This is a great idea. If you want to demonstrate just how much software patents suck, you need to be able to point out examples. Yet I've seen many people who try to do so get shutdown with remarks like "you're not a lawyer", "you don't understand patent claims", "if you read this in a Lawyer-Approved Fashion (tm) it turns out this IS a good patent claim", etc. It'll be a lot harder to dismiss examples of shitty patents if their shittiness is endorsed by the legal expertise of the EFF.
Is there a patent review person in charge of the patent at the PTO? That is, is there a name of a PTO person that we can attach to these to say "John Doe approved/accepted/submitted on behalf of... this patent?" If so, I would like to see EFF attach the name. Maybe public ridicule will make them a little more careful.
Wow, this a thousand times. It's so incredibly frustrating to have discussions about stuff like this with people who don't have the same knee-jerk mistrust of the patent system that I do. I'm not saying my reaction is right, just that it'll be nice to have something to point too and say "told ya so...". Of course, the people I know who don't think that the patent system is broken are probably the people who don't necessarily know/trust the EFF.
In my startup we are knowingly violating two other companies patents and it scares me. The patents are stupid (tagging a photo--ie. circle part of a photo to highlight where something is, and the second is adding GPS data to a record, so that you can find it later).
One of the companies is even litigious having field two patent suits this year. The only thing saving us at this point is we are a Canadian company and haven't entered the US market yet.
So, here is a concrete case of patents discouraging innovation and competition. We want to enter the US market because the competitors are selling backward solutions. We have an alternative that is 10x better, yet our company could be killed in an instant through one of these patents.
If that's your most pressing concern about expanding the business you should probably consider challenging the validity of the patent if it's truly as obvious as it seems.
> So, here is a concrete case of patents discouraging innovation
It seems to be just the opposite, though: the patent system is telling you "You are copying something that exists, instead you should innovate and create something new".
So why don't you innovate instead of copying something that already exists?
They "scan to email" patent they mention at the start is famous largely because the owner is extremely aggressive, they even go after end users. IE, they might sue any company that has a scanner so their list of targets is basically the phonebook.
“Method and Apparatus for Indirect Medical Consultation” was issued on June 24, 2014. Presumably there is already a software/companies/people doing this that started before last month. If they are targeted, what happens? IE, if software published before June 24 is accused of violating this patent is there any possible case for it? Would it still cost huge amount of money to defend against this attack? Would losing the claim automatically invalidate the claim?
1. File an over broad patent by (a) describing an everyday procedure currently commonly preformed by humans and (b) adding "performed by a computer" to your claim. Alternatively, purchase a similar over broad patent from someone else.
2. Identify companies which utilize procedures which may fall under your patent.
3. Identify other companies that may utilize procedures slightly (or even barely) resembling those covered by your patent.
4. Determine prevailing legal fees for a patent defense case in the given area for each of the companies identified in steps 2 and 3.
5. Call all of those companies identified in steps 2 and 3 and threaten to sue them unless they settle for the sum of 80% of the prevailing legal fees identified in step 4.
In Brazil you simply can't patent abstract ideas, game rules, techiquies and operation methods, software, math methods, etc, and "ways to do things" like this on the eff.org
I'm not sure if this is equal for other countries.
the original claim 1 [...] had not claimed a computer. The examiner correctly issued a rejection, saying the claim was abstract and thus wasn’t something that could be patented. In response, the applicant added element (g) (“providing a computer, the computer performing steps “a” through “f””). And the rejection went away.
I see this happen in peer-reviewed research. A reviewer rejects the paper/patent based on a flaw that is perhaps not as gross but is at least concrete. When the flaw is removed (in this case the use of computer), the reviewer almost has no choice but to accept it. Can't the reviewer reject it for other reasons?
Someone please fund EFF and make this a weekly event. If there is a chance of fixing the law, the cost of documenting its flaws is miniscule compared to the millions in damages done.
Software and other ephemeral businesses lack physical assets. That's scary to quite a few MBA types, especially those brought up outside this industry. A patent is something that makes software look on the balance sheet as if it's a physical asset that the company holds.
It's all an illusion, but it's a security blanket for these types.
Is there any kind of logic to granting stupid patents? It seems like if their approval was really harmful to the industry, it would manifest itself in reduced tax revenues. No government wants that. So is the government increasing its revenues by granting these arbitrary technology fiefdoms?
"The government" is not a coherent entity. The government is made up of many self-interested groups who largely don't care and possibly don't even know about one another. The relevant agency here, the Patent and Trademark Office, is not funded by tax dollars — it's funded by fees from people or businesses seeking patents and trademarks.
Decisions can be motivated by lots of things other than maximizing tax revenue. For example, political beliefs/agendas of various relevant parties, lobbying, bureaucratic lock-in, and so on.
Is there any way to make challenging stupid patents directly profitable? I would love to see someone figuring out how to make a business model out of it and using VC money to bankroll the process.
Even with stupid patent of the day I suspect they would have enough content to keep going long after I am dead, even if they only consider patents that were issued up until today... but it would require a lot more effort to find, read, understand and write about them than a once a month thing.
I hope so.
Have you ever been to China or India? This is the opposite extreme and it is worse. No one invents anything novel.
Every product is cheap replica of something else. Its a race to the bottom.
Much worse.
[+] [-] chrismonsanto|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dhimes|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isaacdl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zak_mc_kracken|11 years ago|reply
Not really: you don't condemn an entire system by pointing out individual bad examples of it.
This is like picking a bad article linked on Hacker News and saying "Hacker News is broken and needs to be abolished".
You're not going to convince anyone with this kind of cherry picking.
Besides, the title made it sound as if the EFF was filing stupid patents.
[+] [-] josho|11 years ago|reply
One of the companies is even litigious having field two patent suits this year. The only thing saving us at this point is we are a Canadian company and haven't entered the US market yet.
So, here is a concrete case of patents discouraging innovation and competition. We want to enter the US market because the competitors are selling backward solutions. We have an alternative that is 10x better, yet our company could be killed in an instant through one of these patents.
[+] [-] _3u10|11 years ago|reply
'knowingly violating' is not a phrase you want attributed to you in court.
[+] [-] smokinn|11 years ago|reply
http://info.legalzoom.com/challenge-patent-21969.html
[+] [-] ChrisAntaki|11 years ago|reply
You might want to nominate this patent
[+] [-] zak_mc_kracken|11 years ago|reply
It seems to be just the opposite, though: the patent system is telling you "You are copying something that exists, instead you should innovate and create something new".
So why don't you innovate instead of copying something that already exists?
[+] [-] netcan|11 years ago|reply
“Method and Apparatus for Indirect Medical Consultation” was issued on June 24, 2014. Presumably there is already a software/companies/people doing this that started before last month. If they are targeted, what happens? IE, if software published before June 24 is accused of violating this patent is there any possible case for it? Would it still cost huge amount of money to defend against this attack? Would losing the claim automatically invalidate the claim?
[+] [-] x0054|11 years ago|reply
Method and Apparatus for Making Lots of Money
1. File an over broad patent by (a) describing an everyday procedure currently commonly preformed by humans and (b) adding "performed by a computer" to your claim. Alternatively, purchase a similar over broad patent from someone else.
2. Identify companies which utilize procedures which may fall under your patent.
3. Identify other companies that may utilize procedures slightly (or even barely) resembling those covered by your patent.
4. Determine prevailing legal fees for a patent defense case in the given area for each of the companies identified in steps 2 and 3.
5. Call all of those companies identified in steps 2 and 3 and threaten to sue them unless they settle for the sum of 80% of the prevailing legal fees identified in step 4.
6. Preform steps 1 through 5 using a computer.
[+] [-] eli|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alok-g|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minikomi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edpichler|11 years ago|reply
I'm not sure if this is equal for other countries.
[+] [-] merraksh|11 years ago|reply
I see this happen in peer-reviewed research. A reviewer rejects the paper/patent based on a flaw that is perhaps not as gross but is at least concrete. When the flaw is removed (in this case the use of computer), the reviewer almost has no choice but to accept it. Can't the reviewer reject it for other reasons?
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thund|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrollaway|11 years ago|reply
https://supporters.eff.org/donate
[+] [-] api|11 years ago|reply
Software and other ephemeral businesses lack physical assets. That's scary to quite a few MBA types, especially those brought up outside this industry. A patent is something that makes software look on the balance sheet as if it's a physical asset that the company holds.
It's all an illusion, but it's a security blanket for these types.
[+] [-] mullingitover|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chc|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smeyer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] higherpurpose|11 years ago|reply
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/chinese-govt-reve...
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhlakhani|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgemcbay|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rrggrr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ihategod|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ArtDev|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mjt0229|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] locusm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhino369|11 years ago|reply
The real cost is having some draft it and prosecute it. That's like 15-20k.