AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents • Hacker News Board

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#11

Post by dfc » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:43 PM UTC

njl wrote: post #4

If you violate a patent unknowingly, you are liable for damages. If you violate a patent you know exists, you are liable for treble damages. The only rational thing for someone who actually makes stuff to do is to not read any patents, ever, as a matter of general policy. This might not be the socially responsible answer; we should all be fighting the patent madness in our industry. It is, however, the most logical c…

Respectfully, I have to say that your "rational strategy" is a terrible suggestion. This strategy only makes sense if your desired goal is to reduce treble damage risk. Moreover it completely ignores the risk of devoting a ton of resources to developing a product that is already protected by a patent.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#12

Post by Permit » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:43 PM UTC

njl wrote: post #4

If you violate a patent unknowingly, you are liable for damages. If you violate a patent you know exists, you are liable for treble damages. The only rational thing for someone who actually makes stuff to do is to not read any patents, ever, as a matter of general policy. This might not be the socially responsible answer; we should all be fighting the patent madness in our industry. It is, however, the most logical c…

>USPTO patent examiners will be able to search the site to find prior art they may have missed; the USPTO, complying with the new law, will also provide an online system for submitting prior art. We’re also integrating with Google Patent Search, so every patent application on Google will include a link to discussion on Stack Exchange. Google has also implemented an algorithmic prior art search utility that will be helpful to site participants.

I believe the site isn't so much intended for people trying to find out whether or not their idea is patented as it is for the USPTO to easily find prior art before granting patents.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#13

Post by njl » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:44 PM UTC

spolsky wrote: post #6

njl wrote: post #4

If you violate a patent unknowingly, you are liable for damages. If you violate a patent you know exists, you are liable for treble damages. The only rational thing for someone who actually makes stuff to do is to not read any patents, ever, as a matter of general policy. This might not be the socially responsible answer; we should all be fighting the patent madness in our industry. It is, however, the most logical c…

It is definitely true that a lot of companies over-protective legal departments have persuaded their engineers never to read patents. I don't think that you should optimize for the case where you've actually lost a patent suit. First of all, that's a pretty rare case. But more importantly, it's cowardice. It's the moral equivalent, in my mind, of carefully crossing to the other side of the street when you see the nei…

We're not going to shut them down by invalidating them one at a time. You're not plugging a few leaks in a dike; you're trying to splash the ocean back with teacups.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#14

Post by njl » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:45 PM UTC

dfc wrote: post #11

njl wrote: post #4

If you violate a patent unknowingly, you are liable for damages. If you violate a patent you know exists, you are liable for treble damages. The only rational thing for someone who actually makes stuff to do is to not read any patents, ever, as a matter of general policy. This might not be the socially responsible answer; we should all be fighting the patent madness in our industry. It is, however, the most logical c…

Respectfully, I have to say that your "rational strategy" is a terrible suggestion. This strategy only makes sense if your desired goal is to reduce treble damage risk. Moreover it completely ignores the risk of devoting a ton of resources to developing a product that is already protected by a patent.

They're all protected by patents. All of them. I can pretty much guarantee you that any of IBM, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Intellectual Ventures, and many others have sufficient patent coverage to be able to sue you for anything you could possibly build that involves software in any way.

[edited to scope it to software]

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#15

Post by alexlmiller » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #10

It's a shame the patent office cannot/will not crowdsource patent research before approval. I bet if an examiner posted each patent application during review, within 24 hours prior art would be posted for each one, most especially software patents. Maybe we can get congress to pass a law - ha, nevermind what am I even thinking...

@CK2 That's exactly what AskPatents is - a platform for the community to review patent applications and submit prior art to the USPTO during the application review process so that bad applications are never granted.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#16

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #10

It's a shame the patent office cannot/will not crowdsource patent research before approval. I bet if an examiner posted each patent application during review, within 24 hours prior art would be posted for each one, most especially software patents. Maybe we can get congress to pass a law - ha, nevermind what am I even thinking...

[deleted]

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#17

Post by bryanlarsen » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #10

It's a shame the patent office cannot/will not crowdsource patent research before approval. I bet if an examiner posted each patent application during review, within 24 hours prior art would be posted for each one, most especially software patents. Maybe we can get congress to pass a law - ha, nevermind what am I even thinking...

According to the article, this appears to be exactly what is happening.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#18

Post by dfc » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:46 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #10

It's a shame the patent office cannot/will not crowdsource patent research before approval. I bet if an examiner posted each patent application during review, within 24 hours prior art would be posted for each one, most especially software patents. Maybe we can get congress to pass a law - ha, nevermind what am I even thinking...

I will take that bet any day of the week. We could even test this by using the next X number of patents awarded. Put it on longbets and I will put up $1k. The only way I am not winning is if everything that could be invented is already invented.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#19

Post by ajb » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:51 PM UTC

This is a step forward, and I hope it is successful.

However as it stands what this actually means is that finding prior art is an externality of submitting a patent claim. The cost of stopping a dubious patent from causing damage is borne by the victims, rather than the instigator. If these crowdsourcing schemes are successful, the next step should be to make filers of such patents pay a fee to those who found the prior art.

Re: AskPatents.com: A Stack Exchange To Prevent Bad Patents

#20

Post by chalst » Thu, Sep 20, 2012, 2:53 PM UTC

lambada wrote: post #8

Part of me is cringing that each Patent gets its own tag, given that it's likely there won't often be more than a few topics per patent.

Some patents will get a lot of questions, and an advantage of doing things this way is that you can use tag descriptions to provide background information on patents.

There's not a huge cost to having this tag, either.