Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
I think that there should not be a patent for a recipes run on a computer, but I'll play along.

1. that's how it already is.

You might want to check with a patent attorney. My understanding is that a patent application must provide enough information so that someone skilled in the field of the art can recreate the elements in the patent. Binaries do not meet that requirement. If they did, all one would need to do would be include the binary with the patent application along with the claims and be done. If you have references to facts that indicate otherwise (perhaps to patents invalidated with binary prior art), that would be valuable to know.

Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
2. i don't think slow crappy corporations would like that.
3. how about each patent is worth IN TOTAL $1,000,000. once that license has been paid, it is public.
4. if you are going to have patents, then patent terrorists are a good idea
5. corporations would never buy that.

here's my suggestion other than junk software patents completely..

the system works the other way around. you patent something and it is secret. if nobody else patents it within 10 years you can start going after people. they can either license, or change their CURRENT implementation.

I realize that coming up with a better system won't be easy. Discussing ways to improve the system and ultimately creating proposals that have been hashed out in public is a more efficient use of time than pointing out flaws and doing nothing else. I understand your humor and sarcasm; however, if you honestly want to promote change, you'll need to present serious ideas for change. Thanks for the feedback.

Here's an interesting thread with Andy Greenberg making quite a few posts. Andy started Sir-Tech Software, and wrote Wizardry. He's now a patent attorney.

John. When the subject of software patents shows up on inet forums I usually chime up and spout my opinion loud and clear. That is the best I can do in an inet forum. Hopefully my passion about the subject will rub off on someone that has not made their mind up, or at least shock some sense back into someone.

It's quite clear that you've made up your mind and are mostly likely in the process of acquiring a software patent for yourself. That is fine. My eyes will still perk up in the future when I see a John Shultz post wrt physics. I can separate the two. However, when I see you encourage others to acquire software patents.. I will fight what you say and give the other side of the story VERY LOUDLY. Simple as that.

Proposing solutions to fix the US software patent system is a fun exercise, but that is it. I do other no-software-patent evangelism besides in inet forums and walking around with 'your patents suck' on my backpack. For instance..

I recently quit my job over the company acquiring software patents. This was a several month process where I discussed the issue vigorously with upper-management. In the end they decided to continue their current path and I left. They were shocked. Coincidentally, the company I worked for is in the list of patents you mentioned earlier. AKA.. I put my money where my mouth is.

Currently I am working on a short presentation to give to my representatives on the issue. It will be professional and to the point (unlike my forum posts!) I also hope to give the presentation to my awesome senator Russ Feingold (the only senator to vote against the patriot act.) It just so happens that later today I am going to meeting called.. DraftFeingold which is meant in the hopes to encourage that he will run in 2008 and eventually work for that campaign. I might be dreaming, but there is a small chance that I could have a future President's ear on the matter. How awesome would that be?

I do other minor things and of course donate to organizations such as eff.org. This is how I do my no-software-patents activism and I think it is a good use of my time.

John. Will you be at GDC? I still have not decided if I will be going, but if so, we should chat over a beer.

BTW. STOP CENSORING ME PLEASE.

Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
John. When the subject of software patents shows up on inet forums I usually chime up and spout my opinion loud and clear. That is the best I can do in an inet forum. Hopefully my passion about the subject will rub off on someone that has not made their mind up, or at least shock some sense back into someone.

It's quite clear that you've made up your mind and are mostly likely in the process of acquiring a software patent for yourself. That is fine. My eyes will still perk up in the future when I see a John Shultz post wrt physics. I can separate the two. However, when I see you encourage others to acquire software patents.. I will fight what you say and give the other side of the story VERY LOUDLY. Simple as that.

Don't you find it easier to persuade people by being friendly and professional?
Don't you find that people take you more seriously when you dress and present well and speak politely?

Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
Proposing solutions to fix the US software patent system is a fun exercise, but that is it.

The ideas have to start somewhere. Promoting a change to the system requires having viable solutions that have a chance of success. Pointing out flaws is easy; coming up with better solutions is much harder. Changing the system requires a lot of hard work and sweat (complaining without solutions is a waste of time).

Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
I recently quit my job over the company acquiring software patents. This was a several month process where I discussed the issue vigorously with upper-management. In the end they decided to continue their current path and I left. They were shocked. Coincidentally, the company I worked for is in the list of patents you mentioned earlier. AKA.. I put my money where my mouth is.

Unless it was a job-contract requirement, why couldn't you avoid any patent-related work and stay employed? You could still promote change to the patent system on your own time (including using capital earned from the company using the current patent system: effectively using their money to make the changes you desire).

Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
Currently I am working on a short presentation to give to my representatives on the issue. It will be professional and to the point (unlike my forum posts!) I also hope to give the presentation to my awesome senator Russ Feingold (the only senator to vote against the patriot act.) It just so happens that later today I am going to meeting called.. DraftFeingold which is meant in the hopes to encourage that he will run in 2008 and eventually work for that campaign. I might be dreaming, but there is a small chance that I could have a future President's ear on the matter. How awesome would that be?

It sounds like you have found your passion. That would be pretty cool if you could be more directly involved in changing this system.

Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
John. Will you be at GDC? I still have not decided if I will be going, but if so, we should chat over a beer.

Yes, I'll be at GDC this year. Beer sounds good. Email or PM me.

Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
BTW. STOP CENSORING ME PLEASE.

The strike-outs and re-wording (edits as opposed to deletions/censoring) in the quotes were a friendly, humorous attempt to diffuse the discussion (strong language may also be against forum rules). Don't you think that people will take you more seriously via professional presentation (all the time)? You might find books by Napolean Hill helpful.


[Edited by - John Schultz on February 20, 2006 2:38:00 PM]

"Don't you find it easier to persuade people by being friendly and professional?
Don't you find that people take you more seriously when you dress and present well and speak politely?"

Honestly. Not really. I get a lecture from "the management" about it from time to time. Other than that I find being loud and passionate really is best for me. You could say.. I'm loud because I care! [brings a tear to the eye doesn't it]

Anyway.. This is getting off track from the subject. If you'd like to discuss this in email, that's awesome. Otherwise, I hope to make it to GDC for our beer.

Thanks Billy for that link to Stallman's speech. To quote him on some important points...

On searching for patents:

Quote: There's more than one way to describe the same mathematics, and as a result you can't reliably find all the patents that might apply to a given design. For instance, there was a patent in the US covering natural order recalculation in spreadsheets. This simply means that when it's time to recalculate everything it does each cell after the cells it depends on... and that way recalculating everything once, it gets consistent results.

[...]

[The patent] didn't mention the term "natural order recalculation", it didn't use the word "spreadsheet". In fact, what this patent covered was the algorithm known as "topological sort". This patent has dozens of different claims and each claim describes one way of setting up that program. I'm sure he tried to find every possible variation and make another claim about each possible variation so there would be no way anyone could implement topological sort without getting sued by him.

But the patent did not mention the name "topological sort" even though that's the name that's been used for this algorithm since the 1960's. So, if you had been working on a spreadsheet and you had tried to search for patents relevant to spreadsheets you would not have found this one. The only way you would have known about this patent was if somebody happened to mention to you that people were getting sued... and they were. So you can't expect searching to find you all the patents that might in fact prohibit a given program.

On the purpose of patents:

Quote: Patents are written in a twisted kind of legal language where the words don't mean what they usually mean. It's hard as a non-expert to understand what the patent prohibits. Sometimes it's hard for anyone to understand.

[...]

According to [an Australian study on patents], a tiny fraction of engineers -- a few percent -- ever read patents. One of the supposed purposes of the patent system is to disclose how to do things, but in fact patents provide such poor information about how to do anything and are written in such a way as to make it so hard to extract that poor information that it's generally not worth the trouble. And engineers know this and they don't. And they quoted an engineer saying "I can't recognise my own inventions in 'patentese'."

Clearly, a patent application is not an academic paper.


On pending patents:

Quote: Patent applications now being considered are kept secret by the patent office. They may issue as patents tomorrow or a year from now, and there's no way you can find out. You can't check. So, there might be nothing that tells you a certain thing is forbidden or is going to be forbidden. You'll write it into a program, you'll release the program, people will start using it, and then you find out it's forbidden.

On this matter, the US PTO itself states:

Quote: Most patent applications filed on or after November 29, 2000, will be published 18 months after the filing date of the application, or any earlier filing date relied upon under Title 35, United States Code. Otherwise, all patent applications are maintained in the strictest confidence until the patent is issued or the application is published. After the application has been published, however, a member of the public may request a copy of the application file.

Quote: Original post by chronos
Thanks Billy for that link to Stallman's speech. To quote him on some important points...

On pending patents:

Quote: Patent applications now being considered are kept secret by the patent office. They may issue as patents tomorrow or a year from now, and there's no way you can find out. You can't check. So, there might be nothing that tells you a certain thing is forbidden or is going to be forbidden. You'll write it into a program, you'll release the program, people will start using it, and then you find out it's forbidden.

On this matter, the US PTO itself states:

Quote: Most patent applications filed on or after November 29, 2000, will be published 18 months after the filing date of the application, or any earlier filing date relied upon under Title 35, United States Code. Otherwise, all patent applications are maintained in the strictest confidence until the patent is issued or the application is published. After the application has been published, however, a member of the public may request a copy of the application file.

United States Code TITLE 35 > PART II > CHAPTER 11 > § 122 provides further information (regarding requests to publish earlier, and non-foriegn applications not being published).

Those interested in how many applications are published before 18 months might want to search the PTO themselves using "2005" (enter in first box and hit search). You'll find ~317,286 hits (not all hits may be for application date: searching by the application date field did not appear to work).

If Stallman had stated, "some patent applications are not published before being issued...", he would have stated the facts correctly. The statement:

Quote: Patent applications now being considered are kept secret by the patent office. They may issue as patents tomorrow or a year from now, and there's no way you can find out. You can't check. So, there might be nothing that tells you a certain thing is forbidden or is going to be forbidden. You'll write it into a program, you'll release the program, people will start using it, and then you find out it's forbidden.

is not accurate and is misleading. The following is true:

1. Some patent applications will be published shortly after the filing date (a few months in some cases).
2. Some patent applications will be published 18 months after the filing date.
3. Some patent applications will not be published until they are issued.

Additionally, some of the patent applications referenced in this thread were published well under 18 months after filing. 18 months for the life of a patent application can be a relatively short amount of time (patent applications can take many years before being issued).

The ~317,286 hits mentioned earlier may contain quite a few examples of < 18mo applications: an interesting example from search list position 221: Microsoft Geometric Database Search.

Nitpicking.

The point is that patent applications will often not be published until after infringing software has been published. This is not to suggest that it's impossible to obtain some protection by searching patent databases, but rather that a search of such a database is not sufficient protection against the many software patent landmines that software developers must avoid to survive.

Quote: Original post by chronos
Nitpicking.

Unfortunately Stallman is presenting himself as an expert on the software patent situation, and is trying to convince everyone that software patents (and apparently all Intellectual Property), should be abolished (recall his comments to the audience member asking about alternatives to patents: something to the effect of- anyone talking about the existence of intellectual property is (effectively) brainwashed). If Stallman's words regarding the unsearchability of pending software patents were used in a legal contract, they would be either (intentionally) fraudulent or (via omissions) negligent.

When one takes an extremist, fanatical position on one side of an issue, they can appear to be more interested in self-aggrandizement rather than the champion of the issue they profess to promote (this statement has been used against Ralph Nader).

It would be to Stallman's advantage to tell the truth (the whole truth, even if at first it may appear to weaken his position), including discussing positive changes to the patent system (such as the change that brought patent application publication in 2000) as well as positive acts by commercial ventures (such as the world's largest patent holder, IBM working with the PTO to improve the software patent system). Talking about good things that have been happening will help people get involved that may otherwise have believed that change was impossible.

Quote: Original post by chronos
The point is that patent applications will often not be published until after infringing software has been published. This is not to suggest that it's impossible to obtain some protection by searching patent databases, but rather that a search of such a database is not sufficient protection against the many software patent landmines that software developers must avoid to survive.

This point is true for any patented artifact (not just software).

Again, I agree the current software patent system could be improved:

How would you improve the software patent system?
Do you believe that intellectual property should exist?

John.. Here's my idea on how the patent system should work. It might sound crazy at first (like half the things I say), but if you think about it a bit more it starts to make a whole lot of sense. Before I go into details I just post the basics of the idea and see what you think.

Make software patents opt-in.

You opt-in via the act of possession of a software patent.. If you, your company (or parent companies), or maybe even employees own any software patent on anything, then you opt-in. If you are a member of the system you have access to the patent database, if you are not, you have no access.

ie.. If you want the "protection" of the system, you can have it. If you think the "protection" is not worth the cost, you are not forced into the system.

The only other change that would be required is to fix problem with patent trolling (which is already part of the new reforms in progress).

Quote: Original post by billy_zelsnack
Make software patents opt-in.

It would appear that such a measure would only be useful for (some) smaller entities/companies. I've done more research into the "Ghost Car" patents, and it appears that Atari (with some versions assigned to Midway) did a pretty good job of protecting many novel ideas from Hard Drivin'. I must admit, I first learned about the Ghost Car idea from playing their game. They have protected it from imitation, and I believe that is fair. If my customers request Ghost Cars as previously patented, I'll tell them the feature is owned by someone else (saving me extra work [wink]). This will also force me to come up new gameplay elements.

Now let's say that my small company applies for patent protection on a novel invention. The bigger companies won't be able to compete, as they likely all have many patents (forcing them to opt-in). However, the bigger companies may not chose to compete in the same game-space/genre as my game anyway because it is too risky. All of the other small, patent-free developers would then be able to flood the market with copies of any element of my game they choose. This would seriously hurt the uniqueness of my product, with a direct effect on sales (especially if many hobby developers were giving away their clones for free). There would be no way to stop such dissolution of uniqueness, and any market advantage I would have had would be lost.

Perhaps the software patent issues can also help to explain why the bigger software developers don't innovate as much as consumers would hope: they're playing it safe, using IP that is not likely to generate software patent issues.

In summary, I don't believe that any loophole that would allow a competitor to get around IP protection would work. Additionally, some companies would start subsidiary non-opt-in entities, hiding any ties, allowing free dissolution of protected IP, thus hurting their competitors. When it comes to IP and money, some companies will do anything to get ahead (case in point: the well-known Rambus debacle).

What if two companies develop similar ideas and end up with two products on the market, independently developed, with neither copying the other? In this case, there should be a provision to allow, effectively, joint ownership of any patented element(s), provided both companies can reasonably prove they didn't copy the other company (I believe "patent notebooks", logs, and revision control systems can be used in helping with patent disputes and prior art. Check with a patent attorney or search online for more info).

Suggestions to improve the software patent search issue:

Let Google and Microsoft compete for a government contract to provide "nearly perfect" search technology for the PTO (IBM would also be involved in the design of the system). This technology would be used to strongly enforce new patent laws:

1. A patent applicant submits their application in digital form (say, PDF).
2. The novel search engine automatically searches for possible prior art matches.
3. A list is returned with all possible, relevent patent applications and existing patents.
4. If a patent infringement suit is filed in the future, and the patent owner's patent was not provided in the automated list, they cannot sue for damages.
5. Companies not wishing to patent their software could also use the system, prior to publishing their software, to get protection via this patent search/list system.
6. The system could be extended to index into the existing, prior art databases around the world.
7. In cases where human review shows the search system to be broken, the system will be updated to prevent the case from reoccuring, and only the first entity involved will be exempt (future matches will not be exempt).
8. This system would also greatly help in invalidating bogus patents with prior art (including multiple patents covering the same inventions).