
Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet - nh
http://www.google.com/patents/US8296192
======
jivatmanx
"A man has a right to use a saw, an axe, a plane, separately; may he not
combine their uses on the same piece of wood? He has a right to use his knife
to cut his meat, a fork to hold it; may a patentee take from him the right to
combine their use on the same subject? Such a law, instead of enlarging our
conveniences, as was intended, would most fearfully abridge them, and crowd us
by monopolies out of the use of the things we have."

\- Letter to Oliver Evans, (16 January 1814); published in The Writings of
Thomas Jefferson (1905) Vol. 13, p. 66.

~~~
kn0thing
In researching my forthcoming book, Without Their Permission, I found a great
letter from Jefferson that went so far as to consider putting limits in the
Bill of Rights: "Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own
productions in literature and their own inventions in the arts for a term not
exceeding__years but for no longer term and no other purpose."

Letter to James Madison, August 28, 1789
[http://www.founding.com/founders_library/pageID.2184/default...](http://www.founding.com/founders_library/pageID.2184/default.asp)

~~~
gcb0
Those letters are quaint and all, but unless ratified in laws are off topic.

~~~
abrichr
I disagree. As per the HN Guidelines [1]:

> On-Topic: ... anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

[1]
[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
philsmith35
I think he meant off-topic in a legal discussion because they are merely a
lawmakers opinions and not actually law.

------
michaelolenick
If these weren't depressing they'd be funny. For those who don't know the
patent & trademark office (PTO) defines "obvious" as described in a prior
patent or, sometimes, an academic paper. Even if everybody in the field has
been doing the same thing for years it isn't "non obvious" unless somebody
wrote to the PTO about it. But since it's obvious in reality those nobody
except crooks bother to.

The whole system is rigged in favor of "people" who write up patentable junk
-- those who have the time to write it into patents -- whereas people who
actually build things are busy perfecting the trade skills the patent system
was made to protect.

OK - tirade over. Back to my new app. My wife dreamed it up and we're writing
it together. When finished and released, if it does well, some fat slob -- who
never wrote or programmed anything useful in his life -- will show up to shake
us down.

~~~
axman6
That's not at all how the prior art base of the USPTO, nor any other patent
office, is defined. The problem is that these are the most easily searchable
bases of prior art because their fields necessitate it: academics are required
to find everything piece of related are on what they're researching when
producing works like a PhD thesis, and as such huge databases of academic work
exist which are easily searchable; patents in the US are also required to
disclose all know prior art (I believe, US patent law isn't where my
experience comes from), and as such, the larger patent offices (the European
and US particularly) have had to develop tools for effectively searching
patents. Patents are also usually a good source for prior art because they
like to disclose things as broadly as possible so they can claim as broadly as
they're allowed. If you find a document which describes something within the
scope of the claim you're looking at, then you've got a great novelty
citation.

The reason sometimes known things are allowed through is because the patent
offices can find no proof that it is well known in the form of a single
document before something can be called not novel. In some other
juristrictions, common general knowledge in the art is more often used when
it's known that something is already routine. even if there's nothing that
clearly shows is, simply because it's so common.

~~~
rlpb
> That's not at all how the prior art base of the USPTO, nor any other patent
> office, is defined.

Prior art isn't the issue.

To be patentable, an invention has to be: 1) non-obvious (to someone skilled
in the art); 2) novel; 3) (other things).

Prior art addresses the novelty side of things. Not the non-obviousness side.

The requirement of non-obviousness sounds great in theory, but is in reality a
joke, since the only test used is that of prior art.

It is possible for an invention to be obvious and yet for no prior art to
exist. In technology one (non-obvious, novel, patentable) invention often
enables a big pile of (novel but now obvious, and therefore not patentable)
inventions. Using prior art as the only test for obviousness ignores this case
entirely.

~~~
michaelolenick
Yes - this is what I meant, though I think it's also what I wrote. It's not
prior art; it's obviousness, and the USPTO defines non-obvious as published,
co-mingling the two. So we see lots of patents for obvious tweaks from one
platform to another. For example, the same functionality ported from local
computer programs to web-based systems, client-server architecture, and now
mobile all seems to qualify as non-obvious. In reality these ports are
entirely obvious to anybody who understands that the underlying tech is
basically the same.

~~~
axman6
I would strongly dispute this, and ask that you provide some proof that this
happens. Examiners are quite well versed in their technology areas, and can
see when a known idea has just been tweeked.

------
michaelhoffman
This is another example of a patent with a specific scope being given an
incredibly broad title.

This patent is actually on selling web site commenters the ability to have
their comment appear in some kind of distinctive format, which might be a
different font, or it might be appearing before the other comments.

~~~
charonn0
Still doesn't seem like a very novel idea worthy of a patent.

~~~
gcb0
It's not. Prior art is newspaper advertisement. You can't patent something as
new just because it's done with a computer, as everyone knows.

I bet this will be invalidated as soon as someone tries to enforce it. Easily.

But this viral market attempt suggest they will try to get money from some
sucker troll before, which I'm all for.

~~~
axman6
This is not equivalent to a newspaper advertisment because a newspaper isn't
online content (though it's close enough that an argument could be made on the
_inventive step_ ). However, there is definitely potential that this is novel.

I was going to say that there is also no method of changing a user comment on
a newspaper after it has been created, but on a second inspection of the
claim, there's no requirement for this within the claim. And based on that, I
think you may well be right that there is a good chance of invalidation,
because the system boils down to a system where one can place advertisments on
specific parts of a piece of online content and being able to pay more for a
better looking ad.

------
smartician
What I find confusing: This is not a technical invention. It's not a device or
process. And where is the "inventive step"?

It's a monetization strategy, and not a particularly clever one at that. Since
when is the idea of charging money for something a patentable invention?
Absurd.

------
md224
Interesting how much of the commentary here is on the patent being silly,
rather than the implications of the monetization technique that the patent
describes. We are allowing people to pay a fee to have their expression
privileged over others. We are monetizing the salience of information, a
betrayal of the very spirit of the Internet (or, at the least, the techno-
utopian ideal of the Internet).

So yeah, patents are silly. But perhaps what's in the patent is equally
troubling.

~~~
dangrossman
If you're troubled by the idea of some private website ranking comments by
payment, something they can do whether this patent exists or not, you should
be happy that patenting one process for doing so makes it more
(difficult|expensive) for future sites to do that.

------
sergiotapia
Question: If I build a start up here in Bolivia, it gets big among
Latinamerican users - can I take a huge giant shit on the US patent system? Or
does the patent system apply if my website application code is hosted on US
servers?

~~~
ricardobeat
From what I learned from a WIPO course a decade ago, every country that signed
the Paris Convention[1] (like the Berne Convention, but for patents) must
treat patents filed in another signing country as valid in their own.

    
    
        when an applicant files an application for a patent or a trademark
        in a foreign country [...] the owner benefits from the same protection
        and the same legal remedy against any infringement as if the owner was
        a national owner of this right
    

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Convention_for_the_Prote...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Industrial_Property)

~~~
axman6
The PCT relates mostly to claims for priority of patents, so if a document is
files in say the US, the applicant may then later (within a specified time
period) file an application in another PCT country and claim the same priority
date as the US application (ie, the date of filing). All patents are
applicable within a single nation only, so just because company X has patent Y
in country Z down not mean you can't use the invention in country W unless X
has a patent to the same invention in country W as well. However, if they've
filed using the PCT they will by default designate they wish for all member
countries to examine the patent, so until that patent has lapsed in each
country, there is a possibility that the inventor may persue protection and
you may then be infringing that patent. Fun stuff.

------
linuxhansl
I should get a patent on "making money by asserting patents". Then I would
only grant myself a license and hence have the only patent left that can make
money.

Seriously. The way out is a blanket "No software patents" statement from
congress; or along the line of what Twitter is doing where all inventors have
to agree if their patent is used offensively (although lawyers at my company
tell me that such a restriction actually has no legal standing).

~~~
drivingmenuts
Too late
([https://www.google.com/patents/WO2004095226A2?cl=en&dq=%22pa...](https://www.google.com/patents/WO2004095226A2?cl=en&dq=%22patent+assertion%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Z5f1UZ2VCIv09gTJjIHYCg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA)).
Dude beat you to it by several years.

~~~
robryan
They should start using that against patent trolls.

~~~
em70
What if they acquired a license? We would have come full circle, proving the
idiocy of this system and, implicitly, that the intelligence of those who
administer it is quite limited at best.

------
sytelus
Couple of years back I'd proposed a cure for patent trolls: Large tech
companies form a non-profit group and preemptively attack patent portfolio of
companies that they mutually agree to be trolls. The entire business model of
trolls hang on a fact that they will be the first attacker so their litigation
expenses are small. If a patent troll gets spammed with 100s of lawsuits for
bad patent grants at the same time, they will go out of business just from the
expense of litigation or at least trolling would not be as much lucrative.
Obviously this plan has its own risk: this non-profit group can start
attacking legitimate patent holders to keep them out of the game. But even
bigger issue is that lot of large companies are already in bed with largest
trolls themselves such as IV. I don't see other great ways to curb trolling.
The effort like Ask Patent can prevent some bad future patents but it would be
very hard to get law in place that cancels bad patents that have already been
granted.

~~~
smartician
Part of the definition of "patent troll" is that the troll undertakes no
economic activity other than launching lawsuits. Therefore, a troll cannot be
sued preemptively.

~~~
sytelus
One can certainly file preemptive law suits to seek declaratory judgement that
any granted patents are invalid and/or unenforceable. This had been done by
some companies who felt there was risk to their business from certain patent
owners.

A troll typically holds 100s of patents and always on look out for opportunity
to cash them out. If they are preemtively slammed with 100s of lawsuits for
each patent they hold, their legal resources would be overwhelmed without
possibility of huge rewards. It would be hard to imagine that they would be
able to keep shop open for long time when everybody is attacking them for no
apparent reason.

------
andrew_k
For me the most interesting part in this patent was a "PATENT CITATIONS"
section. Most of the patents in this section are quite obvious as well. Like
Amazon's "Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications
network" basically describes every E-Commerce site on the internet.

------
t0
I'm confused about how something like this actually affects us in the startup
world. Should I stop trying to innovate because everything I could possibly
think of is already patented.. or simply disregard the existence of these
patents?

~~~
sillysaurus
Disregard, then fight it later if you grow big enough to matter.

That said, it can seriously screw you over if you get unlucky:
[http://www.k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/](http://www.k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/)

~~~
walden42
> Apparently a corporation can only be represented by an attorney in a
> litigation and cannot be represented by the founders or officers

Stuff like that is enraging. Free country, huh? You're not even allowed to
represent yourself.

~~~
stan_rogers
No, you're not allowed to represent _the corporation_ , which is a separate
and legally distinct entity from yourself. Since the corporation is a legal
person, but cannot represent itself (not being an _natural_ person, it cannot
operate _pro se_ ), it must be represented by an attorney. That, then, brings
in regulations on who may act as attorney (which is not always synonymous with
lawyer or barrister) in litigation in a given jurisdiction. If you wish to
represent yourself, then you need to be personally party to the litigation,
which is what the legal personhood of the corporation protects you from (to a
degree).

------
area51org
Sometimes I think that obviously ridiculous patents like this are a good
thing. They're so absurd that they're nearly satire, and satire is often an
excellent critical weapon. How out-of-control does the system get before
judges and lawmakers clearly see that it's not operating as intended? Not much
further.

------
jroseattle
This is hilarious, actually. I like that the same guy also has pending action
on the lucrative "methods for making slip resistant file folders" market.

[https://www.google.com/patents/US20120217211](https://www.google.com/patents/US20120217211)

------
codeboost
So they are patenting the 'just my 2 cents' ?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_two_cents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_two_cents)

Although I didn't properly RTFA, there are may ways in which one can hook
narcissistic gamblers in forums or news sites. The price of the comment can be
set in a bid-like fashion with people raising their bids and paying more and
more to keep their comment first. They can also pay to upvote or downvote
comments or plain remove them. You can have comment wars with real money in no
time :).

Bitcoin sounds like a perfect fit for such a system, allowing anonymous
comments as well. But haven't I seen something like this somewhere already -
reddit tips , for instance ?

------
dutchbrit
Google his name...
[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=pts&ei=HaH1UffJBMqf0Q...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=pts&ei=HaH1UffJBMqf0QXJ94GIBg&q=Roddy+McKee+Bullock&oq=Roddy+McKee+Bullock)

------
rotskoff
The title is obviously overreaching, but the content of the patent seems to be
extremely broad, as well. I won't claim to have read more than the brief
description, but it appears that this patents paid, user-specific formatting
for any type of web content.

------
forman00
FYI, if you want to learn more about a specific patent, you can read the
examiner's reasons for allowance at the public pair website
([http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair](http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair))

Looking at that site, the reasons for allowance are the claimed features of:

"...displaying to a reader, who can leave a reader comment in response to said
online information, an offer associated with said online information, said
offer being an offer to alter a reader comment from said free default format
to a distinctive format for a fee"

*with a priority date of 6/6/2009

------
danmaz74
So, the incredibly ridiculously generic claim 1 has been granted? I really
have no more words to express what I think about software patents.

~~~
smartician
Claim 1 is fairly specific. All points (a) through (d) have to apply.

------
mcgwiz
To spell it out, the precise problem with this specific patent is the
ambiguity of the terms used in the claims. "Online information" and "reader
comment" can describe the content of any one-to-many data relationship
presented on the web.

------
x0054
I would like to patent a method for making money by filing completely obvious
and trivial patents, pushing it through the PTO, and then suing everyone in
sight. I am almost certain there is no prior art for this, right?

------
DavidSJ
I was expecting John von Neumann to be listed as the inventor:

 _The system also includes a processor for executing the computer executable
instructions, and a memory for storing at least the computer executable
instructions._

------
realrocker
Bollocks! Ok, if one has to defend against this patent, how to go about it?

------
zarify
So essentially like VIP membership of any dating site out there.

Or advertising in general.

On the other hand, if we implemented this across the board, we could do away
with these cumbersome comment voting systems!

------
clientbiller
Okay, so they own a patent... It takes $ to enforce, protect, and win a
litigation for. Once won, they then have to collect... Taken voice - "Good
Luck"

------
rdixit
I honestly couldn't tell if this was a troll or not

------
akadien
I see a broadly titled patent like this one as a mechanism scaring small
companies into settling. I wonder if it is worth building systems anymore.

~~~
axman6
The title of a patent has absolutely nothing at all to do with it's scope. Any
company who was sued would surely consult a lawyer and they would tell them
the scope of the patent is defined in the claims.

------
bkruse
The title's of patents are often misleading. Also, prior art allows this
patent to be easily (and cheaply) fought in a lawsuit

~~~
thyrsus
What does "cheaply" mean? One could still buy ramen?

------
coldcode
I wonder if there is a patent on robbing a bank?

------
gesman
...providing to said reader a preview of said distinctive format comment...

Said US Patent system is, said, such a, said, bullshit.

------
pla3rhat3r
That's it! I'm going to finally file that patent on how gas passes through a
butthole!

------
FollowSteph3
What about a patent to use patent litigation to make money? The you can sue
the trolls ;)

------
pajop
discussion can be started here:
[http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/US8296192](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/US8296192)

------
trg2
Is this funny or sad? I'm more confused after actually reading it.

------
spdy
So this is a patent for self payed advertisement for your own comments?

~~~
rch
Or the comments of others. So I could pay to tag your comment with a clever
gif or something.

~~~
escaped_hn
aka reddit gold.

~~~
voltagex_
Or Facebook promoted posts

~~~
Vivtek
Neither of which has a dynamically generated price, and thus neither of which
would be subject to this patent.

~~~
axman6
Claim 1, the broadest claim, doesn't require that.

~~~
gjm11
It does. 1.b.i.

~~~
axman6
So it does, my mistake.

------
ronreiter
Cmon guys, this is not a patent on making money on the internet, it's just ONE
method of doing it, and to be honest it's a good idea. Don't think it's a good
idea, but I bet the 138 upvotes here aren't from readers who understood that.

------
tomrod
Question: why doesn't prior art entirely rule these out?

~~~
axman6
Do you have some prior art? People on HN love to use terms like prior art
without knowing what they mean. You actually have to show that a) it's been
done before, or at least something similar enough existed that the difference
is not inventive and b) the document(s) was available publicly before the
priority date of the application.

~~~
tomrod
I don't personally, but I reckon a day with way-back machine may be enough to
establish prior art. That's the problem with overly general patents,
unfortunately.

Also good to know I've finally become one of the "people on HN" though for
having a bit of common sense! It's good folks here, and I'm glad to be part of
the community.

~~~
axman6
Give it a go, see what you can find.

There are some problems with the wayback machine when it comes to patents. One
of which is that if their robots are blocked using robots.txt, they will
remove all previous content that would also have been blocked (or at least,
the content can be removed by the author though some means). This is pretty
shitty when the best citation is something from the inventor themselves, and
they go and delete all history of the content.

------
stedaniels
So this is a patent for sponsored comments?

------
zaidf
Seems like its easy to find shitty patents. How about we link to ones we think
are well-deserved? Are there any well-deserved patents relating to the web?

------
lcedp
Is there a patent of patent system yet?

