Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#51

Post by vlovich123 » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #29

mchannon wrote: post #3

Thomas Edison freely admitted most of his 1,093 US patents were for inventions that would never have worked. Patenting a completely ridiculous and impossible idea is quite straightforward if you know the system and have the money and reputation. Journalists are notoriously bad at technical due diligence, but the fact is even trained scientists and engineers can be duped, particularly when access is limited. Having be…

Patenting inventions that don't work is a great way to waste a lot of money on patent attorneys and patent office fees. Worldwide patenting can get even more ridiculously expensive. There are some really nutty patents out there.

The reason it's done is that you structure the patent broad enough & vague enough to still be enforceable but cover more than what exact specific thing you were actually thinking about. It's shitty IMO & a lot of patent trolls rely on this but that's one of the downsides of the way the patent system works (it's a tradeoff - if you tried to solve this problem you'd end up creating other problems so you have to figure out which downsides your OK living with or mitigating in other ways).

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#52

Post by testvox » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #41

_rpd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She could try, but the patents might be found to be 'non-enabling' and thus invalid. Patents are supposed to teach a reader how to make the invention. In particular, it seems that the microfluidics stuff needs new inventions to make it work in practice. So presumably those aren't described in the patents. Although it wouldn't be the first time that management overlooked solutions provided by their own researchers.

Are patents _required_ to teach a reader how to make the invention? That seems like an interesting requirement that I hadn't heard of before, and I've got a patent with my name on it myself.

Yes that's the entire point of patents. To pay people for sharing their ideas with others. If your patent can't do that you don't get paid.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#53

Post by _rpd » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:14 PM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #41

_rpd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She could try, but the patents might be found to be 'non-enabling' and thus invalid. Patents are supposed to teach a reader how to make the invention. In particular, it seems that the microfluidics stuff needs new inventions to make it work in practice. So presumably those aren't described in the patents. Although it wouldn't be the first time that management overlooked solutions provided by their own researchers.

Are patents _required_ to teach a reader how to make the invention? That seems like an interesting requirement that I hadn't heard of before, and I've got a patent with my name on it myself.

35 U.S.C. § 112(a) ...

> The specification [of the patent] shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same

It's the raison d'etre of patents. A time-limited monopoly in exchange for full documentation of the invention for the long term public good.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#54

Post by southern_cross » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:30 PM UTC

I'm just an ordinary Joe and it was pretty obvious to me from the beginning that this was mostly just a scam. For one, she didn't have the necessary background to really create anything new and inventive here. Second, her supposed goal was a "no needles" system, which of course she didn't really have. Third, my wife is a nurse and she told me that finger-prick samples are mostly useless for many of the tests that might need to be run, so instead relatively large amounts of blood have to be drawn from a vein. Also that one reason why they often draw multiple vials of blood is because the test results from each individual vial may vary considerably; I forget the details though.

That said, microfluidics (where you use minimal sample sizes and minimal reagents and such) is a real and growing thing, and I assume that she was just trying to ride that wave. But it turns out that this doesn't work so well for blood samples.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#55

Post by rossdavidh » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

There are lots of legitimate reasons why this could have been so, such as they were patents of some small piece of Theranos' technology that worked, even though their grand scheme did not.

However, the real reason is that patents are bogus, and more or less all they assert is that this person or company filed the paperwork first. The Patent Office has not even close to the amount of staff they would need to actually verify that the patents they grant are working.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#56

Post by herodotus » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

sova wrote: post #13

herodotus wrote: post #9

The numbers game is a part of the modern Patent system. It is almost certainly impossible for a patent officer to asses the scientific or technical merit of a patent application. At best, they can throw out the nutbar submissions. The submitting companies often want patents partly (or mostly completely) for marketing reasons: "Our technology is protected by N patents!". Even Steve Jobs said this when he introduced th…

Any hints as to what that particular patent is about? =)

All I am willing to say is that my colleague and I made the suggestion to the Patent committee before we knew anything about the actual design of the iPhone (or even that there really was going to be one). In essence, we imagined what would be needed to enable a click-wheel to function for text and numeric input, and proposed a solution. We were surprised that the committee accepted the proposal - and, when we finally were disclosed on the iPhone, there was no click-wheel! But the patent was granted.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#57

Post by tzahola » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

Brakenshire wrote: post #34

danso wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I brought this up in a comment downstream, but it was a Dec. 17, 2014, blog post by the now defunct Pathology Blawg that arguably led to the downfall of Theranos. The Blawg author was contacted by someone feuding with Holmes at the time. The Blawg author eventually contacted the WSJ reporter in secret: http://archive.is/BGtRJ One of the compelling things the Blawg author did was note this passage in the New Yorker st…

Ouch, the quote from Elizabeth Holmes on how the machine worked: > "A chemistry is performed so that a chemical reaction occurs and generates a signal from the chemical interaction with the sample, which is translated into a result, which is then reviewed by certified laboratory personnel."

Reads like basic.wikipedia.org

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#58

Post by throwawayjava » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

> Turns out she has around 200 patents (with other people mostly).

I have no idea about these patents, but it's certainly possible that those particular patents describe functional subcomponents/processes of an overall system that doesn't work.

> How come some prominent physicist or biologist doing "competition research" didn't declare that the patents were based on bogus claims?

I'm not sure what "competition research" means. In any case, approximately 0% of prominent scientists read patents. Patents are written both for and by lawyers/courts.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#59

Post by jpizzle » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #12

The patents don't really tell you whether the Theranos technology actually works. They cover small parts of the overall system - fluid handling, centrifuge configurations, software processes and so on. It's quite common for companies to use a mix of patents and trade secrets to protect their technology. Filing for patent protection is a tradeoff - you gain the exclusive right to use that invention for 20 years, but t…

Holmes figured out a pathway to violate the trust of old man wisdom. Sounds like she just fished the right old men. One of those that that’s incredibly mature in one aspect of life and threw all her effort in that direction naively ignoring the rest of of what “trust” actually facilitates.

Poo poo for the men who were fished... don’t s*!t where you eat.

Re: Ask HN: Elizabeth Holmes has 200 patents – if tech didn't work, why not noticed?

#60

Post by whatshisface » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

jpizzle wrote: post #59

jdietrich wrote: post #12

The patents don't really tell you whether the Theranos technology actually works. They cover small parts of the overall system - fluid handling, centrifuge configurations, software processes and so on. It's quite common for companies to use a mix of patents and trade secrets to protect their technology. Filing for patent protection is a tradeoff - you gain the exclusive right to use that invention for 20 years, but t…

Holmes figured out a pathway to violate the trust of old man wisdom. Sounds like she just fished the right old men. One of those that that’s incredibly mature in one aspect of life and threw all her effort in that direction naively ignoring the rest of of what “trust” actually facilitates. Poo poo for the men who were fished... don’t s*!t where you eat.

Many of the board members of Theranos were retired military officials, which seems especially interesting in the context of how Theranos was originally planning on selling the technology that we now know to be non-working to the military. I recall that the sale was originally blocked by low-level military regulators. Holmes may not have scammed as many people as we thought - the window is open on the idea that some of her funding and support may have proceeded knowing that it was a ball of nothing, in the hope that it could be pushed forward anyway.

[0]https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/03/14/theranos... [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/inter...