Besides the people behind this case, the case itself is quite interesting too.
The European Commission (or Court of Justice) will have to decide if IBM has harmed TurboHercules through anti-competitive behaviour. IBM has also asserted patents. This means that if the European institutions find that IBM is doing wrong, then they will also have to decide if IBM can use its patents to continue the wrong. I.e. what trumps? Competition law or patents?
Patents should only be enforceable if official versions are available to product developers in a language of the developer's country.
Machine translations will not be considered official, so product developers will have to avoid infringing the original (official) patent which is in some other language. If machine translations are truly there for information purposes only, then that's harmless, but in all proposals so far, machine translations have been proposed because foreign language patents will become enforceable in the target country.
If you infringe a patent, you've broken the law. If the patent was in some foreign language, you are now being held responsible by your country for doing breaking a law which was written in a foreign language. That situation is completely unacceptable.
This goes for all types of patents, but the problem is particularly acute for software patents because software is often developed by individuals and organisations with little funding, so expecting developers (mass producers) of software to hire translators is more absurd than having the same expectation of mass producers of pharmaceuticals or cars (which are always medium-to-large companies).
"Zero-day" attacks are when the application developers had no awareness of the problem before the information got to people who might exploit the problem.
TFA says Cannon gave Google prior warning, so this isn't zero-day, right?
> The kind of language used in these dispatches is extremely frank.
Thanks for this appraisal of leaks you haven't seen.
So, we should let war crimes be hidden because we don't want to hurt Prime Minister Clown's feelings (within his lifetime) by letting him know that idiot Bush thought he was a moron?
Dude, get over the petty squabbling, there are massacres and other human rights violations going on.
There was also a study (2004?) which showed that getting patents makes you more likely to be the target of patent litigation, and there's a guy in FFII who published a computer science paper only to find that someone else patented an extension of his work a few years later.
In a domain where all the practitioners are big companies (pharma, car manufacturing), this isn't a big problem because all the practitioners have the resources (time, manpower, cash) to contest this sort of abuse. In software where many practitioners are unpaid individuals, hobbyists, and employees whose pay is for something other than directly writing software, the checks and balances don't work.
On the software patent problems (or patents "in the Digital Environment"), it seems most or maybe all have been fixed (provided the the signatory uses the Section II option of excluding patents from that section) but a thorough reading is still needed:
Novell's 8-K filing says that Microsoft's "CNPT" bought 882 patents.
* What important patents did Novell have? * What happens now to Novell's contribution to OIN?
Novell contributed some big patent sets to OIN, like the Commerce One e-commerce patents. What's their status now? Did Novell "give/transfer" them to OIN, or did OIN just have a transferable assurance of access to these patents via Novell?
Novell also announced it has entered into a definitive agreement for the concurrent sale of certain intellectual property assets to CPTN Holdings LLC, a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft Corporation
With Novell owning Mono, the free software community will have to watch this.
It's unlikely that MS will have acquired the copyrights for Mono. It serves them better to have a "third-party" implementation which they can show to the competition authorities and standards groups.
Software patents are one of the biggest threats. Writing a website is writing software, and having a website today is essential for many parts of our democracy. Campaigns on issues or for candidates need websites. Further, writing software is an important freedom in itself, like the freedom to write a book. Most people will never do either, but we all benefit from the small percentage of people who do.
Writing functional software often means reading and writing common data formats, so a patent on a format turns into a veto on others being able to write functional software in that domain.
(In reality, political candidates will never get threatened by patent owners - the patent owners don't want the politicians to feel first-hand how much of a problem it is.)
Berners-Lee makes a quick reference to it in TFA:
Openness also means you can build your own Web site or company without anyone's approval. When the Web began, I did not have to obtain permission or pay royalties to use the Internet's own open standards, such as the well-known transmission control protocol (TCP) and Internet protocol (IP). Similarly, the Web Consortium's royalty-free patent policy says that the companies, universities and individuals who contribute to the development of a standard must agree they will not charge royalties to anyone who may use the standard.
Great, so instead of x-raying or groping travellers, maybe TSA can subtly take a few snaps up the leg of people's trousers and down the top of your t-shirt:-)
The relation is that this discovery represents progress, and there was a prize on offer rather than a monopoly, and the discovery happened. That's an example of how a prize is sufficient.
As for small and large companies, with patents, the latter win. The wiki page explains why. With prizes, everyone can compete.
As for the patentability of substances: medicines are substances, and they get patented. Graphene could either be patented in the same way, or the process of making/purifying it could be patented.
The discoverer of Graphene also didn't say that getting a patent would be a problem. He said that asserting his patent against the megacorps would be impossible and would just waste decades and a lot of money.
> how much money Patents cost the Government? It costs them nothing
Really? Can you point me to where I can find this? (If it's in that book, which chapter?)
I've been looking for this info for a while, but I need something to back it up.
The USPTO is always talking about needing their budget expanded. Aren't they talking about a budget given to them by the federal govt? The societal costs are certainly larger than the financial costs (if any) to the government, but I'd like to get all the numbers.
Inventing graphene gets you nothing, but inventing applications for it will make you rich.
Really a prizes system seems to be worth trying as a replacement for the patent system in some fields. How many millions does the patent system cost our governments? What if there were multi-million dollar prizes up for grabs, and freedom to operate for everyone, instead of monopolies?
(Yeh, the lawyers won't help us lobby for this change...)
Besides phones being a growth market, this problem is aggravated by the fact that a bunch of big hardware companies are suddenly in the same market as a bunch of big software companies. Unlike their usual competitors, these buy guys don't yet have patent non-aggression pacts, so they just go to war instead.
I've made a section to document this. Either we should explain that the journalists are all wrong, or maybe we'll find that the court documents somehow avoid mentioning the object of the dispute (I know, that sounds unlikely).
Slashdot Mirror
Besides the people behind this case, the case itself is quite interesting too.
The European Commission (or Court of Justice) will have to decide if IBM has harmed TurboHercules through anti-competitive behaviour. IBM has also asserted patents. This means that if the European institutions find that IBM is doing wrong, then they will also have to decide if IBM can use its patents to continue the wrong. I.e. what trumps? Competition law or patents?
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/IBM_and_TurboHercules,_2010
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Competition_law_defence
If competition law trumps, then this opens a new path for breaking down the problems that software patents are doing to standards and interop.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Harm_to_standards_and_compatibility
Patents should only be enforceable if official versions are available to product developers in a language of the developer's country.
Machine translations will not be considered official, so product developers will have to avoid infringing the original (official) patent which is in some other language. If machine translations are truly there for information purposes only, then that's harmless, but in all proposals so far, machine translations have been proposed because foreign language patents will become enforceable in the target country.
If you infringe a patent, you've broken the law. If the patent was in some foreign language, you are now being held responsible by your country for doing breaking a law which was written in a foreign language. That situation is completely unacceptable.
The state of machine translation:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Machine_translation_of_patents
This goes for all types of patents, but the problem is particularly acute for software patents because software is often developed by individuals and organisations with little funding, so expecting developers (mass producers) of software to hire translators is more absurd than having the same expectation of mass producers of pharmaceuticals or cars (which are always medium-to-large companies).
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Why_software_is_different
"Zero-day" attacks are when the application developers had no awareness of the problem before the information got to people who might exploit the problem.
TFA says Cannon gave Google prior warning, so this isn't zero-day, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-day_attack
I think news agencies just stick "zero-day" to all virus/bug news because it sounds scary.
> The kind of language used in these dispatches is extremely frank.
Thanks for this appraisal of leaks you haven't seen.
So, we should let war crimes be hidden because we don't want to hurt Prime Minister Clown's feelings (within his lifetime) by letting him know that idiot Bush thought he was a moron?
Dude, get over the petty squabbling, there are massacres and other human rights violations going on.
> Stephen fry also uses the iphone and loves it
Yup. He loses a some RMS points for that. It's still cool that he made a birthday video for GNU.
Stephen Fry also did a video for the GNU project's 25th birthday:
http://www.gnu.org/fry/ "Freedom Fry"
There was also a study (2004?) which showed that getting patents makes you more likely to be the target of patent litigation, and there's a guy in FFII who published a computer science paper only to find that someone else patented an extension of his work a few years later.
The links and descriptions are at the below link, but it's down briefly for maintenance:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Publishing_information_is_made_dangerous
In a domain where all the practitioners are big companies (pharma, car manufacturing), this isn't a big problem because all the practitioners have the resources (time, manpower, cash) to contest this sort of abuse. In software where many practitioners are unpaid individuals, hobbyists, and employees whose pay is for something other than directly writing software, the checks and balances don't work.
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Publishing_information_is_made_dangerous
Background info:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement_overview
On the software patent problems (or patents "in the Digital Environment"), it seems most or maybe all have been fixed (provided the the signatory uses the Section II option of excluding patents from that section) but a thorough reading is still needed:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/ACTA_and_software_patents
And TSA x-rays are just to reduce the number of people who have to be submitted to TSA groping.
If you've any specifics, it would be great to have them on the Novell wiki page.
Any patents that have already been used in litigation, to take something off the market, or to squeeze a developer for licence fees?
Or even just an article or link discussing/mentioning these network patents would be good to have.
Novell's 8-K filing says that Microsoft's "CNPT" bought 882 patents.
* What important patents did Novell have?
* What happens now to Novell's contribution to OIN?
Novell contributed some big patent sets to OIN, like the Commerce One e-commerce patents. What's their status now? Did Novell "give/transfer" them to OIN, or did OIN just have a transferable assurance of access to these patents via Novell?
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CPTN_Holdings_LLC
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Novell
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Network
What patents did Novell have that are worth US$450 and a first-paragraph mention in a buy-out press release?
Novell was a major contributor of patents to the OIN patent pool.
(Mono probably isn't the main worry - it was Microsoft's patents that were posing a threat there, not Novell's.
From the first paragraph of the press release:
With Novell owning Mono, the free software community will have to watch this.
What patents did Novell have in that area?
It's unlikely that MS will have acquired the copyrights for Mono. It serves them better to have a "third-party" implementation which they can show to the competition authorities and standards groups.
Software patents are one of the biggest threats. Writing a website is writing software, and having a website today is essential for many parts of our democracy. Campaigns on issues or for candidates need websites. Further, writing software is an important freedom in itself, like the freedom to write a book. Most people will never do either, but we all benefit from the small percentage of people who do.
Writing functional software often means reading and writing common data formats, so a patent on a format turns into a veto on others being able to write functional software in that domain.
(In reality, political candidates will never get threatened by patent owners - the patent owners don't want the politicians to feel first-hand how much of a problem it is.)
Berners-Lee makes a quick reference to it in TFA:
If you think you're a fair person, being on a jury is not a bad thing.
Even better, being a fully informed member of a jury
http://fija.org/ --(Fully Informed Jury Association)
Great, so instead of x-raying or groping travellers, maybe TSA can subtly take a few snaps up the leg of people's trousers and down the top of your t-shirt :-)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-now-putting-hands-down-fliers-pants.html
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/tsa-investigating-passenger/
Thanks! for the link and the quote. I've added them to the wiki here:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_patent_system_to_governments
(Thanks for correcting my invent/discover slip.)
The relation is that this discovery represents progress, and there was a prize on offer rather than a monopoly, and the discovery happened. That's an example of how a prize is sufficient.
As for small and large companies, with patents, the latter win. The wiki page explains why. With prizes, everyone can compete.
As for the patentability of substances: medicines are substances, and they get patented. Graphene could either be patented in the same way, or the process of making/purifying it could be patented.
The discoverer of Graphene also didn't say that getting a patent would be a problem. He said that asserting his patent against the megacorps would be impossible and would just waste decades and a lot of money.
> how much money Patents cost the Government? It costs them nothing
Really? Can you point me to where I can find this? (If it's in that book, which chapter?)
I've been looking for this info for a while, but I need something to back it up.
The USPTO is always talking about needing their budget expanded. Aren't they talking about a budget given to them by the federal govt? The societal costs are certainly larger than the financial costs (if any) to the government, but I'd like to get all the numbers.
The graphene story is an excellent case study for innovation policy
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Inequality_between_small_and_large_patent_holders#Small_patent_holders_have_a_weak_negotiating_position
Inventing graphene gets you nothing, but inventing applications for it will make you rich.
Really a prizes system seems to be worth trying as a replacement for the patent system in some fields. How many millions does the patent system cost our governments? What if there were multi-million dollar prizes up for grabs, and freedom to operate for everyone, instead of monopolies?
(Yeh, the lawyers won't help us lobby for this change...)
Here's some background on this and other phone cases:
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._Motorola_(2010,_USA)
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Phone_patent_litigation
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_non-aggression_pacts
Besides phones being a growth market, this problem is aggravated by the fact that a bunch of big hardware companies are suddenly in the same market as a bunch of big software companies. Unlike their usual competitors, these buy guys don't yet have patent non-aggression pacts, so they just go to war instead.
My initial reading agrees with you.
I've made a section to document this. Either we should explain that the journalists are all wrong, or maybe we'll find that the court documents somehow avoid mentioning the object of the dispute (I know, that sounds unlikely).
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Oracle_v._SAP_(2010,_USA)#Help:_Is_it_about_patents.3F
Hmm, that's very strange. I'm reading it now...
Meanwhile, after a twelve year fight in the courts, Amazon is about to get its 1-click shopping patent granted in Canada:
http://news.swpat.org/2010/11/canada-1-click-patentable/
Background:
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Amazon_v._Commissioner_for_Patents_(2010,_Canada)
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Amazon's_one-click_shopping_patent
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Amazon