Filing a patent application does not mean that you have "patented" something. The link in the summary takes you to a patent application publication. Patent applications typically publish 18 months after they are filed (or in this case, 18 months after the earliest application to which priority is claimed). With USPTO backlogs, it will probably be 5-7 years before anyone at the USPTO even looks at this application and "patents" this invention.
Autopilot systems that can take off and land large commercial aircraft already exist and are commonly used (they are called "CAT III" autopilots). If a pilot is feeling lazy, all he or she must do is program the flight computer and taxi the aircraft to the runway -- the aircraft will take off, fly, and land at the desired destination without any input from the pilot.
This new system seems to be a way of locking-in the autopilot function so terrorists cannot manually fly the plane after the pilot triggers an alarm. Seems like a good idea to me.
Make there be a sizeable penalty for submitting patents that gets rejected.
The reason your idea would not work is that there is no duty to conduct a comprehensive search for a prior art before filing a patent application. The reason that there is no such duty is that a full search of every printed publication that is in existence would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Under Federal Rules (37 CFR 1.56), patent applicants are required to submit material art that they are aware of, and patent applicants commonly submit dozens of prior art references for consideration by the USPTO. If an applicant (or its attorneys) violate Rule 56, the patent can be invalidated for inequitable conduct.
Additionally, due to the billions of prior art references that exist, invalid patents are often granted without any fault whatsoever by anyone. Should my client in Arkansas be punished (for a sizable penalty as you suggest) for not being aware of a 1990 paper (written in Greek) that is only accessible by manually flipping through a card catalog in Athens? The 1990 Greek paper, indexed only in a physical card catalog in Athens, would be prior art that could invalidate my client's patent, why should he (or I) be punished for not finding it?
If a guy sells his car while drunk for a small amount of money, or gambles it away while drunk, it's his fault entirely not the buyers.
Actually, in the U.S. at least, if the buyer knows the guy selling the car is drunk, and takes advantage of him, many courts would find the contract to be void.
If you are so bothered by having someone represent you for free, you should just opt out of the class action settlement and file suit yourself. In everyone one of these class action settlements, all known class members will receive a letter from the court informing them of the settlement and of how to opt out (you just need to send a letter to the court). I'm sure most people receive several of these every year and just throw them out because they haven't been harmed enough to care.
As for the "kids of Iowa", the Iowa AG should file suit against Microsoft to recover money for the kids, that way greedy plaintiff's lawyers can't get any of it. If the Iowa AG doesn't want to do this, your problem is with him (and Microsoft of course)
All inventors listed in a U.S. application must sign an oath stating that he believes himself to be the first and original inventor. I've signed several of these for my applications and they are typically part of a power of attorney or assignment (I'm sure your company made you assign the application to them). You probably don't remember what you signed because the oath isn't conspicuous (its typically a paragraph added into a document that includes dozens of other paragraphs).
The Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. 115, expressly requires that every "applicant shall make an oath that he believes himself to be the original and first inventor of the process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or improvement thereof, for which he solicits a patent; and shall state of what country he is a citizen." The Patent Office wont even review an application until you submit the oath.
As a follow up to my own post, inventor oaths are typically made under penalty of perjury, so that if an inventor knowingly signs a false declaration, the inventor may be punished by fine and/or imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. 1001.
Each inventor listed in a U.S. patent application has to sign an oath (declaration) that states that he believes that he is the first to invent what is claimed in the patent application. So you are correct in that these Microsoft inventors were either: (1) lazy (didn't read the patent application); (2) lying (knew of BlueJ and didn't care); or (3) incompetent (didn't know what BlueJ was).
Anyone know how much work is involved in checking up if those claims are valid or not?
Typically tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars in attorney fees for the patent owner and hundreds of man hours for some of the most experienced patent examiners at the USPTO. A reexamination is a complex legal proceeding that involves a lot more than a checklist. Reexaminations can easily last 10-15 years, so this decision doesn't really mean anything yet.
A good example is the patent from the Blackberry (NTP v. RIM) suit. RIM settled for over $600 million dollars but NTP's patent is still in reexamination (as it has been for several years now). NTP is even threatening others (Palm) with the patent while it is in rexam.
The benefit to public when the USPTO grants a reexamination is that courts will often stay (put on hold) a patent infringement suit until the reexamination is concluded.
You are exactly correct, but don't forget about patent trolls. Small company X can't sue IBM for patent infringement because Intel will counterclaim and destroy company X. So company X sells its patents to a patent troll and the troll then sues Intel. Because the troll produces no products, it is immune from Intel's counterclaims. Of course, everyone on/. would complain about the troll and say how unfair patents are, but company X (the small guy) still benefits from selling its patent to the troll.
Based on the above, I hope everyone can see why the large companies want "patent reform" to prevent trolls (those who do not make any products) from suing, because if trolls do not exist, large companies will be immune from patent suits by small companies.
Goldman Sachs' CEO received a $53 million dollar bonus because the company met some arbitrary performance standards and not because the CEO's great grandfather may have been great. The wage disparity between corporate management and the under classes is what is fueling the overall wage disparity in the U.S.A. and not inherited wealth. I can guaratenee you that most corporate management in the U.S. is not "old money." Take a look at the recent Forbes richest list and you will see that few super-rich Americans (with the exception of the Waltons) inherited their wealth. If anything, the American monarchy of "old" money has collapsed over the last few decades as new markets and technologies have emerged.
Company applies for patent, patent judge receives comments from university departments focused on that type of technology, judge reviews comments to verify if this is a revolutionary new idea worth granting a patent to or not.
I agree that better examination is required, even perhaps by peer review. However, patents (in any nation at any time) have never been reserved for "revolutionary" inventions (novel and non-obvious is the U.S. standard). The reason for this is simple -- it is often impossible for even the most skilled artisan to tell if an invention is revolutionary until years after it is patented (Eli Whitney's cotton gin being a good example). The importance of an invention is subjective while the novelty and non-obviousness of the invention are not.
Tinker around on Google Patent Search for patents issued in the 19th century and you will see that few are them are for revolutionary inventions.
What we need, as part of patent reform, is the ability to call BS on a patent during these lawsuits, which puts the infringement claim on hold until the patent itself is reviewed and debated over. Start a seperate court case to review the patent, with both parties able to produce evidence and expert testimony about the technology in question. If the patent is ruled bogus, then it should be invalidated on the spot and the infringement suit dropped.
The U.S. Patent Office has such a procedure -- its called "reexamination." "Inter parties" reexamination allows two parties (the patentee and an accused infringer) to "reexamine" a patent before the USPTO in view of new prior art. If the USPTO agrees with the accused infringer, it can invalidate the patent. Lawsuits regarding patents in reexamination are commonly stayed (i.e. put on hold) until the reexamination terminates.
Reexams often result in dubious patents being invalidated. The reason you do not read about them more often on/. is that the purported prior art is often grossly exaggerated by the accused infringer (as in the RIM/NTP patent case), so there may not actually be sufficient grounds to invalidate the patent.
a photo does exist
on
UFOs In the News
·
· Score: 2, Informative
According to MSNBC, someone (i.e. a pilot) did take a picture of the object (or cloud) with a cell phone camera but is afraid to release the photo to the public out of fear that he will lose his job.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/01/02/ 25212.aspx
back in the Viking times... why else do you think they called it Greenland then???
The Vikings (Erik the Red) called it Greenland to encourage immigrants to move there. Although some contend "Greenland" comes from a bad translation of Gruntland ("Ground-land"). See Wikipedia.
Wikipedia(as always) has a good article on the technology. It looks like the write time is currently about 5ns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_memory
What is really interesting is that the technology is generally temperature based.
That, and laziness: if I can invent a cotton gin so I don't have to spend hours and hours picking seeds out of cotton by hand, what do I care if I don't have a patent on it?
Eli Whitney, and the U.S Congress certainly cared. Although Whitney was able to patent his cotton gin, the U.S. patent laws at the time (under the first Patent Act of 1790) were so weak he was unable to enforce his patent and nearly went bankrupt. Whitney himself sold few cotton gins as large manufacturers could undercut his prices due to their established distribution chains. The next two patent acts (1810 and 1836) were drafted with Whitney's story in mind and provided greater protection for inventors (Abraham Lincoln's famous "patents are the fuel for the fire of innovation" quote was referring to the 1836 act).
So, out of all the examples you could pick as to why patents don't matter, Whitney's cotton gin isn't one of them (it is probably the worst possible example).
I agree that this examiner is awful. The face of the patent lists all the prior art that he considered. In this case the examiner only found 13 issued patents that were relevant to the claimed invention. Importantly, the examiner did not search for or locate any non-patent prior art (such as the dozens of examples posted on this thread). This is a hallmark of crappy patent examination.
Even more astounding, this application was allowed after only one rejection by the USPTO, which means LSI didn't really even have to argue about the prior art (software applications are typically rejected at least two times).
Although this is certainly a big victory for CSIRO, the battle over this patent is far from over. Almost all "big" patent suits are appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is the appellate court that has jurisdiction over patent appeals. The Federal Circuit reverses district court decisions (like the decision mentioned in the story) about 60% of the time. It also takes several years to move through the appellate process, which means it will be quite some time before Buffalo pays a cent to CSIRO.
I would think a bullet-proof definition of software patents is needed before they can be forbidden.
Well put. Processes (and methods) have always been patentable in the U.S (see 35 U.S.C. 101). A good example is Charles Goodyear's 1844 patent on his vulcanization process, which recites a series of steps for making rubber. Today's pioneering processes (nanotechnology, biotech, etc.) all rely to some extent on computer-controlled processes (and thus computer programs), which would be excluded from patenting (due to their use of software) by most slashdotters.
Nearly 86% of respondents said they were able to stay away from the internet for several days and 88% admitted that they rarely stay online longer than expected. More than 92% of those surveyed said they do not hide internet use from family, friends and employers, and the same percentage said they do not go online to flee from real-world problems. Approximately 94% also said their personal relationships do not suffer as a result of excessive internet usage. 'Potential markers of beneficial internet use are present in a sizeable portion of the population,' the researchers note."
In 1990, Nintendto held "tournaments" in various cities (including many in the U.S.). Players played SMB, Tetris, and Rad Racer for timed periods, and players won or lost based on the number of points they accumulated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_World_Champi onship for more information
I participated in one of the 1990 tournaments and was successful enough in the lower rounds to get to play on the "big" stage which was modeled after the one used in the Wizard. It was great fun for a 10 year old.
One idea that seems easy but I've never seen pursued is for the law to be changed to treat a failure to cite prior art as perjury. Then, should a successful prior art case be prosecuted against a patent, the applicant would be subject to fines or even imprisonment.
The reason your idea would not work is that there is no duty to conduct a comprehensive search for a prior art before filing a patent application. The reason that there is no such duty is that a full search of every printed publication that is in existence would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Under Federal Rules (37 CFR 1.56), patent applicants are required to submit material art that they are aware of, and patent applicants commonly submit dozens of prior art references for consideration by the USPTO. If an applicant (or its attorneys) violate Rule 56, the patent can be invalidated for inequitable conduct.
Additionally, due to the billions of prior art references that exist, invalid patents are often granted without any fault whatsoever by anyone. Should my client in Arkansas be punished (for perjury as you suggest) for not being aware of a 1990 paper (written in Greek) that is only accessible by manually flipping through a card catalog in Athens? The 1990 Greek paper, indexed only in a physical card catalog in Athens, would be prior art that could invalidate my client's patent, why should he (or I) be punished for not finding it?
definition: "Should" - a work that should never be allowed in describing a patent.
Agreed, but its only the submitter who used the word "should" in relation to the benefit of the disclosed technology. The actual application is very clear that the technology produces a layered DVD and only uses the word should once:
"It should be understood that the discs in the drawings have been simplified for the sake of clarity and that various layers, including glue and resin layers well known to those skilled in the art have been omitted. "
Patent attorneys rarely use "should" in applications because an invention which only has a prophetic utility does not satisfy the utility requirement of 35 U.S.C. 101.
Slashdot Mirror
Filing a patent application does not mean that you have "patented" something. The link in the summary takes you to a patent application publication. Patent applications typically publish 18 months after they are filed (or in this case, 18 months after the earliest application to which priority is claimed). With USPTO backlogs, it will probably be 5-7 years before anyone at the USPTO even looks at this application and "patents" this invention.
Autopilot systems that can take off and land large commercial aircraft already exist and are commonly used (they are called "CAT III" autopilots). If a pilot is feeling lazy, all he or she must do is program the flight computer and taxi the aircraft to the runway -- the aircraft will take off, fly, and land at the desired destination without any input from the pilot.
This new system seems to be a way of locking-in the autopilot function so terrorists cannot manually fly the plane after the pilot triggers an alarm. Seems like a good idea to me.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot as always.
The reason your idea would not work is that there is no duty to conduct a comprehensive search for a prior art before filing a patent application. The reason that there is no such duty is that a full search of every printed publication that is in existence would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Under Federal Rules (37 CFR 1.56), patent applicants are required to submit material art that they are aware of, and patent applicants commonly submit dozens of prior art references for consideration by the USPTO. If an applicant (or its attorneys) violate Rule 56, the patent can be invalidated for inequitable conduct.
Additionally, due to the billions of prior art references that exist, invalid patents are often granted without any fault whatsoever by anyone. Should my client in Arkansas be punished (for a sizable penalty as you suggest) for not being aware of a 1990 paper (written in Greek) that is only accessible by manually flipping through a card catalog in Athens? The 1990 Greek paper, indexed only in a physical card catalog in Athens, would be prior art that could invalidate my client's patent, why should he (or I) be punished for not finding it?
Actually, in the U.S. at least, if the buyer knows the guy selling the car is drunk, and takes advantage of him, many courts would find the contract to be void.
If you are so bothered by having someone represent you for free, you should just opt out of the class action settlement and file suit yourself. In everyone one of these class action settlements, all known class members will receive a letter from the court informing them of the settlement and of how to opt out (you just need to send a letter to the court). I'm sure most people receive several of these every year and just throw them out because they haven't been harmed enough to care.
As for the "kids of Iowa", the Iowa AG should file suit against Microsoft to recover money for the kids, that way greedy plaintiff's lawyers can't get any of it. If the Iowa AG doesn't want to do this, your problem is with him (and Microsoft of course)
All inventors listed in a U.S. application must sign an oath stating that he believes himself to be the first and original inventor. I've signed several of these for my applications and they are typically part of a power of attorney or assignment (I'm sure your company made you assign the application to them). You probably don't remember what you signed because the oath isn't conspicuous (its typically a paragraph added into a document that includes dozens of other paragraphs).
The Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. 115, expressly requires that every "applicant shall make an oath that he believes himself to be the original and first inventor of the process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or improvement thereof, for which he solicits a patent; and shall state of what country he is a citizen." The Patent Office wont even review an application until you submit the oath.
As a follow up to my own post, inventor oaths are typically made under penalty of perjury, so that if an inventor knowingly signs a false declaration, the inventor may be punished by fine and/or imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. 1001.
Each inventor listed in a U.S. patent application has to sign an oath (declaration) that states that he believes that he is the first to invent what is claimed in the patent application. So you are correct in that these Microsoft inventors were either: (1) lazy (didn't read the patent application); (2) lying (knew of BlueJ and didn't care); or (3) incompetent (didn't know what BlueJ was).
Typically tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars in attorney fees for the patent owner and hundreds of man hours for some of the most experienced patent examiners at the USPTO. A reexamination is a complex legal proceeding that involves a lot more than a checklist. Reexaminations can easily last 10-15 years, so this decision doesn't really mean anything yet.
A good example is the patent from the Blackberry (NTP v. RIM) suit. RIM settled for over $600 million dollars but NTP's patent is still in reexamination (as it has been for several years now). NTP is even threatening others (Palm) with the patent while it is in rexam.
The benefit to public when the USPTO grants a reexamination is that courts will often stay (put on hold) a patent infringement suit until the reexamination is concluded.
You are exactly correct, but don't forget about patent trolls. Small company X can't sue IBM for patent infringement because Intel will counterclaim and destroy company X. So company X sells its patents to a patent troll and the troll then sues Intel. Because the troll produces no products, it is immune from Intel's counterclaims. Of course, everyone on /. would complain about the troll and say how unfair patents are, but company X (the small guy) still benefits from selling its patent to the troll.
Based on the above, I hope everyone can see why the large companies want "patent reform" to prevent trolls (those who do not make any products) from suing, because if trolls do not exist, large companies will be immune from patent suits by small companies.
Goldman Sachs' CEO received a $53 million dollar bonus because the company met some arbitrary performance standards and not because the CEO's great grandfather may have been great. The wage disparity between corporate management and the under classes is what is fueling the overall wage disparity in the U.S.A. and not inherited wealth. I can guaratenee you that most corporate management in the U.S. is not "old money." Take a look at the recent Forbes richest list and you will see that few super-rich Americans (with the exception of the Waltons) inherited their wealth. If anything, the American monarchy of "old" money has collapsed over the last few decades as new markets and technologies have emerged.
I agree that better examination is required, even perhaps by peer review. However, patents (in any nation at any time) have never been reserved for "revolutionary" inventions (novel and non-obvious is the U.S. standard). The reason for this is simple -- it is often impossible for even the most skilled artisan to tell if an invention is revolutionary until years after it is patented (Eli Whitney's cotton gin being a good example). The importance of an invention is subjective while the novelty and non-obviousness of the invention are not.
Tinker around on Google Patent Search for patents issued in the 19th century and you will see that few are them are for revolutionary inventions.
The U.S. Patent Office has such a procedure -- its called "reexamination." "Inter parties" reexamination allows two parties (the patentee and an accused infringer) to "reexamine" a patent before the USPTO in view of new prior art. If the USPTO agrees with the accused infringer, it can invalidate the patent. Lawsuits regarding patents in reexamination are commonly stayed (i.e. put on hold) until the reexamination terminates.
Reexams often result in dubious patents being invalidated. The reason you do not read about them more often on /. is that the purported prior art is often grossly exaggerated by the accused infringer (as in the RIM/NTP patent case), so there may not actually be sufficient grounds to invalidate the patent.
According to MSNBC, someone (i.e. a pilot) did take a picture of the object (or cloud) with a cell phone camera but is afraid to release the photo to the public out of fear that he will lose his job. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/01/02/ 25212.aspx
The Vikings (Erik the Red) called it Greenland to encourage immigrants to move there. Although some contend "Greenland" comes from a bad translation of Gruntland ("Ground-land"). See Wikipedia.
Wikipedia(as always) has a good article on the technology. It looks like the write time is currently about 5ns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_memory What is really interesting is that the technology is generally temperature based.
Eli Whitney, and the U.S Congress certainly cared. Although Whitney was able to patent his cotton gin, the U.S. patent laws at the time (under the first Patent Act of 1790) were so weak he was unable to enforce his patent and nearly went bankrupt. Whitney himself sold few cotton gins as large manufacturers could undercut his prices due to their established distribution chains. The next two patent acts (1810 and 1836) were drafted with Whitney's story in mind and provided greater protection for inventors (Abraham Lincoln's famous "patents are the fuel for the fire of innovation" quote was referring to the 1836 act).
So, out of all the examples you could pick as to why patents don't matter, Whitney's cotton gin isn't one of them (it is probably the worst possible example).
I agree that this examiner is awful. The face of the patent lists all the prior art that he considered. In this case the examiner only found 13 issued patents that were relevant to the claimed invention. Importantly, the examiner did not search for or locate any non-patent prior art (such as the dozens of examples posted on this thread). This is a hallmark of crappy patent examination.
Even more astounding, this application was allowed after only one rejection by the USPTO, which means LSI didn't really even have to argue about the prior art (software applications are typically rejected at least two times).
Although this is certainly a big victory for CSIRO, the battle over this patent is far from over. Almost all "big" patent suits are appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is the appellate court that has jurisdiction over patent appeals. The Federal Circuit reverses district court decisions (like the decision mentioned in the story) about 60% of the time. It also takes several years to move through the appellate process, which means it will be quite some time before Buffalo pays a cent to CSIRO.
Well put. Processes (and methods) have always been patentable in the U.S (see 35 U.S.C. 101). A good example is Charles Goodyear's 1844 patent on his vulcanization process, which recites a series of steps for making rubber. Today's pioneering processes (nanotechnology, biotech, etc.) all rely to some extent on computer-controlled processes (and thus computer programs), which would be excluded from patenting (due to their use of software) by most slashdotters.
Nearly 86% of respondents said they were able to stay away from the internet for several days and 88% admitted that they rarely stay online longer than expected. More than 92% of those surveyed said they do not hide internet use from family, friends and employers, and the same percentage said they do not go online to flee from real-world problems. Approximately 94% also said their personal relationships do not suffer as a result of excessive internet usage. 'Potential markers of beneficial internet use are present in a sizeable portion of the population,' the researchers note."
In 1990, Nintendto held "tournaments" in various cities (including many in the U.S.). Players played SMB, Tetris, and Rad Racer for timed periods, and players won or lost based on the number of points they accumulated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_World_Champi onship for more information
I participated in one of the 1990 tournaments and was successful enough in the lower rounds to get to play on the "big" stage which was modeled after the one used in the Wizard. It was great fun for a 10 year old.
The reason your idea would not work is that there is no duty to conduct a comprehensive search for a prior art before filing a patent application. The reason that there is no such duty is that a full search of every printed publication that is in existence would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Under Federal Rules (37 CFR 1.56), patent applicants are required to submit material art that they are aware of, and patent applicants commonly submit dozens of prior art references for consideration by the USPTO. If an applicant (or its attorneys) violate Rule 56, the patent can be invalidated for inequitable conduct.
Additionally, due to the billions of prior art references that exist, invalid patents are often granted without any fault whatsoever by anyone. Should my client in Arkansas be punished (for perjury as you suggest) for not being aware of a 1990 paper (written in Greek) that is only accessible by manually flipping through a card catalog in Athens? The 1990 Greek paper, indexed only in a physical card catalog in Athens, would be prior art that could invalidate my client's patent, why should he (or I) be punished for not finding it?
Agreed, but its only the submitter who used the word "should" in relation to the benefit of the disclosed technology. The actual application is very clear that the technology produces a layered DVD and only uses the word should once:
"It should be understood that the discs in the drawings have been simplified for the sake of clarity and that various layers, including glue and resin layers well known to those skilled in the art have been omitted. "
Patent attorneys rarely use "should" in applications because an invention which only has a prophetic utility does not satisfy the utility requirement of 35 U.S.C. 101.