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Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

inventropy.us

21–30 of 124 posts

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#21
post #4

Why on earth i did not have read anywhere about USPTO officials return a letter to this so called patent troll with simple reply: "Explain this pattern in layman language." USPTO officials should have the power to inquire pattern applicants about their pattern until complete understanding, not to work alone and try to understand it by them self. It is hard to understand something technical, and it is utmost difficult…

They sort of do. Each patent has both a description, written in more or less understandable terms (and often including diagrams) and the claims, which is what the post references (e.g. "a system or method ..."). The point of the legalese in the claims is to explicitly define the boundaries of the patent. By way of analogy, imagine if you had to describe the boundaries of a piece of land you owned, but the land wasn't a regular shape and you couldn't rely on a map.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#22

I included a full language specification with my patent application. Reading boring specifications can also be a drag, so I even wrote a version that sorts information by color. Its all available on http://mailmarkup.org/ If you are aware of any prior art please do the right thing. I have not been able to find any, but that does not mean it doesn't exist.

My gullibility alarm is ringing loud.. Slideshow: * Nobody uses this! * It's patented! * It's just like HTML! * I'm not going to tell you which bits are patented! Can't tell if (literal) troll or comedy genius Edit: so going by the age of the domain and you having actually filed the patent, I'm assuming it's not just some elaborate joke. And having only skimmed the patent text, I'm failing to see the innovating mecha…

Did you bother to even open the spec or were you too busy making assumptions? Here is a link in case the you missed the one on the site: http://mailmarkup.org/mail-documentation.xsd

I am going to make the baseless assumption that your intentions were well placed, and happily await a contribution of prior art.

EDIT: My lawyers have deliberately asked that I not transcribe the claims in the patent application, but its really not hard to figure out from looking first at what the language does differently from the spec and then glossing over the claims in the patent application. I put this stuff online myself years ago, because I have nothing to hide and want nothing more than to ensure the software is valid and novel. Please feel free to prove otherwise, because either way you are contributing to a software project.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My gullibility alarm is ringing loud.. Slideshow: * Nobody uses this! * It's patented! * It's just like HTML! * I'm not going to tell you which bits are patented! Can't tell if (literal) troll or comedy genius Edit: so going by the age of the domain and you having actually filed the patent, I'm assuming it's not just some elaborate joke. And having only skimmed the patent text, I'm failing to see the innovating mecha…

Did you bother to even open the spec or were you too busy making assumptions? Here is a link in case the you missed the one on the site: http://mailmarkup.org/mail-documentation.xsd I am going to make the baseless assumption that your intentions were well placed, and happily await a contribution of prior art. EDIT: My lawyers have deliberately asked that I not transcribe the claims in the patent application, but its…

Yes I saw it, it's some crazy XML schema for an e-mail message that nobody has ever used. That's like me patenting some bus ticket design I got carried away making on a rainy afternoon.

So that's why I'm asking, what makes your approach worth protecting? It looks like just another XML schema from this angle

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#24
post #11

project idea: machine learning program that decrypts legalese to find similar patents i wonder if uspo would be interested in licensing it if it was effective enough

Maybe some clever patent attorneys already have the opposite. Some encryption tool:

   =>  => 

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#25
post #13

I do not know what jurisdiction the author is referring to when listing the requirements for a "good patent." But in the US novelty and non-obviousness are just two of the five requirements for a "good patent." The other three are just as important:[1] (1) patentable subject matter (2) utility (5) enablement After slogging through the language of a lot of patents you start to wonder how so many of them were deemed to…

I think, for the sake of his challenge (to find one good software patent granted in the last year), he is allowing the challenger to assume that those three other conditions are fulfilled simply because they would be much harder to argue about.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#26

I included a full language specification with my patent application. Reading boring specifications can also be a drag, so I even wrote a version that sorts information by color. Its all available on http://mailmarkup.org/ If you are aware of any prior art please do the right thing. I have not been able to find any, but that does not mean it doesn't exist.

Can you tell us in 2-3 sentences the application of this patent and then it would easier to come up with prior art examples. Like hosay said is it like a "novel" bus ticket design but for emails.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you bother to even open the spec or were you too busy making assumptions? Here is a link in case the you missed the one on the site: http://mailmarkup.org/mail-documentation.xsd I am going to make the baseless assumption that your intentions were well placed, and happily await a contribution of prior art. EDIT: My lawyers have deliberately asked that I not transcribe the claims in the patent application, but its…

Yes I saw it, it's some crazy XML schema for an e-mail message that nobody has ever used. That's like me patenting some bus ticket design I got carried away making on a rainy afternoon. So that's why I'm asking, what makes your approach worth protecting? It looks like just another XML schema from this angle

Anybody can protect an invention. The average 8K-18K in average lawyers fees is trivial. Building a team and acquiring the necessary funding to launch a business investment based upon an invention is a far greater challenge. Not everybody is at a stage where quitting their job to work on such things full time to build a product complete enough to present to angle investors is a viable option. If it were so simple then every software developer would be a successful start up founder.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#28
post #11

project idea: machine learning program that decrypts legalese to find similar patents i wonder if uspo would be interested in licensing it if it was effective enough

I would say, that the USPTO is naturally not interested in such stuff. They will have all possible explanations, but never tell you the one true thing: The USPTO is earning more money on successful patents than on neglected ones.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#29
post #4

Why on earth i did not have read anywhere about USPTO officials return a letter to this so called patent troll with simple reply: "Explain this pattern in layman language." USPTO officials should have the power to inquire pattern applicants about their pattern until complete understanding, not to work alone and try to understand it by them self. It is hard to understand something technical, and it is utmost difficult…

Worse, patent obfuscation is baldly contrary to the purpose of patents, which is to make the knowledge contained in them available to the public. Were someone to start a startup where users got paid-by-the-view for making educational videos, that would not be too far off from the original intent of patents .

Most of today's patents don't contain any valuable knowledge that could be useful for the public. Also the invention does not. So it is not that bad.

Of course, there are some patents that could contain some valuable information, but today's patent attorneys are drilled to hide any valuable information from public.

Re: Am I evil, or is killing patents just plain fun?

#30
post #25
post #13

I do not know what jurisdiction the author is referring to when listing the requirements for a "good patent." But in the US novelty and non-obviousness are just two of the five requirements for a "good patent." The other three are just as important:[1] (1) patentable subject matter (2) utility (5) enablement After slogging through the language of a lot of patents you start to wonder how so many of them were deemed to…

I think, for the sake of his challenge (to find one good software patent granted in the last year), he is allowing the challenger to assume that those three other conditions are fulfilled simply because they would be much harder to argue about.

This is a good point. I've been involved in IP, as an inventor, and also dealing with freedom-to-operate issues, though I'm not a lawyer. The advice that I've gotten from lawyers is that the holy grail is a single piece of prior art reading on every element of the primary claim (or of the claim that is getting in your way). Obviousness and the other criteria are much harder to argue.
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