Why patents are the refuge of the sleazy:

[Deja Q]

http://www.xinehq.de/index.php

Specifically:

One month from now, on 6 July, the European Parliament will have the last chance to prevent the introduction of a US-style software patent law in the European Union. Now why does this concern us? As you may have noticed, the xine website is hosted on a German server and some xine developers live in countries of the European Union, so such a law could hinder the progress of the xine project considerably. The VideoLAN team already got a taste of upcoming events as DTS Inc. shut down the distribution of their free DTS decoder library. And if that is not enough, unlimited patentability of software is simply a bad idea, since it leads to patents being abused to protect companies' market shares by patenting trivial things like the infamous Amazon One-Click Shopping. For the sake of all the free software you are using, the xine team is asking for your help to prevent this...

(emphasis added)

I no longer believe that our society's leaders (the corporate ones, there are no others) can be ethical. The amazon case, amongst a few other noteworthy ones (like Lexmark using the DMCA as an exucse to sue HP over toner cartridge design or the compatibility information within! Never mind this would make Lexmark a hypocrite...), have rendered me dejected to our current system. :-(

Too many nitpicky anal retentive laws will utterly stifle CREATION, if not innovation as well. (another reason for offshoring is the lack of technology and tedious and pedentic fiddlefart laws designed to help the elite at everyone else's expense.)

Besides, we're taught as children to share. When's corporate america going to grow up? :D

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Karmakaze]

4. "Go fuck yourself"? Nope, not sleazy at all!

:P

[Kraklen]

5. He's got a point.

What ground breaking product have you invented and released to the general public?

[oblivious]

6. I've written five applications for which patents were granted my company

They were initially refused when prepared by our patent attorneys, so I studied the literature for a few weeks, figured out the system, rewrote them in the appropriate style and they were granted.

Some trivial features I would never have thought of patenting, but later other companies copied and got patents for. When they threatened to sue us for violating their patent, we just showed them old advertising showing we had those features five years before they got the patent.

These are the companies that abuse the patent system. They spend their time and resources figuring out ways to use the patent system rather than to create new products.

I was in the machinery business, but read how frustrating it must be for software developers.

http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/industry-at-risk.html

[wtmusic]

15. The patent system is prone to abuse

because there is so much money at stake. That doesn't mean we should "throw the baby out with the bathwater".

Also, one person's abuse = another's diligence. If you have a good idea other companies will try to write around it. But chances are your good idea borrows from other good ideas.

A friend invented a sports product which was truly revolutionary. He didn't want to pay for patent protection, it was quickly stolen, and is now generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue--for other people. It's always been up to the inventor to protect him/herself.

[kodi]

7. USP Number 6,126,701, with three more pending, all done by myself, alone

I have spent over $200,000 of my own money over the past 10 years, begged and borrowed the necessary equipment, slept on concrete floors and my car in order to get a chance to use sophisticated equipment in the labs of friends. I have nearly driven myself into poverty and have lived on the margins of this American society in order to get the time to do this work when I could have easily walked away from it and taken cushy jobs with 6 figure salaries. Instead,

I did what all inventors hope to do, create something better than what the world had used earlier.

The processes of the patent now finally commercial, decreases manufacturing costs for coloration of rugs, carpets, apparel, and non-woven polyolefin fabrics by $0.02-$0.05/pound. One may not think that is much, but there is more than 3 Billion pounds of polyolefin made and colored every year in the US.

The remarks of the original poster is a spit in the eye of all inventors and exemplifies a profound lack of understanding of business conditions and what it takes to get a patent.

Maybe the original poster was not referring to the likes of me, but his words were inclusive of me, and it is his fault for opening his mouth without knowing the facts.

One who lives in glass houses should be wary of throwing stones......

So, I have answered your question, viz., "What ground breaking product have you invented and released to the general public?" and ask it back at you and the other snot-nosed posters whose ignorance is apparent on this thread.

What ground breaking product have you invented and released to the general public that gives you the sanctimonious right to call others holding patents sleazy individuals?

[Kraklen]

14. "ignorance is apparent on this thread."

Apparently you ignored how my question wasn't addressed at you.

[Deja Q]

20. He's as human as everyone else.

Sadly, humans invented patents too.

Wish God did. Then maybe things wouldn't be so messy...

I should have studied to become a lawyer; the only remaining field in the USA, so far, that needs to be expanded. :eyes:

[Deja Q]

19. Well, I'm happy for you.

As for not understanding... well, you can be happy saying all you like. We both understand things and not understand others.

I'm making my point that things are out of control and are only going to get worse. I don't bother looking inside the system; I prefer looking outside of it to see how it affects everyone else.

Oh: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9593_22-5754104.html

[Karmakaze]

28. The original poster did not say ALL patent holders are sleazy...

but that patents are the refuge of those that ARE sleazy.

In other words patents are often used by sleazy individuals and organisations to PREVENT fair competition by means of patents that are obviously ridiculous - such as the Amazon case.

By patenting trivial yet common things, such organisations pillage the sweat of people like you who attempt to make their own mark. How would you feel if after all your work, some trivial and common part of your process had been patented, thus subjecting you to crippling licensing requirements, that made it uneconomic for the rest of your process to be used?

What if that patent holder then used that power to basically force you to give your rights to YOUR process to them for peanuts? That is the kind of thing software patents cause, and its what the original poster meant by the reference to "the sleazy".

[Deja Q]

18. Read this for a better point:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9593_22-5754104.html

Your counter-question is irrelevant. Patent ABSURDITY will stifle the system. I sure as hell would not want to work in such an underhanded, greedy, backstabbing environment.

[Name removed]

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[Deja Q]

22. Pots and kettles always seem to reside in the same kitchen...

Nobody's perfect. :D

[TX-RAT]

11. Some people are just ignorant of the facts.

Thousands of dollars invested in trying to get patents, phone calls and conversations with patent attorneys, only to be turned down, and that starts the process all over again. I've been lucky, all my applications were approved eventually. I've got 4 utility patents and 1 design patent, all are in the highway safety industry, my last was just 2 months ago. I've spent anywhere from 8,500 to 31,000 dollars per patent, as you know, just depends on how long it get drawn out.

I'll defend the rights of Patent owners every time. They go through hell and a lot of money.

[mainegreen]

25. Pfffft....

I'll defend the rights of Patent owners every time. They go through hell and a lot of money.

Thats totally irrelevant to the validity of a patent. As a programmer chiming in here, software patents 999 out of a 1,000 times are total crap. They generally follow this line of thought:

This piece of crap patent diagramming a system that electronically does the following:

1) Displays a piece of data
2) Displays a second piece of data
3) Allows user to perform some f'ing retardedly obvious action that even a two year old learning gw-basic could do and was probably taught to the 'inventor' in intro to C++
4) Allows the user to organize the data indicated in items 1) and 2) and perform action 3) by doing one action interactively with either item 1 or item 2

Is that patentable? Hell No!!! What is? The algorithms for GIF images are! Its original, insightful, and isn't bloody obvious! But note: that is a complicated process! That patent is for something more than 'display data'. But is it worth the trade off? Patents are based on the premise that giving the inventor 20 years of monopoly is more beneficial to society because it promotes progress, and in the end economic wellbeing for society. Software patents do the exact opposite undermining the very point of patents.

Simply going through the act of getting a patent will earn no one any respect in my opinion. Its the invention that important. Key word: invention. Software patents KILL invention. And if this keeps up eventually this will undermine the entire patent system. If one part of the system is so messed up, who's to say the rest isn't?

[Deja Q]

26. But the system itself; I maintain the system is wrong and is being abused

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9593_22-5754104.html

I understand WHY patents exist.

But there's another viewpoint that many don't notice or don't want to take into account.

The system itself is wrong and is ludicrous. And it was probably meant to govern FAR FEWER than 300 million adults, each wanting a piece of that pie. It is out of control.

And if software patents (the ultimate in abuse) takes place in Europe, I guarantee it's going to create a REAL mess.

[Deja Q]

17. That is a PERSONAL ATTACK and uncalled for. How dare it remain? Also,

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513-5755495.html

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5755495.html

[kodi]

27. toad, you started it with the "sleazy" name calling and i called you on it

you know nothing about patents except your tiny little universe. you castigated patent holders. you did not qualify your remark to refer to only corporations, but you could have done so. you were lazy in your post and got called on it.

[Karmakaze]

29. No, he did not castigate ALL patent holders.

He said patents are the refuge of the sleazy - that does not mean ALL patent holders are sleazy, it means that patents are USED by sleazy people. There is a subtle yet important difference.

Some people, who are sleazy, use patents to basically steal the work of others - people who could genuinely use patents to protect their work, but who have been beaten to the punch by arseholes who patent some trivial process that is common to many systems, and then use that patent to either stifle competition, or to essentially steal the work of others.

That is what the original poster was refering to - not legitimate patent holders who are protecting their OWN work.

[oblivious]

2. Software patent laws stifle creativity and innovation - Hear! Hear!

This is so true. I hate to see the patent system abused like this.

[ret5hd]

3. i'm with ya.

[Igel]

13. They can be abused to stifle creativity and innovation.

They don't need to be, but I suspect writing them in such a way as to remove that potential for abuse, without creating a greater potential for abuse, would be impossible.

The system is set up to provide as many motivations as possible for innovation and technological advances. People game the system. Doesn't mean the system's bad.

(I say this not as a patent holder, but as one who's known many by virtue of having been in an university setting for a long time.)

[WillowTree]

9. Do you work for free?

[Deja Q]

21. Yep. So do MANY Linux/FreeBSD developers who see their work go to the

hands of Novell, Red Hat corporate, Apple, and others who package it all up and sell it at ludicrous profits and provide (depending on the company) asinine support levels. Novell's is hoorendous.

How would you like it if you developed something for free, only to see a big corporation waltz in, take it, and distribute it at $100 a pop every 6 motnhs, just as how Novell and Apple and others do? (OS X is based off of FreeBSD)

It works both ways.

Open source is incongruous with how our "society" runs. The abovementioned companies readily and damningly prove that. Hell, Microsoft would do the same if it made them a few million more as well. (and as they peddled XP by saying how Win95 was buggy crashing insecure trash, they'll say the same thing for "Winux" as well. Any other company trashing their own previous products to hype up their new ones would go under in a NANOSECOND.)

Not bad for an ignorant guy with a pant load, don'cha think?

[WillowTree]

23. There is a mechanism in place...

....to protect you from having your work appropriated by others to their profit and that's to get a patent. If you choose not to, for whatever reason, then you're as much to blame if it happens to you as anyone else. No, that doesn't mean it's right, but I'm sure you're aware of the fact that life isn't always fair. If you want to be sure that no one else profits from what you've made, then get a patent or copyright yourself and then you won't have anything to complain about. But if you put your work out there for anyone to use as they see fit for free, it's kind of silly to whine about it when they do exactly that.

[Karmakaze]

30. I think your problem is...

that you dont understand what software patents are being used for.

For example, by definition GUI programs utilise buttons that can be clicked on. What has been happening is people have been getting patents for things like clicking a button in a program that calculates tax, for example.

So ANY program that calculates tax, and is based on a GUI would essentially require a license from the patent holder in order to have clickable buttons.

OF course this is simplified, but is the essence of what is going on. It basically means that no competing program can be made that utilises common methods to carry out tasks, as the patent holder has everyone over a barrel.

Now, a patent on a new algorithm to calculate tax FASTER would be a legitimate patent, but the act of clicking the button is NOT, in my view legitimate, yet it HAS been granted patents.

[TX-RAT]

10. What a pant load.

[wtmusic]

12. This is silly

Make a list of the number of things you enjoy everyday that were made possible because of copyrights/patents. Just curious: have you ever created anything patentable?

"The patent system added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius." Abraham Lincoln

[demokatgurrl]

16. Ok, step back to avoid contamination- patent ATTORNEY here

First of all, since we live in a capitalist economy, individual reward motivates many people to produce. Secondly, giving the details of an invention to the public domain is part of the "deal" for getting a patent- you get a monopoly for 20 years - which you can sell, license, give away, or sit on- and in exchange you give out the details in a publication in a way that anyone else can make/use/sell what you invented when your patent term is over.

Are there abuses? Hell yes. Should software be patentable ? IMHO, no. Copyrightable, maybe. It doesn't even fit into the allowable categories for patentable subject matter. Are many drug patents questionable? Absolutely, and they should be challenged in court and in the patent office.

Does the opportunity to have a patent stimulate innovation? Yes, it does. For many employees of corporations, a patent holder gets a nice pat on the back, a free dinner, a plaque, maybe a TINY financial award. But the inventors love the recognition, and are motivated by it. That gets us new products, improved medicines etc. Pick up some stuff around you and look for patent numbers. Think of teh smart, dedicated people who invented them. Do you have a flat panel TV? Do you use a laptop? Any kind of computer? Do you drive a car? Ride a Segway scooter? use power tools? get dental work done? have invisible braces? wear a pacemaker?

[ThoughtCriminal]

24. USPTO - overworked and underqualified

I've seen some really absurd trademark registrations and software patents being granted. Frankly, I don't think many of the examiners know what they are doing and occasionally rubber-stamp applications that are clearly prior art.

Once a bogus patent or trademark gets approved, it's shake-down time! It is almost always cheaper to pay the blackmail license fees rather than fight it in court.