4 ms·

"either people were doing it before the patent was written, in which case it's obvious and deserves to die, or it was never done before, in which case it doesn'

"either people were doing it before the patent was written, in which case it's obvious and deserves to die, or it was never done before, in which case it doesn't matter how obvious it seems in retrospect." This isn't necessarily true. There is also a general concept that if something is obvious to a general practictioner, then it should not be patentable. Does anyone believe that minus the iPhone or that 1996 patent submission that someone else in the computer field wouldn't have "invented" the concept of linking distinct types of text? Now I know that there is plenty of prior art, and this patent will be invalidated, however just discussing the concept that it really was the very first implementation. Remember the idea of a patent is that you are granted a government monopoly in return for revealing, essentially, your secrets. Who thinks this is a secret? Or the vast majority of patents, for that sake. The current situation is not one where people are actively stealing techniques, but instead it's one where many independent teams of developers inevitably end up at exactly the same end result. That is clear evidence of the farcical, not-as-intended patent system. Stop and brainstorm for a couple of days about every nuance and variation of wearable or implanted computer. File patents in the hundreds. In a few years you will be a trillionaire.

tptacek 15y ago
So the only reason you aren't a trillionaire is scruples?
- petegrif 15y ago
  Of course - it's so easy that only someone of high moral character wouldn't do it.
- azakai 15y ago
  No, the reason is that the time to file all those thousands of patents, and the filings fees, makes it infeasible for normal people. But very feasible for IBM, Microsoft, Apple, etc. - companies with many laywers and engineers, and lots of money.
- hn_decay 15y ago
  Aside from what azakai mentioned (it tends to be large companies that are the biggest culrpits for laying patent minefields), I have no doubt that a lot of people are doing exactly that. The now obvious value of software patents -- artifacts that for decades were literally little more than harmless curiousity -- has led to an explosion in filings.
petegrif 15y ago
The technical term is not 'a general practitioner' but 'one ordinarily skilled in the art.' And that ordinary skill is in the directly relevant art. So the proper question is 'was the invention novel and non-obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art?' And here we run into endless problems because one of the best tested psychological phenomena is the 'hindsight effect.' Once things are invented and become part of popular culture or of the culture and lore of a technical sub-group they are (remarkably quickly) considered to be 'obvious.' Hordes of people who have never invented anything in their lives moan about how 'obvious' this or that patent is. If it is so easy, they should just stop moaning and go make those billions you so mistakenly believe are so easily to be earned by inventing things that are blindingly obvious. This is an absurd argument. It really is time to put it to bed. If something is blindingly obvious at the time, it probably won't get a patent. The USPTO and other such agencies are not perfect but they are not total imbeciles. Will some bad patents get through - yes. But if you want to spend your whole life focusing on edge cases why spend it on patents? Why not do something useful and campaign for prisoners' rights? After all, we know that some prisoners are innocent? So the whole penal system must be abolished, right? If we are going to have sensible discussions about patent reform we have to get some of the basic facts straight. And one of those basic facts is that what is 'obvious' now wasn't necessarily 'obvious' then and no amount of whinging from today will make that act any different. It has been 'obvious' now for some time that if you have HIV you should take antiretrovirals but it wasn't in 1982 when we started to identify AIDS. That's just 28 years ago. 'Obvious' is a slippery term - get used to it. There are no useful discussions about patents without getting over it.
- hn_decay 15y ago
  There is no hindsight effect about the notion of identifying classes of text in a string of text. I fully and completely anticipate that patent being invalidated. "If something is blindingly obvious at the time, it probably won't get a patent. The USPTO and other such agencies are not perfect but they are not total imbeciles." The USPTO has shown, time and time again, to be willing imebeciles. They have habitually approved virtually all patents, opening them for review only when contested. I have zero expectation that they are doing any serious review of these patents, and they most certainly are not consulting any industry experts to gauge the true novelty of a patent.

tptacek 15y ago

So the only reason you aren't a trillionaire is scruples?

petegrif 15y ago
Of course - it's so easy that only someone of high moral character wouldn't do it.
azakai 15y ago
No, the reason is that the time to file all those thousands of patents, and the filings fees, makes it infeasible for normal people. But very feasible for IBM, Microsoft, Apple, etc. - companies with many laywers and engineers, and lots of money.
hn_decay 15y ago
Aside from what azakai mentioned (it tends to be large companies that are the biggest culrpits for laying patent minefields), I have no doubt that a lot of people are doing exactly that. The now obvious value of software patents -- artifacts that for decades were literally little more than harmless curiousity -- has led to an explosion in filings.

petegrif 15y ago

The technical term is not 'a general practitioner' but 'one ordinarily skilled in the art.' And that ordinary skill is in the directly relevant art. So the proper question is 'was the invention novel and non-obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art?' And here we run into endless problems because one of the best tested psychological phenomena is the 'hindsight effect.' Once things are invented and become part of popular culture or of the culture and lore of a technical sub-group they are (remarkably quickly) considered to be 'obvious.' Hordes of people who have never invented anything in their lives moan about how 'obvious' this or that patent is. If it is so easy, they should just stop moaning and go make those billions you so mistakenly believe are so easily to be earned by inventing things that are blindingly obvious. This is an absurd argument. It really is time to put it to bed. If something is blindingly obvious at the time, it probably won't get a patent. The USPTO and other such agencies are not perfect but they are not total imbeciles. Will some bad patents get through - yes. But if you want to spend your whole life focusing on edge cases why spend it on patents? Why not do something useful and campaign for prisoners' rights? After all, we know that some prisoners are innocent? So the whole penal system must be abolished, right? If we are going to have sensible discussions about patent reform we have to get some of the basic facts straight. And one of those basic facts is that what is 'obvious' now wasn't necessarily 'obvious' then and no amount of whinging from today will make that act any different. It has been 'obvious' now for some time that if you have HIV you should take antiretrovirals but it wasn't in 1982 when we started to identify AIDS. That's just 28 years ago. 'Obvious' is a slippery term - get used to it. There are no useful discussions about patents without getting over it.

hn_decay 15y ago
There is no hindsight effect about the notion of identifying classes of text in a string of text. I fully and completely anticipate that patent being invalidated. "If something is blindingly obvious at the time, it probably won't get a patent. The USPTO and other such agencies are not perfect but they are not total imbeciles." The USPTO has shown, time and time again, to be willing imebeciles. They have habitually approved virtually all patents, opening them for review only when contested. I have zero expectation that they are doing any serious review of these patents, and they most certainly are not consulting any industry experts to gauge the true novelty of a patent.