

The W3C asks for help finding Prior Art to two Apple Patents. - dc2k08
http://www.w3.org/2010/12/cfpa

======
bergie
Be careful with this, according to the Debian patent FAQ prepared by Software
Freedom Law Center (<http://www.debian.org/reports/patent-faq>) you can get
tainted by reading patents:

 _Unfortunately, U.S. patent law creates disincentives for searching through
patents, even though one of the main justifications given for the patent
system is that the patent teaches the public how to practice an invention that
might otherwise be secret. Willful infringement subjects the infringer to
enhanced damages when they are aware of the patent and intend to infringe, and
reading patents increases the probability that subsequent infringement will be
found to be willful. Moreover, we find that developers often assume that the
patents they discover are broader in scope than they actually are, and thus
such developers become overly or needlessly worried. If, despite this, you do
intend to conduct a patent search, you should seek legal advice first._

That said, I'm happy to live and work in Europe where we don't need to deal
with this crap.

~~~
law
Unfortunately, you still need to deal with this crap, thanks to the Patent
Cooperation Treaty, and more broadly the Paris Convention. While it goes
without saying that neither of these treaties means that a U.S. patent is
enforceable in Europe, a party with deep enough pockets can file an
international application in all the Paris countries, entitling them to the
protections afforded by those countries. While the PCT does not mention
anything about patentable subject matter in international applications, you
still need to be familiar with your jurisdiction's patentability requirements.

Thankfully, Art. 52 of the European Patent Convention is pretty sensible in
that it does not regard discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical
methods, aesthetic creations, and "schemes, rules and methods for performing
mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers" as
patentable subject matter.[1]

[1] [http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-
texts/html/epc/2010/e/...](http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-
texts/html/epc/2010/e/ar52.html)

~~~
iqster
Wait ... I want to verify if I read this correctly ... Europe does not have
software patents?

~~~
bergie
Correct. The way it is limited may of course depend on the local law. For
example in Finnish patent law only "real things" can be patented, not
_products of human intelligence_ , which limits stuff like algorithms,
software, business models etc. outside the scope of patentability.

There have been several instances, however, where large American companies
have tried to get Europe to allow software patents. Luckily so far all of
these have been blocked:

<http://eupat.ffii.org/log/intro/>

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _There have been several instances, however, where large American companies
> have tried to get Europe to allow software patents. Luckily so far all of
> these have been blocked:_

Nonsense. We have software patents in Europe too.

~~~
ig1
It's somewhat complex, but in general most of the contentious US software
patents wouldn't be valid in the EU, which is why Europe has only seen a
handful of software patent cases over the last decade.

See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Euro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention)

------
ig1
What we really need is a crowd-sourcing platform for prior art research

Something where someone could submit a piece of prior art and for each of the
claims in the patent describe how the prior art invalidates that claim. Plus
some sort of discussion forum for people to discuss the prior art.

A few companies did launch in this space about a decade back (offering
bounties that would be paid by companies getting sued over the patents), but
no-one seems to have really succeeded in gaining traction.

~~~
kbutler
> What we really need is a crowd-sourcing platform for prior art research

Commercial example: <http://www.articleonepartners.com/> "The World's Largest
Patent Research Community"

Though apparently they've filed a patent application for crowdsourced vetting
for compensation... [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/11/startup-
crow...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/11/startup-crowdsources-
patent-vetting-for-profit.ars)

~~~
law
I just checked PAIR and as of March 5, 2011 it's with an examiner. Most
recently, on June 12, it looks like the USPTO wants them to restrict the
claims in the patent to a single independent and distinct invention; i.e., it
doesn't look like they'll get their way with having their patent broadly cover
_all_ forms of reward.

------
xefer
I wish these quests for prior art didn't always happen after the damage was
done.

The Patent Office itself should crowd-source the software community looking
for prior art before a patent is issued in the first place.

~~~
bergie
Nope, the patent office should adopt a more sensible policy on what can or can
not be patented. As another HNer pointed out in this thread, the European
policy is pretty good:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2807082>

~~~
brlewis
How would this be for a policy?

1\. Software for a general-purpose digital computer is equivalent to a
mathematical algorithm, and therefore not statutory material for a patent.

2\. If the all the novelty and non-obviousness in a claim is contained in
software, then that claim is not patentable.

3\. Software as an element of an otherwise patentable claim does not make the
entire claim unpatentable. This is nothing more than the complement of 2.
Don't read it in any way inconsistent with 2.

4\. Don't read 3 in a way that's inconsistent with 1 and 2. Pay attention to
1, 2 and 3. They are the policy.

Like my policy? I hope so, but they'll never listen to it. If they don't
listen to the Supreme Court, they won't listen to anyone. 1 is Benson, 2 is
Flook, 3 is Diehr, and 4 is Bilski.

~~~
nkassis
I'm not for software patent but I always found the "Software is a mathematical
algorithm" thing annoying. I don't think it's a really good argument against
software patents.

~~~
wes-exp
On the contrary. Since software source code is (at a fundamental level) math,
it is purely informational in nature. One of the goals of the patent system in
the first place was so that information would be shared rather than kept
secret. The patent holder makes the information public, and in exchange he is
granted a temporary monopoly over the _physical_ manifestation of the
information. But not the information itself.

This makes it really strange then when you attempt to patent a software
algorithm. What is the physical part? Am I allowed to make a book containing
original descriptions of patented algorithms? How is that different from
sharing code on the web?

Patenting software algorithms is akin to patenting speech itself, which is
protected under the first amendment. So I think the "math" thing does matter.
A lot.

~~~
nkassis
I just don't believe most software patent fit the description of an algorithm.
The real problem with them is they are patents for idea an not for
implementation as an algorithm might be considered.

When Amazon patented A 1 click button. They were not talking about an
algorithm, they were talking about the idea of having a button which purchases
the object I want with 1 click. Implementation of this is wide, this patent
tells me nothing of what the process behind the patent should be. If it did
then you could get around it. That's the fundamental issue with those patents
as you've pointed out. I can't figure out what is or isn't an implementation
of this patent because no real useful implementation instruction was given.

On the other hand The Marching Cube algorithm patent does fit what you are
talking about, the is instruction on how to implement the algorithm and those
kind of patents have some issue for sure too. The claim against it was that
it's a completely obvious way to solve the problem. There are alternatives to
this algorithm such as the
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marching_Tetrahedrons>) which is just redoing
the same thing another way, so it's at least better to me than the 1 click
patent.

Software patents in general are wrong, I'm not arguing against that but saying
all software patents do is patent algorithms is not strong enough an attack in
my view. When people will look at it they will see putting multiple algorithms
together to solve a problem in a non obvious way is in a way no different then
putting a bunch of smaller components together to create a new device. I don't
believe patenting either really helps promote innovation. (I'm pretty much
anti all patents).

------
melling
On a small tangent, does someone maintain a graveyard of software patents as
they become invalidated? Since there are lots of duplicate patents, this might
be helpful when people need to defend against patent trolls.

------
Equint
I don't quite understand what's happening here. Could someone summarize it in
layman's terms?

As far as I can tell, Apple has patented something that has been produced
before, and the website is requesting evidence of that to undo the patent?

------
mricardo
Patents in Europe are much, very much, less restrictive than in USA:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Euro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention)

