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I have a challenge out to all my friends: "Show me one, just one, software patent that is not obvious to someone skilled the field, and I will stop my annoying

I have a challenge out to all my friends: "Show me one, just one, software patent that is not obvious to someone skilled the field, and I will stop my annoying diatribes about how bad software patents are." To this day I have yet to see to a useful software patent.

d--b 3y ago
Patents become obvious the second they're out. This is exactly why they exist. But coming up with the stuff in the first place is what's hard. I worked in video coding back in the day, I can assure you that there are stuff in the HEVC codec that are pretty far from obvious. AlphaGo is pretty high up there too if you ask me. Whether patenting software is useful or not is a different debate...
- kevincox 3y ago
  I completely agree. Patents should be contrasted with trade secrets as that is their main "competitor". Is it useful to the general public to be shown the details of a new technology, but have it's use restricted for 20 years? Or is it more useful to prevent blocking of technology but these are going to be kept as trade secrets instead? From my point of view patents are probably harmful here. Having people be inspired and come up with alternative (or rediscover the same) implementations is probably going to lead to much better for the public than actually learning exactly how the original company did it in exchange for 20y of exclusivity (and all of the pain that enforcing the exclusivity brings). Remember that unlike copyright patents are not about encouraging the creation of work or innovation. They are a trade of information to the public for a period of exclusivity. For software that tradeoff seems far to far in the inventors favor.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    I think network effects are already so far in favour of software companies that the patents are not really needed. Look at how AWS resells free software via it’s services for example. And anyone can copy them! And they are. But they are still the biggest by a long shot.
- teruakohatu 3y ago
  > AlphaGo What about AlphaGo? The Reinforcement Learning methods? The Monte Carlo tree search? The Deep Learning? DeepMind didn't invent any of these things but applied them in a novel way. If everything was software patented, AlphaGo may not have existed.
  - d--b 3y ago
    Again not saying I am for patents. Just answering the original question. Did AlphaGo bring anything new to the table? Hell yeah.
    - teruakohatu 3y ago
      > Did AlphaGo bring anything new to the table? Hell yeah. It is incredible software and deserves the Turning Prize, no question. But what new patentable tech did they invent?
      - d--b 3y ago
        Patentable tech doesn't have to be from the ground up. If you design something that solves a problem that wasn't solvable prior to your invention - regardless of the tech it is based on - it definitely qualifies for a patent.
        teruakohatu 3y ago
        > Patentable tech doesn't have to be from the ground up. If you design something that solves a problem that wasn't solvable prior to your invention - regardless of the tech it is based on - it definitely qualifies for a patent. I asked twice what specific patentable tech they invented and you declined to answer. It is a straw man to suggest I was arguing against about any specific thing being patentable.
        d--b 3y ago
        I thought it was clear it was the whole architecture, piping deep neural nets and monte carlo search together and using reinforcement learning on the whole thing is not something that had been done before. That guy: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3459018A1/en?oq=EP3459018A1 https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3459018A1/en?oq=EP345901...
jordanpg 3y ago
> software patent that is not obvious to someone skilled the field Small but significant correction: software patent that was not obvious to someone skilled in the field AS OF THE FILING DATE (or priority date).
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  The filing date is often a year after the provisional was filed, and the invention was already marketed. That doesn't mean that the provisional wasn't novel.
  - jordanpg 3y ago
    Yes, I understand and agree. I was correcting the OP of this thread, and got downvoted. I'm a patent attorney, what do I know. LOL. So many strong opinions about patents flying about.
patrec 3y ago
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4405829A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US4405829A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6285999B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6285999B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7478074B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7478074B2/en
- Jalad 3y ago
  These links seem to be self defeating in nature. First, most of them are math related, except you get the computer to do the math. You can't (or shouldn't) be able to own or outlaw math. The last link is a Support Vector Machine as far as I can tell. Those were discovered in like 1964 according to Wikipedia. And then it was patented in 199x? That's absolutely wild
  - patrec 3y ago
    > First, most of them are math related, Nope. At least not for any reasonably sane definition that would not apply to all software. > Those were discovered in like 1964 according to Wikipedia. And then it was patented in 199x? Maybe before whining about how Vapnik got an unfair patent for something someone else did in 1964, try learning something about SVMs and their history. It's quite insulting.
- kbenson 3y ago
  From what I can gather, that's RSA, PageRank, and the idea of neural networks and how to train them (or some specific subset or advancement of that I think?). I agree these are novel and not something immediately obvious. I think what's happening (what always happens) is that people overreact and have a hard time finding nuance when they are upset. Amazon's one-click patent was ridiculous. Is Google's PageRank? Maybe. Is the RSA algorithm or how to train neural networks? I don't know. Encouraging the development of these by granting limited time monopolies on them seems like it would encourage people to develop them, but if there was a different way to reward the inventors I would be interested in the details (i.e. less blanket statements that it would be as good, but reasoned thought at a minimum and data if we are so lucky as to have some). Sometimes the problem is not the idea but the implementation. Maybe that's the case with some types of patents.
marc_abonce 3y ago
I don't like software patents but are SIFT and SURF really obvious? Even after 2 tries of trying to read and understand how they work, I've still only gotten the most superficial high-level view of them.
omginternets 3y ago
ARC cache is only obvious after it’s been shown to you. Whether or not software patents are a good thing is an entirely separate question (one on which I suspect we agree, in fact) but software patents can and do contain actual non-obvious inventions.
- pas 3y ago
  ARC is not completely obvious, sure, true, but it's a very very very hard stretch to call it worthy of 20 years of monopoly. It simply seems like a multi-tier cache (which it is, after all, it's 4 LRU duct taped together in a useful way). And, maybe there's nothing wrong with the 20 years, the problem is how hard much it costs to license it, how much the whole discovery process costs to the whole industry.
  - omginternets 3y ago
    Again, we're in agreement that software patents have many flaws, but the statement "only obvious things are patented" is plainly false.

d--b 3y ago

Patents become obvious the second they're out. This is exactly why they exist. But coming up with the stuff in the first place is what's hard. I worked in video coding back in the day, I can assure you that there are stuff in the HEVC codec that are pretty far from obvious. AlphaGo is pretty high up there too if you ask me. Whether patenting software is useful or not is a different debate...

kevincox 3y ago
I completely agree. Patents should be contrasted with trade secrets as that is their main "competitor". Is it useful to the general public to be shown the details of a new technology, but have it's use restricted for 20 years? Or is it more useful to prevent blocking of technology but these are going to be kept as trade secrets instead? From my point of view patents are probably harmful here. Having people be inspired and come up with alternative (or rediscover the same) implementations is probably going to lead to much better for the public than actually learning exactly how the original company did it in exchange for 20y of exclusivity (and all of the pain that enforcing the exclusivity brings). Remember that unlike copyright patents are not about encouraging the creation of work or innovation. They are a trade of information to the public for a period of exclusivity. For software that tradeoff seems far to far in the inventors favor.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  I think network effects are already so far in favour of software companies that the patents are not really needed. Look at how AWS resells free software via it’s services for example. And anyone can copy them! And they are. But they are still the biggest by a long shot.
teruakohatu 3y ago
> AlphaGo What about AlphaGo? The Reinforcement Learning methods? The Monte Carlo tree search? The Deep Learning? DeepMind didn't invent any of these things but applied them in a novel way. If everything was software patented, AlphaGo may not have existed.
- d--b 3y ago
  Again not saying I am for patents. Just answering the original question. Did AlphaGo bring anything new to the table? Hell yeah.
  - teruakohatu 3y ago
    > Did AlphaGo bring anything new to the table? Hell yeah. It is incredible software and deserves the Turning Prize, no question. But what new patentable tech did they invent?
    - d--b 3y ago
      Patentable tech doesn't have to be from the ground up. If you design something that solves a problem that wasn't solvable prior to your invention - regardless of the tech it is based on - it definitely qualifies for a patent.
      - teruakohatu 3y ago
        > Patentable tech doesn't have to be from the ground up. If you design something that solves a problem that wasn't solvable prior to your invention - regardless of the tech it is based on - it definitely qualifies for a patent. I asked twice what specific patentable tech they invented and you declined to answer. It is a straw man to suggest I was arguing against about any specific thing being patentable.
        d--b 3y ago
        I thought it was clear it was the whole architecture, piping deep neural nets and monte carlo search together and using reinforcement learning on the whole thing is not something that had been done before. That guy: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3459018A1/en?oq=EP3459018A1 https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3459018A1/en?oq=EP345901...

jordanpg 3y ago

> software patent that is not obvious to someone skilled the field Small but significant correction: software patent that was not obvious to someone skilled in the field AS OF THE FILING DATE (or priority date).

pclmulqdq 3y ago
The filing date is often a year after the provisional was filed, and the invention was already marketed. That doesn't mean that the provisional wasn't novel.
- jordanpg 3y ago
  Yes, I understand and agree. I was correcting the OP of this thread, and got downvoted. I'm a patent attorney, what do I know. LOL. So many strong opinions about patents flying about.

patrec 3y ago

https://patents.google.com/patent/US4405829A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US4405829A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6285999B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6285999B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7478074B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US7478074B2/en

Jalad 3y ago
These links seem to be self defeating in nature. First, most of them are math related, except you get the computer to do the math. You can't (or shouldn't) be able to own or outlaw math. The last link is a Support Vector Machine as far as I can tell. Those were discovered in like 1964 according to Wikipedia. And then it was patented in 199x? That's absolutely wild
- patrec 3y ago
  > First, most of them are math related, Nope. At least not for any reasonably sane definition that would not apply to all software. > Those were discovered in like 1964 according to Wikipedia. And then it was patented in 199x? Maybe before whining about how Vapnik got an unfair patent for something someone else did in 1964, try learning something about SVMs and their history. It's quite insulting.
kbenson 3y ago
From what I can gather, that's RSA, PageRank, and the idea of neural networks and how to train them (or some specific subset or advancement of that I think?). I agree these are novel and not something immediately obvious. I think what's happening (what always happens) is that people overreact and have a hard time finding nuance when they are upset. Amazon's one-click patent was ridiculous. Is Google's PageRank? Maybe. Is the RSA algorithm or how to train neural networks? I don't know. Encouraging the development of these by granting limited time monopolies on them seems like it would encourage people to develop them, but if there was a different way to reward the inventors I would be interested in the details (i.e. less blanket statements that it would be as good, but reasoned thought at a minimum and data if we are so lucky as to have some). Sometimes the problem is not the idea but the implementation. Maybe that's the case with some types of patents.

marc_abonce 3y ago

I don't like software patents but are SIFT and SURF really obvious? Even after 2 tries of trying to read and understand how they work, I've still only gotten the most superficial high-level view of them.

omginternets 3y ago

ARC cache is only obvious after it’s been shown to you. Whether or not software patents are a good thing is an entirely separate question (one on which I suspect we agree, in fact) but software patents can and do contain actual non-obvious inventions.

pas 3y ago
ARC is not completely obvious, sure, true, but it's a very very very hard stretch to call it worthy of 20 years of monopoly. It simply seems like a multi-tier cache (which it is, after all, it's 4 LRU duct taped together in a useful way). And, maybe there's nothing wrong with the 20 years, the problem is how hard much it costs to license it, how much the whole discovery process costs to the whole industry.
- omginternets 3y ago
  Again, we're in agreement that software patents have many flaws, but the statement "only obvious things are patented" is plainly false.