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Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

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Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#31

Post by kazinator »

veraEFF wrote: post #16
gohrt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying. The point that matters here is, word games aside, what is the legal difference between "the integer can be 1, 4, ..." and "the integer can be 4,..." (excluding 1) As someone who has ordinary skill in mathematics, (and cperciva above, who has extraordinary skill in mathematics, agrees), I see the use of "integer multiple" here not as a unambigious plain meaning at all. It's akin to saying "This…

Yes, as you'll see in the post, we note that patent owners can redefine words, and that's ok. But where the issue comes up is if that's not clear. Patents are supposed to put people on notice of what is--and conversely, what is not--free for others to use. Here, by using the word "integer", which has a very precise and definite meaning in math and science, that conveys certain information. Part of the problem with th…

> Yes, as you'll see in the post, we note that patent owners can redefine words, and that's ok.

They can do that in this case if their only use of the word "integer" in the entire spec is in reference to this parameter, and if it has been otherwise clear all along (at least "to someone skilled in the art") that it doesn't make sense for the parameter to be less than two.

If I write a spec in which some number occurs that can only be 1, 2, 3 or 4, and it is the only integer, and the constraint to those four values is clear all along, there is no harm with later adding a glossary item which says "integer: in this specification, a noun denoting one of the values 1, 2, 3 or 4". It just reflects the fact: the only use of integer in the spec is in reference to a value which is one of these four.

If the 3 case infringes on some other patent, but the 1, 2 and 4 cases do not, what's wrong with reducing the scope of the patent by removing 3, and adjusting the glossary item?

Of course, patent holders shouldn't have infinite latitude in remotely manipulating the meaning of the text at will by means of shifting glossary entries.

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#32

Post by [deleted] »

veraEFF wrote: post #6
thelema314 wrote: post #3

This is quite exaggerated; looking at the actual document [1], it's clear that they're claiming that in the context of the specification, "integer multiple of transmission time interval" doesn't include negative multiples, or 0 or even 1 * transmission time interval. As much as I don't like patent trolls, I see pretty clearly that the intent is 2, 3, 4, etc. times the transmission time interval. [1] https://www.eff.o…

Hey there, Thanks for the comment. While I agree that the negatives and zero would not make sense, the interesting case is "1" in particular. Although it's not in the post, the patent owner actually originally accused n=1 as being part of the infringing apparatus/method. I don't know when/why that changed, but presumably it was because they realized they wouldn't win if that was true. It is this sort of game playing…

[deleted]

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#33

Post by [deleted] »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #29
strommen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots and lots of ridiculous patent and patent claims occurring in the US. I'm glad that the EFF is fighting against them. But this particular paragraph in this particular claim is by no means an abuse of patent law. The patent is about an "integer multiple" of a time period, which obviously excludes 0 and negatives, and arguably excludes 1. If there's something else going on here, then please add it to the…

I don't think it's obvious that an "integer multiple" of a quantity necessarily excludes 0 or 1. I could accept that it excludes zero if from the context that would make no sense. But to presume that it excludes 1 is a bit too much. I'm not sure if I agree with the EFF's position completely, but I see where they're coming from. Let's say that I was implementing linear backoff. I do this by multiplying my base delay t…

[deleted]

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#34

Post by Natsu »

cperciva wrote: post #5
harryjo wrote: post #2

EFF is being smartass here. I don't know the merits of the case, but the EFF is intentionally mischaracterizing it. The original patent used "integer" in a place where the mathematician's Z can't possibly be what they meant, and the dispute is over whether the patent covers the "n=1" case or only the "n>1" case. From the legal files: > Here, the “integer multiple of transmission time interval” (or “n times TTI”) desc…

Exactly. They're not redefining "integer", they're saying that in the context of talking about an "integer multiple" of a time period it should be obvious that they mean double, triple, or higher integer multiples.

So is it obvious that n=1 is included or excluded by this context? The patent holder believed that it obviously was patented by them until they realized that would be problematic.

Then they decided that it obviously was not covered by their patent.

I don't think the courts should play this game any more than your compiler should simply decide it can figure out what you really meant whenever your program contains an error.

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#35

Post by Natsu »

pdpi wrote: post #18
jegutman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N is an integer multiple of N. The integer multiples of N are ... -3N -2N -1N 0 1N 2N 3N... much like the integers are ... -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 ...

Out of context? Sure. But given this amount of context, while I still feel inclined to disagree with their reading that n > 1, in my mind it's now gone from completely preposterous to a reasonable discussion. The part that really bothers me in all this is that, reading the EFF article, I was wondering why they kept going on about how absurd it is to argue that 1 isn't an integer, but then never specified how the pate…

Well, the thing about that is that the patent holder first said it covers N=1 and then that it doesn't cover that.

N=1 is hardly an unreasonable multiple to choose for a time interval. If they meant something other than the mathematical definition, they should have properly defined it.

We would never say that the compiler should have known from context that I obviously meant unsigned int when I wrote signed int. Patents are also written in formal language.

No one should have to guess about what they might or might not cover when there are huge financial penalties for being wrong, or even being close enough to being wrong to wind up in court.

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#36

Post by kazinator »

Natsu wrote: post #30
monochromatic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the usual meaning of "integer" clearly doesn't make sense in this context, then we're already into the territory of coming up with a non-standard definition (unless it's just indefinite at that point). So in that case, why is {1, 2, 3, ...} OBVIOUSLY more sensible than {2, 3, ...}?

> why is {1, 2, 3, ...} OBVIOUSLY more sensible than {2, 3, ...}? Because that's the definition the patent holder originally asserted when suing, only to suddenly change their tune when there turned out to be prior art for n=1. People spend a lot of time making sure that all the words in a patent are exactly so. You'd think they'd have made it a tiny bit clearer on exactly which set of numbers they were including (or…

> Because that's the definition the patent holder originally asserted when suing, only to suddenly change their tune when there turned out to be prior art for n=1.

That seems not only legitimate, but outright necessary. If the n=1 case corresponds to someone else's patent, but the n>1 cases don't, then the n=1 case must be excluded, right?

> Essentially the same reason that having a compiler that decides "I really think you meant to put a semicolon there" is a bad idea.

Compilers do exactly that sort of thing, so they can continue parsing and hopefully give you more diagnostics. (Correct, useful diagnostics, needless to say.) It's called error recovery and sometimes involves inserting tokens into the parse stream.

Error recovery was hugely important in the era when programmers submitted decks of punched cards to some clerk behind a window. But even today, we are still greedy for shorter edit-compile-run cycles, no matter how short they are. If I made four syntax errors, I'd rather fix them in one go than to invoke the rebuild four times and fix one at a time.

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#37

Post by monochromatic »

kazinator wrote: post #36
Natsu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is {1, 2, 3, ...} OBVIOUSLY more sensible than {2, 3, ...}? Because that's the definition the patent holder originally asserted when suing, only to suddenly change their tune when there turned out to be prior art for n=1. People spend a lot of time making sure that all the words in a patent are exactly so. You'd think they'd have made it a tiny bit clearer on exactly which set of numbers they were including (or…

> Because that's the definition the patent holder originally asserted when suing, only to suddenly change their tune when there turned out to be prior art for n=1. That seems not only legitimate, but outright necessary. If the n=1 case corresponds to someone else's patent, but the n>1 cases don't, then the n=1 case must be excluded, right? > Essentially the same reason that having a compiler that decides "I really th…

> That seems not only legitimate, but outright necessary. If the n=1 case corresponds to someone else's patent, but the n>1 cases don't, then the n=1 case must be excluded, right?

The patentee can amend his claims while a patent application is still pending, but a court isn't going to do it for him post-issuance just because of prior art.

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#38

Post by Natsu »

kazinator wrote: post #36
Natsu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is {1, 2, 3, ...} OBVIOUSLY more sensible than {2, 3, ...}? Because that's the definition the patent holder originally asserted when suing, only to suddenly change their tune when there turned out to be prior art for n=1. People spend a lot of time making sure that all the words in a patent are exactly so. You'd think they'd have made it a tiny bit clearer on exactly which set of numbers they were including (or…

> Because that's the definition the patent holder originally asserted when suing, only to suddenly change their tune when there turned out to be prior art for n=1. That seems not only legitimate, but outright necessary. If the n=1 case corresponds to someone else's patent, but the n>1 cases don't, then the n=1 case must be excluded, right? > Essentially the same reason that having a compiler that decides "I really th…

Yes, but they issue a list of errors that need fixing, rather than a broken binary (assuming your compiler isn't broken, anyhow).

As mentioned below, it's their responsibility to write the patent correctly. Once it has been issued, it's too late to modify it, though they often try this with creative interpretation.

Similar to what was said to Humpty Dumpty, there's a question of whether they can have it mean N=1 and N>1 at the same time.

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#39

Post by crucini »

veraEFF wrote: post #10
harryjo wrote: post #2

EFF is being smartass here. I don't know the merits of the case, but the EFF is intentionally mischaracterizing it. The original patent used "integer" in a place where the mathematician's Z can't possibly be what they meant, and the dispute is over whether the patent covers the "n=1" case or only the "n>1" case. From the legal files: > Here, the “integer multiple of transmission time interval” (or “n times TTI”) desc…

hi there! no intentional mischaracterization at all. I posted below but I'll mention it again. The patent owner actually originally, at the outset of the litigation, included "1" in their definition of "integer." Later, they changed it to be only "n>=2." https://twitter.com/vranieri/status/647179711563431940 I've seen this before (on BOTH sidees, to be clear): someone changes a plain meaning of a term to avoid losing…

OK, it does sound like CW misunderstood their own patent in an earlier filing. And maybe that technically makes them lose the point.

But CW's current filing contains this:

According to the patent, “The MAC-e PDU is sent to the physical layer every n*TTI, instead of once every transmission time interval (TTI).” If the integer were to be 1, the MAC-e PDU would be sent to the physical layer once every TTI, which is expressly excluded by the specification.”

In other words, the specification excludes the n=1 case, and the n<1 cases are nonsensical.

Re: Patent Owner Insists the “Integers” Do Not Include the Number One

#40

Post by voltagex_ »

monochromatic wrote: post #21
veraEFF wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hi there! no intentional mischaracterization at all. I posted below but I'll mention it again. The patent owner actually originally, at the outset of the litigation, included "1" in their definition of "integer." Later, they changed it to be only "n>=2." https://twitter.com/vranieri/status/647179711563431940 I've seen this before (on BOTH sidees, to be clear): someone changes a plain meaning of a term to avoid losing…

If they changed their position, that seems more telling to me than the "hurr, durr, they think integers start at 2" tone of this article. (Although it may simply have been that it wasn't given much thought initially.) In any case, the EFF loses credibility when it overstates the position to make someone look more ridiculous than is warranted.

Whoever's writing the articles over there has been doing that more and more recently.

The EFF does great work, but they need to dial the clickbait-o-meter down a bit.

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