4 ms·

Wouldn't there be some significant issues with patenting a skeuomorphic design? Couldn't a physical book be used as a form of prior art? If this is not the c

by ljd 14y ago

Wouldn't there be some significant issues with patenting a skeuomorphic design? Couldn't a physical book be used as a form of prior art? If this is not the case and anything that exists outside of the realm of computing can now be patented by being modeled digitally, wouldn't that have wide sweeping ramifications? For example, what stops someone from taking a pharmaceutical that they do not own the patent to and getting a patent for that same drug but the patent is for a digital model of the molecular structure? Then litigate against the pharmaceutical company if the pharmaceutical company chooses to store the structure digitally. I'm generally curious about this. If anyone can help me understand what I'm missing here, I would appreciate it.

gilgoomesh 14y ago
You're actually discussing two different points. 1) Is is possible to take a known, existing invention and simply change the context a little and repatent? The answer is yes, if the original existing invention had never been documented to be used in this new context. This is a highly contentious area of patent law and I personally disagree with it. http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/patently-obvious/0 http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/patently-obvious... 2) Design patents are not the same as regular patents. This Apple patent is a design patent, not a normal patent. It protects a very specific visual design in a specific use case. Design patents are very narrow in scope. The same design in a different context is not protected by this patent nor does it affect the patentability (it might affect the obviousness but obviousness is a frustratingly rare objection in patent reviews).
- 1337biz 14y ago
  I have re-read this argument "design patents have a very limited scope" a few times over the latest Apple patent craze. What I am wondering is what the reasoning behind all these questionable patents is and if they are indeed hardly enforceable. Or is Apple, maybe as a consequence of the Samsung disaster, going into "patent whatever is remotely patentable" mode?
  - gilgoomesh 14y ago
    Lots of companies "patent whatever is remotely patentable". If your business is intellectual property, it's common practice. My experience with patents comes from working at a number of engineering companies whose approach truly was: patent everything you do. It's as crazy as you'd think: your daily work is not that novel but you're asked to describe it as though it is. It is ferociously hard to read patents (for everyone: lawyers and inventors included) and people get confused by the patent titles (which are deliberately vague and have no legal meaning). Since these titles are ridiculously broad, people think the patent is trying to clamp down on everything the title describes (which is never the case). However, non-design patents play a game of making the claims as broad as possible (even when the described embodiments are quite narrow). The claims often become a game of starting unenforceably broad and only subsequently narrowing to something reasonable. Of course, it is the broadest claims that get tested in court. Why are design patents different? They don't really have claims in the same way. A design patent can be flawed (by having prior art or by failing the novelty test) but can't greedily try to expand its claims to cover everything in the world. Of course, many patent lawyers think design patents aren't worth the paper they're printed on precisely because they can't expand to cover everything in the whole field. As for Apple's situation... they write software. The questions: how novel is it? How much protection does that novelty earn? These are subjective questions. Of course, Apple will always think the answers are "Very novel and lots of protection". Their competitors will always disagree. And there is no way of saying who's correct expect dragging the whole affair through the court system for years. I don't think Apple's patents are of worse quality than most patents. But the patent system never has a clear "this is protected and this isn't". It's always contentious because everything has a precedent of some kind -- but does that count as prior art? Who the fuck knows.
  - GHFigs 14y ago
    I have re-read this argument "design patents have a very limited scope" a few times over the latest Apple patent craze. It's not an argument, it's a fact. Design patents are not utility patents. Utility patents are not design patents. They work differently, and the objections people have to "questionable" utility patents do not apply equally to design patents. It comes up a lot because the press seems to be willfully ignorant of the distinction, and the people arguing about the reports tend to be universally clueless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent

by ljd 14y ago

gilgoomesh 14y ago

You're actually discussing two different points. 1) Is is possible to take a known, existing invention and simply change the context a little and repatent? The answer is yes, if the original existing invention had never been documented to be used in this new context. This is a highly contentious area of patent law and I personally disagree with it. http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/patently-obvious/0 http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/innovation/patently-obvious... 2) Design patents are not the same as regular patents. This Apple patent is a design patent, not a normal patent. It protects a very specific visual design in a specific use case. Design patents are very narrow in scope. The same design in a different context is not protected by this patent nor does it affect the patentability (it might affect the obviousness but obviousness is a frustratingly rare objection in patent reviews).

1337biz 14y ago
I have re-read this argument "design patents have a very limited scope" a few times over the latest Apple patent craze. What I am wondering is what the reasoning behind all these questionable patents is and if they are indeed hardly enforceable. Or is Apple, maybe as a consequence of the Samsung disaster, going into "patent whatever is remotely patentable" mode?
- gilgoomesh 14y ago
  Lots of companies "patent whatever is remotely patentable". If your business is intellectual property, it's common practice. My experience with patents comes from working at a number of engineering companies whose approach truly was: patent everything you do. It's as crazy as you'd think: your daily work is not that novel but you're asked to describe it as though it is. It is ferociously hard to read patents (for everyone: lawyers and inventors included) and people get confused by the patent titles (which are deliberately vague and have no legal meaning). Since these titles are ridiculously broad, people think the patent is trying to clamp down on everything the title describes (which is never the case). However, non-design patents play a game of making the claims as broad as possible (even when the described embodiments are quite narrow). The claims often become a game of starting unenforceably broad and only subsequently narrowing to something reasonable. Of course, it is the broadest claims that get tested in court. Why are design patents different? They don't really have claims in the same way. A design patent can be flawed (by having prior art or by failing the novelty test) but can't greedily try to expand its claims to cover everything in the world. Of course, many patent lawyers think design patents aren't worth the paper they're printed on precisely because they can't expand to cover everything in the whole field. As for Apple's situation... they write software. The questions: how novel is it? How much protection does that novelty earn? These are subjective questions. Of course, Apple will always think the answers are "Very novel and lots of protection". Their competitors will always disagree. And there is no way of saying who's correct expect dragging the whole affair through the court system for years. I don't think Apple's patents are of worse quality than most patents. But the patent system never has a clear "this is protected and this isn't". It's always contentious because everything has a precedent of some kind -- but does that count as prior art? Who the fuck knows.
- GHFigs 14y ago
  I have re-read this argument "design patents have a very limited scope" a few times over the latest Apple patent craze. It's not an argument, it's a fact. Design patents are not utility patents. Utility patents are not design patents. They work differently, and the objections people have to "questionable" utility patents do not apply equally to design patents. It comes up a lot because the press seems to be willfully ignorant of the distinction, and the people arguing about the reports tend to be universally clueless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent