11–20 of 68 posts
Wouldn't it be easier for all these companies to pool together, pay these people off, and then come to some sort of agreement with the patent office and the judicial folks to stop giving trolls wings and venues? It seems that would be far simpler than to try to reform the patent system, which will probably happen as soon as pigs start flying.
Interesting to note, the law-firm representing Mr. Doyle pays new graduates a starting salary of $177,500. [1] [1] www.mckoolsmith.com/careers-summer.html
What would it take, specifically, to bring about meaningful patent reform? I hear about the need for it almost daily, but I'm not sure how this sort of highly convoluted problem can be fixed. Are there any existing bills or proposals that have put forward a viable solution to this issue?
In a different context, favorable regulations are one reason that e.g. The City (i.e., financial district on London) is a global financial hub.
It seems that if that didn't exist, people interested in innovating and creating great, new, things would just go to the countries that didn't have forcefully draconian IP laws.
Sure, maybe there are some advantages to having patents, but in their current form for software, they are a civil version of the thought police.
And mark my words, if MS and IBM and Apple get sued for copyright infringement, they did this to themselves. They are the ones for lobbied for this in an attempt to push the little guy out. And it was working until someone figured out that 'patent trolling' was possible.
In my opinion, patent 'trolling' is a good thing, (as long as it doesn't happen to me). Why? because the harder they troll, the more obviously broken the system will be, and the more likely it is to get fixed. Otherwise, patent litigation is basically restricted to people who already have their own huge legal departments.
What would it take, specifically, to bring about meaningful patent reform? I hear about the need for it almost daily, but I'm not sure how this sort of highly convoluted problem can be fixed. Are there any existing bills or proposals that have put forward a viable solution to this issue?
Isn't it companies like Microsoft and IBM that supported software patents in the first place? You live by the sword, you die by the sword. That being said, I have a hard time believing that they patented the "interactive web". My legalese is poor, but from what I read, all you would need is prior art where you had a basic client-server application that displayed information from a server, and allowed interaction betw…
We're talking about the web the year Mosaic was released. Before 1993 there were no web browsers that ran in Windows. There were no web search engines yet. There was little more than static hypertext webpages for research labs. There may well not have been other client-server applications yet... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web
There have been many beautiful advances since then in usability, bandwidth, user base, and especially integration with outside services. None of those things constitute inventions in the sense of being technological, novel, and non-obvious.
Which doesn't stop absolutely everything from being patented, usually multiple times. That would require a competent patent office.
wherein said embed text format is parsed by said browser to automatically invoke said executable application to execute on said client workstation
So you are potentially in trouble only if you use text format to point to an executable that you then load to the client.
Indeed, what we used to do on the Internet around 1993 (Gopher, listserv, X11 remote), is not quite exactly the same.
So yes, maybe Java applets and Flash plugins are in trouble (although I don't really think so). Everything else, no worries.
PS: I just checked the patent date: Oct 1994, not 1993. By then, I remember we were already launching live videos from web links... Sounds like prior art to me.
Before you panic, read the claims. From claim 1, the most limiting element I can see is: wherein said embed text format is parsed by said browser to automatically invoke said executable application to execute on said client workstation So you are potentially in trouble only if you use text format to point to an executable that you then load to the client. Indeed, what we used to do on the Internet around 1993 (Gopher…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/05/eolas_web_patent_nul...
Tim Berners-Lee has already written about it:
http://www.w3.org/2003/10/27-rogan.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/30/bernerslee_comes_out...
This is still a pretty interesting fight. It might do you some good to panic, just a little.
Isn't it companies like Microsoft and IBM that supported software patents in the first place? You live by the sword, you die by the sword. That being said, I have a hard time believing that they patented the "interactive web". My legalese is poor, but from what I read, all you would need is prior art where you had a basic client-server application that displayed information from a server, and allowed interaction betw…
We're talking about the web the year Mosaic was released. Before 1993 there were no web browsers that ran in Windows. There were no web search engines yet. There was little more than static hypertext webpages for research labs. There may well not have been other client-server applications yet... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web
RPC was around well before the web, as well as client-server programs. For the record, you don't need a Windows browser in order to invalidate the patent. If there are any X client-server apps that read instructions from a central server and displayed that information on its own client-side app, then my guess is that would invalidate the patent. I can think of at least one that originated in 1990 that could probably invalidate the patent.