
Patents are about sharing information – don't shroud them in secrecy - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/patents-are-about-sharing-information-public-dont-shroud-them-secrecy
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mschuetz
I do research in computer science and in the last few years, lots of trivial
and dumb patents in my field appeared out of nowhere. However, I can only
assume that they really are trivial because they are written in a way to claim
a lot without actually describing how any of it works. These patents have 0%
information in them. What's more, they all read like a rewrite of papers that
were published years ago (before the date filed) into lawyer speak with no
amount of information. I have no idea how any of these were ever granted since
there is prior art all over the place.

Edit: Okay to be fair, there is maybe not 0% but 10% information in these
patents, but it's encoded into unintelligible lawyer/patent talk that is not
at all fit to convey technical information. They are written in a way to get a
monoply on results without disclosing how these results are obtained.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
The patents are written with the most broad and generic claims as possible
first. Then the claims are re stated like 3 or 4 times, that would seem
identical, but each re statement of them adds like one or two words of detail
or specifics each time down. (So maybe claim 2 won’t stand up in court, but
claim 23, a derivative of 2, will, the idea that you sue for infringement of
as much as possible) I’ve submitted a patent before, and hardly Understood my
own patent by the time the lawyer was done with it. But after really paying
attention, I guess all the technical details are there. I think larger
companies that aren’t specifically patent trolls patent as much as possible
just for their own defense too.

~~~
nitwit005
I read the patents that teammates filed. The lawyers were supposed to talk to
the engineer to get the idea before filing, but I got the impression that
process didn't always work, and they wrote something nonsensical.

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xg15
> _A 2012 study found that notorious patent troll Intellectual Ventures
> divides its portfolio among over 1000 different shell companies._

Someone, somewhere must have written the "SELECT shell_company_id ..." query
that ensures the correct company is put on the litigation letter.

If you ever find yourself in that situation, stop and think for a second about
what you are doing.

~~~
AlanSE
Don't know where you're going with this, but my brain assumes that it is a new
patent for a method of managing shell companies to enforce patents.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
Prior art:
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070244837)

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Myrmornis
(patent application) = (original science/engineering document) + (lawyer)

In my experience, the (lawyer) part of this fucks the document up so much that
it's too depressing to contemplate, and I just let whatever meaningless
bastardization of the original go the patent office.

~~~
rolltiide
Patent troll efficiency is a byproduct of how much it sucks to enforce a
patent

These are pure evolutionary pressures from rational entrepreneurs that are
subject and victim to this IP system

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aloknnikhil
I really like [https://www.tdcommons.org/](https://www.tdcommons.org/) as an
alternative. Any idea can be published as a free for all disclosure.
Additionally, it establishes prior art and prevents anyone else from patenting
that idea and claiming royalty in the future.

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zzo38computer
I think patents should be abolished. They can either publish it, or keep it
secret and eventually someone else will figure out and publish it.

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ilaksh
[http://endsoftpatents.org/](http://endsoftpatents.org/)

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buyingarmor
People usually think of incentivizing R&D in general, but patents also help to
prevent trade secrets.

A trade secret can be kept secret indefinitely and can potentially be lost if
the company loses interest or is shut down. Patents help encourage publishing
advances in technology so that they eventually advance the public domain. If
they weren't interested in that then they probably wouldn't make patents
expire.

~~~
bnjms
Can you give an example of something today’s scientists and engineers could
not reverse engineer or make from scratch given a working implementation?
Espionage and industry standard will get at most of it too. I don’t know trade
secrets are the problem they used to be.

I’ll give you moon rockets and the pyramids.

~~~
saagarjha
DRM software?

~~~
Filligree
The same software that is regularly reverse-engineered and made useless within
six months of release?

~~~
saagarjha
Illegally, unfortunately :/

~~~
Avamander
Just say you did the research in Estonia. Reverse engineering for the purpose
of compatibility with other software is techically always allowed.

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echelon
Can someone on HN recommend a patent attorney that works with early stage
startups? I'm self-funded and want to protect the novel work I've done in the
signal processing domain from being copied by a big player with deeper
pockets. If I don't protect myself a team of domain expert engineers could
duplicate my work.

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shadowgovt
That's certainly the goal.

The implementation of the goal is a hot mess. Because punitive damage is a
thing, anytime working for some other form is generally discouraged from even
reading them, lest the owner can prove willful infringement.

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amelius
> In exchange for the right to sue others to stop using the invention, patent
> applicants have to disclose enough information about their invention to
> allow others in the field to make and use it.

This seems unnecessarily stiffling. Can't we change this so that anyone can
still use the patented tech, but at a reasonable price?

~~~
OmarShehata
This is already how it works. A patent holder can license the right to use the
invention for a fee. You can't have the right to charge for something without
the legal right to prevent someone from using that thing without paying you.

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OrgNet
what about top-secret patents? (aka: inventions too good to be shared)

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paul7986
Unless you have a war chest behind you getting a patent is a huge gamble
especially when your invention becomes successful. When it does those with a
war chest jump in and use the PTAB to invalid your patent. You can even hear
judges on Shark Tank like Damon John say/ponder on the show is a patent worth
getting as he notes the PTAB issue.

Further, Google and it's ilk changed the game in their favor when they lined
the pockets of congressmen/women to change the law from first to invent(those
with money) to first to file(the true inventors with little resources/power).

~~~
levythe
When did it change to first to file?

~~~
80mph
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy%E2%80%93Smith_America_In...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy%E2%80%93Smith_America_Invents_Act)

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gohbgl
Patents are primarily about getting a limited time monopoly. Publicly
disclosing the invention is just a direct consequence and not a virtue of the
patent system. So please stop marketing it like that. In many cases it is
completely irrelevant because the invention is sold and can be reverse
engineered.

Also: > Encouraging people to share information so that others can use it to
make further advances is the whole point of the patent system.

This is meant as a joke, right? Is locking down a field of engineering for 20
years promoting further progress? Maybe it promotes the invention of sub-
optimal solutions to work around the patent but that's about it. The latest
example I can think of is all-in-one liquid cooling designs:
[https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3517-swiftech-h360x3-d...](https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3517-swiftech-h360x3-drive-
review-benchmark)

~~~
SeanLuke
> Patents are primarily about getting a limited time monopoly.

Nope. Patents have always been about encouraging public disclosure of secrets.
This has been the case since they were invented by the Venetians in order to
break trade guilds and their literal on-pain-of-death secret maintenance.

The idea was to offer the secret-holder a deal: if you reveal your secret, you
get a significant but temporary government-enforced monopoly on use of that
secret. If you don't reveal your secret, then you'll just have to hope it
doesn't get leaked.

The monopoly is the _tool_ of patent law. But the _purpose_ of patent law is
disclosure of information.

~~~
philipkglass
_Patents have always been about encouraging public disclosure of secrets. ...
The monopoly is the tool of patent law. But the purpose of patent law is
disclosure of information._

I like that formulation. But in that case we shouldn't be granting patents on
things that can be immediately (or even within 5 years) reverse engineered
from working examples.

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
I genuinely like that idea. We should change the patent approval process work
like an episode of penn&teller's "Fool Us", where the patent office has to
guess what your patent is, before reviewing it. If the patent office is right,
rejection; wrong, approval. We could televise it and subsidise the whole thing
with advertising revenue. This is not a joke.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Are you suggesting you have to make an example, so if I design a new rocket
engine I have to have 10s of millions of $$$ to spend on making one before
you'll give me a patent, and then you might decide it was obvious? And I have
to disclose it in public prior to getting protection?

Are you sure that's not a joke.

