Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Patent, Used as a Sword

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 76 posts

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#41

Post by dpe82 »

linuxhansl wrote: post #22

"The suit had cost $3 million, and the financial damage was done." This is the problem. In all other countries (except Great Britain, AFAIK) the loser pays all costs (including the public cost of the trial and the opposing party's legal fees). The loser-pays system has three effects: 1. No frivolous lawsuits. Cost of losing is high. 2. The defending party will defend vigorously if it believes itself to be in the righ…

This has been proposed, actually:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/bill-would-force-...

It's missing a critical component, however: it doesn't include a bond requirement on the part of the suing company. Therefore it only helps so much as patent trolls typically sue from a shell company with no assets.

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#42

Post by wissler »

krichman wrote: post #37
wissler wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think nothing less than a revolution in the way humans think is going to solve these problems. I mean, science solves problems better than witchcraft for a reason. Mankind is still using the equivalent of witchcraft in the legal realm.

Complete with arcane mutterings. I know that law has a lot of very specific terms, but is encoding them in Latin necessary?

It is necessary to create an aura of legitimacy.

As I was reading through the legalese for the MPLA, I realized that the typical practices of the legal profession have about as much to do with reality as Dungeons and Dragons. They are playing games with words, the only difference is that they're dealing not with game pieces but with your very life.

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#43

Post by oelmekki »

I really like the concept developed in one of the comments (I can reuse it here, right ?) of evolutionary vs revolutionary.

Further than the "previous art" rule, that should be a criteria in accepting new patents : is it revolutionary ? Yes ? Congrats, as a reward, you can benefit of exclusive exploitation.

Of course, all the problem is to distinguish both. I suppose one way would be this one : when you claim a patent, there is a six month freeze time when it's not made public. If after six month nobody has used or mentioned any similar idea (similar enough to make a patent violation claim), you can have the patent.

This would encourage lot of technical writing that would produce lot of ideas in order to avoid patent locking, and real revolutionary ideas would be recognized as they are, instead of looking suspicious as all current patented ideas are.

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#44

Post by guelo »

The US government is corrupt through and through. There will be no change, on this or any other issue, except for the change that the most powerful moneyed interests want.

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#45

Post by jacques_chester »

krichman wrote: post #36
jacques_chester wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First-to-file is basically meant to get rid of "interference" lawsuits. And, in general, it's not the apocalypse you might expect because prior art can still invalidate a patent. The USA is basically on its own with first-to-invent. Everyone else is on first-to-file. And generally speaking, it works pretty well. There are absolutely anomalies, but there are mechanisms to deal with them. The payoff is a simply abolish…

Other countries force the loser in a lawsuit to cover the costs. Perhaps that's why they don't have so many companies using patents that shouldn't have been issued in the first place.

In Australia, depending on the case, it is usually at the judge's discretion to "award costs". Not precisely the same, but it's a risk you run as litigant.

(IANAL, TINLA).

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#46

Post by overbroad »

numair wrote: post #12

This article briefly touches upon first to file. I think it's clear that the change to first to file will result in the greatest threat to open innovation we have ever seen in our lives. Think about it -- suddenly you will have swarms of lawyers and executives at pharmaceutical companies paying visits to research labs, and you'll have people from large software companies forwarding ideas posted on open source develop…

Do you think there will be lots of challenges though? The reexamination procedure will be different.

Alas, if I understand corectly, it is still going to be expensive, even just to submit prior art against a bogus patent.

Crowdfunded re-exams?

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#47

Post by lloeki »

zabar wrote: post #8
tjmc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developing an algorithm doesn't generally cost hundreds of millions. Developing a drug and taking it all the way through clinical trials easily can. I think patents make sense for some sectors. Software just isn't one of them.

I think cost is just part of it. There is also the fact that for lots of things, software are being part of an ecosystem where people come to the same solutions naturally. Think about the "swipe to unlock", when the only thing you have to interact is a touch screen, it's not like there is lots of different possibilities. At that point patents become harmfull because it blocks other people from making progress and hav…

> Think about the "swipe to unlock", when the only thing you have to interact is a touch screen, it's not like there is lots of different possibilities.

And this gets even more ridiculous when all you have to do to work around this is swipe inside a circle instead of on a straight line.

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#48

Post by pgeorgi »

krichman wrote: post #37
wissler wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think nothing less than a revolution in the way humans think is going to solve these problems. I mean, science solves problems better than witchcraft for a reason. Mankind is still using the equivalent of witchcraft in the legal realm.

Complete with arcane mutterings. I know that law has a lot of very specific terms, but is encoding them in Latin necessary?

It's not like they sat together in 1960 and decided to agree upon a set of latin terms for everyday occurrences - these are mostly inherited.

The idea is to keep the language reasonably stable that we can still confidently interpret legalese from 1812, and that in 2412 the legal body of 2012 can still be of some use without having historians fight over how we might have meant things.

This is particularly true in letter-of-law + case law jurisdictions - in spirit-of-law jurisdictions, interpretation is always required, while in non-case law jurisdictions, rulings don't have as much impact so you don't have to care about what was ruled 200 years ago.

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#49

Post by WildUtah »

It's nice to see some articles pointing out that the way patents work, especially in regard to software, is badly broken. The widespread uncritical presumption in favor of patent protection among educated people is the biggest barrier to reform. The Times is doing its part to make reform possible.

Of course, the specific details of the article don't have to be right to accomplish the goal. Awareness of a perverse system will lead bureaucrats and judges to be open minded to reform whether the facts in the article are right or not.

It's worth mentioning, though, that Mike Phillips worked for Nuance, the company that sued and destroyed his company, as CTO for years and years. He left to do university research and later started a new company. Then, Nuance sued his new company knowing they could force him to give up or come back by suffocating him with litigation costs. It wasn't a simple matter of shutting down an upstart competitor as it was portrayed.

Re: The Patent, Used as a Sword

#50

Post by Morven »

jacques_chester wrote: post #26

I am currently applying for a software patent. And I am of two minds. The system sucks. It shouldn't be patentable. In fact, even if I get a patent, it won't be the determinant of success or failure; it's mostly there to make the company more attractive to investors. On the other hand, is/ought problem. There's what I'd like the world to be. And there's what the world is. (And yes: my lawyer is pushing me to come up…

Patents're most useful to big companies. They are their weapons at war. For startups, patents are more like commodities to be selected!
Post reply on HN