The W3C asks for help finding Prior Art to two Apple Patents.

http://www.w3.org/2010/12/cfpa

by dc2k08 • 15 years ago

134 33 15 years ago

bergie3• 15 years ago

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.

ig14• 15 years ago

Yes, you should avoid reading patents that relate to areas that you actively work in.

law5• 15 years ago

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/...

iqster• 15 years ago

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

pbhjpbhj2• 15 years ago

We have softpats in UK and rest of Europe too. Indeed Europe is more liberal than UK. Also, depending on the field some discoveries (gene sequences) [sort of] and mathematical methods [definitely, eg codecs, compression algos] get patented. The important thing is that in Europe there needs to be what used to be called a "technical effect". That is not just software but software with some real world outcome, eg if your software gives you longer battery life then that aspect of the software is patentable.

As for PCT. Patents enter the national or regional phase and get examined against the local patent law. Some countries may be inclined to rubber stamp already granted patents (saving time and money). Certainly USA searches for PCT used to be the only ones that were guaranteed _not_ to be thorough!

xefer• 15 years ago

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.

bergie3• 15 years ago

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

brlewis2• 15 years ago

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.

ig14• 15 years ago

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.

law5• 15 years ago

I actually wanted to create something like this a few months ago, but the idea never got any momentum. Instead, I've been working on software that facilitates prior art search by semantically analyzing "literature," generally. I'm primarily focused on using genetic algorithms to construct a complex search query (compatible with LexisNexis/Westlaw) to find even more prior art (in the form of research articles and whatnot) -- not just patents. Luckily, every patent issued since 1976 already has a full-text version, and there are OCR'd versions of the patents from around 1910-1976 available on google. Unfortunately, academia is much larger than just the patent database, so it's important to broaden our searches further.

I was hoping to use this program to build support for, and ultimately raise enough money to request, ex parte reexaminations of issued patents.

Would any of you have interest if I kept pushing for that idea?

jcoder2• 15 years ago

Good way to get more comprehensive results, but how would the wexis queries be funded?

kbutler• 15 years ago

> 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...

law5• 15 years ago

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.

ig14• 15 years ago

The problem with paying rewards for prior art is that it discourages community collaboration, finding prior art is a mix of inspiration and perspiration and by incentivizing everyone to work alone it actually substantially decreases the chance of building a strong prior art case.

jhancock• 15 years ago

I've been thinking on this area and my conclusion is to do the simplest thing possible: just publish blog posts, github dumps, etc of your prior art...tag it as #prior-art and let twitter and google help you find stuff.

melling• 15 years ago

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.

mricardo• 15 years ago

Patents in Europe are much, very much, less restrictive than in USA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Euro...

Equint• 15 years ago

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?

The W3C asks for help finding Prior Art to two Apple Patents.

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