I was a fact witness for Groupon in the IBM/groupon suit (which IBM won).
Airbnb is going to need a lot of luck with a jury to win this. Morally they ought to win it, but ...
IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
81–90 of 240 posts
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#82Apparently, it includes patent 7,072,849, which they also sued Groupon for.
"Method for presenting advertising in an interactive service"
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone invests resources inventing something, why shouldn't that entity be entitled to participate in the on-going monetization of that invention? If we presume the prior statement is simply a straw man, do you agree partially with this statement and it simply needs reform or would you propose to throw it out altogether? If the former, how would you propose to reform it?
The problem is so many software patents just cover "do a thing on a computer," which becomes so broad nobody else can ever do that thing without infringing on the patent. Even if I have an objectively different, even better, way of doing it, software patents are used far too broadly because they tend to protect the act of doing a thing as opposed to specifically how to do the thing. This is in contrast to something l…
The software patents you described are consistently knocked-out on §101 eligibility grounds for being an "abstract concept".
IMO people who advocate scrapping software patents are disingenuous - look at what Google is trying to do software copyright at the same time. Essentially, if you take Google up on software patents and copyright, there will be no protection left for software.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Forever? Patents typically last 13 years
Software patents are a joke that the tech industry has relied upon to give it relevance. Why should “using commonly known syntax patterns to enable mechanized organization and display of text and images in any number arbitrary configurations”, which is a reasonable enough description of what we’re doing from a user perspective, be protected? That’s ALL software work is. “Feeling” ephemeral things are real is not a go…
I'm not sure why you are resorting to ad-hominem attacks and I'm not sure where you get your facts from as software patents have routinely and generally been knocked out for ineligibility since the Supreme Court's Alice decision years ago.
It's clear you have no idea what is involved in getting a patent, it's also clear that you have no idea what a patent gets you. Without litigation, generally nothing. Software companies are well aware of how flimsy most software patents that have passed actually are, and routinely knock them out in IPR proceedings or §101 claims.
And your quote is silly as it describes something that should not be patented. In fact, patent law specifically prohibits the patenting of anything "commonly known" or simply a computer-operated process that is something a human otherwise previously did. This is a very difficult area of the law, to prescribe what-yet-unthought-of-things are patentable and which aren't. That's why having a patent doesn't mean that a court will find it valid once you attempt to litigate over it. You seem to not understand this! The patent system isn't perfect, and it doesn't purport itself to be. We struggle to get criminal law right and that involves people's actual lives. So I'm not sure where you get the gall to call other people emotional when it's clearly just a projection of your own situation.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Constitution requires that Congress setup laws for both copyright and patent, for the good of the nation. Patents were always intended for the overall wellbeing of the nation. That's not to say that is what has always been achieved by the patent system, but it's not some sort of conspiracy. If anything, in history, they were always OSTENSIBLY for good, but perhaps ACTUALLY bad. So I find your statement to be A) h…
> The Constitution requires that Congress setup laws for both copyright and patent No it doesn't, it grants them the power but it doesn't specify they have to do it. “The Congress shall have Power To…promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries….” There is a big difference between having a power…
I don't think that's a great reading of congress' enumerated powers. The shall refers to the powers being powers that can be used when appropriate, to achieve the intended goal of the power. Must language, here, would imply a constant duty to use each power.
My reading is that Congress has an OBLIGATION to promote the arts and sciences, and has the power to use copyright and patent law to achieve those goals as congress sees fit.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Framers were skeptical of enabling government to give out patent and copyright monopoly grants. Jefferson wrote: Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than…
It's true some of the founders were skeptical, I never said otherwise and I never said it was "uncontested. What I said was that it's inclusion in the Constitution is for a clear reason, whether or not the reasoning is valid is a different debate. As I pointed out, the constitution grants congress the EXPLICIT AUTHORIZATION you refer to, for the very purpose of promoting the PROGRESS of the arts and sciences. I guess…
That seems like an unsubstantiated claim.
Does the current set of systems promote the progress of "science" and "useful arts" as they would have been known by those signing those laws many lifetimes ago?
From what I remember of other parts of the constitution and amendments offhand they generally don't include an explicit directive about why something is there. It's extremely implicit as an often obvious effect of what the law expressly allows or forbids.
Thus it is very reasonable to ask: Is the behavior we see from IBM in this news story promoting the progress of "science" and/or "useful arts"? Is the behavior of industry overall with respect to these tools doing more good or more harm?
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#87The whole US patent system needs to either be scrapped or rebuilt. The purpose it was originally intended to be used for doesn't make sense in a world where most new technology is just software, and software is incredibly easy to copy and duplicate. Getting a software patent is mostly a matter of sneaking past the people at the USPTO, and making sure you're the first to file. These patent factories could just write c…
I think it is working exactly as intended. The point of the USPTO is to provide a mechanism for carving up the universe of ideas into plots of land where ownership is clear and backed up by the force of the state. You can charge rent on it, you can develop it yourself, you can leave it idle, it’s yours. Software innovators are a bit like wholesome farmers who just want to labor in the fields, beat the elements and gr…
Your analogy makes no sense. Land is a scarce and finite resource. Land ownership is a zero sum game. Patents are arbitrary and there can be an infinite number of them.
You don't need patents to build software but you need land for crops.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#88I recall an article a while back about how IBM is so innovative because it had the most patents filed per year on tech or something. I think we can see now that their patenting is less about innovation and more about patent trolling. Quote from the FT article on this below does not seem to show to me that this is the sort of patent that promotes real innovation - "improved navigation using bookmarks" does not seem li…
IBM files a lot of patent because (at least when I was there many years ago), employees and their management chain have strong economic incentives to file anything. Even interns were encouraged to file patents, and as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume. Ironically, even between technology professionals, the patents one files at IBM are great marketing material on the resume. IBM marketing itself as 'th…
I was pushed several times to get a patent when I worked at IBM. I never did it because I didn't think anything I really did was an "invention". I think they have a whole team dedicated to ghost writing patents.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#89I recall an article a while back about how IBM is so innovative because it had the most patents filed per year on tech or something. I think we can see now that their patenting is less about innovation and more about patent trolling. Quote from the FT article on this below does not seem to show to me that this is the sort of patent that promotes real innovation - "improved navigation using bookmarks" does not seem li…
IBM files a lot of patent because (at least when I was there many years ago), employees and their management chain have strong economic incentives to file anything. Even interns were encouraged to file patents, and as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume. Ironically, even between technology professionals, the patents one files at IBM are great marketing material on the resume. IBM marketing itself as 'th…
> as a student it's a great way to beef up your resume
Really? I wouldn't view that as a positive unless we're talking about law students I guess.
Re: IBM sues Airbnb for patent royalties
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's true some of the founders were skeptical, I never said otherwise and I never said it was "uncontested. What I said was that it's inclusion in the Constitution is for a clear reason, whether or not the reasoning is valid is a different debate. As I pointed out, the constitution grants congress the EXPLICIT AUTHORIZATION you refer to, for the very purpose of promoting the PROGRESS of the arts and sciences. I guess…
That seems like an unsubstantiated claim. Does the current set of systems promote the progress of "science" and "useful arts" as they would have been known by those signing those laws many lifetimes ago? From what I remember of other parts of the constitution and amendments offhand they generally don't include an explicit directive about why something is there. It's extremely implicit as an often obvious effect of wh…
It seems like you don't fundamentally get the point...
The intent of the patent systems != what the patent system achieves
What I described to you, that you disagreed with was the intent of the patent system. If you want to debate what the patent system achieves, it's a much more complicated question.