IBM Sues Amazon For Patent Infringement 204
Petersko writes "It appears Amazon is about to be sued for patent infringement by IBM". From the article: "Hundreds of other companies have licensed the same patents, and IBM has tried to negotiate licensing deals with Amazon "over a dozen times since 2002," Kelly said. Amazon.com, which has bought a lot of hardware from Hewlett-Packard Co. over the years but not IBM, has allegedly refused every time."
Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
The patents system has devolved to be that if you are the first to file a piece of paper
Just because you are the first to invent something, doesn't mean society would have been deprived of your invention were it not for you. It just means you got there first (thanks to better resources available to you). It's like a winner of a race claiming that if it wasn't for him, nobody else would have crossed the finish line.
Statement should read... (Score:5, Insightful)
It should read:
Re:Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
A good analogy would be the development of a race car. IBM is like the company that perhaps developed a car or two. Reasonable patents would probably be on the engine design, electronics, etc. Instead, however, the patent office has granted it the patent to "race cars"; disallowing anyone else from developing their own engines, electronics, or what have you, and putting it all together.
Is the difference so hard to comprehend in technological contexts that the patent board is unable to differentiate between the two?
Simple solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, actually:
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
I agree with you entirely that we need to revise the way and extent to which patents are issued, but the fact is that the issuance and enforcement of patents (along with copyrights) is one of the fundamental purposes of the US government, as defined by the Constitution. (You can of course start an effort to get that section amended; good luck with that.) A better approach is to look at the explanatory clause -- "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" -- and start ruthlessly revising those sections of IP law which do not work toward that goal.
Step 1: if it's not a physical object, a working model of which can be presented at the time of filing, don't grant a patent. Period. End of story. No software algorithms, no "business methods," no DNA sequences, etc. -- software can go copyright; the other two examples shouldn't get IP protection at all -- and no speculative ideas for something that someone might want to make someday, either.
Step 2: deem any patents which are not being actively exploited to be unenforceable, and the IP represented in them to be public domain. IOW, if you have a patent on something, you have to be either distributing it on the market, or be able to show that you're working toward the goal. Otherwise, everyone else gets a shot too.
Step 3: require patent holders to defend their patents, as is the case with trademarks. If the patent holder could reasonably be expected to be aware of a violation -- as IBM certainly could be expected to be aware of Amazon -- require them to begin legal action within one (1) year or forfeit the claim.
These three steps, if followed, would I think substantially reduce the amount of patent bullshit which is currently doing the exact opposite of "promoting] the Progress of Science and useful Arts." The lawyers whose clients still have a legitimate claim would still have plenty of work. Similar though not identical reform is needed for copyrights and trademarks; Step 1 in the former case is reducing the term of copyright to 20 years or so and keeping it there.
Re:Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here's a thought (Score:3, Insightful)
The "no evidence of copying" is the sticky part. You're back to a system that requires that patent examiners be shrewd enough to understand the fundamental difference between one patent and the next. What would obviously end up happening in such a system is Amazon finds out IBM has a patent on something it wants to do (patents are published, public documents), says, "hey, that's a great idea!" and then "invents" its own way of doing it. Voila! Instead of paying IBM to license the patent, Amazon gets to add itself to IBM's patent and take half of IBM's fees. You can see where patents would quickly become an anti-competitive weapon of an order even greater than they are becoming today.
In today's world, the outcome of these patent lawsuits between big companies, more often than not, is some kind of licensing agreement. It will more than likely be a cross-licensing agreement ... so IBM says it's OK for Amazon to use its patent, provided IBM can add One-Click shopping to its Web site, or something of the sort. It's not as if IBM really wants to put Amazon out of business. It just wants to keep the money moving from hand to hand, with some of it staying at IBM for a while.
Re:What is everyone thinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not so. This can be done with suitable NDAs and/or pre-contracts (eg. negotiating a flat high percentage and no money up front for use of the ideas, with the understanding that this is just a stopgap and renegotiating will occur once people know what's on the table). This is of course impractical now, since investors would be taken aback with such agreements, however without patents this would have a high chance of becoming pretty much standard, so smart money would go with it.
Re:Patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately it's a prisoners' dilemma, because once I've told you the method, it's easy for you to claim that was what you were going to do anyway, and I have no way of proving otherwise.
Similarly, if you tell me your method first then it's easy for me to claim _that_ as what I was going to tell you. Whoever volunteers the information first risks having their idea claimed by the other person.
So this test would never happen in practice (about anything you might seriously want to patent anyway), and thus we need different measures of obviousness (new word?)...
Although I agree that a lot of things that are not obvious can be described in one sentence, once you know what they are. Gravity is a good example - it took thousands of years for someone to write down a theory, but that theory is one sentence long.
Re:What is everyone thinking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Problems with that theory:
Re:What is everyone thinking? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, the purpose of these organizations is generally to acquire information. Most of the secrecy comes to protecting their methods for acquiring information. And, it isn't the information that wants to be free. People want the information because it is valuable.
Re:Not all ideas are like this (Score:4, Insightful)
In your examples, idea for a UI, Napster, YouTube - they have their specific implementations and only those are patentable (I'm sure there are at least 50 ways of implementing user interface, napster, youtube, slashdot or digg).
If you think these ideas are somewhat original, then let me tell you that ideas are a dime a dozen. Don't worth anything at all unless it's elevated into something tangible, like an implementation.
Unless, of course, you may be confusing between an idea and an implementation. Sometimes the line is blurred but it certainly exists. Napster and YouTube - they have good business ideas. Slashdot and Digg - the idea is a "community system" (which, again is a dime a dozen), but Slashdot and Digg are implementing it differently.
Wow, that's just pathetic (Score:2, Insightful)
good cop bad cop (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What is everyone thinking? (Score:5, Insightful)
In your note above, you say going it alone might take so long to get there someone else scoops you. In that case, you want to protect that you got there first, or patented the idea first. Patents weren't designed to protect the person that gets there first.
In terms of getting funding for an idea, in my experience VCs fund teams and markets first, and ideas second. I do have some sympathy with this part of your argument, but not a tremendous amount. If your ideas are really good, they will fund you precisely because you can come up with good ideas.
CIA, spooks, etc.? Pulease. Patents aren't about protecting information, they are about releasing information but protecting ideas.
Re:But. . . wait a second! (Score:4, Insightful)
In suing Amazon, are they trying to sue away a competitor? Don't think so. Are they trying to extort money? Given IBM's size, I doubt it.
On the flip side of the coin, IBM is pro-OSS at this moment, and I'm glad that IBM has so many patents.
Re:What is everyone thinking? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:OneClick? (Score:3, Insightful)
If anything, this is a perfect example of why Amazon must keep patents. Our patent system is so broke the only way to defend yourself from "evil" companies like SCO is to stock your own ammunition.
It's like nuclear proliferation, until every company in the world signs a treaty, you have to continue to stockpile patents. Amazon officials have said in numerous interviews, patents are taken whenever they can be granted under the current (broken) system to prevent someone else from patenting an idea and turning around and suing THEM.
Amazon is not playing the IP company (like SCO and others) that sits around and looks for people to sue, they sue when needed to protect their patents, which they taken whenever possible to protect themselves from being on the other end of the warhead. If we could just fix this broke system none of this would be needed. As long as the patent office will allow something like 1-Click to be patented, companies like IBM, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, eBay, and others must aggressively seek patents just to protect themselves.
Re:OneClick? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good news? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not entirely sure; I think you were talking about how utterly evil and despised IBM used to be, how there's no guarantee that this isn't the first sign of a return to form, and that they are the world's most prolific software patentors, but you seem to have been distracted by an utterly irrelevant swipe at MS.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all that IBM has been doing lately, but understand this - they're not doing it because they're nice guys, they're doing it because it makes them money. If that were to change, so would their tactics. They're nice to us *now*; we cna only hope that they continue being nice.
Why do you like patents? (Score:3, Insightful)
In view of the last few days of sheer madness I find sad an discomforting that there are people out there still supporting what is clearly a rotten system.
Algorithms are not trinkets. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with your reasoning is that it goes against the most basic grain of how human culture has developed.
The most fundamental freedom of any person (after covering the basic necesities) is the freedom to think.
If you come up with a method to solve a problem you should be fully entitled to get some kind of remuneration if your method is useful. But I don't see why if I come with my own method to solve the same problem I should have to pay you anything for it.
Notice here that I am talking about methods to do something. If that method describs a trinket then the trinket should be patentable, giving you protection for your efforts, ensuring other people can't look at your trinket and do their own to ssolve the same problem.
But what you are advocating is that by writing a program that adds 2 + 2 anybody should pay you money for the addition operator.
But not only that, there will be people claiming to have invented binary operators, then even others claiming they inveted operators, and then even others that will claim they invented mathematical symbolic languages and so on.
Software patents becomes a game of who can come with the most outrageous and broad claims and is prepared to support them with enough cash in a court of law.
The system is broken, anybody writing sofware is amply protected by copyright and should realize that at times he may "win" but in the long term we are all losing (all that money that goes to parasitic lawyers could be spent doing new, innovative products, then IT companies woue earn a living by actually doing useful things).