All the way back in 2007 (The Year Gilmore Girls ended), a company called IP Innovation sued Red Hat and Novell over a patent related to the concept of virtual desktops. It seems like common sense hasn’t been drained entirely from the US justice system, since yesterday, the courts declared said patent invalid.
Patent number 5,072,412, titled “User Interface with Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects” is detailed like this: “The invention relates to the organization of display objects such as windows into groups which are displayed together on a display-based user interface, each group being appropriate to particular user task.” In other words, virtual desktops.
The courts declared the patent invalid because of prior art. “The claims asserted by the plaintiffs were deemed invalid based on the existence of extensive prior art,” said Rob Tiller, vice president and assistant general counsel for intellectual property at Red Hat.
Interestingly enough, despite some fundamental differences in company culture, Novell and Red Hat joined forces in this legal battle and were represented by a single legal team. While Novell signed the infamous patent deal with Microsoft, Red Hat never did.
In any case, this is good news for all of us – patent trolls are pure poison, and do not belong in a functioning and well-lubricated modern capitalist economy. “The jury’s decision shows that the open source community can stand up to coercion based on bad software patents, and that juries can see through arguments based on FUD,” Tiller said.
Its good to see that the courts can get these things right, this company made no innovation of its own, instead they bought that ‘idea’ of of Xerox.
If Xerox had sued to defend their own ‘creation’, I might have had more sympathy…
My fear is that they’ve completed the 2010 quota for rational decisions and will now return to the normal US legal level of clear thought for the remainder of the year.
Oh, that’s sooo nasty of you. But I love it.
Well, not much to say… although such an association would have (probably) never come to my mind.
Patenting linked lists… I am so baffled I don’t even know what to think. Linked lists. Are we talking about the data structure that Donald Knuth wrote pages about in TAOCP?
But the biggest concerns I can think of right now are 1- what the USPTO thinks of itself after such blunders and 2- what the American people think of the USPTO.
Company A submits an “invention” of linked lists for a patent application, claiming it is innovative and original.
Clerk at USPTO has never heard of linked lists.
USPTO takes company A’s money, and awards them a patent.
Company A sues company B, C, D, E & F for billions.
Company B, C, D, E & F point out prior art from 1955-56 by Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw and Herbert Simon at RAND Corporation, and in Donald Knuth’s work, TAOCP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_list
Case is thrown out of court. Company A’s patent is invalidated.
Huge WOFTAM.
I’m blowed if I can see the point of it all.
Edited 2010-05-05 09:52 UTC
Q: “I’m blowed if I can see the point of it all.”
A: “USPTO takes company A’s money,”
Company A has deep pockets and many connections in the legal field.
Company B has 3 busy employees, and owes a lot of money to the bank. Company B has invested all the money from family and friends to put up a product that would threaten company A profit margin.
Company B counts on the revenue that their product will bring to pay back its debts and develop new stuff that would further steal market from company A.
Company A sues company B over frivolous patents it know full well will be invalidated in the end.
Judge orders company B to stop selling its product while investigation on alleged patent infringement is ongoing.
Investigations takes 3 f–king long years before judge finally decides that the patent is invalid. Something everybody knew since the start but the legal system had to “investigate”, go to higher court and all the usual legal bullshit.
In the mean time, Company B has gone bankrupt. The bank has sold all of its assets and the product from 3 years ago is obsolete.
Company A wins.
2nd option
Company A is a patent troll with deep pockets.
Company B is small but starting to be successful and win money.
Company A: I want 10% of your revenues now, or I sue.
Company B: You can’t win, your patent is shit.
Company A: Wanna bet? Look at what happened to company C… What will your customer think about you? and some more FUD.
Company B: OK then but you will only get 5%.
Company A: 8%!
Company B: 7.5%!
Company A: deal! win!
I can see some other scenarios where Company A wins if they are not as stupid as the patent troll that goes after Red Hat and Novell (seriously, what did they think?)
Edited 2010-05-05 12:54 UTC
The linked list patent in question isn’t a simple linked list. It is patent for a linked list with two or more pointers where each item is pointed at two or more times – so that the list can simultaneously ordered in two or more orders.
Yes, its bullshit and trivial – i.e. if you are set the problem of maintaining two sort orders with a single linked list, I can’t see a more obvious way to do it. However, it got me to thinking, is there any prior art? I imagine there probably is somewhere, but unless someone can find it, the only way to invalidate it is to show that it is obvious – the whole system relies on that subject measure. It’s obvious to me and you, but what about a judge whose never created an algorithm in his life?
It also got me to thinking about what a waste of time the whole patent system is. Say you come up with a good idea that you think is original – you search for existing patents and prior art and find none, and file your own patent. You get some VCs behind you and start getting, five years later you’re just about to start turning a profit when somebody undercuts you using your patented invention. Turns out they have prior art and there is nothing you can do.
Software patents aren’t just stupid because they make software development a minefield, always having to make sure that you aren’t infringing. The are stupid because they offer a false sense of security – you may have a field full of mines, ready to destroy your competition, then again they might all be duff.
How do you check that there is no prior art in closed source software world? Reverse engineer every piece of software that you think might contain prior art (probably against their EULA)? The same could be said for regular patents too, I imagine – but at least with a mechanical object, it is typically straightforward to see how it works. Another issue with closed source software, how easy is it to identify infringement, let alone prove that infringement?
The patent system needs some reform. The rule should be when you get the patent, you need to release a product within 6 months which uses this patent. If you discontinue your product and none of your product uses this patent, you stand at a chance to lose your patent within 3 months if you don’t roll out another product which uses this patent.
I think somewhat similar policies can be helpful to kill Patent Trolls.
I think the best way to fix the problem is to ban the sale of copyrights and patents. They should belong to the creator for as long as they exist. This would protect all creators, authors, artists, etc, while stopping a lot of abuse. Creators could license the work to, say a publisher for printing, but they could never sell the full rights.
Its sounds a bit unfair initially. But think about it like this. Creators don’t actually own the material once they share it with other people. It belongs to the public at that point. We just give the creators a limited monopoly on using said creation. If it were truly theirs, the creation would never revert to the public domain.
Could it be willed? Say a man creates something an it turns out to be fairly lucrative and wants his children to benefit from it when he dies…
What, give avaricious family members yet another reason to plot the death of their relatives?
Good point. My son has been staring at my back lately. At least I think he has. Whenever I turn to catch him he is looking away.
Could it be willed? Say a man creates something an it turns out to be fairly lucrative and wants his children to benefit from it when he dies…
No absolutely not! If I die my relatives get what an average wage slave can gather during his life and my employer will not keep paying wages post mortem to my relatives.
Creative protection should lapse within a lifetime. Not the crazy system we have now.
It is absolutely ludicrous that someone with a copyright can get filthy rich of his copyrights and then give his children and grand children another seventy years to milk the same copyrights after his death and get the aforementioned fortune as well. No other field has this kind of everlasting money scheme.
You want a limited monopoly? Get of your ass and produce till you die and no royalty surfing far after your flesh has become plant fertilizer.
So if I come up with an idea that becomes quite popular I and my offspring should not reap the benefits? No. Don’t think so. An idea is a man’s work. I agree there should be some sort of limitations but I think they should be graduated.
Well, I think even in the original terms of copyright, there was a minimum time frame for collecting royalties. But that should be set up through your estate. So even then it really is transferring ownership, its just your not alive any more to collect. But our society isn’t really interested in fair, only whats in it for “me”.
There has to be some sort of compromise I should think.
Here’s the thing in this situation. *You* came up with the idea, not your offspring. You should be able to reap the rewards, yes, and you can will to your offspring however much of that you wish. But your offspring, who did not create the idea, should absolutely not be able to reap rewards, on their own, of an idea they themselves had nothing to do with. They don’t deserve a monopoly on the idea, perhaps you did but they do not. We’re not talking about sales of property, we’re talking about limited monopolies on ideas. It’s one thing if you create something and your offspring continue to keep a business selling whatever it is. They deserve their income from their own continuing business. But they should never be able to sit back and profit from royalties of your idea once you’re gone. While you’re alive, give them however much of it you want, that’s your own business.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_o…
“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”
In other words, your descendants should not be granted any more rights than any other man at birth.
Edited 2010-05-05 14:12 UTC
I guess I just don’t agree. But I understand what you are saying.
If I build a house, can I leave it to my offspring when I die?
If I paint a picture, can I leave it to my offspring when I die?
Yet if I write a song, a book, or any one of these new fangled “intellectual property” things they should go into the public domain when I die?
Unless you’re going for a complete reform of inheritance law, what you’re advocating has some rather glaring discrepancies. That way, everything you own enters the public domain when you die and you can leave nothing to your heirs.
You’re making the usual incorrect comparison between tangible items of limited availability and intangible items of unlimited availability.
The difference is that it’s a monopoly and not property being discussed here.
Having restrictions on whether on not you can make your own copies of (insert thing here) is unjust and should only be for very limited times, not life plus seventy years.
I hope this sends a message out to you know who and such patent trolls, that Linux and Open Source software cannot be bossed about.
What about “Obvious”? Has the patent office ever considered anything obvious? Why was it even necessary to find prior art for this one seriously?
Where have you been in the last 3 decades? Patent trolls are the whole point of any modern capitalist economy!
Edited 2010-05-04 13:19 UTC
Although a patent must be both non-obvious and original, “obvious” is difficult to prove objectively. Almost everything seems obvious after it has been explained, and the USPTO originally believed this “invention” was not obvious (at least to the USPTO) at the time.
“Prior art” is much easier to demonstrate objectively. “This product, which pre-dates the patent application by X years, uses exactly the same methods that are claimed as original by the patent”. If that can be shown to be true, the rules are that original patent is deemed invalid.
The best two defences against patent attack are:
(1) Show that there was already another instance of the invention when the patent was applied for … with objective evidence to show it is the same invention. This defeats the patent by virtue of the patented invention not being original, and
(2) Show that your product does not actually use the same method to achieve a similar result as the patented method. This defeats the patent by virtue of the patented invention not actually being used by the attacked product/device.
These are the best defences because they can be objectively demonstrated. “Obviousness” is more difficult to objectively demonstrate.
The problem is that the US patent office is run by incompetent people who don’t believe anything about obviousness of “inventions” since they don’t even understand what they are about. They just give a pass to anything that is submitted. They have never filtered anything as obvious AFAIK.
I’m not exaggerating things. This is the sad plain truth.
Look at that patent for instance:
http://www.wikipatents.com/US-Patent-7028023/linked-list
It has been granted in 2006, and it’s about patenting linked lists. The USPTO gave it a pass. I wouldn’t be surprised to find multiple duplicate patents if I had time to review all this crap they call inventions.
I don’t believe the court takes the USPTO seriously at this point.
Holy Moly! How can you patent a data structure?!!??
I need a drink.
That so upset me I just wrote the president/vice president, my two senators and my representative. For the love of Pete.
They need to reorganize have a pool of resources for every major field that can intelligently review incoming patents. Sort of like a wiki, but perhaps choose the people a little more carefully.
Reminds me of this:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/microsoft-patents-ones-zeroes,599/
Yeah, you could find plenty of prior art for this… April fool have been there for a long time
So let them prove it is not obvious! Innocent until proven guilty
That changed years ago, all cases involving “intellectual property” are guilty until proven innocent…
yep, you hit the nail on the head.
But the head of that nail is not particularly capitalistic. The parasites that manifest in capitalism have certain characteristics-in other systems the parasites have different characteristics, of which some are likely far more preferable.
Thom, like many other need to learn something very simple and very fundamental.
All systems have parasites. Systems without parasites only exist in theory or as dead systems.
If you have a problem with the parasites of a system one must change the system. This will not eliminate the parasites, rather it will eliminate the particular types of parasites that exist within that type of system. Some types of parasites are far preferable to other types. But there will always be parasites.
Remember, from the point of view of the million of parasites in your system(your body), you are the parasite
.
When you identify something and determine that it shouldn’t exist, you must first ask what is it in the current system that necessitates their existence. Then once one understands the role in the system that the parasite plays, one can begin to evaluate whether another configuration(ie. another type of system) with it’s inherit parasites may be preferable to the current state of affairs. This reasoning does not imply that one should not try to change things, on the contrary it helps us to design systems where we can account for and be responsible for the types of parasites given life by the new system.
For every economy there is a negative economy of that which is not counted. The sum of these economies is never 0. The existence of negative economy is not justified by that which we count, and likewise that which we count(value, hold dearly, etc.) is not justified by that which we do not count(ignore, oversee etc)
as good as this is, it is of course disappointing that it took 3 years and a lawsuit from third parties to make the USPO retroactively realize that this was bullshit. if they didn’t catch this one when it happened, how many other invalid patents are out there?
seriously fuck software patents
No, no one comments on the 2007 reference to the ending of Gilmore Girls? Well I will…lol…I need some Rory in my life!
I was pretending it wasn’t there.
For any who are interested, I think this is the place where community members worked together to identify prior art for defense against this particular patent attack.
http://www.post-issue.org/patent/5072412/prior_art/list
My thought is that if you really want to be rid of this system of patents, you should stop electing lawyers as presidents.
This is great news for Red Hat. Successfully defending against software patent infringement claims is stressful and expensive. This is even better news for all of us that depend on linux.
Software Attorney at GuardYourSoftware.com
Another example of the very , very bad idea of having a system for patenting software.
U.S. tried in last decade to shift from innovating / manufacturing world leader to “intellectual property license issuer of the world” (including media content). Just sell the rights, no efforts, almost pure profit.
But it won’t work that way, and the current crisis proves that shifting the mfg. to China has bad consequences.
If U.S. doesn’t reform their patent system (esp. regarding the software patents), they will further go down that way — patent trolls, endless suing (which drains companies out of cash to defend itself), and this is obviously not the way to bring the economy up and regain the innovation crown.
I hope that U.S. will fail to impose the rotten patent system and other “measures” (ACTA, DMCA) to other countries.