10 ms·

Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy

197 points by DiabloD3 7y ago

paul7986 7y ago
Unless you have a war chest behind you getting a patent is a huge gamble especially when your invention becomes successful. When it does those with a war chest jump in and use the PTAB to invalid your patent. You can even hear judges on Shark Tank like Damon John say/ponder on the show is a patent worth getting as he notes the PTAB issue. Further, Google and it's ilk changed the game in their favor when they lined the pockets of congressmen/women to change the law from first to invent(those with money) to first to file(the true inventors with little resources/power).
- Johnyma22 7y ago
  If your goal is to exit early through (acquisition by a company with pre-existing complimentary war chest) then it's in your best interest to file for a patent as they can acquire and defend.
  - echelon 7y ago
    This is exactly what I intend to do with my current project. I've got a novel audio video app and want to get IP protection to help sell it. Where can I go about finding a lawyer that knows what they're doing? How much will their services typically run?
- pkaye 7y ago
  > Further, Google and it's ilk changed the game in their favor when they lined the pockets of congressmen/women to change the law from first to invent(those with money) to first to file(the true inventors with little resources/power). But it seems like the vast majority of the world uses first-to-file.
  - to11mtm 7y ago
    Correct, but first-to-file is not as friendly to entrepreneurs. In first-to-invent prior art was at least a line of defense for a company defending themselves against a spurious patent troll. (One that STILL would cost money to defend in court most of the time.) With the change in the system, my understanding is now it is 6 months after publication to challenge a patent with prior art. And thanks to the way they are worded... good luck actually finding one when it happens. No, I've not at all done this but it would be interesting to see the percentage of patents in the US filed by individuals versus companies over the last 20-30 years.
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      You seem to have misunderstood. It's first to file, but prior disclosure invalidates the patent (except a few edge cases to allow for trade shows, I gather). Prior disclosure is any documented teaching of the embodied idea the patent seeks to protect. In the UK a classic example was a dog doorbell having a comic cited against it.
- levythe 7y ago
  When did it change to first to file?
  - 80mph 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy%E2%80%93Smith_America_Invents_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy%E2%80%93Smith_America_In...
  - paul7986 7y ago
    March 2013
gohbgl 7y ago
Patents are primarily about getting a limited time monopoly. Publicly disclosing the invention is just a direct consequence and not a virtue of the patent system. So please stop marketing it like that. In many cases it is completely irrelevant because the invention is sold and can be reverse engineered. Also: > Encouraging people to share information so that others can use it to make further advances is the whole point of the patent system. This is meant as a joke, right? Is locking down a field of engineering for 20 years promoting further progress? Maybe it promotes the invention of sub-optimal solutions to work around the patent but that's about it. The latest example I can think of is all-in-one liquid cooling designs: https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3517-swiftech-h360x3-drive-review-benchmark https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3517-swiftech-h360x3-d...
- UncleEntity 7y ago
  > Publicly disclosing the invention is just a direct consequence and not a virtue of the patent system. Umm, no. That was the whole idea behind the system -- to make your information public in exchange for a limited time monopoly on your invention. Before this people just kept things secret and tried to enforce a monopoly through things like guild memberships and whatnot.
- drfuchs 7y ago
  The whole original idea behind the patent system is that you would be granted a time-limited monopoly in exchange for making your idea “patent” (frequently pronounced “pay-tent”, and meaning “obvious”), rather than trying to maintain it as a trade secret (in the formal, legal sense). You can argue that the monopoly term is too long, or that patents are being granted on things that are already obvious, or that you don’t like the whole idea of it; but the fact is that the monopoly vs. disclosure trade-off, and its public utility, was and is the intention behind the patent system.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Nit-pick: Patent means 'open'. The first protected inventions were a sub-class of things monarchs wrote about in litterae patentes (open letters).
mschuetz 7y ago
I do research in computer science and in the last few years, lots of trivial and dumb patents in my field appeared out of nowhere. However, I can only assume that they really are trivial because they are written in a way to claim a lot without actually describing how any of it works. These patents have 0% information in them. What's more, they all read like a rewrite of papers that were published years ago (before the date filed) into lawyer speak with no amount of information. I have no idea how any of these were ever granted since there is prior art all over the place. Edit: Okay to be fair, there is maybe not 0% but 10% information in these patents, but it's encoded into unintelligible lawyer/patent talk that is not at all fit to convey technical information. They are written in a way to get a monoply on results without disclosing how these results are obtained.
- jchw 7y ago
  I suspect the real big driving motivation is actually just to make sure the patent isn’t too narrow. If you are sinking time and money into patenting everything, it makes business sense to make it as broad as you think you can. On the flip side, patents exist probably in part exactly because trade secrets are incredibly hard to keep. People are pretty good at reverse engineering things. (Note: I am not trying to convey an opinion about patents with any of this conjecture, but if you want mine, I think software patents are fully bunk and other patents should not last nearly as long as they do.)
  - levythe 7y ago
    It's typically considered the best approach to cast a broad net, then narrow down until a patent is granted. That being said, in the US, patents are given on a first to invent basis, so if you are awarded a patent that is overly vague, it's pretty likely it won't hold up if challenged. I find myself questioning the value of a patent office that awards patents that are vague enough that they wouldn't hold up in a dispute.
    - jacques_chester 7y ago
      In my understanding the US is now on a first-to-file system.
Myrmornis 7y ago
(patent application) = (original science/engineering document) + (lawyer) In my experience, the (lawyer) part of this fucks the document up so much that it's too depressing to contemplate, and I just let whatever meaningless bastardization of the original go the patent office.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  Patent troll efficiency is a byproduct of how much it sucks to enforce a patent These are pure evolutionary pressures from rational entrepreneurs that are subject and victim to this IP system
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
No they are not. You can share information without patents.
amelius 7y ago
> In exchange for the right to sue others to stop using the invention, patent applicants have to disclose enough information about their invention to allow others in the field to make and use it. This seems unnecessarily stiffling. Can't we change this so that anyone can still use the patented tech, but at a reasonable price?
- OmarShehata 7y ago
  This is already how it works. A patent holder can license the right to use the invention for a fee. You can't have the right to charge for something without the legal right to prevent someone from using that thing without paying you.
- egdod 7y ago
  This is how it works for standard-essential patents. Google FRAND licensing to read more.
xg15 7y ago
> A 2012 study found that notorious patent troll Intellectual Ventures divides its portfolio among over 1000 different shell companies. Someone, somewhere must have written the "SELECT shell_company_id ..." query that ensures the correct company is put on the litigation letter. If you ever find yourself in that situation, stop and think for a second about what you are doing.
- AlanSE 7y ago
  Don't know where you're going with this, but my brain assumes that it is a new patent for a method of managing shell companies to enforce patents.
  - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    Prior art: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837
buyingarmor 7y ago
People usually think of incentivizing R&D in general, but patents also help to prevent trade secrets. A trade secret can be kept secret indefinitely and can potentially be lost if the company loses interest or is shut down. Patents help encourage publishing advances in technology so that they eventually advance the public domain. If they weren't interested in that then they probably wouldn't make patents expire.
- edoo 7y ago
  Patents started out as 7 years and have been extended through lobbying efforts.
  - marcthe12 7y ago
    Yep I have no issue with patents but in certain cases even 10 years is to much. Software industry can move fast at times.
- bnjms 7y ago
  Can you give an example of something today’s scientists and engineers could not reverse engineer or make from scratch given a working implementation? Espionage and industry standard will get at most of it too. I don’t know trade secrets are the problem they used to be. I’ll give you moon rockets and the pyramids.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    DRM software?
    - Filligree 7y ago
      The same software that is regularly reverse-engineered and made useless within six months of release?
      - saagarjha 7y ago
shadowgovt 7y ago
That's certainly the goal. The implementation of the goal is a hot mess. Because punitive damage is a thing, anytime working for some other form is generally discouraged from even reading them, lest the owner can prove willful infringement.
ilaksh 7y ago
http://endsoftpatents.org/ http://endsoftpatents.org/
OrgNet 7y ago
what about top-secret patents? (aka: inventions too good to be shared)
aloknnikhil 7y ago
I really like https://www.tdcommons.org/ https://www.tdcommons.org/ as an alternative. Any idea can be published as a free for all disclosure. Additionally, it establishes prior art and prevents anyone else from patenting that idea and claiming royalty in the future.
zzo38computer 7y ago
I think patents should be abolished. They can either publish it, or keep it secret and eventually someone else will figure out and publish it.
echelon 7y ago
Can someone on HN recommend a patent attorney that works with early stage startups? I'm self-funded and want to protect the novel work I've done in the signal processing domain from being copied by a big player with deeper pockets. If I don't protect myself a team of domain expert engineers could duplicate my work.

197 points by DiabloD3 7y ago

Unless you have a war chest behind you getting a patent is a huge gamble especially when your invention becomes successful. When it does those with a war chest jump in and use the PTAB to invalid your patent. You can even hear judges on Shark Tank like Damon John say/ponder on the show is a patent worth getting as he notes the PTAB issue. Further, Google and it's ilk changed the game in their favor when they lined the pockets of congressmen/women to change the law from first to invent(those with money) to first to file(the true inventors with little resources/power).

Johnyma22 7y ago
If your goal is to exit early through (acquisition by a company with pre-existing complimentary war chest) then it's in your best interest to file for a patent as they can acquire and defend.
- echelon 7y ago
  This is exactly what I intend to do with my current project. I've got a novel audio video app and want to get IP protection to help sell it. Where can I go about finding a lawyer that knows what they're doing? How much will their services typically run?
pkaye 7y ago
> Further, Google and it's ilk changed the game in their favor when they lined the pockets of congressmen/women to change the law from first to invent(those with money) to first to file(the true inventors with little resources/power). But it seems like the vast majority of the world uses first-to-file.
- to11mtm 7y ago
  Correct, but first-to-file is not as friendly to entrepreneurs. In first-to-invent prior art was at least a line of defense for a company defending themselves against a spurious patent troll. (One that STILL would cost money to defend in court most of the time.) With the change in the system, my understanding is now it is 6 months after publication to challenge a patent with prior art. And thanks to the way they are worded... good luck actually finding one when it happens. No, I've not at all done this but it would be interesting to see the percentage of patents in the US filed by individuals versus companies over the last 20-30 years.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    You seem to have misunderstood. It's first to file, but prior disclosure invalidates the patent (except a few edge cases to allow for trade shows, I gather). Prior disclosure is any documented teaching of the embodied idea the patent seeks to protect. In the UK a classic example was a dog doorbell having a comic cited against it.
levythe 7y ago
When did it change to first to file?
- 80mph 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy%E2%80%93Smith_America_Invents_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy%E2%80%93Smith_America_In...
- paul7986 7y ago
  March 2013

gohbgl 7y ago

Patents are primarily about getting a limited time monopoly. Publicly disclosing the invention is just a direct consequence and not a virtue of the patent system. So please stop marketing it like that. In many cases it is completely irrelevant because the invention is sold and can be reverse engineered. Also: > Encouraging people to share information so that others can use it to make further advances is the whole point of the patent system. This is meant as a joke, right? Is locking down a field of engineering for 20 years promoting further progress? Maybe it promotes the invention of sub-optimal solutions to work around the patent but that's about it. The latest example I can think of is all-in-one liquid cooling designs: https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3517-swiftech-h360x3-drive-review-benchmark https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3517-swiftech-h360x3-d...

UncleEntity 7y ago
> Publicly disclosing the invention is just a direct consequence and not a virtue of the patent system. Umm, no. That was the whole idea behind the system -- to make your information public in exchange for a limited time monopoly on your invention. Before this people just kept things secret and tried to enforce a monopoly through things like guild memberships and whatnot.
drfuchs 7y ago
The whole original idea behind the patent system is that you would be granted a time-limited monopoly in exchange for making your idea “patent” (frequently pronounced “pay-tent”, and meaning “obvious”), rather than trying to maintain it as a trade secret (in the formal, legal sense). You can argue that the monopoly term is too long, or that patents are being granted on things that are already obvious, or that you don’t like the whole idea of it; but the fact is that the monopoly vs. disclosure trade-off, and its public utility, was and is the intention behind the patent system.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Nit-pick: Patent means 'open'. The first protected inventions were a sub-class of things monarchs wrote about in litterae patentes (open letters).

mschuetz 7y ago

I do research in computer science and in the last few years, lots of trivial and dumb patents in my field appeared out of nowhere. However, I can only assume that they really are trivial because they are written in a way to claim a lot without actually describing how any of it works. These patents have 0% information in them. What's more, they all read like a rewrite of papers that were published years ago (before the date filed) into lawyer speak with no amount of information. I have no idea how any of these were ever granted since there is prior art all over the place. Edit: Okay to be fair, there is maybe not 0% but 10% information in these patents, but it's encoded into unintelligible lawyer/patent talk that is not at all fit to convey technical information. They are written in a way to get a monoply on results without disclosing how these results are obtained.

jchw 7y ago
I suspect the real big driving motivation is actually just to make sure the patent isn’t too narrow. If you are sinking time and money into patenting everything, it makes business sense to make it as broad as you think you can. On the flip side, patents exist probably in part exactly because trade secrets are incredibly hard to keep. People are pretty good at reverse engineering things. (Note: I am not trying to convey an opinion about patents with any of this conjecture, but if you want mine, I think software patents are fully bunk and other patents should not last nearly as long as they do.)
- levythe 7y ago
  It's typically considered the best approach to cast a broad net, then narrow down until a patent is granted. That being said, in the US, patents are given on a first to invent basis, so if you are awarded a patent that is overly vague, it's pretty likely it won't hold up if challenged. I find myself questioning the value of a patent office that awards patents that are vague enough that they wouldn't hold up in a dispute.
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    In my understanding the US is now on a first-to-file system.

Myrmornis 7y ago

(patent application) = (original science/engineering document) + (lawyer) In my experience, the (lawyer) part of this fucks the document up so much that it's too depressing to contemplate, and I just let whatever meaningless bastardization of the original go the patent office.

rolltiide 7y ago
Patent troll efficiency is a byproduct of how much it sucks to enforce a patent These are pure evolutionary pressures from rational entrepreneurs that are subject and victim to this IP system

mrtweetyhack 7y ago

No they are not. You can share information without patents.

amelius 7y ago

> In exchange for the right to sue others to stop using the invention, patent applicants have to disclose enough information about their invention to allow others in the field to make and use it. This seems unnecessarily stiffling. Can't we change this so that anyone can still use the patented tech, but at a reasonable price?

OmarShehata 7y ago
This is already how it works. A patent holder can license the right to use the invention for a fee. You can't have the right to charge for something without the legal right to prevent someone from using that thing without paying you.
egdod 7y ago
This is how it works for standard-essential patents. Google FRAND licensing to read more.

xg15 7y ago

> A 2012 study found that notorious patent troll Intellectual Ventures divides its portfolio among over 1000 different shell companies. Someone, somewhere must have written the "SELECT shell_company_id ..." query that ensures the correct company is put on the litigation letter. If you ever find yourself in that situation, stop and think for a second about what you are doing.

AlanSE 7y ago
Don't know where you're going with this, but my brain assumes that it is a new patent for a method of managing shell companies to enforce patents.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  Prior art: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837

buyingarmor 7y ago

People usually think of incentivizing R&D in general, but patents also help to prevent trade secrets. A trade secret can be kept secret indefinitely and can potentially be lost if the company loses interest or is shut down. Patents help encourage publishing advances in technology so that they eventually advance the public domain. If they weren't interested in that then they probably wouldn't make patents expire.

edoo 7y ago
Patents started out as 7 years and have been extended through lobbying efforts.
- marcthe12 7y ago
  Yep I have no issue with patents but in certain cases even 10 years is to much. Software industry can move fast at times.
bnjms 7y ago
Can you give an example of something today’s scientists and engineers could not reverse engineer or make from scratch given a working implementation? Espionage and industry standard will get at most of it too. I don’t know trade secrets are the problem they used to be. I’ll give you moon rockets and the pyramids.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  DRM software?
  - Filligree 7y ago
    The same software that is regularly reverse-engineered and made useless within six months of release?
    - saagarjha 7y ago

shadowgovt 7y ago

That's certainly the goal. The implementation of the goal is a hot mess. Because punitive damage is a thing, anytime working for some other form is generally discouraged from even reading them, lest the owner can prove willful infringement.

ilaksh 7y ago

http://endsoftpatents.org/ http://endsoftpatents.org/

OrgNet 7y ago

what about top-secret patents? (aka: inventions too good to be shared)

aloknnikhil 7y ago

I really like https://www.tdcommons.org/ https://www.tdcommons.org/ as an alternative. Any idea can be published as a free for all disclosure. Additionally, it establishes prior art and prevents anyone else from patenting that idea and claiming royalty in the future.

zzo38computer 7y ago

I think patents should be abolished. They can either publish it, or keep it secret and eventually someone else will figure out and publish it.

echelon 7y ago

Can someone on HN recommend a patent attorney that works with early stage startups? I'm self-funded and want to protect the novel work I've done in the signal processing domain from being copied by a big player with deeper pockets. If I don't protect myself a team of domain expert engineers could duplicate my work.