creative labs teaches Carmack a thing or two about shadows?
- Thread starter kyleb
- Start date
Well I'd have to read through the patent carefully (there may have been some clever twist they added) and all the prior art before I gave a professional opinion, and that could take an hour or two. Too busy ATM. Sorry.MfA said:I think yellowbellies like Humus and Simon should not participate in this discussion if they arent willing to actually give their opinion on whether this specific patent should have been granted or not
I don't think people are familar with the way modern patents are written by IT law firms and processed. Let me explain the concepts:
1. we view the space around your idea as a territory and try to craft a patent to grab as much territory as you can steamroll through the USPTO
2. Start by manufacturing a huge list of "claims" in your patent, from the very specific (your idea) to more and more general abstractions or surrounding ideas.
3. Submit your patent with the full knowledge that the patent office will reject this abusive patent.
4. Remove all claims that were "caught" by the USPTO
5. Resubmit, go back to step 3 as many times as neccessary.
6. Finally, you are left with a patent with in 99% of cases, covers not just a specific modification to an idea, and a preferred implementation, but a very generic patent that will cover many many other inventions, even ones you haven't thought of yet, but can sue for later.
Patent law firms aim to maximum claim coverage, the more territory "protected" the better. I've gone through this process twice with two different top-tier Silicon Valley firms. It's shady. I didn't like software patents before, and now after experiencing them first hand, I hate them even more, and business method patents worse.
For me, patents make sense for ideas that take years to develop and lots of money to research: e.g. new materials, new drugs, new manufacturing processes, etc. I simply do not think that anything which can be invented sitting on your toilet, and implemented in a few afternoons in a development environment should be patentable.
At best, they should be trade secrets, and covered by copyright/anti-reverse engineering law. Other than that, the way you protect your idea is by keeping it secret and developing the best, market leading, implementation of it. If you can't accomplish that with secracy and non-disclosure law, oh well.
1. we view the space around your idea as a territory and try to craft a patent to grab as much territory as you can steamroll through the USPTO
2. Start by manufacturing a huge list of "claims" in your patent, from the very specific (your idea) to more and more general abstractions or surrounding ideas.
3. Submit your patent with the full knowledge that the patent office will reject this abusive patent.
4. Remove all claims that were "caught" by the USPTO
5. Resubmit, go back to step 3 as many times as neccessary.
6. Finally, you are left with a patent with in 99% of cases, covers not just a specific modification to an idea, and a preferred implementation, but a very generic patent that will cover many many other inventions, even ones you haven't thought of yet, but can sue for later.
Patent law firms aim to maximum claim coverage, the more territory "protected" the better. I've gone through this process twice with two different top-tier Silicon Valley firms. It's shady. I didn't like software patents before, and now after experiencing them first hand, I hate them even more, and business method patents worse.
For me, patents make sense for ideas that take years to develop and lots of money to research: e.g. new materials, new drugs, new manufacturing processes, etc. I simply do not think that anything which can be invented sitting on your toilet, and implemented in a few afternoons in a development environment should be patentable.
At best, they should be trade secrets, and covered by copyright/anti-reverse engineering law. Other than that, the way you protect your idea is by keeping it secret and developing the best, market leading, implementation of it. If you can't accomplish that with secracy and non-disclosure law, oh well.
DemoCoder said:
But the patent system was put in place exactly to remedy this. Secrecy hampers progress and innovation. The patent system ensures that knowledge is made public but at the same time reward the inventors.
The problem with the patent office is that it is either 1.) too easy to get trivial stuff patented or 2.) too hard to get patents covering trivial stuff invalidated, - or both.
Patents as a concept is good.
Cheers
Gubbi
I strongly disagree, the concept of what they're supposed to achieve, is good.
The thing is that it is likely more achievable with a different implmentation.
I wonder how things would work out if one didn't have patents. I don't think the argument of inovation would stop holds. I think what might happen is that there would be a short period of stagnation, where companies would produce the same thing with little or no improvement. Then someone would come a long realize that they can invest a small amount of money, make a few small improvements and then sell a new product. The competition would then have to take time adapting all those changes but would loose out due to lag time, people would simply migrate to the superior implementation and the market would be largely swallowed up until the next time someone does something simillar. As for larger scale stuff, as in most anything made today, well it's not simply enough to know the schematics and composition of something, one must know how to streamline manufacturing and so on which is where one can keep trade secrets so others can't catup as fast.
Then again there is a lesson in all of this, too many experts pretend that they can track all sorts of interactions and have a very good idea of what will happen and this is hardly true.
Good thing they removed the blink tag.
On the one hand I would like to see the software industry move to using trade-secrets instead of patents, but I really dont think anti-reverse engineering laws would work in practice ... how will you distuingish between someone who reverse engineered your product and someone who had an idea on the toilet?
On the one hand I would like to see the software industry move to using trade-secrets instead of patents, but I really dont think anti-reverse engineering laws would work in practice ... how will you distuingish between someone who reverse engineered your product and someone who had an idea on the toilet?
You bake cakes in the shower?Reverend said:
How do you keep 'em dry? :|
the solution to all of these patent woes?
become a citizen of a 3rd world country where patents are the least of their worries...
either that or claim the coder is a person who lives in one of these countries and base the company there...
or an island in the pacific... i mean there are all sorts of ways to get around a patent
become a citizen of a 3rd world country where patents are the least of their worries...
either that or claim the coder is a person who lives in one of these countries and base the company there...
or an island in the pacific... i mean there are all sorts of ways to get around a patent
pocketmoon66
Newcomer
Interestingly, in the UK, you can only patent something you can atually produce. So patenting a transistor 30 years before it's possible to build it doesn't hold up. Also, unlike the states, if you tell anyone from the general public (a mate etc) your idea before you apply for the patent then that would invalidate it.
Also, you can't patent a way of playing a game. I tried with my n1nJa SKilz D3ath m0ve in D00m and they laughed at me.
Also, you can't patent a way of playing a game. I tried with my n1nJa SKilz D3ath m0ve in D00m and they laughed at me.
aaronspink said:
The story from Rambus' position simply makes no sense. Working within jdec is entirely voluntary, and the jdec group itself exists for the sole purpose of formulating standards all members can use, free of charge--with none of the members obtaining proprietary patents from the emerging standards. Hence, Rambus could never at any time have shared anything with jdec members without knowing that whatever it shared would wind up commonly implemented in those standards at some point. Thus, Rambus has no credible position, imo. If Rambus did not want its technology shared, it had no business ever joining jdec in the first place, QED.
The problem was that jdec agreements are good-faith agreements between the members--not legal contracts--a point which did not escape Rambus lawyers, obviously--who manipulated the Rambus jdec involvment to create a fall-back position for the company in case their Rdram initiative failed (as it did.) Rambus was determined that memory makers were going to pay it for either Rdram or DDR sdram, come hell or high water, since as an IP company and not a manufacturer, Rambus could survive by no other means.
Characterizing events as "good-guy/bad-guy" does not in any way mean that there are no such actual elements involved. Clearly, there is a distinct contradiction between Rambus role as an IP company and its involvement with jdec in the first place, as "being invited" to join jdec does not equate to being compelled in some fashion to join the group against your will or interests. IIRC, too, once the other jdec members discovered Rambus had been lying about its patent applications from the first day, Rambus was then forcefully "uninvited" by jdec, and was booted out.
Unless Rambus intended to provide technology to jdec for the purpose of sharing that technology freely within jdec, the only purpose for Rambus' involvement in the group would have been to discern where the group was heading in order to beef up its pending patent applications more precisely so as to strengthen its ability to impose licensing fees down the line (or to steer the group towards approaches it was already in the process of patenting--without informing any of jdec's members about those patents), should its efforts with the Intel-backed Rdram scheme fail. The only flaw I see that jdec made was to admit Rambus in the first place--as it is a group that should be constrained only to ram manufacturers--and never to IP companies, imo. Hopefully, this was an error of judgment the ram manufacturers will never commit again--at least without a bevy of legally binding paperwork up front with respect to any patents an IP company may have applied for prior to jdec membership. Lawyers are fantastic revisionists, it should never be forgotten, and often a lawyer-sanitized tale bears no resemblance to the facts as they actually occurred.