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IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

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Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#151

Post by CalChris »

pslam wrote: post #29
brenden2 wrote: post #12

The whole US patent system needs to either be scrapped or rebuilt. The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. Getting a software patent is mostly a matter of sneaking past the people at the USPTO, and making sure you're the first to file. These patent factories could just write c…

> The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. The very first patent was to duplicate an existing process (the loom) and have a monopoly to produce it. I keep hearing this argument from patent proponents, but patents have never in their history been ostensibly for good.

The first patent was for a process of making potash, an ingredient used in fertilizer.

https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/first-us-patent-...

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#153

Post by bdowling »

abridgett wrote: post #97

I remember when I worked at IBM Hursley research labs 20 years ago. The lab director told us all "patents are very important to IBM". I expected him to tell us that IBM made billions from licensing them. He didn't say that though. I don't think he even _mentioned_ that. Instead he stated: "It raises the entry barrier for the competition". Patents were (narrowly) created to _encourage_ the spread of knowledge. Instead…

> We need different lengths for different patents - we shouldn't treat how rectangular a phone is the same way as a life saving drug.

We don't treat them the same. A design patent protecting an ornamental feature of a product has a term of 15 years from the date of issue. A utility patent for a useful invention has a term of 20 years from the date of application.In both cases, the rights granted are in exchange for disclosure of information and for a limited term. After the term ends, anyone is free to make full use of the design or invention and to make improvements without paying any royalties and without fear of infringing.

> Instead of risky "trade secrets" a company would make the knowledge public for a short monopoly.

Some inventions are suited to being kept secret (e.g., Google's search algorithms), while others are not (e.g., any product that can be reverse-engineered). Patents can protect the latter, for a limited time, where trade secret law cannot.

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#154

Post by bubblethink »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #149
raywu wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is informative. What is a good way to keep track of 1) parents filed by IBM, 2) lawsuits and parties involved IBM? Is there a service you like that provide weekly or monthly updates?

Disclaimer, I've contributed a couple of patents to IBM's hoard of patents, but I no longer work there. #1 is fairly straight forward, a simple script that uses the USPTO search function and searches for the Assignee field being IBM and the date range being the last 30 days gives you the patents issued that month to IBM. You can do that with a simple cron script, curl, and some script code. #2 is somewhat more diffic…

Tangential question for everyone. I recently had to file a small claims case by myself (i.e., no attorney). It's still in the pipeline, but the process made me realise that the legal world is a different universe altogether. From the tech perspective, everything is stuck in the dark ages. I had to create a pdf, print it, then go to the court, only to scan it again on a windows 8 computer with silverlight that would keep timing out. Similar experience with the website (run by a company called tyler technologies). I was not successful in doing much research on my own about the laws and precedents regarding such cases. The instructions on the court's website are not precise. Why is everything so siloed and inefficient that only lawyers can navigate this? Are any startups working in this space ?

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#155

Post by ergothus »

riazrizvi wrote: post #75
brenden2 wrote: post #12

The whole US patent system needs to either be scrapped or rebuilt. The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. Getting a software patent is mostly a matter of sneaking past the people at the USPTO, and making sure you're the first to file. These patent factories could just write c…

I think it is working exactly as intended. The point of the USPTO is to provide a mechanism for carving up the universe of ideas into plots of land where ownership is clear and backed up by the force of the state. You can charge rent on it, you can develop it yourself, you can leave it idle, it’s yours. Software innovators are a bit like wholesome farmers who just want to labor in the fields, beat the elements and gr…

> The point of the USPTO is to provide a mechanism for carving up the universe of ideas into plots of land where ownership is clear and backed up by the force of the state. You can charge rent on it, you can develop it yourself, you can leave it idle, it’s yours.

The point of patent laws is to encourage the spread of knowledge. To put it another way, it's NOT yours, but we'll let you act like it for a bit in order to make sure the knowledge gets out. If we've created a situation where the "land of ideas" is remaining fallow, then the process isn't working as intended.

> The problem I believe, is that software innovators are taught not to worry about patents

Who's the innovator? What side of the worry?

The software companies I've been in have been all about MAKING patents. Teaching special classes, polling workers to see if they've done anything patentable.

Worrying about violating patents is a different story.

Meanwhile, as an individual coder doing anything outside a corporate market, the message is that it's too expensive and difficult to "worry" about violating them.

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#156

Post by randoramax »

freejazz wrote: post #144
thayne wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it suits them. I think the bigger reason is that in many civil cases (not just IP) it ultimately comes down to who is willing to pay more for lawyers and legal fees.

As a litigator I do not think that is true. Facts, more than anything, dictate outcomes, generally. Though I will say that patent cases are prohibitively expensive. Though, contrary to what I would think many here assume, leaves the inventor with the short end of the stick as opposed to large IP-owning organizations like Google (that simultaneously advocate for lesser patent-rights).

As a non-litigator, i call BS. Facts don't matter much when it comes to justice. Try suing a small businesses LLC for some wrong doing: they'll file bankruptcy and you'll never see your money.

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#157

Post by bdowling »

duxup wrote: post #53
vikramkr wrote: post #7

I recall an article a while back about how IBM is so innovative because it had the most patents filed per year on tech or something. I think we can see now that their patenting is less about innovation and more about patent trolling. Quote from the FT article on this below does not seem to show to me that this is the sort of patent that promotes real innovation - "improved navigation using bookmarks" does not seem li…

I worked at a place that for a short while had a patent fan CTO. They'd make plaques about the patents and hang them on walls around the company rotating them as they were filed. I'd read them... like 90% of them I'd look at and they were straight up just a basic network design. Some I'm not even sure you could NOT do if you did any basic business process / built a computer network. It was bonkers.

A patent must include enough information for the patent to be useful to a person of ordinary skill in the art, so applicants usually err on the side of including too much background information. It is always the claims at the end of the patent that describe the scope of the invention. Those claims are often only on a small part of what is disclosed.

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#159

Post by anotherman554 »

freejazz wrote: post #120
MegaButts wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but the fact that it says nothing about an obligation (I don't even believe it's implied, but I'm not a historical legal scholar) leads me to believe you're inserting your own bias.

One thought would be, if there was no duty implied in the specific enumeration of this power and it's implied goal, then why wouldn't it just be part of the necessary and proper clause?

If you think the necessary and proper clause can be read to authorize patents, you probably have a very different idea of how to interpret the constitution than the drafters of the constitution.

Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties

#160

Post by slim »

paulgb wrote: post #141
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #81

I was a fact witness for Groupon in the IBM/groupon suit (which IBM won). Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. Morally they ought to win it, but ...

> Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. As an aside, the fact that these things are decided by juries is nuts to me. Why should the average Joe who needs help installing a printer be compelled to miss work to decide multibillion dollar lawsuits that are deeply technical? I understand the right to a jury if you are accused of murder, but for patent cases it just seems asinine.

because justice must not depend on any preexisting hierarchy
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