Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
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Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#2What we really need is to find a way to stop patents from being granted for the implications of a technology. Connecting computers together into a network is hard, figuring out that once they are connected together, they might interact with each other is not. It is novel in that they couldn't interact that way before, and now they can, but that novel behavior isn't an invention its merely an implication enabled by the real work of doing the connecting. Its like patenting the idea of driving your car to Grandma's.
Letting trolls steal the implications from the inventors (and from society at large) with noting more inventive than little bits of paper with use cases on them is almost a crime against future humanity.
Of course the web is interactive, that's why the real inventors made the damn thing in the first place.
Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#3Tim Berners-Lee's view of patents doesn't really seem to matter here (and it's surprising to me that the court/lawyers would entertain that as being important). What does matter is prior art, first-to-invent, novelty, uniqueness, and non-obviousness; all of which the Eolas patents seem to be lacking.
Long live the open web; it belongs to all of us.
Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#4Its nice to see successful tech companies actually fighting some patents. It makes me sad to see Apple Microsoft IBM etc just pay patent trolls because it is cheaper to do so than defeating the patents.
Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#5Tim Berners-Lee's view of patents doesn't really seem to matter here (and it's surprising to me that the court/lawyers would entertain that as being important). What does matter is prior art, first-to-invent, novelty, uniqueness, and non-obviousness; all of which the Eolas patents seem to be lacking. Long live the open web; it belongs to all of us.
It's a question of whether the jury should trust his testimony. The lawyer wanted to show that Tim Berners-Lee was biased against patents, in general, and therefore his testimony on this matter is suspect.
Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#6Its nice to see successful tech companies actually fighting some patents. It makes me sad to see Apple Microsoft IBM etc just pay patent trolls because it is cheaper to do so than defeating the patents.
It's not only that it might be cheaper, it's because it takes out the uncertainty that would be involved in trying to defeat a patent. You have no idea how long the fight will take to wind it's way through the courts or even if you'll ultimately get a ruling in your favor.
Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#7What we really need is to find a way to stop patents from being granted for the implications of a technology. Connecting computers together into a network is hard, figuring out that once they are connected together, they might interact with each other is not. It is novel in that they couldn't interact that way before, and now they can, but that novel behavior isn't an invention its merely an implication enabled by th…
> It is novel in that they couldn't interact that way before, and now they can, but that novel behavior isn't an invention its merely an implication enabled by the real work of doing the connecting. Its like patenting the idea of driving your car to Grandma's.
I'd say the proper term for it is 'discovery'.
Connecting computers together in a network and creating the infrastructure (ethernet, routers, DNS servers, stuff like that) is all actual invention. If someone creates an ethernet that is 200x better than what we currently have, or a much better way of routing packets etc, they should get credit for that invention and be able to patent it.
Once you have the physical infrastructure, anything else that you do with it is just discovering a neat property of a system which has already been created.
It is like patenting gravity, the Pythagorean theorem, or a certain chord progression. (Imagine if someone had patented IV-V-I, we wouldn't have had nearly 60 years worth of music!)
In this way, I would say that Berners-Lee didn't invent the web, he discovered an extremely interesting and useful property of combining computer networks and hypertext.
Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#8Tim Berners-Lee's view of patents doesn't really seem to matter here (and it's surprising to me that the court/lawyers would entertain that as being important). What does matter is prior art, first-to-invent, novelty, uniqueness, and non-obviousness; all of which the Eolas patents seem to be lacking. Long live the open web; it belongs to all of us.
It's a question of whether the jury should trust his testimony. The lawyer wanted to show that Tim Berners-Lee was biased against patents, in general, and therefore his testimony on this matter is suspect.
Biased against American patents, no less. He's probably a dirty Socialist to boot.
I wonder whether the writer was dramatizing things a bit. I would have expected TBL to have been better prepared by the defendants' lawyers.
Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#9What we really need is to find a way to stop patents from being granted for the implications of a technology. Connecting computers together into a network is hard, figuring out that once they are connected together, they might interact with each other is not. It is novel in that they couldn't interact that way before, and now they can, but that novel behavior isn't an invention its merely an implication enabled by th…
> It is novel in that they couldn't interact that way before, and now they can, but that novel behavior isn't an invention its merely an implication enabled by the real work of doing the connecting. Its like patenting the idea of driving your car to Grandma's. I'd say the proper term for it is 'discovery'. Connecting computers together in a network and creating the infrastructure (ethernet, routers, DNS servers, stuf…
Inventing hard things is worth patenting. Discovering emergent phenomena is not.
Re: Tim Berners-Lee Takes the Stand to Keep the Web Free
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is novel in that they couldn't interact that way before, and now they can, but that novel behavior isn't an invention its merely an implication enabled by the real work of doing the connecting. Its like patenting the idea of driving your car to Grandma's. I'd say the proper term for it is 'discovery'. Connecting computers together in a network and creating the infrastructure (ethernet, routers, DNS servers, stuf…
Inventing hard things is worth patenting. Discovering emergent phenomena is not.
If it's so hard, do you really need a monopoly enforced by statute? The harder it is, the more natural temporary monopoly you get until others start copying you.
I say, nothing is worth infringing upon a creator's right to create. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Even if there are some cases where a patent might have been beneficial overall, you still have to weigh the benefits against the costs of having a patent system at all. How much GDP is spent on patents in general?