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Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

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Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#31

Post by excessive »

kurthr wrote: post #27
mschuetz wrote: post #5

I do research in computer science and in the last few years, lots of trivial and dumb patents in my field appeared out of nowhere. However, I can only assume that they really are trivial because they are written in a way to claim a lot without actually describing how any of it works. These patents have 0% information in them. What's more, they all read like a rewrite of papers that were published years ago (before th…

If the specification is not enabling and novel to one skilled in the art (much less obvious), then it is not valid. Under rexam or court proceedings they will be worth the paper they're printed on. That's an expensive way to determine things, but it sounds like that particular section of art at the patent office isn't doing much. On the other hand they only have to hide one novel idea and unique claim in the list to…

When you go to court, the presumption is that the patent is valid. The judge is unlikely to be technical, and he must assume the experts at the patent office did their job. Since the patent office basically rubber stamps anything you send to them, it's a very uphill battle to start with.

In my case, we submitted lots of prior art (some over 100 years old) to the court, and of course they shared this with the plaintiffs. I was certain we should be in the clear. However, in the time between receiving those documents and the actual court date, the plaintiffs submitted our list of prior art to the patent office as some sort of addendum. The patent office re-rubber stamped the new stack of paper, and the judge disregarded it during the trial. We lost. I doubt the patent office bothered to read, much less understand, any of it.

I feel very strongly that their patent was not novel, and since I wrote the algorithm which got us sued from scratch as a new college grad with only a bachelors degree, I doubt it was non-obvious to one skilled in the art. Maybe we could've won with better lawyers, but as a small startup, we didn't have that kind of money.

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#32

Post by edoo »

buyingarmor wrote: post #30

People usually think of incentivizing R&D in general, but patents also help to prevent trade secrets. A trade secret can be kept secret indefinitely and can potentially be lost if the company loses interest or is shut down. Patents help encourage publishing advances in technology so that they eventually advance the public domain. If they weren't interested in that then they probably wouldn't make patents expire.

Patents started out as 7 years and have been extended through lobbying efforts.

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#33

Post by 80mph »

levythe wrote: post #18
paul7986 wrote: post #2

Unless you have a war chest behind you getting a patent is a huge gamble especially when your invention becomes successful. When it does those with a war chest jump in and use the PTAB to invalid your patent. You can even hear judges on Shark Tank like Damon John say/ponder on the show is a patent worth getting as he notes the PTAB issue. Further, Google and it's ilk changed the game in their favor when they lined th…

When did it change to first to file?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy%E2%80%93Smith_America_In...

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#34

Post by pbhjpbhj »

excessive wrote: post #31
kurthr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the specification is not enabling and novel to one skilled in the art (much less obvious), then it is not valid. Under rexam or court proceedings they will be worth the paper they're printed on. That's an expensive way to determine things, but it sounds like that particular section of art at the patent office isn't doing much. On the other hand they only have to hide one novel idea and unique claim in the list to…

When you go to court, the presumption is that the patent is valid. The judge is unlikely to be technical, and he must assume the experts at the patent office did their job. Since the patent office basically rubber stamps anything you send to them, it's a very uphill battle to start with. In my case, we submitted lots of prior art (some over 100 years old) to the court, and of course they shared this with the plaintif…

It sounds like you didn't have very good counsel if the court didn't consider clear prior disclosure as demonstrating invalidity.

FWIW in the UK we have expert patent court judges; USA used to have that too, I gather.

>I doubt it was non-obvious to one skilled in the art //

You have to be careful here, "obvious" doesn't quite mean the same as in daily life. It's so easy to see a neat solution to a problem and go "that's so simple, anyone could have done it". Once you've seen things they often seem simple (ex post facto analysis).

I think this is particularly true in some arts where basically every day any ordinary worker invents solutions to problems.

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#35

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Railsify wrote: post #20
mschuetz wrote: post #5

I do research in computer science and in the last few years, lots of trivial and dumb patents in my field appeared out of nowhere. However, I can only assume that they really are trivial because they are written in a way to claim a lot without actually describing how any of it works. These patents have 0% information in them. What's more, they all read like a rewrite of papers that were published years ago (before th…

There has been a surge in stupid patents because Obama changed the rules to allow patents to be granted to the first person to file for patent, even if the device of process has been in use for 100 years.

Patents are only valid if they relate to new and inventive stuff.

USA came in to line with the rest of the World which uses first-to-file (first to invent means the litigious will always challenge inventorship which is exceedingly difficult to determine as there isn't necessarily a paper-trail).

USA patent seem, to me, to be worse than other places, and first to file works elsewhere suggesting that is not the problem.

Personally I feel the costs system, and low presumption of validity at grant seem more to blame.

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#36

Post by pbhjpbhj »

to11mtm wrote: post #19
pkaye wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Further, Google and it's ilk changed the game in their favor when they lined the pockets of congressmen/women to change the law from first to invent(those with money) to first to file(the true inventors with little resources/power). But it seems like the vast majority of the world uses first-to-file.

Correct, but first-to-file is not as friendly to entrepreneurs. In first-to-invent prior art was at least a line of defense for a company defending themselves against a spurious patent troll. (One that STILL would cost money to defend in court most of the time.) With the change in the system, my understanding is now it is 6 months after publication to challenge a patent with prior art. And thanks to the way they are…

You seem to have misunderstood. It's first to file, but prior disclosure invalidates the patent (except a few edge cases to allow for trade shows, I gather).

Prior disclosure is any documented teaching of the embodied idea the patent seeks to protect. In the UK a classic example was a dog doorbell having a comic cited against it.

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#37

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #26
philipkglass wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents have always been about encouraging public disclosure of secrets. ... The monopoly is the tool of patent law. But the purpose of patent law is disclosure of information. I like that formulation. But in that case we shouldn't be granting patents on things that can be immediately (or even within 5 years) reverse engineered from working examples.

I genuinely like that idea. We should change the patent approval process work like an episode of penn&teller's "Fool Us", where the patent office has to guess what your patent is, before reviewing it. If the patent office is right, rejection; wrong, approval. We could televise it and subsidise the whole thing with advertising revenue. This is not a joke.

Are you suggesting you have to make an example, so if I design a new rocket engine I have to have 10s of millions of $$$ to spend on making one before you'll give me a patent, and then you might decide it was obvious? And I have to disclose it in public prior to getting protection?

Are you sure that's not a joke.

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#38

Post by bnjms »

buyingarmor wrote: post #30

People usually think of incentivizing R&D in general, but patents also help to prevent trade secrets. A trade secret can be kept secret indefinitely and can potentially be lost if the company loses interest or is shut down. Patents help encourage publishing advances in technology so that they eventually advance the public domain. If they weren't interested in that then they probably wouldn't make patents expire.

Can you give an example of something today’s scientists and engineers could not reverse engineer or make from scratch given a working implementation? Espionage and industry standard will get at most of it too. I don’t know trade secrets are the problem they used to be.

I’ll give you moon rockets and the pyramids.

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#39

Post by pbhjpbhj »

drfuchs wrote: post #8
gohbgl wrote: post #4

Patents are primarily about getting a limited time monopoly. Publicly disclosing the invention is just a direct consequence and not a virtue of the patent system. So please stop marketing it like that. In many cases it is completely irrelevant because the invention is sold and can be reverse engineered. Also: > Encouraging people to share information so that others can use it to make further advances is the whole poi…

The whole original idea behind the patent system is that you would be granted a time-limited monopoly in exchange for making your idea “patent” (frequently pronounced “pay-tent”, and meaning “obvious”), rather than trying to maintain it as a trade secret (in the formal, legal sense). You can argue that the monopoly term is too long, or that patents are being granted on things that are already obvious, or that you don…

Nit-pick: Patent means 'open'. The first protected inventions were a sub-class of things monarchs wrote about in litterae patentes (open letters).

Re: Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

#40

Post by mehrdadn »

jacques_chester wrote: post #29
levythe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's typically considered the best approach to cast a broad net, then narrow down until a patent is granted. That being said, in the US, patents are given on a first to invent basis, so if you are awarded a patent that is overly vague, it's pretty likely it won't hold up if challenged. I find myself questioning the value of a patent office that awards patents that are vague enough that they wouldn't hold up in a disp…

In my understanding the US is now on a first-to-file system.

Apparently it's first inventor to file, though I'm not entirely clear on what that means.
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