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Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

pcworld.com

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Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#21

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

rkalla wrote: post #8

I am going to take an unpopular stance here... I think. When patents are enforced by big legal entities, we all scream foul, "Patents are meant to protect the little guy, not make lawyers rich!" Now we have a musician (a "little guy") suing a much loved successful startup... and we are still screaming, but instead of "Stop the lawyers!" we are yelling "Stop the hipster artists!" (at least lhnn was). If this musician…

"When patents are enforced by big legal entities, we ALL scream foul, "Patents are meant to protect the little guy, not make lawyers rich!""

Please, don't use "ALL" because that is not true, I don't cream this, so your statement is a fallacy easily to demonstrate. It is only you who has problems with big entities by default.

Patents are about successful implementation of inventions. Business patents should never be granted in a free market economy because it destroys it and create a "privilege and monopoly buying" society." in witch people in power could buy privileges witch gives them power and the possibility to buy more privileges.

The moment you need to ask permission to the state to operate in your business you are not in a free market anymore, you are in a centralized economy in witch everything is decided by the people in top.

US of America is becoming a totalitarian state, step by step.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#23

Post by farlington »

iamdave wrote: post #5
lhnn wrote: post #2

What a damned foolish patent. "Methods and apparatuses for financing and marketing a creative work" http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=MNgFAQAAEBAJ Some hipster artist ("hipster" being an appropriate word here) sues a successful implementation of an offshoot of an idea he had 8 years ago, and then says, "As an artist myself, I feel that KickStarter may be hurting artist by focusing on 'donating money' rather than…

I'm sure this is going to be a very unpopular stance, because it's been unpopular almost every time I've asked it: Why do artists assume that every instance of something that doesn't involve the typical exchange of work for money is somehow harming their industry? The most vocal of these people are those 'No-Spec' who thinks sites like 99designs are invariably killing everything they stand for. It reeks of that same…

I don't know if I can answer your question, but I could maybe clarify what I think are a few misconceptions.

The first misconception is that artists are generally opposed to new revenue models. Artists, designers, craftspeople have absolutely embraced new revenue models, and the number of artists, graphic designers, fashion designers, video artists, industrial designers, et al. using sites like kickstarter and etsy, or selling digital work like templates or themes, is staggering. And many of these don't involve the 'typical exchange of work for money,' but are on one level or another creatively or professionally fulfilling.

The second is about the 'no spec' argument. There are huge differences between new revenue models—they're not all equal, and they're not all fair. Design professionals find spec work exploitative because they're exchanging their services to a client without any guarantee of payment. Most people in most industries find this unfair. Programmers are no exception. Nobody likes to do a lot of work for someone else to only earn a chance of getting paid.

Working for spec is fundamentally different from working for free for yourself—to design and manufacture a product, for example.

And as a sidenote, while few designers are comfortable with the proliferation of spec-driven websites, most designers I know don't feel particularly threatened by them anymore. At their best, they provide an outlet for students, unemployed, and self-taught designers to build their portfolios. But the work that comes out of them isn't generally great, and the clients that use them are generally the kind of clients nobody wants: fussy, demanding, unimaginative and cheap. Clients who probably wouldn't be paying for design services otherwise. It still costs money to get good work. That's what it's really about: protecting the value of the work you do professionally.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#24

Post by dangrossman »

nickpinkston wrote: post #19

This should remind everyone to pressure the White House to respond to the very successful: "Petition to End Software Patents". https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/#!/petition/direct-pat...

Not very applicable since this isn't a software patent.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#25

Post by fredBuddemeyer »

mcantelon wrote: post #6

Given that the legal system's unlikely to change, as long as IP lobbyists pay off politicians, I'd like to see Anonymous take on the project of compiling the personal details of these parasites.

hmmm how bout we patent the act of patent trolling and then sue the trolls for infringement.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#26

Post by nickpinkston »

dangrossman wrote: post #24
nickpinkston wrote: post #19

This should remind everyone to pressure the White House to respond to the very successful: "Petition to End Software Patents". https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/#!/petition/direct-pat...

Not very applicable since this isn't a software patent.

Not sure technically, but software patents are a subset of methods patents (which I'm guessing this is), but at least very similar to the point where I think it's very applicable to this. The discussion needs to keep going - that petition was a great success, but I'm doubtful that the administration dares to talk about it in anything other than platitudes.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#27

Post by rickmb »

rkalla wrote: post #8

I am going to take an unpopular stance here... I think. When patents are enforced by big legal entities, we all scream foul, "Patents are meant to protect the little guy, not make lawyers rich!" Now we have a musician (a "little guy") suing a much loved successful startup... and we are still screaming, but instead of "Stop the lawyers!" we are yelling "Stop the hipster artists!" (at least lhnn was). If this musician…

I sincerely hope you enjoy playing with your straw man.

P.s.: Most patent trolls are "little guys", and they are usually suing where the money is.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#28

Post by phillmv »

rkalla wrote: post #18
phillmv wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may have misunderstood the average complaint. The complaint isn't about little guy vs big companies, it's about bullshit patents . A big company using a bullshit patent to squeeze out a little guy is just the most egregious example of bullshit. In this case, it's less so that it's a "hipster artist", but it's more that he's a "douchebag artist" with a bullshit patent. Bullshit patents cost all of us money…

> In this case, it's less so that it's a "hipster artist", but it's more that he's a "douchebag artist" with a bullshit patent. Bullshit patents cost all of us money by distracting people from doing awesome stuff. All you did was validate my point (as annoyed is that is going to make you)... this sentence is dripping with preconceptions about both the person trying to assert their patent and the patent itself, neithe…

No. I for one would be comfortable describing those people as douchebags as well.

Larry Ellison, for instance – widely considered a douchebag.

I can't speak for others, but I'm fairly certain the issue are bullshit patents.

>All of these discussions are bullshit - they produce nothing except strife and accomplish nothing.

Complaining is human, and it allows us to get a measure of everyone else's opinions. If you removed griping from HN you wouldn't have much else left.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#29

Post by dangrossman »

nickpinkston wrote: post #26
dangrossman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not very applicable since this isn't a software patent.

Not sure technically, but software patents are a subset of methods patents (which I'm guessing this is), but at least very similar to the point where I think it's very applicable to this. The discussion needs to keep going - that petition was a great success, but I'm doubtful that the administration dares to talk about it in anything other than platitudes.

They're two separate issues. Business method patents purely claim methods of doing business. Software patents claim the invention of new machines, they're a subset of traditional patents, and do not overlap with business method patents. Software patents are almost always framed as a machine which carries out the algorithm or process as to be patentable the invention must be more than a mathematical formula acting on itself.

Re: Kickstarter being sued for patent infringment.

#30

Post by astrodust »

fredBuddemeyer wrote: post #25
mcantelon wrote: post #6

Given that the legal system's unlikely to change, as long as IP lobbyists pay off politicians, I'd like to see Anonymous take on the project of compiling the personal details of these parasites.

hmmm how bout we patent the act of patent trolling and then sue the trolls for infringement.

Sorry, you now owe IBM a patent royalty because they have already patented this: http://www.conceivablytech.com/4823/business/the-ultimate-pa...
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