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Software patents tend to be the most superficial of them all when it comes to the litmus test of "Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading th

Software patents tend to be the most superficial of them all when it comes to the litmus test of "Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it". (Or, even worse, in many cases it boils down to "could I reproduce this patented system totally by accident without ever even knowing someone else patented this simple system"). A good canonical example of this is Apple's much maligned "bounce scroll" or slide-to-unlock patents (though Apple is hardly alone when it comes to this nonsense). Any decent software developer could see either of those in action, having never read Apple's patent and never seen Apple's source code and whip up his or her own implementation in less than an hour. That alone should invalidate these patents. Some will argue that Apple's original idea was unique at the time, so they should have a patent on those grounds, but that's not what patents are supposed to protect (though massive amounts of money being funneled into lobbying and the legal system have served to obscure this in the past couple of decades). Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas. There's really not a true legal IP mechanism for the protection of ideas (even copyright is protection of expression, which is closer to ideas, but not quite the same).

hackinthebochs 13y ago
>Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it This reasoning is deeply flawed. There is a tendency for something to seem "easy" or "obvious" after the fact, but this is ignoring all the insight, effort, and risk it took to find that initial successful path to the solution to begin with. Take a look at the Occulus Rift for example. Two years ago no one cared about VR. Today there are a handful of companies that claim to have a headset on par or better than the Rift. What changed? The Rift proved that it was viable, and now its relatively easy to follow their path to a successful product. Just because a solution is obvious after the fact, does not mean its creation was equally as obvious. >Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas. An apple lawyer could easily say that the "idea" here was unlocking of the phone, while the implementation/invention was the "slide to unlock" functionality. Neither is more right than the other. Edit: would be an interesting experiment to have public downvotes
- ewillbefull 13y ago
  > There is a tendency for something to seem "easy" or "obvious" after the fact, but this is ignoring all the insight, effort, and risk it took to find that initial successful path to the solution to begin with. He carefully said "without ever reading the patent" to avoid your counter-argument.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    My point had nothing to do with the particulars of a supposed patent. Just knowing it can be done is a non-trivial obstacle in solving a problem. Add onto that general information that's usually discussed in relevant circles, and you may have enough information to "recreate" the solution to the problem. Judging the difficulty of a problem from this vantage point is the flaw I was referencing.
    - georgemcbay 13y ago
      There are vastly different values for "knowing something can be done". Consider: Knowing we could get a man to the moon and back pre-1960s vs. knowing we could implement "bounce scroll" on a cellphone. The latter example everyone who is a programmer "knew" prior to the iPhone even if they never actually considered it... because the implementation of it is so amazingly obvious. It is nothing but a good idea, and good ideas aren't supposed to be patentable. Which isn't to say they don't get patented, but that's a side-effect of how fucked up the patent system has become in the past 2 decades, not representative of what patents are supposed to be.
      - hackinthebochs 13y ago
        >There are vastly different values for "knowing something can be done". I agree; not really relevant to the argument though. Note that I am not arguing in favor of bouncy scroll patents.
- magicalist 13y ago
  But, again, the purpose of patents are to protect inventions, not ideas. The idea that VR now has a viable market is not patentable. Unlocking a phone is not patentable. I don't think any software patents should be granted, but the biggest problem with them in practice is how they are allowed to be written: "a system that does thing X" now is a patent on anything that does thing X, essentially a patent on that idea. Software patents often give the illusion of specificity, but if you look at e.g. the "Siri patent", you see that it really just says it searches multiple databases and displays them in an order based on some heuristic. They're written in a way that it could arguably cover a huge class of inventions, again, essentially patenting an idea, not an invention. This can be especially bad when it gets in front of a jury, as it seems all too reasonable to them that that description does in fact match the competing product in question. Just look at Newegg vs a patent on "A method for transmitting data comprising a sequence of blocks in encrypted form": http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg-infringes-spangenberg-patent-must-pay-2-3-million/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg-infri...

hackinthebochs 13y ago

>Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it This reasoning is deeply flawed. There is a tendency for something to seem "easy" or "obvious" after the fact, but this is ignoring all the insight, effort, and risk it took to find that initial successful path to the solution to begin with. Take a look at the Occulus Rift for example. Two years ago no one cared about VR. Today there are a handful of companies that claim to have a headset on par or better than the Rift. What changed? The Rift proved that it was viable, and now its relatively easy to follow their path to a successful product. Just because a solution is obvious after the fact, does not mean its creation was equally as obvious. >Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas. An apple lawyer could easily say that the "idea" here was unlocking of the phone, while the implementation/invention was the "slide to unlock" functionality. Neither is more right than the other. Edit: would be an interesting experiment to have public downvotes

ewillbefull 13y ago
> There is a tendency for something to seem "easy" or "obvious" after the fact, but this is ignoring all the insight, effort, and risk it took to find that initial successful path to the solution to begin with. He carefully said "without ever reading the patent" to avoid your counter-argument.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  My point had nothing to do with the particulars of a supposed patent. Just knowing it can be done is a non-trivial obstacle in solving a problem. Add onto that general information that's usually discussed in relevant circles, and you may have enough information to "recreate" the solution to the problem. Judging the difficulty of a problem from this vantage point is the flaw I was referencing.
  - georgemcbay 13y ago
    There are vastly different values for "knowing something can be done". Consider: Knowing we could get a man to the moon and back pre-1960s vs. knowing we could implement "bounce scroll" on a cellphone. The latter example everyone who is a programmer "knew" prior to the iPhone even if they never actually considered it... because the implementation of it is so amazingly obvious. It is nothing but a good idea, and good ideas aren't supposed to be patentable. Which isn't to say they don't get patented, but that's a side-effect of how fucked up the patent system has become in the past 2 decades, not representative of what patents are supposed to be.
    - hackinthebochs 13y ago
      >There are vastly different values for "knowing something can be done". I agree; not really relevant to the argument though. Note that I am not arguing in favor of bouncy scroll patents.
magicalist 13y ago
But, again, the purpose of patents are to protect inventions, not ideas. The idea that VR now has a viable market is not patentable. Unlocking a phone is not patentable. I don't think any software patents should be granted, but the biggest problem with them in practice is how they are allowed to be written: "a system that does thing X" now is a patent on anything that does thing X, essentially a patent on that idea. Software patents often give the illusion of specificity, but if you look at e.g. the "Siri patent", you see that it really just says it searches multiple databases and displays them in an order based on some heuristic. They're written in a way that it could arguably cover a huge class of inventions, again, essentially patenting an idea, not an invention. This can be especially bad when it gets in front of a jury, as it seems all too reasonable to them that that description does in fact match the competing product in question. Just look at Newegg vs a patent on "A method for transmitting data comprising a sequence of blocks in encrypted form": http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg-infringes-spangenberg-patent-must-pay-2-3-million/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg-infri...