13 ms·

US Patent system so dysfunctional you can patent a stick from a tree

234 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

Vivtek 16y ago
Yup, an appropriately shaped stick seems to be claimed in claim 1. You might be able to hit that "adapted to float in water" - does "adapted" require a process in patentese, or can you simply discover a "pre-adapted" stick, for example? Good find. For certain values of "good".
jws 16y ago
Check the last two pages. It only took 4 years for a re-examination to cancel all 20 claims.
- wisty 16y ago
  Fantastic. Only four years in which anyone throwing a stick to a dog could be creditably threatened with a patent suit. My gut says that the threat would be hollow, but my gut says a lot of things. Like that "1-Click" is too obvious to patent - all you need is a requirement "reduce the number of steps a user needs to place a purchase order", and that's the logical conclusion. Can you tell me if 1-click patents are valid? If anything can be patented (if not actually defended), and patent threats (even hollow ones) are an obstacle to new businesses, how is the patents system encouraging innovation? I know pg advises to ignore other companies patents completely (though you should file a few of your own), and worry about the flack when you have something to lose, but that doesn't mean the system isn't crap.
  - iamwil 16y ago
    According to Jeff Bezos, the 1-click purchase wasn't obvious at all, especially when you have a large supply chain system at Amazon. This is mostly due to edge cases like, what if the user cancels the order and the book is already making its way through the warehouse being packaged? What if the number of orders change while the book is being selected from the warehouse? From what I remember, when a user clicks on the 1-click purchase to buy an item, it actually queues the purchase for a certain amount of time before being acted on by the warehouse, and there are things in place to back it out if the user decides to change the purchase.
    - pyre 16y ago
      Then why did anyone that wanted to allow their customers to purchase items with a single click have to license from Amazon? If the real innovation that they were protecting was the way that the back-end system was implemented, then why is the front-end piece being (aggressively) licensed out? Something smells fishy about that explanation. It reeks of the MS justification for their patent portfolio (it's defensive only! really!), only to contradict their statements later on (suing TomTom over FAT32 patents; making (empty) public threats against infringements by Linux; etc).
    - jessriedel 16y ago
      That argument would be plausible if Amazon was patenting a particular logistical implementation of 1-click purchase. ("This is a specific device which allows canceled orders to be tracked and routed back to inventory...") But they patented the entire concept, which would prevent even companies with trivial logistics from allowing 1-click purchasing without paying Amazon royalties. And indeed, according to Tim O'Reilly, Bezos defended the broad patenting of all types of 1-click purchasing. Here is an excerpt of O'Reilly's description of their conversation: > First off, Jeff wanted to explain why he thought 1-click was original enough to patent. It has nothing to do with the implementation, which he admits is fairly trivial to duplicate, but with the reframing of the problem. At the time he came up with 1-click shopping, everyone was locked in to the shopping cart metaphor, because that's what you do in the real world. You pick up an item and take it to the counter to buy it. On the Web, he realized, something very different was possible: all you had to do was point to an article, and it was yours... >What's more, Jeff went on, small inventions can often seem extremely obvious in retrospect. The patent literature is full of this kind of thing. The significance of an invention isn't how hard it is to copy, but how it reframes the problem in a new way. > This may be true, I replied. But it is hard to believe that if Amazon hadn't introduced 1-click ordering (if they were indeed first to do it), that someone else wouldn't have done this. It beggars the imagination that this is so significant and unexpected an innovation that others should be prevented from using it. Patents are meant to promote the common welfare, the idea being that certain ideas won't be developed without government providing a degree of protection. Is this an idea that required that kind of protection to be developed? http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2000/bezos_0300.html http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2000/bezos_0300.htm...
  - RyanMcGreal 16y ago
    > all you need is a requirement "reduce the number of steps a user needs to place a purchase order", and that's the logical conclusion. That's it - my new goal is to invent and patent the Zero-Click Purchase. You read it here first.
    - rubyrescue 16y ago
      i've been saying this for years. my idea was - hover over an item for more than a few seconds, it's delivered to your house! you better lawyer up.
    - eftpotrm 16y ago
      Slashdot described the method and benefits for this many years ago, so could be cited as prior art.
      - Symmetry 16y ago
        My college dorm's Laundry webservers were slashdotted but someone was still able to come along later, patent the idea, and try to sue us.
        eftpotrm 16y ago
        ... which is just another example of that which has long been implemented (and sometimes long been patented) still managing to attract protection. However, at least when there is a significant pre-established publication of the idea the 'try to' becomes rather more significant than the 'sue' and they can be got rid of rather more easily.
        Symmetry 16y ago
        Yes, and really it wasn't much of a problem for us. The company still has a monopoly on the laundry-webserver business, though, and overcharges other people horribly.
        16y ago
  - njharman 16y ago
    > which anyone throwing a stick to a dog could be creditably threatened with a patent suit. That is not how patents work. Your statement is ridiculously ignorant fear mongering. There's real problems with patents, you're just fueling the forces that wish for status que by letting them label paten reformers as kooks.
    - asmithmd1 16y ago
      That is exactly how patents work. When you patent an invention no one can make, use, or sell your invention without a license.
- rudyfink 16y ago
  Yes, and this re-examination was initiated by the PTO director too! [The PTO can order re-exam on its own action (as opposed to action by an outside party)] It may sadden you, but the patent was invalidated based on at least two pieces of prior art (patents in this case) that were both stick shaped dog toys. The first is a patent (4577219) filed in 1984 for a stick shaped chewable dog toy ( http://www.google.com/patents?id=ANQ9AAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false http://www.google.com/patents?id=ANQ9AAAAEBAJ&printsec=a... ) The second is a design patent (D428220) filed in 1999 for a stick shaped pet toy ( http://www.google.com/patents?id=JJMEAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false http://www.google.com/patents?id=JJMEAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a... ). If you were also curious about the gory details of its re-examination process, you can pull it off of the patent application information retrieval (PAIR) service ( http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair ) -- enter the reexamination request number off of the re-exam certificate ( 90/006301 ) and click on "image file wrapper" and then you can see all of the actions undertaken.
  - GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
    These cases are very tricky. Patents in general are. The question is: Do patents currently assist the small companies fight the big ones OR do they only hinder innovation? Can I paten a technique for saving people's lives that requires no tools and anyone can learn, but no human being has ever done it before (intentionally)? The paten question is no triviality and should not be treated as such. Don't think "oh why don't they just revoke it". Perhaps what is wrong with our system is the time given, 7 years in software terms may as well be a lifetime, while 7 years in physical product terms is hardly anything. Thats the problem with our system. And copyright is a whole nothing monster. They mingle often, but are not the same.
    - bad_user 16y ago
      Do patents currently assist the small companies fight the big ones I think everybody knows the answer to that one and it's as asking if the US went to Irak on valid concerns for WMD: official answer is Yes; and when that will change hell will freeze.
- throwaway8487 16y ago
  Just like the title of this post, your comment can be misleading. USPTO sends an action and attorneys respond to that action [1]. Which means a case can go on for years if attorney (for clients) has deep pockets [2]. A patent grant was not designed to be end-all be-all for that patent. For example, it can be found invalid at anytime by uspto (re-exam) or by the courts. An examiner only has hours to read/understand/search/write a response but in any case this was really bad mistake that should have never happened. 1. Attorneys have usually 3-6 months and USPTO has usually upto 4 months to respond to attorney. 2. Using request for reconsideration and continuation among other things.
brown 16y ago
I didn't believe this at first. Sadly, it is real: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6360693.PN.&OS=PN/6360693&RS=PN/6360693 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...
- mono 16y ago
  If you're in need of a good startup idea: Claim a patent for crossing fingers to build a luck generator.
  - drndown2007 16y ago
    My son saw this and wants to patent bricks now. I'm so proud :)
lotusleaf1987 16y ago
Everyday it becomes clearer and clearer how completely broken the US patent system is and how deeply it needs reform. How much worse is it going to get before it actually gets better?
terinjokes 16y ago
If you scroll to the bottom, it was amended so that claims 1-20 were cancelled. There were only 20 claims.
- Yzupnick 16y ago
  True, but it took four years for that to happen.
  - uriel 16y ago
    And as somebody else pointed out, they were cancelled due to prior art... in other patents!
ck2 16y ago
We need to sponsor that image as a billboard in Washington D.C. to get the mainstream news to cover it and then maybe Congress to look at it eventually.
- bioh42_2 16y ago
  I would donate money to this.
- drndown2007 16y ago
  Anyone have any idea how much it would cost? I'm in for $100 or more
  - civilian 16y ago
    Estimates here: http://www.bluelinemedia.com/billboard-advertising-media_13.html http://www.bluelinemedia.com/billboard-advertising-media_13....
- weel 16y ago
  A subway ad on the DC metro, maybe?
  - civilian 16y ago
    http://www.bluelinemedia.com/subway-advertising-media_11.html http://www.bluelinemedia.com/subway-advertising-media_11.htm... Actually these would be a lot better for a kickstarter funding campaign- it's easily scalable; and if you donate ~100 dollars then you know that there is one more directly added by you!
- civilian 16y ago
  http://www.kickstarter.com/ http://www.kickstarter.com/ ?
alexqgb 16y ago
Meanwhile, back in Washington, the Administration continues to bloviate about other nations, and their "failures to respect intellectual property law". At what point are those nations going to lose enough patience to point out the unbelievable corruption, cynicism, and mind-bending incompetence with which the law is administered in the first place?
- throwaway8487 16y ago
  >> unbelievable corruption Any proof?
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    Every time Mickey Mouse is about to go out of copyright, the term mysteriously gets extended... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_mouse_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_mouse_law
    - bioh42_2 16y ago
      There is nothing mysterious about it. This is what I call "legal corruption". Lobbying is fully within the law of the land. It may not be right but it is legal. Unfortunately I don't see a way of changing this. Not within a republic with a representative government. And I don't see America switching to Swiss style direct democracy either. (Americans seem to have a reflex to Goodwin any thread as soon as someone mentions "direct democracy", please don't today. And please do read up on how a certain someone actually got to power.) The only hope I see is technology (Pirate Bay!) not to "fix" copyright and patent law, but simply to make their enforcement less effective.
      - DanI-S 16y ago
        Outlawing corporate donations to political parties would be a start.
      - alexophile 16y ago
        Even if it's legal, it can still be "corruption" without the modifier. If you are circumventing the limitations placed on your position of trust, regardless of adherance to the letter of the law, I would consider you "corrupt".
bmr 16y ago
Obligatory exercise your cat with a laser pointer patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5443036.html http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5443036.html This was always included on the first day of any patent class in law school.
- pyre 16y ago
  I'm curious what the bias of patents classes in law school are (at least in your case). Are lawyers really taught that when an engineer brings them an 'invention' to patent they are supposed to try and expand the scope of that patent to absurd levels just because they think that they can sneak it past the patent examiners by making the language so obtuse that the simple act of inhaling and exhaling clocks in at 2,000 pages?
  - arethuza 16y ago
    Having been coerced into having work of mine patented I can honestly say that once the IP "professionals" are finished with your description of your work you will barely recognize the content - straightforward claims and descriptions are translated into vague, overly general, statements of the type that seem to be specifically designed to annoy technical folks. I found the whole process deeply unpleasant - but as it was mandated by our VC investors, even though I was CTO, I couldn't say "no".
    - CamperBob 16y ago
      Actually, people in your position can, and have, said "no" to demands by investors to cooperate with patent filings. It takes a hell of a lot of guts, admittedly, but doing the right thing often does. The decision has to be made at a pre-investment stage, because you don't want to be placed in a breach-of-contract position later.
      - arethuza 16y ago
        This was a while ago (about 10 years) and I only had a vague idea that patents were a bad idea from a practical perspective - I was mainly motivated to try and avoid doing them because it was a huge amount of work, I hate reading "legalese" and I thought there were better things I could be doing. So my objections were mainly selfish rather than principled. I like to think these days I would act on principle...
yason 16y ago
We would be better off if we turned the patent office into a mere notary service where you can just timestamp descriptions of your innovations, and then go to court yourself fighting for them if you think you have a chance to win.
- adrianbg 16y ago
  The patent system ensures that your description is defensible so that when the time comes to defend it you don't suddenly find out you're screwed.
chmike 16y ago
I'm currently examining the following patent proposing the use of mail quota. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=mFrNAAAAEBAJ&dq=spam+mail+quota http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=mFrNAAAAEBAJ&dq=s... This patent is filed in 2000 and issued 10 years later ! In 2006 it was apparently extended to international. Does this mean the validity of the patent is 20 years starting from 2010, or is it from 2000 ? This is weird. Note that I'm in europe and don't know US patent particularities.
- cpeterso 16y ago
  If email quota is patented, does that mean webmail providers like Gmail and Hotmail are no allowed to limit my email inbox size? :)
  - chmike 16y ago
    The quota is on the ongoing mail, not the storage. Many ISP are using this method to limit spams or virus propagation from their clients. I think google does it too. But this is not original. On the net I found Freedom, initially published 23 nov 1999 which includes outgoing mail quotas (http://www.homeport.org/~adam/zeroknowledgewhitepapers/arch-notech.pdf http://www.homeport.org/~adam/zeroknowledgewhitepapers/arch-...). For the initial date, check at the bottom.
    - chmike 16y ago
      I ment outgoing mail. I can't edit anymore. Sorry.
ideamonk 16y ago
That paper towel holder I see in toilets everyday too - http://is.gd/0w72Qk http://is.gd/0w72Qk and tooth pick too http://is.gd/48leIg http://is.gd/48leIg
buzzblog 16y ago
Patent attorney at link below explains why this stick patent is useless in addition to being silly. He also notes that it is no longer held because the "inventor" failed failed to pay a fee. http://ipwatchdog.com/2010/10/06/animal-toy-patent/id=12711/ http://ipwatchdog.com/2010/10/06/animal-toy-patent/id=12711/
pinstriped_dude 16y ago
Its not just the US. A man in Australia once patented a "circular transportation facilitation device", yes a wheel! http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/07/02/australia.wheel/ http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/07/02/austr...
EGreg 16y ago
Thanks, this is another illustration of my point that I often make. Intellectual monopoly needs to be re-addressed.

234 points by lotusleaf1987 16y ago

Yup, an appropriately shaped stick seems to be claimed in claim 1. You might be able to hit that "adapted to float in water" - does "adapted" require a process in patentese, or can you simply discover a "pre-adapted" stick, for example? Good find. For certain values of "good".

jws 16y ago

Check the last two pages. It only took 4 years for a re-examination to cancel all 20 claims.

wisty 16y ago
Fantastic. Only four years in which anyone throwing a stick to a dog could be creditably threatened with a patent suit. My gut says that the threat would be hollow, but my gut says a lot of things. Like that "1-Click" is too obvious to patent - all you need is a requirement "reduce the number of steps a user needs to place a purchase order", and that's the logical conclusion. Can you tell me if 1-click patents are valid? If anything can be patented (if not actually defended), and patent threats (even hollow ones) are an obstacle to new businesses, how is the patents system encouraging innovation? I know pg advises to ignore other companies patents completely (though you should file a few of your own), and worry about the flack when you have something to lose, but that doesn't mean the system isn't crap.
- iamwil 16y ago
  According to Jeff Bezos, the 1-click purchase wasn't obvious at all, especially when you have a large supply chain system at Amazon. This is mostly due to edge cases like, what if the user cancels the order and the book is already making its way through the warehouse being packaged? What if the number of orders change while the book is being selected from the warehouse? From what I remember, when a user clicks on the 1-click purchase to buy an item, it actually queues the purchase for a certain amount of time before being acted on by the warehouse, and there are things in place to back it out if the user decides to change the purchase.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Then why did anyone that wanted to allow their customers to purchase items with a single click have to license from Amazon? If the real innovation that they were protecting was the way that the back-end system was implemented, then why is the front-end piece being (aggressively) licensed out? Something smells fishy about that explanation. It reeks of the MS justification for their patent portfolio (it's defensive only! really!), only to contradict their statements later on (suing TomTom over FAT32 patents; making (empty) public threats against infringements by Linux; etc).
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    That argument would be plausible if Amazon was patenting a particular logistical implementation of 1-click purchase. ("This is a specific device which allows canceled orders to be tracked and routed back to inventory...") But they patented the entire concept, which would prevent even companies with trivial logistics from allowing 1-click purchasing without paying Amazon royalties. And indeed, according to Tim O'Reilly, Bezos defended the broad patenting of all types of 1-click purchasing. Here is an excerpt of O'Reilly's description of their conversation: > First off, Jeff wanted to explain why he thought 1-click was original enough to patent. It has nothing to do with the implementation, which he admits is fairly trivial to duplicate, but with the reframing of the problem. At the time he came up with 1-click shopping, everyone was locked in to the shopping cart metaphor, because that's what you do in the real world. You pick up an item and take it to the counter to buy it. On the Web, he realized, something very different was possible: all you had to do was point to an article, and it was yours... >What's more, Jeff went on, small inventions can often seem extremely obvious in retrospect. The patent literature is full of this kind of thing. The significance of an invention isn't how hard it is to copy, but how it reframes the problem in a new way. > This may be true, I replied. But it is hard to believe that if Amazon hadn't introduced 1-click ordering (if they were indeed first to do it), that someone else wouldn't have done this. It beggars the imagination that this is so significant and unexpected an innovation that others should be prevented from using it. Patents are meant to promote the common welfare, the idea being that certain ideas won't be developed without government providing a degree of protection. Is this an idea that required that kind of protection to be developed? http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2000/bezos_0300.html http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2000/bezos_0300.htm...
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago
  > all you need is a requirement "reduce the number of steps a user needs to place a purchase order", and that's the logical conclusion. That's it - my new goal is to invent and patent the Zero-Click Purchase. You read it here first.
  - rubyrescue 16y ago
    i've been saying this for years. my idea was - hover over an item for more than a few seconds, it's delivered to your house! you better lawyer up.
  - eftpotrm 16y ago
    Slashdot described the method and benefits for this many years ago, so could be cited as prior art.
    - Symmetry 16y ago
      My college dorm's Laundry webservers were slashdotted but someone was still able to come along later, patent the idea, and try to sue us.
      - eftpotrm 16y ago
        ... which is just another example of that which has long been implemented (and sometimes long been patented) still managing to attract protection. However, at least when there is a significant pre-established publication of the idea the 'try to' becomes rather more significant than the 'sue' and they can be got rid of rather more easily.
        Symmetry 16y ago
        Yes, and really it wasn't much of a problem for us. The company still has a monopoly on the laundry-webserver business, though, and overcharges other people horribly.
        16y ago
- njharman 16y ago
  > which anyone throwing a stick to a dog could be creditably threatened with a patent suit. That is not how patents work. Your statement is ridiculously ignorant fear mongering. There's real problems with patents, you're just fueling the forces that wish for status que by letting them label paten reformers as kooks.
  - asmithmd1 16y ago
    That is exactly how patents work. When you patent an invention no one can make, use, or sell your invention without a license.
rudyfink 16y ago
Yes, and this re-examination was initiated by the PTO director too! [The PTO can order re-exam on its own action (as opposed to action by an outside party)] It may sadden you, but the patent was invalidated based on at least two pieces of prior art (patents in this case) that were both stick shaped dog toys. The first is a patent (4577219) filed in 1984 for a stick shaped chewable dog toy ( http://www.google.com/patents?id=ANQ9AAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false http://www.google.com/patents?id=ANQ9AAAAEBAJ&printsec=a... ) The second is a design patent (D428220) filed in 1999 for a stick shaped pet toy ( http://www.google.com/patents?id=JJMEAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false http://www.google.com/patents?id=JJMEAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a... ). If you were also curious about the gory details of its re-examination process, you can pull it off of the patent application information retrieval (PAIR) service ( http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair ) -- enter the reexamination request number off of the re-exam certificate ( 90/006301 ) and click on "image file wrapper" and then you can see all of the actions undertaken.
- GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
  These cases are very tricky. Patents in general are. The question is: Do patents currently assist the small companies fight the big ones OR do they only hinder innovation? Can I paten a technique for saving people's lives that requires no tools and anyone can learn, but no human being has ever done it before (intentionally)? The paten question is no triviality and should not be treated as such. Don't think "oh why don't they just revoke it". Perhaps what is wrong with our system is the time given, 7 years in software terms may as well be a lifetime, while 7 years in physical product terms is hardly anything. Thats the problem with our system. And copyright is a whole nothing monster. They mingle often, but are not the same.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    Do patents currently assist the small companies fight the big ones I think everybody knows the answer to that one and it's as asking if the US went to Irak on valid concerns for WMD: official answer is Yes; and when that will change hell will freeze.
throwaway8487 16y ago
Just like the title of this post, your comment can be misleading. USPTO sends an action and attorneys respond to that action [1]. Which means a case can go on for years if attorney (for clients) has deep pockets [2]. A patent grant was not designed to be end-all be-all for that patent. For example, it can be found invalid at anytime by uspto (re-exam) or by the courts. An examiner only has hours to read/understand/search/write a response but in any case this was really bad mistake that should have never happened. 1. Attorneys have usually 3-6 months and USPTO has usually upto 4 months to respond to attorney. 2. Using request for reconsideration and continuation among other things.

brown 16y ago

I didn't believe this at first. Sadly, it is real: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6360693.PN.&OS=PN/6360693&RS=PN/6360693 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...

mono 16y ago
If you're in need of a good startup idea: Claim a patent for crossing fingers to build a luck generator.
- drndown2007 16y ago
  My son saw this and wants to patent bricks now. I'm so proud :)

lotusleaf1987 16y ago

Everyday it becomes clearer and clearer how completely broken the US patent system is and how deeply it needs reform. How much worse is it going to get before it actually gets better?

terinjokes 16y ago

If you scroll to the bottom, it was amended so that claims 1-20 were cancelled. There were only 20 claims.

Yzupnick 16y ago
True, but it took four years for that to happen.
- uriel 16y ago
  And as somebody else pointed out, they were cancelled due to prior art... in other patents!

ck2 16y ago

We need to sponsor that image as a billboard in Washington D.C. to get the mainstream news to cover it and then maybe Congress to look at it eventually.

bioh42_2 16y ago
I would donate money to this.
drndown2007 16y ago
Anyone have any idea how much it would cost? I'm in for $100 or more
- civilian 16y ago
  Estimates here: http://www.bluelinemedia.com/billboard-advertising-media_13.html http://www.bluelinemedia.com/billboard-advertising-media_13....
weel 16y ago
A subway ad on the DC metro, maybe?
- civilian 16y ago
  http://www.bluelinemedia.com/subway-advertising-media_11.html http://www.bluelinemedia.com/subway-advertising-media_11.htm... Actually these would be a lot better for a kickstarter funding campaign- it's easily scalable; and if you donate ~100 dollars then you know that there is one more directly added by you!
civilian 16y ago
http://www.kickstarter.com/ http://www.kickstarter.com/ ?

alexqgb 16y ago

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the Administration continues to bloviate about other nations, and their "failures to respect intellectual property law". At what point are those nations going to lose enough patience to point out the unbelievable corruption, cynicism, and mind-bending incompetence with which the law is administered in the first place?

throwaway8487 16y ago
>> unbelievable corruption Any proof?
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Every time Mickey Mouse is about to go out of copyright, the term mysteriously gets extended... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_mouse_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_mouse_law
  - bioh42_2 16y ago
    There is nothing mysterious about it. This is what I call "legal corruption". Lobbying is fully within the law of the land. It may not be right but it is legal. Unfortunately I don't see a way of changing this. Not within a republic with a representative government. And I don't see America switching to Swiss style direct democracy either. (Americans seem to have a reflex to Goodwin any thread as soon as someone mentions "direct democracy", please don't today. And please do read up on how a certain someone actually got to power.) The only hope I see is technology (Pirate Bay!) not to "fix" copyright and patent law, but simply to make their enforcement less effective.
    - DanI-S 16y ago
      Outlawing corporate donations to political parties would be a start.
    - alexophile 16y ago
      Even if it's legal, it can still be "corruption" without the modifier. If you are circumventing the limitations placed on your position of trust, regardless of adherance to the letter of the law, I would consider you "corrupt".

bmr 16y ago

Obligatory exercise your cat with a laser pointer patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5443036.html http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5443036.html This was always included on the first day of any patent class in law school.

pyre 16y ago
I'm curious what the bias of patents classes in law school are (at least in your case). Are lawyers really taught that when an engineer brings them an 'invention' to patent they are supposed to try and expand the scope of that patent to absurd levels just because they think that they can sneak it past the patent examiners by making the language so obtuse that the simple act of inhaling and exhaling clocks in at 2,000 pages?
- arethuza 16y ago
  Having been coerced into having work of mine patented I can honestly say that once the IP "professionals" are finished with your description of your work you will barely recognize the content - straightforward claims and descriptions are translated into vague, overly general, statements of the type that seem to be specifically designed to annoy technical folks. I found the whole process deeply unpleasant - but as it was mandated by our VC investors, even though I was CTO, I couldn't say "no".
  - CamperBob 16y ago
    Actually, people in your position can, and have, said "no" to demands by investors to cooperate with patent filings. It takes a hell of a lot of guts, admittedly, but doing the right thing often does. The decision has to be made at a pre-investment stage, because you don't want to be placed in a breach-of-contract position later.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      This was a while ago (about 10 years) and I only had a vague idea that patents were a bad idea from a practical perspective - I was mainly motivated to try and avoid doing them because it was a huge amount of work, I hate reading "legalese" and I thought there were better things I could be doing. So my objections were mainly selfish rather than principled. I like to think these days I would act on principle...

yason 16y ago

We would be better off if we turned the patent office into a mere notary service where you can just timestamp descriptions of your innovations, and then go to court yourself fighting for them if you think you have a chance to win.

adrianbg 16y ago
The patent system ensures that your description is defensible so that when the time comes to defend it you don't suddenly find out you're screwed.

chmike 16y ago

I'm currently examining the following patent proposing the use of mail quota. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=mFrNAAAAEBAJ&dq=spam+mail+quota http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=mFrNAAAAEBAJ&dq=s... This patent is filed in 2000 and issued 10 years later ! In 2006 it was apparently extended to international. Does this mean the validity of the patent is 20 years starting from 2010, or is it from 2000 ? This is weird. Note that I'm in europe and don't know US patent particularities.

cpeterso 16y ago
If email quota is patented, does that mean webmail providers like Gmail and Hotmail are no allowed to limit my email inbox size? :)
- chmike 16y ago
  The quota is on the ongoing mail, not the storage. Many ISP are using this method to limit spams or virus propagation from their clients. I think google does it too. But this is not original. On the net I found Freedom, initially published 23 nov 1999 which includes outgoing mail quotas (http://www.homeport.org/~adam/zeroknowledgewhitepapers/arch-notech.pdf http://www.homeport.org/~adam/zeroknowledgewhitepapers/arch-...). For the initial date, check at the bottom.
  - chmike 16y ago
    I ment outgoing mail. I can't edit anymore. Sorry.

ideamonk 16y ago

That paper towel holder I see in toilets everyday too - http://is.gd/0w72Qk http://is.gd/0w72Qk and tooth pick too http://is.gd/48leIg http://is.gd/48leIg

buzzblog 16y ago

Patent attorney at link below explains why this stick patent is useless in addition to being silly. He also notes that it is no longer held because the "inventor" failed failed to pay a fee. http://ipwatchdog.com/2010/10/06/animal-toy-patent/id=12711/ http://ipwatchdog.com/2010/10/06/animal-toy-patent/id=12711/

pinstriped_dude 16y ago

Its not just the US. A man in Australia once patented a "circular transportation facilitation device", yes a wheel! http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/07/02/australia.wheel/ http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/07/02/austr...

EGreg 16y ago

Thanks, this is another illustration of my point that I often make. Intellectual monopoly needs to be re-addressed.