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first of all, never read patents. claiming ignorance is very important should a patent lawsuit arise. now that've read it, good luck claiming you weren't inspired.
and awesome job on getting a broader group of HN'ers to read the patent. a new kind of DDOS....
Here's the first claim, slightly reworded to be easier to read: > 1. A computer-based system for smoothing a mesh model of a three-dimensional object or surface, the mesh model having a set of connected faces, each face being a geometric shape with a predetermined number of vertices and a corresponding number of edges, each edge connecting two of the predetermined number of vertices, each vertex being a data point de…
hmm. first of all, never read patents. claiming ignorance is very important should a patent lawsuit arise. now that've read it, good luck claiming you weren't inspired. and awesome job on getting a broader group of HN'ers to read the patent. a new kind of DDOS....
if you are going to worry about violating software patents, you might as well stop coding, because you probably violate 100s or 1000s with anything remotely nontrivial
Thanks for your input. I'm a contractor and i've been asked to implement a system for which dynamic mesh subdivision seems like the best solution.. additionally i'd like to subdivide only small regions of the target mesh. I'm wondering if I should raise the question of this patent with my employer... the patent does seem overly broad... just wondering what to do from an ethical/professional standpoint.. There are lot…
However, my friend is a patent attorney and explained to me that a vast swath of software patents have been invalidated... before you downvote me, please understand this is relatively new. Like I said, I'm not a lawyer but if you are interested in doing your own research here are some recent US rulings to examine:
Ultramercial v. Hulu
Content Extraction and Transmission v. Wells Fargo Bank
To paraphrase the rulings, to be patentable the software needs to have an "inventive concept" to tie it a specific piece of novel hardware or to "transform any article to a different state of thing" (i.e., chemistry or physical phase change, etc). It cannot simply instruct the practitioner to implement an abstract idea using routine means.
I've not (and won't) read the patent you've referenced, so I don't know about the specifics of the claims. And once again I'm not a lawyer. I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
hmm. first of all, never read patents. claiming ignorance is very important should a patent lawsuit arise. now that've read it, good luck claiming you weren't inspired. and awesome job on getting a broader group of HN'ers to read the patent. a new kind of DDOS....
Sorry, but I would argue that not reading patents relative to your project is practicing negligence. Maybe that gets you out of trebled damages for willful infringement, but it opens you up to other liabilities and is against professional ethics.
Patents don't cover broad concepts like "transmitting images over the internet". A patent title might be something broad like that, but the patent itself actually covers a very specific set of methods that have to be unique at the time they are patented.
Unfortunately, many people seem to assume that means the patent give the holder the exclusive right to "transmit images over the internet"... which is a perspective useful for getting alarmed about patents, but not true in reality.
Here's the first claim, slightly reworded to be easier to read: > 1. A computer-based system for smoothing a mesh model of a three-dimensional object or surface, the mesh model having a set of connected faces, each face being a geometric shape with a predetermined number of vertices and a corresponding number of edges, each edge connecting two of the predetermined number of vertices, each vertex being a data point de…
Here's prior art from 1997 (with a bunch of reference to earlier work): https://graphics.llnl.gov/ROAM/roam.pdf
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, but I would argue that not reading patents relative to your project is practicing negligence. Maybe that gets you out of trebled damages for willful infringement, but it opens you up to other liabilities and is against professional ethics.
Whose professional ethics? Yours, mine, a patent trolls? Since there is nothing like a PE for computer programmers professional ethics is a very blurry thing. I'd say needlessly opening myself and my employer to trebel damages and claims of being inspired by patents is against my professional ethics. I'll describe what I've done to my employer, and if their legal representation decides to investigate potential patent…
Beyond the NCEES, the IEEE Computer Society and ACM jointly publish a code of ethics for software engineering: http://www.computer.org/web/education/code-of-ethics
Even if you're not a member, their code of ethics is similar to every other professional code of ethics I've seen. I don't see what's blurry about it.