6 ms·

A software patent without source code (or at least psuedo code) is effectively patenting "all possible implementions of this idea". That should be considered to

A software patent without source code (or at least psuedo code) is effectively patenting "all possible implementions of this idea". That should be considered too broad.

MattPalmer1086 4y ago
That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation. You can disagree that software concepts can be patented (I tend towards this view), but you can't have a patent that only protects a particular implementation. That would be copyright.
- buran77 4y ago
  Wouldn't I be able to patent the idea of landing a rocket using a reverse launch process and stabilization fins and jets, even if I'm not even capable of landing a stone? If the implementation doesn't matter than I just locked everyone else out of landing rockets for decades. The idea is worth something but so is the implementation because ideas are generic and the more specific you make them, the more you actually define an implementation, in the physical world at least.
  - bdowling 4y ago
    > even if I'm not even capable of landing a stone? No, because the disclosure has to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to practice the full scope of the invention. This is called the “enablement” requirement.
  - 1jbdg 4y ago
    Based on the idea only you’d struggle to describe that in sufficient detail that a relevant expert could use the invention…
  - abhibeckert 4y ago
    Your patent has to fully describe how the invention works. And if it doesn't work at all, then who cares if you own a patent for it, it's a useless invention anyway. If your rocket does work, then yes being able to lock everyone else out of it for decades is the entire point. But once those decades are over, anyone else can copy your idea, which has been documented for all of eternity. There's an almost endless list of inventions before patents that were never made public, and nobody knows how they worked. Unfortunately, that's the idea for how patents are supposed to work. In the real world what we have is patent trolls.
    - buran77 4y ago
      > Your patent has to fully describe how the invention works. Exactly, a patent can't be just for "an idea" which is intrinsically generic but rather for the actual implementation with details. Patenting ideas would probably be the very definition of an overly broad patent.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        It doesn't have to be the exact implementation though. It can be many implementations that your invention enables...
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    You don't patent an idea, you patent an *invention." You must commit it to practice: ARP vs. CRP.
- matsemann 4y ago
  > That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation. Is it, though? Like the lightbulb patent was for the specific way of making a lightbulb, not on "something that makes light from electricity".
  - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
    Yes, that's true, I wasn't very clear. It's a method that is patented, but not a specific implementation of the method.
  - bdowling 4y ago
    There are often separate patents for things and methods of manufacture of those things. In any case, a patent will be drafted to try to cover as many possible implementations of the thing or method.
  - stonemetal12 4y ago
    >In Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the Supreme Court found that Congress intended patentable subject matter to "include anything under the sun that is made by man." ... However, the Court also stated that this broad definition has limits and does not embrace every discovery. According to the Court, the laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable. >"something that makes light from electricity" So yeah probably too abstract to be patentable. However something like "something that makes light from electricity by passing it through a filament" might be enough to make it not abstract. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/patent https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/patent
- naasking 4y ago
  > That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation. No, you can't patent "drug that alleviates headaches", you can only patent a specific formulation, and a competitor is still free to create any other formulation that achieves the same result.
  - nunuvit 4y ago
    You're mincing words. Think of the idea as being the formulation and you'll find agreement between the statement and your example. Edit: That is to say, I think you agree in principle, and you're finding points of disagreement in the wording that were not intended.
    - conanite 4y ago
      Do you mean that if I had invented a "machine for airborne transportation", such as, say, a hot-air balloon, I could collect royalties on jet airplanes?
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        If your claims were sufficiently written and not obvious in light of the prior art, yes. In this case, your claims would have to contend with literally millennia of prior art up to the story of Icarus, and including the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci. This kind of super-broad patent enforcement happened with 3D printing, and is still happening with e-ink technology. In both cases, the patents didn't have centuries of prior art covering what would otherwise have been entire industries, and could protect their monopolies for 20 years.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      > You're mincing words "mincing words" is a good description of law in general. That's no criticism at all.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  > That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation No, that's not true. A patent is on an invention, not an idea.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Law is about word-smithing, so apologies for this: You patent an invention, not an idea. Section 112 says you have to identify the Best Mode of making your invention. Patents are also careful to say "in one embodiment, the invention..." > you can't have a patent that only protects a particular implementation. That would be copyright. Yes, you can. Claims are drafted to not be limiting, but it can happen.
  - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
    Thanks, my original explanation was not very good, IANAL. I was getting at you don't patent the code itself (which has copyright protection).
- rafark 4y ago
  “ That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation.” So in theory an evil corporation could patent popular design patterns? Can a company patent the decorator pattern?
BartjeD 4y ago
In concept you cannot (enforce) patented sky castles. But you may patent them. A patent becomes worthless when it is invalidated after you try to enforce it. The enforcement proceedings are the real legal test of a patent. The mere granting of a patent doesn't prove validty. Contrary to what lay people usually expect. The reasons for having this sort of system are mostly diplomatic, economic, and administrative, so far as a I understand. A) The patent system is an international patchwork B) For obvious reasons testing all inventions comprehensively is extremely time consuming. It would increase the cost to register patents. C) It's far more efficient to let the market sort it out by invalidating patents on sky castles when someone tries to enforce them.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  One of the more interesting documents that accompany some patents is the examiners opinion as to the novelty, inventiveness and applicability of the patent.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    And this was what tripped up my team for years as we tried to patent a process we used to control a machine. No matter how we tried to narrow the claims, the examiner was always able to find some obscure prior art somewhere that they could use to reject the application. Finally, after about 3 years of trying, our IP attorney suggested we drop it. It was probably this more than anyone else that made me realize that Patent Examiners are really, really good at their jobs and not just rubber stamps, as the software community seems to think.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  > For obvious reasons testing all inventions comprehensively is extremely time consuming that's true, but the 112 section of the statute says you have to prove that you "have" the invention, with a Written Description and an Enabling specification. Examiners do make 112 rejections all the time. This merely implements the intentions of 112.
  - 4y ago

A software patent without source code (or at least psuedo code) is effectively patenting "all possible implementions of this idea". That should be considered too broad.

MattPalmer1086 4y ago

That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation. You can disagree that software concepts can be patented (I tend towards this view), but you can't have a patent that only protects a particular implementation. That would be copyright.

buran77 4y ago
Wouldn't I be able to patent the idea of landing a rocket using a reverse launch process and stabilization fins and jets, even if I'm not even capable of landing a stone? If the implementation doesn't matter than I just locked everyone else out of landing rockets for decades. The idea is worth something but so is the implementation because ideas are generic and the more specific you make them, the more you actually define an implementation, in the physical world at least.
- bdowling 4y ago
  > even if I'm not even capable of landing a stone? No, because the disclosure has to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to practice the full scope of the invention. This is called the “enablement” requirement.
- 1jbdg 4y ago
  Based on the idea only you’d struggle to describe that in sufficient detail that a relevant expert could use the invention…
- abhibeckert 4y ago
  Your patent has to fully describe how the invention works. And if it doesn't work at all, then who cares if you own a patent for it, it's a useless invention anyway. If your rocket does work, then yes being able to lock everyone else out of it for decades is the entire point. But once those decades are over, anyone else can copy your idea, which has been documented for all of eternity. There's an almost endless list of inventions before patents that were never made public, and nobody knows how they worked. Unfortunately, that's the idea for how patents are supposed to work. In the real world what we have is patent trolls.
  - buran77 4y ago
    > Your patent has to fully describe how the invention works. Exactly, a patent can't be just for "an idea" which is intrinsically generic but rather for the actual implementation with details. Patenting ideas would probably be the very definition of an overly broad patent.
    - freejazz 4y ago
      It doesn't have to be the exact implementation though. It can be many implementations that your invention enables...
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  You don't patent an idea, you patent an *invention." You must commit it to practice: ARP vs. CRP.
matsemann 4y ago
> That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation. Is it, though? Like the lightbulb patent was for the specific way of making a lightbulb, not on "something that makes light from electricity".
- MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  Yes, that's true, I wasn't very clear. It's a method that is patented, but not a specific implementation of the method.
- bdowling 4y ago
  There are often separate patents for things and methods of manufacture of those things. In any case, a patent will be drafted to try to cover as many possible implementations of the thing or method.
- stonemetal12 4y ago
  >In Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the Supreme Court found that Congress intended patentable subject matter to "include anything under the sun that is made by man." ... However, the Court also stated that this broad definition has limits and does not embrace every discovery. According to the Court, the laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable. >"something that makes light from electricity" So yeah probably too abstract to be patentable. However something like "something that makes light from electricity by passing it through a filament" might be enough to make it not abstract. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/patent https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/patent
naasking 4y ago
> That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation. No, you can't patent "drug that alleviates headaches", you can only patent a specific formulation, and a competitor is still free to create any other formulation that achieves the same result.
- nunuvit 4y ago
  You're mincing words. Think of the idea as being the formulation and you'll find agreement between the statement and your example. Edit: That is to say, I think you agree in principle, and you're finding points of disagreement in the wording that were not intended.
  - conanite 4y ago
    Do you mean that if I had invented a "machine for airborne transportation", such as, say, a hot-air balloon, I could collect royalties on jet airplanes?
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      If your claims were sufficiently written and not obvious in light of the prior art, yes. In this case, your claims would have to contend with literally millennia of prior art up to the story of Icarus, and including the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci. This kind of super-broad patent enforcement happened with 3D printing, and is still happening with e-ink technology. In both cases, the patents didn't have centuries of prior art covering what would otherwise have been entire industries, and could protect their monopolies for 20 years.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    > You're mincing words "mincing words" is a good description of law in general. That's no criticism at all.
AlbertCory 4y ago
> That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation No, that's not true. A patent is on an invention, not an idea.
AlbertCory 4y ago
Law is about word-smithing, so apologies for this: You patent an invention, not an idea. Section 112 says you have to identify the Best Mode of making your invention. Patents are also careful to say "in one embodiment, the invention..." > you can't have a patent that only protects a particular implementation. That would be copyright. Yes, you can. Claims are drafted to not be limiting, but it can happen.
- MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  Thanks, my original explanation was not very good, IANAL. I was getting at you don't patent the code itself (which has copyright protection).
rafark 4y ago
“ That's what a patent is though. Protection for the idea, not the implementation.” So in theory an evil corporation could patent popular design patterns? Can a company patent the decorator pattern?

BartjeD 4y ago

In concept you cannot (enforce) patented sky castles. But you may patent them. A patent becomes worthless when it is invalidated after you try to enforce it. The enforcement proceedings are the real legal test of a patent. The mere granting of a patent doesn't prove validty. Contrary to what lay people usually expect. The reasons for having this sort of system are mostly diplomatic, economic, and administrative, so far as a I understand. A) The patent system is an international patchwork B) For obvious reasons testing all inventions comprehensively is extremely time consuming. It would increase the cost to register patents. C) It's far more efficient to let the market sort it out by invalidating patents on sky castles when someone tries to enforce them.

jacquesm 4y ago
One of the more interesting documents that accompany some patents is the examiners opinion as to the novelty, inventiveness and applicability of the patent.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  And this was what tripped up my team for years as we tried to patent a process we used to control a machine. No matter how we tried to narrow the claims, the examiner was always able to find some obscure prior art somewhere that they could use to reject the application. Finally, after about 3 years of trying, our IP attorney suggested we drop it. It was probably this more than anyone else that made me realize that Patent Examiners are really, really good at their jobs and not just rubber stamps, as the software community seems to think.
AlbertCory 4y ago
> For obvious reasons testing all inventions comprehensively is extremely time consuming that's true, but the 112 section of the statute says you have to prove that you "have" the invention, with a Written Description and an Enabling specification. Examiners do make 112 rejections all the time. This merely implements the intentions of 112.
- 4y ago