Patent Reform Town Hall Meeting (Balt/Washington Area IEEE C

[Rick]

On Oct 26, 7:13 am, "rupertlssm...@googlemail.com"
<rupertlssm...@googlemail.com> wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15461732

Completely barmy. There is definitely something very, very wrong with
software patents.

Rupert

One of the requirement for a US patent are ~not being obvious to
someone versed in the art.

I am hugely biased. The existence/invention of the mouse at PARC and
devices like touch pads and drawing pads pretty much means just about
anything done since is pretty obvious to the point of being
derivative.

*BUT* this kind of stuff has been going on for years. A specific
example would be Atari patented using 4 bits to map an 8 position
joystick for the 2600 VCS. Nintendo was smart enough to design their
own system but Atari successfully sued Sega and IIRC won $10s of
millions years after the fact.

Rick

 

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.arch.fpga Thomas Womack <twomack@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

Otherwise the default position is almost necessarily that one does
not do a prior art search prior to filing.

Surely it is prior to *inventing* that you should do the prior art
search, so that you know which patents you could licence instead of
doing the tedious invention. That would be easier if it were
compulsory to licence all patents under reasonable non-discriminatory
terms, and *that* is the direction in which patent reform should go -
mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms.

I suppose for some, like Thomas Edison, that might make sense.

It seems to me more usual that someone has a problem to solve
and searches for solutions to the problem. That could be done
looking through patents, or one might just reinvent something.

Now, the real problem it seems to me is that the PTO isn't
so good at detecting "obvious" inventions. Also, some patents
are unnecessarily broad, covering things that really haven't yet
been invented. For both those reasons, one might find something
already patented when it shouldn't be.

-- glen

 

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.arch.fpga fatalist <simfidude@gmail.com> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

"mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms. "

Whaaaaaat ??????

I would guess that more often it is because one doesn't realize
that something is covered by a patent. Either one doesn't know
at all, or assumes that a known patent doesn't cover the specific case.

One well known infringement case was the Kodak instant camera.

Kodak, in trying to compete with Polaroid, designed a camera
that, I would guess, they believed didn't infringe. It is pretty
hard to believe that they didn't know about Polariod. (Actually,
Kodak made the negative material used by Polaroid, so they pretty
much definitely knew.) Polariod sued and, eventually, Kodak lost.
(You still see Kodak instant cameras in thrift stores.)

To avoid generating a mirror image, Polaroid cameras reflect the
light off a mirror before it hits the film. Kodak, instead,
designed a system that exposes through the back with the print
visible from the front. I presume they thought that difference
would avoid the Polaroid patent.

On the other hand, cobalt-doped ferric oxide magnetic tape was
specifically developed to avoid the patent on chromium dioxide.
Tape that worked with recorders designed for CrO2 tape could be
made, cheaper and maybe even better. As far as I know, that
was never considered infringing.

-- glen

 

[Eric Jacobsen]

On 26 Oct 2011 17:16:02 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack
<twomack@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

In article <4ea8235d.66344947@www.eternal-september.org>,
Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacobsen@ieee.org> wrote:

This can't be fixed since it is not practical for a small inventor to
do an exhaustive search of existing IP prior to filing, and doing so
would hopelessly contaminate the inventor, anyway.

By which you mean 'would tell the inventor what works and what
doesn't, meaning that he just needs to licence it rather than invent
it'. Six months in the lab can save you an afternoon in the library
and all that.

I can tell you've never tried this. Many patents aren't for anything
useful, or are for such a small niche that one might think it useful
for a particular application when it isn't. This assumes that one
can even sort out what a patent is trying to say, since many, if not
most, are written to be deliberately obscure.

Just because it's patented doesn't mean it works, or even if it works
that it's a good way to do it.

And in many, if not most, cases, there is such a huge number of
patents that will turn up searching for a particular topic, or NOT
turn up when they should, that searches are pretty useless to start
with. IMHO, anyway.

The idea of "willful" rather than inadvertent infringement has legs,
I think, if it can be shown proven that the infringement was
willful.

Otherwise the default position is almost necessarily that one does
not do a prior art search prior to filing.

Surely it is prior to *inventing* that you should do the prior art
search, so that you know which patents you could licence instead of
doing the tedious invention.

As an engineer your job is often to invent, and if you work in a lab
or an IP company your job is to create useful IP. In this case,
there may be a strong incentive to NEVER do patent searches because
you may be "contaminated" by what you read, i.e., unable to avoid
using ideas that you got from reading patents.

You can spend your time trying to solve a problem in an efficient way
with the state-of-the-art components available to you, or you can
spend your time slogging through patents that may or may not be
useful, or even work properly, that were developed with technology
that is probably at least five years old (which is typical time for a
patent to grant from application).

In my experience what you're proposing just doesn't make sense in most
practical environments.

That would be easier if it were
compulsory to licence all patents under reasonable non-discriminatory
terms, and *that* is the direction in which patent reform should go -
mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms.

Tom

I don't know of very many cases like that. In my experience most
infringement cases come from not knowing that the infringing patent
existed, because they can be quite difficult and time consuming to
identify. Just looking at the economics of how the game works patent
searches generally don't make any sense to perform. There is more
risk in doing patent searches, due to contamination, potential for
subsequent "willful" infringement, and just plain wasting time trying
to find something relevant.

Again, just IMHO. Patents are a very strange game, and I don't know
that the "reforms" have made it any better.

Many patent portfolios are defensive, and not intended to be asserted
against anyone.


Eric Jacobsen
Anchor Hill Communications
www.anchorhill.com

 

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.arch.fpga Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacobsen@ieee.org> wrote:

(snip)

I can tell you've never tried this. Many patents aren't for anything
useful, or are for such a small niche that one might think it useful
for a particular application when it isn't. This assumes that one
can even sort out what a patent is trying to say, since many, if not
most, are written to be deliberately obscure.

Just because it's patented doesn't mean it works, or even if it works
that it's a good way to do it.

But it might be patented anyway.

One that I know about is the patent on analysis of mass
spectroscopy for protein sequencing. They patented all
possible algorithms for mass spectrometry sequence analysis,
even ones not yet devised. It should be possible to overturn,
but it will take money from someone who really wants to do it.

-- glen

 

[Steve Pope]

Rick <richardcortese@gmail.com> wrote:

One of the requirement for a US patent are ~not being obvious to
someone versed in the art.

Hah.


Steve

 

[rickman]

On Oct 26, 10:13 am, "rupertlssm...@googlemail.com"
<rupertlssm...@googlemail.com> wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15461732

Completely barmy. There is definitely something very, very wrong with
software patents.

Rupert

I looked at this and I think it is a perfect example of how poor the
patent examination process is. If your primary user interface is a
touch screen and you want to lock the device, how else would you
unlock the device than through a touch screen "gesture"? How bleeding
obvious does the invention have to be to be unpatentable? I guess
Google could claim they aren't using a touch screen gesture but rather
they are presenting the user with a virtual control which the user
operates... and patent that!

Rick

 

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:30:48 -0700 (PDT), "langwadt@fonz.dk"
<langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:

On 26 Okt., 21:39, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
In comp.arch.fpga fatalist <simfid...@gmail.com> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

"mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms. "
Whaaaaaat ??????

I would guess that more often it is because one doesn't realize
that something is covered by a patent. =A0Either one doesn't know
at all, or assumes that a known patent doesn't cover the specific case.


I seem to remember hearing about companies where reading or searching
patents wasn't allowed, I assume as a defence in case they accidently
infringed on some patent

-Lasse

Yup. Not only to prevent accusations of willful infringement, but to
try to maintain some semblance of an intellectual "clean room" for
research and avoid so-called "contamination".


Eric Jacobsen
Anchor Hill Communications
www.anchorhill.com

 

[langwadt@fonz.dk]

On 26 Okt., 21:39, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

In comp.arch.fpga fatalist <simfid...@gmail.com> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

"mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms. "
Whaaaaaat ??????

I would guess that more often it is because one doesn't realize
that something is covered by a patent.  Either one doesn't know
at all, or assumes that a known patent doesn't cover the specific case.

I seem to remember hearing about companies where reading or searching
patents wasn't allowed, I assume as a defence in case they accidently
infringed on some patent

snip

-Lasse

 

[Eric Jacobsen]

On 28 Oct 2011 00:05:31 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack
<twomack@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

In article <j89nlf$smd$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
In comp.arch.fpga fatalist <simfidude@gmail.com> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

"mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms. "

Whaaaaaat ??????

I would guess that more often it is because one doesn't realize
that something is covered by a patent. Either one doesn't know
at all, or assumes that a known patent doesn't cover the specific case.

One well known infringement case was the Kodak instant camera.

Kodak, in trying to compete with Polaroid, designed a camera
that, I would guess, they believed didn't infringe. It is pretty
hard to believe that they didn't know about Polaroid.

What I was suggesting was full-on compulsory licensing: if Kodak want
to do something like that, they are permitted to licence Polaroid's
patent and Polaroid cannot unreasonably refuse them or charge a
licence fee that a judge considers unreasonably high; this will make
their camera a bit more expensive than Polaroid's, but allow them to
compete in the market.

So patents become 'we invented this, so we can use it for free and get
up to five bucks from every phone shipped by everyone else who uses
it', rather than their present legally-enforced full monopoly
position; if you want a monopoly, keep a trade secret.

Tom

The fundamental purpose of a patent is to allow the fruits of research
efforts to belong to those who performed and paid for the research.
What you suggest reduces the value of that by requiring that a license
be provided to whoever comes along and asks for one. That
substantially reduces the value of the patent system as a whole by
preventing the research from being used exclusively by those who
produced it.

One of the beauties of the patent and copyright system is that patents
and copyrights eventually expire, so that world ultimately has equal
access to the fruits of humanity after the producers of the
innovations have been given opportunity and protection to exclusively
reap the benefits for a time. So in my view your proposed scheme
reduces both the incentive to patent things, and, by creating more
incentive to move things to trade secrets instead, potentially removes
them from ultimately becoming accessible to everyone.

For those reasons I think it's a bad idea.


Eric Jacobsen
Anchor Hill Communications
www.anchorhill.com

 

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.dsp langwadt@fonz.dk <langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:

(snip)

I seem to remember hearing about companies where reading or searching
patents wasn't allowed, I assume as a defence in case they accidently
infringed on some patent

As I understand it, that doesn't work. Well, possibly it works
against willful infringment, but consider Kodak claiming that
it didn't know about the Polaroid patent while making negative
material for Polaroid.

I was told some time ago that one might just as well read them.
That it will be assumed that one has anyway.

-- glen

 

[Thomas Womack]

In article <j89nlf$smd$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

In comp.arch.fpga fatalist <simfidude@gmail.com> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

"mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms. "

Whaaaaaat ??????

I would guess that more often it is because one doesn't realize
that something is covered by a patent. Either one doesn't know
at all, or assumes that a known patent doesn't cover the specific case.

One well known infringement case was the Kodak instant camera.

Kodak, in trying to compete with Polaroid, designed a camera
that, I would guess, they believed didn't infringe. It is pretty
hard to believe that they didn't know about Polaroid.

What I was suggesting was full-on compulsory licensing: if Kodak want
to do something like that, they are permitted to licence Polaroid's
patent and Polaroid cannot unreasonably refuse them or charge a
licence fee that a judge considers unreasonably high; this will make
their camera a bit more expensive than Polaroid's, but allow them to
compete in the market.

So patents become 'we invented this, so we can use it for free and get
up to five bucks from every phone shipped by everyone else who uses
it', rather than their present legally-enforced full monopoly
position; if you want a monopoly, keep a trade secret.

Tom

 

[Thomas Womack]

In article <613f5dcd-7fa7-4061-b6c0-6bd778a5cc0b@j20g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,
rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

On Oct 26, 10:13=A0am, "rupertlssm...@googlemail.com"
rupertlssm...@googlemail.com> wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15461732

Completely barmy. There is definitely something very, very wrong with
software patents.

Rupert

I looked at this and I think it is a perfect example of how poor the
patent examination process is. If your primary user interface is a
touch screen and you want to lock the device, how else would you
unlock the device than through a touch screen "gesture"?

By typing a PIN on an on-screen keypad; by sweeping a finger around a
pattern of blobs on-screen. Apple's patent is on the slide-to-unlock
bar; if they've spent a lot of time looking at alternate unlock
mechanisms and determined that slide-to-unlock is in some usability
sense the best, they should get to ask anyone else with
slide-to-unlock for, say, a dollar per device.

Otherwise how do you pay for usability research, where almost by
definition the result will feel intuitively obvious and be used by
every device?

Tom

 

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.arch.fpga Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacobsen@ieee.org> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

What I was suggesting was full-on compulsory licensing: if Kodak want
to do something like that, they are permitted to licence Polaroid's
patent and Polaroid cannot unreasonably refuse them or charge a
licence fee that a judge considers unreasonably high; this will make
their camera a bit more expensive than Polaroid's, but allow them to
compete in the market.

(snip)

The fundamental purpose of a patent is to allow the fruits of research
efforts to belong to those who performed and paid for the research.
What you suggest reduces the value of that by requiring that a license
be provided to whoever comes along and asks for one. That
substantially reduces the value of the patent system as a whole by
preventing the research from being used exclusively by those who
produced it.
(I hope that is the one you meant.)

One of the beauties of the patent and copyright system is that patents
and copyrights eventually expire, so that world ultimately has equal
access to the fruits of humanity after the producers of the
innovations have been given opportunity and protection to exclusively
reap the benefits for a time. So in my view your proposed scheme
reduces both the incentive to patent things, and, by creating more
incentive to move things to trade secrets instead, potentially removes
them from ultimately becoming accessible to everyone.

I might agree with him. I agree that the license cost should
cover the research costs, that makes a lot of sense. But say,
for example, that one wanted $1000 per camera or phone as license
cost? (For something that the patent holder sells for $100.)
I would call that unreasonable, but as far as I know there
isn't anything in patent law to refute it.

Also, it seems to me that it isn't always easy to know that
a new invention is sufficently different to avoid infringing.
It seems that Kodak thought thier instant camera was sufficiently
different, until they lost in court. Especially as the courts
may not understand the technical details as well as they should.

My old favorite was the patent on the XOR operator for graphical
displays, allowing one to erase by drawing over something.
That one, as I understand it, was contested twice and upheld
both times, where I would say that it was obvious to anyone who
understands the XOR operator. I have no idea what the license
charge was, or would have been.

It seems to me that the only thing that helps avoid this is
the cross licensing deals. But that discourages small companies
from competing in a big company world.

For those reasons I think it's a bad idea.

-- glen

 

[Hal Murray]

In article <7b91cdf6-4eb1-4de2-b7b5-c381a2fd4e03@k10g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
"langwadt@fonz.dk" <langwadt@fonz.dk> writes:

I seem to remember hearing about companies where reading or searching
patents wasn't allowed, I assume as a defence in case they accidently
infringed on some patent

I've heard something similar from a friend who worked for a large
company in Silicon Valley.

Along with that was the "Nobody is suing us right now, so this
is a good time to clean out your old email."

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

 

[David Brown]

On 28/10/2011 02:19, Eric Jacobsen wrote:

On 28 Oct 2011 00:05:31 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack
twomack@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

In article<j89nlf$smd$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
glen herrmannsfeldt<gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
In comp.arch.fpga fatalist<simfidude@gmail.com> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

"mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms. "

Whaaaaaat ??????

I would guess that more often it is because one doesn't realize
that something is covered by a patent. Either one doesn't know
at all, or assumes that a known patent doesn't cover the specific case.

One well known infringement case was the Kodak instant camera.

Kodak, in trying to compete with Polaroid, designed a camera
that, I would guess, they believed didn't infringe. It is pretty
hard to believe that they didn't know about Polaroid.

What I was suggesting was full-on compulsory licensing: if Kodak want
to do something like that, they are permitted to licence Polaroid's
patent and Polaroid cannot unreasonably refuse them or charge a
licence fee that a judge considers unreasonably high; this will make
their camera a bit more expensive than Polaroid's, but allow them to
compete in the market.

So patents become 'we invented this, so we can use it for free and get
up to five bucks from every phone shipped by everyone else who uses
it', rather than their present legally-enforced full monopoly
position; if you want a monopoly, keep a trade secret.

Tom

The fundamental purpose of a patent is to allow the fruits of research
efforts to belong to those who performed and paid for the research.
What you suggest reduces the value of that by requiring that a license
be provided to whoever comes along and asks for one. That
substantially reduces the value of the patent system as a whole by
preventing the research from being used exclusively by those who
produced it.

One of the beauties of the patent and copyright system is that patents
and copyrights eventually expire, so that world ultimately has equal
access to the fruits of humanity after the producers of the
innovations have been given opportunity and protection to exclusively
reap the benefits for a time. So in my view your proposed scheme
reduces both the incentive to patent things, and, by creating more
incentive to move things to trade secrets instead, potentially removes
them from ultimately becoming accessible to everyone.

For those reasons I think it's a bad idea.

The key here is that "patents and copyrights /eventually/ expire".
Patent lifetimes are absurdly long (21 years, IIRC) for the modern
world. And copyrights are basically immortal since Disney buys new laws
every time the copyright expiration on Mickey Mouse approaches, and the
rest of the world has little real choice but to follow USA.

The purpose of a patent is /not/ to let the inventors get paid for their
efforts and research. It is to give the inventor a chance to
commercialise a product based on the invention, so that other (bigger
and established) companies cannot take the invention, build their own
product, and out-compete the inventor.

Think about that a little - especially in light of how modern patents
are used.

With the patent, the inventor (let's pretend for a minute that it really
is the inventor, or his company, who has the patent) has a time-limited
monopoly on using the invention, as long as he reveals it to everyone
else. He has two choices - he can build his own commercialisation of
the product (the patent gives him time to do that), or he can license it
to other companies who will build the product.

When patents were introduced, inventors might get two or three patents
in a lifetime of work - they represented /real/ inventions. A time
limit of half a lifetime was perfectly reasonable - it took a long time
to turn the invention into a product, make a production company and
facility, and sell the product.

But that just doesn't suit the world today.

For "physical" patents, a time limit of perhaps 2 years is more than
enough - that gives the inventor a solid head-start over competitors.
The inventor can, of course, sell licenses during that time. It may be
worth having a short time (another 2 years) after that when he can still
sell licenses, but anyone can get one ("reasonable and
non-discriminatory" terms) - that would be purely for money-making.

For software patents, the appropriate time limits are so short that they
should simply be banned outright (as they are in most countries).


The biggest patent reform needed, however, is in the review process
before they are granted. Any patent application should be judged by a
panel of experts in the field. They will be able to reject the patent
if it is obvious, if it is too broad, if it is unclear (clarity is an
essential part of a patent), or if it is not new. Patent office clerks
can handle the bureaucracy - but they can't be expected to handle the
technical challenges of assessing a patent application.

For the "panel of experts", I would suggest an organisation of paying
members, perhaps split by broad fields (medicine, engineering, etc.).
Professionals would have to pay yearly fees to be part of the
organisation - that would limit it mostly to real professionals. In
return, members would have access to searchable databases of patents,
contact information for other members, etc. And any member can judge
any patent application they want. Some people might worry that this
means the applicant is revealing their idea to too wide an audience -
but that's the aim of patents. When they submit their application, it
becomes "patent pending". Their only risk is if they submit a poor
application, intending to re-submit if it gets rejected. This public
peer review would encourage applicants to do their job properly first
time, and not waste everyone's time and money.

 

[David Brown]

On 28/10/2011 01:07, Thomas Womack wrote:

In article<613f5dcd-7fa7-4061-b6c0-6bd778a5cc0b@j20g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,
rickman<gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:
On Oct 26, 10:13=A0am, "rupertlssm...@googlemail.com"
rupertlssm...@googlemail.com> wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15461732

Completely barmy. There is definitely something very, very wrong with
software patents.

Rupert

I looked at this and I think it is a perfect example of how poor the
patent examination process is. If your primary user interface is a
touch screen and you want to lock the device, how else would you
unlock the device than through a touch screen "gesture"?

By typing a PIN on an on-screen keypad; by sweeping a finger around a
pattern of blobs on-screen. Apple's patent is on the slide-to-unlock
bar; if they've spent a lot of time looking at alternate unlock
mechanisms and determined that slide-to-unlock is in some usability
sense the best, they should get to ask anyone else with
slide-to-unlock for, say, a dollar per device.

Otherwise how do you pay for usability research, where almost by
definition the result will feel intuitively obvious and be used by
every device?

You pay for usability research by doing the research, making a good
product, and selling more than others because reviewers say "this device
is easier to use than the competitors". So what if the competitors copy
your ideas in their new devices six months later? The extra sales you
make during those first six months should pay for the research many
times over unless you are running your business very badly.

Or are suggesting that it is somehow "fair" that you should get paid
again and again for that usability research over the next 21 years?

 

[Steven Hirsch]

On 10/27/2011 05:30 PM, langwadt@fonz.dk wrote:

On 26 Okt., 21:39, glen herrmannsfeldt<g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
In comp.arch.fpga fatalist<simfid...@gmail.com> wrote:

(snip, someone wrote)

"mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms. "
Whaaaaaat ??????

I would guess that more often it is because one doesn't realize
that something is covered by a patent. Either one doesn't know
at all, or assumes that a known patent doesn't cover the specific case.


I seem to remember hearing about companies where reading or searching
patents wasn't allowed, I assume as a defence in case they accidently
infringed on some patent

My employer forbids engineers and software developers from reading patents as
a matter of policy (unless specifically requested to by legal).

 

[Noob]

Steven Hirsch wrote:

My employer forbids engineers and software developers from reading patents
as a matter of policy (unless specifically requested to by legal).

"[The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and
useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

What a travesty.

Where's the progress when the wheel is reinvented every other month?

One way out of this mess is for the EU to start ignoring US patents;
that might make the US "snap out of it".

 

[Steven Hirsch]

On 10/27/2011 08:19 PM, Eric Jacobsen wrote:

One of the beauties of the patent and copyright system is that patents
and copyrights eventually expire, so that world ultimately has equal
access to the fruits of humanity after the producers of the
innovations have been given opportunity and protection to exclusively
reap the benefits for a time.

Patents, yes. Copyright? Not so much anymore. Since Disney started
purchasing legislators I think public-domain has become an antiquated concept.