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WTF patents

W

Walter Harley

Jan 1, 1970
0
Paul Hovnanian P.E. said:
[...]
That's how understood them as well. But that's where software patents
will run into trouble. Software, a.k.a. source code, given sufficiently
intelligent compilers and other tools, may be nothing more than the
expression of an idea. The compiler takes it from there and produces the
executable.

Ironically, although I think a lot of software patents are utterly bogus, I
think that some software might be about the best example of why patents are
worthwhile and useful.

Google probably has patents on their search algorithms. (I don't know, I
don't compete with them.) They could easily keep them as trade secrets, and
nobody would be able to reverse-engineer them. Since people have thought
very deeply about search algorithms and published the results (read Knuth,
for instance), any new algorithm is just about guaranteed to *not* be
obvious. Whatever Google is doing is worth knowing about, and could be
helpful for many folks, even folks not directly competing. But if they
reveal it, they lose their competitive edge. Perfect case for a patent:
they disclose, academic researchers can leap-frog, competitors can license,
net gain for the world.

IF their patent actually can be implemented. Which I know is the legal
requirement, but IME there can be many man-years between knowing an
algorithm and being able to successfully implement it in a commercial
software product.

And IF their algorithm actually is novel, instead of being something that
they found in Knuth and figured out how to apply to the web. I think that's
what the problem with a lot of software patents is.
 
R

Robert Baer

Jan 1, 1970
0
Paul said:
So all that's needed now is enough money to pay the lawyers while the
case spends 5 years in court proving that the patent is invalid. You'll
get that in costs at the end anyway, assuming the judge knows enough
about small plastic widgets not to decide in their favour, and of course
assuming they aren't bankrupt by then.

Paul Burke
Check.
 
I

Ian Bell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Walter said:
The only thing I'm griping about (in this thread) is patents that attempt
to prevent people from using ideas that are obvious as soon as one sees or
hears of the product being protected. Why is that not a copyrightable
idea?
Because you cannot copyright an idea. if you wrote it down on paper and
published it then it would have copyright, or indeed if you wrote a song
about it ;-)

I sympathize with your views on copyright. The good thing about technology
is that it let's lot's of people create and publish music who 20 or 30
years ago would not have been able to. The bad thing is it makes it easy
for regular folks to exploit (copy) it.

I am struggling with this right now - my neighbour has three albums under
his belt and we are trying to set up a web page to sell them and allow paid
downloads of individual songs.

Ian
 
I

Ian Bell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Don said:

A strange series of articles. I am not convinced this guy knows what he is
talking about. Some of his facts are OK but some are just plain wrong. I
would agree with the 12 to 40 million sales being necessary for making
patents worthwhile. My patents applied to products that individually
achieved annual sales of this order.

Ian
 
W

Walter Harley

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ian Bell said:
[...]
I am struggling with this right now - my neighbour has three albums under
his belt and we are trying to set up a web page to sell them and allow
paid
downloads of individual songs.

That's a hard one. My band has the same problem. There is obviously no
perfect technology out there; the choice seems to be either "heavily rely on
people being honest", or "use a DRM system that limits where, when, and how
people can listen." Sometimes I think we should just give the music away
for free and sell T-shirts.
 
W

Walter Harley

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ian Bell said:
[...]
A strange series of articles. I am not convinced this guy knows what he is
talking about. Some of his facts are OK but some are just plain wrong. I
would agree with the 12 to 40 million sales being necessary for making
patents worthwhile. My patents applied to products that individually
achieved annual sales of this order.

I'm amused that he's "this guy" to you. Don's books and articles in the
1970s and on were part of what got me into electronics in the first place,
and I still refer to them from time to time. I think there are probably
plenty of people on this forum who are similar.
 
I

Ian Bell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Walter said:
Ian Bell said:
[...]
I am struggling with this right now - my neighbour has three albums under
his belt and we are trying to set up a web page to sell them and allow
paid
downloads of individual songs.

That's a hard one. My band has the same problem. There is obviously no
perfect technology out there; the choice seems to be either "heavily rely
on people being honest", or "use a DRM system that limits where, when, and
how
people can listen." Sometimes I think we should just give the music away
for free and sell T-shirts.

My neighbour is really a songwriter so what he really wants is for known
artists to record his songs. That way he makes good money and the
protection is someone else's problem. So in some senses, the more people
hear his songs the better because there's then a better chance of the right
people hearing them. So it is partly a marketing exercise. On balance I
think we will not use any form of protection. We will allow excerpts to be
downloaded for free, a selection of whole songs for a fee per song, and the
only way to get the lot will be to buy a CD. If someone rips the CD then if
they sell/give away a lot of them it may be worth it.

Ian
 
I

Ian Bell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Walter said:
I'm amused that he's "this guy" to you. Don's books and articles in the
1970s and on were part of what got me into electronics in the first place,
and I still refer to them from time to time. I think there are probably
plenty of people on this forum who are similar.

I assume he is in the US. I am in the UK so what got me into electronics
were the likes of Scroggie and F.G Rayer writing in Wireless World in the
60s. No internet to broaden our horizons in those days.

Ian
 
M

martin griffith

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ian Bell said:
[...]
I am struggling with this right now - my neighbour has three albums under
his belt and we are trying to set up a web page to sell them and allow
paid
downloads of individual songs.

That's a hard one. My band has the same problem. There is obviously no
perfect technology out there; the choice seems to be either "heavily rely on
people being honest", or "use a DRM system that limits where, when, and how
people can listen." Sometimes I think we should just give the music away
for free and sell T-shirts.
Worked for Star Wars movies, I remember reading in the pre internet
days



martin
 
M

martin griffith

Jan 1, 1970
0
I assume he is in the US. I am in the UK so what got me into electronics
were the likes of Scroggie and F.G Rayer writing in Wireless World in the
60s. No internet to broaden our horizons in those days.

Ian
Imagine Baxendell, Blumlein on SED, Win Hill, would come second (just)


martin
 
W

Winfield Hill

Jan 1, 1970
0
martin griffith wrote...
Imagine Baxendell, Blumlein on SED, Win Hill, would come second (just)

I think that was a complement. Thanks, bro!
 
J

Joseph2k

Jan 1, 1970
0
Walter said:
Paul Hovnanian P.E. said:
[...] The moment you patent (or publish),
everyone else can see your work and is immediately brought up to your
technological level. If you keep it to yourself, you can build upon your
own work and create a larger lead over your competition.

Unless the idea is something that's self-revealing, in which case
disclosure
happens as soon as you make the product available to consumers. If
someone comes up with a flat-proof tire rubber, they should be able to
patent the formula for the rubber; but they shouldn't be able to patent
the idea of a flat-proof tire, or even the idea of flat-proof tire rubber.

And indeed I think that's how patents are supposed to work. But it seems
that the patents I've been reading are more about patenting ideas, rather
than mechanisms.

Obviously the line is not well-defined. Is the idea of putting a
rechargeable battery in a musical instrument, and charging it via the same
jack that the signal comes out of, an idea or a mechanism? I'm arguing
that it's an idea; there's nothing difficult about the implementation,
anyone on
this forum could design it in under an hour, I expect. What's the "R&D
investment" that's being protected?

Another patent I recently griped about was for an adapter to put a small
pickup in a too-large hole. Literally, they're patenting the idea of a
hunk of plastic shaped like a big hole, with a small hole in it that the
small pickup fits in.

[...]
A positive result for one (or both) companies or for consumers as a
whole?

Quite so. My confusion. See answer to Ian's post.


-w
Gosh, Walter,
I may have meet a relatively kindred spirit here.
How do you feel about natural person only ownership of patents vs
mega-corporation only ownership of patents?
 
W

Walter Harley

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joseph2k said:
[...]
Gosh, Walter,
I may have meet a relatively kindred spirit here.
How do you feel about natural person only ownership of patents vs
mega-corporation only ownership of patents?

I think it's a false dichotomy. Corporations are made of and by people, all
acting in their own self-interest, though usually irrationally and with bad
information. Corporate nature is an emergent property of human nature.

My gripe is with patents that block ordinary people from doing their
individual work. If a patent is broad enough or obvious enough that people
keep inadvertently running into it while inventing on their own, then to me
that patent is doing more harm than good: society didn't benefit from it
being "disclosed."

When individuals or corporations accumulate abusive patents like that, as a
way of controlling the playing field, I think that's wrong. Corporations
are of course more likely than individuals to be able to accumulate enough
patents, and hire enough lawyers, to be a problem. But it needn't be
megacorporations; there are plenty of small corporations that do nothing but
hold patents and look around for people to sue.

So I guess if I had to sum up my opinion it would be that the patent system
should be a marketplace where I can go to discover and license ideas that I
would have been unlikely to come up with on my own, rather than a minefield
of potential lawsuits that explode whenever someone else happened to have
the same ordinary idea as me.
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joseph2k said:
[...]
Gosh, Walter,
I may have meet a relatively kindred spirit here.
How do you feel about natural person only ownership of patents vs
mega-corporation only ownership of patents?

I think it's a false dichotomy. Corporations are made of and by people, all
acting in their own self-interest, though usually irrationally and with bad
information. Corporate nature is an emergent property of human nature.

My gripe is with patents that block ordinary people from doing their
individual work. If a patent is broad enough or obvious enough that people
keep inadvertently running into it while inventing on their own, then to me
that patent is doing more harm than good: society didn't benefit from it
being "disclosed."
[snip]

"obvious" is a standard test for killing a patent.

...Jim Thompson
 
T

Terry Given

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
[...]
Gosh, Walter,
I may have meet a relatively kindred spirit here.
How do you feel about natural person only ownership of patents vs
mega-corporation only ownership of patents?

I think it's a false dichotomy. Corporations are made of and by people, all
acting in their own self-interest, though usually irrationally and with bad
information. Corporate nature is an emergent property of human nature.

My gripe is with patents that block ordinary people from doing their
individual work. If a patent is broad enough or obvious enough that people
keep inadvertently running into it while inventing on their own, then to me
that patent is doing more harm than good: society didn't benefit from it
being "disclosed."

[snip]

"obvious" is a standard test for killing a patent.

...Jim Thompson

alas, although we all know that it would appear the USPTO (and all the
others I've ever used) dont.

I did some work with flywheels a few years back. these guys had patented
(circa 1996) the boost converter. I kid you not. and a buddy of mine
patented ohms law here in NZ. and got royalties from GE....


Cheers
Terry
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:25:03 -0800, "Walter Harley"
If a patent is broad enough or obvious enough that people
keep inadvertently running into it while inventing on their own, then to me
that patent is doing more harm than good: society didn't benefit from it
being "disclosed."

[snip]

"obvious" is a standard test for killing a patent.

...Jim Thompson

alas, although we all know that it would appear the USPTO (and all the
others I've ever used) dont.
[snip]
Cheers
Terry

The "obvious" argument is used in the challenge. USPTO will patent
just about anything presented to them.

...Jim Thompson
 
T

Terry Given

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
[snip]
If a patent is broad enough or obvious enough that people
keep inadvertently running into it while inventing on their own, then to me
that patent is doing more harm than good: society didn't benefit from it
being "disclosed."


[snip]

"obvious" is a standard test for killing a patent.

...Jim Thompson

alas, although we all know that it would appear the USPTO (and all the
others I've ever used) dont.

[snip]

Cheers
Terry


The "obvious" argument is used in the challenge. USPTO will patent
just about anything presented to them.

...Jim Thompson

Hi Jim,

yeah, the real question is: how much does it cost to mount such a
defence. I have deliberately infringed several "junk" patents, for
several reasons:

1) clearly rubbish - blindingly obvious or a plethora of prior art
2) low odds of anyone ever noticing - who's gonna dismember a $250,000
widget to examine a $5 circuit?

wrt the flywheel, their patent covers:
- rectifying the ac output of a variable speed flywheel to get a
variable amplitude DC supply
- using a boost converter to generate a stabilised 400V supply

and thats about it. I had visions of turning up in court with, say, 50
textbooks ranging from the 1950s to present, all of which describe the
boost converter in detail, and uttering the single phrase "QED"

I suspect it wouldnt be quite that simple.

Cheers
Terry
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
Jim Thompson wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:25:03 -0800, "Walter Harley"
[snip]

If a patent is broad enough or obvious enough that people
keep inadvertently running into it while inventing on their own, then to me
that patent is doing more harm than good: society didn't benefit from it
being "disclosed."


[snip]

"obvious" is a standard test for killing a patent.

...Jim Thompson

alas, although we all know that it would appear the USPTO (and all the
others I've ever used) dont.

[snip]

Cheers
Terry


The "obvious" argument is used in the challenge. USPTO will patent
just about anything presented to them.

...Jim Thompson

Hi Jim,

yeah, the real question is: how much does it cost to mount such a
defence. I have deliberately infringed several "junk" patents, for
several reasons:

1) clearly rubbish - blindingly obvious or a plethora of prior art
2) low odds of anyone ever noticing - who's gonna dismember a $250,000
widget to examine a $5 circuit?

wrt the flywheel, their patent covers:
- rectifying the ac output of a variable speed flywheel to get a
variable amplitude DC supply
- using a boost converter to generate a stabilised 400V supply

and thats about it. I had visions of turning up in court with, say, 50
textbooks ranging from the 1950s to present, all of which describe the
boost converter in detail, and uttering the single phrase "QED"

I suspect it wouldnt be quite that simple.

Cheers
Terry

Actually it is. Textbooks predating the patent application are
instant patent death. Used that several times now to end litigation
on the spot.

I protect myself with a closed mouth.

Don't say to anyone, "Patentable".

Don't divulge any cutesy tricks I've used, even to the customer.

Years later, someone tries to patent... just point out ancient
hardware with the technique. Again, instant patent death.

I just cleaned up my office... running out of file cabinet space.
Moved four 4-drawer file cabinets worth of design schematics to an
off-site storage facility! And I figure I need to buy two more file
cabinets to get the rest of the stuff out of boxes!

...Jim Thompson
 
T

Terry Given

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
Jim said:
Jim Thompson wrote:


On Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:25:03 -0800, "Walter Harley"

[snip]


If a patent is broad enough or obvious enough that people
keep inadvertently running into it while inventing on their own, then to me
that patent is doing more harm than good: society didn't benefit from it
being "disclosed."


[snip]

"obvious" is a standard test for killing a patent.

...Jim Thompson

alas, although we all know that it would appear the USPTO (and all the
others I've ever used) dont.


[snip]


Cheers
Terry


The "obvious" argument is used in the challenge. USPTO will patent
just about anything presented to them.

...Jim Thompson

Hi Jim,

yeah, the real question is: how much does it cost to mount such a
defence. I have deliberately infringed several "junk" patents, for
several reasons:

1) clearly rubbish - blindingly obvious or a plethora of prior art
2) low odds of anyone ever noticing - who's gonna dismember a $250,000
widget to examine a $5 circuit?

wrt the flywheel, their patent covers:
- rectifying the ac output of a variable speed flywheel to get a
variable amplitude DC supply
- using a boost converter to generate a stabilised 400V supply

and thats about it. I had visions of turning up in court with, say, 50
textbooks ranging from the 1950s to present, all of which describe the
boost converter in detail, and uttering the single phrase "QED"

I suspect it wouldnt be quite that simple.

Cheers
Terry


Actually it is. Textbooks predating the patent application are
instant patent death. Used that several times now to end litigation
on the spot.

glad to hear it. its one of the reasons I have so many textbooks.
Apparently I get a free lobotomy when I hit the thousand mark, which is
rapidly approaching. On the bright side, this will allow me to enjoy TV
- who knows, I might even think Ray Romano is funny (shouldnt the show
be called "everybody loves to stab Raymond in the head with a fork"?)
I protect myself with a closed mouth.

Don't say to anyone, "Patentable".

I have run into the opposite problem, repeatedly - VCs demanding to
patent everything.
Don't divulge any cutesy tricks I've used, even to the customer.

dont you have to give them the relevant schematics?
Years later, someone tries to patent... just point out ancient
hardware with the technique. Again, instant patent death.

I just cleaned up my office... running out of file cabinet space.
Moved four 4-drawer file cabinets worth of design schematics to an
off-site storage facility! And I figure I need to buy two more file
cabinets to get the rest of the stuff out of boxes!

...Jim Thompson

about that book you plan on writing....

Cheers
Terry
 
R

Richard the Dreaded Libertarian

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joseph2k said:
[...]
Gosh, Walter,
I may have meet a relatively kindred spirit here.
How do you feel about natural person only ownership of patents vs
mega-corporation only ownership of patents?

I think it's a false dichotomy. Corporations are made of and by people, all
acting in their own self-interest, though usually irrationally and with bad
information. Corporate nature is an emergent property of human nature.

My gripe is with patents that block ordinary people from doing their
individual work. If a patent is broad enough or obvious enough that people
keep inadvertently running into it while inventing on their own, then to me
that patent is doing more harm than good: society didn't benefit from it
being "disclosed."

When individuals or corporations accumulate abusive patents like that, as a
way of controlling the playing field, I think that's wrong.

Don't forget the Golden Rule: The guy that has the gold makes the rules.

Thanks,
Rich
 
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