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To be fair to IBM, what your director may have been saying is that their use was primarily defensive, which it is and was for IBM. It’s not wrong for them to pa

To be fair to IBM, what your director may have been saying is that their use was primarily defensive, which it is and was for IBM. It’s not wrong for them to patent as much as they are able to, it serves an important disclosure function. When I worked at the USPTO, we used several patent databases. The US, of course, Japan, Europe, and IBM. IBM had their own database because of how significant their IP was. So while it’s unfortunate that they’ve taken the offensive in this case, historically IBM has been an important and relatively benign player in the IP landscape.

raywu 7y ago
This is informative. What is a good way to keep track of 1) parents filed by IBM, 2) lawsuits and parties involved IBM? Is there a service you like that provide weekly or monthly updates?
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  Disclaimer, I've contributed a couple of patents to IBM's hoard of patents, but I no longer work there. #1 is fairly straight forward, a simple script that uses the USPTO search function and searches for the Assignee field being IBM and the date range being the last 30 days gives you the patents issued that month to IBM. You can do that with a simple cron script, curl, and some script code. #2 is somewhat more difficult, IBM gets sued a lot because they are big and a juicy target. If you have access to one of the legal databases (Lexis, Etc) you can search for cases where IBM is the plaintiff and the complaint contains phaseology around patents (like "patent", "infringement", Etc.) While expensive to access, if you live near a College or University with a Law program and you can get library privileges you use their access. In Santa Clara county you can join the Santa Clara Law Library (http://sccll.org/ http://sccll.org/) which will give you access. Unfortunately, you need to be there to access the databases so that would involve a monthly trip to the library (not a bad thing in my opinion :-))
  - bubblethink 7y ago
    Tangential question for everyone. I recently had to file a small claims case by myself (i.e., no attorney). It's still in the pipeline, but the process made me realise that the legal world is a different universe altogether. From the tech perspective, everything is stuck in the dark ages. I had to create a pdf, print it, then go to the court, only to scan it again on a windows 8 computer with silverlight that would keep timing out. Similar experience with the website (run by a company called tyler technologies). I was not successful in doing much research on my own about the laws and precedents regarding such cases. The instructions on the court's website are not precise. Why is everything so siloed and inefficient that only lawyers can navigate this? Are any startups working in this space ?
    - ska 7y ago
      There are startups in this space, but there are also people who value the friction (and not all for selfish reasons).
      - bubblethink 7y ago
        > (and not all for selfish reasons) Can you elaborate?
        ska 7y ago
        Having physical interaction and time needed makes it harder to file nuisance suits, etc.
        sporkland 7y ago
        Physical version of proof of work. It helps avoid spam by making it costlier.
    - rhizome 7y ago
      In those situations I almost always go to the "tyler technologies" site and see if they're hiring development people. They never are.
1024core 7y ago
So while it’s unfortunate that they’ve taken the offensive in this case, historically IBM has been an important and relatively benign player in the IP landscape. Your faith in IBM is misplaced, according to the article: > IBM has cross-license agreements in place with the likes of Apple and Amazon and previously won $83M in a similar lawsuit against Groupon.

raywu 7y ago

This is informative. What is a good way to keep track of 1) parents filed by IBM, 2) lawsuits and parties involved IBM? Is there a service you like that provide weekly or monthly updates?

ChuckMcM 7y ago
Disclaimer, I've contributed a couple of patents to IBM's hoard of patents, but I no longer work there. #1 is fairly straight forward, a simple script that uses the USPTO search function and searches for the Assignee field being IBM and the date range being the last 30 days gives you the patents issued that month to IBM. You can do that with a simple cron script, curl, and some script code. #2 is somewhat more difficult, IBM gets sued a lot because they are big and a juicy target. If you have access to one of the legal databases (Lexis, Etc) you can search for cases where IBM is the plaintiff and the complaint contains phaseology around patents (like "patent", "infringement", Etc.) While expensive to access, if you live near a College or University with a Law program and you can get library privileges you use their access. In Santa Clara county you can join the Santa Clara Law Library (http://sccll.org/ http://sccll.org/) which will give you access. Unfortunately, you need to be there to access the databases so that would involve a monthly trip to the library (not a bad thing in my opinion :-))
- bubblethink 7y ago
  Tangential question for everyone. I recently had to file a small claims case by myself (i.e., no attorney). It's still in the pipeline, but the process made me realise that the legal world is a different universe altogether. From the tech perspective, everything is stuck in the dark ages. I had to create a pdf, print it, then go to the court, only to scan it again on a windows 8 computer with silverlight that would keep timing out. Similar experience with the website (run by a company called tyler technologies). I was not successful in doing much research on my own about the laws and precedents regarding such cases. The instructions on the court's website are not precise. Why is everything so siloed and inefficient that only lawyers can navigate this? Are any startups working in this space ?
  - ska 7y ago
    There are startups in this space, but there are also people who value the friction (and not all for selfish reasons).
    - bubblethink 7y ago
      > (and not all for selfish reasons) Can you elaborate?
      - ska 7y ago
        Having physical interaction and time needed makes it harder to file nuisance suits, etc.
      - sporkland 7y ago
        Physical version of proof of work. It helps avoid spam by making it costlier.
  - rhizome 7y ago
    In those situations I almost always go to the "tyler technologies" site and see if they're hiring development people. They never are.

1024core 7y ago

So while it’s unfortunate that they’ve taken the offensive in this case, historically IBM has been an important and relatively benign player in the IP landscape. Your faith in IBM is misplaced, according to the article: > IBM has cross-license agreements in place with the likes of Apple and Amazon and previously won $83M in a similar lawsuit against Groupon.