5 ms·

I'm quite skeptical as to how you could ever come to a fair conclusion with a juror that isn't supposed to know about the field specifically. How are you suppo

by tjoff 14y ago

I'm quite skeptical as to how you could ever come to a fair conclusion with a juror that isn't supposed to know about the field specifically. How are you supposed to make an argument that some software patent is trivial to someone that hasn't programmed a single line in their life? It would take years to educate someone as to how computers and languages work for them to get any reasonable idea about what the case really is about.

taligent 14y ago
It is the role of the lawyers to explain their position in layman's terms. Having programming experience is absolutely not a requirement for understanding the technicalities of what software does. If it was we would see Testers, Producers, Business Analysts, Project Managers etc with programming skills. But we don't. And yet almost every software project has these people deciding, testing and understanding what is being built.
- tjoff 14y ago
  Having programming experience is absolutely not a requirement for understanding the technicalities of what software does No, but having experience and knowledge about computers in general is required to make a decision on, say, whether a mouse-over event is innovative. There's a short clip of Feynman describing the problem here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM&feature=player_detailpage#t=66s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM&feature=playe... And yes, people are that clueless about "computer stuff" that they could just as well have been from another planet.
jallmann 14y ago
> I'm quite skeptical as to how you could ever come to a fair conclusion with a juror that isn't supposed to know about the field specifically. If the burden of proof wasn't solely on the lawyers, we'd end up with situations where jurors apply their own preconceived notions or misguided "knowledge" towards the case, much as the foreman has done here. This seems to echo the reasoning for the patent system's definition of prior art. The burden of proof for prior art is scoped to the patent system itself. Something is prior art only if it's an obvious extension of something already patented, not if something else similar but unpatented exists in the wild. Not sure if this applies to the design patents of this case though.
- creamyhorror 14y ago
  > Something is prior art only if it's an obvious extension of something already patented, not if something else similar but unpatented exists in the wild. Really? In the Reddit AmA thread by a patent examiner a month ago, he said that works publicly released anywhere in the world prior to the filing count as prior art, and gave the example of paper fans in Vietnam. The issue is that the patent examiners don't have the time or ability to seek out every possible piece of prior art in the world. Hopefully the state of software patents can be changed at the source, when they tighten patent granting. But the patents already in the wild will need to be re-evaluated and invalidated in the court system, which is why judges like Alsup are so important.
  - badclient 14y ago
    One way to lower the workload on the patent office would be to allow non-parties to file objections before any patent is granted. This way Google could have a department that researches every new patent claim by Apple and file a counterclaim to the patent office showing prior art anywhere in the world. Letting private companies with real interest in each patent given to their competitor allows a much thorough research.
    - recoiledsnake 14y ago
      Here http://www.peertopatent.org/ http://www.peertopatent.org/ Help on submitting prior art to the above site http://peertopatent.tumblr.com/tutorials http://peertopatent.tumblr.com/tutorials
    - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
      I really can't see anything bad happening in a process that allows unchecked intrusion into one's IP grants by one's competitors. The problem isn't so much the patent process, it's scope. Things that shouldn't be patentable are. You have the obvious, like software; but you also have the more challenging like a slight modification to the way a transistor is layed out (hypothetical example) leading to the one of tens of thousands of patents a smartphone needs. The first is hard to deal with. It's a blurry line between hardware and software, but I could see some rules that could help a lot: things like "it actually requires more than a general purpose computer", "the item is a standalone item and not a piece of a bigger thing", etc. I have no idea how to deal with the second. I think to solve that, you have to consider moving to a non-IP world (at least in some sectors). I'm not completely convinced dumping IP protection is the right thing to do, but I think it might be. Clothing is a good example of a sector that has little IP protection (except trade dress, which was a big part of this case [an overplayed one by Apple, IMO]). Like tech, it is highly iterative on the last wave, moves very quickly, and old waves lose value very quickly. It has managed pretty well, but cheap clones have certainly had their impact.

by tjoff 14y ago

taligent 14y ago

It is the role of the lawyers to explain their position in layman's terms. Having programming experience is absolutely not a requirement for understanding the technicalities of what software does. If it was we would see Testers, Producers, Business Analysts, Project Managers etc with programming skills. But we don't. And yet almost every software project has these people deciding, testing and understanding what is being built.

tjoff 14y ago
Having programming experience is absolutely not a requirement for understanding the technicalities of what software does No, but having experience and knowledge about computers in general is required to make a decision on, say, whether a mouse-over event is innovative. There's a short clip of Feynman describing the problem here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM&feature=player_detailpage#t=66s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM&feature=playe... And yes, people are that clueless about "computer stuff" that they could just as well have been from another planet.

jallmann 14y ago

> I'm quite skeptical as to how you could ever come to a fair conclusion with a juror that isn't supposed to know about the field specifically. If the burden of proof wasn't solely on the lawyers, we'd end up with situations where jurors apply their own preconceived notions or misguided "knowledge" towards the case, much as the foreman has done here. This seems to echo the reasoning for the patent system's definition of prior art. The burden of proof for prior art is scoped to the patent system itself. Something is prior art only if it's an obvious extension of something already patented, not if something else similar but unpatented exists in the wild. Not sure if this applies to the design patents of this case though.

creamyhorror 14y ago
> Something is prior art only if it's an obvious extension of something already patented, not if something else similar but unpatented exists in the wild. Really? In the Reddit AmA thread by a patent examiner a month ago, he said that works publicly released anywhere in the world prior to the filing count as prior art, and gave the example of paper fans in Vietnam. The issue is that the patent examiners don't have the time or ability to seek out every possible piece of prior art in the world. Hopefully the state of software patents can be changed at the source, when they tighten patent granting. But the patents already in the wild will need to be re-evaluated and invalidated in the court system, which is why judges like Alsup are so important.
- badclient 14y ago
  One way to lower the workload on the patent office would be to allow non-parties to file objections before any patent is granted. This way Google could have a department that researches every new patent claim by Apple and file a counterclaim to the patent office showing prior art anywhere in the world. Letting private companies with real interest in each patent given to their competitor allows a much thorough research.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    Here http://www.peertopatent.org/ http://www.peertopatent.org/ Help on submitting prior art to the above site http://peertopatent.tumblr.com/tutorials http://peertopatent.tumblr.com/tutorials
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    I really can't see anything bad happening in a process that allows unchecked intrusion into one's IP grants by one's competitors. The problem isn't so much the patent process, it's scope. Things that shouldn't be patentable are. You have the obvious, like software; but you also have the more challenging like a slight modification to the way a transistor is layed out (hypothetical example) leading to the one of tens of thousands of patents a smartphone needs. The first is hard to deal with. It's a blurry line between hardware and software, but I could see some rules that could help a lot: things like "it actually requires more than a general purpose computer", "the item is a standalone item and not a piece of a bigger thing", etc. I have no idea how to deal with the second. I think to solve that, you have to consider moving to a non-IP world (at least in some sectors). I'm not completely convinced dumping IP protection is the right thing to do, but I think it might be. Clothing is a good example of a sector that has little IP protection (except trade dress, which was a big part of this case [an overplayed one by Apple, IMO]). Like tech, it is highly iterative on the last wave, moves very quickly, and old waves lose value very quickly. It has managed pretty well, but cheap clones have certainly had their impact.