Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain • Hacker News Board

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#141

Post by maxk42 » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

hamami wrote: post #131

I think it would be useful if there was a patent type for "free for anyone to use", something like the MIT License in open source. This would make it easier for patent officers to discover and reject applications conflicting with prior free to use patents and offload the burden of keeping track of this from the inventor to the patent office.

Well it used to be that no action was necessary to prevent someone from patenting something you've already invented and released publicly: The first person to invent it had the right to patent or not patent it, and nobody else.

A few years ago we switched to a "first-to-file" system and this is a direct consequence of that. Someone who didn't invent something can now file a patent. Doing so is a lengthy, expensive process, so the immediate consequence is there is no more "public domain" inventing.

This needs to be reversed.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#142

Post by ttul » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

maxk42 wrote: post #141

hamami wrote: post #131

I think it would be useful if there was a patent type for "free for anyone to use", something like the MIT License in open source. This would make it easier for patent officers to discover and reject applications conflicting with prior free to use patents and offload the burden of keeping track of this from the inventor to the patent office.

Well it used to be that no action was necessary to prevent someone from patenting something you've already invented and released publicly: The first person to invent it had the right to patent or not patent it, and nobody else. A few years ago we switched to a "first-to-file" system and this is a direct consequence of that. Someone who didn't invent something can now file a patent. Doing so is a lengthy, expensive pr…

Absolutely. The first to file system greatly disadvantages individual and/or poorly funded inventors, because for big corporations, the cost to file is no great hurdle.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#143

Post by paulddraper » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

maxk42 wrote: post #141

hamami wrote: post #131

I think it would be useful if there was a patent type for "free for anyone to use", something like the MIT License in open source. This would make it easier for patent officers to discover and reject applications conflicting with prior free to use patents and offload the burden of keeping track of this from the inventor to the patent office.

Well it used to be that no action was necessary to prevent someone from patenting something you've already invented and released publicly: The first person to invent it had the right to patent or not patent it, and nobody else. A few years ago we switched to a "first-to-file" system and this is a direct consequence of that. Someone who didn't invent something can now file a patent. Doing so is a lengthy, expensive pr…

I'm not saying the system is perfect, but there is a reason we switched to the current system.

If I've invented widgets (or think that I've invented widgets), I should be able to know if I can patent and sell them, without years later getting sued because someone once did it in their basement and left it at that.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#144

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

ttul wrote: post #142

maxk42 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it used to be that no action was necessary to prevent someone from patenting something you've already invented and released publicly: The first person to invent it had the right to patent or not patent it, and nobody else. A few years ago we switched to a "first-to-file" system and this is a direct consequence of that. Someone who didn't invent something can now file a patent. Doing so is a lengthy, expensive pr…

Absolutely. The first to file system greatly disadvantages individual and/or poorly funded inventors, because for big corporations, the cost to file is no great hurdle.

Flip side: first to file arose because first to invent is inherently ambiguous. The fixed cost of a filing was deemed better than the large and unknowable cost of determining who invented what when through the courts.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#145

Post by allenz » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #98

"a view largely endorsed by a preliminary ruling in February by European patent authorities" If one clicks through, you discover it says literally nothing of the sort, it just says they will include that email exchange as a possible prior art reference (along with a lot of other things). It actually doesn't express any opinions at all, except on the priority claim, which is not related to this part. It is literally a…

I think you missed the other seven pages. Page 2 paragraph 6:

> The present application does not meet the criteria of Article 33(1) PCT, because the subject-matter of claim 1 does not involve an inventive step in the sense of Article 33(3) PCT.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#146

Post by brbrodude » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

kyle-rb wrote: post #106

This reminds me of the "pull to refresh" patent that Twitter owns, but has promised to only use defensively. Optimistically, Google wants a similar thing so they can defend the use of this technique if someone tries to seek royalties for use of this video encoding technique. A little less optimistically, Google wants it so they can pull the license from a specific party if that party tries to sue them for an unrelate…

Faulty society constructs break down one way or another. This is very clear sign of rotten stuff underneath. I.e.: The system sucks, man.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#147

Post by kevmo314 » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

allenz wrote: post #129

xfs wrote: post #108

Read this reaction from xiphmont: https://xiphmont.dreamwidth.org/84214.html It paints a quite different picture.

This comes off as rather dismissive. Xiphmont simultaneously claims that Jarek's work is useless ("the performance claims just don't hold up") and that Google needs a defensive patent on it. As someone on encode.ru pointed out, "if Google genuinely wanted this as a defensive patent, then the right approach is to work with Jarek and pay for him to file a patent on ANS itself blocking as many of the spin-off patents as…

That doesn't sound like the right approach. Google has the resources to actually defend the patent. While ideally/ethically Jarek should be the one with the patent, if the patent is only being used defensively, Jarek probably isn't the right entity to actually defend it.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#148

Post by trhway » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:33 PM UTC

>A Google spokesperson told Ars that Duda came up with a theoretical concept that isn't directly patentable, while Google's lawyers are seeking to patent a specific application of that theory that reflects additional work by Google's engineers.

and this is how you do it, children. You patent a straightforward implementation and application ("additional work by engineers") of the idea, and thus you effectively prevent anybody from _implementing_ and _applying_ the same idea while the idea itself is supposedly still patent-free (an additional bonus is that you don't even have to pay to the author of the idea :).

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#149

Post by temporalparts » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

hamami wrote: post #131

I think it would be useful if there was a patent type for "free for anyone to use", something like the MIT License in open source. This would make it easier for patent officers to discover and reject applications conflicting with prior free to use patents and offload the burden of keeping track of this from the inventor to the patent office.

There are such things as defensive publications, which prevents others from patenting something by providing a publicized proof of prior art.

But most companies would rather just patent something.

Re: Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain

#150

Post by wb36 » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #148

>A Google spokesperson told Ars that Duda came up with a theoretical concept that isn't directly patentable, while Google's lawyers are seeking to patent a specific application of that theory that reflects additional work by Google's engineers. and this is how you do it, children. You patent a straightforward implementation and application ("additional work by engineers") of the idea, and thus you effectively prevent…

You can't patent an idea, only an implementation of an idea.