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Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#51

Post by newsclues »

DarkmSparks wrote: post #14

Im still very undecided on software patents and have been since they were first awarded software patents in general are a bad idea imho, go trade secret and never let the ideas enter the public domain. otoh society benefits a lot from good ideas entering the public domain, and the patent system is fairly effective at stopping everyone keeping their secret sauce a secret. Since the US has them, and this decision seems…

If software patents were to become a good thing the duration of the patent should be very short.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#52

Post by spion »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #45
Leherenn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like you could overcome this by awarding a patent to both, if they can prove the research was independent?

Yes, but how do you prove that it was after one of the teams publishes their work? It seems nearly impossible.

You can use the "dropping a hash" method (patio11 has used this). As you progress your work, you publish a hash of it using a service trusted by everyone to correctly identify the researchers and timestamp their hashes.

If someone publishes the paper, you can then publish the files that resulted with the dropped hash and therefore prove you had certain progress of the work at a certain time.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#53

Post by smabie »

worksonmine wrote: post #49
nness wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first patent was issued in the 1400's — it is exactly how humans have progressed technologically and sociality. Let's stop being so absolutist about these topics. The problem here isn't that patents exist, intellectual property protection is critical to investment and research. The issue here is two fold: 1. Patents usually involve a lot of research — and existed as a way to ensure that competition couldn't imita…

> The first patent was issued in the 1400's — it is exactly how humans have progressed technologically and sociality. The last 600 years is a rounding error in the history of humans. Imagine if the different methods of lighting a fire were patented. Those humans also burned witches and imprisoned people for criticizing the church. We would have a better world if our goal was progress for all over profit for a few.

And yet, it turns out last 600 years saw many orders of magnitude more innovation than the years prior.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#54

Post by arthurcolle »

spion wrote: post #52
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but how do you prove that it was after one of the teams publishes their work? It seems nearly impossible.

You can use the "dropping a hash" method (patio11 has used this). As you progress your work, you publish a hash of it using a service trusted by everyone to correctly identify the researchers and timestamp their hashes. If someone publishes the paper, you can then publish the files that resulted with the dropped hash and therefore prove you had certain progress of the work at a certain time.

4d merkle trees etched on a proton or something

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#55

Post by sokoloff »

tsimionescu wrote: post #23
throwaway11460 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you supposed to not infringe on patents that were not granted yet?

It's supposed to be very unlikely, unless you're actively looking for trouble. In principle, patents are supposed to only be given out for inventions that pass a bar of novelty. If that were true (it often isn't), it should ensure that it's very very unlikely for others to arrive at the same patentable invention independently. If they do, tough luck to the second person. Still, patents become public from the moment t…

> Still, patents become public from the moment they are filed.

No. There is an 18 month delay to publication: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s1120.html

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#56

Post by pas »

zaphirplane wrote: post #50
pas wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books are fancy, but let's not mix up progress with being able to live off writing them. We see innovation in open source every day from small startups, from various sized communities, and from hobbyists. That said, the startup selling IP model works somewhat in the pharma sector, but that's patents, and you mentioned books, where the whole IP regulation game got abso-fucking-lutely captured by the industry (with the…

Human Progress is a lot more than open source software innovation.

Yes, obviously. And more than books and pop songs and whatnot. Also more than medicine, though it's definitely up there on the list somewhere.

And all of that is thanks to finally some groups of people pulling out their heads from their asses, stopped trying to focus on trying to loot their neighbors, and instead started to trade.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#57

Post by foolofat00k »

Jochim wrote: post #35

The concept of intellectual property is antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia. It's a wasteful aberration that strangles innovation with red tape and hands control of our culture over to those with the financial mean to claim to own it. The day we wrest back that control will be a good day.

This take just does not concord with reality. The rate at which innovation has happened since the first patent was issued in the 1400s is many orders of magnitude higher than the rate at which it happened before.

I'm would not argue that patents are the cause of this rapid pace of innovation, but the data does not come anywhere close to supporting your claim.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#58

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

worksonmine wrote: post #49
nness wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first patent was issued in the 1400's — it is exactly how humans have progressed technologically and sociality. Let's stop being so absolutist about these topics. The problem here isn't that patents exist, intellectual property protection is critical to investment and research. The issue here is two fold: 1. Patents usually involve a lot of research — and existed as a way to ensure that competition couldn't imita…

> The first patent was issued in the 1400's — it is exactly how humans have progressed technologically and sociality. The last 600 years is a rounding error in the history of humans. Imagine if the different methods of lighting a fire were patented. Those humans also burned witches and imprisoned people for criticizing the church. We would have a better world if our goal was progress for all over profit for a few.

> Imagine if the different methods of lighting a fire were patented.

It would have implied a better, more developed society.

It would implied that there is a writing system.

It would have implied that there was a way to store records long term.

It would have implied that there was a long distance communication system.

It would have implied the existence of some state and rule of law.

It would have implied some type of justice system where you could get redress.

It would have implied a society with excess production of essential materials that it can support the division of labor involved in supporting this system.

Re: Amazon owes $525M in cloud-storage patent fight, US jury says

#60

Post by jampekka »

TrackerFF wrote: post #48
Jochim wrote: post #35

The concept of intellectual property is antithetical to how humans have progressed socially and technologically for millenia. It's a wasteful aberration that strangles innovation with red tape and hands control of our culture over to those with the financial mean to claim to own it. The day we wrest back that control will be a good day.

It would be an interesting experiment - a world where no patents exist, only production (though corporate espionage / theft is still illegal). Some argue that this will effectively kill R&D, because the second you've created something - others would start reverse engineering, and copy the product. In some areas, like pharma, R&D is notoriously expensive, and the pharma companies have only that many years to recoup al…

R&D can be done without profit motive. Most R is done in universities without profit motive.

Some argue that nothing gets done if somebody doesn't get capital gains for it. This is of course empirically flat out false.

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