I'm trying not to "merely assert that" by giving examples supporting my point :-) I'm mentioning the legal standard just to point out that they have come to the same conclusion, and the standards weren't set by patent…
> I'm saying that something that can be trivially implemented by someone skilled in the art who is told what the invention does, but not how, should be below the bar. Right, but what I'm saying is, that is not a good…
I encourage you to experience a patent prosecution yourself to test these claims. Fortunately, you can do it vicariously completely for free! The entire prosecution history of a patent, i.e. the arguments back and forth…
I'm not sure which categories you mean I'm splitting mathematics into. As for precedent, even the Supreme Court cannot define abstractness other than "we know it when we see it." Jurists may certainly have a loose grasp…
By assuming RSA would be invented without patents, you are begging the question. Would R, S and A even be employed by MIT and given free reign to do their research if MIT was not assured of capturing the rewards of…
I agree we need fewer, better patents. But triviality is orthogonal to obviousness. As I said above (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7162049) the iPhone UI patents are downright trivial to implement, but were they…
As I said at the end of my reply to CamperBob2 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7162049), the answer is we don't know. There are many economic and historical studies on this. There are clear costs and benefits, but…
> If an idea is so obvious that nearly everyone faced with a similar problem stumbles on a similar solution... And there in lie more issues with obviousness: it may be obvious if presented a similar problem. Many…
The "software is mathematics" argument has a few flaws: 1) It is reductio ad absurdum, like saying "machines are metals". It is not the naturally occurring metals that are patentable in physical inventions, it is how…
No, IP is just a strong interest of mine, but I did study (and may sometime, for kicks, decide to give) the patent bar exam.
That is a (probably the most) difficult question. Intuitively, I would say, "Of course not". But when you learn more about the patent system and how it works, you understand the reasons why something like this may have…
This is why I hate Internet reporting of patent cases: > Given that there's no question Internet broadcasting pre-dated Logan's business, Ars asked if Liddle and his colleagues at Personal Audio felt that it was…
That's just one patent that got invalidated. And that required Google to identify one comment from more than a decade back to argue that the patent was obvious (rather than anticipated). All that to kill a single MS…
B&N gave them a stake in the eBook business for $300M. That's not nothing. That is an instant entry into the eBook business for Microsoft. Compare that to the huge amounts of time and money and legal fighting and…
No, it's really not. Pretty much all large patent portfolios get licensed this way, and always have been. There are a multitude of legal, technical, practical and business reasons, but that's how it goes. It's just that…
What most people are missing here is that government money only gets you as far as the discovery, and that's if you're lucky enough to, you know, discover something. More likely, you run out of money with nothing to…
I guess any investor would want returns on their investments. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell* I never said "all important discoveries come from the government". The Polio vaccine and penicillin and…
Instead of hand-waving about the conductivity of air, what would have helped is a citation that clearly states how hot the heating element of toasters themselves get. (Really. Because I could not find a good cite either…
> and repeatedly rejected until the PTO folded under seven continued amended petitions in 2010 Also called "prosecution". This is, literally, how every patent is prosecuted at the USPTO: the applicants file claims as…
Hmm, I'm been unable to respond because I get a "you're submitting too fast" error. Maybe I tripped some sort of flame detector. To avoid multiple replies, I'm consolidating responses into one mega-reply. davesims: >…
There are a lot of misconceptions about research in your questions, but suffice to say that in most research, the vast majority of "ideas" don't pan out. In fact, a lot of research is so risky that no entity short of…
Maybe the OP understands what "IP" is, but it seems they do not understand the economics of research or why IP is still applicable to publicly funded research. If one knows the concept of IP but not why it's needed in…
Every time someone links to those episodes I feel compelled to chime in and note that they (well, the first one, at least) are a terrible piece of reporting about patents. 1. Read through the transcript of the first…
I'm not sure how accurate Groklaw was during the SCO case, but as someone who understands patents more than the average geek: Groklaw was horrible when it came to patent matters. Let alone the obvious bias and snark, PJ…
Those were copyright claims, true, but that doesn't change the fact that companies still sought to protect what they felt were their innovations. There were many other cases involving many other companies, such as Sega…
I'm trying not to "merely assert that" by giving examples supporting my point :-) I'm mentioning the legal standard just to point out that they have come to the same conclusion, and the standards weren't set by patent…
> I'm saying that something that can be trivially implemented by someone skilled in the art who is told what the invention does, but not how, should be below the bar. Right, but what I'm saying is, that is not a good…
I encourage you to experience a patent prosecution yourself to test these claims. Fortunately, you can do it vicariously completely for free! The entire prosecution history of a patent, i.e. the arguments back and forth…
I'm not sure which categories you mean I'm splitting mathematics into. As for precedent, even the Supreme Court cannot define abstractness other than "we know it when we see it." Jurists may certainly have a loose grasp…
By assuming RSA would be invented without patents, you are begging the question. Would R, S and A even be employed by MIT and given free reign to do their research if MIT was not assured of capturing the rewards of…
I agree we need fewer, better patents. But triviality is orthogonal to obviousness. As I said above (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7162049) the iPhone UI patents are downright trivial to implement, but were they…
As I said at the end of my reply to CamperBob2 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7162049), the answer is we don't know. There are many economic and historical studies on this. There are clear costs and benefits, but…
> If an idea is so obvious that nearly everyone faced with a similar problem stumbles on a similar solution... And there in lie more issues with obviousness: it may be obvious if presented a similar problem. Many…
The "software is mathematics" argument has a few flaws: 1) It is reductio ad absurdum, like saying "machines are metals". It is not the naturally occurring metals that are patentable in physical inventions, it is how…
No, IP is just a strong interest of mine, but I did study (and may sometime, for kicks, decide to give) the patent bar exam.
That is a (probably the most) difficult question. Intuitively, I would say, "Of course not". But when you learn more about the patent system and how it works, you understand the reasons why something like this may have…
This is why I hate Internet reporting of patent cases: > Given that there's no question Internet broadcasting pre-dated Logan's business, Ars asked if Liddle and his colleagues at Personal Audio felt that it was…
That's just one patent that got invalidated. And that required Google to identify one comment from more than a decade back to argue that the patent was obvious (rather than anticipated). All that to kill a single MS…
B&N gave them a stake in the eBook business for $300M. That's not nothing. That is an instant entry into the eBook business for Microsoft. Compare that to the huge amounts of time and money and legal fighting and…
No, it's really not. Pretty much all large patent portfolios get licensed this way, and always have been. There are a multitude of legal, technical, practical and business reasons, but that's how it goes. It's just that…
What most people are missing here is that government money only gets you as far as the discovery, and that's if you're lucky enough to, you know, discover something. More likely, you run out of money with nothing to…
I guess any investor would want returns on their investments. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell* I never said "all important discoveries come from the government". The Polio vaccine and penicillin and…
Instead of hand-waving about the conductivity of air, what would have helped is a citation that clearly states how hot the heating element of toasters themselves get. (Really. Because I could not find a good cite either…
> and repeatedly rejected until the PTO folded under seven continued amended petitions in 2010 Also called "prosecution". This is, literally, how every patent is prosecuted at the USPTO: the applicants file claims as…
Hmm, I'm been unable to respond because I get a "you're submitting too fast" error. Maybe I tripped some sort of flame detector. To avoid multiple replies, I'm consolidating responses into one mega-reply. davesims: >…
There are a lot of misconceptions about research in your questions, but suffice to say that in most research, the vast majority of "ideas" don't pan out. In fact, a lot of research is so risky that no entity short of…
Maybe the OP understands what "IP" is, but it seems they do not understand the economics of research or why IP is still applicable to publicly funded research. If one knows the concept of IP but not why it's needed in…
Every time someone links to those episodes I feel compelled to chime in and note that they (well, the first one, at least) are a terrible piece of reporting about patents. 1. Read through the transcript of the first…
I'm not sure how accurate Groklaw was during the SCO case, but as someone who understands patents more than the average geek: Groklaw was horrible when it came to patent matters. Let alone the obvious bias and snark, PJ…
Those were copyright claims, true, but that doesn't change the fact that companies still sought to protect what they felt were their innovations. There were many other cases involving many other companies, such as Sega…