Patent Reform Town Hall Meeting (Balt/Washington Area IEEE Consultants Network)

[rickman]

Co-sponsored by
IEEE NCA Consultants Network,
Baltimore Consultants Network,
Society on Social Implications of Technology,
Baltimore and NoVA/Wash. Computer Society,
and Region 2 PACE Committee

Congress has enacted sweeping patent reform that is adverse to small
inventors and entrepreneurs. How will this affect you? Let’s explore
what the future holds with our panel of experts. Lunch and networking
reception are included. Student members may bring a guest at no
additional cost. Door prizes! Additional details at the link below.

When: Saturday, November 5 10am-2pm

Where: Loyola University Graduate Centers Room 260
8890 McGaw Road Columbia, MD 21045 USA

Cost: $10 IEEE members (advance), $20 general

Web Page: www.ieee-consultants.org

Registration: http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/8771

Panelists: Dr. Lee Hollaar, Dr. Amelia Morani

We are still looking for a panelist who is a consultant able to speak
regarding the impact of this new law. Anyone available in the area?

[Mark Wills]

In what have congress changed the law?

[Paul Gotch]

In comp.arch.embedded Mark Wills <forth...@forthfiles.net> wrote:
> In what have congress changed the law?

The main ones are:

- A move to first to file rather than first to invent (which brings the
US into line with most of the rest of the world).

- Allowing the USPTOs to set its own fees in a way that in aggregate
covers its own costs.

- A mechanism to allow thirdparty submission of prior art subsequent to
publication of the patent.

Unfortunately the bill does almost nothing to combat trolls nor does it
get rid of the treble damages on wilful infringement setup.

-p
--
Paul Gotch
--------------------------------------------------------------------

[ashtonrsmiller]

On Oct 24, 3:59 pm, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ...

>
> We are still looking for a panelist who is a consultant able to speak
> regarding the impact of this new law.  Anyone available in the area?

I believe he is retired now but John D. Trudell was a knowledgeable
and active campaigner against the changes made in 1999, which also
favored the corporations at the expense of the individual inventor.
His website isn't being maintained, but hopefully he might be willing
to participate.

http://www.trudelgroup.com/pwars.htm

[fatalist]

On Oct 24, 6:20 pm, Paul Gotch <pa...@at-cantab-dot.net> wrote:

** - A move to first to file rather than first to invent (which brings
the
** US into line with most of the rest of the world).

Believe it or not, but we need "first to file": it just makes life
simpler for everybody, including small guys

** - A mechanism to allow thirdparty submission of prior art
subsequent to
** publication of the patent.

I can predict exactly what happens: PTO will be flooded with junk
"third-party" submissions of "prior art" completely irrelevant to
patent claims (There was a bounty prize on invalidating Amazon's "one-
click patent" some years ago which produced tons of junk "prior art"
and not a single invalidating reference)
Poor, poor patent examiners...

** Unfortunately the bill does almost nothing to combat trolls nor
does it
** get rid of the treble damages on wilful infringement setup.

And who are those evil "trolls" ? Have you seen one ?
Are they some PhDs on a loose not employed by corporate monstrosities,
just sitting in their basements and filing evil patents on their own ?
How can you allow this in America ?
Or maybe they are some shrewd investors who buy patents from those PhD
and then use those patents to beat the shit out of fat corporate
infringers ?

And why treble damages for willful infringement should be removed ?
To encourage willful infrigement ???
I say: make willfull infringement a criminal offense
(Hint: it's awfully hard to prove willful infringement nowadays)

[ashtonrsmiller]

On Oct 25, 9:38 am, fatalist <simfid...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ** - A move to first to file rather than first to invent (which brings
> the
> ** US into line with most of the rest of the world).
>
> Believe it or not, but we need "first to file": it just makes life
> simpler for everybody, including small guys
>

Simpler isn't always better. This change makes it possible to patent
work done by someone else, with no recourse for the actual inventor.
What used to be theft is now legal. This certainly will make things
easier for the courts but one obvious consequence is that there will
be increased secrecy surrounding any research that might lead to
patentable developments.

Given the bias toward corporations and globalization displayed by
governments lately, I am deeply suspicious of the motives behind any
change like those made to the patent law.

[Rick]

On Oct 24, 3:20 pm, Paul Gotch <pa...@at-cantab-dot.net> wrote:

Unfortunately the underlying system is still bankrupt. Most of the
creative people I know were burned out long ago over the way
corporations treat inventions and patents as just another perk to hand
out to suits. If anything I see the legislation as strengthening the
potential for abuse.

Rick

[Brad]

On Oct 25, 6:38 am, fatalist <simfid...@gmail.com> wrote:
> And who are those evil "trolls"?

Around these parts, Dan Leckrone

A band of Vikings might accept plunder as "just the way business is
done", but not everyone will necessarily agree with them.

[Elizabeth D. Rather]

Yes. Leckrone has made millions and millions off Chuck Moore's patents,
but Chuck himself got kicked out along with his team. Thoroughly evil.

Cheers (though a strange word to use in this context)
Elizabeth

--
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc. +1 310.999.6784
5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
http://www.forth.com

"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
==================================================

[rickman]

So is anyone in the Baltimore/Washington area and willing to
participate in the panel discussion? This event is being heavily
advertised and we are expecting a good turn out. Not only will you
get a free lunch, I'll take you kayaking sometime!

Rick

[Paul Gotch]

In comp.arch.embedded fatalist <simf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Believe it or not, but we need "first to file": it just makes life
> simpler for everybody, including small guys

I'm arguing for first to file.

> I can predict exactly what happens: PTO will be flooded with junk

Um rather than the system being flooded with junk patents which are
massively costly and time consuming to invalidate afterwards? I've much
rather the patents were never awarded in the first place even it it
does mean the PTO have to do a lot of sifting of paper.

> And who are those evil "trolls" ? Have you seen one ?

Yes. However clearly I can't go into details of specific cases. The
system at the moment is setup on the basis of mutally assured
destruction.

A sues B over infringement
B counter sues A over infringment

A and B both produce widgets and their businesses will be adversely
affected if they have to stop shipping widgets. Therfore A and B settle
out of court and sign a cross licensing agreement.

Now C, a 'Patent Troll' doesn't have anything widgets to counter sue
over all they do is litigate until either their patent is invalidated
or they win. The amount of time an money spent on this is such that
for many companies it is cheaper to settle and pay royalties on an
invalid patent than it is to get it overturned.

This is then used as precident to attack other people using the same
patent 'look they licensed it it must be valid' pay up or else.

> And why treble damages for willful infringement should be removed ?

Because the actual effect of this is that you build something and you
*do not* do any kind of search to see if you need to license anything
and need to pay royalties. If you do do a search and miss something
then it's impossibly hard to prove that you didn't find the patent in
question and aren't willfully infringing it.

[fatalist]

On Oct 26, 8:02 am, Paul Gotch <pa...@at-cantab-dot.net> wrote:

Not anymore...

Big corporate monstrosities are now beating the shit out of each other
in patent courts and ITC, trying to get *injunctions* against each
others products (e.g. Apple vs.Samsung, Apple vs. HTC etc etc etc)
Also, many of them collect huge patent royalties on someone else's
products - e.g. Microsoft lining its pockets with patent royalties for
Android - Google's flagship product. (Is Microsoft a patent troll or
what ?)

Don't you love it ? I certainly do :)

[Paul Gotch]

In comp.arch.embedded fatalist <simf...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Big corporate monstrosities are now beating the shit out of each other
> in patent courts and ITC, trying to get *injunctions* against each
> others products (e.g. Apple vs.Samsung, Apple vs. HTC etc etc etc)

That's atypical. Steve Jobs was philosophically opposed to Android
and would rather litigate than settle.

For example Apple vs Nokia settled eventually.

> Also, many of them collect huge patent royalties on someone else's
> products - e.g. Microsoft lining its pockets with patent royalties for
> Android - Google's flagship product. (Is Microsoft a patent troll or
> what ?)

The MS situation is annoying because MS are licensing 'unspecified' IP.
There are almost certainly valid patents in there but there are also
probably lots of invalid ones. The most litigated patent of the lot in
there is the VFAT long file names one. MS managed to get FAT32 used as
the default file system on many flash devices and then started litiging
afterwards. This is morally dubious but trolling per say.

What you don't see is that a normal handset has IP from perhaps 30
companies inside it and the majority of the software cost is license
fees for patents. All you see are the ones that actually end up in
court due to brinkmanship on one or other side.

[David Brown]

On 26/10/2011 14:36, fatalist wrote:

>
> "Therfore A and B settle out of court and sign a cross licensing
> agreement."
>
> Not anymore...
>
> Big corporate monstrosities are now beating the shit out of each other
> in patent courts and ITC, trying to get *injunctions* against each
> others products (e.g. Apple vs.Samsung, Apple vs. HTC etc etc etc)
> Also, many of them collect huge patent royalties on someone else's
> products - e.g. Microsoft lining its pockets with patent royalties for
> Android - Google's flagship product. (Is Microsoft a patent troll or
> what ?)
>

Yes, increasingly MS is a patent troll. They own a selection of dubious
patents, and use standard troll racketeering techniques to squeeze
protection money out of Android phone and tablet manufacturers. The
fact that the patents involved are not revealed is classic patent troll
behaviour. These manufacturers don't have many patents of their own to
fight back, or for cross-licensing deals. Even if they have patents
that MS arguably infringes on in its own phones, why would they care?
No one buys them anyway, so they have nothing significant to lose.

<http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/08/05/microsofts-android-business-brings-in-3-times-as-much-money-as-windows-phone/>


Of course, patent trolling is not MS's core business - but it is an
increasing part of their business.

[rupert...@googlemail.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15461732

Completely barmy. There is definitely something very, very wrong with
software patents.

Rupert

[Brad]

On Oct 25, 5:21 pm, "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erat...@forth.com> wrote:
> Leckrone has made millions and millions off Chuck Moore's patents,
> but Chuck himself got kicked out along with his team.

Wolves in sheep's clothing. "Patent troll" would be the perfect job
for a sociopathic narcissist. Not that they are all that way. It's
just that the system lends itself to gaming for personal gain.

Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your lawyers
closest.

-Brad

[Eric Jacobsen]

On 26 Oct 2011 13:02:45 +0100 (BST), Paul Gotch

<pa...@at-cantab-dot.net> wrote:


>
>> And why treble damages for willful infringement should be removed ?
>
>Because the actual effect of this is that you build something and you
>*do not* do any kind of search to see if you need to license anything
>and need to pay royalties. If you do do a search and miss something
>then it's impossibly hard to prove that you didn't find the patent in
>question and aren't willfully infringing it.
>

This can't be fixed since it is not practical for a small inventor to
do an exhaustive search of existing IP prior to filing, and doing so
would hopelessly contaminate the inventor, anyway. The idea of
"willful" rather than inadvertent infringement has legs, I think, if
it can be shown proven that the infringement was willful.

Otherwise the default position is almost necessarily that one does not
do a prior art search prior to filing. Removing treble damages for
willful infringement just makes it easier for those who really do
infringe willfully.


Eric Jacobsen
Anchor Hill Communications
www.anchorhill.com

[Thomas Womack]

In article <4ea8235d...@www.eternal-september.org>,

Eric Jacobsen <eric.j...@ieee.org> wrote:

>This can't be fixed since it is not practical for a small inventor to
>do an exhaustive search of existing IP prior to filing, and doing so
>would hopelessly contaminate the inventor, anyway.

By which you mean 'would tell the inventor what works and what
doesn't, meaning that he just needs to licence it rather than invent
it'. Six months in the lab can save you an afternoon in the library
and all that.

> The idea of "willful" rather than inadvertent infringement has legs,
> I think, if it can be shown proven that the infringement was
> willful.

> Otherwise the default position is almost necessarily that one does
> not do a prior art search prior to filing.

Surely it is prior to *inventing* that you should do the prior art
search, so that you know which patents you could licence instead of
doing the tedious invention. That would be easier if it were
compulsory to licence all patents under reasonable non-discriminatory
terms, and *that* is the direction in which patent reform should go -
mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms.

Tom

[fatalist]

On Oct 26, 12:16 pm, Thomas Womack <twom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
wrote:
> In article <4ea8235d.66344...@www.eternal-september.org>,

Whaaaaaat ??????

[Rick]

On Oct 26, 7:13 am, "rupertlssm...@googlemail.com"

One of the requirement for a US patent are ~not being obvious to
someone versed in the art.

I am hugely biased. The existence/invention of the mouse at PARC and
devices like touch pads and drawing pads pretty much means just about
anything done since is pretty obvious to the point of being
derivative.

*BUT* this kind of stuff has been going on for years. A specific
example would be Atari patented using 4 bits to map an 8 position
joystick for the 2600 VCS. Nintendo was smart enough to design their
own system but Atari successfully sued Sega and IIRC won $10s of
millions years after the fact.

Rick

[Eric Jacobsen]

On 26 Oct 2011 17:16:02 +0100 (BST), Thomas Womack

<two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>In article <4ea8235d...@www.eternal-september.org>,
>Eric Jacobsen <eric.j...@ieee.org> wrote:
>
>>This can't be fixed since it is not practical for a small inventor to
>>do an exhaustive search of existing IP prior to filing, and doing so
>>would hopelessly contaminate the inventor, anyway.
>
>By which you mean 'would tell the inventor what works and what
>doesn't, meaning that he just needs to licence it rather than invent
>it'. Six months in the lab can save you an afternoon in the library
>and all that.

I can tell you've never tried this. Many patents aren't for anything
useful, or are for such a small niche that one might think it useful
for a particular application when it isn't. This assumes that one
can even sort out what a patent is trying to say, since many, if not
most, are written to be deliberately obscure.

Just because it's patented doesn't mean it works, or even if it works
that it's a good way to do it.

And in many, if not most, cases, there is such a huge number of
patents that will turn up searching for a particular topic, or NOT
turn up when they should, that searches are pretty useless to start
with. IMHO, anyway.

>> The idea of "willful" rather than inadvertent infringement has legs,
>> I think, if it can be shown proven that the infringement was
>> willful.
>
>> Otherwise the default position is almost necessarily that one does
>> not do a prior art search prior to filing.
>
>Surely it is prior to *inventing* that you should do the prior art
>search, so that you know which patents you could licence instead of
>doing the tedious invention.

As an engineer your job is often to invent, and if you work in a lab
or an IP company your job is to create useful IP. In this case,
there may be a strong incentive to NEVER do patent searches because
you may be "contaminated" by what you read, i.e., unable to avoid
using ideas that you got from reading patents.

You can spend your time trying to solve a problem in an efficient way
with the state-of-the-art components available to you, or you can
spend your time slogging through patents that may or may not be
useful, or even work properly, that were developed with technology
that is probably at least five years old (which is typical time for a
patent to grant from application).

In my experience what you're proposing just doesn't make sense in most
practical environments.

> That would be easier if it were
>compulsory to licence all patents under reasonable non-discriminatory
>terms, and *that* is the direction in which patent reform should go -
>mostly people infringe patents because the original inventor isn't
>willing to licence them on generally-reasonable terms.
>
>Tom

I don't know of very many cases like that. In my experience most
infringement cases come from not knowing that the infringing patent
existed, because they can be quite difficult and time consuming to
identify. Just looking at the economics of how the game works patent
searches generally don't make any sense to perform. There is more
risk in doing patent searches, due to contamination, potential for
subsequent "willful" infringement, and just plain wasting time trying
to find something relevant.

Again, just IMHO. Patents are a very strange game, and I don't know
that the "reforms" have made it any better.

Many patent portfolios are defensive, and not intended to be asserted
against anyone.

[Steve Pope]

Rick <richard...@gmail.com> wrote:

>One of the requirement for a US patent are ~not being obvious to
>someone versed in the art.

Hah.


Steve

[rickman]

On Oct 26, 10:13 am, "rupertlssm...@googlemail.com"

I looked at this and I think it is a perfect example of how poor the
patent examination process is. If your primary user interface is a
touch screen and you want to lock the device, how else would you
unlock the device than through a touch screen "gesture"? How bleeding
obvious does the invention have to be to be unpatentable? I guess
Google could claim they aren't using a touch screen gesture but rather
they are presenting the user with a virtual control which the user
operates... and patent that!

Rick

[Thomas Womack]

In article <613f5dcd-7fa7-4061...@j20g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,
rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Oct 26, 10:13=A0am, "rupertlssm...@googlemail.com"

><rupertlssm...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15461732
>>
>> Completely barmy. There is definitely something very, very wrong with
>> software patents.
>>
>> Rupert
>
>I looked at this and I think it is a perfect example of how poor the
>patent examination process is. If your primary user interface is a
>touch screen and you want to lock the device, how else would you
>unlock the device than through a touch screen "gesture"?

By typing a PIN on an on-screen keypad; by sweeping a finger around a
pattern of blobs on-screen. Apple's patent is on the slide-to-unlock
bar; if they've spent a lot of time looking at alternate unlock
mechanisms and determined that slide-to-unlock is in some usability
sense the best, they should get to ask anyone else with
slide-to-unlock for, say, a dollar per device.

Otherwise how do you pay for usability research, where almost by
definition the result will feel intuitively obvious and be used by
every device?

Tom

[David Brown]

You pay for usability research by doing the research, making a good
product, and selling more than others because reviewers say "this device
is easier to use than the competitors". So what if the competitors copy
your ideas in their new devices six months later? The extra sales you
make during those first six months should pay for the research many
times over unless you are running your business very badly.

Or are suggesting that it is somehow "fair" that you should get paid
again and again for that usability research over the next 21 years?

[Brad]

On Oct 27, 4:07 pm, Thomas Womack <twom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
wrote:

> Apple's patent is on the slide-to-unlock
> bar; if they've spent a lot of time looking at alternate unlock
> mechanisms and determined that slide-to-unlock is in some usability
> sense the best, they should get to ask anyone else with
> slide-to-unlock for, say, a dollar per device.
>

But handing out a "License to Extort" to everyone with a new idea
(whether brilliant or half baked) is no way to run an economy.

[Thomas Womack]

In article <bec95002-6c28-4539...@m5g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
Brad <hwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Oct 27, 4:07=A0pm, Thomas Womack <twom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>

If the idea's half-baked then people will do something else rather
than pay even a small licence fee to use a bad idea; there aren't
enough brilliant ideas that a dollar per device per brilliant idea is
economy-threatening.

You do need some kind of judicial review process to ensure that the
fees don't get extortionate, and it may well be that people would use
more trade secrets in an environment with compulsory licencing.

Tom

[lang...@fonz.dk]

On 26 Okt., 23:42, eric.jacob...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote:
>
snip

>
> Many patent portfolios are defensive, and not intended to be asserted
> against anyone.
>

it's like a cold war, big corp A, needs patents to defend themselves
against big corp B and vice versa.

when they occasionally clash it usually ends with a deal to cross
license
and they now have a bigger hammer to hit any small players trying to
get in
on their business

seems like any startup doing anything that involves software is just a
lawsuit
waiting to happen, if it ever makes it to making money the patent
trolls are
ready to strike

maybe the reality isn't really that bad but when you read something
like this:
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20111001/00365416161/patent-troll-says-anyone-using-wifi-infringes-wont-sue-individuals-this-stage.shtml
..

-Lasse

[rickman]

On Oct 27, 7:07 pm, Thomas Womack <twom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
wrote:
> In article <613f5dcd-7fa7-4061-b6c0-6bd778a5c...@j20g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,

I'm not anti-patent. I think patents are not just useful, but
essential to stimulating innovation. But the Apple patent (at least
what was written here) is not about a slider bar. It is about a
"gesture". In my opinion that is so vague (to the point of being
obvious) that it should be unenforceable. As I said in the part of my
message that you snipped, all Google or anyone else has to do is to
not call it a gesture. If Apple insists that all methods of contact
with the display would be a gesture then your suggestions would also
be gestures.

Rick

[rickman]

Isn't that the point that by giving inventors "rights" to their own
invention that it encourages the invention process? I can assure you
that many inventions would have happened much later or not at all if
patents didn't exist. If for no other reason because many inventors
and companies would not be in the business. They would probably be on
Wall street.

Rick

[Rick]

On Oct 28, 12:17 am, David Brown <da...@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
wrote:

> On 28/10/2011 01:07, Thomas Womack wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> > In article<613f5dcd-7fa7-4061-b6c0-6bd778a5c...@j20g2000vby.googlegroups.com>,

That is only the case for a fast moving industry like the example
given. I did my work in pharmaceutical research and it wasn't uncommon
to take 5 years to get a product to market. The FDA testing and
documentation alone would take a couple of years. Meanwhile half the
people who worked on the project have moved to competing companies and
results of clinical trials are public knowledge. Of course to
compensate the company that bears the actual costs the patent date is
actually moved forward to provide for a few additional years of
protection. They also seem to be VERY sympathetic to CIPs. If you were
to invent the syringe today, you could probably continually patent it
indefinitely every time you came up with a different sized needle.

Unless I miss your point it is ~different inventions warrant different
lengths of protection. Some of this is already in the system but it
could be improved.

But who is the judge who gets more and who gets less. Trivia question:
What do Fredrick's of Hollywood and Howard Hughes have in common? They
both have patents for push-up bras.

Personally I think patents for things like push up bras should run for
30 years to encourage development in that area.<sic>

Patent attorney where I worked once leaned back in his chair and
laughed "I hope people do infringe, the more the merrier! Standard
royalty for patent infringement is 7% so we would make 7% of what
everyone else sells for doing nothing! Great business to be in!"

Rick

[Bernd Paysan]

Brad wrote:
> But handing out a "License to Extort" to everyone with a new idea
> (whether brilliant or half baked) is no way to run an economy.

Economists have already studied those monopolies, and two of them came
to the solution that these monopolies should be abolished. They wrote a
real book about it, but it's also available for free to download:

http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

For software, they come to the conclusion, that instead of abolishing
copyright completely, a copyleft is a good idea, because it prevents
trade secrets to take over.

The patent system definitely is the wrong approach. Innovation is
stipulated by competition, you have to be faster with your innovations
than your competitor. Innovations can be rewarded through public
founded research programs (which is indeed often done), but not through
monopolies.

As software experts, we can all say how stupid software patents are, but
many people then say "so maybe pharmaceutic patents are ok". In fact,
these patents kill million people every year, which could be helped if
they weren't there.

--
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://bernd-paysan.de/

[Bernd Paysan]

rickman wrote:
> I'm not anti-patent. I think patents are not just useful, but
> essential to stimulating innovation. But the Apple patent (at least
> what was written here) is not about a slider bar. It is about a
> "gesture". In my opinion that is so vague (to the point of being
> obvious) that it should be unenforceable. As I said in the part of my
> message that you snipped, all Google or anyone else has to do is to
> not call it a gesture. If Apple insists that all methods of contact
> with the display would be a gesture then your suggestions would also
> be gestures.

No, that's not the way the patent system works. This will go to court,
and a jury of 12 zombie farmers in Texas who just came from their
pumpkin patches will rule on this, and of course Apple will insist that
anything is a gesture. Afterwards, Apple will sue the pumpkin farmers
for violating their trademark, because a pumpkin looks somewhat like an
apple.

[rickman]

Co-sponsored by
IEEE NCA Consultants Network,
Baltimore Consultants Network,
Society on Social Implications of Technology,
Baltimore and NoVA/Wash. Computer Society,
and Region 2 PACE Committee

Congress has enacted sweeping patent reform that is adverse to small
inventors and entrepreneurs. How will this affect you? Let’s explore
what the future holds with our panel of experts. Lunch and networking
reception are included. Student members may bring a guest at no
additional cost. Door prizes! Additional details at the link below.

When: Saturday, November 5 10am-2pm

Where: Loyola University Graduate Centers Room 260
8890 McGaw Road Columbia, MD 21045 USA

Cost: $10 IEEE members (advance), $20 general

Web Page: www.ieee-consultants.org

Registration: http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/8771

Panelists: Dr. Lee Hollaar, Dr. Amelia Morani

We are still looking for a panelist who is a consultant able to speak
regarding the impact of this new law. Anyone available in the area?

[Albert van der Horst]

In article <a8f1923a-38a3-4d17...@q13g2000vbd.googlegroups.com>,
rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Oct 28, 12:46=A0pm, Brad <hwfw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Oct 27, 4:07=A0pm, Thomas Womack <twom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>

Project that onto Tesla. He invented the electricity power grid,
with a distance the most import invention of all times,
and sold that for a pittance to Westinghouse.

Project that onto Chuck Moore.

What did inventors do before there where patents?
Wall street? Come one!

>Rick

Groetjes Albert

--
--
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

[David Brown]

That is certainly part of my point, yes. Given the newsgroups here, the
bias of the conversation is towards patents in software and embedded
systems, and in my post above I was referring specifically to the case
of swipe-to-unlock.

In fields where "inventions" take a long time and cost much more money,
then there needs to be more and longer-term protection. 21 years is
still far too long, and the patent system needs a serious overhaul even
for long-term industries like the drug industry (maybe in a way that
makes the whole system faster). But there is no doubt that a company
spending 5 years researching a drug should be entitled to more
protection than someone who thinks "wouldn't it be cool to use a finger
swipe to unlock a phone? I think I'll patent that".

> But who is the judge who gets more and who gets less. Trivia question:
> What do Fredrick's of Hollywood and Howard Hughes have in common? They
> both have patents for push-up bras.
>
> Personally I think patents for things like push up bras should run for
> 30 years to encourage development in that area.<sic>

Patents /don't/ encourage development. That's the problem. A 30-year
wide-ranging patent like that stops development - no one can invent a
"push-up-and-together" bra because of that patent.

>
> Patent attorney where I worked once leaned back in his chair and
> laughed "I hope people do infringe, the more the merrier! Standard
> royalty for patent infringement is 7% so we would make 7% of what
> everyone else sells for doing nothing! Great business to be in!"
>

And there you see who benefits from the modern patent system and its
usage. Occasionally, a real inventor will get lucky and make some money
- but mostly it's an overall loss for the inventor, and a loss for
others, and as the money flows back and forth between the patent owner
and licensees, only the lawyers get paid regularly as they grab their cut.


> Rick

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 12:20:34 +0200, David Brown
<david...@removethis.hesbynett.no> wrote:

>On 28/10/11 21:15, Rick wrote:
>> On Oct 28, 12:17 am, David Brown<da...@westcontrol.removethisbit.com>
>> wrote:
>>> On 28/10/2011 01:07, Thomas Womack wrote:
>>
>> Personally I think patents for things like push up bras should run for
>> 30 years to encourage development in that area.<sic>
>
>Patents /don't/ encourage development. That's the problem. A 30-year
>wide-ranging patent like that stops development - no one can invent a
>"push-up-and-together" bra because of that patent.

This creates an incentive to find another way to do it. If the new
way is innovative, it can be patented and provide a benefit to those
who sorted out the new way. I don't see how patents discourage
innovation or development.

[rickman]

On Oct 29, 5:49 am, Albert van der Horst <alb...@spenarnc.xs4all.nl>
wrote:
> In article <a8f1923a-38a3-4d17-953e-c51228eda...@q13g2000vbd.googlegroups.com>,

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> rickman  <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Oct 28, 12:46=A0pm, Brad <hwfw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Oct 27, 4:07=A0pm, Thomas Womack <twom...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> >> wrote:> Apple's patent is on the slide-to-unlock
> >> > bar; if they've spent a lot of time looking at alternate unlock
> >> > mechanisms and determined that slide-to-unlock is in some usability
> >> > sense the best, they should get to ask anyone else with
> >> > slide-to-unlock for, say, a dollar per device.
>
> >> But handing out a "License to Extort" to everyone with a new idea
> >> (whether brilliant or half baked) is no way to run an economy.
>
> >Isn't that the point that by giving inventors "rights" to their own
> >invention that it encourages the invention process?  I can assure you
> >that many inventions would have happened much later or not at all if
> >patents didn't exist.  If for no other reason because many inventors
> >and companies would not be in the business.  They would probably be on
> >Wall street.
>
> Project that onto Tesla. He invented the electricity power grid,
> with a distance the most import invention of all times,
> and sold that for a pittance to Westinghouse.
>
> Project that onto Chuck Moore.
>
> What did inventors do before there where patents?
> Wall street? Come one!
>
> >Rick
>
> Groetjes Albert

That's what I'm saying, Wall Street COME ON!!!

Rick

[rickman]

Reductio ad absurdum.

Rick

[David Brown]

It conceivably creates an incentive to find a totally different way to
do it. But that requires the inventor to find a completely way new way
to solve the problem, /and/ to be able and willing to file his own
patent - which costs a lot of time and money, /and/ to be willing to
fight off claims of infringement from the original patent owner, /and/
to be willing to fight future infringements in court. It's a huge
investment in time and money, and is more about being a lawyer and a
cut-throat businessman than about being an inventor. You can only avoid
it by cross-licensing deals and other arrangements with existing patent
holders.

Successful invention and innovation today is about steering clear of
everything patent-related and hoping for the best, or being part of a
huge company with an army of lawyers, and accepting that you will spend
a much larger budget on legal fees, lawyers, and licensing deals than
you will on actually developing new products or researching new ideas.


Nowhere in this is there a place for someone coming up with a good idea
to improve an existing patent. Nowhere is there a place for the "little
guy", no matter how brilliant his idea is. It is all about the big
companies being able to maintain the status quo, and the lawyers getting
their fees.



I am not sure that patents need to be totally abandoned (except for
software patents, which should never have been allowed in the first
place). But there needs to be a complete re-think to get back to
something that actually encourages innovation and invention, gives
/appropriate/ reward to people doing research and coming up with good
ideas, works for individuals and small companies as well as large ones,
allows for improvement on existing ideas, and minimises the bureaucracy,
legal costs, and wasted time.

[Bernd Paysan]

Eric Jacobsen wrote:
> This creates an incentive to find another way to do it. If the new
> way is innovative, it can be patented and provide a benefit to those
> who sorted out the new way. I don't see how patents discourage
> innovation or development.

Well, maybe. But the history shows that it is otherwise. E.g. take the
"innovation" of the steam engine by James Watt. What he really did was
an improvement (the condensor) over existing steam engine. The
condensor is a vital part for any improved steam engine, and because
James Watt wanted his monopoly badly, there was no further improvement
on steam engines for 20 years. After that, all those who were waiting
to build better steam engines were collaborating together, and didn't
patent their particular improvements. Efficiency and deployment of
steam engines skyrocketed.

There is already an incentive to be innovative: Make products and sell
them, people like innovative products. Run faster than your copy-cat
followers. I've been working for a copy-cat company for two years
(haven't applied there, they bought the complete company I was working
for before, and then sold our team to another bunch of idiots who
couldn't deal with innovations), and I can assure you: me-too-product
companies don't copy immediately. They wait to see you succeed, and if
you do so, they will start development - no earlier. And then they can
only sell by the price - you have to be significantly cheaper to get
into a marked already owned by someone else. They were successful with
their strategy for long-running very simple devices (the company is
called "Diodes" for good reasons ;-), but they weren't for the more
complex devices, which our group built.

Patent pools are there for ridiculous fights between large companies,
which harm everybody, except the lawyers involved.

Any innovation today consists of 99% readily available technology, and a
1% adder, which is new. If the 99% are covered by patents, forget about
any progress. Just imagine that Berner-Lee could have patented the web.
Now, 20 years later, this patent would be about to expire. Do you think
this would have caught on? Not the slightest. The reason why the
Internet and the Web did succeed was that they were open, for anyone to
use, for anyone to improve. Competing network protocols were comvered
with patents, and they all failed, for good reasons: Nobody else would
have used them as basis to innovate on. If there were no free networks
around to build on, and everybody had protected their claims, we would
still have stone-aged AOL-like walled garden networks.

Anyway, big incentives are the wrong idea. Small incentives are much
more effective, they strive people to continue to work, because they get
the money they need, and they don't accumulate enough money to stop
working, and just relax and spent what they have earned. Economy is not
about getting rich, it's about using resources efficiently. Inventors
are resources, they are indeed rather scarce, use them efficiently. Let
them collaborate, give them just enough money to make a descent living,
bot don't count for their greed - many don't have that; they will stop
working once they have accumulated enough money.

If you are motivated by greed only, go to Wall Street, and ruin the
world.

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 19:57:32 +0200, David Brown

It's usually easier than you make it sound. Finding workarounds to
existing patents is not uncommon at all, and it is up to the developer
of the new method whether to file a new patent or just keep it a trade
secret, or even publish the new method.

If a patent can't be worked around, then kudos to the folks who
figured out the great way to do whatever it is that's being done and
for writing a thorough patent. Life is a two way street: if you want
to be rewarded for your own work you have to be prepared to reward
others for theirs. People who grouse about not having access to
patented technology usually change their tune when they have something
of their own that they want to protect.

>Successful invention and innovation today is about steering clear of
>everything patent-related and hoping for the best, or being part of a
>huge company with an army of lawyers, and accepting that you will spend
>a much larger budget on legal fees, lawyers, and licensing deals than
>you will on actually developing new products or researching new ideas.

That's a pretty narrow and gloomy view of the world. I can say that
I don't share that view, and I hope that your situation improves
enough or you have enough success that you see the better side of
things.

>Nowhere in this is there a place for someone coming up with a good idea
>to improve an existing patent. Nowhere is there a place for the "little
>guy", no matter how brilliant his idea is. It is all about the big
>companies being able to maintain the status quo, and the lawyers getting
>their fees.

Many patents and new innovations are improvements on existing patents,
often by "little guys". I have a number of granted patents from
working for a large company and a pending patent of my own. Several
close friends and associates have done well with patents that they
filed on their own as an individual or as part of a very small
company. I recently did an evaluation for an independent individual
inventor on a pretty innovative, new way to do things in an
established, mature field. There are plenty of success stories that
are example proofs that counter your argument.

That's not to say that the system favors small inventors, just that
it's still very much possible for a small company or an individual to
benefit from the process.

>I am not sure that patents need to be totally abandoned (except for
>software patents, which should never have been allowed in the first
>place). But there needs to be a complete re-think to get back to
>something that actually encourages innovation and invention, gives
>/appropriate/ reward to people doing research and coming up with good
>ideas, works for individuals and small companies as well as large ones,
>allows for improvement on existing ideas, and minimises the bureaucracy,
>legal costs, and wasted time.

Often when a VC or investor looks at a new small company one of the
first questions is whether they've patented their technology or not.
That wouldn't be the case and wouldn't be important if small companies
couldn't play in the patent arena.

[Gerry Jackson]

On 29/10/2011 20:37, Bernd Paysan wrote:
> Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>> This creates an incentive to find another way to do it. If the new
>> way is innovative, it can be patented and provide a benefit to those
>> who sorted out the new way. I don't see how patents discourage
>> innovation or development.
>
> Well, maybe. But the history shows that it is otherwise. E.g. take the
> "innovation" of the steam engine by James Watt. What he really did was
> an improvement (the condensor) over existing steam engine. The
> condensor is a vital part for any improved steam engine, and because
> James Watt wanted his monopoly badly, there was no further improvement
> on steam engines for 20 years. After that, all those who were waiting
> to build better steam engines were collaborating together, and didn't
> patent their particular improvements. Efficiency and deployment of
> steam engines skyrocketed.
>

[...]

A lot of this ground is covered in a book called 'Sex, Science &
Profits' by Terence Kealey (I don't know why sex is in the title as it
is hardly mentioned in the book). As well as saying and justifying that
patents are bad he also claims, with evidence, that government funded
research is much less effective than just letting industry fund it
themselves.

--
Gerry

[dp]

On Oct 29, 11:08 pm, eric.jacob...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote:
> ...

> Often when a VC or investor looks at a new small company one of the
> first questions is whether they've patented their technology or not.
> That wouldn't be the case and wouldn't be important if small companies
> couldn't play in the patent arena.

Not much if any experience with patents - nor with VC, for that - but
on the few occasions I have talked to such the question has been asked
of sheer adherence to "the standard". I would guess that the whole
patent system is designed simply to protect the big ones, if small
guys are left to get some crumbs every now and then it is only
for the sake of the systems credibility/public acceptance.

My way is for things I have done and believe are worth something
I just keep them non-public. If someone is smart enough to overtake
me by seeing what I have done then he deserves to do that, this is
what life/evolution has been all about, for as long as we can look
back anyway.

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments

http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/sets/72157600228621276/

[clvrmnky]

On Sun, 30 Oct 2011 00:35:36 -0700, dp wrote:

> My way is for things I have done and believe are worth something I just
> keep them non-public. If someone is smart enough to overtake me by
> seeing what I have done then he deserves to do that, this is what
> life/evolution has been all about, for as long as we can look back
> anyway.
>

Actually, human cultural evolution has been about wide-spread sharing of
tools and techniques since the earliest days. "Intellectual property" is
a very modern notion.

And even in the modern era, those places and times we associate with the
greatest variety of invention (Scotland during the era of Watt, et al,
Southern Germany in the late 18th century, Central England at the height
of the steam age) were marked by almost no patent protection, or patent
laws that were tacitly ignored.

This is a complex subject, and the law tends to be the bluntest of
instruments.

[Al Clark]

eric.j...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote in news:4eac16c9.325269432
@www.eternal-september.org:

Patents do not necessarily encourage innovation. I filed my only patent
application when I was a junior in EE (about 30 years ago). I received it
several years later.

I haven't filed another one since, even though I have had many ideas that I
think would qualify. When I see an individual with many patents, I don't
assume that the person is brilliant or creative, I just assume that he has
worked for large companies.

I have owned small businesses for most of my career. I don't file patents
because they are expensive to file and maintain and impossible for a small
company to defend. Today we have bidding wars on bankrupt companies just so
that the large companies can threaten each other and keep anyone smaller
than Fortune 500 out of the game.

All a big company needs to do is threaten a small company, and they win. It
will bankrupt most small companies if they fight even when they have a
strong patent. Not all small companies want to be sold to larger entities.

I do look at patents from time to time and I am often amazed at how obvious
many of them are. Many are rehashed prior art that I already know about
(and I'm sure many others do as well). Patent examiners are rarely design
engineers, most don't have any real idea if something is new or not.
Software patents are even more absurd since most prior art exists as trade
secrets embedded in code.

No one is required to license a patent. If I had a patented method that
could cure cancer, I could let everyone die for the next 20 years or so if
I didn't want to share.

One of the worst things about patents is that no one knows how silly a
patent application is until in becomes a patent. This is why we have so
many junk patents.

If Congress actually wanted to do something useful, they would make the
expiration date for most patents about 5 years and speed up the actual
review process. Twenty years is almost forever in technology.

I don't think that first to file is an advantage. I just means that we will
see even more junk patent applications that haven't been thought out, just
filed to make sure someone else isn't first.

Most of the ideas that I have had that I think were patentable came from
trying to solve a new problem. Novel solutions can be easy when looking at
a problem the first time. The catch is that several people may be looking
at the same problem at essentially the same time. No one really remembers
the second guy who discovers something (or the second guy who files). This
gives the first guy more than a head start, it can be the game changer.

I have read many people say that the holder of the patent gets reasonable
royalties from licensing. That assumes that they want to license. I will
never understand the Polaroid/ Kodak case. Polaroid was basically granted a
permanent patent by constantly tweaking their existing patent and not
letting anyone else in the game. Digital cameras were the only way to kill
the Polaroid monopoly.

Thanks for reading my rant,


Al Clark

[Vladimir Vassilevsky]

Al Clark wrote:


> If Congress actually wanted to do something useful, they would make the
> expiration date for most patents about 5 years and speed up the actual
> review process. Twenty years is almost forever in technology.

I agree. The reform isn't really changing anything.
They could make a patent support fee significant sum of money; say,
$100k per year. That would invalidate many worseless patents; leaving
only the important and actually working ones. Set a requirement that
the original inventor could waive the fee if he makes profit from his
patent within 3 years, either by making product or by licensing;
otherwise the patent goes into public domain.

VLV

[dp]

On Oct 31, 7:44 am, Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com> wrote:
> eric.jacob...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote in news:4eac16c9.325269432

Thanks for putting it all so well, reflects my attitude better than my
sole post on this did. I guess I would go even one step further, make
the 5
years 0. At least for a while until the big ones stop being able to
block progress by utilizing the patent system.

In other words, in a competition (such as life) it is OK to outrun
the others, and it is not OK to hold them back even if you have the
means.

[David Brown]

Alternatively, the fee could gradually increase with time. The first
year would be a relatively cheap $10,000 - enough to avoid most time
wasters, but cheap enough that a small company with a good idea can
afford it. Jump to $100,000 for the next year, and increase
geometrically each year after that. Patents that really are worthwhile,
and generate substantial licensing fees, would be kept for longer. Most
would be kept long enough to give the inventor a head-start over the
competition, then released to the public domain.

It may make sense for the increase factor to depend on the field - it
should be high (such as 2) for patents in fast-moving fields such as
electronics, but lower (maybe 1.25) in slower fields such as medicine.

Of course, for many actively used patents, this system exists already -
it's just that the steadily increasing fees are paid to lawyers and
other legal fees, rather than to patent offices.

[rickman]

On Oct 31, 1:44 am, Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com> wrote:
>
> Software patents are even more absurd since most prior art exists as trade
> secrets embedded in code.

This is not really correct because a trade secret does not qualify as
"prior art". For it to be prior art it has to be published or visibly
used in an existing application. If you protect an invention with as
a trade secret by definition it is not "prior art".


Rick

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2011 05:44:56 GMT, Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com>
wrote:

I tend to agree with most of what you've written here. Patents are a
minefield with all sorts of downsides that go with the upsides, and
sometimes the upsides aren't so great unless conditions are exactly
right.

In my experience most big companies have large patent portfolios
because their competition does, too, and they need a defensive
position. A defensive portfolio is required not only to keep one
safe from the big competitors, but from the independent, submarine, or
troll inventors/companies that are happy to come out of the woodwork
and try to tap the deep pockets.

So when a big company sees itself moving strategically in a particular
technology direction, there is incentive to try to think of, and
potentially patent, anything that might turn out to be useful in that
arena as far ahead of time as possible. This does mean that a lot of
speculative patents get generated, sometimes for things that don't
work, aren't the best way to do something, or just wind up being bad
ideas. Sometimes there's benefit in quantitiy, and often there are
enough genuinely useful patents that come out of the exercise to make
it worthwhile.

The game is entirely different for small companies. Often it makes
more sense to do what Al does and not bother with patents. Every case
is different, and defensive portfolios aren't all that important if
you're not big enough to show up on anybody's radar (e.g., don't have
enough $$ to make it worthwhile for anybody to come after you).

[rickman]

On Oct 29, 6:20 am, David Brown <david.br...@removethis.hesbynett.no>
wrote:

> On 28/10/11 21:15, Rick wrote:
>
> > Personally I think patents for things like push up bras should run for
> > 30 years to encourage development in that area.<sic>
>
> Patents /don't/ encourage development.  That's the problem.  A 30-year
> wide-ranging patent like that stops development - no one can invent a
> "push-up-and-together" bra because of that patent.

You can make the above statement, but that doesn't make it true.
Patents provide a means for an inventor to profit from the invention
with protection from the government. You can talk about the problems
about patents, but that doesn't make them 100% bad. The problems are
with the implementation and not the concept.

> > Patent attorney where I worked once leaned back in his chair and
> > laughed "I hope people do infringe, the more the merrier! Standard
> > royalty for patent infringement is 7% so we would make 7% of what
> > everyone else sells for doing nothing! Great business to be in!"
>
> And there you see who benefits from the modern patent system and its
> usage.  Occasionally, a real inventor will get lucky and make some money
> - but mostly it's an overall loss for the inventor, and a loss for
> others, and as the money flows back and forth between the patent owner
> and licensees, only the lawyers get paid regularly as they grab their cut.

How is it a loss for the inventor? Yes, money flows from the
licensees (the ones who feel the patent is worth paying for) and the
inventor (the one who spent the time and effort to create the
invention that others didn't or couldn't.

What would happen if there were no patents? Small companies would be
limited to low cost manufacturing making virtually no profit while the
large companies are able to reduce their cost of production and make
much larger profits. The playing field will never be level, but
patents help to even it out. Otherwise the small companies have only
one choice, tiny niche applications that aren't worth the trouble of
the big companies.

Rick

[Al Clark]

Since we have been all talking at length about patents and I for one (and
probably many others) need to update my map as to actual costs in today's
world.

Can anyone share what is really costs to patent something?

1. Initial filings? Assume that you don't have in house lawyers.

2. Maintenance costs?

3. Litigation (Not necessarily the really big cases like Apple vs Samsung)?

Al Clark

[Al Clark]

rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote in news:581b0c05-090c-4cae-b846-ca2aad5b9d82
@n38g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:

> How is it a loss for the inventor? Yes, money flows from the
> licensees (the ones who feel the patent is worth paying for) and the
> inventor (the one who spent the time and effort to create the
> invention that others didn't or couldn't.

Patent filings are not free. There are up front costs and maintenance.

If you own a useless patent, it probably isn't worth the up front costs. If
you have a really good patent, you probably can't afford to protect it.

>
> What would happen if there were no patents?

We would use trade secrets. This is precisely how software has been protected
historically since most of the IP is hidden in object files.

Small companies would be
> limited to low cost manufacturing making virtually no profit while the
> large companies are able to reduce their cost of production and make
> much larger profits.

Small companies can be more agile

The playing field will never be level, but
> patents help to even it out.

How?

For example, Not so long ago, I reviewed a patent on a PGA/Attenuator
circuit held by Hewlett Packard. It was incredibly obvious and certainly
exists in many earlier designs. I think I knew this circuit approach 25 years
ago.

That said, I don't dare use it. They could sue me into bankruptcy even if I
could prevail in the courts.

If you are a DSP specialist, read Microsoft's partioned convolution patent.
They list prior art and then seem to claim that they are patenting the same
prior art.

There is a great discussion about this patent by Angelo Farina if you are
interested.

Otherwise the small companies have only
> one choice, tiny niche applications that aren't worth the trouble of
> the big companies.

This may be true. Its a good reason to have much shorter life cycles for
patents.


Al Clark

[rickman]

On Oct 31, 2:20 pm, Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com> wrote:
> rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote in news:581b0c05-090c-4cae-b846-ca2aad5b9d82
> @n38g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:
>
> > How is it a loss for the inventor? Yes, money flows from the
> > licensees (the ones who feel the patent is worth paying for) and the
> > inventor (the one who spent the time and effort to create the
> > invention that others didn't or couldn't.
>
> Patent filings are not free. There are up front costs and maintenance.
>
> If you own a useless patent, it probably isn't worth the up front costs. If
> you have a really good patent, you probably can't afford to protect it.

I have never worked on an invention where I thought the cost of
getting a patent would be more than the cost of creating the
invention. Sure, an inventor might be discouraged from applying
because of the cost of the patent, but if the invention is significant
enough to deserve protection the patent process is there to use. You
are not forced to use patents. As you say, you can always use the
"trade secret", but that does not stop someone from reverse
engineering your design or independent invention. For the small
business operator the lack of a patent can be fatal.

> > What would happen if there were no patents?
>
> We would use trade secrets. This is precisely how software has been protected
> historically since most of the IP is hidden in object files.

"Hidden" is not much protection. Among the biggest trade secrets are
the software license keys and code which are regularly cracked. If
the FPGA companies didn't give away their tools they would still be
freely available. The same is true for software development tools.
Trade secrets are one of the worst ways to protect an invention.

> > Small companies would be
> > limited to low cost manufacturing making virtually no profit while the
> > large companies are able to reduce their cost of production and make
> > much larger profits.
>
> Small companies can be more agile

Yes, and they have to live and die by being faster than the foot stomp
of big companies or even just the other small knock off companies. If
they have a patent on an invention they have a level of protection
from competition. Sure, this can be challenged, but without it they
are the infringer when the other company gets the patent. If there
are no patents they are just "out" when everyone else takes the
invention.

If you have to live by inventing and giving it up every year or two
that is a huge burden to bear. I wouldn't bother to create the
invention if I didn't have any means to protect it.

> > The playing field will never be level, but
> > patents help to even it out.
>
> How?
>
> For example, Not so long ago, I reviewed a patent on a PGA/Attenuator
> circuit held by Hewlett Packard. It was incredibly obvious and certainly
> exists in many earlier designs. I think I knew this circuit approach 25 years
> ago.
>
> That said, I don't dare use it. They could sue me into bankruptcy even if I
> could prevail in the courts.

You are talking about a bad patent. Yep, they exist. A contrary
example is the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. He
persisted over a long period and won. An example of a good patent and
its protection is Velcro. The inventor got a patent in 1955 after
working on the invention for over ten years. It took much of the life
of the patent for the invention to be made practical and then
popularized. Some could argue that this was not much of an invention
since it is really just a hook and eye fastener on a smaller level.
Hook and eye fasteners have been around for a long, long time
establishing a lot of prior art.

A decent patent system is not easy to create. It is easy, however, to
criticize a patent system be pointing out flaws.

> If you are a DSP specialist, read Microsoft's partioned convolution patent.
> They list prior art and then seem to claim that they are patenting the same
> prior art.
>
> There is a great discussion about this patent by Angelo Farina if you are
> interested.

No, I don't have any interest in any one patent. There are lots of
problems with patents, but that doesn't invalidate the concept. It
just means we need to address the problems.

> > Otherwise the small companies have only
> > one choice, tiny niche applications that aren't worth the trouble of
> > the big companies.
>
> This may be true. Its a good reason to have much shorter life cycles for
> patents.

How does the size of the market for the invention relate to the life
of a patent? I would love to have a patent on an invention that
addresses a small market but for the next 21 years. I would retire
today! In fact, that is my goal, to come up with something that will
give me some continuing revenue that I can protect. Not many of my
ideas have been patentable, or at least protectable by patent because
there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Rick

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.arch.fpga Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com> wrote:

(snip)

> For example, Not so long ago, I reviewed a patent on a
> PGA/Attenuator circuit held by Hewlett Packard. It was incredibly
> obvious and certainly exists in many earlier designs.
> I think I knew this circuit approach 25 years ago.

> That said, I don't dare use it. They could sue me into
> bankruptcy even if I could prevail in the courts.

I was recently reading (and not related to this discussion)
about a patent on a special movie camera lens. The patent
application included a movie supposedly made with the lens, but
later it was found not to be true. In court, the patent was
overturned due to the deception. Strange business.

-- glen

[David Brown]

On 31/10/11 17:27, rickman wrote:
> On Oct 29, 6:20 am, David Brown<david.br...@removethis.hesbynett.no>
> wrote:
>> On 28/10/11 21:15, Rick wrote:
>>
>>> Personally I think patents for things like push up bras should run for
>>> 30 years to encourage development in that area.<sic>
>>
>> Patents /don't/ encourage development. That's the problem. A 30-year
>> wide-ranging patent like that stops development - no one can invent a
>> "push-up-and-together" bra because of that patent.
>
> You can make the above statement, but that doesn't make it true.
> Patents provide a means for an inventor to profit from the invention
> with protection from the government. You can talk about the problems
> about patents, but that doesn't make them 100% bad. The problems are
> with the implementation and not the concept.
>

Al answered you better than I could.

I agree with you that the implementation is the biggest problem with
patents, rather than the concept.

Patents in some form /may/ be a good idea in some fields - though
definitely not software - if they were implemented better. So no, not
100% bad - just very far from 100% good.

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:47:50 GMT, Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com>
wrote:

>Since we have been all talking at length about patents and I for one (and
>probably many others) need to update my map as to actual costs in today's
>world.
>
>Can anyone share what is really costs to patent something?
>
>1. Initial filings? Assume that you don't have in house lawyers.

In my experience initial filing runs about $5k - $12k depending on the
patent. Simple patents take less preparation time.

That's just for filing, though, and generally prosecution costs to see
the patent through to granted status may incur another $5-$10k or
more. The usual number I hear quoted for total costs to grant is
$15k-$20k.

So the bar is fairly high. You need a pretty good reason to pursue a
patent to make the expense worthwhile if you're a small business.
Those reasons do exist, though, depending on the nature of the
business, the overall strategy, and the long-term goals.

>2. Maintenance costs?

The USPTO fee schedule is here:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee092611.htm

Maintenance is due at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years and the fee depends on
whether or not you qualify as a "small entity". An individual or
business with fewer than 500 employees qualify as small entities
(generally).

Maintenance costs in foreign countries (e.g., Europe) can be much
higher, around $1k - $2k / year.

>3. Litigation (Not necessarily the really big cases like Apple vs Samsung)?

That depends entirely on the case but can clearly be very expensive.
I think just about everybody, including the big companies, want to
avoid litigation whenever possible due to the expense. Among the big
companies they often just wind up signing cross-licensing agreements.

FWIW, I am not an attorney or a patent agent, I just have some
experience in the area. Others experiences may not match mine.
Proceed with caution. ;)

[Rick]

On Oct 31, 2:33 pm, eric.jacob...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:47:50 GMT, Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Since we have been all talking at length about patents and I for one (and
> >probably many others) need to update my map as to actual costs in today's
> >world.
>
> >Can anyone share what is really costs to patent something?
>
> >1. Initial filings? Assume that you don't have in house lawyers.
>
> In my experience initial filing runs about $5k - $12k depending on the
> patent.   Simple patents take less preparation time.
>
> That's just for filing, though, and generally prosecution costs to see
> the patent through to granted status may incur another $5-$10k or
> more.   The usual number I hear quoted for total costs to grant is
> $15k-$20k.

FWIW: Company I worked for said ~$50k per with overhead. Of course
they were all prepared by in house patent attorneys. If you want to go
to the trouble of filing it yourself and doing your own drawings, it
can be done on the cheap. I know someone who did this for maybe $100
years ago and as has been pointed out, it wasn't worth the cost so
even $100 was to much to spend.
<snip>

> >3. Litigation (Not necessarily the really big cases like Apple vs Samsung)?
>
> That depends entirely on the case but can clearly be very expensive.
> I think just about everybody, including the big companies, want to
> avoid litigation whenever possible due to the expense.  Among the big
> companies they often just wind up signing cross-licensing agreements.

Here's one of the ways it works: We did contract research for clients.
The first thing the clients do when you are successful is take a look
at your patents. If you have a weak position they try to reduce the
amount of money you are paid and royalties. If you have disclosed
anything not patented there is a good chance they will patent it
themselves.

>
> FWIW, I am not an attorney or a patent agent, I just have some
> experience in the area.   Others experiences may not match mine.
> Proceed with caution.  ;)

Ditto. I see the CIPs as evil incarnate. There is no pressure to
innovate as long as you can just keep refiling the same patent with a
different cast of characters. The current laws are that you are 'paid
to invent' so everything you do is property of the company you work
for. The company I worked for used to give you a dollar but stopped
the practice when it was pointed out it established a reward system
where employees could take you to court since rewards should be based
on value. Lockheed eventually won the 'superzip' but the nothing
special for inventors stayed in place.

The system is set such that
1) You don't see squat for any invention, you are treated exactly like
the co-stooges at your level.
2) The patents will eventually leave the real inventor off with CIPs
filed in suits names.

Rick

[Al Clark]

eric.j...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote in news:4eaf1463.521263955
@www.eternal-september.org:

> A good technology with basic patent protection can attract good VCs,
> although one certainly doesn't have to proceed via the VC route, it's
> just a path that's often taken. If you don't already have patent
> protection on something like this, the VCs routinely require that you
> get it, and will often help in the process.
>
>
>

I think the VC argument is not very compelling. Less than 1 out of 2500 US
businesses are funded by VCs. The average investment is in the millions of
dollars.

Sure VCs want to see patents. They have deep enough pockets to go to war.
They are also all about harvest in the 5-10 year period where the potential
payback is huge for a few of their bets. I don't fault VCs. I just
recognize that most companies (including companies with patentable ideas)
are not actually funded by VCs.

Erik, lets say you have a good patent and some big company wants to
challenge you. Do you have a few extra million dollars to sustain a fight?
(If you do, give me a call) What if you don't want to be owned by the big
company?

I bet that Samsung & Apple will end up spending a $100 million dollars
before somebody gives up.

Apple makes some great products. Aren't we all glad Xerox didn't wipe them
out when Apple commercialized most of the Parc Place ideas. I like my
mouse.

Polaroid held a monopoly on their camera technology even though the
original idea went back to the 1940s. I think this might have been due to
the fact that if you have the basic patent rights completely tied up, there
is absolutely no incentive for another entity to make further improvements
on a technology they can't commercialize for 20 years. So Polaroid just
kept making incremental improvements, that effectively monopolized the
technology until a paradigm shift obsoleted the whole method (digital
camera). (This is speculation on my part, someone can explain it if I am
wrong)

Actually, I am not anti-patent. I just thing the game is completely rigged
to favor the large companies at the expense of small innovative companies
and individuals.

Real patent reform would make the filing process more transparent (like
disclosures before some 20 something engineer grants the patent), had
actual peer review, were written in English (or for a technical patent,
engineering or science English as opposed to lawyer obfuscation),
automatically expired in a reasonable market period like 5 years, and
didn't take 3 years to grant.

Imagine if disclosure happened before a patent was granted. All someone
might need to do is identify the same invention already exists as prior
art. This would eliminate a huge number of the existing application and
backlog. This would be especially true for software patents since many of
these are "invisible" without close inspection.

There is a tremendous amount of prior art that exists that was never
patented. A patent examiner might make an assumption that if they can't
find prior art in the patent record, that somehow this means that an idea
is new.

I don't fault the inventor. I am sure that many of us have reinvented
things without intentionally stealing someone else's idea. Tukey & Cooley
rediscovered the FFT in 1965, but Gauss invented it first in 1805. I don't
think anyone thinks that Tukey & Cooley were stealing Gauss's invention.
Fortunately, we didn't have software patents or the FFT and probably all
its derivatives would have been held hostage for 20 years, or at least
until the historians corrected the record.

Al Clark

[Al Clark]

Thank you Erik.

Al Clark







eric.j...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote in news:4eaf1259.520742163
@www.eternal-september.org:

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.arch.fpga Rick <richard...@gmail.com> wrote:

(snip)

> Ditto. I see the CIPs as evil incarnate. There is no pressure to
> innovate as long as you can just keep refiling the same patent with a
> different cast of characters.

Sometimes you don't even need to do that.

There is in Consumer Reports today an article on how to save money
on prescription drugs by buying cheaper versions. One is to
buy Prozac or generic Fluoxetine instead of Sarafem. When the
patent on Prozac ran out, they renamed it Sarafem (for $243)
instead of $4 for the generic.

-- glen

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Tue, 01 Nov 2011 03:54:20 GMT, Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com>
wrote:

>eric.j...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote in news:4eaf1463.521263955
>@www.eternal-september.org:
>
>> A good technology with basic patent protection can attract good VCs,
>> although one certainly doesn't have to proceed via the VC route, it's
>> just a path that's often taken. If you don't already have patent
>> protection on something like this, the VCs routinely require that you
>> get it, and will often help in the process.
>>
>>
>>
>
>I think the VC argument is not very compelling. Less than 1 out of 2500 US
>businesses are funded by VCs. The average investment is in the millions of
>dollars.

My point of bringing up the VCs was just that it's an example that
there is strong evidence that patents can benefit small companies, and
those with financial interests often prefer them for that reason.

>Sure VCs want to see patents. They have deep enough pockets to go to war.
>They are also all about harvest in the 5-10 year period where the potential
>payback is huge for a few of their bets. I don't fault VCs. I just
>recognize that most companies (including companies with patentable ideas)
>are not actually funded by VCs.

I'd venture to say that most companies (certainly not all) are funded
by some sort of investor entitity, and many non-VC entities (in my
experience) will also want to know about patent status on key
technologies. Investments into technologies that don't have patent
protection will generally present more risk to the ROI than those that
don't.

It's just something that's been very routine in my experience, and I
think is a strong indicator that even big companies making investments
want to see small companies have patent coverage on their key
technologies. It reduces the risk that the advantage of the research
being invested in doesn't just fly over to a competitor and ruin the
ROI.

>Erik, lets say you have a good patent and some big company wants to
>challenge you. Do you have a few extra million dollars to sustain a fight?
>(If you do, give me a call) What if you don't want to be owned by the big
>company?

It's rare for a big company to challenge a small company's patent
unless the small company is getting bright on the radar as potentially
having a big impact in a market. If that's the case then there would
likely be others willing to take the other side of the bet, i.e.,
you'd probably not be alone in defending the patent. You might have
to give up a piece of it, but you may not be alone.

Not sure what you mean by being owned by the big company. Big
companys often buy little companys to get their patent portfolio. Is
that what you mean? For many that potential exit strategy is one of
the big reasons to patent the technology in the first place, so it's
often a success when that happens.

>I bet that Samsung & Apple will end up spending a $100 million dollars
>before somebody gives up.
>
>Apple makes some great products. Aren't we all glad Xerox didn't wipe them
>out when Apple commercialized most of the Parc Place ideas. I like my
>mouse.

My understanding is that Apple actually licensed everything they got
from Parq from Xerox. Xerox evidently didn't think it was all that
important at that time.

>Polaroid held a monopoly on their camera technology even though the
>original idea went back to the 1940s. I think this might have been due to
>the fact that if you have the basic patent rights completely tied up, there
>is absolutely no incentive for another entity to make further improvements
>on a technology they can't commercialize for 20 years. So Polaroid just
>kept making incremental improvements, that effectively monopolized the
>technology until a paradigm shift obsoleted the whole method (digital
>camera). (This is speculation on my part, someone can explain it if I am
>wrong)
>
>Actually, I am not anti-patent. I just thing the game is completely rigged
>to favor the large companies at the expense of small innovative companies
>and individuals.

And I'm just saying I've seen a lot of the other side of that, where
small businesses have greatly benefited, often at the hands of big
companies, by owning patents. I spent a number of years where a
pretty good chunk of my time was spent just doing technical due
diligence on startups for the capital investment arm of my
household-name employer at the time.

It was more or less in conjunction with the standards work I was doing
at the time (i.e., the big companies and VCs were making bets on who
would be contributing or influencing the standards and the related
markets). So I got to see it from the VC's point of view, the big
company's point of view, especially regarding capital investment, and
from a lot of the little companys participating in the standards
arena.

It's the same sort of thing with M&A into big companies...there's
almost always a patent portfolio involved or the deal won't make as
much financial sense if the technology isn't somehow protected. M&A
often involves small companies with key technologies getting absorbed
by big companies. That's often the desired exit plan for the founders
of the small company, so it's a win for them.

That being said, I've also spent a good chunk of my career at small
companies that eschewed patents, and were, at the time, successful at
it. That's not rare, either. Patents certainly aren't a requirement
to have a successful technology business, it just depends on what
you're doing or want to do or how you want to do it. There's
certainly a good deal of expense and risk related to patents, and
avoiding that when your business doesn't need it is often a good
thing.

>Real patent reform would make the filing process more transparent (like
>disclosures before some 20 something engineer grants the patent), had
>actual peer review, were written in English (or for a technical patent,
>engineering or science English as opposed to lawyer obfuscation),
>automatically expired in a reasonable market period like 5 years, and
>didn't take 3 years to grant.
>
>Imagine if disclosure happened before a patent was granted. All someone
>might need to do is identify the same invention already exists as prior
>art. This would eliminate a huge number of the existing application and
>backlog. This would be especially true for software patents since many of
>these are "invisible" without close inspection.

I think that's why publication at 18 months is the default now.

>There is a tremendous amount of prior art that exists that was never
>patented. A patent examiner might make an assumption that if they can't
>find prior art in the patent record, that somehow this means that an idea
>is new.
>
>I don't fault the inventor. I am sure that many of us have reinvented
>things without intentionally stealing someone else's idea. Tukey & Cooley
>rediscovered the FFT in 1965, but Gauss invented it first in 1805. I don't
>think anyone thinks that Tukey & Cooley were stealing Gauss's invention.
>Fortunately, we didn't have software patents or the FFT and probably all
>its derivatives would have been held hostage for 20 years, or at least
>until the historians corrected the record.

For a little while there was a website call Bounty Quest where people
posted bounties (usually $5k - $10k) for prior art on specific
patents. I often wish that were still around, but it went away a
long time ago. Interestingly, it came about partly as a result of
the controversy over Amazon's 1-click patent.

As a small business person I see the benefits and dangers of patents,
but there can definitely be benefits depending on what one wishes to
do. It's like most things, there are risks, and sometimes the ones
that take the risks get the rewards, and sometimes the ones that take
the risks get burned, and sometimes the unburned ones that didn't take
the risk at all do okay, too.

[rickman]

On Oct 31, 11:54 pm, Al Clark <acl...@danvillesignal.com> wrote:
...snip...

> Actually, I am not anti-patent. I just thing the game is completely rigged
> to favor the large companies at the expense of small innovative companies
> and individuals.

...snip...
> Al Clark

What in business in not slanted to the large company? They get the
big money makers and the rest of us get the crumbs or what we can
snatch off their plate. Even mid size companies have to think about
what they are doing if they want to produce a BIG product regardless
of the patent issues. What would be the point of ramping up to design
and build millions a year of something that a much larger competitor
can produce for $5 less?

Is the reason why there are still just two big FPGA companies
patents? No entirely, it is as much an issue of the enormous cost and
time required to build such an infrastructure.

Patents are the mainstay of large high tech companies, but what about
high tech isn't slanted to the big companies? I just think
"completely slanted" is an overstatement. There are plenty of
individuals and small companies who have benefited greatly from
patents.

Rick

[Brad]

On Oct 28, 12:07 pm, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If for no other reason because many inventors
> and companies would not be in the business.  They would probably be on
> Wall street.

Do star performers do what they do for money? Or because the creative
process fulfills them?

A bunch of people on Wall Street chasing bubbles doesn't really create
much, unless you include the housing market train wreck.

Competition in our industry is intense. Most output is shoddy. There
is a pervasive quality problem. There's never time to do it right, but
always time to do it over. What causes this? People chasing bubbles.

Patents are part of an economic system based on competition. That
system works for the common good only because participants use it that
way. There is a perception that the legal system prevents abuse, but
in the end I think non-abuse is voluntary.

[rickman]

You are certainly right that much more abuse could be found in the
Patent system except that many just don't want to go to the "dark
side". Some "abuse" is relative. For example some here feel ALL
software patents are abusive. I can't agree with that. When folks
start programming the GA devices, I can see all sorts of new ideas
coming out of that since it is such a new type of platform. Is it
"abusive" to patent patents on new ideas just because they are
implemented in software?

Rick

[rickman]

IEEE sponsored Town Hall meeting/lunch/workshop Nov. 5 - Patent Reform
and YOU

Congress has recently enacted sweeping patent reform that is adverse
to small inventors and entrepreneurs. The IEEE National Capital Area
Consultants Network and Baltimore Consultants Network want you to know
what has happened and how patent reform will affect the individual or
small-business entrepreneur. We have put together a Town Hall meeting
with a panel session and workshop. The event is open to the public,
and IEEE student members are especially welcomed to participate.
Lunch and a networking reception are included. IEEE Student members
may bring a guest at no additional cost. Door prizes will be awarded!


The NCACN welcomes IP experts Dr. Lee Hollaar and Dr. Amelia Morani
who will present the current landscape of U.S. patent law and lead the
workshop.


Your admission ticket includes a complimentary lunch and admission to
the networking reception. IEEE members can preregister to attend at a
discounted price of $10, and IEEE student members will receive one
guest admission as part of their $10 ticket price. IEEE discounted
prices are available only by preregistration until 6pm on November 4.
General admission is offered for $20 per person by preregistration and
at the door. All registered attendees will be eligible for door
prizes.


WHERE:

Loyola University Columbia, MD Graduate Campus
8890 MaGaw Road Room 260
Columbia, MD 21045


DIRECTIONS:

http://www.loyola.edu/facilitiesmanagement/columbia/directions.html


WHEN:

Saturday November 5


10am - Panel session, lunch, and discussion
2pm - Networking reception


COST:

$20 - general admission
$10 - IEEE member or guest (expires Nov. 4 6pm)
$10 - IEEE student member with 1 complimentary guest admission
(expires Nov. 4 6pm)


RSVP:

NCACN registration portal: http://www.ieee-consultants.org
OR
IEEE vtools registration link: http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/8771


Thank you, and we hope to see you there!
Monica Mallini, PE


YOUR HOSTS:

IEEE National Capital Area Consultants Network
IEEE Baltimore Consultants Network
IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (Wash/NoVA/Balt
Chapter)
IEEE Computer Society (Wash/Nova and Balt Chapters)
IEEE Region 2 Professional Activities Committee

[Bernd Paysan]

rickman wrote:
> Is it
> "abusive" to patent patents on new ideas just because they are
> implemented in software?

No, the whole concept of having a monopoly on an idea is abusive. It
even prevents others who have the same idea independently from using it.

If you have a good idea, make a good product out of it and sell it.
Against your fiercy competition who will imitate you as quick as they
can. Have more good ideas to stay ahead.

The really brilliant ideas will not be stolen, anyways, you have to
force them down people's throat - it's like this years nobel price for
chemistry, the guy got mobbed out of his group for discovering something
mathematics have discovered as possible construct two decades before
(penrose tilings).

Most arguments for patents are circular reasoning. We have a patent
system, so we need to patent our ideas, otherwise we will fall behind -
the competition can use our ideas, but we can't use theirs. Yes, of
course, this is bad. But it is that way, because some English
parliament, 400 years ago, forgot to abolish patents on ideas, while
they were about to abolish all those other stupid patents that stiffled
the economy back then. It never made any sense, but we still have it!

--
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://bernd-paysan.de/

[Andrew Haley]

rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You are certainly right that much more abuse could be found in the
> Patent system except that many just don't want to go to the "dark
> side". Some "abuse" is relative. For example some here feel ALL
> software patents are abusive. I can't agree with that. When folks
> start programming the GA devices, I can see all sorts of new ideas
> coming out of that since it is such a new type of platform. Is it
> "abusive" to patent patents on new ideas just because they are
> implemented in software?

Absolutely. To grant to an individual a government-enforced monopoly
is such an extreme act that it requires very strong justification.
The only possible justification is that it encourages people to
develop and publish inventions when they wouldn't otherwise have done
so: in other words, 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".

The questions are, firstly, whether the inventions covered by software
patents would not have been made, used, and published had there not
been software patents. And, on the other side, whether the
enforcement of software patents impedes the progress of science and
useful arts. And I think you know the answer to both of those.

Andrew.

[Kulin Remailer]

Andrew Haley <andr...@littlepinko.invalid> wrote:

> Absolutely. To grant to an individual a government-enforced monopoly
> is such an extreme act that it requires very strong justification.

True but unrelated to patents.

> The only possible justification is that it encourages people to
> develop and publish inventions when they wouldn't otherwise have done
> so: in other words, 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".

Horseshit. The justification is invention belongs to the inventor, anything
else is strong-arm robbery. Life, liberty, and property all existed before
governments, and the preservation of those 3 things are the only legitimate
province of government.

> The questions are, firstly, whether the inventions covered by software
> patents would not have been made, used, and published had there not
> been software patents. And, on the other side, whether the
> enforcement of software patents impedes the progress of science and
> useful arts. And I think you know the answer to both of those.

Irrelevant. You can conjure up all the reasons in the world to deprive
someone of his property, but if you do so you're a damn robber and criminal.

[Andrew Haley]

Kulin Remailer <rema...@reece.net.au> wrote:
> Andrew Haley <andr...@littlepinko.invalid> wrote:

:-)

>
>> Absolutely. To grant to an individual a government-enforced monopoly
>> is such an extreme act that it requires very strong justification.
>
> True but unrelated to patents.

How can it be? A patent surely is a government-enforced monopoly.

>> The only possible justification is that it encourages people to
>> develop and publish inventions when they wouldn't otherwise have done
>> so: in other words, 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".
>
> Horseshit. The justification is invention belongs to the inventor,
> anything else is strong-arm robbery. Life, liberty, and property all
> existed before governments, and the preservation of those 3 things
> are the only legitimate province of government.

None of these three things includes patent law.

You can quickly find any number of sources that support this view, but
you might reject them all; it certainly is the most common
justification of patent law. There is no natural right to have a
monopoly on the expression of one's ideas, and there is an economic
argument that government-enforced monopolies, like all monopolies,
hurt economic efficiency, to everyone's loss. The only question that
remains, then is whether such monopolies on balance benefit society.

>> The questions are, firstly, whether the inventions covered by
>> software patents would not have been made, used, and published had
>> there not been software patents. And, on the other side, whether
>> the enforcement of software patents impedes the progress of science
>> and useful arts. And I think you know the answer to both of those.
>
> Irrelevant.

It's crucial, because this is the justification for patents that
exists in law. (Or, at least, in American law, although some other
territories use similar words.) Patents don't exist in order to make
sure that inventors are rewarded.

> You can conjure up all the reasons in the world to deprive someone
> of his property, but if you do so you're a damn robber and criminal.

True, but unrelated to patents.

Andrew.

[Bernd Paysan]

Eric Jacobsen wrote:

> A defensive portfolio is required not only to keep one
> safe from the big competitors, but from the independent, submarine, or
> troll inventors/companies that are happy to come out of the woodwork
> and try to tap the deep pockets.

No, defensive portfolios don't help at all against patent trolls. These
trolls don't manufacture anything, and therefore are not vulnerable to
counter-sueing.

Chuck Moore was pretty blue-eyed, believing that the patent troll
company he was working for at Intellasys let him actually ship a
product. This would have been the end of them, because with a product,
they would for sure violate at least one of the gazillion patents their
licensees have, and end up in court, as well.

No, you can't have any product as patent troll, it would kill your
business. The business of a patent troll is similar to that of a
highway-man, they sit on the highway, where everybody has to pass by to
get from a to b, and rob them; in this case, they even have obtained a
patent (just like Sir Francis Drake had one for piracy in the Caribbean
sea).

[Bernd Paysan]

Gerry Jackson wrote:
> A lot of this ground is covered in a book called 'Sex, Science &
> Profits' by Terence Kealey (I don't know why sex is in the title as it
> is hardly mentioned in the book). As well as saying and justifying
> that patents are bad he also claims, with evidence, that government
> funded research is much less effective than just letting industry fund
> it themselves.

Of course, the government is not a good investor, because they have no
incentive to be a good investor. I've seen government funded projects,
they are typically just there to milk the government. The government
better should get out of the way, which it does both by funding and by
granting patents.

The main conclusion of this book is that small is beautiful, i.e. a
thriving economy has many small players rather than a few large.
Naturally, large corporations have many difficulties that makes them
easy to beat on the market. However, they have a huge advantage when it
comes to lobbying and bribing, so often large companies concentrate on
making business with the state or similar entities, where bribing is
essential to get a contract.

Granting monopolies like patents on ideas allows it big corporations to
extend their market to ordinary customers, who would be much better
without them.

[Waldek Hebisch]

Ok, Jane and Mark independenty invent the same thing. Jane did it
a bit earlier and was first to file for a patnet. Current law
gives monoply to Jane and effectively deprives Mark from his invention.
So, how can you avoid calling current system "strong-arm robbery"?


--
Waldek Hebisch
heb...@math.uni.wroc.pl

[Elizabeth D. Rather]

But how do you distinguish that situation from one in which Mark finds
out what Jane has done, copies it and claims it as his own invention,
and gets rich from it? Doesn't Jane deserve some protection?

Cheers,
Elizabeth

--
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc. +1 310.999.6784
5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
http://www.forth.com

"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
==================================================

[Andrew Haley]

Elizabeth D. Rather <era...@forth.com> wrote:
> On 11/4/11 2:55 PM, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>> Kulin Remailer<rema...@reece.net.au> wrote:
>>
>> Ok, Jane and Mark independenty invent the same thing. Jane did it
>> a bit earlier and was first to file for a patnet. Current law
>> gives monoply to Jane and effectively deprives Mark from his
>> invention. So, how can you avoid calling current system
>> "strong-arm robbery"?
>
> But how do you distinguish that situation from one in which Mark
> finds out what Jane has done, copies it and claims it as his own
> invention, and gets rich from it?

You can't.

> Doesn't Jane deserve some protection?

I don't think so. Imagine how it would have been if, during almost
any point in the existence of the human race, people had been
prevented from using other people's inventions. There probably
wouldn't even be a human race any more. (No, Mark, you must not spin
wool to make a sweater. That was Jane's idea, and she wants a chicken
for every sweater you make. And if you don't pay her, the chief will
send his men to burn down your hut.) More recently, consider what
would have happened if all the inventions that underpin the Internet
had been "protected".

Humanity has thrived on the basis of people building freely on each
other's ideas. The (usually) stated purpose of the patent system is
to foster innovation, but it doesn't do so in the area of software.
Instead, it hands power to those who hold patents but don't actually
make anything, so can't be sued, thus impeding innovation.

Andrew.

[jacko]

I've filed in the UK before where first file has been since 77. It still requires a filing of a certificate of inventorship by the filing party stating the actual inventor. I assume lying on the form could be treated as some kid of miss informing the government. Although this does not give any profits to the actual inventor.

Dealing with the legal suits is one reason I wished to keep the K Ring Compression Codec (although patent applied) open (as in can view the source and develop further) and free (as in no cost to the end user).

It demonstrates that under certain circumstances not even a free invention becomes popular. It is surprising how man supposed educated people will prefer bad logic to investigation and construction of an independent source base.

Cheers Jacko

[rickman]

On Nov 4, 3:55 pm, Waldek Hebisch <hebi...@math.uni.wroc.pl> wrote:
> Kulin Remailer <remai...@reece.net.au> wrote:

A pioneer chooses a plot of land, some number of acres, and clears a
portion for his home and soon after files a claim with the
government. Meanwhile someone else clears a portion of this land and
builds a second home unknown to the first. When the first finds out
about the second he makes sure his claim has been processed and has
the law evict the second who now loses all his hard work clearing the
land...

That is the landscape of patents. You can call it "strong-arm
robbery" but that doesn't make it wrong. Is it right that the first
should lose profit to the "Johnny come lately" inventor?

Rick

[rickman]

You guys missed a really great discussion today. We had to expert
presenters and two representatives from the Patent Office. They
discussed a lot of issues that have been raised here. I only wish I
had taken better notes. I did get the chance to speak directly with
Dr Lee Hollaar who spoke of several ways to deep six a patent. One is
to file (free) with the patent office a notice of a publication which
would represent prior art. This is attached at an application or even
a granted patent. If the patent holder tries to enforce the patent by
filing suit in court the lawyer would be guilty of filing not in good
faith or some such legal term and would be in deep sneakers with the
court. There were other things that can be done and they don't
require you to be a lawyer or use one.

I was very impressed with the knowledge of the presenters as well as
the USPTO representatives. Probably the most useful thing that was
said was that there are many views of the new law but it is the law.
Those who are most aware of it and use it are the ones who will most
profit. Getting an attitude about it accomplishes nothing.

BTW, many of the provisions don't take effect for over a year. So it
is just like an election, file early and file often!

Rick


On Oct 24, 3:59 pm, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Co-sponsored by
> IEEE NCA Consultants Network,
> Baltimore Consultants Network,
> Society on Social Implications of Technology,
> Baltimore and NoVA/Wash. Computer Society,
> and Region 2 PACE Committee
>
> Congress has enacted sweeping patent reform that is adverse to small
> inventors and entrepreneurs. How will this affect you? Let’s explore
> what the future holds with our panel of experts. Lunch and networking
> reception are included. Student members may bring a guest at no
> additional cost. Door prizes! Additional details at the link below.
>
> When: Saturday, November 5 10am-2pm
>
> Where: Loyola University Graduate Centers Room 260
> 8890 McGaw Road Columbia, MD 21045 USA
>
> Cost: $10 IEEE members (advance), $20 general
>
> Web Page:www.ieee-consultants.org
>
> Registration:http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/8771
>
> Panelists: Dr. Lee Hollaar, Dr. Amelia Morani
>
> We are still looking for a panelist who is a consultant able to speak
> regarding the impact of this new law.  Anyone available in the area?

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Sat, 5 Nov 2011 16:46:03 -0700 (PDT), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>You guys missed a really great discussion today. We had to expert
>presenters and two representatives from the Patent Office. They
>discussed a lot of issues that have been raised here. I only wish I
>had taken better notes. I did get the chance to speak directly with
>Dr Lee Hollaar who spoke of several ways to deep six a patent. One is
>to file (free) with the patent office a notice of a publication which
>would represent prior art. This is attached at an application or even
>a granted patent. If the patent holder tries to enforce the patent by
>filing suit in court the lawyer would be guilty of filing not in good
>faith or some such legal term and would be in deep sneakers with the
>court. There were other things that can be done and they don't
>require you to be a lawyer or use one.
>
>I was very impressed with the knowledge of the presenters as well as
>the USPTO representatives. Probably the most useful thing that was
>said was that there are many views of the new law but it is the law.
>Those who are most aware of it and use it are the ones who will most
>profit. Getting an attitude about it accomplishes nothing.
>
>BTW, many of the provisions don't take effect for over a year. So it
>is just like an election, file early and file often!
>
>Rick

Thanks for the update. I wish I could have been there.

Regarding the ability for the public to file prior art notice of
publication, was there any discussion about how that is checked or
processed? What's to stop someone from filing something only
marginally related as "prior art" to be attached to a patent? Sounds
like a strategy that could be used by someone nefariously trying to
kill a good patent.

[rickman]

No, this was a response to my question after the presentation. I
don't think any attachment will "automatically" kill a patent. I
believe the point is that if you truly have prior art, you don't need
to spend a ton 'o money to fight a patent even if it is granted.

It was discussed in the meeting that there is an application called
"provisional" IIRC that is only $125 to file and in essence sets the
date of filing if you then follow up within the year with a full
application. A significant aspect of this is that you have no
obligation to follow up but in any event the filing becomes "prior
art" registered with the USPTO. No one can subsequently apply for a
patent on that same invention.

I don't share the opinion of some that the patent system is completely
broken. I think the problem is that people don't know much about it
and seem to have knee jerk reactions to problems they do find. My car
is far from perfect, but it gets me where I want to go. But I guess
your mileage may vary. :)

Rick

[fatalist]

> Rick- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

"A significant aspect of this is that you have no
obligation to follow up but in any event the filing becomes "prior
art" registered with the USPTO. No one can subsequently apply for a
patent on that same invention."

Provisional application is not published by USPTO and automatically
expires in one year

It cannot be used as "prior art" by USPTO or anyone else unless it is
followed by a formal non-provisional application that is published and
claims the benefit of a provisional

[rickman]

This issue was discussed by the four member panel and no one disagreed
with the speaker, Dr Hollaar. Remember this included two
representatives from the USPTO. Even if the provisional application
expires, it constitutes prior art because it was filed with the
USPTO. I am pretty sure I don't have this wrong because it was
presented as a fail safe way of establishing prior art for the filing
fee of only $125. Dr. Hollaar had this as a bullet in his
presentation and then followed up with a full discussion on it.

Why do you say a provisional application can't be used as prior art?
I'm not certain whether it is published or not. But the USPTO has the
application so they know it's prior art.

Rick

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Mon, 7 Nov 2011 11:08:09 -0800 (PST), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Nov 6, 12:28=A0pm, eric.jacob...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote:
>> On Sat, 5 Nov 2011 16:46:03 -0700 (PDT), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

>> >You guys missed a really great discussion today. =A0We had to expert
>> >presenters and two representatives from the Patent Office. =A0They
>> >discussed a lot of issues that have been raised here. =A0I only wish I
>> >had taken better notes. =A0I did get the chance to speak directly with
>> >Dr Lee Hollaar who spoke of several ways to deep six a patent. =A0One is

>> >to file (free) with the patent office a notice of a publication which

>> >would represent prior art. =A0This is attached at an application or even
>> >a granted patent. =A0If the patent holder tries to enforce the patent by

>> >filing suit in court the lawyer would be guilty of filing not in good
>> >faith or some such legal term and would be in deep sneakers with the

>> >court. =A0There were other things that can be done and they don't

>> >require you to be a lawyer or use one.
>>
>> >I was very impressed with the knowledge of the presenters as well as

>> >the USPTO representatives. =A0Probably the most useful thing that was

>> >said was that there are many views of the new law but it is the law.
>> >Those who are most aware of it and use it are the ones who will most

>> >profit. =A0Getting an attitude about it accomplishes nothing.
>>
>> >BTW, many of the provisions don't take effect for over a year. =A0So it

>> >is just like an election, file early and file often!
>>
>> >Rick
>>

>> Thanks for the update. =A0 I wish I could have been there.

>>
>> Regarding the ability for the public to file prior art notice of
>> publication, was there any discussion about how that is checked or

>> processed? =A0 What's to stop someone from filing something only
>> marginally related as "prior art" to be attached to a patent? =A0Sounds

>> like a strategy that could be used by someone nefariously trying to
>> kill a good patent.
>>
>> Eric Jacobsen
>> Anchor Hill Communicationswww.anchorhill.com
>
>No, this was a response to my question after the presentation. I
>don't think any attachment will "automatically" kill a patent. I
>believe the point is that if you truly have prior art, you don't need
>to spend a ton 'o money to fight a patent even if it is granted.

>It was discussed in the meeting that there is an application called
>"provisional" IIRC that is only $125 to file and in essence sets the
>date of filing if you then follow up within the year with a full
>application. A significant aspect of this is that you have no
>obligation to follow up but in any event the filing becomes "prior
>art" registered with the USPTO. No one can subsequently apply for a
>patent on that same invention.

Provisional patent applications aren't new, fwiw. They're a means to
establish the "priority date" for an invention, in other words the
file date, even if a full patent application isn't ready. There are
some basic rules concerning limits on the content, e.g., IIRC one
can't add claims to the subsequent patent application that aren't
covered by material in the provisional application.

The nice thing is that a provisional is cheap and easy to file, and
doesn't have a specific format. e.g., it is not unusual to file a
draft of a paper to be published describing a new technology as the
provisional application for any patents that might come out of it.

Establishing the "priority date" by filing a provisional patent may be
more important in the US now that we're moving to a first to file
system.

>I don't share the opinion of some that the patent system is completely
>broken. I think the problem is that people don't know much about it
>and seem to have knee jerk reactions to problems they do find. My car
>is far from perfect, but it gets me where I want to go. But I guess
>your mileage may vary. :)

Always. ;)

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Mon, 7 Nov 2011 12:13:18 -0800 (PST), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Nov 7, 2:34=A0pm, fatalist <simfid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Nov 7, 2:08=A0pm, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Nov 6, 12:28=A0pm, eric.jacob...@ieee.org (Eric Jacobsen) wrote:
>>
>> > > On Sat, 5 Nov 2011 16:46:03 -0700 (PDT), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com>
>> > > wrote:
>>

>> > > >You guys missed a really great discussion today. =A0We had to expert
>> > > >presenters and two representatives from the Patent Office. =A0They
>> > > >discussed a lot of issues that have been raised here. =A0I only wish=
> I
>> > > >had taken better notes. =A0I did get the chance to speak directly wi=
>th
>> > > >Dr Lee Hollaar who spoke of several ways to deep six a patent. =A0On=
>e is
>> > > >to file (free) with the patent office a notice of a publication whic=
>h
>> > > >would represent prior art. =A0This is attached at an application or =
>even
>> > > >a granted patent. =A0If the patent holder tries to enforce the paten=
>t by
>> > > >filing suit in court the lawyer would be guilty of filing not in goo=

>d
>> > > >faith or some such legal term and would be in deep sneakers with the

>> > > >court. =A0There were other things that can be done and they don't

>> > > >require you to be a lawyer or use one.
>>
>> > > >I was very impressed with the knowledge of the presenters as well as

>> > > >the USPTO representatives. =A0Probably the most useful thing that wa=

>s
>> > > >said was that there are many views of the new law but it is the law.
>> > > >Those who are most aware of it and use it are the ones who will most

>> > > >profit. =A0Getting an attitude about it accomplishes nothing.
>>
>> > > >BTW, many of the provisions don't take effect for over a year. =A0So=

> it
>> > > >is just like an election, file early and file often!
>>
>> > > >Rick
>>

>> > > Thanks for the update. =A0 I wish I could have been there.

>>
>> > > Regarding the ability for the public to file prior art notice of
>> > > publication, was there any discussion about how that is checked or

>> > > processed? =A0 What's to stop someone from filing something only
>> > > marginally related as "prior art" to be attached to a patent? =A0Soun=

>ds
>> > > like a strategy that could be used by someone nefariously trying to
>> > > kill a good patent.
>>
>> > > Eric Jacobsen
>> > > Anchor Hill Communicationswww.anchorhill.com
>>

>> > No, this was a response to my question after the presentation. =A0I
>> > don't think any attachment will "automatically" kill a patent. =A0I

>> > believe the point is that if you truly have prior art, you don't need
>> > to spend a ton 'o money to fight a patent even if it is granted.
>>
>> > It was discussed in the meeting that there is an application called
>> > "provisional" IIRC that is only $125 to file and in essence sets the
>> > date of filing if you then follow up within the year with a full

>> > application. =A0A significant aspect of this is that you have no

>> > obligation to follow up but in any event the filing becomes "prior

>> > art" registered with the USPTO. =A0No one can subsequently apply for a

>> > patent on that same invention.
>>
>> > I don't share the opinion of some that the patent system is completely

>> > broken. =A0I think the problem is that people don't know much about it
>> > and seem to have knee jerk reactions to problems they do find. =A0My ca=
>r
>> > is far from perfect, but it gets me where I want to go. =A0But I guess
>> > your mileage may vary. =A0:)

>>
>> > Rick- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> > - Show quoted text -
>>
>> "A significant aspect of this is that you have no
>> obligation to follow up but in any event the filing becomes "prior

>> art" registered with the USPTO. =A0No one can subsequently apply for a

>> patent on that same invention."
>>
>> Provisional application is not published by USPTO and automatically
>> expires in one year
>>
>> It cannot be used as "prior art" by USPTO or anyone else unless it is
>> followed by a formal non-provisional application that is published and
>> claims the benefit of a provisional
>
>This issue was discussed by the four member panel and no one disagreed
>with the speaker, Dr Hollaar. Remember this included two
>representatives from the USPTO. Even if the provisional application
>expires, it constitutes prior art because it was filed with the
>USPTO. I am pretty sure I don't have this wrong because it was
>presented as a fail safe way of establishing prior art for the filing
>fee of only $125. Dr. Hollaar had this as a bullet in his
>presentation and then followed up with a full discussion on it.
>
>Why do you say a provisional application can't be used as prior art?
>I'm not certain whether it is published or not. But the USPTO has the
>application so they know it's prior art.
>
>Rick

I suspect you mean "priority date" rather than "prior art".

Otherwise they may have been saying that a provisional can be used as
evidence of "prior art" against competing applications, assuming a
formal application is eventually filed to replace the provisional.

Or something like that...

[Vladimir Vassilevsky]

Eric Jacobsen wrote:


> Provisional patent applications aren't new, fwiw. They're a means to
> establish the "priority date" for an invention, in other words the
> file date, even if a full patent application isn't ready. There are
> some basic rules concerning limits on the content, e.g., IIRC one
> can't add claims to the subsequent patent application that aren't
> covered by material in the provisional application.

That means the provisional application should be prepared like full
patent application.

> The nice thing is that a provisional is cheap and easy to file, and
> doesn't have a specific format. e.g., it is not unusual to file a
> draft of a paper to be published describing a new technology as the
> provisional application for any patents that might come out of it.

If it comes to a lawsuit regarding priority date, then it would be hard
to prove anything unless the provisional application is identical to the
subsequent patent application.

> Establishing the "priority date" by filing a provisional patent may be
> more important in the US now that we're moving to a first to file
> system.

Provisional applications are pretty much pointless.


Vladimir Vassilevsky
DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant
http://www.abvolt.com

[rickman]

Nope, he said the purpose of the provisional app is to establish a
priority date, but it also establishes the date of prior art. He was
very clear about this point. He said that once you file a provisional
patent application that establishes prior art and even if you never
follow up with the patent application the prior art forever locks out
anyone from filing on this invention. He actually introduced the
subject with a bullet that said how to establish prior art for only
$125. No need to get something published in a journal or offer a
product for sale. Just file with the USPTO.

Rick

[rickman]

You seem to understand the provisional application well. Yes,
provisional applications are not new. But they can be used to your
benefit.

I liked how Dr. Hollaar started his presentation by introducing the
new law and how many are not happy with it. He then said that those
who learn the new law and how best to use it are the ones who will
benefit the most. Just like the rest of patent law.

[rickman]

On Nov 7, 3:41 pm, Vladimir Vassilevsky <nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Eric Jacobsen wrote:
> > Provisional patent applications aren't new, fwiw.   They're a means to
> > establish the "priority date" for an invention,  in other words the
> > file date, even if a full patent application isn't ready.   There are
> > some basic rules concerning limits on the content, e.g., IIRC one
> > can't add claims to the subsequent patent application that aren't
> > covered by material in the provisional application.
>
> That means the provisional application should be prepared like full
> patent application.

I don't recall the details of the full presentation. This was
discussed but I seem to recall that the provisional doesn't need to be
the same as the full application. In fact, I want to say the
provisional doesn't need to have claims at all.

> > The nice thing is that a provisional is cheap and easy to file, and
> > doesn't have a specific format.  e.g., it is not unusual to file a
> > draft of a paper to be published describing a new technology as the
> > provisional application for any patents that might come out of it.
>
> If it comes to a lawsuit regarding priority date, then it would be hard
> to prove anything unless the provisional application is identical to the
> subsequent patent application.

I'm pretty sure Dr. Hollaar said the full patent application can be
expanded beyond the provisional app, but the details are fuzzy.

> > Establishing the "priority date" by filing a provisional patent may be
> > more important in the US now that we're moving to a first to file
> > system.
>
> Provisional applications are pretty much pointless.
>
> Vladimir Vassilevsky
> DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultanthttp://www.abvolt.com

Yes, and how long have you been practicing patent law?

Rick

[Vladimir Vassilevsky]

rickman wrote:

> On Nov 7, 3:41 pm, Vladimir Vassilevsky <nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>>Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>>
>>>Provisional patent applications aren't new, fwiw. They're a means to
>>>establish the "priority date" for an invention, in other words the
>>>file date, even if a full patent application isn't ready. There are
>>>some basic rules concerning limits on the content, e.g., IIRC one
>>>can't add claims to the subsequent patent application that aren't
>>>covered by material in the provisional application.
>>
>>That means the provisional application should be prepared like full
>>patent application.
>
> I don't recall the details of the full presentation.

Refer to the original law, not to somebody's comments.

> This was
> discussed but I seem to recall that the provisional doesn't need to be
> the same as the full application. In fact, I want to say the
> provisional doesn't need to have claims at all.

Yes, it isn't required for provisional applications to have claims or
anything. However, if it comes to actual lawsuit, the improperly
prepared provisional application could be very much useless.
If provisional application should be prepared like patent, then why
provisional applications at all?

>>>The nice thing is that a provisional is cheap and easy to file, and
>>>doesn't have a specific format. e.g., it is not unusual to file a
>>>draft of a paper to be published describing a new technology as the
>>>provisional application for any patents that might come out of it.
>>
>>If it comes to a lawsuit regarding priority date, then it would be hard
>>to prove anything unless the provisional application is identical to the
>>subsequent patent application.
>
> I'm pretty sure Dr. Hollaar said the full patent application can be
> expanded beyond the provisional app, but the details are fuzzy.

Read the laws.

USPTO doesn't give any consideration to provisional apps. It is your
burden to prove the priority date or claim prior art using a provisional
application as the argument. Which means that the provisional app must
contain a clear and legally unambiguous definition of the invention;
i.e. essentially the same as a patent app.

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:04:13 -0600, Vladimir Vassilevsky
<nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:

>
>
>rickman wrote:
>
>> On Nov 7, 3:41 pm, Vladimir Vassilevsky <nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>>>
>>>>Provisional patent applications aren't new, fwiw. They're a means to
>>>>establish the "priority date" for an invention, in other words the
>>>>file date, even if a full patent application isn't ready. There are
>>>>some basic rules concerning limits on the content, e.g., IIRC one
>>>>can't add claims to the subsequent patent application that aren't
>>>>covered by material in the provisional application.
>>>
>>>That means the provisional application should be prepared like full
>>>patent application.
>>
>> I don't recall the details of the full presentation.
>
>Refer to the original law, not to somebody's comments.
>
>> This was
>> discussed but I seem to recall that the provisional doesn't need to be
>> the same as the full application. In fact, I want to say the
>> provisional doesn't need to have claims at all.
>
>Yes, it isn't required for provisional applications to have claims or
>anything. However, if it comes to actual lawsuit, the improperly
>prepared provisional application could be very much useless.
>If provisional application should be prepared like patent, then why
>provisional applications at all?

You misunderstand provisional filing pretty thoroughly.

[Vladimir Vassilevsky]

Would you please enlighten me in which particular way are you planning
on using a provisional application?

[Eric Jacobsen]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:10:29 -0600, Vladimir Vassilevsky

<nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:

>
>
>Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>> On Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:04:13 -0600, Vladimir Vassilevsky
>> <nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>>>Yes, it isn't required for provisional applications to have claims or
>>>anything. However, if it comes to actual lawsuit, the improperly
>>>prepared provisional application could be very much useless.
>>>If provisional application should be prepared like patent, then why
>>>provisional applications at all?
>>
>>
>> You misunderstand provisional filing pretty thoroughly.
>>
>
>Would you please enlighten me in which particular way are you planning
>on using a provisional application?

I'm not planning on it, but I'd certainly do it if I needed to. Some
of the patents I've had granted were preceded by a provisional
application. It's pretty common practice and a very useful mechanism
when properly used.

[Bernd Paysan]

rickman wrote:
>> Ok, Jane and Mark independenty invent the same thing. Jane did it
>> a bit earlier and was first to file for a patnet. Current law
>> gives monoply to Jane and effectively deprives Mark from his
>> invention. So, how can you avoid calling current system "strong-arm
>> robbery"?
>>
>> --
>> Waldek Hebisch
>
> A pioneer chooses a plot of land, some number of acres, and clears a
> portion for his home and soon after files a claim with the
> government. Meanwhile someone else clears a portion of this land and
> builds a second home unknown to the first. When the first finds out
> about the second he makes sure his claim has been processed and has
> the law evict the second who now loses all his hard work clearing the
> land...

Yes, and that's wrong. A pioneer should be granted the land he cleared,
no more. His real work should be rewarded, not his paperwork.

> That is the landscape of patents. You can call it "strong-arm
> robbery" but that doesn't make it wrong. Is it right that the first
> should lose profit to the "Johnny come lately" inventor?

Apparently, the invention was pretty obvious, which is why two persons
independently invented the same thing. At least this is my test on
obviouseness: how often has it been invented independently?

Patents have an excuse (i.e. a "purpose for the better of everyone",
which still follows a flawed logic, but at least there is one), and it's
that in exchange to publishing what you invent, and therefore teaching
the general public about your invention, you get a limited time
monopoly. You don't get the monopoly for inventing something, you get
it for making your invention public.

The first thing that then becomes "obvious to one skilled in the art"
are things that are easy to reverse engineer, i.e. never ever can be a
trade secret. This sort of invention should not get patent protection,
because the teaching of the general public is by looking at the
invention (things like "slide to unlock" or the "one click buy").

When teaching the general public is part of the process, e.g. when
creating a standard, patents also should not be granted. You can't get
your technology into a standard without teaching the public, and in some
areas, technology outside the standard isn't worth that much.

[Eric Jacobsen]

Rick and all,

Ran across this the other day and thought it might be useful. I
haven't had a chance to go through much of the material (because
there's a lot!), but it looks to be along the same lines as what you
had pulled together.

Presentation materials are available in the links as well.

http://www.ieeeusa.org/calendar/seminars/AIA-seminar/default.asp

On Sat, 5 Nov 2011 16:46:03 -0700 (PDT), rickman <gnu...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>> inventors and entrepreneurs. How will this affect you? Let=92s explore

>> what the future holds with our panel of experts. Lunch and networking
>> reception are included. Student members may bring a guest at no
>> additional cost. Door prizes! Additional details at the link below.
>>
>> When: Saturday, November 5 10am-2pm
>>
>> Where: Loyola University Graduate Centers Room 260
>> 8890 McGaw Road Columbia, MD 21045 USA
>>
>> Cost: $10 IEEE members (advance), $20 general
>>
>> Web Page:www.ieee-consultants.org
>>

>> Registration:http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/87=

>71
>>
>> Panelists: Dr. Lee Hollaar, Dr. Amelia Morani
>>
>> We are still looking for a panelist who is a consultant able to speak

>> regarding the impact of this new law. =A0Anyone available in the area?

[rickman]

Thanks Eric,

This was in our area, but I wasn't able to attend myself. I did hear
it was a good presentation.

Rick