Patents

Jon Miller spake thus:

If you're interested, you can read about it here:

From the looks of things, this was an attempted shakedown of Research in Motion Ltd., the maker of Blackberries, by a company called NTP, claiming patent infringement. Apparently, not only the USPTO but similar offices in Germany and elsewhere sided with Blackberry.

Take a wild-ass guess.

offices in Germany and elsewhere sided with Blackberry< According to the CNN story this morning the USPTO sided _against_ Blackberry and everyone in the Gov. is worried because they all have one. However no one seems to exactly know what the Patent Office did exactly?

According to the site mentioned in another reply:

"Reuters reports that the fifth NTP patent has been rejected. What does it say about the US Patent office and software patents that these patents have made it through trials, appeals, etc and only now has the Patent Office decided they weren't any good in the first place?" From the article: "The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has sided with BlackBerry portable e-mail device maker Research in Motion Ltd. by issuing a non-final rejection of a fifth patent at the center of its legal battle with patent holding company NTP Inc. The decision means the patent agency has now issued non-final rejections of all five patents at issue in a BlackBerry patent-infringement case before a federal judge."

What happened is five re-examination procedings are being conducted on the patents at issue in the Blackberry case. The PTO has rejected the claims in all five cases. The patent holder gets to respond to, and argue, those rejections. If the PTO maintains the rejections, the patent holder can appeal their descision all the up to the US Supreme Court. The final descision as to the fate of Blackberry is still in the hands of the infringement court, and AFAIK no decision has been made yet.

Actually, it was _for_ the Blackberry, in that it rejected a patent held by the people who are suing RIM (Blackberry's maker.)

The only reason the UsPatOff is reviewing the patents is that Washington is having a fit at the prospect that within the next week or two all their Blackberrys will be turned off.

The PatOff in the US is woefully underfunded, and the situation is only slightly better in Canada. There is IMO no prospect of it getting the staff it needs to the job it's supposed to do. Such staff costs way too much money, since the people need the equivalent of two or more PhDs. Patents aren't sexy election slogan fodder, and what pol running for re-election is going to say, "We're going to have to raise taxes so we can bring you all the services you expect from the gummint." Mind you, I'd vote for 'em. Would you?

What are examples of "stupid patents" that you are thinking of?

This "news" about the 5 NTP patents being initially rejected in first office actions during a reexamination procedure is not news. It's a dog-bites-man story.

Patent office rules require that "substantial new question of patentability based on prior patents and printed publications" be established before a reexamination is ordered. Since this threshold must be established before the patent office will reexamine the patent, it would be expected that most reexams receive a non-final rejection. Then the applicant has an opportunity to rebut the non-final rejection.

It would be a surprise if the applications did NOT receive a non-final rejection.

It will be more interesting if the applications get final rejections, then NTP appeals the rejections.

Not to worry. If all decisions should go against RIM, the Neocon Socialists will simply decree that government users continue to be supported either by RIM, or NTP, or whoever can do it.

With something on the order of 300,000 patents being issued every year, it is not hard to find a so-called stupid patent, especially if you don't take a close look at what is actually claimed. Besides, there is no basis for rejecting a patent application for being "stupid."

OK, since it's not hard... give some examples of "stupid patents" that you and Jon are thinking of?

One that made the rounds of "wierd news" a year or two ago: A man and his son from Chicago (?) who patented a method of pumping a swing to get it to go higher. A method that pretty well every kid discovers on his/her own around the age of 8, from the description I read in SciAm.

Main problem with patents: One person's invention is another person's ancient knowledge. To be good patent officer you have to know a hell of lot of odd data and strange facts, the kind that will never be "useful"

-- until someone shows up claiming an original idea.

HTH

and Jon are thinking of?< There are some layered patents out there. I know of one that's 7 layers but will not discuss it in public for many reasons. These are patents that if you go to court to get rid of the first layer all the rest remain. They are designed by people with lots of money (read to pay lawyers) because they probably know that there is prior art but it cost so much to get rid of it (7 times in court with associated costs) that no one fights them especially if you are dealing with very small manufactures or sellers. Most can't even afford to go to court the first time let alone 7 times. Kind of similar to UP (although this is not a patent situation). No one they pick on can afford the court costs and if they could then UP would settle on the court house steps to avoid the precedence. I think it's called "litigating to death" any smaller legitimate competition.

The swinging sideways patent was reexamined by the patent office and all claims were rejected.

Richard

True, but IIRC that happened after the publicity -- ie, someone realised the pat. off. looked dumb. Not good for business.... :-)

United States Patent 6,368,227: "Method of swinging on a swing"

Go to

Wolf Kirchmeir spake thus:

Hmm; sounds like either urban legend or faxlore to me. Do you have a cite?

Since reviewed and disallowed, AFAIK.

(Thanks to Ken Rice and others. I originally saw the story in Sci. Am, but I don't keep magazines, so didn't have the details.)

Found the following to be of interest;

?Software patents are clearly a menace to society and innovation. We like this to be more explicit,? Greve said. The idea is that if someone uses software patents against free software, that company or person loses the right to distribute that particular program and use it in their product, he added."

Wolf Kirchmeir spake thus:

Thanks; I found it soon after I posted that.

My patent on the letter "M" is still pending. What do you think my chances are?