Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech
- Thread starter Acert93
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It's not a secret patent. Basically, you want to file your patent as late as possible so as to give competitors (and armchair quarterbacks) as little time as possible to respond to the technology, while still filing it early enough that you can be assured of being the original inventor.
IIRC you have one year after filing before you to go through with phase 2 with the search and stuff or the patent application is dropped and you have to start again, and a year-ish after that until it goes public, meaning you could file a patent two years before it goes public. It was definitely a year from applying until you had to proceed. That's in the UK though, which may be different. There are no fees for the inital application allowing inventors the chance to secure a patent date ahead of looking for financing, and follow up the patent later.
Your previous post about company policy and not reading patents also seems counterproductive to the idea of patents. Surely one should read every relevant patent to be sure an idea your company is pursuing is not infringing anyone's IP? You make it sound like business policy is to stick their heads in the sand, patent everything, and let the lawyers argue about it!
There's a risk that searching out patent information can create evidence of willful infringment, which provides the chance that damages will be increased up to three times the original amount.Your previous post about company policy and not reading patents also seems counterproductive to the idea of patents. Surely one should read every relevant patent to be sure an idea your company is pursuing is not infringing anyone's IP? You make it sound like business policy is to stick their heads in the sand, patent everything, and let the lawyers argue about it!
If you are found to be infringing, and given the quality of the patent system, the complexity of modern tech, and the bad faith of a number of parties, you probably are infringing something somewhere--you lose X.
If you try to avoid losing X by looking, but accidentally miss a patent or fail to interpret one as being relevant--and given the quality of the patent system, complexity of modern tech, and the bad faith of a number of parties--you lose even more.
It's counterproductive to the idea behind patents, but it is a reflection of the uncertainties in today's broken system.
It comes from the concept of triple damages for willful infringement. If we infringe on a patent (and considering the patent system, it's almost impossible to write ten lines of code and _not_ infringe on a patent somewhere), but we can prove we never saw the patent and came up with the solution independently, then damages are lower. If it can be proven we saw the patent beforehand, then damages treble.IIRC you have one year after filing before you to go through with phase 2 with the search and stuff or the patent application is dropped and you have to start again, and a year-ish after that until it goes public, meaning you could file a patent two years before it goes public. It was definitely a year from applying until you had to proceed. That's in the UK though, which may be different. There are no fees for the inital application allowing inventors the chance to secure a patent date ahead of looking for financing, and follow up the patent later.
Your previous post about company policy and not reading patents also seems counterproductive to the idea of patents. Surely one should read every relevant patent to be sure an idea your company is pursuing is not infringing anyone's IP? You make it sound like business policy is to stick their heads in the sand, patent everything, and let the lawyers argue about it!
When we were filing patents years ago, the prior art and other patent searches were actually contracted out to third party companies, to limit the liability we would have if those searches turned up something that could be damaging otherwise.
We also have a similarly obtuse Open Source policy, where it's possible to get into a position that you cannot contribute code to a project for a year or more by simply having reviewed third party (proprietary or OSS) code.
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...90".PGNR.&OS=DN/20120159090&RS=DN/20120159090
They're sneaky. Here's the patent number. 20120159090
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...qos&OS=microsoft+AND+qos&RS=microsoft+AND+qos
An AMD patent app that looks interesting, but more to do with the PC side, no?
They're sneaky. Here's the patent number. 20120159090
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...qos&OS=microsoft+AND+qos&RS=microsoft+AND+qos
An AMD patent app that looks interesting, but more to do with the PC side, no?
If you search for patents on this site you get the PDF files.
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publ...T=D&ND=3&date=20120621&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP
It's clearly more broken than I thought, and I had consider it trashed already!
I think so. AFAICT it has to do with conveying information about the organization of cores/modules/caches to the OS, so that it can take that into account when scheduling processes. Bouncing processes between cores in a module is mildly expensive, bouncing them between cores in different modules is hugely expensive.
Cheers
aaronspink
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You don't need to file a patent until such point that the invention is made public (IIRC you have around 30-90 days from disclosure to filing). The point is that the knowledge of the invention is available in enough detail that others can use it and it contributes to the general good. One can certainly argue back and forth whether the current US and international patent system actually lives up to the original spirit of the idea of patents, but that is probably for a different forum.
It is only relatively recently that US patent filing were publicly available. It used to be that there was a time period from initial filing until the patent office would make a filing publicly available. As part of harmonizing of the patent process worldwide this was changed.
aaronspink
Veteran
Filing disclosure varies worldwide.
Your previous post about company policy and not reading patents also seems counterproductive to the idea of patents. Surely one should read every relevant patent to be sure an idea your company is pursuing is not infringing anyone's IP? You make it sound like business policy is to stick their heads in the sand, patent everything, and let the lawyers argue about it!
You are not a lawyer. Willful ignorance IS a valid defense! knowledge of infringement increases the damage rewards (treble damages for knowingly infringing). Therefore it is always better to NOT KNOW that one of your products possibly infringes the patent of another company. Hence the basically universal corporate policies of never looking at a valid patent. Expired and lapsed applications are generally however free game.
Yeah, as others have mentioned. But that kinda defeats the point. Prior to patenting your company's IP, you should check to see no-one beat you to it. If they have, you shouldn't go ahead with the patent (the patent office shouldn't even grant the patent). The fact different people can patent the same area shows the system is broken. That parties can also be fined triple damages for patenting something someone else has patented thereby causing them avoid searching patents only makes that worse! It's a truly absurd situation.
Anyway, that's OT.
The fear of patenting something that's already been patented isn't the primary concern. You don't lose milions if your patent is rejected.
What's more likely is that you have some design feature you've implemented and have no intention of patenting, don't think it can be patented, or you think you've safely licensed the IP it is part of, then find out that there is at least one patent on it.
Any non-trivial product probably infringes something somewhere, so why have evidence around that your employees might be looking at patents?
How do you prove they didn't get an idea from a patent, once the court knows they've come across a patent repository?
Once they started looking at patents, how couldn't they have seen this patent?
What if they saw the patent, figured it didn't apply to what they were doing, but have now been found to be infringing?
Even if you figure a fair court would rule that that it was an honest mistake--and the law does allow for that discretion--patent suit filers usually make a point to shop around to a few courts that are extremely favorable towards the bringers of infringment claims. That's why so many patent suits by trolls show up in the same courts.
This doesn't need to get to court. More likely, a patent holder with a very broad obvious patent or an organization with a massive patent pool will send lawyers to demand you pay up in order to avoid court costs. Maybe if you're a big corporation with a lot of cash or retaliatory patents, you can try fighting it. If not, you could be financially damaged for years before proving yourself innocent.
The shakedown artists aren't going to ask for less if they think they can prove you've looked at anything resembling a patent.
Knowing that you have to prove a negative for a thought-crime with the knowledge the person extorting you can stack the deck, it's safer to studiously document that everyone involved have their eyes tightly shut.
What's more likely is that you have some design feature you've implemented and have no intention of patenting, don't think it can be patented, or you think you've safely licensed the IP it is part of, then find out that there is at least one patent on it.
Any non-trivial product probably infringes something somewhere, so why have evidence around that your employees might be looking at patents?
How do you prove they didn't get an idea from a patent, once the court knows they've come across a patent repository?
Once they started looking at patents, how couldn't they have seen this patent?
What if they saw the patent, figured it didn't apply to what they were doing, but have now been found to be infringing?
Even if you figure a fair court would rule that that it was an honest mistake--and the law does allow for that discretion--patent suit filers usually make a point to shop around to a few courts that are extremely favorable towards the bringers of infringment claims. That's why so many patent suits by trolls show up in the same courts.
This doesn't need to get to court. More likely, a patent holder with a very broad obvious patent or an organization with a massive patent pool will send lawyers to demand you pay up in order to avoid court costs. Maybe if you're a big corporation with a lot of cash or retaliatory patents, you can try fighting it. If not, you could be financially damaged for years before proving yourself innocent.
The shakedown artists aren't going to ask for less if they think they can prove you've looked at anything resembling a patent.
Knowing that you have to prove a negative for a thought-crime with the knowledge the person extorting you can stack the deck, it's safer to studiously document that everyone involved have their eyes tightly shut.
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As you know they're already discussing them even just for PS3.
As for Sony, they should just make sure that they have enough resources to do both what's needed for gaming and what's needed for cable tv, media and apps. Pretty convinced that's where things are going, but it's very important to all their divisions that they keep at it.
That sounds like a pretty awful choice to me. If MS is going with a 6GB or 8GB console I think its better for sony to go at least with a 4GB GDDR5+ 2GB GDDR3
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