Inventor stumped by 43-year patent delay

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-inventor01-20140301,0,255272.story

by wglb • 12 years ago

65 37 12 years ago

sehugg• 12 years ago

Hyatt's microprocessor patent was invalidated in 1996, but not before he extracted $70 million or so in royalties from Japanese and European companies.

More context:

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/20/business/for-texas-instrum...

http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/who-invented-the-mi...

thinkcomp• 12 years ago

Gilbert P. Hyatt's patent applications, assignments and lawsuits can be found here:

http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/index.html?id=1391559

jdreaver2• 12 years ago

I've become extremely jaded against intellectual property recently. Far too often, IP law is used to for long, drawn out legal battles that do nothing to help society, while costing the tax payers a ton of money.

Property is a way to deal with scarcity. Two people cannot simultaneously wear a shirt, for example, so one of them "owns" the shirt. Two people cannot both drive a car to different locations at the same time, so one person "owns" the car. Of course, you can lend your shirt or car to someone else, but the final say as to how those two resources are used belongs to the owner.

The product of intellectual labor, using this scarcity condition, cannot be considered someone's property. The only tangential relationship IP has to property is that one person uses force, namely, the government, to prevent others from using "their" idea for economic gain. This scarcity is artificial because absent that threat of force, everyone would be able to use the idea freely. Physical goods are subject to scarcity as a consequence of physical law; a car acn't be in my driveway and your driveway at the same time. (This argument applies directly to patents and copyrights, but also to trademarks in that a word or phrase can't be used to market something for economic gain.)

Besides the moral argument, which I know some people don't care about (it is subjective, of course), there is a utilitarian argument. Some act as if, without IP law, no one would be willing to create new ideas; it's as if the only incentive for creation is economic gain from a government-granted monopoly on an idea. Just take a look at the news to see that IP law is more commonly associated with patent trolls and corporate legal battles than protecting Joe Inventor's new idea.

At the very least, I wish people would stop comparing downloading movies and music from the internet as stealing. If I steal your car, you can't use it. If I "steal" a song from the record label by copying the exact sequence of bytes that represent a song from my buddy's hard drive to my hard drive, we can both still listen to the song. I understand that some people support the song creator's claim to the song as "property," in the form of IP. However, even then, there has to be a middle ground between copying against the wishes of the song's creator, and theft in the eyes of the law.

biehl2• 12 years ago

"You wouldn't [download] a car..."

Why, yes - yes I most definitely would.

jessaustin• 12 years ago

Has GP post changed? I don't find that statement within it.

mattkevan• 12 years ago

You wouldn't steal a policeman's helmet...

http://youtu.be/ALZZx1xmAzg

dredmorbius• 12 years ago

Good news: you can.

http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Global_Village_Constructio...

http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Open_Source_Car

sillysaurus32• 12 years ago

At the very least, I wish people would stop comparing downloading movies and music from the internet as stealing.

Games released via Steam have shown evidence that when a singleplayer game is unavailable as a torrent for free, then people will pay for it. The counterargument to this is that most people who torrent wouldn't pay for it anyway. But I assert that there is a third class of people: those who first check to see if it's available for free, and if not, pay for it. Whether these people constitute a significant portion of revenue is an open question, but it's hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing.

The closest classification other than "stealing" would probably be "sampling." I've often been frustrated at an inability to try out a certain kind of dev tool before buying it outright, and their free version is usually missing features which I really need to test. But there needs to be a large-scale study as to whether people really behave this way normally, or if they just take what they can get for free. Unfortunately it's difficult to find an unbiased source of funding for such a study, so the resulting research paper would probably be slanted in one moral direction or the other instead of presenting the raw data.

It's not an easy question to answer. I think technological capabilities will decide how companies will behave, because those who don't accept reality will go out of business.

Filligree• 12 years ago

I take a different approach:

I check if it's available on Steam, or some other non-horrible online service. If it is, I buy it. Otherwise... well, you can probably guess.

DanBC• 12 years ago

Games released via Steam have shown evidence that when a singleplayer game is unavailable as a torrent for free, then people will pay for it. The counterargument to this is that most people who torrent wouldn't pay for it anyway. But I assert that there is a third class of people: those who first check to see if it's available for free, and if not, pay for it.

What about the fourth classification of people who search for a way to buy something and who torrent it when it's not available?

Don't forget the weird restrictions placed on regional DVDs by the industry, and the laws that prevent me from converting my player to a multiregion device.

nate_meurer2• 12 years ago

"...it's hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing."

It's not hard. A critical aspect of property theft is the deprivation of property experienced by the victim. IP "theft" lacks this aspect entirely. Using the term in this way makes you no better than the CEO of Turner Broadcasting who claims that not watching advertisements constitutes "stealing" of TV.

Call it "sampling" or "counterfeiting" if you want, but "theft" is misapplication of a term with an otherwise well-established definition.

onli2• 12 years ago

Games released via Steam have shown evidence that when a singleplayer game is unavailable as a torrent for free, then people will pay for it.

When? Where? To my knowledge, no such study or data in favor of that thesis exist. For music I know of a counter-study to such statements: http://www.scribd.com/doc/131005609/JRC79605, which concludes with

According to our results, a 10% increase inclicks on legal streaming websites lead to up to a 0.7% increase in clicks on legal digital purchases websites

and

Essentially these papers show that illegal music downloads have little or no eﬀect on legal digital sales.

fnordfnordfnord• 12 years ago

There is another group of people, those who will try to pay for goods, and after failing to find a reasonable way to do that, acquire them through shadier channels.

Perdition• 12 years ago

it's hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing.

It is easy. In those cases the owner hasn't been deprived of anything but potential profit. If there was a competing game some of the potential pirates might buy that instead, they might watch TV or read a book instead of playing a game. It is just competition.

I find it ridiculous that under current law it is illegal to make unauthorised copies of games, but perfectly legal to make a clone/reimplementation. Both can deprive the original author of potential profit.

Of course this is why some of the big players in the IP industry have been muttering about "patents" on creative works.

belorn• 12 years ago

"...it's hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing."

Once copyright was a deal in which my tax money was used to protect a limited monopoly, and in return I could use the art after the monopoly expired. Now it is corrupted so that once the time has expired, the written language is not commonly understandable. The recorded music and video will have fully deteriorated in their stored medium. The games and software won't run.

It is thus hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing. They steal my money to support a stolen copyright deal, and I do not accept it. The deal should be ignored and the thieves should be held responsible for their actions.

akiselev• 12 years ago

No, I think that means that the thieves are those who made it available for that third group of people.

nefreat• 12 years ago

There is a great book available for free about the topic: Against Intellectual Monopoly[1] which does a great job detailing how IP is actually destructive to innovation and hurts society as a whole. The authors cover many topics from pharma to tech.

1. http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h...

dnautics• 12 years ago

Just FYI - what you're talking about in rivalrousness not scarcity.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110709/10490515032/cultu...

schiffern• 12 years ago

"It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs.

But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it.

Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.

Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices."

— Thomas Jefferson, 1813-08-13

http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-06-02-03...

lukifer• 12 years ago

I had never read that before, thank you. It is strange how readily accepted it is that ideas belong to their inventors by natural law, given that the Constitution explicitly states that copyrights and patents are "for limited Times" and "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (i.e., primarily for social benefit). I think people like to fantasize about the One Great Idea that will make them rich, and that fantasy has become part of our cultural narrative.

Also relevant, of course: how often an idea doesn't come to just one person: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery

aaronetz• 12 years ago

All this reminds me of a short story I once read, Melancholy Elephants[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholy_Elephants

semisight• 12 years ago

My grandfather helped Hyatt to write his patent. Interesting to finally see any press about him.

wglb• 12 years ago

Cool. Was he a patent attorney?

EGreg• 12 years ago

Patents protect "ideas". It is much more likely that someone may come up with the same or similar idea completely independently, than someone would come with up the same exact computer program or book. Patent protection is very broad. Especially in the US due to the Doctrine of Equivalents.

Soo... I am for copyright protection and not patent.

loceng2• 12 years ago

'"I respect Gilbert Hyatt's work — the process of engineering is difficult," Bassett said in a telephone interview. "But innovations are more than ideas. The broader context matters. If Gilbert Hyatt had never existed, I believe the microprocessor would have developed in the same way that it did."'

This pretty much goes for every innovation..

Perseids• 12 years ago

True. But the stronger argument is that they would also happen at roughly the same time, as hinted by the fact that many ground breaking innovations were found independently by different scientists once the necessary prerequisites were discovered. This dependence on the scientific society as whole is often conveniently ignored by those arguing for strong IP[1] protection.

And even worse is that many patents actually severely hinder the spread of the concerned innovation. As an example in cryptography see the Offset Codebook Mode for authenticated encryption. Even though the authors have now granted free use for open source software it has remained an extreme niche solution. Or see NTRUEncrypt, probably one of the best shots for post-quantum public key cryptography.

[1] I don't like term intellectual property, because in it lies the quiet acceptance of the idea in general, that thoughts and knowledge can be owned. Calling it IM - intellectual monopoly - is more to the point. We should not forget that a huge part of the fight for the public opinion is won or lost by the concepts our language provide us with and limit us to.

loceng2• 12 years ago

Agreed. And updating the terminology would be good. I have a blog post draft written up relating to perhaps using the word "times" and "monies" instead of merely time and money - as the brain is likely to see "time" and "money" as a singular, fixed object, which will not allow the brain to be as fluid when thinking about times and monies - more fixed, means more scarce - more fluid, means variability and more possibility, less pressure.

marincounty• 12 years ago

The biggest problem I have with the U.S Patent system is cost. They should price the fee for issuing a patient on yearly income. This would level out the playing field. It just might prevent some entities trying to patient rounded edges? And it would allow the poor investor a fighting chance of protecting their idea. The Internet has changed Everything. Brilliant ideas will be lost because of lack of funds.

dhoulb2• 12 years ago

No, sorry, this is a terrible idea,

Every broke idiot with a pen would write up every idea under the sun.

Companies, with resources to actually bring those ideas to life, would have to pay way more to be able to do so, driving up the cost of innovation in markets.

Also, presumably, a company would just pay a broke guy to submit the patent on their behalf, and pay them a small fee. Leading to a horrific industry of 'broke guy recruiters'.

Lone inventors are actually the primary group harming innovation here, not large companies (contrary to what your politics and gut might wish for). They patent some broad thing they have no intention of making, and sell those 'inventions' on for a quick buck to holding companies who make their money from suing people.

Patents need to not exist any more. For all the noise companies make about patents being important, if you took them away tomorrow, the world would be exactly the same. Nothing would change.

Inventor stumped by 43-year patent delay

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