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Every time the patent debate comes up, someone links to this patent as the summit of absurdity. Why not link to this one: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/636

• nkassis 17y ago
  This one is even cooler, patenting patent trolling: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20080270152&OS=20080270152&RS=20080270152 http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Se...
  • fnid2 17y ago
    Absurdity is ubiquitous. Computer science is no exception. I know we think we are above it, but we aren't. We're just like everyone else. People don't have to be mechanical engineers to pattent something physical. They don't have to be computer scientists to patent an algorithm either. Maybe that person who patented the method of swinging really thought the idea was great and could save the world. I don't know. But really, patenting inventions is almost a right. We argue for copyright protection, or the abolishment of it in the same mind. If there are no patents for software and no copyrights period, what is there to protect the risk innovators take to make the world better? It's true of corporations as well, because they spend a lot of money on Research and Developmennt. R&D budgets are in the billions. If a company, like Apple in the current debate, can't protect that investment, a lot of people who participate at Hacker News wouldn't have jobs. They'd have to go do something in some mundane role that has negligible impact compared to something, like the iPhone. We all cheered when it arrived and now that Steve Jobs wants to get his money for it, his investors money for it, and his employees satisfaction for a job well done, he has to fight for that value. If, in fact, HTC did steal some ideas from the iPhone, why shouldn't Apple get compensated for the lost value? Those are phones Apple could have sold and why shouldn't Apple have every bit as much right to make a positive return on their investment in the R&D for the iPhone and the parts of the iPhone that make it special to Apple, to Jobs, and for consumers?
    • nitrogen 17y ago
      why shouldn't Apple get compensated for the lost value? Because most of the cited patents are probably just restatements of research done at universities and research labs (like Bell Labs) in the 1960s and 70s. Note that I haven't read the claims to avoid polluting my own work. Most patents don't seem to explain anything, they're deliberately obscure, when they're supposed to be teaching future inventors how to reproduce the invention.
  • clofresh 17y ago
    Assignee Name and Address: Halliburton Energy Services Inc. Wow, Halliburton is just synonymous with evil.
  • jcromartie 17y ago
    I can hardly believe that this exists... but there it is. I think this is the only evidence needed to establish the fact that our patent system is hopelessly and irreparably broken.
  • ebneter 17y ago
    That's an application, though, not a patent.
• runT1ME 17y ago
  Do you think you should be able to patent a sentence? Even if its a good one? If not, why?
  • fnid2 17y ago
    It depends on the sentence. And I know where you are going.
  • timtadh 17y ago
    patents apply only to things that are: anything made by man new non-obvious commercially useful i think a sentence, even Shakespeare, fail one or more of those qualifications. which is why we have copyright for sentences.
• tlrobinson 17y ago
  True, it doesn't mean all software patents are absurd, but it does mean something is wrong with the system.
• baddox 17y ago
  These two patents don't mean that all software patents are absurb, but it means that the current notion of software patents itself is absurd.
  • fnid2 17y ago
    No, I don't think it does and I don't think simply stating that it is without providing any evidence for your case is going to change my mind or anyone's mind who agrees with me, but it looks like I'm the only one. Anyway.... The legal system is there to figure out if a patent is absurd and if you read the whole patent for the swing, at the end, it was ruled out. At least claims A, B, C and D. That same review process exists for software patents too. The patent office is taking steps to fix some of the problems, at least it is being pragmatic about pre-approval review processes that still protect the inventor. Lots of arguments all the way to the echelon of the judicial system have taken place over software patents and it was ruled they are valid, so if a claim is to be made that they should be abolished -- it better be a very good one.
    • modeless 17y ago
      >The legal system is there to figure out if a patent is absurd If the legal system was free and fast, you would have a point. However, the legal system is expensive and slow. A system where a patent as clearly absurd as this one can survive to the point of requiring a legal challenge to be overturned is simply unacceptable.
      • fnid2 17y ago
        A patent also takes 8 years to come to fruition. There is a huge backup. Startups can be invented and sold in that amount of time or fail completely, so if it's just one person in a garage, there are bigger issues, but still, some of those people are saving up a lot of money right now selling iPhones. Even kids in malls and hackers in their basements. Perhaps I am being too egalitarian in my stance.
        • 17y ago
• alanthonyc 17y ago
  Perhaps you can provide a counter example that shows the usefulness of software patents. I personally think they are absurd, as demonstrated by the OP, but am open to changing my thinking if proven wrong. The internet has leveled the playing field for everyone. But one of the few ways that big corporations can take advantage of their size against smaller, more innovative entities is by throwing money into a legal battle which the smaller entity can't afford to fight. Equal rights under the law. But currently, the more money you have, the equaler you get.
  • fnid2 17y ago
    Okay, then the problem is not software patents, or patents in general, but that they unfairly tip the scales in favor of the big corporations. How do we fix that problem? That problem exists outside the world of patents and software. Monsanto patents seeds and those are just strings of DNA which are essentially just four characters repeated in a seemingly random order. And yet farmers lose their farms over those strings of four letters. Not because they were even choosing to use the seeds, corn is just pollinated by the air and some of that code got into their crop as it blew in from the neighbors' field -- a farmer who did use Monsanto's DNA. It's absurd, I know. One case on the not absurd side of the spectrum, is, as it turns out, the original case that ruled software could be patented in the first place. It was by a guy who had to fight, iirc, all the way to the supreme court to protect his right to patent his software invention. I'll try to find a link, but is a true story indeed.
    • evanrmurphy 17y ago
      > Okay, then the problem is not software patents, or patents in general, but that they unfairly tip the scales in favor of the big corporations. Agreed. Legal issues (patents included) tend to favor big corporations because you're more likely to win a case if you spend more money on it. I don't know about all the factors contributing to this, but I think a big one is that law (in the U.S., anyway) is difficult to understand for laypeople, and so you need lawyers to defend you, and the lawyers that cost more have higher success rates.
      • 17y ago
• nostrademons 17y ago
  "I know patents cause trouble, but what about the case where a patent helps an entrepreneur get the value out of an invention when big corporations steal it, market it, and make money without giving the inventor a dime?" Patents don't protect against that. Problem is, filing a patent takes time, money, and attention that are in very short supply in a startup. You can file to protect your inventions - but if you do, that takes time away from more important things like getting the money you need to stay in business. And patents generally need to be filed before the invention becomes public (you have a year grace period in the U.S, but no such boon in the EU). If you gate your launch process on the speed of the patent process, you won't be launching much. That's why Google's first patent wasn't filed until 2003 (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6526440 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6526440 - the PageRank patent is actually owned by Stanford, since they were Page & Brin's employers when it was invented). And many of the initial EBay inventions - online auctions and reputation, for example - were never patented, because the 1 year grace period had expired by the time they got around to it. Patents are something you get once you become big and have extra money lying around, not something you can afford as a startup.
  • fnid2 17y ago
    I don't think that is exactly true. A good patent from a very good firm in L.A. will run you about $20k. Yes, it's a lot, but I a computer engineer could sock that much away in a year. Work on the software at home at night, patent it, sell the patent to Apple or Microsoft or another big company for a couple million dollars. The corporation makes $100 Million of the device. Great, the inventor got $2M and can innovate for the rest of his or her life. That's a good story in my opinion. Is that any better or worse than a social media site that gets 1,000,000 users and sells itself to google or whatever? How is that better? Seriously, and with all due respect, a lot of the social media sites that do that add little value to anyone but the investors. Sometimes they take money from their customers in nefarious ways that maybe the world would be better off without -- especially right now. So I'm a staunch supporter of software patents, because I see them as a path to freedom and a mechanism to publish ideas into the population and allow them to be built upon and improve the quality of life in the world. I think the world could use a little improvement in its quality right now. There are probably millions of people who will agree with me. When it comes down to it -- you gotta make money. That's what it comes down to and patents, any kind of patent, whether it is for wind shield wipers or for a software revolutionizes the solar energy system. If something like that saves the world, I don't see a problem with an inventor getting a little bling out of it. When it comes down to it, I just don't see the difference between gears spinning in the real world and gears spinning in a 3d model. That's every bit as much software as the algorithms and hardware behind some of what the iPhone does. Some little company patented a film that goes over glass to make it much much stronger, but still transparent with UV protection and over a decade later, a car company used that material in its windshields without ever compensating this small individual owned business. It just turned out that when the material was invented, there was no market for it. No one could figure out what to do with it. But it was within the 20 year period for the invention, which is essentially an arrangement of atoms in space, which could all be described by software. But I digress.
• scotty79 17y ago
  Wow. That method of swinging on the swing actually is innovative. At least for me. I never did that by pulling one chain and the the other. I always sort of balanced my whole body to start and keep swinging. I'm eager to try this new method. Should I apply for some kind of licence to that guy? I don't live in US is that patent valid in other countries?
• huhtenberg 17y ago
  > Why not link to this one: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.pdf http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.pdf This is a mock patent. It was obtained by an IP lawyer for the exact purpose of demonstrating the absurdity of the state of the patent system in the US. The legal counsel person in one my previous companies was a close friend of this patent author. That's why I know.
  • nandemo 17y ago
    Well, yes, of course it is a mock patent. The point is that it was even accepted in the first place.
• lutorm 17y ago
  Do you think mathematicians should be able to patent formulas too? Some are novel, unobvious and valuable. The argument, I believe, is that formulas aren't invented, they're discovered. That's why I think it's totally, unequivocally absurd that you can patent genomes. Who invented the human (or any other naturally occurring life form's) genome? Just because something's not obvious or novel doesn't mean you can patent it. You can't patent music or poetry, no matter how obvious, novel or valuable it is. At least this example is an implementation detail. That seems more reasonable to me than, for example, UI patents. If someone patents a way to make steel, you are free to make steel any other way you can figure out. The same seems to apply with the implementation detail patents, but with the "multitouch" patent Apple's suing over, it seems that the question of how HTC has implemented the functionality doesn't matter because the patent covers the user interaction. And that makes no sense to me. If it's so genuinely difficult to make, then they can patent the implementation. But patents were meant to cover "the process P which accomplishes B from A", not "any means of accomplishing B starting with A even if totally unrelated to P."
  • fnid2 17y ago
    I've heard the discovery vs. invention argument, and there is something too it, but personally, I'm still not clear on how to distinguish between invention and discovery. Wasn't steel a discovery, elements, or quantum theory? Music and poetry are covered by copyright, currently. But the same problem exists there and Larry Lessig has done a lot to protect culture in an environment of copyright litigation. Re: Mathematics and formulas. A lot of the discoveries or inventions in mathematics are patented. Three dimensional protein folding is a huge industry in pharmaceuticals and math is almost 100% of that knowledge. It's applied math, but nonetheless, still patentable mathematics and a lot of it too. I think one differentiator here is that the multi-touch and the one click amazon patent as another example are something that seems obvious to try to achieve given the current environment. There are other ways as well, like a space elevator or gloves to help protect astronauts in space. Is math a fact? I don't know if facts can be patented or copyrighted, though collections of facts surely can.
  • bartl 17y ago
    I think your assertion of patenting a way to do something vs. just patenting doing something is really the core of the problem.
• jfoutz 17y ago
  The problem isn't "is it a good idea?" The problem is, "Is math part of the structure of the universe?" Is pi a discovery that is fundamental to the existence of reality, or is it just a useful shorthand for thinking about things we don't understand? If math is discovered, and algorithms are math, then algorithms can't be patented. You may reject the notion that math is discovered, or that algorithms are math, I disagree. I'm fine with patenting a specific sequence of instructions on a particular chip, because they're extra fast or something. that's an invention. You can't patent an electron, or the idea of an electron. You can patent a device for moving an electron around.
• lutorm 17y ago
  By the way, you forget that the purpose of patents is not to allow you to get rich, it is to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". The relevant question is if you think progress of science is promoted by the current system, or if progress is hampered because software patent litigation puts a damper on it? The multitouch patent, for example: Do you think Apple wouldn't have bothered with the iPhone if they couldn't patent their "invention" (which wasn't theirs either, but that's a different issue)? In that case, the patent has promoted progress. But it's sure standing in the way for ubiquitous competition and rollout of touch devices now.
  • dutchflyboy 17y ago
    Well, actually the purpose of patents IS to allow you to get rich. Why? Well, by protecting the invention, you allow the inventor to make money with it for some time. This means that if you put millions in R&D, you have a guarantee that if there's a result, you can also win back the investment. Do you really think pharmaceutical companies would pour so much money into research if whatever they invented was immediatly copied by another company which doesn't put any money in R&D. But I agree that patents are sometimes absurd, software patents are quite absurd most of the time.
• stonemetal 17y ago
  When did anyone bring up inventors? It would be nice if they had rights, under the current system there is no inventor protection. Any idiot who can imagine something can get a patent, and then turn around and sue the hard working engineer who puts together a practical product.
• dbz 17y ago
  Nah. This is easy to beat. Hang the swing set from anything besides a horizontal tree branch.
• swixmix 17y ago
  The patent was canceled according to page 8. The patent system worked in this case.