161–170 of 217 posts
Read this reaction from xiphmont: https://xiphmont.dreamwidth.org/84214.html It paints a quite different picture.
It's not just condescending, it's simply offensive.
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…
Saying that first-to-file means a non-inventor can lawfully obtain a patent is also wrong. It seems to imply that a new, non-obvious invention can only be made by one person at a time. This is not true in competitive industries where many people are working to solve the same problems and will often come up with the same new solutions independently. First-to-file encourages them to apply for their patents early.
There is such a thing as "public domain" inventing, as you call it. It is simply done by (1) inventing, (2) publishing, and (3) not applying for a patent.
What is the relative advantage of putting something into the public domain versus releasing under an Apache 2 or MIT license? The latter doesn’t restrict anyone’s use AND establishes a public record to refute what Google is trying to do. Additionally, communications by email could be via GitHub issues and open to all to see.
Most emails rarely delve into the how to actually do something, most stop at suggestions of things to try.
If i email you a problem, and you email me "you should try a hashtable", and then i reduce the problem to practice using a hashtable, i will likely still be able to patent it. It depends on the country/details, but yeah.
At best, you may or may not be named co-inventor.
(Even here, you can see that one of the arguments the examiner has to make is that it would be obvious how to implement the suggestion. This is because if it wasn't true, it would still be patentable)
Code is a better medium, but there is no way for most patent offices to understand what code does.
But i would never rely on issues and emails being a good medium for prior art.
You'd really need a design doc and reference impl if you want it to be considered for real.
>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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's unrelated to the prior art... they've made no determination that what is in the emails is relevant to anything that I can see Paragraph 6.1: "The author of D1 [Jarek] provided in January 2014 in an on-line discussion forum information that would allow a skilled person to reach the invention without having to apply any inventive skills." Paragraph 6.2: "In particular, it has been proposed in the on-line discuss…
You are confusing a whole bunch of things (sorry, i can't edit my original response on mobile fast enough to correct a few errors. I think you took the wrong thing away from the "unrelated to the prior art" sentence). 1. This is not a court :) In fact, the rejection is specifically not binding. "(1) The objective of the international preliminary examination is to formulate a preliminary and non-binding opinion on the…
> Jarek (and the author's) claim was the emails are important
The claim is: "Duda says he suggested the exact technique Google is trying to patent in a 2014 email exchange with Google engineers".
Which is true. Neither Jarek nor the reporter claim that these emails were the first instance of prior art. They emphasize the emails to show that Jarek was working with Google engineers before they stole his work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How does copyright handle that problem since copyright is automatic?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't patent an idea, only an implementation of an idea.
Aren't drugs patents ideas and not implementations?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
More like MUD. The cost of litigating a patent war between companies at the scale of Google is so high, that it’s generally not in anyone’s interest.
I think you mean MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. Although a patent-war MUD (multi-user dungeon/domain) might be an interesting premise.
Oh, boy...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't drugs patents ideas and not implementations?
Generally, drug patents list the molecular structure, chemical formula, and specific method which they utilize to arrive at the finished product.