Even experts get it wrong

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

by vasco • 14 years ago

201 141 14 years ago

notch.tumblr.com

debacle• 14 years ago

Internet expert != expert

glesica• 14 years ago

"Internet expert" == ! expert

rapind• 14 years ago

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

jere2• 14 years ago

>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.

jcromartie3• 14 years ago

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

jere2• 14 years ago

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.

eli3• 14 years ago

Devil's Advocate mode

They create a market for patents which benefits everyone who invents something and patents it. If your startup has a useful patent then (even if you never use the patent) your company is made more valuable because trolls like this exist. Investors will consider how much that patent is worth on the market when valuing your company.

And how would you implement a system that prohibits patent troll behavior? Only the original inventor gets to own the patent? Only people using the technology are allowed to own the patent? Define "using." What if I invent something truly novel and would rather license it to established players instead of bringing it to market myself?

talmand• 14 years ago

Exactly, my stance on software patents is that they do not necessarily cover the coder's method, it creates an entitlement to the result. Almost every software patent I've seen doesn't mention specific code, it just covers the result. Meaning no one can ever come up with a similar system without the threat of being sued for patent infringement. So, even if someone had a better way to make a similar system, they more than likely will get sued. "I have a patent that covers software that checks licenses over a network; therefore you can never make software that checks licenses over a network without paying me money." How does that allow for someone to do "something else"?

usea• 14 years ago

This isn't actually true. The summary of a patent is usually very broad, but if you read the full text it is very specific as to the method being patented. Media outlets portray patents as covering an entire concept, but really they only cover a narrow implementation of a concept.

irahul• 14 years ago

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.computerandvideogames.com/359452/uniloc-founder-r...

> 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.

shasta4• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

npsimons2• 14 years ago

Actually, that's exactly the purpose of patents.

From the US constitution, section 8:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Note how it doesn't say anything about "intellectual property" or "theft" or "moral rights", or even third parties. I'm not in favor of abolition of copyright, patents and trademarks, but this is exactly the kind of muddled, framing[1] language that the blog post linked to is trying to correct.

The laws have been pushed so far in the direction of "protecting" intellectual "property", and language has become so twisted by those who have the most to gain from the results that you can argue it's how things stand today, but it obviously wasn't the original intent, and it doesn't necessarily make it right. It's also not necessarily good economic policy (you want to see startups killed off in this country? Just continue to let copyright, patent and trademark law continue to expand).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%28social_sciences%29

chc• 14 years ago

Ignoring the "stealing" vs. "infringement" red herring, you're still misrepresenting patents.

The motivation behind patents was to get inventors to reveal their inventions. Prior to patent law, inventors just kept everything a secret. This meant that inventions would get lost and had to be rediscovered later on. So in exchange for revealing their "secret sauce" to the state, inventors get a temporary monopoly on their invention.

As for the idea that you could never, ever tell whether somebody invented the same thing independently from another, I don't understand why you'd think so. In the extreme case, if it's the 16th century and two people living on different continents invent the same thing days apart, you can be pretty darn sure that neither copied the other. Information didn't travel that fast. But this doesn't matter in patent law, because its purpose it not to prevent the "stealing" of inventions. Its purpose is to encourage disclosure by awarding a temporary monopoly on an invention.

This is in contrast to copyright, where it is a valid defense to say you created your work independently.

charonn0• 14 years ago

The purpose of patents has nothing to do with theft or personal property rights. They are a voluntary grant of special protection to the inventor by rest of society; society promises to grant the inventor exclusionary protections for a period of time, after which the idea ceases to be exclusive. That is the reward that society is willing to pay for those of us who use the advantages which society provides to create new things.

At no time does the patented idea become property, and therefore, by definition, it cannot be stolen; every patent holder owes his/her/their patent to society, not the other way around.

Ryan_Shmotkin• 14 years ago

By this reasoning, copyright infringement is not theft and should be tolerated.

Who said we didn't think of using "scrolls" or "apple" as our company name independently ?

drewwwwww• 14 years ago

you mean 'trademark'.

dllthomas7• 14 years ago

Trademark isn't there to prevent theft of brilliant brand names; it's there to prevent confusion. That's an entirely different endeavor than either patent (protecting ideas) or copyright (protecting creative expression).

ben0x539• 14 years ago

No, by this reasoning, copyright infringement is not theft and should be discussed using precise and honest terminology.

DanWaterworth2• 14 years ago

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.

mnutt• 14 years ago

Patent infringement is a civil matter, and a variety of those don't require intent. Criminal cases are much more likely to require intent, though there are plenty that don't.

Oxryly• 14 years ago

IANAL, so isn't one of the counterparts to intent in law negligence?

RyanMcGreal• 14 years ago

It's weirder than that. If the court determines that you knew about a patent and decided to violate it anyway, the penalty is considerably harsher. That means there is actually an incentive to remain as ignorant as possible about existing patents when developing new software.

duskwuff• 14 years ago

Which ends up meaning that, rather than being a repository of useful inventions and techniques, the patent database ends up being a minefield -- as a software developer, for instance, you're best off avoiding looking at patents at all. (Since the ones that are old enough to have expired are now generally obvious in retrospect.)

raphman• 14 years ago

Ack. IIRC Microsoft Research has the policy that researchers may never look at patents at all.

anamax6• 14 years ago

>> 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.)

eli3• 14 years ago

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?

dllthomas7• 14 years ago

I intend to implement things I invented all the time (usually fairly trivial things, undeserving of patents). Many of them have probably been invented before, but because they are trivial, I am not infringing anything. If one of them happened to be slipped by the patent office, now I am infringing. Would you say that I intended to violate the patent? Is it incumbent on me to read every single patent granted and make sure I'm not doing anything that might use any of them? An argument could be made that I am negligent for not doing so - but negligence requires that the action expected be reasonable. Over 40k software patents are granted each year. If I spend 20 minutes on each (which is optimistic), it will take me a year and a half to read a year's worth if I do nothing but read 24x7. Obviously, expecting me to keep up on that and still do any development is absurdly unrealistic, and so it is not appropriate to call my failure to do so "negligent".

edited to fix numbers

DougBTX3• 14 years ago

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

There are different punishments for patent infringement with and without intent, so by definition you can have patent infringement without intent.

recursive• 14 years ago

The argument is that the hapless patent infringer doesn't intend to use a technique without the required permissions. I tie my shoes without permission regularly, but I never intend to tie them without a required permission.

monochromatic2• 14 years ago

Patent infringement isn't criminal. There are plenty of civil causes of action that don't require intent.

reader5000• 14 years ago

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

powerslave12r• 14 years ago

Someone please do this! ShowHN: Shamr!

prezjordan• 14 years ago

> Shamr.io

pavel_lishin2• 14 years ago

Seems like something Popehat could take a stab at.

mratzloff• 14 years ago

Sounds like a great way to get sued by very litigious companies if you aren't nuanced in your approach.

ynniv• 14 years ago

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_lishin2• 14 years ago

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

masklinn3• 14 years ago

He already did back in the 90s.

thyrsus• 14 years ago

The article on which Mr. Richardson is commenting also confuses copyright and trademark law.

jcromartie3• 14 years ago

What would you expect from someone who thinks that nothing more than the idea of registering a demo constitutes "technology"?

mcherm• 14 years ago

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.)

dangoldin2• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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...

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.

dangoldin2• 14 years ago

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

eli3• 14 years ago

If it makes you feel better, my understanding is that most of the big patent trolls now have "offices" in Eastern Texas to make the choice of venue more difficult to argue against.

tzs• 14 years ago

Defendant can ask for a chance of venue. Plaintiffs used to join many defendants into a single lawsuit, partly in the hope that this would make it less likely that a defendant would be able to get a change of venue, because one case with multiple defendants is a more efficient use of limited judicial resources than several different cases and so the courts would be reluctant to let a defendant move just their case to somewhere else.

The America Invents Act changed this. Now the plaintiff cannot join unrelated defendants in one lawsuit, and so defendants have a much better chance of getting the case moved out of EDT. In face, since that provision of AIA went into effect, more patent cases have been filed in Delaware than EDT.

EDT actually is not particularly plaintiff friendly when it comes to results. There are several other districts where plaintiffs have a higher winning percentage than EDT. Last time I saw stats, a couple years ago, EDT wasn't even in the top 5.

The big attraction of EDT was/is:

1. The judges there are very familiar with patent law and patent litigation. Patent litigation is among the most complicated litigation, and whether you are a plaintiff or a defendant you want a judge who has experience with it.

2. There isn't a lot of Federal crime in EDT. Criminal cases have priority over civil cases, and in districts with a lot of Federal crime civil cases can suffer great delays. Try to litigate a patent case in a district where the courts are clogged with criminal cases (hello, war on drugs!) and you could be in litigation for a decade or more. Neither plaintiff nor defendant generally wants that.

zmb_• 14 years ago

> 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.

travisp2• 14 years ago

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.

yew• 14 years ago

I wouldn't say 'much.' The issue was about as controversial then as it is now. The controversy surrounding the 'Statute of Anne' around that time (being a little loose with 'around') is particularly informative.

Regardless, American 'intellectual property' law (which is the set being applied here) exists explicitly for the public good (that is, it's written into the constitution as such). The authors thereof debated the upsides and downsides of the whole idea quite a lot too, so we have a fair bit of insight into their thought process.

bjornsing2• 14 years ago

The same thought pops into my mind from time to time. Even if you take a more "common good" approach I don't think you can exclude the benefit where patents provide incentives for the actual labor. For example, in the classic case with pharmaceuticals I think it would be hard to argue that keeping the active ingredient a secret would be an alternative to patent protection. It most certainly would not since a competitor would have an insane advantage in finding the active ingredient if they could buy a sample for 10 bucks...

sp3322• 14 years ago

American patent law is somewhat different. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12....

sadga• 14 years ago

It's written explicitly in the U.S. Constitution:

    To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,
    by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right
    to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

verroq• 14 years ago

Notch knocking down a strawman frontpages on HN.

gruseom• 14 years ago

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.

noonespecial• 14 years ago

It's one thing to set up your own straw man and then knock him down, it's quite another when your enemy is actually made of straw.

mikeash• 14 years ago

"Strawman" means to make up a silly opposing position and then attack it, rather than attacking your actual opponent. It does not apply when your actual opponent is silly.

zaroth• 14 years ago

It does seems a bit ironic that we have a link to PG's original article on the front page, which talks about how to keep fluff pieces off the front page, at the same time as this piece from notch.

terhechte3• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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

terhechte3• 14 years ago

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?

pbhjpbhj7• 14 years ago

Foreign companies/persons can get Swedish patent protection, eg by application to WIPO using their original patent in the US as a priority document.

jowiar2• 14 years ago

> 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.

pbhjpbhj7• 14 years ago

>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• 14 years ago

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.

jowiar2• 14 years ago

Any good examples?

I'm having trouble thinking of something that:

1) You can benefit more from as an industrial secret than as a patented invention.

2) Society is harmed by the lack of public disclosure.

hardwear2• 14 years ago

It seems odd that the patent system does not take into account whether an invention could be nearly as profitable as a trade secret or on the other hand, could not possibly be kept secret while used for profit.

chrislloyd• 14 years ago

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.

monochromatic2• 14 years ago

> 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.

bobsy• 14 years ago

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.

Even experts get it wrong

Related Stories