
Bradley Kuhn: I Think I Just Got Patented - yungchin
http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/02/02/took-our-jobs.html
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jacquesm
That's why we _really_ need to make a stand against software patents.

Waiting until you are personally inconvenienced is the patent equivalent of
going through the sequence that ends on 'and when they came for me there was
nobody left to stand up for me'.

Software patents are bad, period.

The very few cases where there was merit to a software patent are outweighed
massively by the downsides.

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FahnRobier
IANAL, but it looks like he might have a case for prior art, if he published
his methods prior to patent being issued.

<http://www.ipwatchdog.com/inventing/prior-art/>

Still, this puts the burden of proof on the person claiming prior art. I'd
like to see a reform of patent law that would make the infringing patent
holder responsible for the legal fees for proving the prior art, if it's
valid.

That would:

1\. Force the potential infringer to do a more rigorous search prior to filing
the patent.

2\. Gives the person with prior art a little more leverage in negotiations.

Am I misguided?

~~~
eru
Does the author live in the US? As far as I know e.g. European patent law does
require not only prior art but also prior publication.

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gridspy
Who is going to publish something that they consider obvious?

~~~
eru
An example: Page numbers are considered obvious nowadays, but they are still
in a lot of published works.

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gridspy
Can you name a recent published work wherein the subject is page numbering?

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eru
Does this matter?

Any book will serve as published prior art against a patent on page numbering.
It does not have to be the main subject.

~~~
gridspy
My point is that there are many small problems which we solve as engineers
every day that are too trivial to publish in a paper.

It is all well and good until some moron (genius?) comes along and patents
these simple ideas.

~~~
eru
Just push your source out in the open. Then you will have published every
small idea that's in your code.

~~~
eru
Publishing your stuff in an academic paper is not necessary for these
purposes.

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icey
So, let's pretend that Bob the developer has some magic piece of software that
does something that nobody else has figured out how to do yet (my verbiage may
be incorrect, let's assume that this meets the criteria for a patentable
work).

Bob hasn't released this software to the world yet, because he's working on
other parts of a larger system.

In this scenario, should Bob consider filing a patent in order to protect his
invention (assuming it would get discovered eventually), or is there some way
for him to file a record of what his method does so that he doesn't have to
worry about someone coming to patent what he's doing out from under him?

(I'm not at all versed in patent law, so I apologize if the answers to this
are obvious)

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aaronblohowiak
There's nothing you can do to prevent someone coming after you. You can only
protect yourself if you plan to have the means to actually fight the case.
This is one of those areas where an accusation and intent to pursue a fight
from a "big dog" can be bad enough to crush the "little guy".

~~~
icey
Sorry, my point was whether or not Bob should go file for a patent himself.

I get why people call software patents evil, but they seem kind of necessary
to protect against bigger companies (at least until the patent system is
'fixed').

~~~
DougBTX
Sure, go for the patent.

The problem is litigating the twenty or so patents any large company can pull
out of the bag, which, if you squint at the blurry lines, might overlap with
what you are working on.

Basically, yes, having a patent yourself would be a great help, but it doesn't
solve the problem when people are getting patents on what amounts to standard
practice.

