
How to read a patent in 60 seconds (2010) - Tomte
http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-read-a-patent-in-60-second/
======
sergioocon
When I did write patents the lawyers were telling us: \- Everything is
patentable, it is the enforcing part that is hard (i.e. remember the computer
mouse) \- Patents are only valid if you have money to enforce them.

And then I heard from some start-up about another: \- What are they offering?,
they don't even have IP. Nobody is going to buy them...

I got to the conclusion that they are more than any other thing a way to
demonstrate value for small companies and a tool for big companies to delay
competition from new entrants. I haven't understood yet how patent offices
take care of the prior art...

~~~
madaxe_again
Came here to say the same.

I patented a thing while I was at university - there was some prior art but
I'd come up with a neat solution (literally as well as figuratively) that
actually worked - got as far as building a few prototypes.

I had a degree to finish, and barely managed to scrape the cash together for
the UK and European patents. Let it sit, naively thinking that someone would
want to develop this tech and would be in touch.

About six years ago a large corporation filed a patent that was substantially
identical to mine - they replaced a spiral with a circle, as it's cheaper to
manufacture, which, while covered by my claims, was secondary to the device.
They shortly thereafter took the product to market. They did at least cite me
in prior art.

From what I can gather it wasn't a commercial success, it added too much cost
to the product it enhanced, but even if it had been, my recourse would've been
the square root of fuck all.

So yeah. Patents are for corporations. They're there to stifle innovation and
shut the small guy out.

Which is a shame, as that's literally the exact opposite of their purpose -
they were developed to bring about a system that would release ideas to the
public domain after a set period of benefit for their creator.

My "sit on it" behaviour is admittedly not their purpose, but neither was
their "trample on it".

~~~
Retric
Selling to a patent troll is really the only viable option in that case.

Which really only makes lawyers any money. Which honestly seems to be the main
point of the patent system.

------
danshapiro
Funny to see my old blog post mysteriously resurface on the front page. I
should note that IANAL but have spoken to many lawyers about this post over
the years and am happy to answer any questions I can about it.

~~~
seizethecheese
I'm working on a startup right now that involves hardware. How worried should
I be about existing patents? Thanks!

~~~
danshapiro
My $0.02: If you don't have a lot of money, ignore patents for now, but
realize that as soon as your ideas are public they are internationally
unpatentable.

If you have a little money, file 1-2 key patents on your core ideas.

If you're rolling in money, hire a patent firm to chart the landscape for you
in a way that doesn't expose you to willful infringement.

Note: the entire system is a steaming morass; I try to be pragmatic about it,
but don't disagree with those who want to flip the table and ignore the whole
mess.

~~~
throwawaykf05
_> ... filing a provisional patent starts a 1-year clock where, if you don't
find the money and time to file a real patent, your IP irrevocably enters the
public domain._

IANAL, but I believe this is incorrect. My understanding is that if you don't
follow up with a non-provisional ("real") patent application, the provisionals
don't count as prior art, and in fact might as well not exist. This is because
provisionals are not published and cannot be discovered until the
corresponding non-provisional is published. Would prefer if an actual patent
lawyer could confirm, however.

~~~
danshapiro
You're right, fixed. Thank you. What I was thinking of was this:

1) File provisional

2) Publicly disclose

3) Provisional expires

At this point, your public disclosure counts as prior art.

~~~
ausjke
Isn't provisional also public info that anyone can access?

------
pacaro
Standard advice to engineers:

Don't read patents, you are exposing yourself to triple damages for knowing
infringement.

If you need a patent search done, get someone else to do it

~~~
saganus
Triple damages? as in, if the opposing side can prove that you sometime read
the patent in case, you get punished 3x because it's the same as willfully
violating the patent?

Wow.

~~~
mmagin
I have actually been told by legal people at my employer that if it can be
proven that anyone at the company has read a particular patent, this can
occur. So, yeah, the system is rediculous. But no looking at any patents
related to software for me, I guess.

------
MAGZine
One could reasonably make this same point about EULAs. From time to time, I'll
read the EULA and, no, it doesn't take so long after you skip all of the
"PRODUCT OFFERED WITHOUT WARRANTY," and "COMPANY CORP MAY HEREIN BE REFERRED
TO AS 'WE' OR 'US'".

You just skip to the part about fees, termination policy, what they'll do with
your data, and call it a day.

~~~
petetnt
I just click "Accept" because I am a terrible human being that way. Hasn't
bitten me yet, but I just assume that it could happen any day now. Then again
I think that the ones that could absolutely devastate you wouldn't actually
hold water in court, would they?

------
leni536
Any tipps for searching for patents? Or making sure if a patent exists or not?
For example I would be surprised if the SET card game wasn't patented [1], but
I couldn't find it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_\(game\))

~~~
fncypants
Google has an excellent tool for searching US and international patents at
[https://patents.google.com](https://patents.google.com)

~~~
leni536
I still can't find the SET patent. How do I make 100% sure that it doesn't
exist? Should I skim through all the existing card game patents released in a
plausible time frame or what?

------
Tomte
I've never really understood why people bother with dependent claims when in a
sense only the independent claim counts.

[http://patentlyo.com/patent/2008/05/theory-of-
depen.html](http://patentlyo.com/patent/2008/05/theory-of-depen.html) shows
some reasons, but I don't find them terribly compelling.

Would one of our resident lawyers like to enlighten me? Is it really simply
tactical, and in a perfect world they wouldn't be needed at all?

~~~
danshapiro
IANAL (just the OP) but - imagine you invent a self driving car, and you'd
like to patent it. Your lawyer tells you not to read prior art, because you
don't want to be liable for willful infringement. Also you've been living in a
cave, so you don't really know what prior art there is out there. You write
claims like this:

Independent claim: Self driving car. (You really hope you get this, but it's
so broad, you probably won't).

First dependent claim: The previous claim, where in the self driving mechanism
is an actuator applied to a gas pedal. (Now you're going after the specific
way you accomplished the broad problem - hopefully, even if someone's patented
a self driving car before, they did it some other way, so you can protect your
preferred category of solutions, and force competitors to take a different
approach).

Second dependent claim: the first dependent claim, where the actuator is a
brick. (If all else fails, you've at least protected the precise mechanism
that you used - not enough to keep out a competitor, but at least enough to
preserve your unique solution).

The patent office will often strike the independent claims but leave some
dependent claims around, so you craft them strategically to get at least some
protection.

~~~
Tomte
But if the patent office doesn't accept your independent claim, one of the
dependent claims must become a new independent claim, right?

So it's simply for the process of getting a patent (and some cost issues with
registration)? After the patent has been granted they are truly unnecessary?

~~~
fncypants
You may have come up with what you think is a great new idea and several
variations that are also useful. You claim the broadest one as an independent
claim. And the refinements are dependent claims. The patent office may agree,
and issues all claims.

If, later it turns out the big idea was not new, but the refinements are, then
you may find yourself with an invalid independent claim but valid dependent
claims (which are treated as though they stand on their own). Although you
could have filed the dependent claim as independent just the same, it saves
paper and cognitive time analyzing it, which is a good thing. And for that
reason patent fees are more expensive if you add more independent claims
rather than dependent.

------
simonebrunozzi
I would be even more interested in something like "how do I file a patent".

But anyway, it was a great read.

------
ausjke
I failed to read the claim in 60 seconds for sure, here is a quick demo of the
"independent claim":

" What is claimed is:

1\. A method for using traffic categorization to select use of different
network configurations in a wireless network, the method, comprising:
detecting an activity state of an application on a mobile device which traffic
is originated from or directed to; detecting a time criticality of data
contained in the traffic to be sent between the mobile device and the host
server; determining a timing with which to allow the traffic to pass through
based on the activity state or the time criticality; controlling communication
use on the mobile device based on the timing with which the traffic is allowed
to pass through; and selecting a network configuration for use in sending
traffic between a mobile device and a host server in the wireless network
based on an activity state of an application on the mobile device for which
traffic is directed to or originated from, wherein a network configuration
with a slower data rate is selected when the application is not interacting
with a user.

2\. The method of claim 1, wherein, 3G, LTE, or 4G network is selected for
passing through traffic when the application is active or when the data
contained in the traffic is time critical.

3\. The method of claim 1, wherein, the activity state is determined by
whether the application is in a foreground or background state on the mobile
device.

4\. The method of claim 1, wherein the activity state is determined based on
whether a user is expecting data contained in the traffic directed to the
mobile device.

5\. The method of claim 1, wherein, when the data is not time critical, the
timing with which to allow the traffic to pass through is set based on when
additional data needs to be sent.

6\. The method of claim 1, wherein a network configuration with a slower data
rate is selected when the application is running in the background.

7\. The method of claim 1, wherein a network configuration with a slower data
rate is selection when the data contained in the traffic is not time critical.

8\. A system for categorizing traffic in a wireless network, the system
comprising: means for detecting an activity state of an application on a
mobile device which traffic is originated from or directed to; means for
detecting a time criticality of data contained in the traffic to be sent
between the mobile device and the host server; means for determining a timing
with which to allow the traffic to pass through based on the activity state or
the time criticality; means for controlling radio use on the mobile device
based on the timing with which the traffic is allowed to pass through; and
means for selecting a network configuration in the wireless network for use in
passing traffic to and from the mobile device, wherein a network configuration
with a slower data rate is selected when the application is not interacting
with a user.

9\. The system of claim 8, wherein a 3G, LTE, or 4G network is selected for
passing through traffic when the application is active or when the data
contained in the traffic is time critical.

10\. The system of claim 8, wherein, the activity state is determined by
whether the application is in a foreground or background state on the mobile
device.

11\. The system of claim 8, wherein the activity state is determined based on
whether a user is expecting data contained in the traffic directed to the
mobile device.

12\. The system of claim 8, wherein, when the data is not time critical, the
timing with which to allow the traffic to pass through is set based on when
additional data needs to be sent.

13\. The system of claim 8, wherein a network configuration with a slower data
rate is selected when the application is running in the background.

14\. The system of claim 8, wherein a network configuration with a slower data
rate is selection when the data contained in the traffic is not time critical.

15\. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon
instructions which when executed by a processor causes the processor to
perform a method for using traffic categorization to select use of different
network configurations in a wireless network, the method comprising: detecting
an activity state of an application on a mobile device which traffic is
originated from or directed to; detecting a time criticality of data contained
in the traffic to be sent between the mobile device and the host server;
determining a timing with which to allow the traffic to pass through based on
the activity state or the time criticality; controlling communication use on
the mobile device based on the timing with which the traffic is allowed to
pass through; and selecting a network configuration for use in sending traffic
between a mobile device and a host server in the wireless network based on an
activity state of an application on the mobile device for which traffic is
directed to or originated from, wherein a network configuration with a slower
data rate is selected when the application is not interacting with a user.

16\. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method includes selecting a
3G, LTE, or 4G network for passing through traffic when the application is
active or when the data contained in the traffic is time critical.

17\. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method includes determining
the activity state by whether the application is in a foreground or background
state on the mobile device.

18\. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method includes determining
the activity state based on whether a user is expecting data contained in the
traffic directed to the mobile device.

19\. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method includes setting the
timing, when the data is not time critical, with which to allow the traffic to
pass through is based on when additional data needs to be sent.

20\. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method includes selecting a
network configuration with a slower data rate when the application is running
in the background.

21\. The storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method includes selecting a
network configuration with a slower data rate when the data contained in the
traffic is not time critical. "

~~~
greydius
> A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon
> instructions which when executed by a processor causes the processor to
> perform a method for X

Translation:

> do X, but with a computer

