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EFF: Stupid patents are dragging down AI and machine learning

239 points by Deinos 9y ago

AsyncAwait 9y ago
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dahart 9y ago
> Just as the US Patent Office problematically gave out patents in the past for computers doing simple things... the office seems prepared to give out patents on "using machine learning in obvious and expected ways." Companies like Google and Microsoft are seeking to acquire, and in some cases have acquired, patents on "fundamental machine-learning techniques," Nazer writes. I find myself in a weird situation. Patents are a drag, and they're misused and wasteful, etc. etc. But it feels like the author here isn't acknowledging or appreciating what patents are intended for or good for. We can't say patents are bad because there are obvious uses of a technology. Patents protect the people who develop the technology, not the competition who wants to use it for free after it works. The issuing of a patent doesn't depend on how obvious the use is, it depends on how obvious the actual solution is. And deep convolutional neural nets trained using backprop or adversarial networks, these things are not obvious. They are even counter-obvious, for 30 years people knew about them and claimed they wouldn't work. Again, I know and agree that bad/stupid patents are being issued, and that trolls who don't develop tech are siphoning money, and all that. But when someone invents something that works, the patent system is supposed to apply a drag force on everyone else using it, that's it's intended function. And sometimes, maybe not that often these days, but sometimes it actually works as intended and deserving people get to see their work come to financial fruition.
- grantwu 9y ago
  The patent in question is a patent on the obvious use, not the underlying method. "Deep convolutional neural nets trained using backprop or adversarial networks" is not the thing being patented here. "Using deep convolutional neural nets trained using backprop or adversarial networks to solve a specific problem" is what's being patented. The article argues that the known techniques aren't being applied in a particularly novel or interesting way.
  - dahart 9y ago
    I agree, and yes that happens. But the author concluded based on one example that the whole system is bringing down a whole industry. I didn't title the piece, Joe did. And in the article he argued "the [patent] office seems prepared to give out patents on using machine learning in obvious and expected ways." That is not and cannot be the criteria for or against issuing patents.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  I used to feel that way. Unfortunately we've reached the point where patents have so damaged and corrupted our industry that none of us can write any software free of patents. If someone wants to annihilate you with a patent suit, theoretically they can. Unless you have a patent portfolio. They are the ultimate anti-individual-programmer. Which is another way of saying they're a threat to hacker culture. You can argue that hacker culture had its day in the sun, and that the world should move forward. But it's important to be clear to yourself that the culture that built the internet and so many of the tools we now enjoy for free is being thrown under the bus. E.g. see Mike Pall's statement on LuaJIT: http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-11/msg00089.html http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-11/msg00089.html I cannot guarantee LuaJIT to be free of third-party IP however. In fact nobody can. Writing software has become a minefield and any moderately complex piece of software is probably (unknowingly to the author) encumbered by hundreds of dubious patents. This especially applies to compilers. Are you sure you want to live in a world where people can't legally write and release LuaJIT for free without its users facing legal ramifications? Same deal with machine learning. What will the LuaJIT of machine learning be?
  - dahart 9y ago
    > You can argue that hacker culture had its day in the sun, and that the world should move forward. I don't want that, I want more hacker/maker culture, not less. I also want to figure out how to fund my own hacker/maker habits, but that's a separate topic. ;) Patents do seem to be getting more toxic, but I base that on media reporting and stories of patent trolls, and not stats on the economy or number of lawsuits. So I'm curious to know more about the health of the system from a statistical perspective. Ultimately I don't know what the solution is, and I might change my mind, but right now I don't feel like nuking the patent system is the right answer. But I do wonder if something like disallowing patent sale or transfer would help -- a company can only have a patent if the person who did the inventing worked for them at the time. They can keep it if the inventor quits or dies, but they can't sell it. Maybe something like that would stop the shell companies?
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      Well, from a game theory point of view, look at it like this: You can't meaningfully execute on patents (enforcement nor acquisition) unless you have resources. Those resources tend to come from companies that programmers work for, not individual programmers working at home. So if you want more hacker/maker culture, your position would seem to run counter to that goal, no? I love playing devil's advocate too, but there are situations where it's not quite so easy. If you feel that the hatred for patents is an overblown concern, I suppose it would be best for the people in this thread to post stories about how patents have materially affected their lives and their work. There are plenty. Even lacking that, though, the core argument is that you need money to be able to do anything patent-related. Most hackers don't have these kinds of resources. And since patents can be used against them, advocating for patents leads directly to the disenfranchisement of hackers. EDIT: One thing that makes it difficult to see the kinds of statistics you'd like to see: Chilling effects. When patents hang over us like a specter, you'll never see how many ventures are aborted before they're even started due to fears about patents.
- betterunix2 9y ago
  "Patents protect the people who develop the technology, not the competition who wants to use it for free after it works." Equally true of people developing pure math, but math is not supposed to be patentable (except for algorithms apparently).
  - dahart 9y ago
    > Equally true of people developing pure math, but math is not supposed to be patentable (except for algorithms apparently). Yeah, exactly, and this is why software is getting more contentious, right? Software is pure math, and it's also method and apparatus. The patent system was designed as a line between concepts and physical inventions, but software perches right smack on top of that line.
    - betterunix2 9y ago
      Software is very clearly on one side of the line and software patents actually depend on that. On some level it comes down to this: does the patent cover a particular representation of an algorithm, or all possible representations? I think the former is very clearly not what software patents cover as it would imply that just compiling your code or using a different programming language would leave you in the clear. If it covers all possible representations, then it really covers only a method or "concept," not any particular apparatus (the hypothetical apparatus you might use is just a detail of the concept that the patent covers; in any case, software patents are almost never specific about what sort of computer you will use, so it is not clear what "apparatus" is being described).
      - dahart 9y ago
        > in any case, software patents are almost never specific about what sort of computer you will use, so it is not clear what "apparatus" is being described Well yeah, that's what I meant about it being on the line. The patent system was designed before computers, and it clearly was built with the idea that physical things people built, and mathematical ideas people imagined, were two separate categories. With computer software, there's no distinction. I really can build a physical machine that does things using only mathematical ideas. The patent system wasn't designed to see that possibility.
- lsiq 9y ago
  Patents are state enforced monopoly rights, let's be clear about that. In what circumstances do we want to have monopolies doled out, even timed ones? Even in the classic image of the sole inventor who does something shrewd but ends up with nothing because he didn't patent it; is it really the best outcome to have this one person get rich while lives are lost and technological progress of society slowed because the monopoly pricing imposed is prohibitive for all but the wealthy? The best scenario for a patent is as a subsidy for inventions that could not or would not exist without very substantial capital investment. Software methods by and large do not fall in that category.
- guelo 9y ago
  Luckily if I'm going to use a hammer for some job I don't have to go check to see if someone holds a patent on using the tool in that specific way. It makes some sense to patent the invention of the tool but not the use of the tool in the ordinary ways that it is meant to be used. There are thousands of types of data that can train a neural net. We shouldn't allow whichever company happens to be the first one to use it on some specific type of data to hold a monopoly on using this important new tool in that fashion for the next 15 years.
  - dahart 9y ago
    > Luckily if I'm going to use a hammer for some job I don't have to go check to see if someone holds a patent on using the tool in that specific way. If you buy a hammer at Home Depot, the patent system doesn't affect you directly. (But it might affect the price of hammers.) If you make hammers and sell them, you might get a cease and desist from the owner of the hammer patent. If they have a valid patent, then you don't have the legal right to produce hammers for sale without licensing the hammer. If you build a homemade hammer and don't sell it, nobody's going to know or care or sue. > It makes some sense to patent the invention of the tool but not the use of the tool in the ordinary ways that it is meant to be used. Again, ordinary use is not the criteria, and it can't be. The idea is to protect the investment of the inventor. Don't forget that I agree the system is unhealthy. But if I spent a trillion dollars to invent warp drive, the use case is obvious, travel far in a short amount of time. You don't get to steal the solution just because everyone has the problem. > We shouldn't allow whichever company happens to be the first one to use it on some specific type of data to hold a monopoly on using this important new tool in that fashion for the next 15 years. I completely agree that the patent in the article is crap-tastic. You shouldn't be able to monopolize things you didn't invent, and you shouldn't be able to monopolize things that are too easy to invent. But if someone truly invents something useful, works hard at it, invests time and money, then - according to the patent system - they should get to monopolize it. That's the point of protecting the inventor. (*and btw, the problem is the rich people & big companies are the ones with the time & money. I agree with others here that that is bad.)
- stupidcar 9y ago
  The problem is twofold: Firstly, when bad/stupid patents far outweigh the good, then the net negative effect renders any positive effect meaningless. Secondly, the complexity of modern engineering means any individual invention is worthless by itself. If a lone inventor has an idea for a cool smartphone feature, they cannot practically bring it to market, because building a smartphone is too difficult and capital intensive, and requires licensing myriad other patents, mostly owned by incumbent vendors with no interest in allowing another competitor emerge. This means that, even if every patent in an area is "good", a patent thicket[1] will nonetheless emerge in a field following a major breakthrough, as core and ancillary techniques are patented. A handful of large, dominant vendors come to monopolise the market, new players are locked out, and progress slows to molasses for the following twenty years. Only when these core patents begin to expire can progress start again, until some new major breakthrough is made, and the entire process repeats itself. Through this lens, the rise of patent trolls makes sense. Faced with impenetrable, monopolised markets, individuals and smaller players are incentivized to engage in parasitic behaviour, gaming the patent system to extract what value they can, since actually using their patents to compete is either impossible or impractical. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_thicket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_thicket
  - dahart 9y ago
    Agreed with all the above. I am honestly curious - is there evidence that we're at the point where patents are a net negative? I hear a lot of strong opinions, but I am ignorant of meaningful data. In my experience, the patent thicket is today's corporate strategy. The large companies I've worked for have undertaken a broad patent-everything strategy as a defensive way to turn any competitive claims into a game of patent tennis.
kflop 9y ago
Patents used to keep inventors from taking their secrets into their graves, but now it seems they only support some kind of cold war between big players that can afford to produce lots of bogus patents possibly usable for retaliation. Also, and this is a nice side effect, everybody who cannot afford to waste money on this is kept out of the game.
- CalChris 9y ago
  No. Trade secrets can be taken to your grave. Patents are in the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8: The Congress shall have power ... 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. Rights to their Writings means copyright. Rights to their Discoveries means patent. Promote the Progress means incentivize.
  - oldandtired 9y ago
    Limited time is the critical point here. The way things are now, the times applicable are way too long. The other factor is that the way copyright and patents are implemented in law means that they are way too broad, way too broad. In relation to patents, most patents issued are not justified. They do not promote progress in any form. Historically, progress based on a patent occurs after the patent expires. If you look at many of the patents issued, one will see that they are either obvious to someone skilled in the applicable arts or are a failure obvious to one skilled in the applicable arts. In regards to copyrights, its purpose is to allow a short period of time for an author to make money if he/she can convince the paying community to do so, thereafter it is in the public domain for others to use as a basis for new works. The way it is today, the authors get little or nothing and the publishers (of whatever kind) get to control for extended periods of time (or the descendants who did nothing to create the work in the first place). This mindset of sitting on your laurels is now progressing into other areas. Yet for the bulk of us, one we have created something and sell it that is the end of it for us. Trade secret law ends up leading ot serious industrial espionage and often with the backing of the various agencies of ones government (when doing so is against foreign companies). Today, little progress is being made (in relative terms) by copyright, patents and trade mark law. These areas are about slowing and controlling the dissemination of knowledge for the betterment of society. The specific part of the US constitution means that Congress can make laws that abolish all copyright and patents as well as locking them down. This is a aspect that is rarely, if at all, acknowledged by those who strongly support copyright and patents. I have had discussions with a supposed patent holder and challenged him to actually supply all the patent numbers of his supposed creative work. He wouldn't do so and in not doing so, completely diminished all of his arguments because his arguments depended on us taking his word for how creative and important his patents were.
miguelrochefort 9y ago
"Stupid patents" is a pleonasm. Never have I seen a compelling argument for patents.
- kleer001 9y ago
  ... in the modern world. As they were first conceived I can understand. But, like in all things, entropy has been at play.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  We certainly don't have proof, but there's a helluva historical correlation between patent enforcement (or existence) and countries with strong economic growth, particularly in technology sectors. That has to be referred to as evidence - since evidence which cannot be misleading, i.e. "incontrovertible evidence" is actually proof. Moreover, histories of technology often show simultaneous invention, and in such cases, the obscure and unsuccessful efforts very strongly tend to appear in areas where patent law is not efficient or respected, and therefore investment for development of inventions is lacking. Without his patent, James Watt could not have and would not have (finally, after a long effort) found a sufficiently rich partner who could fund the development and production of his new kind of steam engine. Note too that even if patents weren't globally efficient (which I strongly believe they are), they nonetheless attract inventors to your country and so are locally efficient (a prisoner's dilemma that only coordination through treaties would defeat.) This doesn't mean that present patent law is ideal, or that the historical context hasn't at least partly vanished, however: very complex technologies (which we're now awash in) create situations in which it may be more valuable to cease to produce smartphones and instead use patents to hold a gun to the head of others and merely extract rent from those still producing them (sneezeMicrosoft.) Since you aren't producing phones, others can't retaliate by refusing to license their patents - you no longer need their patents. When more than one (or perhaps a thousand) IP holders want to extract rent from the same item, obviously this can introduce great inefficiencies. Few patents are truly essential (outside FRAND standards, a different situation) but many are costly to get around. One way or another, sooner or later, we may have to deal with this situation. I wish I knew just how.
  - 9y ago
dvdhnt 9y ago
Patents are great in a vacuum, but long term in a system of capitalism, they too tend to coalesce under ownership of the wealthiest. Edit: grammar Edit 2: word usage
- microcolonel 9y ago
  For future reference: coalesce does not work this way as a word.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dvdhnt 9y ago
    Good catch, fixed.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  Only with first-to-the-patent-office, a recent (but devastating) change in the law in N.A.
  - woolvalley 9y ago
    Even without first to office, the wealthy corps accumulate patents from failed & small corps as time goes on, which is why the OP use the word coalesce.
codedokode 9y ago
That is fine. Countries where there are no software patents (for example: Russia or China) will become the leaders in AI research.
- CalChris 9y ago
  China has software patents. They even have business method patents. https://www.law360.com/articles/924934/a-new-era-for-software-patents-in-china https://www.law360.com/articles/924934/a-new-era-for-softwar...
teddyh 9y ago
Stallman was right. Why Patents Are Bad for Software, 1991: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/lpf/Links/prep.ai.mit.edu/issues.article http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/lpf/Links/prep.ai.m...
- tehlike 9y ago
  as extreme as he is, he usually is right when it comes to IP, privacy, etc.
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DesiLurker 9y ago
I also blame USPTO execution, IMO USPTO should not be shielded from lawsuits for assigning patents on obviously BS innovation like 'rectangle with rounded edges' etc. if it does not even meets the common sense a decade ago then there should be some liability of enforceability on uspto. on a general note I feel like everything in US is translating into a money fight. from congress to law to carpool lanes, there seems to be only one goal left that matters in life, money. apologies for tangential rant!
- DannyBee 9y ago
  Lawsuits for everything is not a sane solution. The USPTO follows the law as closely as they can (and your "rectangle with rounded edges is a design patent, not a utility one"). They have a 2400+ page manual they try to keep up to date with the current law, covering how patent applications are examined.: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/index.html https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/index.html They also accept comments on it here: https://uspto-mpep.ideascale.com/a/index https://uspto-mpep.ideascale.com/a/index People have turned to lawsuits because they are completely and totally ineffective at getting political change. The faster they get better at that instead of "suing", the better off we'll be. In the meanwhile, you are quite literally blaming the people who are doing pretty much the best they can. They have very short periods of time to get their work done, etc. There are certainly some problems here, but your problems are legislative, not executive.
  - DesiLurker 9y ago
    I agree lawsuits are not sane solution but as you hinted they are the only tools for 'non consensus driven' change at a personal/corp level. Pretty much everything else I think about involves congress which requires influencing elections which requires large amounts of money (esp for numerous HR seats as opposed to presidential). BTW govt agency accepting comments might as well direct them to trash bin directly. you can see that from recent FCC net neutrality debacle. >In the meanwhile, you are quite literally blaming the people who are doing pretty much the best they can. They have very short periods of time to get their work done, etc. what I am blaming them for is not doing their job properly and which very evidently causes everything to be deferred to courts to fight it out, which needs lots of money and introduces uncertain subjectivity (east texas district for instance). guess what that translate to for individual companies, more defensive patents. I hate to say it but I agree with stallman to a degree on this.
mmagin 9y ago
Remember that time the patent system saved us from Skynet!
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lern_too_spel 9y ago
This article mentions a stupid patent, but it does not support its claim that stupid patents are dragging down AI and machine learning. To make that argument, you would have to show that stupid machine learning patents are being litigated.
- rocqua 9y ago
  A patent can stifle work without being litigated. See the recent kerfuffle with react and graphQL. The simple matter of a patent that might exist was enough for people to change tooling. Patents for AI might very well cool business R&D into AI.
  - lern_too_spel 9y ago
    It doesn't work that way in this case. No ML researcher goes out of their way to look for ML patents because the penalty for knowingly infringing is much worse than the penalty for accidentally infringing. If nobody knows these patents exist, and nobody is litigating them, then they can't be "dragging down" research.
SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
This can be broadened: stupid patents are dragging down the US economy.
- JoshMnem 9y ago
  And maybe human progress in general.
  - saimiam 9y ago
    How do you protect and encourage innovation without patents?
    - centimeter 9y ago
      Secrecy until it gets leaked/reverse engineered serves the same function to a more moderate degree.
      - splicer 9y ago
        which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for society as a whole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible
    - ZenoArrow 9y ago
      Patents only encourage innovation in areas where R&D is expensive and/or time consuming. The pharmaceutical industry is a good example. Software on the other hand has far less R&D risk, and the cost of carrying out that R&D is far smaller. What ends up happening is that there's a race to patent basic processes that require very little R&D, but have wide-ranging legal implications. This stifles innovation. In short, patents aren't beneficial for all industries.
    - pornel 9y ago
      In software, by doing nothing. Merely not punishing for innovation (via submarine patents) is enough. Other incentives and protections seem to be enough for the vast majority of software, which is not patented. To give a specific example, we'd be 20 years ahead in video codecs if they weren't a research minefield and innovations of open-source community weren't tainted by patents (in this area there are lots of people keen to innovate, but they have to bend backwards to make something good strictly out of 20+-year-old algorithms, because anything not obviously outdated is undeployable due to litigation risk). For other areas, like drug research, I think publicly-funded research is a great solution. When new drugs are invented, they should be produced as cheaply as possible, repaying investment by saving as many people as possible.
betterunix2 9y ago
I always loved the end-run around the limits on patents: just say it is "on a computer" and suddenly it is not a patent on math. Never mind what sort of computer is covered.
- josaka 9y ago
  The "on a computer" trick doesn't work post 2014. Alice v. CLS Bank killed it. Business method + a computer now gets you into an art unit with a sub 5% allowance rate. http://www.bilskiblog.com/blog/2016/06/two-years-after-alice-a-survey-of-the-impact-of-a-minor-case-part-2.html http://www.bilskiblog.com/blog/2016/06/two-years-after-alice...
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    So what is the new trick? Software patents are still being granted and the nature of software (as a kind of math) has not fundamentally changed.
    - _rpd 9y ago
      Now you need to have "significantly more" than being implemented with a computer. Opinions differ over exactly what this means.
      - CalChris 9y ago
        Significantly more was Thomas writing in a rare Supreme Court patent decision. The Supremes aren't going to draw this line certainly not in a single case. The DC Court of Appeals hears 100s of patent cases and they'll draw that line with case law.
    - johncolanduoni 9y ago
      Why do you think software is more "a kind of math" than e.g. mechanical engineering?
      - 9y ago
bigwheeler 9y ago
At first glance I read this as "Stupid Parents Are Dragging Down AI And Machine Learning", and all I could think was- what 13 year old girl wrote this article?
ekianjo 9y ago
Funny, there must be at least 10 years of "prior art" on any kind of machine learning patent application these days. Guess the patent officers are as good as they have ever been.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  The legal meaning of "prior art" has been changed by recent amazing legal decisions. It means "awfully damn famous" now.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    interesting. any source you could share?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
revel 9y ago
The unfortunate reality is that the 20th century legal code is ill equipped for dealing with software firms. Up until about 1980-1990 it didn't matter all that much, but tech firms are now the largest, fastest growing and most powerful companies in the world. We can't punt on these issues any more. There are 3 forms of IP protection: copyright, patents, and trademarks. The crux of the issue is that, for software, copyright protection is too weak and patents are too strong. So called "stupid patents" are a symptom of this issue, but not the cause. Software ideas don't work well under either of these existing protection models. Further, software patents are especially broken since they've deviated from their originally intended purpose of helping fledgling inventors launch their creations without larger firms stealing their work. Now every large firm has an arsenal of allegedly "protective" patents that can be swiftly mobilized to crush upstart competitors. Similarly, patent trolls can sit on the sidelines and exact royalties far beyond the economic value that their inventions contribute. Bluntly, there needs to be a new form of IP protection to deal with this reality -- this isn't to say I have any strong ideas of what this form of protection should be, just that these are the characteristics of the problem. The same core issue is starting to become apparent in anti-trust law. These laws are inappropriate for tech firms because they don't scale like traditional businesses (how do you deal with an industry with super high HHI but massive barriers to entry and no easy way to split up existing competitors?), but that's a topic for another thread.
- johncolanduoni 9y ago
  I'm curious as to why you feel copyright is too weak. It's pretty effective at preventing competitors from ripping you off and although customers are often a different story it already has hit the limits of enforcement ability on that front.
  - amarkov 9y ago
    Copyright can't protect ideas, only specific expressions of them. If my code contains a brilliant and truly novel idea for efficient data storage, you're free to write your own code implementing that idea without violating my coyright.
Animats 9y ago
The anti-patent hate group at the EFF is at it again. If they think a patent is "obvious", let them file a post-grant objection.
- devcpp 9y ago
  Who is "them"? And who will pay the enormous lawsuit bills for the thousands of cases? And are there enough lawyers in the world to fight every obvious patent? Enlighten us.
- andybak 9y ago
  Would you be so kind as to disclose any special interest that you have in the matter of patents? Your comment was fairly strong so I'm curious if you have much skin in the game.
  - Animats 9y ago
    I don't make any secret of it. See my web site, "www.animats.com". Although it's rather dated at this point.
    - andybak 9y ago
      So if we grant you're one of the patent good guys - are you prepared to defend the whole show? What do you think of the overall quality of patents granted - when compared to the cost of defending against them? Does it seem like a reasonable and proportionate system to you?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
amigoingtodie 9y ago
3d printers and fidget spinners.
m3kw9 9y ago
Not dragging down entire AI and machine learning, but keeping Americans AI powess down.
dctoedt 9y ago
One of the problems is that patent applicants in the U.S. have no obligation to submit a competent prior-art search; it's the job of the patent examiner to do a prior-art search. Every time the USPTO issues a patent, in effect it's making national economic policy, yet someone seeking a patent need only disclose whatever prior art of which he or she (and/or the patent attorney) happens to be aware. That's like saying that a Ph.D student doesn't need to do a literature search for her dissertation because some junior faculty member will do the search — and then if that junior faculty member judges the dissertation to be acceptable (possibly in consultation with a senior faculty member), then the student gets her degree. The flaws in that arrangement should be obvious, and yet that's how U.S. patents are granted.

239 points by Deinos 9y ago

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dahart 9y ago

> Just as the US Patent Office problematically gave out patents in the past for computers doing simple things... the office seems prepared to give out patents on "using machine learning in obvious and expected ways." Companies like Google and Microsoft are seeking to acquire, and in some cases have acquired, patents on "fundamental machine-learning techniques," Nazer writes. I find myself in a weird situation. Patents are a drag, and they're misused and wasteful, etc. etc. But it feels like the author here isn't acknowledging or appreciating what patents are intended for or good for. We can't say patents are bad because there are obvious uses of a technology. Patents protect the people who develop the technology, not the competition who wants to use it for free after it works. The issuing of a patent doesn't depend on how obvious the use is, it depends on how obvious the actual solution is. And deep convolutional neural nets trained using backprop or adversarial networks, these things are not obvious. They are even counter-obvious, for 30 years people knew about them and claimed they wouldn't work. Again, I know and agree that bad/stupid patents are being issued, and that trolls who don't develop tech are siphoning money, and all that. But when someone invents something that works, the patent system is supposed to apply a drag force on everyone else using it, that's it's intended function. And sometimes, maybe not that often these days, but sometimes it actually works as intended and deserving people get to see their work come to financial fruition.

grantwu 9y ago
The patent in question is a patent on the obvious use, not the underlying method. "Deep convolutional neural nets trained using backprop or adversarial networks" is not the thing being patented here. "Using deep convolutional neural nets trained using backprop or adversarial networks to solve a specific problem" is what's being patented. The article argues that the known techniques aren't being applied in a particularly novel or interesting way.
- dahart 9y ago
  I agree, and yes that happens. But the author concluded based on one example that the whole system is bringing down a whole industry. I didn't title the piece, Joe did. And in the article he argued "the [patent] office seems prepared to give out patents on using machine learning in obvious and expected ways." That is not and cannot be the criteria for or against issuing patents.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
I used to feel that way. Unfortunately we've reached the point where patents have so damaged and corrupted our industry that none of us can write any software free of patents. If someone wants to annihilate you with a patent suit, theoretically they can. Unless you have a patent portfolio. They are the ultimate anti-individual-programmer. Which is another way of saying they're a threat to hacker culture. You can argue that hacker culture had its day in the sun, and that the world should move forward. But it's important to be clear to yourself that the culture that built the internet and so many of the tools we now enjoy for free is being thrown under the bus. E.g. see Mike Pall's statement on LuaJIT: http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-11/msg00089.html http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2009-11/msg00089.html I cannot guarantee LuaJIT to be free of third-party IP however. In fact nobody can. Writing software has become a minefield and any moderately complex piece of software is probably (unknowingly to the author) encumbered by hundreds of dubious patents. This especially applies to compilers. Are you sure you want to live in a world where people can't legally write and release LuaJIT for free without its users facing legal ramifications? Same deal with machine learning. What will the LuaJIT of machine learning be?
- dahart 9y ago
  > You can argue that hacker culture had its day in the sun, and that the world should move forward. I don't want that, I want more hacker/maker culture, not less. I also want to figure out how to fund my own hacker/maker habits, but that's a separate topic. ;) Patents do seem to be getting more toxic, but I base that on media reporting and stories of patent trolls, and not stats on the economy or number of lawsuits. So I'm curious to know more about the health of the system from a statistical perspective. Ultimately I don't know what the solution is, and I might change my mind, but right now I don't feel like nuking the patent system is the right answer. But I do wonder if something like disallowing patent sale or transfer would help -- a company can only have a patent if the person who did the inventing worked for them at the time. They can keep it if the inventor quits or dies, but they can't sell it. Maybe something like that would stop the shell companies?
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Well, from a game theory point of view, look at it like this: You can't meaningfully execute on patents (enforcement nor acquisition) unless you have resources. Those resources tend to come from companies that programmers work for, not individual programmers working at home. So if you want more hacker/maker culture, your position would seem to run counter to that goal, no? I love playing devil's advocate too, but there are situations where it's not quite so easy. If you feel that the hatred for patents is an overblown concern, I suppose it would be best for the people in this thread to post stories about how patents have materially affected their lives and their work. There are plenty. Even lacking that, though, the core argument is that you need money to be able to do anything patent-related. Most hackers don't have these kinds of resources. And since patents can be used against them, advocating for patents leads directly to the disenfranchisement of hackers. EDIT: One thing that makes it difficult to see the kinds of statistics you'd like to see: Chilling effects. When patents hang over us like a specter, you'll never see how many ventures are aborted before they're even started due to fears about patents.
betterunix2 9y ago
"Patents protect the people who develop the technology, not the competition who wants to use it for free after it works." Equally true of people developing pure math, but math is not supposed to be patentable (except for algorithms apparently).
- dahart 9y ago
  > Equally true of people developing pure math, but math is not supposed to be patentable (except for algorithms apparently). Yeah, exactly, and this is why software is getting more contentious, right? Software is pure math, and it's also method and apparatus. The patent system was designed as a line between concepts and physical inventions, but software perches right smack on top of that line.
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    Software is very clearly on one side of the line and software patents actually depend on that. On some level it comes down to this: does the patent cover a particular representation of an algorithm, or all possible representations? I think the former is very clearly not what software patents cover as it would imply that just compiling your code or using a different programming language would leave you in the clear. If it covers all possible representations, then it really covers only a method or "concept," not any particular apparatus (the hypothetical apparatus you might use is just a detail of the concept that the patent covers; in any case, software patents are almost never specific about what sort of computer you will use, so it is not clear what "apparatus" is being described).
    - dahart 9y ago
      > in any case, software patents are almost never specific about what sort of computer you will use, so it is not clear what "apparatus" is being described Well yeah, that's what I meant about it being on the line. The patent system was designed before computers, and it clearly was built with the idea that physical things people built, and mathematical ideas people imagined, were two separate categories. With computer software, there's no distinction. I really can build a physical machine that does things using only mathematical ideas. The patent system wasn't designed to see that possibility.
lsiq 9y ago
Patents are state enforced monopoly rights, let's be clear about that. In what circumstances do we want to have monopolies doled out, even timed ones? Even in the classic image of the sole inventor who does something shrewd but ends up with nothing because he didn't patent it; is it really the best outcome to have this one person get rich while lives are lost and technological progress of society slowed because the monopoly pricing imposed is prohibitive for all but the wealthy? The best scenario for a patent is as a subsidy for inventions that could not or would not exist without very substantial capital investment. Software methods by and large do not fall in that category.
guelo 9y ago
Luckily if I'm going to use a hammer for some job I don't have to go check to see if someone holds a patent on using the tool in that specific way. It makes some sense to patent the invention of the tool but not the use of the tool in the ordinary ways that it is meant to be used. There are thousands of types of data that can train a neural net. We shouldn't allow whichever company happens to be the first one to use it on some specific type of data to hold a monopoly on using this important new tool in that fashion for the next 15 years.
- dahart 9y ago
  > Luckily if I'm going to use a hammer for some job I don't have to go check to see if someone holds a patent on using the tool in that specific way. If you buy a hammer at Home Depot, the patent system doesn't affect you directly. (But it might affect the price of hammers.) If you make hammers and sell them, you might get a cease and desist from the owner of the hammer patent. If they have a valid patent, then you don't have the legal right to produce hammers for sale without licensing the hammer. If you build a homemade hammer and don't sell it, nobody's going to know or care or sue. > It makes some sense to patent the invention of the tool but not the use of the tool in the ordinary ways that it is meant to be used. Again, ordinary use is not the criteria, and it can't be. The idea is to protect the investment of the inventor. Don't forget that I agree the system is unhealthy. But if I spent a trillion dollars to invent warp drive, the use case is obvious, travel far in a short amount of time. You don't get to steal the solution just because everyone has the problem. > We shouldn't allow whichever company happens to be the first one to use it on some specific type of data to hold a monopoly on using this important new tool in that fashion for the next 15 years. I completely agree that the patent in the article is crap-tastic. You shouldn't be able to monopolize things you didn't invent, and you shouldn't be able to monopolize things that are too easy to invent. But if someone truly invents something useful, works hard at it, invests time and money, then - according to the patent system - they should get to monopolize it. That's the point of protecting the inventor. (*and btw, the problem is the rich people & big companies are the ones with the time & money. I agree with others here that that is bad.)
stupidcar 9y ago
The problem is twofold: Firstly, when bad/stupid patents far outweigh the good, then the net negative effect renders any positive effect meaningless. Secondly, the complexity of modern engineering means any individual invention is worthless by itself. If a lone inventor has an idea for a cool smartphone feature, they cannot practically bring it to market, because building a smartphone is too difficult and capital intensive, and requires licensing myriad other patents, mostly owned by incumbent vendors with no interest in allowing another competitor emerge. This means that, even if every patent in an area is "good", a patent thicket[1] will nonetheless emerge in a field following a major breakthrough, as core and ancillary techniques are patented. A handful of large, dominant vendors come to monopolise the market, new players are locked out, and progress slows to molasses for the following twenty years. Only when these core patents begin to expire can progress start again, until some new major breakthrough is made, and the entire process repeats itself. Through this lens, the rise of patent trolls makes sense. Faced with impenetrable, monopolised markets, individuals and smaller players are incentivized to engage in parasitic behaviour, gaming the patent system to extract what value they can, since actually using their patents to compete is either impossible or impractical. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_thicket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_thicket
- dahart 9y ago
  Agreed with all the above. I am honestly curious - is there evidence that we're at the point where patents are a net negative? I hear a lot of strong opinions, but I am ignorant of meaningful data. In my experience, the patent thicket is today's corporate strategy. The large companies I've worked for have undertaken a broad patent-everything strategy as a defensive way to turn any competitive claims into a game of patent tennis.

kflop 9y ago

Patents used to keep inventors from taking their secrets into their graves, but now it seems they only support some kind of cold war between big players that can afford to produce lots of bogus patents possibly usable for retaliation. Also, and this is a nice side effect, everybody who cannot afford to waste money on this is kept out of the game.

CalChris 9y ago
No. Trade secrets can be taken to your grave. Patents are in the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8: The Congress shall have power ... 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. Rights to their Writings means copyright. Rights to their Discoveries means patent. Promote the Progress means incentivize.
- oldandtired 9y ago
  Limited time is the critical point here. The way things are now, the times applicable are way too long. The other factor is that the way copyright and patents are implemented in law means that they are way too broad, way too broad. In relation to patents, most patents issued are not justified. They do not promote progress in any form. Historically, progress based on a patent occurs after the patent expires. If you look at many of the patents issued, one will see that they are either obvious to someone skilled in the applicable arts or are a failure obvious to one skilled in the applicable arts. In regards to copyrights, its purpose is to allow a short period of time for an author to make money if he/she can convince the paying community to do so, thereafter it is in the public domain for others to use as a basis for new works. The way it is today, the authors get little or nothing and the publishers (of whatever kind) get to control for extended periods of time (or the descendants who did nothing to create the work in the first place). This mindset of sitting on your laurels is now progressing into other areas. Yet for the bulk of us, one we have created something and sell it that is the end of it for us. Trade secret law ends up leading ot serious industrial espionage and often with the backing of the various agencies of ones government (when doing so is against foreign companies). Today, little progress is being made (in relative terms) by copyright, patents and trade mark law. These areas are about slowing and controlling the dissemination of knowledge for the betterment of society. The specific part of the US constitution means that Congress can make laws that abolish all copyright and patents as well as locking them down. This is a aspect that is rarely, if at all, acknowledged by those who strongly support copyright and patents. I have had discussions with a supposed patent holder and challenged him to actually supply all the patent numbers of his supposed creative work. He wouldn't do so and in not doing so, completely diminished all of his arguments because his arguments depended on us taking his word for how creative and important his patents were.

miguelrochefort 9y ago

"Stupid patents" is a pleonasm. Never have I seen a compelling argument for patents.

kleer001 9y ago
... in the modern world. As they were first conceived I can understand. But, like in all things, entropy has been at play.
Nomentatus 9y ago
We certainly don't have proof, but there's a helluva historical correlation between patent enforcement (or existence) and countries with strong economic growth, particularly in technology sectors. That has to be referred to as evidence - since evidence which cannot be misleading, i.e. "incontrovertible evidence" is actually proof. Moreover, histories of technology often show simultaneous invention, and in such cases, the obscure and unsuccessful efforts very strongly tend to appear in areas where patent law is not efficient or respected, and therefore investment for development of inventions is lacking. Without his patent, James Watt could not have and would not have (finally, after a long effort) found a sufficiently rich partner who could fund the development and production of his new kind of steam engine. Note too that even if patents weren't globally efficient (which I strongly believe they are), they nonetheless attract inventors to your country and so are locally efficient (a prisoner's dilemma that only coordination through treaties would defeat.) This doesn't mean that present patent law is ideal, or that the historical context hasn't at least partly vanished, however: very complex technologies (which we're now awash in) create situations in which it may be more valuable to cease to produce smartphones and instead use patents to hold a gun to the head of others and merely extract rent from those still producing them (sneezeMicrosoft.) Since you aren't producing phones, others can't retaliate by refusing to license their patents - you no longer need their patents. When more than one (or perhaps a thousand) IP holders want to extract rent from the same item, obviously this can introduce great inefficiencies. Few patents are truly essential (outside FRAND standards, a different situation) but many are costly to get around. One way or another, sooner or later, we may have to deal with this situation. I wish I knew just how.
- 9y ago

dvdhnt 9y ago

Patents are great in a vacuum, but long term in a system of capitalism, they too tend to coalesce under ownership of the wealthiest. Edit: grammar Edit 2: word usage

microcolonel 9y ago
For future reference: coalesce does not work this way as a word.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dvdhnt 9y ago
  Good catch, fixed.
Nomentatus 9y ago
Only with first-to-the-patent-office, a recent (but devastating) change in the law in N.A.
- woolvalley 9y ago
  Even without first to office, the wealthy corps accumulate patents from failed & small corps as time goes on, which is why the OP use the word coalesce.

codedokode 9y ago

That is fine. Countries where there are no software patents (for example: Russia or China) will become the leaders in AI research.

CalChris 9y ago
China has software patents. They even have business method patents. https://www.law360.com/articles/924934/a-new-era-for-software-patents-in-china https://www.law360.com/articles/924934/a-new-era-for-softwar...

teddyh 9y ago

Stallman was right. Why Patents Are Bad for Software, 1991: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/lpf/Links/prep.ai.mit.edu/issues.article http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/lpf/Links/prep.ai.m...

tehlike 9y ago
as extreme as he is, he usually is right when it comes to IP, privacy, etc.

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DesiLurker 9y ago

I also blame USPTO execution, IMO USPTO should not be shielded from lawsuits for assigning patents on obviously BS innovation like 'rectangle with rounded edges' etc. if it does not even meets the common sense a decade ago then there should be some liability of enforceability on uspto. on a general note I feel like everything in US is translating into a money fight. from congress to law to carpool lanes, there seems to be only one goal left that matters in life, money. apologies for tangential rant!

DannyBee 9y ago
Lawsuits for everything is not a sane solution. The USPTO follows the law as closely as they can (and your "rectangle with rounded edges is a design patent, not a utility one"). They have a 2400+ page manual they try to keep up to date with the current law, covering how patent applications are examined.: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/index.html https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/index.html They also accept comments on it here: https://uspto-mpep.ideascale.com/a/index https://uspto-mpep.ideascale.com/a/index People have turned to lawsuits because they are completely and totally ineffective at getting political change. The faster they get better at that instead of "suing", the better off we'll be. In the meanwhile, you are quite literally blaming the people who are doing pretty much the best they can. They have very short periods of time to get their work done, etc. There are certainly some problems here, but your problems are legislative, not executive.
- DesiLurker 9y ago
  I agree lawsuits are not sane solution but as you hinted they are the only tools for 'non consensus driven' change at a personal/corp level. Pretty much everything else I think about involves congress which requires influencing elections which requires large amounts of money (esp for numerous HR seats as opposed to presidential). BTW govt agency accepting comments might as well direct them to trash bin directly. you can see that from recent FCC net neutrality debacle. >In the meanwhile, you are quite literally blaming the people who are doing pretty much the best they can. They have very short periods of time to get their work done, etc. what I am blaming them for is not doing their job properly and which very evidently causes everything to be deferred to courts to fight it out, which needs lots of money and introduces uncertain subjectivity (east texas district for instance). guess what that translate to for individual companies, more defensive patents. I hate to say it but I agree with stallman to a degree on this.

mmagin 9y ago

Remember that time the patent system saved us from Skynet!

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lern_too_spel 9y ago

This article mentions a stupid patent, but it does not support its claim that stupid patents are dragging down AI and machine learning. To make that argument, you would have to show that stupid machine learning patents are being litigated.

rocqua 9y ago
A patent can stifle work without being litigated. See the recent kerfuffle with react and graphQL. The simple matter of a patent that might exist was enough for people to change tooling. Patents for AI might very well cool business R&D into AI.
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  It doesn't work that way in this case. No ML researcher goes out of their way to look for ML patents because the penalty for knowingly infringing is much worse than the penalty for accidentally infringing. If nobody knows these patents exist, and nobody is litigating them, then they can't be "dragging down" research.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago

This can be broadened: stupid patents are dragging down the US economy.

JoshMnem 9y ago
And maybe human progress in general.
- saimiam 9y ago
  How do you protect and encourage innovation without patents?
  - centimeter 9y ago
    Secrecy until it gets leaked/reverse engineered serves the same function to a more moderate degree.
    - splicer 9y ago
      which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for society as a whole: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    Patents only encourage innovation in areas where R&D is expensive and/or time consuming. The pharmaceutical industry is a good example. Software on the other hand has far less R&D risk, and the cost of carrying out that R&D is far smaller. What ends up happening is that there's a race to patent basic processes that require very little R&D, but have wide-ranging legal implications. This stifles innovation. In short, patents aren't beneficial for all industries.
  - pornel 9y ago
    In software, by doing nothing. Merely not punishing for innovation (via submarine patents) is enough. Other incentives and protections seem to be enough for the vast majority of software, which is not patented. To give a specific example, we'd be 20 years ahead in video codecs if they weren't a research minefield and innovations of open-source community weren't tainted by patents (in this area there are lots of people keen to innovate, but they have to bend backwards to make something good strictly out of 20+-year-old algorithms, because anything not obviously outdated is undeployable due to litigation risk). For other areas, like drug research, I think publicly-funded research is a great solution. When new drugs are invented, they should be produced as cheaply as possible, repaying investment by saving as many people as possible.

betterunix2 9y ago

I always loved the end-run around the limits on patents: just say it is "on a computer" and suddenly it is not a patent on math. Never mind what sort of computer is covered.

josaka 9y ago
The "on a computer" trick doesn't work post 2014. Alice v. CLS Bank killed it. Business method + a computer now gets you into an art unit with a sub 5% allowance rate. http://www.bilskiblog.com/blog/2016/06/two-years-after-alice-a-survey-of-the-impact-of-a-minor-case-part-2.html http://www.bilskiblog.com/blog/2016/06/two-years-after-alice...
- betterunix2 9y ago
  So what is the new trick? Software patents are still being granted and the nature of software (as a kind of math) has not fundamentally changed.
  - _rpd 9y ago
    Now you need to have "significantly more" than being implemented with a computer. Opinions differ over exactly what this means.
    - CalChris 9y ago
      Significantly more was Thomas writing in a rare Supreme Court patent decision. The Supremes aren't going to draw this line certainly not in a single case. The DC Court of Appeals hears 100s of patent cases and they'll draw that line with case law.
  - johncolanduoni 9y ago
    Why do you think software is more "a kind of math" than e.g. mechanical engineering?
    - 9y ago

bigwheeler 9y ago

At first glance I read this as "Stupid Parents Are Dragging Down AI And Machine Learning", and all I could think was- what 13 year old girl wrote this article?

ekianjo 9y ago

Funny, there must be at least 10 years of "prior art" on any kind of machine learning patent application these days. Guess the patent officers are as good as they have ever been.

Nomentatus 9y ago
The legal meaning of "prior art" has been changed by recent amazing legal decisions. It means "awfully damn famous" now.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  interesting. any source you could share?
deleted 9y ago
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revel 9y ago

The unfortunate reality is that the 20th century legal code is ill equipped for dealing with software firms. Up until about 1980-1990 it didn't matter all that much, but tech firms are now the largest, fastest growing and most powerful companies in the world. We can't punt on these issues any more. There are 3 forms of IP protection: copyright, patents, and trademarks. The crux of the issue is that, for software, copyright protection is too weak and patents are too strong. So called "stupid patents" are a symptom of this issue, but not the cause. Software ideas don't work well under either of these existing protection models. Further, software patents are especially broken since they've deviated from their originally intended purpose of helping fledgling inventors launch their creations without larger firms stealing their work. Now every large firm has an arsenal of allegedly "protective" patents that can be swiftly mobilized to crush upstart competitors. Similarly, patent trolls can sit on the sidelines and exact royalties far beyond the economic value that their inventions contribute. Bluntly, there needs to be a new form of IP protection to deal with this reality -- this isn't to say I have any strong ideas of what this form of protection should be, just that these are the characteristics of the problem. The same core issue is starting to become apparent in anti-trust law. These laws are inappropriate for tech firms because they don't scale like traditional businesses (how do you deal with an industry with super high HHI but massive barriers to entry and no easy way to split up existing competitors?), but that's a topic for another thread.

johncolanduoni 9y ago
I'm curious as to why you feel copyright is too weak. It's pretty effective at preventing competitors from ripping you off and although customers are often a different story it already has hit the limits of enforcement ability on that front.
- amarkov 9y ago
  Copyright can't protect ideas, only specific expressions of them. If my code contains a brilliant and truly novel idea for efficient data storage, you're free to write your own code implementing that idea without violating my coyright.

Animats 9y ago

The anti-patent hate group at the EFF is at it again. If they think a patent is "obvious", let them file a post-grant objection.

devcpp 9y ago
Who is "them"? And who will pay the enormous lawsuit bills for the thousands of cases? And are there enough lawyers in the world to fight every obvious patent? Enlighten us.
andybak 9y ago
Would you be so kind as to disclose any special interest that you have in the matter of patents? Your comment was fairly strong so I'm curious if you have much skin in the game.
- Animats 9y ago
  I don't make any secret of it. See my web site, "www.animats.com". Although it's rather dated at this point.
  - andybak 9y ago
    So if we grant you're one of the patent good guys - are you prepared to defend the whole show? What do you think of the overall quality of patents granted - when compared to the cost of defending against them? Does it seem like a reasonable and proportionate system to you?
- deleted 9y ago
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amigoingtodie 9y ago

3d printers and fidget spinners.

m3kw9 9y ago

Not dragging down entire AI and machine learning, but keeping Americans AI powess down.

dctoedt 9y ago

One of the problems is that patent applicants in the U.S. have no obligation to submit a competent prior-art search; it's the job of the patent examiner to do a prior-art search. Every time the USPTO issues a patent, in effect it's making national economic policy, yet someone seeking a patent need only disclose whatever prior art of which he or she (and/or the patent attorney) happens to be aware. That's like saying that a Ph.D student doesn't need to do a literature search for her dissertation because some junior faculty member will do the search — and then if that junior faculty member judges the dissertation to be acceptable (possibly in consultation with a senior faculty member), then the student gets her degree. The flaws in that arrangement should be obvious, and yet that's how U.S. patents are granted.