections that deal with intellectual property law? It's okay, I understand: you've only been on Slashdot since 2012. Takes a while to really learn how much it covers. Well, let me extend a welcome to you!
When I referred to trivial it is to bring attention to the fact that there is a curve that you can plot that shows the relationship between complexity and obviousness.
Not legally, no. Basically, you're redefining "obvious" to equal "complex", which is fine, but it has no meaning to the legal definition of "obvious". It's like if you redefined "guilty" to equal "poor" and claimed that all poor people are criminals. Under your definition, sure, but not under the legal one.
I really don't like that software patents are allowed at all.
But a machine patent is fine? What about a machine modeled in a virtual environment? What about an FPGA executing software? Where do you draw the boundary?
This patent isn't valid in half of the world - where they recognise that Apple did not invent anything new.
Well, technically, the US patent is valid anywhere outside the US.
"In the United States, there is a duty to disclose to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office any known prior art that is material to the patentability of any claim of a pending U.S. patent application. " from http://www.tms.org/pubs/journa...
Yes, any known prior art. There's no duty on the patent applicant to search for any art. See MPEP 704.01. And accordingly, the statement "the patent office assumes when a patent is filed for that company did the work to see if it was done before" is false. As I said.
You are a lying troll. The examiner examins the prior art, but doesn't search for more, because the duty is on the applicant to disclose.
You're absolutely wrong. Abusive, too, which is hilarious, given how wrong you are.
Even from your own link " then searches the prior art as disclosed in patents"
I find it amusing that you call me a "lying troll", and then two sentences later quote out of context. Here's the full quote: "The examiner, after having obtained a thorough understanding of the invention disclosed and claimed in the nonprovisional application, then searches the prior art as disclosed in patents and other published documents, i.e., nonpatent literature (NPL). Any document used in the rejection of a claim is called a reference."
They search all published documents, including via Google Scholar.
So they "search" for the prior art that's disclosed, and are not instructed to search for new or undisclosed prior art. You are 100% wrong, and have been corrected on this multiple times, so I can only assume you are a lying troll (a genuine error would have been recognized and corected - even your own cite proves you wrong).
The part you clipped out from that quote actually proves you wrong, as it explicitly describes how they search beyond just patents.
But here's the best part of your post:
Posted anonymously because I also modded your lying trolls as such.
Re:I'm not entirely sure how it merited a patent i (Score:2)
by AK Marc (707885)
BWAAHAHAHAAAA!
"If an invention has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid." vs "That doesn't mean they're anticipatory prior art, which is art that teaches everything in a patent claim."
It would help if you actually read the rest of my post rather than just one sentence. For example, that sentence follows this one: "The Model T is prior art for the Tesla Model S. That doesn't mean they're anticipatory prior art, which is art that teaches everything in a patent claim."
Do you disagree with that? Or do you really think that the existence of the Model T means that Elon Musk can't get any patents?
Only a lawyer could look at this video and state that Apple's slide-to-unlock is an entirely new invention worthy of tens of millions of dollars in licensing fees just because their animation has a few more frames.
Really? Can you find one doing that? I've looked through the thread, but haven't seen anyone saying that. I mean, there's that strawman you just brought in with you, but he's not saying much.
The test for obviousness - whether one or more pieces of prior art, alone or in combination, teach or suggest each and every element of the patent claim - is crafted that way to avoid hindsight. The problem is that, going by the colloquial definition of the term, everything looks obvious in hindsight. Steam engines? Pff, I could draw a diagram of one on a napkin right now - does that mean that they shouldn't have been patentable back in the 1800s? Of course not... we have the benefit of having learned about them and lived around such technologies. Same thing with AC current, packetization of data, etc. And patent validity is supposed to be based on the time of filing, not years later looking back.
So, by requiring prior art references as evidence that the technology was known or an obvious combination of elements, we avoid accidentally using the benefit of hindsight (and public release of the product in the interim) to call something obvious, even if it wasn't at the time of filing.
There are two separate and independent requirements for a patent* - (i) that the patent claim be new; and (ii) that the patent claim not be obvious. Again, these are separate and independent: you must meet both in order to get a patent. Okay? It's a Boolean AND.
(i) Something is "new" if it hasn't been done before. If you claim A+B+C+D and only A+B+C has been done before, then A+B+C+D is new. Congratulations, you meet the first test.
(ii) Something is "obvious" if a combination of prior art references teach everything in the patent claim. You claim A+B+C+D and you admit that A+B+C is in the prior art. D is also in the prior art. Therefore, (A+B+C) plus (D) teaches everything in the patent claim. Therefore, it's obvious, and you fail the second test.
If the requirement for a patent is passing (i) AND (ii), and you passed (i) but failed (ii), do you get a patent? No.
Does that help to clarify why you're wrong?
This just seems to indicate that Apple's patent is invalid. They have a slide lock, like on a gate. It's on a touch screen, not a new device. It unlocks, also been done.
Yes, it certainly seems that way, although I haven't read the specification in depth or looked at the dependent claims.
Where is this new part you talk about. If every part of the patent has been done before, but not together, then how is it new. My A+B+C+D has not been done together before so what's the difference?
For something not to be "new" requires that it literally has been done before - every single part of it. If no one ever made a plaid green and yellow computer before, then such a plaid green and yellow computer would be "new", by definition, because it's not a copy of something old. But remember, that's just one of the two tests that it has to pass to be patentable.
If every part of the patent has been done before, but not together, it is new, because no one has ever put that combination together. However, it is obvious, because every piece of it already existed. Accordingly, it fails the second test, and yes, is invalid.