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I wish more people would read the actual patent claims before coming to conclusions about them based solely on their titles. It seems that many news organizatio

I wish more people would read the actual patent claims before coming to conclusions about them based solely on their titles. It seems that many news organizations have articles claiming this is a ridiculous lawsuit based on the titles which they claim are overly broad. If however they took the time to read the patent claims, they would see that they are relatively specific. For example: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5,566,337 http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5... Now I'm not saying that software patents are necessarily right, but I am growing weary of people making broad generalizations based on the titles of these patents and having them perpetuated. That is somewhat like a book review discussing the book's title and deciding whether or not it's a good book without having read the book or having any knowledge of its contents. In other words, leave it to the lawyers. If you went to LN (Lawyer News - doesn't exist, but let's pretend for my analogy) and there was a lawyer claiming that Javascript is stupid because it has the word Java in it and therefore must have all the attributes of Java and he hates Java, we'd all cringe at his lack of knowledge of the subject and wish he'd leave it up to the Hackers who actually know what they're talking about to criticize.

sern 17y ago
That patent is on NeXTSTEP's NSDistributedNotificationCenter [1], which admittedly might actually be enforceable (I'm not sure of any prior art in this regard). That said, after reading the claims of a lot of the other patents Apple is citing it is apparent that they are complete rubbish, for example [2] (the observer pattern applied to a desktop environment), [3] (generic proxy objects for IPC/RPC - Smalltalk/CORBA did it), and [4] (WTF???????). 1. http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Notifications/Articles/NotificationCenters.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000216 http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/C... 2. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zIwLAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zIwLAAAAEBAJ 3. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7d4aAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7d4aAAAAEBAJ 4. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=HrobAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=HrobAAAAEBAJ
- protomyth 17y ago
  When you say "rubish", are you going off the description or the actual patent claim? Descriptions are always written in broad strokes and never really seem enforceable.
markkanof 17y ago
Sure, broad generalizations are always a problem, but in this particular case I'm not sure that it matters. The patent description that you linked to doesn't really seem specific enough to make it unique. It seems to be talking about eventing systems in an operating system (as opposed to a language). The idea that there isn't prior art seems dubious. Also, I think leaving it to the lawyers is part of what got us into this situation in the first place. We have a bunch of lawyers and patent clerks that don't understand the technology so we end up with a lot of silly patents that shouldn't exist.
ynniv 17y ago
I can't upvote this enough. Making any conclusion about a patent without concentrating on the claims (at least the independent ones) is ignorant. I admit that I used to do the same, but once you understand the mechanics of a patent (just like any technical system), you are immediately put off when someone is angry over a summary.
roc 17y ago
Your general point is extremely important and deserves to be underlined in every patent discussion: summaries and abstracts are irrelevant. The patent is the claims. However, in this case, some of these patents are still quite broad. Almost offensively so.
raganwald 17y ago
In other words, leave it to the lawyers. Perhaps I really shouldn't discuss patents, intellectual property law, or lawsuits here. Even if I read the whole thing, I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the specialized language being used. I don't know the specifics of the law in different jurisdictions. I really shouldn't have said anything. What it amounts to is this: The text of an article is insufficient information for discussion, you need expertise to comment on it. Now that I put it that way, why are any of these articles discussed here on HN? Who is actually qualified to come to conclusions or espouse an opinion about economics, politics, or law? Why do we tolerate discussion about intellectual property law, anti-terrorism laws, or economics by unqualified persons? It's quite disturbing how little any of us know about things that affect our livelihood.
jhancock 17y ago
I have just read the claims of the patent you linked. The first 3 claims [1] describe events (basic MVC stuff) as has been used in the wild since at least 1979!!! The patent has a filing date of May 13, 1994. I had written Smalltalk code in use at Fortune 100 clients using these very same techniques for several years prior to this filing date. At the time, I was clear I did not invent these techniques. Its my understanding there are penalties for an inventor listed in a patent fraudulently claiming they created the invention. Perhaps its time we started enforcing these penalties. I find it impossible to believe that any engineer at Next or Apple did not understand they were not the original inventor of what is claimed in this patent. [1] first 3 claims from http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5,566,337 http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5... 1. In a computer including at least one event producer for detecting that an event has occurred in the computer and generating an event and at least one event consumer which needs to be informed when events occur in the computer, a system for distributing events comprising: storing means for storing a specific set of events of which said at least one event consumer is to be informed; event manager control means for receiving the event from the event producer, comparing the received event to the stored set of events, and distributing an appropriate event to an appropriate event consumer; and distributor means for receiving the event from the control means and directing said control means to distribute an appropriate event to an appropriate event consumer. 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said distributor means comprises a distributor module for each kind of event possible in the computer. 3. The system according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of event consumers are included in the computer and the plurality of consumers comprise: broadcast consumers having no relationship with other consumers, the broadcast consumers operating independently of other consumers and of the order in which consumers are informed of the event; and sequential consumers having relationships with other consumers, the sequential consumers requiring that no other consumer be told about an event while they themselves are processing the event and having an ability to influence when they receive the event relative to the other consumers.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  The first three claims are establishing the basis for claims 4 through 9. Likewise claims 11 through 17 depend on claim 10 and claims 19 through 24 depend on claim 18. Though they are written linearly, patents have a hierarchical structure. What you appear to be doing is mistaking each claim for an independent claim of invention, which is a common mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. When the claim says "the system according to claim x", it is growing more specific as to what is actually being claimed as the invention. With that in mind it is not surprising that the independent claims (1, 10, 18) would not be novel. You have to read as far as the tail end of each thread to understand what is actually being claimed as the invention. I can't speak to the content of this patent when read correctly, but I suggest re-examining it with this in mind.

sern 17y ago

That patent is on NeXTSTEP's NSDistributedNotificationCenter [1], which admittedly might actually be enforceable (I'm not sure of any prior art in this regard). That said, after reading the claims of a lot of the other patents Apple is citing it is apparent that they are complete rubbish, for example [2] (the observer pattern applied to a desktop environment), [3] (generic proxy objects for IPC/RPC - Smalltalk/CORBA did it), and [4] (WTF???????). 1. http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Notifications/Articles/NotificationCenters.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000216 http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/C... 2. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zIwLAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zIwLAAAAEBAJ 3. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7d4aAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7d4aAAAAEBAJ 4. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=HrobAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=HrobAAAAEBAJ

protomyth 17y ago
When you say "rubish", are you going off the description or the actual patent claim? Descriptions are always written in broad strokes and never really seem enforceable.

markkanof 17y ago

Sure, broad generalizations are always a problem, but in this particular case I'm not sure that it matters. The patent description that you linked to doesn't really seem specific enough to make it unique. It seems to be talking about eventing systems in an operating system (as opposed to a language). The idea that there isn't prior art seems dubious. Also, I think leaving it to the lawyers is part of what got us into this situation in the first place. We have a bunch of lawyers and patent clerks that don't understand the technology so we end up with a lot of silly patents that shouldn't exist.

ynniv 17y ago

I can't upvote this enough. Making any conclusion about a patent without concentrating on the claims (at least the independent ones) is ignorant. I admit that I used to do the same, but once you understand the mechanics of a patent (just like any technical system), you are immediately put off when someone is angry over a summary.

roc 17y ago

Your general point is extremely important and deserves to be underlined in every patent discussion: summaries and abstracts are irrelevant. The patent is the claims. However, in this case, some of these patents are still quite broad. Almost offensively so.

raganwald 17y ago

In other words, leave it to the lawyers. Perhaps I really shouldn't discuss patents, intellectual property law, or lawsuits here. Even if I read the whole thing, I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand the specialized language being used. I don't know the specifics of the law in different jurisdictions. I really shouldn't have said anything. What it amounts to is this: The text of an article is insufficient information for discussion, you need expertise to comment on it. Now that I put it that way, why are any of these articles discussed here on HN? Who is actually qualified to come to conclusions or espouse an opinion about economics, politics, or law? Why do we tolerate discussion about intellectual property law, anti-terrorism laws, or economics by unqualified persons? It's quite disturbing how little any of us know about things that affect our livelihood.

jhancock 17y ago

I have just read the claims of the patent you linked. The first 3 claims [1] describe events (basic MVC stuff) as has been used in the wild since at least 1979!!! The patent has a filing date of May 13, 1994. I had written Smalltalk code in use at Fortune 100 clients using these very same techniques for several years prior to this filing date. At the time, I was clear I did not invent these techniques. Its my understanding there are penalties for an inventor listed in a patent fraudulently claiming they created the invention. Perhaps its time we started enforcing these penalties. I find it impossible to believe that any engineer at Next or Apple did not understand they were not the original inventor of what is claimed in this patent. [1] first 3 claims from http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5,566,337 http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5... 1. In a computer including at least one event producer for detecting that an event has occurred in the computer and generating an event and at least one event consumer which needs to be informed when events occur in the computer, a system for distributing events comprising: storing means for storing a specific set of events of which said at least one event consumer is to be informed; event manager control means for receiving the event from the event producer, comparing the received event to the stored set of events, and distributing an appropriate event to an appropriate event consumer; and distributor means for receiving the event from the control means and directing said control means to distribute an appropriate event to an appropriate event consumer. 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said distributor means comprises a distributor module for each kind of event possible in the computer. 3. The system according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of event consumers are included in the computer and the plurality of consumers comprise: broadcast consumers having no relationship with other consumers, the broadcast consumers operating independently of other consumers and of the order in which consumers are informed of the event; and sequential consumers having relationships with other consumers, the sequential consumers requiring that no other consumer be told about an event while they themselves are processing the event and having an ability to influence when they receive the event relative to the other consumers.

GHFigs 17y ago
The first three claims are establishing the basis for claims 4 through 9. Likewise claims 11 through 17 depend on claim 10 and claims 19 through 24 depend on claim 18. Though they are written linearly, patents have a hierarchical structure. What you appear to be doing is mistaking each claim for an independent claim of invention, which is a common mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. When the claim says "the system according to claim x", it is growing more specific as to what is actually being claimed as the invention. With that in mind it is not surprising that the independent claims (1, 10, 18) would not be novel. You have to read as far as the tail end of each thread to understand what is actually being claimed as the invention. I can't speak to the content of this patent when read correctly, but I suggest re-examining it with this in mind.