
Chinese government reveals Microsoft’s secret list of Android-killer patents - conductor
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/chinese-govt-reveals-microsofts-secret-list-of-android-killer-patents
======
throwawaykf05
_> Patents today are written in legalese that can only be interpreted by a
select tribe of professionals, and Microsoft benefits by keeping lists like
this secret._

This is like a blub programmer complaining about lisp being unreadable. I am
no attorney or patent agent, let alone part of a "select tribe of
professionals", just a typical software geek. Yet I can read patents pretty
easily. Took me some practice to get the hang of it, but I needed absolutely
no training for it, and neither do you!

Of course, if it's a legal matter (you're being sued), you need a lawyer. But
if you just want to evaluate the technical merits of a patent, you can
interpret the claims yourselves. All you have to realize is that patentese is
just a particular form of English -- English that has to be overly specific
(e.g. avoid pronouns) while at the same time trying to be as broad as
possible, but English nonetheless. And you usually only need to read the
independent claims (those that don't reference other claims) get a sense of
the scope, as those are the broadest ones.

For instance, look at the claims conveniently posted at the top of the thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7901544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7901544)

I really cannot see what's so complicated about those. They seem a bit vague
(e.g. what's an "entity"?) but applying the common meaning of the terms
involved (e.g. maybe "entity" as in "person, place or thing") reveals a pretty
straightforward description. It's nowhere near groundbreaking, but popular
narrative of lightbulbs and flying machines notwithstanding, patents rarely
are.

------
whoopdedo
Should patents change to a use-it-or-lose-it system much like trademarks? If
you're aware of someone using one of your patents but don't do anything to
control it, you're implicitly ceding future rights to that invention.

~~~
danudey
Make patents non-transferrable.

~~~
moron4hire
That would harm small inventors more than large corporations. A small inventor
working out of her garage would be nearly incapable of capitalizing fully on a
patent any sort of for a big-market consumer product. Being able to transfer
patents allows the inventor to sell their rights and obtain some degree of
compensation despite lacking production capacity.

The idea is just the idea. It's execution that matters.

~~~
rbanffy
Not necessarily. It would create a market for patent litigation as a service,
where the patent still belongs to the inventor, but the litigations are
managed by one or more third parties.

------
chillingeffect
Serious question here, but what is meant by "secret"? The patent database is
public and after clicking through three listed patents, I see it quite clearly
indicated that the Original Assignee is Microsoft.

Also, in the linked article by Brad Smith, uSoft wrote: We pledge that by
April 1 of this year, we will publish on the web information that enables
anyone to determine which patents we own.

How was it impossible to determine prior to April 1st? Did they update the
patent database or something?

Thank you.

~~~
nitrogen
The secret was _which ~300_ of Microsoft and Rockstar's thousands of patents
were part of the Android licensing scheme, not that they were actually owned
by Microsoft.

~~~
kevingadd
I don't really understand why Microsoft is expected or obligated to produce
that list for the public. Calling it 'secret' seems a bit ridiculous in this
scenario. The patents aren't 'secret'; the information was already out in the
open. The 'secret' is a 'trade secret', that is, which patents they personally
believe to be most important. It's quite possible that they have other patents
in their arsenal that ALSO apply to Android, and any vendor that intentionally
works around these ~300 patents will still get a patent suit.

If you really wanted to be safe from Microsoft _and_ not pay them licensing
fees, you could have paid some professionals to review their patent holdings
for you, and identify any patents that could potentially be asserted against
your smartphones. This list is essentially the result of Microsoft doing that.

~~~
nitrogen
_I don 't really understand why Microsoft is expected or obligated to produce
that list for the public._

Because it's impossible for any small player to know if they're following the
law if they don't know what the law is. In effect, undisclosed patents are
like a law that someone says they know you are breaking, but they won't tell
you why unless you agree not to tell the next guy. That's no way to run a
society.

~~~
wfjackson
>In effect, undisclosed patents are like a law that someone says they know you
are breaking, but they won't tell you why unless you agree not to tell the
next guy. That's no way to run a society.

Undisclosed patents? That's quite an oxymoron. "patent" literally means out in
the open. There are no undisclosed patents here. Even patent applications are
public.

~~~
nitrogen
_Undisclosed patents? That 's quite an oxymoron._

It should be perfectly clear from context that I am referring to specific
patents that are used as a threat against competitors, without the specific
patent numbers being revealed. No amount of searching the patent database will
tell you conclusively which patents those are.

~~~
wfjackson
>It should be perfectly clear from context that I am referring to specific
patents that are used as a threat against competitors, without the specific
patent numbers being revealed

Aren't they being revealed to the competitors that are being approached for
licensing? Are you implying that, for example, Acer doesn't know which patents
it bought a license to?

Also, this list is essentially the top ~300 patents that MS thinks Android
infringes on. There's absolutely no guarantee that other patents don't apply
now or in the future so the utility of the list is kind of low.

~~~
nitrogen
These _are_ the patents that Microsoft is using to extract licenses from
Android manufacturers, so the utility of the list is not zero. 1. It allows
well funded competitors to know which patents to attack at the patent office,
and 2. It allows poorly funded competitors to avoid those specific patents,
and the fact that Microsoft is satisfied by licensing those specific patents
to other competitors should provide some small consolation if Microsoft
decides to bring out another patent.

------
kitsune_
Seriously, does any programmer have the time to decipher byzantine shit like
this before writing a new feature? "Custom local search", US 8255379 B2

> CLAIMS(20) A method comprising: receiving a query that is configured by an
> issuer of the query to perform a local search, wherein the local search is
> performed over a first dataset and a second data set, wherein the first
> dataset comprises a first entity and the second dataset comprises a second
> entity, and wherein the query comprises a first token and a second token;
> parsing the query such that the first token of the query is mapped to the
> first entity in the first dataset and the second token of the query is
> mapped to the second entity in the second dataset; and returning search
> results based at least in part upon the parsing of the query, wherein the
> method is executed by a processor of a computing device. 2\. The method of
> claim 1, wherein the first dataset is a custom dataset, wherein the custom
> dataset comprises a plurality of entities generated by an end user, and
> wherein the plurality of entities comprise attributes that describe the
> plurality of entities and shapes pertaining to the plurality of entities.
> 3\. The method of claim 2, wherein the second dataset comprises street-level
> vector data. 4\. The method of claim 3, wherein parsing the query comprises
> determining an approximate geographic region pertaining to the query. 5\.
> The method of claim 4, further comprising determining the approximate
> geographic region pertaining to the query based at least in part upon
> mapping the second token of the query to the second entity in the dataset.
> 6\. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the query comprises identifying
> which words and phrases in the query correspond to attributes in the first
> dataset and the second dataset. 7\. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing
> the query comprises generating a plurality of different partial
> interpretations of the query. 8\. The method of claim 7, wherein each
> partial interpretation in the plurality of partial interpretations comprises
> a set of mappings between tokens in the query to attributes in the first
> dataset and the second dataset and an approximate region of interest
> pertaining to the query. 9\. The method of claim 8, further comprising
> refining at least one partial interpretation, wherein the at least one
> partial interpretation is refined by way of spatial processing. 10\. The
> method of claim 9, wherein the at least one partial interpretation is
> refined by determining that an entity in the first dataset spatially
> corresponds with a region of interest pertaining to the query. 11\. The
> method of claim 10, wherein the region of interest is altered based at least
> in part upon a geographic overlap of a previous region of interest and an
> entity. 12\. The method of claim 1, wherein the query is received in a first
> language, and further comprising translating at least a portion of the query
> to a second language. 13\. The method of claim 1, wherein the query is a
> free-form text query that comprises misspelled terms, erroneous terms, out
> of order terms, or valid but wrong terms. 14\. A system that facilitates
> custom local search, the system comprising: a processor; and a memory that
> comprises a plurality of components that are executed by the processor, the
> plurality of components comprising: a receiver component that receives a
> query from a user, wherein the query comprises a plurality of tokens,
> wherein the query is configured to retrieve custom content with respect to a
> particular geographic region, and wherein the query comprises a first token
> and a second token; and an interpreter component that parses the query such
> that the first token is mapped to a first entity in a first dataset and the
> second token is mapped to a second entity in a second dataset, wherein the
> first dataset is a custom dataset that comprises custom data provided by an
> end user and the second dataset is a contextual dataset that comprises
> street-level geographic data. 15\. The system of claim 14, wherein the first
> entity comprises a shape that describes a geographic region pertaining to
> the first entity, an attribute that describes the first entity, and a unique
> identifier that identifies the entity. 16\. The system of claim 14, wherein
> the query comprises at least one token that is indicative of a custom
> dataset amongst a plurality of custom datasets to which the query pertains,
> free-form text, and at least one token that is indicative of geographic
> scope pertaining to the query. 17\. The system of claim 14, wherein the
> interpreter component comprises a query interpreter component that outputs
> multiple partial interpretations of the query, wherein each partial
> interpretation comprises a list of mappings between subsequences of tokens
> of the query and sets of entities in the custom dataset and the contextual
> dataset and an approximate region of interest pertaining to the partial
> query interpretation. 18\. The system of claim 17, wherein the interpreter
> component further comprises a refinement component that refines at least one
> of the partial interpretations, wherein the refinement component modifies
> the approximate region of interest pertaining to the partial query
> interpretation when refining the at least one of the partial
> interpretations. 19\. The system of claim 18, wherein the interpreter
> component further comprises a ranker component that ranks refined partial
> interpretations. 20\. A computer-readable data storage device comprising
> instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to
> perform acts comprising: receiving a query, wherein the query comprises a
> plurality of tokens, wherein the query is configured to execute over one or
> more custom datasets and one or more contextual datasets; generating a
> partial interpretation of the query, wherein generating the partial
> interpretation of the query comprises mapping a first subsequence of the
> tokens to a first attribute in the custom dataset and mapping a second
> subsequence of the tokens to a second attribute in the contextual dataset;
> refining the partial interpretation of the query to generate a refined
> interpretation, wherein refining the partial interpretation comprises
> mapping a first entity in the custom dataset that has the first attribute to
> the first subsequence of the tokens and mapping a second entity in the
> contextual dataset that has the second attribute to the second subsequence
> of tokens; and causing graphical items representative of the first entity
> and the second entity to be displayed on a display screen of a computing
> device.

There should be a non-profit organization that files arbitrary new patents
preemptively on behalf of the public and then release them into the public
domain.

~~~
ww520
The patent language is not too bad. Defeating a patent is not too hard. There
are specific terms and patterns to the language, just like a programming
language. It's often quite logical. It's just like reading another programming
language.

A claim is just a list of "AND" conditions, i.e. all the conditions must be
met for the claim to be asserted. To defeat a patent claim, it's a matter of
adding enough variance in your code to defeat ONE of the conditions.

I will demonstrate the decrypting of claim 1. The other claims are just
dependent claims of 1 to make the whole thing looks meatier. If claim 1 is
defeated, all other claims are irrelevant.

Claim 1 basically saying a user issues a query with two parameters on two
tables to do search in a program in the local machine, with the following
conditions:

1a. the query runs against two data sets, Table1 and Table2.

1b. Table1 has one type of data, e.g. Food. Table2 has another type of data,
e.g. Drink.

1c. the query has two parameters: param1, param2. E.g. FoodEaten and
DrinkConsumed

1d. parse the query to use Param1 against Table1, and to use Param2 against
Table2. E.g. select * from Food where food_type=:FoodEaten union select * from
Drink where drink_type=:DrinkConsumed

1e. the query result should based on the parsing of the query and the mapping
of parameters to the tables. The result should relate to the parameters in the
query.

1f. the whole procedure is run by a process in a computer.

See, it's not too bad once you break it down. The claim conditions are kind of
BS individually. The basic idea of the patenting process is to string together
a number of day-to-day common items and make the whole thing as patentable.

To defeat claim 1, just make one of the conditions false. The easiest is to
attack 1c, which uses the phrase "comprises a first token and a second token,"
which means the query contains exactly two tokens as parameters. Just add a
dummy parameter to all 2-parameter query to fail that condition.

Attacking 1a with more than 2 tables query also works.

Also breaking a 2-table query into two separate queries works, too.

Since claim 1 is gone, all other dependent claims are irrelevant.

Disclaimer: the above are purely for educational purpose only and are not
considered as legal advice. Consult a lawyer for real legal advice.

~~~
quickaccount
"Comprises" is a term that has a specific usage in patents. Comprises means
that at least all of the listed elements must exist but other elements that
are not mentioned in the claim may also be present.

The alternative phrase is "consists of" which means that only the listed
elements may be present. I think it's mostly used when claiming chemical or
molecular formulas.

~~~
gloriousDetails
I am not a native speaker of English. In [http://www.grammar-
monster.com/easily_confused/comprise_comp...](http://www.grammar-
monster.com/easily_confused/comprise_compose.htm) the difference is:

Make sure you name all the constituent parts when using comprise or compose.
The word to use when other elements are may also be present is include.

The elements one, two, and three composed the set {1,2,3}. The set {1,2,3} is
comprised of three elements. The set {1,2,3,4} includes the elements one, two
and three.

~~~
gloriousDetails
In
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/include](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/include)
all this is clarified, the botton line or golden rule of usage (edited).

    
    
      Some writers insist that include be used only when it is followed by a partial list of the contend of the reference of the subject. This restriction is too strong. The use of comprise or consist of  will avoid ambiguity when a listing is meant to be exhaustive.

~~~
quickaccount
I agree that it's the opposite of standard usage but that's how it's
interpreted in patent language. Here's a quote straight from the USPTO
website:

"The transitional term “comprising”, which is synonymous with “including,”
“containing,” or “characterized by,” is inclusive or open-ended and does not
exclude additional, unrecited elements or method steps."
[http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2111.html](http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2111.html)

There are other non-standard interpretations in patent language. For example,
"a" or "an" is not necessarily a singular but can mean "one or more". Also the
inventor is free to provide their own definitions for words they use in the
patent specification.

------
rmrfrmrf
There has to be some kind of middle ground here. On one hand, I'm very
surprised that Google doesn't pay a license fee to Microsoft for Exchange
ActiveSync. I assumed all phone makers with Exchange support had licensing
deals with Microsoft. On the other hand, patents for things like a loading bar
in the corner of a web browser are absolutely ridiculous.

------
rayiner
It's interesting the Rockstar thing doesn't get more coverage on HN. My old
company had Nortel as a customer. It was a tremendously inventive, if
management-challenged, organization. I remember thinking when it was
liquidated what was going to happen to what I was sure was a very deep patent
portfolio.

~~~
tptacek
The offices at Nortel (and Qualcomm, too) are lined with patent plaques; they
covered every wall I saw. It was definitely a patent culture.

------
yuhong
I have these two links, the second link has my wishlist for Satya and Android
patents is on it:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7281319)

[http://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-
leadership/...](http://hal2020.com/2014/03/03/satya-shuffles-his-
leadership/#comment-14856)

------
krfsm
Given that it's been a mystery which patents Android might be infringing, what
is the likelihood that those patents fill their original purpose of promoting
progress? (Beyond the effects obtained by simply implementing them and selling
the product.)

------
natch
It's gone. HN needs a caching system.

