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Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

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Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#61

Post by marcosdumay »

drschwabe wrote: post #48
myshpa wrote: post #6

Why Software Patents are Bad, Period. https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0027 Patents are out of control, and they’re hurting innovation https://www.learnliberty.org/blog/patents-are-out-of-control... Economic and Game Theory Against Intellectual Monopoly https://web.archive.org/web/20120121014753/https://levine.ss... PATENTS AND INNOVATION IN ECONOMIC HISTORY https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2016-moser.pdf Historical rec…

Thanks for the links. How do you suggest startup entrepreneurs work around the broader moral dillemma here? On one had, we shouldn't feed the flames but on the other hand - we may need a foundation of patents for defensive measure or to reaslitically compete against the likes of IBM who have a gajillion patents. And I'm aware of at least one government grant programs that requires patents apart of their application p…

If you are in the game, you have to play it.

You don't have to advocate for it, and you can advocate against it. But you may not have much a choice on playing.

Anyway, defending a patent requires some deep pockets, and if you don't defend them, they are just cost with no benefit.

Besides, the IBM legal team will come knocking, won't tell you anything that can let you understand why, and you will have no other option but to comply. How many patents you have, or if they actually have one that you are infringing isn't really relevant.

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#62

Post by rudyfink »

lend000 wrote: post #50
robertlagrant wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad example though, because everyone knows who Apple are. There's no point inventing anything as a new company if an existing one can just copy it and outspend your marketing.

You need to have enforceable NDA's, keep things as trade secrets, and have a well built organization that simply continuously out-innovates AND out-executes the competition. I think patents are okay, but the maximum duration should be 5 years and there needs to be some proof of utilization of the patent to sue for damages. 20 year patents are ridiculous, and it seems like even in the 1800's that should have been cons…

I wouldn't be surprised if it takes 5 years (or more) to both get a patent and litigate it though any appeal. FWIW, in the current U.S. system, my understanding is the time it takes to get the patent comes out of the 20 years, though I think you can get some time back if it takes a very long time.

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#63

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jjk166 wrote: post #40
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> long as people keep focusing solely on these "narrow victories" in order to simply maintain the broken status quo I’m not saying drop the fight. Just to show a modicum of strategy. Turning an IPR fight into a patent debate lets those looking to quash IPR win while doing nothing for the broader debate. What is smart, tactically, is doing exactly this when you oppose something: overscope so people disengage or get di…

On the contrary, continuously applying fresh duct tape to a fundamentally broken system allowing it to limp along allows the opponents to point to it and say "see, the system works as is" and the bias in favor of upholding the status quo wins out. By allowing things to fail, you force people to get engaged to do something to fix the problem, at which point actual change becomes possible.

> By allowing things to fail

Nothing in this context is "allowing things to fail." It's simply strengthening rightsholders' hands.

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#64

Post by pclmulqdq »

joemullin wrote: post #56

I work for EFF and wrote the text of this blog post and action. On here I speak only for myself, but a couple points I want to add. 1) EFF has only filed one IPR ever, (linked in the post), against Personal Audio, to invalidate a patent asserted against podcasting. This was crowd-funded by hundreds of people. It required years of litigation beyond the IPR process itself. 2) Patent challenges should be open to all. Th…

IPRs are pretty useful for challenging bad patents and should be very broad. However, I found myself in favor of this change, and honestly questioning the EFF's motives given how strong and personal (speaking specifically to the EFF's ability to challenge patents, not a generic third party) your expressed opinions were in this piece.

I am very sympathetic to the argument that Unified Patents and other folks who offer "IPR insurance" now can't fight bad patents, but hopefully if the rules pass they will be able to convert to either a non-profit or a financing model that allows them to sidestep this rule.

Also, are you aware of the argument in favor of this change? In a recent case, a patent troll used an IPR claim to attempt to extort a patent owner when that patent was going through active litigation. Limiting IPRs from for-profit entities not practicing in the field (also a requirement in the rule change) when small companies are actively suing someone else honestly sounds reasonable in light of this. See: https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ipr2021-...

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#65

Post by mschuster91 »

thfuran wrote: post #58
jjk166 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, continuously applying fresh duct tape to a fundamentally broken system allowing it to limp along allows the opponents to point to it and say "see, the system works as is" and the bias in favor of upholding the status quo wins out. By allowing things to fail, you force people to get engaged to do something to fix the problem, at which point actual change becomes possible.

Allowing important systems to fail is not without cost.

At some point, the immediate cost of fail-and-fix is lower than the total short to mid term cost of not fixing it.

The problem arises when systems are intentionally set up to fail (e.g. USPS pensions, gutting education), because those who set them on a doom course usually do so to offer a privatized "alternative" to pocket the profits.

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#66

Post by rayiner »

gregman1 wrote: post #14
myshpa wrote: post #6

Why Software Patents are Bad, Period. https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0027 Patents are out of control, and they’re hurting innovation https://www.learnliberty.org/blog/patents-are-out-of-control... Economic and Game Theory Against Intellectual Monopoly https://web.archive.org/web/20120121014753/https://levine.ss... PATENTS AND INNOVATION IN ECONOMIC HISTORY https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2016-moser.pdf Historical rec…

There are no software patents in EU (maybe even in the whole Europe) with exception for specially designed hardware. Idk how that works.

EU law only excludes patents for software “as such.” https://www.iam-media.com/regionindustry-guide/patents-in-eu.... You can still patent inventions embodied primarily in software so long as it’s in the context of an industrial or consumer application. So you can’t patent RSA, but you can patent a phone that uses RSA to securely transfer data.

Since the Supreme Court’s Alice decision in 2013, which tightened the longstanding exclusion to patentability for “abstract ideas,” it’s probably slightly harder to get (or keep) a software patent in the US than in the EU. Just because US courts are more willing to look past hardware aspects of an invention to see if the “gist” of the invention is an abstract idea implemented in software.

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#67

Post by Taywee »

xahrepap wrote: post #52
rocqua wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could imagine patents limited to physical designs, with a lifespan of say 5 years to actually be beneficial to innovation. Perhaps also a requirement to license patents at a 'reasonable rate'. I'm thinking of the 'sawstop' and 'festool domino' woodworking tools here. Which are important innovations that were probably motivated by patents, but whose patents have run long.

I actually think that Sawstop (in general. Might be some details that are bogus) is a great example of the patent system working as intended. The inventor reached out to several saw makers to license his new invention. None of them took it seriously. So he went and started a company with his new patent and became successful. Then other companies (Bosch specifically) tried to rip his tech off after they saw how effect…

I think that exemplifies why the patent system should at the very least not have the same rules and terms for physical products as for software, if it should exist for software at all. The time and capital investments to start up are just so dramatically different.

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#68

Post by linuxhansl »

I have a challenge out to all my friends: "Show me one, just one, software patent that is not obvious to someone skilled the field, and I will stop my annoying diatribes about how bad software patents are."

To this day I have yet to see to a useful software patent.

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#69

Post by kelnos »

hutzlibu wrote: post #51
contravariant wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it is the obvious choice for medicine, but is it really the best option? Do we really have no other methods to fund medicine? Is it worth prioritising new patentable discoveries over other ones like making drugs cheaper or using them more effectively?

"Do we really have no other methods to fund medicine? " We have. Public funded (also via universities) and donation based research. But investment money is kind of big and if it would suddenly disappear, it will hurt current research as most (?) of it is dependant on it. But all that money would not necessarily disappear, when patents suddelny gets abolished, as there is also the option of increased secrecy. Meaning…

That public funding has to come from somewhere, though, to the tune of quite a few billions of dollars. Do we really believe the tax increases required will be palatable to voters, and politically possible for elected officials? In the US, we can't even get universal public-funded healthcare.

Not sure the increased secrecy would help all that much. Is drug manufacturing that complicated that a motivated company could not reverse engineer a new drug solely from its off-the-shelf product, without too much trouble?

Re: Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat

#70

Post by nabakin »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #64
joemullin wrote: post #56

I work for EFF and wrote the text of this blog post and action. On here I speak only for myself, but a couple points I want to add. 1) EFF has only filed one IPR ever, (linked in the post), against Personal Audio, to invalidate a patent asserted against podcasting. This was crowd-funded by hundreds of people. It required years of litigation beyond the IPR process itself. 2) Patent challenges should be open to all. Th…

IPRs are pretty useful for challenging bad patents and should be very broad. However, I found myself in favor of this change, and honestly questioning the EFF's motives given how strong and personal (speaking specifically to the EFF's ability to challenge patents, not a generic third party) your expressed opinions were in this piece. I am very sympathetic to the argument that Unified Patents and other folks who offer…

I would also like a response from @joemullin on this
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