5 ms·

IBM Watson to battle patent trolls

85 points by ukdm 15y ago

chevas 15y ago
The irony of this story is that IBM makes > $2 Billion / yr in royalties by their "legions of lawyers" enforcing the numerous patents they own.
virmundi 15y ago
Why would IBM possibly want to have it's own AI fight IBM? Or will they put special locks in that block IBM from being read?
- CountHackulus 15y ago
  IBM does happen to have quite a lot of patents to counter with. Having been in business for 100+ years tends to do that.
  - drcube 15y ago
    Patents don't last 100 years. Are IBM's 50,000 patents all current?
- portentint 15y ago
  They actually have a significant interest in fighting the trolls. They have a LOT of legit patents, and little to gain by trolling. Go Watson!
  - rajbot 15y ago
    I think virmundi is referring to the now-famous story of IBM using their huge patent arsenal to attack companies in the 1980s: 'An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"' http://members.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html http://members.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html
zitterbewegung 15y ago
Having IBM make a Watson instance that is dedicated to all patents would require a significant investment by IBM. It seems like it takes a lot of time and money to create specialized Watson instances. They have a specialized one that recognizes pharmaceutical patents right now. In the long run it would make sense to create something that fights patent trolls because the initial investment might pay itself off by avoiding patent licencing or having people find prior art etc...
D_Drake 15y ago
Ah, the march of technology busily grinding the concept of intellectual property into dust. Glorious. Imagine if every patent troll was greeted by thousands of citations of previous use?
tmurray 15y ago
I wonder if they have a patent on using an automated natural language processing system to fight patent trolls.
jcizzle 15y ago
The headline sounds interesting, but extremetech's mobile website is so awful I can't read it... Breaks the back button on iOS sometimes and what's with the forced pagination?
- meatmanek 15y ago
  I was really bothered by this too. I like to have whatever I'm reading be near the middle of the screen so I have context; the forced pagination makes you keep a finger on the screen at all times fighting it.
- mrsebastian 15y ago
  Hey -- yeah, the OnSwipe thing... Turns out that lots of people like it, but some people really detest it. I think we're fixing/changing it in the future, but I'm not sure of the exact timeline. Thanks for soldiering on in the time being :)
- neuroelectronic 15y ago
  I'm glad I don't use iOS so I don't have problems with trivial details like kerning and pagination.
VanL 15y ago
Unfortunately, this article is just speculation. IBM is processing and mining the patent database, but everything else in the article - particularly the parts about about finding prior art ("battling patent trolls") is the from the ExtremeTech author, not IBM.
VladRussian 15y ago
how long before Watson discovers how profitable patent trolling can be for a brain powerhouse like it [he can or soon will be able to generate "method and apparatus for user interaction with interactive screen through rest interface" faster than thousands SV programmers] and switches sides? :)
101100a01110010 15y ago
The solution to the problem patent trolling lies in making defense of infringment allegations _inexpensive_. As long as defending against infringment claims, regardless of their merit, is _expensive_, there will be patent trolls.
zeratul 15y ago
IBM Watson team is focused on medical data mining now. Training IBM Watson just for Jeopardy took over 7 years. They are struggling how to make Watson learn faster. It's not the CPU or RAM limitations. There are a lot of custom pipeline building that needs to happen. Medical data is usually behind firewalls, password protected. Even medical books and articles are not easily accessible. There is no place for side projects.

85 points by ukdm 15y ago

The irony of this story is that IBM makes > $2 Billion / yr in royalties by their "legions of lawyers" enforcing the numerous patents they own.

virmundi 15y ago

Why would IBM possibly want to have it's own AI fight IBM? Or will they put special locks in that block IBM from being read?

CountHackulus 15y ago
IBM does happen to have quite a lot of patents to counter with. Having been in business for 100+ years tends to do that.
- drcube 15y ago
  Patents don't last 100 years. Are IBM's 50,000 patents all current?
portentint 15y ago
They actually have a significant interest in fighting the trolls. They have a LOT of legit patents, and little to gain by trolling. Go Watson!
- rajbot 15y ago
  I think virmundi is referring to the now-famous story of IBM using their huge patent arsenal to attack companies in the 1980s: 'An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"' http://members.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html http://members.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

zitterbewegung 15y ago

Having IBM make a Watson instance that is dedicated to all patents would require a significant investment by IBM. It seems like it takes a lot of time and money to create specialized Watson instances. They have a specialized one that recognizes pharmaceutical patents right now. In the long run it would make sense to create something that fights patent trolls because the initial investment might pay itself off by avoiding patent licencing or having people find prior art etc...

D_Drake 15y ago

Ah, the march of technology busily grinding the concept of intellectual property into dust. Glorious. Imagine if every patent troll was greeted by thousands of citations of previous use?

tmurray 15y ago

I wonder if they have a patent on using an automated natural language processing system to fight patent trolls.

jcizzle 15y ago

The headline sounds interesting, but extremetech's mobile website is so awful I can't read it... Breaks the back button on iOS sometimes and what's with the forced pagination?

meatmanek 15y ago
I was really bothered by this too. I like to have whatever I'm reading be near the middle of the screen so I have context; the forced pagination makes you keep a finger on the screen at all times fighting it.
mrsebastian 15y ago
Hey -- yeah, the OnSwipe thing... Turns out that lots of people like it, but some people really detest it. I think we're fixing/changing it in the future, but I'm not sure of the exact timeline. Thanks for soldiering on in the time being :)
neuroelectronic 15y ago
I'm glad I don't use iOS so I don't have problems with trivial details like kerning and pagination.

VanL 15y ago

Unfortunately, this article is just speculation. IBM is processing and mining the patent database, but everything else in the article - particularly the parts about about finding prior art ("battling patent trolls") is the from the ExtremeTech author, not IBM.

VladRussian 15y ago

how long before Watson discovers how profitable patent trolling can be for a brain powerhouse like it [he can or soon will be able to generate "method and apparatus for user interaction with interactive screen through rest interface" faster than thousands SV programmers] and switches sides? :)

101100a01110010 15y ago

The solution to the problem patent trolling lies in making defense of infringment allegations _inexpensive_. As long as defending against infringment claims, regardless of their merit, is _expensive_, there will be patent trolls.

zeratul 15y ago

IBM Watson team is focused on medical data mining now. Training IBM Watson just for Jeopardy took over 7 years. They are struggling how to make Watson learn faster. It's not the CPU or RAM limitations. There are a lot of custom pipeline building that needs to happen. Medical data is usually behind firewalls, password protected. Even medical books and articles are not easily accessible. There is no place for side projects.