

Even experts get it wrong - vasco
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/27897241780/even-experts-get-it-wrong

======
irahul
The dude attacking Mojang isn't looking good.

> Its amazing to see so many people loyal to this game maker. Good on him.

Eh, didn't take the time to consider some of us are against the patent
bullying, and not just fanboys.

> 1\. I am not the inventor of the patent in question.

> 2\. The personal attacks are a bit much don't you think?

As long as people aren't doing anything illegal, I don't see why they should
refrain from letting you know their displeasure.

This blog post doesn't give enough context. My google searches say he is
backing up the company, but distancing himself personally from the lawsuit.

[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118649-Uniloc-
Crea...](http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118649-Uniloc-Creator-
Denies-Mojang-Lawsuit-Involvement)
[http://www.computerandvideogames.com/359452/uniloc-
founder-r...](http://www.computerandvideogames.com/359452/uniloc-founder-
responds-to-disgusting-minecraft-fan-emails/)

> Patents are there to stop people stealing a technology you invented and
> letting you have a fair shot at making a living from it. If Uniloc wants to
> test this in court it is there prerogative, the same way that Mojang
> contested the use of the copyright term "Scrolls" and took people to court.

As notch pointed out, he is throwing around the word _theft_ when _patent
infringement_ isn't theft(for the simplest example, consider 2 people
independently discovering/inventing something), and Bethesda took Mojang to
court, not the other way round.

~~~
shasta
_Patents are there to stop people stealing a technology you invented_

Actually, that's exactly the purpose of patents. Patent legislation casts a
wider net only because there's no effective way to assess the validity of
someone's claim that "I invented this independently and was uninfluenced by
your invention."

You and notch are in the technically wrong column on this one. Compare to:
"Life jackets are there to prevent drowning". "No, they also prevent swimming
under water".

~~~
chimi
I don't understand why people keep saying it isn't stealing. According to
Merriam-Webster:

    
    
      Definition of STEAL
      transitive verb
      1a : to take or appropriate without right or leave 
      and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully
    

and

    
    
      Definition of APPROPRIATE
      transitive verb
      3 : to take or make use of without authority or right
    

Why do opponents of IP rights keep saying it isn't stealing? There's nothing
in the definition of stealing that says you have to physically remove
something from the possession of the owner/creator of the thing being stolen.
You just have to make use of it without the authority or right to do so.

~~~
ThePherocity
Well, I could get into a hundred reasons, but the primary one being that I
personally don't recognize any concept which attempts to frame an idea as
being property. It isn't property, I can't hold on to it, I can't touch it,
and I can't steal it. You don't have any right to an idea over any other
human. This is an abstract construct which attempts to create an artificial
commodity where there isn't one. The consequence is it restricts humanity
adversely as progress is controlled by those who have the currency to file
thousands of patents per year. The free world is changing from a democracy to
a corporatocracy.

Speaking of which, if you still don't understand, think for a second of
democracy (an idea) being patented. People couldn't vote unless they paid
licence fee, and if they were accused of voting without a licence then they
would be deported without a trial on suspicion alone...

It's absurd, but it's more absurd that we've been letting it happen.

~~~
radarsat1
> _It isn't property, I can't hold on to it, I can't touch it, and I can't
> steal it. You don't have any right to an idea over any other human. This is
> an abstract construct which attempts to create an artificial commodity where
> there isn't one._

Apart from "holding on to it," what you say in the quote sentence is true for
pretty much any property. In a strict sense, property is what you can defend.
However, in order stop people using violence to defend their property, the
government steps in and defines material property and vows to defend it for
you through laws about theft, etc.

So property is an abstract concept enforced by the government.

Now, the government simply looks around and says, "what else is valuable for
people that we can protect for them?" One is land ownership. You can't
physically be on the border of your land all the time with a gun, so the
government has laws about trespassing and poaching, etc., and enforces them
for you.

Money is another abstract concept the government defends. It makes things
easier for everyone to have a common currency, instead of trading chickens and
cows, so even though $1 doesn't have a "material" meaning, it represents value
and therefore people have agreed to respect it. The government proposes a
country-wide currency to replace instability of ad-hoc currencies.

Another is copyright. The government agrees that creative people deserve
"ownership" over their work, so they can profit from it, and this bargain is
struck in order to encourage development of culture. It's a concept of
intellectual property that is simply a contract between the people and the
government, and the government vows to defend it.

Another example is patents. The government wants to encourage research and
development, and one way it sees to do so is to help inventors profit from
their ideas by vowing to defend their rights to it for a certain amount of
time.

Before you get all upset (if you're not already), I agree very, vere strongly
with the position that there are _clearly_ problems with patents--specifically
that they encourage many things we find distasteful as society, and the
minefield effect is terribly detrimental, especially in certain areas like
computer programming. There's no question that patents are a problem today,
with the pace of technological development being what it is, and it's clogging
up the legal system like nothing else. These are things that need to be
solved. If the solution is to abolish patents I'm not even necessarily against
that, though I think I agree with Judge Posner that they make sense for
certain industries.

However, the claim that patents and copyright and any intellectual property is
not consistent with the idea of material property is, imho, completely false.
All of these concepts share the same root, that the government vows to defend
your ownership over something. Just because some property is material and
other property is "intellectual" does not make the latter "abstract" and
therefore invalid, because the _whole concept of property_ is abstract, it is
nothing but an agreement.

This is the role of government, really, and I'd say one of its only legitimate
roles, apart from infrastructure building, is to establish agreements on what
we consider property, and enforce them. Now, whether this is done _well_ is a
subject of debate, but conceptually it is self-consistent.

If you don't agree with this, feel free to grab your gun, squat somewhere with
everything you own, build a wall, and try to keep everyone from taking your
stuff, but otherwise you have to acknowledge that the whole concept of
property itself is as intangible the idea of intellectual property.

That doesn't excuse certain aspects of intellectual property from being ill-
defined or badly designed, but the concept is not invalid. The extension from
material property is a logical one.

~~~
SilasX
Another example is stock ownership, i.e. partial, tradeable ownership of a
venture. No, you can't hold it in your hands[1], but people understand that
it's property in all the relevant senses and can be meaningfully said to be
"stolen" (e.g., if the votes you make with your shares are ignored).

[1] The stock certificate doesn't count; that's a representation of the
property, not the property itself.

~~~
belorn
The stock certificate does count: 1) Its legal tender, 2), if you loose the
certificate then you loose the property.

Its like trying to argue that money are not property, just representation of
property.

~~~
SilasX
Wait, what? Most exchanges and corporations don't even go by a paper
certificate, proving my point: shares (and money, for that matter), are
defined by a relationship, not a physical instantiation. If you lose a
certificate (if they even still issue them), there are still records of how
many were issued, and of when they were transfered to you. As long as that
history can be reconstructed, you are still given the voting/dividend rights,
and if you aren't, it's lawsuit time.

Same thing with contracts: a contract is a relationship. The signed piece of
paper is not the contract, but proof that a contract exists.

It's just a case of Procrustean bedding to act like all property (or rights
bundles isomorphic thereto) must be physical.

~~~
michaelcampbell
> Most exchanges and corporations don't even go by a paper certificate,

Except the ones that do. You're right; most don't by default, but if you DO
have valid paper certificate, it is a bearer instrument. Who owns it, owns it.

~~~
SilasX
Which is to say, that the physical piece of paper is _not_ a defining
characteristic of property in stocks (even one case would mean that paper is
not inherently part of stock ownership), just as physical stuff is not
necessary in many other kinds of property.

------
zmb_
> Patents are there to stop people stealing a technology you invented and
> letting you have a fair shot at making a living from it.

Patents are quite explicitly _not_ there to stop people "stealing a
technology". You can already do this by keeping your invention secret (which
many jurisdictions grant some form of protection).

The purpose of patents is to encourage inventors to publicly disclose their
inventions so that others can benefit from and build on this knowledge,
accelerating the rate of technological advance. In return the public grants
the inventor a limited period of monopoly on the invention.

The patent system currently in place in the western world is not achieving the
goals that the society has set it, mostly because patents are granted for
"inventions" whose public disclosure has no value (because they're obvious or
over broad). What we get instead are huge companies with massive patent
arsenals stopping new companies from getting into business, patent trolls
extorting money, and independent inventors whose patents are worthless since
they cannot bear the cost of defending them against large companies.

~~~
travisp
I keep hearing this "purpose of patents", and while it's a common belief
today, I don't know that it really fits in with what historically has been the
purpose of patents. Much 19th century writing on patents and intellectual
property saw them as fundamental property rights that protect the fruits of
one's labor.

~~~
sp332
American patent law is somewhat different. [http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12....](http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html)

~~~
travisp
Not necessarily, here's an alternate view:
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=892062>

>The conventional wisdom holds that American patents have always been grants
of special monopoly privileges lacking any justification in natural rights
philosophy, a belief based in oft-repeated citations to Thomas Jefferson's
writings on patents. Using 'privilege' as a fulcrum in its analysis, this
Article reveals that the history of early American patent law has been widely
misunderstood and misused. In canvassing primary historical sources, including
political and legal treatises, Founders' writings, congressional reports, and
long-forgotten court decisions, it explains how patent rights were defined and
enforced under the social contract doctrine and labor theory of property of
natural rights philosophy. In the antebellum years, patents were civil rights
securing important property rights -- what natural-rights-influenced
politicians and jurists called 'privileges.'

~~~
sp332
So why does the constitution say they should be granted for a limited time,
and for the progress of "science and the useful arts"? That doesn't sound like
natural rights or a labor theory of property.

------
jere
>And yet, the technology in question is a system that stops people from
pirating their software and helps them make money. Well if you think it's so
unfair, don't use the tech. Do something else. No one is forcing you to use
the technology.

Bullshit. Mojang isn't using Uniloc's tech. They're writing their own tech
using a bloody obvious idea.

~~~
jcromartie
Not to mention Uniloc doesn't even _have_ technology. They do not create or
sell software.

~~~
jere
I was going to respond by playing devil's advocate and defending Ric and
Uniloc. But a quick glance at their site proves you absolutely right. Here are
some gems:

Uniloc's surprising honesty:

>And it fits our straightforward development model. Look at many ideas. Pick
an outstanding one. Patent it. Commercialize it. Reap the rewards.

Uniloc's vast knowledge of technology:

>After all, Bell Labs did develop some fairly transformative technology like
radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser and the _UNIX programming
language._

~~~
jcromartie
Hah. Someone who thinks UNIX is a programming language is obviously not
intimately involved with building real technology.

~~~
mitchty
I find it odd that lawyers, who use language to such an exacting degree they
have effectively created their own dialect of English, have so much factually
wrong information written on their own site.

------
DanWaterworth
_Most other crimes require intent, patent infringement does not._

This is the problem I've always had with patents, but I've never been able to
articulate it before.

~~~
anamax
>> Most other crimes require intent, patent infringement does not.

Huh? Patent infringment consists of using some technique without the
permission of the owner.

There's intent all over that.

Are you suggesting that folks are using techniques without the intent to use
said techniques? Or that they aren't intending to use them without the
permission of the owner? (Yes, you can argue that they didn't know that they
needed permission but that doesn't change the fact that they intended to use
them without permission.)

~~~
eli
Of course there are folks using patented technology without permission of the
owner who nevertheless did not intend to infringe a patent -- that's exactly
what's happening here with Mindcraft!

For the sake of argument, imagine I can prove that I came up with an idea for
something on my own. I'm completely unaware that it has previously been
discovered and patented. I did not even think it was an idea that could be
patented. Did I _intend_ to infringe that patent?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
That's like arguing that you thought it was legal to kill someone using
radioactive isotopes and therefore you had no illegal intent. Patent
infringement is defined by the corpus of protected inventions and being
unaware of the locus of infringing actions is not a defence against
infringement.

If you make sufficient disclosure part of the patent system then this is the
only way to do things really. If you don't require it then patents are
worthless for the [general populous of the] state.

~~~
anthonyb
It's completely different. For starters, there's the "reasonable person" test.
No reasonable person is going to think that murder is legal.

Intentionally infringing a patent is punished much more harshly, and it's
impossible to keep up with the millions of patents that are published, so
being intentionally unaware is actually a decent legal defence.

And yes, this does mean that patents are generally pretty useless for
software.

~~~
DanWaterworth
Also, I'm not a lawyer, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it also patent
infringement if the following happens:

A patent is filed for technique X by company A,

Company B use technique X having created it independently,

The patent is issued to Company A,

Company B is now infringing upon Company A's patent.

Company B could not possibly have committed patent infringement intentionally,
because the patent they infringed didn't even exist when they went about
implementing their product.

~~~
anthonyb
Not sure in that case. If B can prove that they were using it first, then it's
possibly prior art (or else obvious) and A's patent may be invalidated.

~~~
dllthomas
IANAL, but I believe that's only true if B was using it before A filed. The
order described was "A files, B re-invents, A's patent is issued". It may have
some weight in arguing that the invention was obvious, but my understanding is
that this is harder than invalidating a patent based on prior art.

------
ynniv
Where is the expert? Ric Richardson is not an attorney, let alone a patent
attorney. Ric's comments are uninformed, and probably not worth responding to.

[ <http://ricrichardson.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-ric.html> ]

~~~
pavel_lishin
I wonder when he's going to go after Microsoft for patent infringement:
[http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ&dq=uniloc+registration)

~~~
masklinn
He already did back in the 90s.

------
chrislloyd
I met Ric Richardson sometime late last year. He claimed to have just invented
a "fibre optic CPU" the week before. He also boasted about how at a dinner
party he had taken a guest's idea and filed a provisional patent for it in 30
minutes.

He made a room full of young entrepreneurs with unique ideas feel _very_
nervous. He feeds on innovation.

------
dangoldin
I keep on hearing about the Eastern Texas courts that are consistently
plaintiff friendly. Just seems messed up that you could sue someone wherever
it's most convenient for you.

~~~
fr0sty
This American Life did a show recently (in the past year) about patent trolls
(focusing on Intellectual Ventures):

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/441/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack/)

Their explanation of the venue choice was that the other federal courts were
choked with drug-related cases and going to East Texas was a way to get a
speedier trial.

~~~
dangoldin
Thanks for mentioning this! I'll take a look when I have some time.

------
jowiar
> In fact, you can break this law without even knowing that someone else
> thought of the idea first.

This is the biggest flaw with the current patent system. The reality is if an
invention falls into this category, it should not be patentable. Raising the
barrier of "obviousness" to a level requiring an invention be transformative
to the point that, within the term of the patent, the likelihood that anyone
else independently invents the same thing is sufficiently small would go a
long way to addressing these problems.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _within the term of the patent, the likelihood that anyone else
> independently invents the same thing is sufficiently small_ //

The problem then is that there is little to no incentive for the applicant to
share the idea. If it's something no one will come up with, then you can keep
it secret and benefit from an indefinitely extended monopoly.

The _quid pro quo_ of patents is early information about new inventions in
exchange for limited time monopoly. Here you're encouraging
inventors/companies to prefer industrial secrets.

If inventions meet your requirements but are kept secret then the public
domain will be worse off as no one gets the benefit of being able to privately
use/research the invention unless it can be replicated. With a patent the full
details are disclosed.

Obviousness is very difficult to assess because some things that took many
years developing are so ingenious that they seem obvious. The applicant always
has the argument - if it were so obvious how come, in such a well worked
field, with such demand for this invention, how come it wasn't already
developed? The answer of course is that it wasn't "obvious" [to the skilled
practitioner with knowledge of the prior art in the relevant domain].

~~~
ambrice
Ok, but what percentage of software patents are going to be useful in 20 years
when they go into the public domain anyway? Doesn't seem like there's a lot of
society downside to just keeping them secret vs open but unable to use until
2032.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
We don't have software patents ( _per se_ ) [!!] in Europe.

But anyway ... if it's not useful it doesn't matter that it's patented and if
it is then you've got full disclosure. So I'm not sure the percentage is
really important. Perhaps the fees should increase at a greater rate to
encourage early release of patented inventions that aren't high worth.

Personally I'd limit the term to about 8 years for all patents and dispense
with US business method and pure software patents.

------
reader5000
There needs to be a website or something to shame known patent and trolls AND
THEIR ATTORNEYS.

~~~
powerslave12r
Someone please do this! ShowHN: Shamr!

~~~
prezjordan
> Shamr.io

------
jcromartie
What would you expect from someone who thinks that _nothing more than the
idea_ of registering a demo constitutes "technology"?

~~~
mcherm
I expect them to have a successful career in the Patent Office.

(Sorry about the "cheap shot"... I realize that the problems are with the
laws, not the patent examiners. But humor is the only way I can approach this
subject without tears.)

------
terhechte
What I don't get, and I hope somebody can enlighten me here is this: Isn't
Mojang a swedish company, registered in Sweden? How can the US patent law
apply to Sweden since Sweden has a different patent law?

For example, I have my company in Germany, where it's (almost) impossible to
get a patent for software patents. So if a greedy patent troll in Texas
decides that one of my apps infringes their patents, can they even sue since
my company is obviously in Germany? Or can they only stop me from selling in
the US? (which would be a huge drawback, of course).

How is such a situation handled?

~~~
estel
If you're selling _to_ the US (as Mojang is), then you can be bought to trial
there.

~~~
terhechte
What would be the worst that could happen then if I'd just ignore it and
decide to never visit the US again nor sell anything to the US again?

~~~
bjornsing
That's a very good question - and as all good questions it's difficult to
answer: it depends. :)

There was recently a case where Håkan Lans argued he should not have to pay
Acer after having lost a patent suit in Washington, because he is a Swedish
citizen and the american verdict was according to him unjust. He first lost,
but appealed and won in the appellate court (Hovrätten) [1]. The court argued
that since there was no contract between the parties governing jurisdiction
the foreign court decision could not be used in a Swedish court as proof of
debt. Therefore Acer would have to sue Håkan Lans in Sweden, and have a
Swedish court rule on the merits of the case, if they wanted the aid of
Swedish authorities in collecting damages.

[1]
[http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/it_telekom/datorer/article250...](http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/it_telekom/datorer/article2503032.ece)

~~~
terhechte
Thanks for the info. Will do some research then and just hope that I'll never
be targeted by a patent troll.

------
bobsy
Firstly.. I doubt anyone saw "Scrolls" and thought "The Elder Scrolls". Hell,
when I think "Skyrim" I don't think "The Elder Scrolls."

Patents should protect against idea theft.

I would like Patents to be like math. If you show all your working out you are
_mostly_ fine. This way, if you are taken to court you have documentation
which shows each step of development that got you from A to B. This would
include missteps etc.

This would allow two people who have the same idea to not be infringing a
patent.

It would still be for the judge to interpret. It may be the case that person B
started work on their product after the release of person A's work. There work
may be dubious.

At least this would allow someone to create a similar product via their own
initiative without being in breach of patent they were unaware of.

------
monochromatic
> Most other crimes require intent, patent infringement does not.

Patent infringement isn't a crime. Most (although not all) crimes do require
some level of intent. But patent infringement is like any number of other
civil causes of action in not requiring intent.

------
verroq
Notch knocking down a strawman frontpages on HN.

~~~
gruseom
This isn't even close to being a strawman. The argument put forward by Ric
Richardson, Inventor is a bad one but that doesn't mean he intended it to be.
On the contrary, Ric Richardson, Inventor intended it to justify predatory
action against a _real_ inventor and belittle anyone who has a problem with
that.

It gets my goat to hear people like this talk about others "stealing"
technology they "invented". What these parasites invent is _paperwork_ , the
purpose of which is legalized extortion from people who really do invent
things. They brazenly label themselves The Innovators to win the sympathy of a
public (especially legislators and juries) who don't know enough to tell that
they are frauds.

------
debacle
Internet expert != expert

~~~
glesica
"Internet expert" == ! expert

~~~
rapind
"==!" === "Bad Javascript idiom you won't find in many other languages."

~~~
masklinn
> Bad Javascript idiom you won't find in many other languages.

It's not an idiom, and identity tests exist in other languages. You may know
them as "==" (Java), "is" (Python), "eq?" (Scheme) or "object.ReferenceEquals"
(C#).

Now the syntax is ugly and this does not excuse the fucked up non-overridable
equality, but aside from that `===` works pretty well in Javascript.

As opposed to PHP, which famously did manage to even fail implementing
identity correctly[0].

It also has nothing to do with the comment you replied to, which uses `== !`
(to operators, an equality to a negated operand)

[0]
[http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=204433&ci...](http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=204433&cid=16703529)

~~~
StavrosK
This is irrelevant, but it blows my mind that "[1] == [1]" returns False in
JS.

~~~
masklinn
I'm "ok" with that, it's a property of non-overridable equality tests, where
arrays are "standard objects" (with natively implemented lots of things, but
still objects) rather than built-in magical special cases of the language
(although there are still things done by arrays I don't think you can do
without recent extensions to the spec, such as

    
    
        js> var a = []
        js> a[42] = 3
        3
        js> a.length
        43
    

) as opposed to e.g. Go where a few blessed types have access to features Go
users _do not have any possible access to_.

It bothers me significantly more that

    
    
        [1] == 1
    

does _not_ return false in JS. Although the rules through which this is
reached are clear.

