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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 pa

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
>The idea that VR now has a viable market is not patentable. You're missing the point. The issue wasn't that VR now has a viable market (it always did), the issue was that a good implementation was now viable. And its not just that it can be implemented, its that we generally know how they did it. From this perspective, after having seen a fully working prototype, it can seem obvious that VR technology was just on the horizon. My point is this is a fallacy; its easy to say climbing mt. everest is possible when you can look down and see the path someone else just treaded before you. In a similar vein, judging something as "obvious" and thus not patentable after it has been invented is flawed.
- marvy 13y ago
  I agree that things often seem obvious in retrospect, even if they were not obvious before. But that's ok. The point of patents is not to protect things that are obvious in hindsight. The point is to protect things that are not obvious even after you see them. Things that make you want to say: ok, it's right in front of my eyes, but what is this magic?
  - axman6 13y ago
    No, they're not. You may like to believe this, but it's not a fact. Many inventions are quite mundane, but doesn't mean they weren't inventive (ie, non-obvious) at the time. And the other thing that most people seem to forget is that examiners must be able to show that the invention is obvious to be able to object to it, there must be proof that a person skilled in the art _world_ do X. you might counter that by saying the applicant must say why it is inventive, but that's something that is impossible to do (except in circumstances where the common general knowledge in the art has been that X is impossible, and then you show that you have done X). Simple things should not be ineligble for patents, and what you are proposing is excluding from patent protection anything that is simple. Also if you're looking at a patent that is in a field that you're skilled in and you can't understand it "ok, it's right in front of my eyes, but what is this magic?" then the patent hasn't fully disclosed the invention and it shouldn't have been granted (or you're just not skilled enough, many patents require vast amounts of knowledge to be able to understand and the "person skilled in the art" may be a team of people).
    - deong 13y ago
      I think the last paragraph there is self-contradictory. Simple things shouldn't be patentable, precisely because the invention doesn't need to be fully disclosed. To take a silly example, let's say I propose a patent on the process of painting a house green. That's the entire text of the patent. Should it be granted? No. In part because I haven't fully disclosed the invention. But what could I possibly add? "Step 1. Cover house with green paint." A government granted monopoly is a big gun. Far too big if the goal is just to provide you with revenue. Government works for the people, not one company, and if we're going to give you the right to exclusively profit from something, we demand to get something in return. The thing we demand is knowledge. We want to know how you did it so that after your monopoly expires, everyone can benefit from the increase in knowledge. If your "invention" is so simple that we all already know how to do it, then we don't need the "full disclosure" of a patent, and we don't need to buy your description of painting the house green for the enormous cost of having to pay you exhorbitant fees for every green house for the next two decades.
- tracker1 13y ago
  When was Lois & Clark on the air... I seem to remember an episode of that which contained the concept of an immersive VR experience fairly well, and pretty sure that was more than 20 years ago... I'd be hard pressed to find any concept in the past 20 years specifically regarding software that is truly unique and deserving of a patent. IMHO combining obvious or existing idea + on a computer, isn't patent worthy, and neither is combining two+ obvious ideas on a computer.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    Please re-read my comments and understand that I was not using VR as an example of something that should be patented. Why are people incapable of comprehending an argument as presented, rather than attempting to make connections that do not exist in the text?
    - Perseids 13y ago
      It is because you started your part of the discussion with: >> 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. You're right, you didn't explicitly say that Oculus Rift is an example for a system that could be patented because it is more complex than it seems. But if I had wanted to make the point that I believe it is patentable I could have phrased my argument in the same way as you did to imply it implicitly. > Why are people incapable of comprehending an argument as presented, rather than attempting to make connections that do not exist in the text? Because communication is always context dependent. It's easiest to see in the extreme ends, for example math, where you invent an entire sublanguage / dsl for precise communication and still your definitions change with the context you are working in: Does a ring contain a multiplicative identity element? Which operations is the homomorphism homomorphic in? We leave out these details, because most of the time it helps communication because everyone is on the same page as you anyway and those extra bits and pieces distract from the core argument. Then there is stuff that the reader is faster to figure out for him- or herself than reading "the proposition is true for the base case n=0 of the induction as (3-0)^2-9=0" or sometimes even faster than "the base case is obvious"

hackinthebochs 13y ago

>The idea that VR now has a viable market is not patentable. You're missing the point. The issue wasn't that VR now has a viable market (it always did), the issue was that a good implementation was now viable. And its not just that it can be implemented, its that we generally know how they did it. From this perspective, after having seen a fully working prototype, it can seem obvious that VR technology was just on the horizon. My point is this is a fallacy; its easy to say climbing mt. everest is possible when you can look down and see the path someone else just treaded before you. In a similar vein, judging something as "obvious" and thus not patentable after it has been invented is flawed.

marvy 13y ago
I agree that things often seem obvious in retrospect, even if they were not obvious before. But that's ok. The point of patents is not to protect things that are obvious in hindsight. The point is to protect things that are not obvious even after you see them. Things that make you want to say: ok, it's right in front of my eyes, but what is this magic?
- axman6 13y ago
  No, they're not. You may like to believe this, but it's not a fact. Many inventions are quite mundane, but doesn't mean they weren't inventive (ie, non-obvious) at the time. And the other thing that most people seem to forget is that examiners must be able to show that the invention is obvious to be able to object to it, there must be proof that a person skilled in the art _world_ do X. you might counter that by saying the applicant must say why it is inventive, but that's something that is impossible to do (except in circumstances where the common general knowledge in the art has been that X is impossible, and then you show that you have done X). Simple things should not be ineligble for patents, and what you are proposing is excluding from patent protection anything that is simple. Also if you're looking at a patent that is in a field that you're skilled in and you can't understand it "ok, it's right in front of my eyes, but what is this magic?" then the patent hasn't fully disclosed the invention and it shouldn't have been granted (or you're just not skilled enough, many patents require vast amounts of knowledge to be able to understand and the "person skilled in the art" may be a team of people).
  - deong 13y ago
    I think the last paragraph there is self-contradictory. Simple things shouldn't be patentable, precisely because the invention doesn't need to be fully disclosed. To take a silly example, let's say I propose a patent on the process of painting a house green. That's the entire text of the patent. Should it be granted? No. In part because I haven't fully disclosed the invention. But what could I possibly add? "Step 1. Cover house with green paint." A government granted monopoly is a big gun. Far too big if the goal is just to provide you with revenue. Government works for the people, not one company, and if we're going to give you the right to exclusively profit from something, we demand to get something in return. The thing we demand is knowledge. We want to know how you did it so that after your monopoly expires, everyone can benefit from the increase in knowledge. If your "invention" is so simple that we all already know how to do it, then we don't need the "full disclosure" of a patent, and we don't need to buy your description of painting the house green for the enormous cost of having to pay you exhorbitant fees for every green house for the next two decades.
tracker1 13y ago
When was Lois & Clark on the air... I seem to remember an episode of that which contained the concept of an immersive VR experience fairly well, and pretty sure that was more than 20 years ago... I'd be hard pressed to find any concept in the past 20 years specifically regarding software that is truly unique and deserving of a patent. IMHO combining obvious or existing idea + on a computer, isn't patent worthy, and neither is combining two+ obvious ideas on a computer.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  Please re-read my comments and understand that I was not using VR as an example of something that should be patented. Why are people incapable of comprehending an argument as presented, rather than attempting to make connections that do not exist in the text?
  - Perseids 13y ago
    It is because you started your part of the discussion with: >> 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. You're right, you didn't explicitly say that Oculus Rift is an example for a system that could be patented because it is more complex than it seems. But if I had wanted to make the point that I believe it is patentable I could have phrased my argument in the same way as you did to imply it implicitly. > Why are people incapable of comprehending an argument as presented, rather than attempting to make connections that do not exist in the text? Because communication is always context dependent. It's easiest to see in the extreme ends, for example math, where you invent an entire sublanguage / dsl for precise communication and still your definitions change with the context you are working in: Does a ring contain a multiplicative identity element? Which operations is the homomorphism homomorphic in? We leave out these details, because most of the time it helps communication because everyone is on the same page as you anyway and those extra bits and pieces distract from the core argument. Then there is stuff that the reader is faster to figure out for him- or herself than reading "the proposition is true for the base case n=0 of the induction as (3-0)^2-9=0" or sometimes even faster than "the base case is obvious"