
Supreme Court Refusal to Hear Investpic Signals Death for Most Software Patents - bryanrasmussen
https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/06/27/supreme-court-refusal-hear-investpic-signals-death-software-patent-applications/id=110755/
======
kevin_b_er
The source is extremely biased toward patent protection. Beyond the pale
biased. ipwatchdog writers believe patents, copyright, trademark, etc, should
be treated like real estate. Afforded the highest ownership protection. By
them, it should last forever, be unassailable, and be inheritable.

Ipwatchdog is a fundamental enemy of the progress of the science and the arts,
as nothing would be left to do without paying some patent or copyright troll.
Doing anything "on the internet" would be patented from old expired patents
with "on the internet" added.

Anything this website says should be taken with a grain of salt at all times.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Yeah, I noticed the rather strong bias. It leaves me a bit unclear on how to
interpret the situation, though. Does this leave software patents as (mostly)
dead as the article says? Or is this just "the sky is falling" rhetoric from
patent maximalists?

------
cellis
The salt in the comments on that site ( by lawyers / patent filers ) reminds
me of comments made by software engineers on more than a few threads here on
HN back in ,say 2011-2014, about the Eastern District of Texas.

~~~
deogeo
The practitioners of a craft celebrating losing patent-protection, while
lawyers mourn it, tells you all you need to know on whether patents on that
craft are beneficial.

------
robomartin
I don't think this is a trivial and non-important problem. It is very likely
that we a might enter an era of billion dollar, years-long investment to
develop truly capable AI software. The fundamental idea behind patent is to
provide inventors with a way to take risks, investing time and money, to
develop innovative solutions to problems and have the opportunity to have a
return on that investment.

That said, I absolutely abhor nonsense patents, of which there are probably
millions at this stage. I don't have a problem with software or the general
case for utility patents. I have a huge problem with the apparent incompetence
of a system that has been granting patents for things that are not even close
to inventions.

One of my favorite examples of this (of the many possible examples) was the
rash of patents granted years ago for the use of PWM to control LED intensity
in order to use multicolor LED's to mix new colors. These patents were nothing
even close to invention. My head exploded when I learned about how this
company, Color Kinetics, had been amassing an inventory of related patents.
They were then going around suing anyone who dared do anything with LED's. The
culmination of this embarrassing episode was that Philips bought them out and
pretty much shelved the patents. The patent office did a ton of damage and
they are never held accountable for any of it.

The other one that truly angers me is a patent (or series of them, I forget)
on a device that uses buttons with pictures to allow people with speech issues
to communicate. Yes, a button with a picture of a dog that when you press it
emits the sound "dog". F'ck me!

I learned about this when I, at the request of a local school, became
interested in authoring a bunch of free iPad apps to help the Special Needs
programs. One of the solutions envisioned was an app with icons the teachers
could load pictures and sound into. Touch the "food" icon and the iPad says
"food". Touch the "bathroom" icon and the device says "bathroom".

Well, our IP search revealed this patent. It also revealed a company (forgot
the name) that was making these physical devices with a bunch of pictorial
buttons on them. They owned the patents. The devices sold for thousands of
dollars each. Thousands. As in $8,000 or thereabouts. This was ridiculous
beyond comprehension. And it was only made possible because they were granted
patents they should not have been able to even file. As a side thought, these
devices were paid for by various insurance, State and federal programs. This
means that they made healthcare that much more expensive for everyone else,
unnecessarily so.

Anyhow, tough topic. It has exactly zero political value. Nobody in government
has any interest in doing the right thing. If it doesn't help them get
reelected they won't bother.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> Anyhow, tough topic. It has exactly zero political value. Nobody in
> government has any interest in doing the right thing. If it doesn't help
> them get reelected they won't bother.

The Supreme Court seems to be bothering...

~~~
robomartin
They should have bothered 50 years ago, before the damage was done.

Also, the US Supreme Court does not have the power to structurally modify the
way the USPTO works and how patents are evaluated.

It stands to reason that the rate of real invention should approach some kind
of an asymptotic limit with time. In other words, real invention is far more
difficult with time...because we have learned so much already.

The example of the LED PWM control patents demonstrates this well. PWM control
of, well, everything, had been known, applied and taught in schools for
decades before these patents were ever penned. Anyone with an electrical
engineering background who read these patent applications would kick the
applicants out the door with a "Nice try! Get the hell out of here!".

Not the USPTO. They took the money and granted several patents. And with that
they caused damage to the industry. The only way further damage to innovation
was prevented was when a mega corporation took these criminals out by paying
them off. That's just terrible. Our patent system should not create such
situations. The damage done to innovation is incalculable.

------
joeblow9999
end of software patents could be nigh? lets hope so

