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When Patents Attack

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Re: When Patents Attack

#101

Post by meow »

Terry_B wrote: post #74
MartinCron wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, if the patent office would just do their job and not grant bogus patents based on obvious inventions or inventions with prior art, that would probably be enough. Software patents aren't the problem, bad software patents are the problem.

Can you name an example of a good software patent?

Mpeg,h264 series of patents. I'm not sure any one would invest the same effort in these particular domains if they knew every one can copy them (though current crop of internet companies like google have an incentive to do it).

Re: When Patents Attack

#102

Post by dodo53 »

almightygod wrote: post #3

I get anxious every time I read another patent troll story wondering when my weekend creations will end up costing me $ when they accidentally infringe on a patent because I roll out some seemingly ubiquitous feature. I'm deeply saddened by this mess and doubt it will ever be resolved. There is far to much money at stake now to revert things - money = lobbying.

If you infringe a patent - isn't possible to get a fixed cost or is it a fraction of earnings? Can you be more out of pocket than what you earn? ie can you do

[1. Possibly cursory layperson check of existing patents ]

2. Weekend / hobby / small-scale project

3. Oh! People like it, it's making money / scaling!

4. Get lawyer in to do proper patent search before continuing?

(not that this is ideal either)

Re: When Patents Attack

#103

Post by vacri »

ahlatimer wrote: post #98
vacri wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy that argument - why aren't many of the other short comments in this page getting the same treatment when they're not adding to the discussion either?

If you had cut out the "Admittedly I stopped reading the article when I got to" part of your comment, you probably wouldn't have been downvoted. I think the general perception is that it's difficult to add to the discussion of an article if you didn't even bother to read that article, especially when your comment merely echoed the article.

I, too, think it is that particular phrase, and I disagree with the sentiment of downmodding this kind of admission instead of actual content.

I've seen this elsewhere - if someone says they're being sarcastic, they're downmodded to hell... but people in the same thread saying the same thing in the same sarcastic manner, but without the admission, are left alone.

I find this inconsistency annoying - it appears that downmod-friendly HNers are more interested in making a pretense to politeness than actually moderating content. It only takes a single dissenter and your words are already diminished on the page.

Re: When Patents Attack

#104

Post by dodo53 »

moultano wrote: post #61

Throwing an idea out there: Software patents should last no more than 1 year. If you come up with something worth patenting, you get a year lead on competitors. That's it.

Crazier idea - what if the patent pool (for some domain maybe?) was fixed? (ie. there can only exist 10k patents?) Then the cost of patent search isn't ever increasing as long as rate of patenting is higher than rate of expiry. And possible it could provide a mechanism for removing frivolous patents (like - you could buy a patent 'slot' off an existing holder - so you'd be incentivised to find the most stupid patent so you could offer them the least cash upfront, as they'd not be holding out for licensing profits).

Re: When Patents Attack

#105

Post by pyrhho »

phillmv wrote: post #39
dangrover wrote: post #34

What if you could pay for some kind of insurance product to protect against patent lawsuits? Or perhaps some kind of co-operative that owned a bunch of bullshit patents to be used for defensive purposes in such a scenario?

>What if you could pay for some kind of insurance product to protect against patent lawsuits? Heh. Programmers' malpractice insurance. The premiums would be ridiculous, though. >Or perhaps some kind of co-operative that owned a bunch of bullshit patents to be used for defensive purposes in such a scenario? That's more or less the shitck Intellectual Ventures uses to justify that they're not patent trolls (they point…

> Maybe here's a valid, easy-to-swallow change to the patent system - everytime a patent changes hands you halve the amount of time it is valid for.

Nice idea!

> It's not like they make anything that can be infringed on.

Or, require the patent holder to prove 'damages'. Since they don't make anything and don't actually use their patents there are no damages lost.

Re: When Patents Attack

#106

Post by va_coder »

moultano wrote: post #61

Throwing an idea out there: Software patents should last no more than 1 year. If you come up with something worth patenting, you get a year lead on competitors. That's it.

It's funny how little innovation there is in the patent system itself.

Re: When Patents Attack

#107

Post by Natsu »

dodo53 wrote: post #102
almightygod wrote: post #3

I get anxious every time I read another patent troll story wondering when my weekend creations will end up costing me $ when they accidentally infringe on a patent because I roll out some seemingly ubiquitous feature. I'm deeply saddened by this mess and doubt it will ever be resolved. There is far to much money at stake now to revert things - money = lobbying.

If you infringe a patent - isn't possible to get a fixed cost or is it a fraction of earnings? Can you be more out of pocket than what you earn? ie can you do [1. Possibly cursory layperson check of existing patents ] 2. Weekend / hobby / small-scale project 3. Oh! People like it, it's making money / scaling! 4. Get lawyer in to do proper patent search before continuing? (not that this is ideal either)

You can agree to license it for whatever the other party is willing to license it for.

It's the court costs that can pretty much bankrupt you.

Re: When Patents Attack

#109

Post by shmulkey18 »

firebones wrote: post #68
mpk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] they accidentally infringe on a patent I hate to break it to you, but chances are that you infringe on hundreds, if not more, patents in the US. Nobody can tell you what or even how many patents you infringe on, though. Nobody has read all the patents and every single one is subject to interpretation. An interpretation, I might add, that has to be validated by a legal system that really doesn't care about cor…

I wonder if there will be a "Finlandization" of software development (concept courtesy of Chris Crawford's classic "Balance of Power" game) where small devs and dev shops align with larger, protective entities that provide defensive protection in exchange for association with the aura of small, indy developers. Think (evilly): Myrhvold's IV Labs or Apple or Microsoft or IBM offers a "Friends of IV/Apple/MSFT/IBM" pro…

Just to set the record straight: a game developer didn't come up with the concept of Finlandization. The term was long used by scholars in geopolitics to refer to the situation of Finland, which although internally free, had aspects of its foreign policy more or less dictated by the Soviet Union.

Re: When Patents Attack

#110

Post by cpenner461 »

bergie wrote: post #96
cpenner461 wrote: post #50

Serious question: can/do patent trolls go after open source projects? I'm not thinking of businesses who sell/support open source software (e.g. Red Hat), but would it be a viable "defense" for an indie dev to simply release their project as open source? I've got an idea for a "weekend project" or two that I could conceivably make a few bucks with, or I could release them as open source so that I can at least benefit…

The Debian patent FAQ is pretty good for this: http://www.debian.org/reports/patent-faq

Very useful - thanks for the link!
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