The patent to invalidate software patents • Hacker News Board

Re: The patent to invalidate software patents

#11

Post by WoundedMarlin » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 9:38 PM UTC

shabble wrote: post #10

I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but I've not seen it in any of the previous debate about software patents. Quoting from the article: Patents are meant to foster innovation by protecting the inventor and then upon expiry providing a library of information for others to build on. To this end, going forward, if a patent doesn’t actually tell you enough information to understand and build the inventio…

I really like that idea, I am sure I am missing some important part that makes it not so easy to do. When you file a patent for invention like (dishwasher) you have to supply all the design drawings for the project. I do not see why they could not do that with software patents.

Re: The patent to invalidate software patents

#12

Post by andrewflnr » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 10:34 PM UTC

shabble wrote: post #10

I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but I've not seen it in any of the previous debate about software patents. Quoting from the article: Patents are meant to foster innovation by protecting the inventor and then upon expiry providing a library of information for others to build on. To this end, going forward, if a patent doesn’t actually tell you enough information to understand and build the inventio…

"Actual, working code" might be prohibitively context-dependent. Working code to detect credit-card fraud would be pretty dependent on your financial infrastructure. In many cases though, that would not be as big a problem, and in others it might be satisfactorily overcome. I think this is a good idea.

Re: The patent to invalidate software patents

#13

Post by ticktock » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 11:17 PM UTC

patents are forever... don't forget what the gov't considers the most important concept of patents; Taxe$. Patents were designed so the gov't could tax any proceeds gained by selling or licensing the patent. Why would they ever voluntarily get rid of that? They would patent their own mother if they could, or haven't they done/tried that already? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/30gene.html The whole idea of "fostering innovation" is all BS. It's all about the $$$.

Re: The patent to invalidate software patents

#14

Post by DasIch » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 11:50 PM UTC

shabble wrote: post #10

I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but I've not seen it in any of the previous debate about software patents. Quoting from the article: Patents are meant to foster innovation by protecting the inventor and then upon expiry providing a library of information for others to build on. To this end, going forward, if a patent doesn’t actually tell you enough information to understand and build the inventio…

What about software that relies on proprietary hardware etc.?

Re: The patent to invalidate software patents

#15

Post by anamax » Wed, Aug 24, 2011, 12:06 AM UTC

WoundedMarlin wrote: post #11

shabble wrote: post #10

I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but I've not seen it in any of the previous debate about software patents. Quoting from the article: Patents are meant to foster innovation by protecting the inventor and then upon expiry providing a library of information for others to build on. To this end, going forward, if a patent doesn’t actually tell you enough information to understand and build the inventio…

I really like that idea, I am sure I am missing some important part that makes it not so easy to do. When you file a patent for invention like (dishwasher) you have to supply all the design drawings for the project. I do not see why they could not do that with software patents.

> When you file a patent for invention like (dishwasher) you have to supply all the design drawings for the project.

Actually, you don't. Look at some patents, such as http://www.google.com/patents?id=TdUkAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&#38... .

Notice that the drawings for that showshoe binding patent are not "design drawings" for a snowshoe binding. (Those drawings are lacking a lot of dimensions that one would need for such a product.)

You have to provide information that tells someone skilled in the art how to do what you claimed. That's it.

FWIW, "What you claimed" is rarely a complete product. Instead, it's an aspect that can be used in multiple products. (While I don't know where else one might use that snowboard binding mechanism, I'm sure that someone else does.)

Re: The patent to invalidate software patents

#16

Post by Jach » Wed, Aug 24, 2011, 1:57 AM UTC

DasIch wrote: post #14

shabble wrote: post #10

I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but I've not seen it in any of the previous debate about software patents. Quoting from the article: Patents are meant to foster innovation by protecting the inventor and then upon expiry providing a library of information for others to build on. To this end, going forward, if a patent doesn’t actually tell you enough information to understand and build the inventio…

What about software that relies on proprietary hardware etc.?

Also what about code in a non-standard language? Suppose no one knew about Brainfuck and you included your software solution implemented in Brainfuck without an explanation of the code and how it corresponds to the patent. Do you need to include compiler/interpreter details, explain what the machine code generally looks like and does? What about hypothetical computing devices like quantum computers?

Though a general solution to proprietary hardware that you have rights over would be to include an FPGA implementation... whether that should be required or not is another story, especially if you don't have rights over it.

Re: The patent to invalidate software patents

#17

Post by shabble » Wed, Aug 24, 2011, 2:00 AM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #12

shabble wrote: post #10

I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but I've not seen it in any of the previous debate about software patents. Quoting from the article: Patents are meant to foster innovation by protecting the inventor and then upon expiry providing a library of information for others to build on. To this end, going forward, if a patent doesn’t actually tell you enough information to understand and build the inventio…

"Actual, working code" might be prohibitively context-dependent. Working code to detect credit-card fraud would be pretty dependent on your financial infrastructure. In many cases though, that would not be as big a problem, and in others it might be satisfactorily overcome. I think this is a good idea.

Yeah, it did occur to me after commenting that it might be difficult to extract the specific patentable invention chunk from the overall application.

I can't think of a single approach that would work everywhere, but logically isolating it as a library or service might work, similar to the way in which you can implement an IPC/RPC shim for interfacing to GPL'd code from your proprietary app.

Inventions that don't fit that model (Operating Systems, Embedded Firmware, Massive Scale, etc) complicate the matter, but I imagine a set of disclosure options could be devised, and the inventor/patent office would select the most appropriate.