4 ms·

Being similar doesn't justify it as a patent. A core foundation of patents is that the invention be novel and non-obvious to a practitioner. If countless people

Being similar doesn't justify it as a patent. A core foundation of patents is that the invention be novel and non-obvious to a practitioner. If countless people independently -- without learning from the claims -- derive exactly the same "invention", it is an invalid patent. Of course then you have to actually get it invalidated, at great time and expense. It is completely a bullshit patent. The patent office got their fees, and then they'll get their fees again to re-evaluate it.

kefka 9y ago
It's only a bullshit patent if you have pockets deep enough to take them to court over a patent issue. And, the patent holder is considered "Right" until otherwise proved.
- endorphone 9y ago
  From a qualitative perspective it's a bullshit patent, full-stop. But yes, the legal process is prohibitive, but if you demonstrate prior art to the USPTO you can request a re-examination that allows them to save face. If this patent were filed in 1988 it might have a hope of standing. It was remarkably filed in 2008, years after countless grid-based Windows manager had come and gone. It stands no hope, and the EFF will make quick work of this. The USPTO needs to be held liable for this sort of nonsense, or alternately people who file spurious patents need to be penalized. This is legalized extortion. And since this always comes up - someone is going to say "read all the claims...this is novel only in its entirety". The claims of a patent, unless specifically cross-referencing, hold independently.
  - kefka 9y ago
    I'm not giving any assessment of said patent. It appears to be bullshit from other commentors here. I am approaching this as, "You had better be rich, and prepared to throw 500K at lawyers to defend or attack a patent lawsuit. And even then, has no guarantee of any good results.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    For future reference, anythng patented in 1988 is long-since in the public domain. ;- )
altern8tif 9y ago
My main beef with patents (from a layperson's perspective) is that due consideration isn't adequately given to the effort taken by the patent owner to provide some sort of value to society in general. What use is a novel invention if the patent owner does nothing with it. I would argue that Moom or other apps have provided more value to society at-large as compared to the patent owner.
- paulryanrogers 9y ago
  One could argue that securing the patent puts the innovation into the public domain. Otherwise it might have stayed inside one person or company's domain. Then died with them.
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    When was the last time you actually read a patent to learn about a novel technology? As opposed to an article, published paper, conference talk, random blog post, or a thousand other sources? They're not particularly good forms for conveying information; they exist primarily to stake a claim on a pile of territory. That leaves aside the liabilities that reading patents to learn about technologies can open you up to, in the form of "willful infringement.
    - PatentTroll 9y ago
      Yeah, this is currently a huge problem with the patent system as a whole, and can be summarized in one word: lawyers. I believe the patent system has been hijaked by lawyers and has veered off course from the original intent (even though i hate that term). The solution to this is to rewrite the written description law to reduce the burden on patentees to add in a bunch of verbosity and at the same time require more in the claims. And while we're at it to simplify the whole damn claim construction process. I'd advocate for putting examiners at the forefront of construing claims, and requiring statements by the examiners on the record of what the claims mean at the time of examination and why they are being allowed. A mini memo on claim construction at the time of allowance. This will never happen, of course.
deleted 9y ago
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PatentTroll 9y ago
Well, a number of comments here point to the success of the product due to that feature. If it was so obvious why didn't someone do it before?

kefka 9y ago

It's only a bullshit patent if you have pockets deep enough to take them to court over a patent issue. And, the patent holder is considered "Right" until otherwise proved.

endorphone 9y ago
From a qualitative perspective it's a bullshit patent, full-stop. But yes, the legal process is prohibitive, but if you demonstrate prior art to the USPTO you can request a re-examination that allows them to save face. If this patent were filed in 1988 it might have a hope of standing. It was remarkably filed in 2008, years after countless grid-based Windows manager had come and gone. It stands no hope, and the EFF will make quick work of this. The USPTO needs to be held liable for this sort of nonsense, or alternately people who file spurious patents need to be penalized. This is legalized extortion. And since this always comes up - someone is going to say "read all the claims...this is novel only in its entirety". The claims of a patent, unless specifically cross-referencing, hold independently.
- kefka 9y ago
  I'm not giving any assessment of said patent. It appears to be bullshit from other commentors here. I am approaching this as, "You had better be rich, and prepared to throw 500K at lawyers to defend or attack a patent lawsuit. And even then, has no guarantee of any good results.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  For future reference, anythng patented in 1988 is long-since in the public domain. ;- )

altern8tif 9y ago

My main beef with patents (from a layperson's perspective) is that due consideration isn't adequately given to the effort taken by the patent owner to provide some sort of value to society in general. What use is a novel invention if the patent owner does nothing with it. I would argue that Moom or other apps have provided more value to society at-large as compared to the patent owner.

paulryanrogers 9y ago
One could argue that securing the patent puts the innovation into the public domain. Otherwise it might have stayed inside one person or company's domain. Then died with them.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  When was the last time you actually read a patent to learn about a novel technology? As opposed to an article, published paper, conference talk, random blog post, or a thousand other sources? They're not particularly good forms for conveying information; they exist primarily to stake a claim on a pile of territory. That leaves aside the liabilities that reading patents to learn about technologies can open you up to, in the form of "willful infringement.
  - PatentTroll 9y ago
    Yeah, this is currently a huge problem with the patent system as a whole, and can be summarized in one word: lawyers. I believe the patent system has been hijaked by lawyers and has veered off course from the original intent (even though i hate that term). The solution to this is to rewrite the written description law to reduce the burden on patentees to add in a bunch of verbosity and at the same time require more in the claims. And while we're at it to simplify the whole damn claim construction process. I'd advocate for putting examiners at the forefront of construing claims, and requiring statements by the examiners on the record of what the claims mean at the time of examination and why they are being allowed. A mini memo on claim construction at the time of allowance. This will never happen, of course.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

PatentTroll 9y ago

Well, a number of comments here point to the success of the product due to that feature. If it was so obvious why didn't someone do it before?