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Linked list patent

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Re: Linked list patent

#31

Post by fnid2 »

nostrademons wrote: post #24
fnid2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is exactly true. A good patent from a very good firm in L.A. will run you about $20k. Yes, it's a lot, but I a computer engineer could sock that much away in a year. Work on the software at home at night, patent it, sell the patent to Apple or Microsoft or another big company for a couple million dollars. The corporation makes $100 Million of the device. Great, the inventor got $2M and can innovate…

"Work on the software at home at night, patent it, sell the patent to Apple or Microsoft or another big company for a couple million dollars." Your employer will usually own the patent then, as part of your invention disclosure agreement. California's the lone state that doesn't let employers claim ownership over inventions done in your own time, but there's a big exception for inventions that relate to the current o…

Okay, I'll go further then to say, save up $40,000, then quit your job. Create a company called whateveryouwannacallit.com and start inventing stuff. New algorithms. Optimize compression. Optimize Video streaming.

Then spend $20,000 to have an attorney draw up a patent for you. I know some. I can connect you. Then, market the patent to corporations. Start a bidding war. That's what it all boils down to.

It's hard work to feed yourself and clothe yourself and be an entrepreneur and build a company that solves real problems for people that are willing to pay money for it. Those entrepreneurs should be rewarded by the system just like corporations.

Corporations are people too. They are composed of employees who are their employees and feed beautiful families with children living good lives. Yes, some of them make billions, like Steve Jobs, but some of them live modest lives in an old neighborhood near downtown just like lots of other people.

I think there is a lot of value here. Good value for hard work and innovation and I think there need to be more rewards for innovation that makes the world better. This is just one way it can be done.

It happens genuinely everywhere. Maybe someone gets good at writing music and sells millions of albums. That's just code or could be represented with code, yet if I write an algorithm, how am I going to share that algorithm with the world and also receive the benefits. If you argue copyright, then perhaps I could copyright it, but that means the whole world has it and if the whole world has it, then the inventor gets essentially nothing. It's like open source.

As I see it. Patents are the only protection for open source. When including the source code with the patent, you ensure the idea can be built upon and improved by a community of passionate people who can really do a lot to build on the myriad patents out there.

A copyright doesn't do this. It's not sufficient. My argument is that Monsanto should be able to patent DNA and DNA is no different than the source code behind an algorithm. They are both equal under the law and that is the way it should be.

I mean, in essence, opponents of software patents are arguing for discrimination under the law. I don't understand why computer scientists and computer engineers who build novel software systems that move stuff around and store it on physical disks aren't every bit as patentable as a crane or a type of diesel engine.

Re: Linked list patent

#32

Post by fnid2 »

lutorm wrote: post #25
fnid2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then the problem is not software patents, or patents in general, but that they unfairly tip the scales in favor of the big corporations. How do we fix that problem? That problem exists outside the world of patents and software. Monsanto patents seeds and those are just strings of DNA which are essentially just four characters repeated in a seemingly random order. And yet farmers lose their farms over those stri…

Dude, do not argue that software patents are ok because genome is patentable. That's going in the wrong direction.

Well, perhaps to add more content here w.r.t. the Monsanto case, I mean, the court should have been able to determine if the wind just blew the pollen in to pollinate the plants. IANAL, perhaps an IP attorney who is knows what they are talking about can explain why that case worked out the way it does.

Anyway, it's pretty unfortunate how that one example worked out, but the point I failed to make, was that the engineers who invented that wonderful corn that is immune to disease and predation and grows happily almost anywhere in the world and brings great value to the future of the world are no more or less clever than someone who assembles for loops, encryption functions, and database calls into something just as valuable to the future of computing. In a way, those are even more letters and numbers and perhaps physical systems too, just represented in code, and therefore should be even more patentable than just 4 letters repeating in a sequence.

Perhaps it is another type of discrimination I am addressing. A discrimination against a new kind of intelligence. A discrimination against machine intelligence. The artificial brains and neural nets and perhaps years of training are somehow different than a solar panel that can follow the sun. I don't see a difference and I don't see any reason the law should make such a distinction. That's something that may come up in the future, but it's not really a problem now. Somewhere along the way though, We will probably start talking about giving rights to machines who have claimed their identities. We let corporations have all the rights of humans, why not individual sentient robots? But again I digress.

My argument is this: If we are going to do away with software patents, we should do away with patents all together. I don't know what that world will be like and if that is the solution to these kinds of patent problems, not just for computer science, but for all fields, then I say let's do it, but don't single out software patents and axe just those.

Re: Linked list patent

#33

Post by fnid2 »

modeless wrote: post #30
fnid2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think it does and I don't think simply stating that it is without providing any evidence for your case is going to change my mind or anyone's mind who agrees with me, but it looks like I'm the only one. Anyway.... The legal system is there to figure out if a patent is absurd and if you read the whole patent for the swing, at the end, it was ruled out. At least claims A, B, C and D. That same review proces…

>The legal system is there to figure out if a patent is absurd If the legal system was free and fast, you would have a point. However, the legal system is expensive and slow. A system where a patent as clearly absurd as this one can survive to the point of requiring a legal challenge to be overturned is simply unacceptable.

A patent also takes 8 years to come to fruition. There is a huge backup. Startups can be invented and sold in that amount of time or fail completely, so if it's just one person in a garage, there are bigger issues, but still, some of those people are saving up a lot of money right now selling iPhones. Even kids in malls and hackers in their basements.

Perhaps I am being too egalitarian in my stance.

Re: Linked list patent

#34

Post by jfoutz »

fnid2 wrote: post #16
nostrademons wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I know patents cause trouble, but what about the case where a patent helps an entrepreneur get the value out of an invention when big corporations steal it, market it, and make money without giving the inventor a dime?" Patents don't protect against that. Problem is, filing a patent takes time, money, and attention that are in very short supply in a startup. You can file to protect your inventions - but if you do, t…

I don't think that is exactly true. A good patent from a very good firm in L.A. will run you about $20k. Yes, it's a lot, but I a computer engineer could sock that much away in a year. Work on the software at home at night, patent it, sell the patent to Apple or Microsoft or another big company for a couple million dollars. The corporation makes $100 Million of the device. Great, the inventor got $2M and can innovate…

Just to be clear, you're arguing software needs to license patents to simulate patented objects?

Re: Linked list patent

#35

Post by modeless »

fnid2 wrote: post #33
modeless wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The legal system is there to figure out if a patent is absurd If the legal system was free and fast, you would have a point. However, the legal system is expensive and slow. A system where a patent as clearly absurd as this one can survive to the point of requiring a legal challenge to be overturned is simply unacceptable.

A patent also takes 8 years to come to fruition. There is a huge backup. Startups can be invented and sold in that amount of time or fail completely, so if it's just one person in a garage, there are bigger issues, but still, some of those people are saving up a lot of money right now selling iPhones. Even kids in malls and hackers in their basements. Perhaps I am being too egalitarian in my stance.

I agree. The patent system is too slow. I'm not sure what your point is, because that only seems to support the argument that the current system of software patents is absurd. Despite the slowness and expense of the review process, crap like this gets through all the time, then requiring an even slower and even more expensive legal challenge.

Re: Linked list patent

#36

Post by ciniglio »

evanrmurphy wrote: post #19
fnid2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then the problem is not software patents, or patents in general, but that they unfairly tip the scales in favor of the big corporations. How do we fix that problem? That problem exists outside the world of patents and software. Monsanto patents seeds and those are just strings of DNA which are essentially just four characters repeated in a seemingly random order. And yet farmers lose their farms over those stri…

> Okay, then the problem is not software patents, or patents in general, but that they unfairly tip the scales in favor of the big corporations. Agreed. Legal issues (patents included) tend to favor big corporations because you're more likely to win a case if you spend more money on it. I don't know about all the factors contributing to this, but I think a big one is that law (in the U.S., anyway) is difficult to und…

More likely, lawyers with higher success rates cost more.

Re: Linked list patent

#37

Post by jfoutz »

fnid2 wrote: post #31
nostrademons wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Work on the software at home at night, patent it, sell the patent to Apple or Microsoft or another big company for a couple million dollars." Your employer will usually own the patent then, as part of your invention disclosure agreement. California's the lone state that doesn't let employers claim ownership over inventions done in your own time, but there's a big exception for inventions that relate to the current o…

Okay, I'll go further then to say, save up $40,000, then quit your job. Create a company called whateveryouwannacallit.com and start inventing stuff. New algorithms. Optimize compression. Optimize Video streaming. Then spend $20,000 to have an attorney draw up a patent for you. I know some. I can connect you. Then, market the patent to corporations. Start a bidding war. That's what it all boils down to. It's hard wor…

Monsanto can patent dna, because they got those atoms in a particular sequence. I'm willing to stipulate DNA is no different than the soruce code behind a program, but no way is that the same as an algorithm.

an algorithm is a set of rules for solving the problem. i can follow those rules, i can pay someone to follow them for me. i could have a computer follow those rules, i could embed those rules in dna, do some chemistry i don't understand then extract the sequence that followed the rules i care about. The algorithm is independent of the medium.

You can patent an engine. Heck, you can patent a few. You can't patent the idea of engine.

Re: Linked list patent

#38

Post by nostrademons »

fnid2 wrote: post #31
nostrademons wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Work on the software at home at night, patent it, sell the patent to Apple or Microsoft or another big company for a couple million dollars." Your employer will usually own the patent then, as part of your invention disclosure agreement. California's the lone state that doesn't let employers claim ownership over inventions done in your own time, but there's a big exception for inventions that relate to the current o…

Okay, I'll go further then to say, save up $40,000, then quit your job. Create a company called whateveryouwannacallit.com and start inventing stuff. New algorithms. Optimize compression. Optimize Video streaming. Then spend $20,000 to have an attorney draw up a patent for you. I know some. I can connect you. Then, market the patent to corporations. Start a bidding war. That's what it all boils down to. It's hard wor…

"Then spend $20,000 to have an attorney draw up a patent for you. I know some. I can connect you. Then, market the patent to corporations. Start a bidding war."

This doesn't work either (unless you have an ex-Microsoftie whose initials are N.M. backing you). Think of it from the corporation's POV. They could buy the patent now. Or they could wait - since you just spent $20k patenting your invention, you're probably down to a year or less of runway left. When you run out of money, then they buy your company (and the patent with it), at fire-sale prices.

You are, of course, welcome to try. But typically people find they have more success by keeping the invention secret, then either finding customers or drumming up enough attention that they can get investors, then marketing the company to corporations while they're in a position of negotiating strength. Ultimately, you need money to stay in business - if you have patents but no money, you'll quickly find that someone with money gets the patent, but if you have money but no patents, you can get somebody else's patents pretty easily (either through employment or acquisition.

Re: Linked list patent

#40

Post by kiba »

In the interest of advancing the level of debate regarding intellectual property, once again as countless time before, I beg everyone to read Against Intellectual Monopoly at http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfi...

It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty. -- David K. Levine and Michelle Boldrin in Against Intellectual Monopoly

This book has absolutely change my thought about how economic progress are made, who is the real good guys and bad guys of civilization, and everything else. I never quite look at innovation and entrepreneurs quite the same way ever again.

Please, everyone, read it. It's free to download!

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