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Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

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Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#251

Post by sqeaky »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #191
sqeaky wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I covered one major distinction well. Copy software has 0 cost, copying matter has some. This is just a re-wording and perspective change on "software patents are just math" angle. Some people feel that since there is no copying cost, software favors the little guy more than with physical goods, so normal patent protection doesn't provide an benefit. These people claim that a big big evil corporation could st…

Your distinction doesn't make any sense. Besides, you can patent a gadget without ever building one. In other words you can patent a CAD diagram. Then you could use your gadget patent to prevent anyone from legally building your gadget (in the US assuming a US patent) I am aware of actual evidence that patents help, if enabling small companies to withstand pressure from behemoth companies is considered help.

Could you share this evidence? Because I haven't seen it.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#252

Post by riskable »

MatthewWilkes wrote: post #85
mjevans wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is already covered by /copyright/ law. It does not need patents.

Copyright covers implementations, not ideas. I have no moral objection to truly novel inventions in computer science being protected by patents. An innovative search algorithm, a compression scheme, etc. Its shit when MP3s and GIFs were encumbered, but they were genuine inventions whose sharing publicly genuinely advanced the public good. The kind the patent trolls use are not innovative in the same way. We need a st…

> Copyright covers implementations, not ideas.

Patents cover implementations, not ideas. Copyright covers "artistic works" like text (files), audio, and video.

To further clarify: The purpose of copyright is to grant control over who can copy it to the creator/owner so that it can't be reproduced or embellished/modified without their permission (which was a big problem at the time serious copyright laws started being written in the US). Exceptions such as fair use exist but that's the gist of it.

Profit was a secondary concern to control believe it or not. The fear being someone would publish a copy of your work with a few damning sentences changed or added here and there with your name attached. Ruining your reputation/career which was much more important to the controlling elite (land owners) at the time than the pittance one might make from sales of their writings/art.

The purpose of patents is disclosure. Don't let anyone state otherwise because the founding fathers were pretty damned clear about it. In exchange for disclosing your invention to the world you're granted a monopoly over who can use or manufacture it.

Patents never have and never will be about something as ambiguous as, "ideas".

Considering that software can only exist as ether it should never have been considered patent-eligible. Sure, you can implement software in an FPGA and claim, "it's hardware now!" Go ahead and patent that particular configuration of an FPGA... Which would be a tangible, physical thing. You should have no right whatsoever to claim a monopoly on the mere concept of such software which is exactly what software patents are.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#253

Post by riskable »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #212
mikekchar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents cover implementations, not ideas. Ideas are not patentable. Neither are algorithms. The implementation of an idea in a machine is patentable in most places in the world. The implementation of an algorithm on a machine is patentable in the U.S. We need better understanding of existing definitions so that we don't rehash the same arguments over and over again.

Nope. Disagree. Look at claim construction in a patent "a fixing means", for example, isn't an implementation it's an element of an idea. A patent application has to include a concrete implementation but the claims - which define the patent legally - are always broader than the specific implementation and will cover multiple implementations that use the inventive concept. Thus, a new product that's never been made be…

Proving that a patent's claims cover disparate implementations is how you successfully defend yourself against patent lawsuits. If a patent's claims are ambiguous enough to cover multiple, novel implementations it is by definition "overly broad" and will be ruled invalid.

See: https://www.law360.com/articles/608579/overbroad-patent-clai...

So no, patents (and their claims) are not "ideas". They are disclosures of how the invention works and they're supposed to be damned specific!

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#254

Post by KnoopKnoop »

calafrax wrote: post #213
siliconc0w wrote: post #8

I'm not a fan of the argument that if Blackbird weren't a NPE it'd be okay because Cloudflare could then aim it's 150 strong patent portfolio cannon back at them. It's basically saying incumbents like Cloudflare don't really want to fix the system, they want to keep the untenable 'cold war' status quo which protects them but burdens new entrants.

Everyone is a "troll" when they are suing you. When you are suing other people they are thieves stealing your innovation. These lawyers are doing great work by creating a market that allows innovators to profit from their work even if they don't have the capital to commercialize their innovations themselves. The incumbents can cry about this but even if they have never sued anyone for infringement their valuations ar…

That's all well and good, but it's impossible to argue that point when people are awarded patents where previous work exists that the patent office failed to investigate enough.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#255

Post by [deleted] »

mendelk wrote: post #151
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a bit naive, then, to assume that the people you're litigating against will civilly keep their anger in Lawyer-Land and never hold a grudge in real life.

I talked to an Oracle lawyer a few months ago, and told him their lawsuit just makes Oracle look bad. The lawyer was dismissive, and tried to explain how it's silly how people take lawsuits personally, and talked about how layers _understand_ that lawsuits aren't personal, and that they are still friends outside the court. I'm sure a lawyer can "understand" how lawsuits aren't actually something personal at all, but…

[deleted]

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#256

Post by logicallee »

Bartweiss wrote: post #241
logicallee wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not, by itself, necessarily unethical. can you explain this line? I was shocked to read it after your first paragraph and I can't imagine why you wrote it.

I believe that's about "who may or may not have been on the diligence team". It's not inherently unethical, because the investment firm employee starting the hedge fund may not actually have any secret knowledge. But it's deeply alarming, because it's very possible (and hard to confirm) that they do have secret knowledge, so that practice is generally illegal even when it's not unethical.

if gp confirms that's what they meant then that's fine.

(it seemed unlikely due to the word "having".)

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#257

Post by notyourday »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #245
notyourday wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding of reality in legal profession. It is somewhat akin to 18th and 19th century conflicts - two armies line up against each other and both sides shoot. Strangely even though the last man standing won the decorum mattered. That is until someone had a brilliant idea to shoot from the laying down position. Or from the bushes. Or without wearing uniforms.

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of 18th and 19th century infantry tactics to say that they fought that way out of a sense of decorum and that no one had the idea of using concealment or cover. They fought in massed formations because it actually was the most effective way of fighting with the technology of the time. Infantry troops that strayed too far from their formations were extremely vulnerable to attack by…

Oh rubbish.

See Napoleon's excursion into Russia. See Suvorov's crossing of the Alps.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#258

Post by curun1r »

kuschku wrote: post #134
curun1r wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's false. The Waymo-Uber case contains patent claims, though 3 of the 4 were dropped at the judge's suggestion. So it seems that Google has patented quite a few aspects of their self-driving vehicles. The article I found didn't list the patent they're still pursuing against Uber, but here's the 3 patents Google decided not to pursue: https://www.google.com/patents/US8836922 https://www.google.com/patents/US928546…

Good, now link me the source code and 3D definition files required to replicate that without any further work. That’s what should be provided with patents, as I said in the original comment.

What if the source code is in a different language from the one you use? Should a patent force Google to port their code specifically for you? What if the 3D files are for an expensive program that's different from the one you use? Should a patent force Google to convert their files for use with every 3D modeling program?

Patents are about telling you how to do the work, not about doing it for you.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#259

Post by URSpider94 »

jacobolus wrote: post #188
URSpider94 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.google.com/patents/US4558302

As you can see, that is a patent for an “apparatus and method”, not an algorithm per se.

As a holder of dozens of patents, many of them on processes derived from algorithms, I fully understand (as well as anyone can) the implications of current case law. In order to patent an algorithm, you have to re-cast it as an operation to be performed on a general purpose computer. As long as you do that, you have the patent. I fully agree that there's nothing to stop you from calculating GIF's with pencil and paper, or on an abacus, or in your head -- is that a relevant distinction, or merely an academic one?

Additionally, the algorithm has to be non-trivial, which I take to mean multi-step, for it to be patentable when it's transformed into an operation performed on a general-purpose computer. Simply multiplying by a constant, even when done on a general purpose computer, is not patentable.

Re: Cloudflare’s fight with a “patent troll” could alter the game

#260

Post by thaumasiotes »

freehunter wrote: post #133
thaumasiotes wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also didn't happen when Terry Brooks reskinned the lord of the rings as "The Sword of Shannara".

Or when EL James rewrote Twilight without the vampires and called it 50 Shades of Grey.

I was under the impression that the characters in Twilight never actually have sex, while the characters in 50 Shades of Grey have a lot?
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