Your model would completely eliminate any economic progress. Large companies would be free to copy an idea, use it in their products and use their market position to crush any new ideas. I cannot imagine a more disasterous idea.
No privately held intellectual property? It worked for the Soviet Union; it can work for us! Oh the glorious future that awaits us when we- hey wait a sec.. nevermind.
The summary of this article is blatantly factually incorrect. Anyone with any knowledge of the patent system knows the difference between "invalidated" and "non-final rejection from the USPTO".
Ever wonder why it's so rare that anybody with any influence over the patent system pays any attention to the rants and raves of Slashdot, free software, open source, etc.? It's because these groups very rarely, if ever, have a clue what they're talking about.
Before you reply to flame me, think about what the word "marginalized" really means. By refusing or not bothering to become educated on the issue of patents, a huge majority of Slashdot's readship marginalizes itself and renders its thoughts and opinions irrelevant.
"Non-final rejection" equals "invalidated"? That's a joke, right? Surely the article is a troll. Nobody with any self respect would seriously submit that as a story unless they were pulling a prank on Slashdot's editors.
I didn't look/read the patent but alot of this crap is getting passed that's really obvious.
If you are correct, then everything in the patent claims can be found in the prior art. Since we're all qualified to publicly air our expertise about the patent system, we both know that something is not obvious if it cannot be found in the prior art. I'm only including this link for those readers who, unlike you and me, don't know about the patent system.
And if you're right, Microsoft has more than enough financial resources to invalidate those patents during litigation. There doesn't seem much of a story here, but I'm merely speaking from the point of view of a person who understands what's going on.
You're seriously suggesting that every commercial software and IP developer on the planet should be employing a patent lawyer? You're insane.
Great way to put the economy in the toilet.
If you expect to operate a corporation and cope with all its inherent liabilities without any professional relationship with a lawyer, speaking from a purely objective point of view, you are an extremely stupid person.
You are oversimplifying. First, there can be patents filed but not yet issued -- you don't have access to them until the issue.
But of course, we all know that under AIPA all patent applications will be published within 18 months of filing, except in special circumstances where the inventors waive the right to claim priority in a foreign country to the US patent application. And of course, we all know that, because this is an extremely basic and well-known fact about patent systems around the world.
Second, doing a "real" patent search is an expensive proposition (I'm not talking about your boss doing a 2 minute google search on a few key phrases). No company can do that type of search on every little thing that comes along.
This is true, but any serious company can afford an accountant to handle their taxes. This keeps them out of trouble with the IRS. Any serious company can likewise afford to a) purchase litigation insurance, or b) invest some money into researching its IP liability with legal experts before taking a product to market. This keeps them out of trouble with the patent system. Pleading ignorance about patents is akin to pleading ignorance about taxes. Hire an expert or expect problems.
I will cease being quite as profitable once the culture changes
I'm sure you meant "it will cease being as profitable";) I hope you will only increase in your profitability.
What you say is true but I think it goes against the human mechanics that have made society work for the last couple thousand years. At the height of our "modern, enlightened society," women are free to pursue whatever work and identity they choose. You still can't make men spend their time and money admiring Pride And Prejudice. You can create room for liberty and freedom, but you can't make everybody prefer to see other people enjoy it.
For my part, I'm thrilled to see strong, intelligent female characters in film and games, but even then it appeals to a sexual attraction regardless of their outward appearance.
Creative's patent was applied for in 2001, before the iPod's debut later that same year. Creative says they used that system in earlier mp3 players as well. So no, there is no prior art from Apple.
No publicly available prior art, which is generally all that is available during examination of a patent.
If Creative sues Apple for infringement, however, then the two companies can get out the engineering notebooks, prototypes, designs, etc., and will duke it out in the courtroom to decide who invented it first. That's assuming that Apple is sued and is willing to admit infringement but argue invalidity.
So I wouldn't necessarily conclude that Apple has no prior art - merely that they have no public prior art that kept the patent from issuing. It is a slim but important distinction.
I find it very disturbing the USPTO cannot uniquely identify patent holders... If they cannot uniquely identify patent holders, then how can the USPTO (or courts) *identify* patent holders???
The patent office operates under a "good faith and candor" policy. They need to see a name and a signature. If you're committing fraud, it's your problem and the patent, if it issues, would be unenforceable. So it's up to you, Mr. James Theodore Doe, to prove that you are actually the Ted Doe identified in the patent if you try to sue someone with it.
Under what authority would the patent office investigate situations of fraud? They're the patent office, not the patent & signature analysis & investigative forensics office. It's up to the courts to figure out.
I presume a common method of asserting that you're the inventor would be showing all the papers you've filed with your attorney and evidence of paying attorney fees in connection with the patent application.
Here, let me jump on this mighty grenade for the PTO:
I know you're trying to be funny, but your suggestion would be inadequate.
There's no analogy to a "user_id" for issued patents. There's no requirement that an inventor record his name the same way (James Doe vs. Jim Doe) and there are more than a handful of foreign language inventors who change the English spelling over time. There's also the issue of joint inventorship. You invent a powerswitch that makes electric tools more efficient and file 3 applications: with Steve the electric drill inventor, with Tim the electric saw inventor, and with Bill the electric belt sander inventor. You also file an additional application with William (who happens to be Bill) for an electric rotary sander. You have invented one powerswitch, but your name shows up on 4 patent applications (with 3 different people). People get married, omit middle names, omit "Jr." and more.
And finally, seriously, who the feck cares who has the most inventions? Who really thinks the patent office needs to assemble a team? Get right on this? Grab this bull by the horns? It's hard to imagine a more frivolous outrage.
I know you were just cracking a joke, but eh. The patent office has a public search facility. Stop by if you're in Alexandria VA. I happen to be somewhat familiar with what they've got in their database and why it's not so simple to answer this question. If you want to know how many times a particular name appears on a patent it would be simple to produce, but that is not the same question as who has made the most inventions.
This is analogous to the difference between what the spec says and what the customer wants. You build the product to the spec but that wasn't what the customer wanted. I'd think that this should be a familiar concept on Slashdot, but suddenly everyone is so shocked by precisely the same phenomenon. Honestly I think the patent office should have just patronized the guy and told him whose name appears on the most patents. It wouldn't come remotely close to actually answering the question about who has the most inventions, but who the feck cares?
And I further note that you have not disputed, much less refuted, a singlg thing I said last post.
Let me point out that I have not read, much less disupted, much less refuted (Lemme guess, you bought a thesaurus recently?) a single thing you said last post. Your presentation appears to be an obvious troll. If that was intentional, I simply suggest your tone down the "breathless outrage" that drenched that post.
The implication being an expectation that the Supreme Court will overturn this software patent nonsense once they take time out of their busy schedual of hugely important cases to address a stupid software patent case and fix this mess.
Yes, indeed. It's been 10 years and who knows how many hundreds of billions of dollars paid in patent litigation. Clearly you have proven that the Supreme Court simply refuses to care about patent issues and completely eradicated any reasonable possibility that your armchair quarterbacking is ridiculous and the US legal and patent system know more about what they do than you. It's also been merely 72 years since Prohibition was overturned by the 21st Amendment - but when the Supreme Court comes to its sense, I predict that they'll rule that piece of crap unconstitutional. Your posts still smack of outright trolling, by the way.
Snap out of it.
You can predict that the Supreme Court will give you a blow job every morning and I couldn't care less. Until that very fanciful day in the far flung future of your personal prediction, you're just blowing hot air, and more to the point, arguing a point that is counter to the established legal precedent.
You're so quick to identify that I don't refute - you're so slow to identify that I don't care. I wouldn't dream of arguing about predictions for future Supreme Court rulings; I'll leave that for people with a desperate need for validation. None of this changes the extremely simple fact that MY opinion is based on existing legal precedent and YOUR opinion is based on predicting the future of the US Supreme Court. True, I'm not refuting your argument, but the larger and far more important thing I want you to take away from this post is that I don't care, never cared, and am not going to start caring about your personal rant about the lower courts vs. the Supreme Court. It was never my topic of conversation and your repeated attempts to force it on me smack of a desperate need for validation.
Absolutely. The distinction is a very fine one, and arises simply because in many cases it is so much easier to design a software system than a pure-hardware equivalent. The fact that the question is difficult and subtle probably explains why the courts came down on the side they did: to an inexperienced eye the difference is unimportant.
Tanenbaum says, "Hardware and software are logically equivalent," and I tend to agree. Whether it's more or less difficult to implement one over the other is irrelevant as far as I can see.
The problem is that the ease of implementation of software has led to a huge increase in the number of supposedly-patentable inventions in that field. Many of these aren't particularly worthwhile. The inventor's investment in time and money developing them is tiny compared to that involved in other fields.
There is no legal requirement that the invention is "worthwhile". There is no legal distinction between inventions that required lots of time and money and those that require little.
Wow, so blustery! I nearly read ten percent of that!
So I would say you lose that argument. It is mearly the lower courts currently running amuck in direct violation of Supreme Court Rulings.
Yes, yes indeed. You have thoroughly convinced me that MY opinion, based on the published and widely cited court decisions, those which form the basis for the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure regarding this topic, are fundamentally wrong because you, Alsee (Slashdot UID 515537) apparently possess such divine intellect - clearly rivaling that of the combined nine Justices of the US Supreme Court - say so.
Just to reiterate, your opinion that I am wrong is based on the observation that in the fantasy world where you replace the Supreme Court, you would overturn the established legal precedent that supports my opinion.
I'm really at a loss for words. I'm quite a veteran of the internet, Slashdot, Usenet, etc., and I've never seen such a seemingly coherent yet utterly comic-book rebuttal to a perfectly reasonable statement of fact. Congratulations?
PS - I was being sarcastic when I said that you had convinced me.
Unless I misunderstand the documents you're quoting (I haven't read them all, certainly), there doesn't seem to be a requirement in them that the description given is that of a physical device that performs the method patented (i.e., not simply a general purpose computer with software loaded to make it perform the method), which is what the GP is suggesting.
Two things:
There isn't any basis for that suggestion in either the Constitution or the existing federal statutes. This is just an observation that the suggestion necessarily implies at least amending 35 USC. This is completely beyond the jurisdiction of the USPTO.
I fail to see the distinction between a general purpose computer with software and a physical device that performs the method. Isn't the former an example of the latter? This isn't a simple question and the courts have been struggling with it since Diamond v. Diehr in 1995.
I was addressing the idea that it used to be required, before software patents, that any patent be accompanied by a clear description of a physical device, whether the patent was for the device itself, or whether that device instantiated an algorithm.
I think you're also combining issues that fall under both 35 USC 112 and 35 USC 101, which cover vastly different topics. Some of the issues under 101 are described in MPEP 2106.
To my knowledge, except for perpetual motion devices, patents have never required a prototype to be submitted
This isn't historically accurate. Prototypes of all inventions were required in the USPTO's "ancient" history. Don't quote me, but we're talking like pre-Civil War era.
I don't see any need for any prototype device to accompany the application.
Many of the problems with the current patent system go to the fact that you can now patent things that can't be represented as physical devices.
Yet there was no such requirement in the language of the Constitution.
Requiring a model favors corporations that can afford to throw money away on a prototype or mock-up and penalizes the garage inventor.
The USPTO receives 350,000 applications per year - requiring a model would quickly make it the largest museum on the planet. A museum with storage and operation costs. Large corporations would gladly pay higher fees to the USPTO if it would harm the garage inventor.
Rolling back the clock to require a description of a physical device would both make patents a lot less vague as well as making the obvious harder to obsfucate
Hm, like rolling it back to now? MPEP 2161 and do explore the subsequent sections.
I admit I'm a little confused. I see how your suggestion would be wildly beneficial to corporate inventors, but I wasn't of the opinion that this was your goal.
The other problem with compression is that compression is a mathematical formula, not an invention. Mathematical formulas are supposed to be non-patentable.
The subject matter courts have found to be outside the four statutory categories of invention is limited to abstract ideas, laws of nature and natural phenomena. While this is easily stated, determining whether an applicant is seeking to patent an abstract idea, a law of nature or a natural phenomenon has proven to be challenging. These three exclusions recognize that subject matter that is not a practical application or use of an idea, a law of nature or a natural phenomenon is not patentable. See, e.g., Rubber-Tip Pencil Co. v. Howard, 87 U.S. (20 Wall.) 498, 507 (1874) ("idea of itself is not patentable, but a new device by which it may be made practically useful is"); Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co. v. Radio Corp. of America, 306 U.S. 86, 94, 40 USPQ 199, 202 (1939) ("While a scientific truth, or the mathematical expression of it, is not patentable invention, a novel and useful structure created with the aid of knowledge of scientific truth may be."); Warmerdam, 33 F.3d at 1360, 31 USPQ2d at 1759 ("steps of 'locating' a medial axis, and 'creating' a bubble hierarchy . . . describe nothing more than the manipulation of basic mathematical constructs, the paradigmatic 'abstract idea'").
I would argue that compression is not a mathematical formula, but rather a practical application of mathematics to achieve a useful technological result. If precedent sets any.. precedent.. I would win that argument.
I really wish Slashdot had a "What Made You Think You Were Qualified To Post?" moderation.
1. Create a dictionary of all words used in applying for a patent.
See MPEP 2111.01. In applying for a patent, you may define "giraffe" to mean "flashlight". There are at present few (if any) reasons for doing so, but if you're going to "computerize" the patent prior art search as you have described, there is suddenly an extremely good reason to say "giraffe" when you mean "flashlight".
2. A second dictionary of terms which are equal to each other.
See above. As an aside, maybe a better solution would be a classification system that categorizes patents and patent applications according to the technology involved, regardless of the vocabulary invoked? Such a classification could be performed by humans - maybe even get patent examiners involved. If a certain group gets too large, further subdivide it. Try to keep the groups to about 250 patents if possible. (I've described the system that's been in use for at least 100 years, but seriously, this super-thesaurus idea sounds promising. Except useless because of MPEP 2111.01.)
3b. All entries should be listed (just like with Google) in a descending order of revelance.
This has been available to examiners for years.
4. All applied for patents should be kept on file so they too can be checked against.
This was a great idea when Thomas Jefferson first thought of it.
People may say we can't do this.
Yes, but Thomas Jefferson was a great man, and when the computer technology of 1987 implemented the rest of what you're talking about, those people looked like idiots.
As for graphical pictures showing how something works - it depends.
The entire collection of patents (except the X series that burned) are available in image format to the examiners.
You need the bad patents in there as a way to say "Hey! Here are examples of why you can't have a patent!"
I'm not sure how you define a "bad patent" - that is not an invitation to explain - but regardless, this is an absurdly bad idea. As an alternative, investigate what an SIR is at MPEP 1111
Just my $0.02 worth.
Is there a rebate?
Other responses suggest your whole post is plagarized. If so, I imagine it was -extremely- relavant 15 years ago. I really wish Slashdot had a "What Made You Think You Were Qualified To Post?" moderation.
Unless this kid has been watching sado-masochist master-slave bondage hardcore, he hasnt seen anyone degraded - how is a woman degraded by having sex? how is the man less degraded than the woman? You're just going back to the rather medieval belief that women lie back and think about knitting and kittens while men ravish them - *women enjoy sex too*, and if getting paid for sex is exploitation, then the men are being just as exploited as the women - there are no passive performers in porn, the women are there by choice as well; If a girl watched porn (and trust me on this, a lot of them do), are they learning to 'treat men as sexual objects, there for their gratification'?
I agree with everything but the conclusion.
In a common cultural experience, the man in porn is perceived like a hero; the woman like a skank. It's completely external to the porn itself. I guess you could say similar things about an Anglo-Saxon heritage film - it would have a vastly different reception in Detroit or Watts than in Oslo or Moscow. You could run that film over and over in Watts, proclaiming, "How is this possibly condescending?" You'd never change its perception in the audience.
So where are the women degraded? In the perception of very nearly every man who watches. I'd never deny a feminist her rant, but I do question the wisdom should she win this argument...
How someone chooses to moderate my posts (if at all) is down to them, not me. Seems that your issue is with the moderators, not with me. Perhaps you should address your posts accordingly.
Meh. You posted it. I've long since given up on the moderation system.
My point is still valid. Pick any country and you will find people who are shockingly rich and those who are shockingly poor.
My point, made through satire, is that this is the most uninteresting sentiment I've seen moderated as "Insightful" in a long, long time. And as far as Slashdot moderation goes, that's saying a hell of a lot.
I need help, you say. Hm. You're the guy who's posting a whole string of thoughtful comments to point out that some people are rich and some people are poor. WOAH. It just hit me. YOU'RE RIGHT. Man, forgive me. The sheer brilliance of this new, unprecedented concept has just made its impression felt. I totally retract all my satire and sarcasm. You, sir, deserve a drink on the house.
If American citizens are frustrated and annoyed with their government's behavior, can someone please explain how expatriating will do anything but make the problem worse?
You're probably an American.
Well, aren't there people in your country who are billionaires?
No, we Americans have zero billionaires. I think that pretty much refutes your entire point quite nicely, doesn't it? Yes, hm, well maybe you should stick to the facts, sir, and leave all these crazy hypothetical angles where they belong - in the hearts and minds of naive little children who still dare to dream of a world where America has billionaires.
Oh look, you were modded "Insightful". You're probably a European. Well, aren't there shoes in your country? I'm sure some people have lots of shoes. And we all know that you can't judge a person until you walk a mile in his shoes - unaccredited anecdotes are the ace of trump in the suite of proof in this game of debates. Therefore who are you to judge these mythical, fantasy beings (who don't really exist) called American billionaires? You haven't even worn all the shoes in Europe, let alone make-believe sandals of fictional American billionaires. I rest my case! I SAY GOOD DAY SIR.
I knew a guy who worked in the product development side of Phillips who had a home/custom-made one of these. It was just a black box with a red switch that sent whatever IR code was required to set off the beeper that was already included in the factory remote. He included one of these with the factory blemish TV he sold my ma.
I also got to play Phillips CD-based home entertainment/video game console that had IR (or RF?) wireless controllers with PS dual-shock style controllers (without the force feedback) and Atari-style dozens of buttons. The only game I distinctly recall was Siphon Filter.. and this was before the Playstation was released. I thought it was awesome, but it was an awkward gaming system. The lag in the controllers was low enough for TV menus or strategy and puzzle games, but too slow for action games.
Slashdot Mirror
No privately held intellectual property? It worked for the Soviet Union; it can work for us! Oh the glorious future that awaits us when we- hey wait a sec.. nevermind.
And that's why a lot of women don't like American football. (No offense to those ladies who don't use that excuse ;)
Before I was a believer in anarchocapitalism,
I have a carbon monoxide leak of cataclysmic proportions in my home. I'm sure we see eye to eye on lots of issues.
Ever wonder why it's so rare that anybody with any influence over the patent system pays any attention to the rants and raves of Slashdot, free software, open source, etc.? It's because these groups very rarely, if ever, have a clue what they're talking about.
Before you reply to flame me, think about what the word "marginalized" really means. By refusing or not bothering to become educated on the issue of patents, a huge majority of Slashdot's readship marginalizes itself and renders its thoughts and opinions irrelevant.
"Non-final rejection" equals "invalidated"? That's a joke, right? Surely the article is a troll. Nobody with any self respect would seriously submit that as a story unless they were pulling a prank on Slashdot's editors.
If you are correct, then everything in the patent claims can be found in the prior art. Since we're all qualified to publicly air our expertise about the patent system, we both know that something is not obvious if it cannot be found in the prior art. I'm only including this link for those readers who, unlike you and me, don't know about the patent system.
And if you're right, Microsoft has more than enough financial resources to invalidate those patents during litigation. There doesn't seem much of a story here, but I'm merely speaking from the point of view of a person who understands what's going on.
MPEP 2143
Great way to put the economy in the toilet.
If you expect to operate a corporation and cope with all its inherent liabilities without any professional relationship with a lawyer, speaking from a purely objective point of view, you are an extremely stupid person.
But of course, we all know that under AIPA all patent applications will be published within 18 months of filing, except in special circumstances where the inventors waive the right to claim priority in a foreign country to the US patent application. And of course, we all know that, because this is an extremely basic and well-known fact about patent systems around the world.
Second, doing a "real" patent search is an expensive proposition (I'm not talking about your boss doing a 2 minute google search on a few key phrases). No company can do that type of search on every little thing that comes along.
This is true, but any serious company can afford an accountant to handle their taxes. This keeps them out of trouble with the IRS. Any serious company can likewise afford to a) purchase litigation insurance, or b) invest some money into researching its IP liability with legal experts before taking a product to market. This keeps them out of trouble with the patent system. Pleading ignorance about patents is akin to pleading ignorance about taxes. Hire an expert or expect problems.
I'm sure you meant "it will cease being as profitable" ;) I hope you will only increase in your profitability.
What you say is true but I think it goes against the human mechanics that have made society work for the last couple thousand years. At the height of our "modern, enlightened society," women are free to pursue whatever work and identity they choose. You still can't make men spend their time and money admiring Pride And Prejudice. You can create room for liberty and freedom, but you can't make everybody prefer to see other people enjoy it.
For my part, I'm thrilled to see strong, intelligent female characters in film and games, but even then it appeals to a sexual attraction regardless of their outward appearance.
And it's all very profitable.
So which is the more powerful force? Greed or the sexual equality?
I agree completely with your argument, but I'm not holding my breath for change.
No publicly available prior art, which is generally all that is available during examination of a patent.
If Creative sues Apple for infringement, however, then the two companies can get out the engineering notebooks, prototypes, designs, etc., and will duke it out in the courtroom to decide who invented it first. That's assuming that Apple is sued and is willing to admit infringement but argue invalidity.
So I wouldn't necessarily conclude that Apple has no prior art - merely that they have no public prior art that kept the patent from issuing. It is a slim but important distinction.
The patent office operates under a "good faith and candor" policy. They need to see a name and a signature. If you're committing fraud, it's your problem and the patent, if it issues, would be unenforceable. So it's up to you, Mr. James Theodore Doe, to prove that you are actually the Ted Doe identified in the patent if you try to sue someone with it.
Under what authority would the patent office investigate situations of fraud? They're the patent office, not the patent & signature analysis & investigative forensics office. It's up to the courts to figure out.
I presume a common method of asserting that you're the inventor would be showing all the papers you've filed with your attorney and evidence of paying attorney fees in connection with the patent application.
I know you're trying to be funny, but your suggestion would be inadequate.
There's no analogy to a "user_id" for issued patents. There's no requirement that an inventor record his name the same way (James Doe vs. Jim Doe) and there are more than a handful of foreign language inventors who change the English spelling over time. There's also the issue of joint inventorship. You invent a powerswitch that makes electric tools more efficient and file 3 applications: with Steve the electric drill inventor, with Tim the electric saw inventor, and with Bill the electric belt sander inventor. You also file an additional application with William (who happens to be Bill) for an electric rotary sander. You have invented one powerswitch, but your name shows up on 4 patent applications (with 3 different people). People get married, omit middle names, omit "Jr." and more.
And finally, seriously, who the feck cares who has the most inventions? Who really thinks the patent office needs to assemble a team? Get right on this? Grab this bull by the horns? It's hard to imagine a more frivolous outrage.
I know you were just cracking a joke, but eh. The patent office has a public search facility. Stop by if you're in Alexandria VA. I happen to be somewhat familiar with what they've got in their database and why it's not so simple to answer this question. If you want to know how many times a particular name appears on a patent it would be simple to produce, but that is not the same question as who has made the most inventions.
This is analogous to the difference between what the spec says and what the customer wants. You build the product to the spec but that wasn't what the customer wanted. I'd think that this should be a familiar concept on Slashdot, but suddenly everyone is so shocked by precisely the same phenomenon. Honestly I think the patent office should have just patronized the guy and told him whose name appears on the most patents. It wouldn't come remotely close to actually answering the question about who has the most inventions, but who the feck cares?
Let me point out that I have not read, much less disupted, much less refuted (Lemme guess, you bought a thesaurus recently?) a single thing you said last post. Your presentation appears to be an obvious troll. If that was intentional, I simply suggest your tone down the "breathless outrage" that drenched that post.
The implication being an expectation that the Supreme Court will overturn this software patent nonsense once they take time out of their busy schedual of hugely important cases to address a stupid software patent case and fix this mess.
Yes, indeed. It's been 10 years and who knows how many hundreds of billions of dollars paid in patent litigation. Clearly you have proven that the Supreme Court simply refuses to care about patent issues and completely eradicated any reasonable possibility that your armchair quarterbacking is ridiculous and the US legal and patent system know more about what they do than you. It's also been merely 72 years since Prohibition was overturned by the 21st Amendment - but when the Supreme Court comes to its sense, I predict that they'll rule that piece of crap unconstitutional. Your posts still smack of outright trolling, by the way.
Snap out of it.
You can predict that the Supreme Court will give you a blow job every morning and I couldn't care less. Until that very fanciful day in the far flung future of your personal prediction, you're just blowing hot air, and more to the point, arguing a point that is counter to the established legal precedent.
You're so quick to identify that I don't refute - you're so slow to identify that I don't care. I wouldn't dream of arguing about predictions for future Supreme Court rulings; I'll leave that for people with a desperate need for validation. None of this changes the extremely simple fact that MY opinion is based on existing legal precedent and YOUR opinion is based on predicting the future of the US Supreme Court. True, I'm not refuting your argument, but the larger and far more important thing I want you to take away from this post is that I don't care, never cared, and am not going to start caring about your personal rant about the lower courts vs. the Supreme Court. It was never my topic of conversation and your repeated attempts to force it on me smack of a desperate need for validation.
Thanks for writing. I eagerly await your reply.
Tanenbaum says, "Hardware and software are logically equivalent," and I tend to agree. Whether it's more or less difficult to implement one over the other is irrelevant as far as I can see.
The problem is that the ease of implementation of software has led to a huge increase in the number of supposedly-patentable inventions in that field. Many of these aren't particularly worthwhile. The inventor's investment in time and money developing them is tiny compared to that involved in other fields.
There is no legal requirement that the invention is "worthwhile". There is no legal distinction between inventions that required lots of time and money and those that require little.
So I would say you lose that argument. It is mearly the lower courts currently running amuck in direct violation of Supreme Court Rulings.
Yes, yes indeed. You have thoroughly convinced me that MY opinion, based on the published and widely cited court decisions, those which form the basis for the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure regarding this topic, are fundamentally wrong because you, Alsee (Slashdot UID 515537) apparently possess such divine intellect - clearly rivaling that of the combined nine Justices of the US Supreme Court - say so.
Just to reiterate, your opinion that I am wrong is based on the observation that in the fantasy world where you replace the Supreme Court, you would overturn the established legal precedent that supports my opinion.
I'm really at a loss for words. I'm quite a veteran of the internet, Slashdot, Usenet, etc., and I've never seen such a seemingly coherent yet utterly comic-book rebuttal to a perfectly reasonable statement of fact. Congratulations?
PS - I was being sarcastic when I said that you had convinced me.
Two things:
There isn't any basis for that suggestion in either the Constitution or the existing federal statutes. This is just an observation that the suggestion necessarily implies at least amending 35 USC. This is completely beyond the jurisdiction of the USPTO.
I fail to see the distinction between a general purpose computer with software and a physical device that performs the method. Isn't the former an example of the latter? This isn't a simple question and the courts have been struggling with it since Diamond v. Diehr in 1995.
MPEP 2163
I think you're also combining issues that fall under both 35 USC 112 and 35 USC 101, which cover vastly different topics. Some of the issues under 101 are described in MPEP 2106.
To my knowledge, except for perpetual motion devices, patents have never required a prototype to be submitted
This isn't historically accurate. Prototypes of all inventions were required in the USPTO's "ancient" history. Don't quote me, but we're talking like pre-Civil War era.
I don't see any need for any prototype device to accompany the application.
Ah, I did misunderstand.
Yet there was no such requirement in the language of the Constitution.
Requiring a model favors corporations that can afford to throw money away on a prototype or mock-up and penalizes the garage inventor.
The USPTO receives 350,000 applications per year - requiring a model would quickly make it the largest museum on the planet. A museum with storage and operation costs. Large corporations would gladly pay higher fees to the USPTO if it would harm the garage inventor.
Rolling back the clock to require a description of a physical device would both make patents a lot less vague as well as making the obvious harder to obsfucate
Hm, like rolling it back to now? MPEP 2161 and do explore the subsequent sections.
I admit I'm a little confused. I see how your suggestion would be wildly beneficial to corporate inventors, but I wasn't of the opinion that this was your goal.
From MPEP 2106
I would argue that compression is not a mathematical formula, but rather a practical application of mathematics to achieve a useful technological result. If precedent sets any.. precedent.. I would win that argument.
1. Create a dictionary of all words used in applying for a patent.
See MPEP 2111.01. In applying for a patent, you may define "giraffe" to mean "flashlight". There are at present few (if any) reasons for doing so, but if you're going to "computerize" the patent prior art search as you have described, there is suddenly an extremely good reason to say "giraffe" when you mean "flashlight".
2. A second dictionary of terms which are equal to each other.
See above. As an aside, maybe a better solution would be a classification system that categorizes patents and patent applications according to the technology involved, regardless of the vocabulary invoked? Such a classification could be performed by humans - maybe even get patent examiners involved. If a certain group gets too large, further subdivide it. Try to keep the groups to about 250 patents if possible. (I've described the system that's been in use for at least 100 years, but seriously, this super-thesaurus idea sounds promising. Except useless because of MPEP 2111.01.)
3b. All entries should be listed (just like with Google) in a descending order of revelance.
This has been available to examiners for years.
4. All applied for patents should be kept on file so they too can be checked against.
This was a great idea when Thomas Jefferson first thought of it.
People may say we can't do this.
Yes, but Thomas Jefferson was a great man, and when the computer technology of 1987 implemented the rest of what you're talking about, those people looked like idiots.
As for graphical pictures showing how something works - it depends.
The entire collection of patents (except the X series that burned) are available in image format to the examiners.
You need the bad patents in there as a way to say "Hey! Here are examples of why you can't have a patent!"
I'm not sure how you define a "bad patent" - that is not an invitation to explain - but regardless, this is an absurdly bad idea. As an alternative, investigate what an SIR is at MPEP 1111
Just my $0.02 worth.
Is there a rebate?
Other responses suggest your whole post is plagarized. If so, I imagine it was -extremely- relavant 15 years ago. I really wish Slashdot had a "What Made You Think You Were Qualified To Post?" moderation.
I agree with everything but the conclusion.
In a common cultural experience, the man in porn is perceived like a hero; the woman like a skank. It's completely external to the porn itself. I guess you could say similar things about an Anglo-Saxon heritage film - it would have a vastly different reception in Detroit or Watts than in Oslo or Moscow. You could run that film over and over in Watts, proclaiming, "How is this possibly condescending?" You'd never change its perception in the audience.
So where are the women degraded? In the perception of very nearly every man who watches. I'd never deny a feminist her rant, but I do question the wisdom should she win this argument...
Meh. You posted it. I've long since given up on the moderation system.
My point is still valid. Pick any country and you will find people who are shockingly rich and those who are shockingly poor.
My point, made through satire, is that this is the most uninteresting sentiment I've seen moderated as "Insightful" in a long, long time. And as far as Slashdot moderation goes, that's saying a hell of a lot.
I need help, you say. Hm. You're the guy who's posting a whole string of thoughtful comments to point out that some people are rich and some people are poor. WOAH. It just hit me. YOU'RE RIGHT. Man, forgive me. The sheer brilliance of this new, unprecedented concept has just made its impression felt. I totally retract all my satire and sarcasm. You, sir, deserve a drink on the house.
See sig.
No, we Americans have zero billionaires. I think that pretty much refutes your entire point quite nicely, doesn't it? Yes, hm, well maybe you should stick to the facts, sir, and leave all these crazy hypothetical angles where they belong - in the hearts and minds of naive little children who still dare to dream of a world where America has billionaires.
Oh look, you were modded "Insightful". You're probably a European. Well, aren't there shoes in your country? I'm sure some people have lots of shoes. And we all know that you can't judge a person until you walk a mile in his shoes - unaccredited anecdotes are the ace of trump in the suite of proof in this game of debates. Therefore who are you to judge these mythical, fantasy beings (who don't really exist) called American billionaires? You haven't even worn all the shoes in Europe, let alone make-believe sandals of fictional American billionaires. I rest my case! I SAY GOOD DAY SIR.
I also got to play Phillips CD-based home entertainment/video game console that had IR (or RF?) wireless controllers with PS dual-shock style controllers (without the force feedback) and Atari-style dozens of buttons. The only game I distinctly recall was Siphon Filter.. and this was before the Playstation was released. I thought it was awesome, but it was an awkward gaming system. The lag in the controllers was low enough for TV menus or strategy and puzzle games, but too slow for action games.