I guess it's not cynical for me to recognize everyone on slashdot is a torch-and-pitchfork wielding anti-corporation zealot either, huh? I mean, you guys have been proving me right for about a decade now.

why do I even bother to come here?

Try being a patent attorney and coming to slashdot every now and then. ;-P

An ITC finding of invalidity does not "bust a patent," it merely prevents relief through the ITC. An Article III court, e.g., a federal district court, does not have to give any weight to the ITC's validity finding, meaning the patent is still valid for "normal" law suit purposes.

Showed you THE RESULT, not the method. The patent claims the method. And please give me specific examples of this occurring "digitally" and "online" since the mid-90s, given that the web didn't really take off till 96 or 97.

wtf are you talking about? These are just law firms that apply for patents, you know, maybe for completely legitimate companies. There is nothing in the article or the summary that says these lawyers help patent trolls. You DO realize just because it involves patents doesn't automatically make it about patent trolls.

FFS man, torch and pitchfork much?

Anyone that wishes physical harm on someone because they dislike their profession is not "right minded."

And lest you think I can't take a joke, I can, it's just not funny.

Hi, I'm an IP attorney. Thanks for wishing biological warfare - boils, seizure, death - on me because you don't agree with my profession.

And you say we are jerks.

BUT, the fact the PHOSITA didn't come up with it but for your question, indicates it isn't obvious. In other words, if it's so obvious, why hasn't it been done before?

And the one-click patent still stands after several looks at it by the patent office. Have you actually ever looked at the claims, or do you - like most hear - just assume it's obvious? It's a pretty narrow patent despite its moniker.

With all due respect, you didn't provide any citation to the basis of your statement. I've never seen anything that says patents used to be awarded for things other people couldn't figure out without the patent.

Geekoid wasn't very eloquent, but his point stands.

Anthony, thank you again. These are well articulated, well thought out issues and for whatever it's worth, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to write them. I think we're on different sides of the river, but I can at least see why you prefer your side to mine. I won't convince you mine is better, but here are my thoughts on it.

To respond to your limitations issue, I hear what you're saying - most of the claim is scaffolding and there's really only one interesting nugget of invention. This is often the case because there needs to be context and antecedent basis. It sounds like what you'd prefer is if everyone wrote a Jepson claim. A Jepson claim is where you say:

A system|method for blah blah blah ... wherein the improvement comprises:X.

In those claims you are acknowledging all the prior art and laying out the single improvement, which is X. Then everyone automatically knows what's novel and what's not. The problem with those from a patentee standpoint is: everyone automatically knows what's novel and what's not. What if I thought steps A and B of my process were obvious when in fact they weren't and I said the improvement was just step C. Well I just gave up all rights to A and B. And to turn your own issue on its head, there is no way for me know - no seer I can consult - to know if what I am giving up is actually in the prior art. Let's consider the yard and fence analogy. If a surveyor didn't exist to say where exactly your property line was, when you set up a fence around your house, do you set it up as far out as you think you're reasonably entitled, or do you put it as close to your house as you can so you don't offend anyone? It's the same thing. Why would I intentionally give up claim scope? I can understand why that's a greedy approach, but I hope you can see - it is to me at least - that it's a reasonable one.

Re: the uncertainty, you can get no more certainty that you don't infringe than you can that someone hasn't copied unlicensed code into your codebase. You can take steps to address the latter, e.g., code monitoring and review, but you never really know unless you have a development team of one - yourself. That's a risk of doing business. You can mitigate the risk - for code hire a code scrubber (which admittedly has a finite data set to compare against), and for patents get a freedom to operate opinion - but you'll never be free of the uncertainty. I don't know what to tell you.

As a final question: where are all the stories of big companies completely crushing the little guys in legal fees? Everyone throws it around as a problem, but it seems that more often than not the big companies are fighting each other or the trolls are going after the big guys. I know David and Goliath battles are academically possible, but where are they in reality? I'm not even looking for a case cite; I'm looking for even just a news article that says Company X was a big meanie and used its patents to crush li'l ol' Y. It's bandied about as a scary possibility; I just want to see a real-world example of it.

*Moore's Law

I don't have statistics, but... maybe? Honestly, most of the people I work with, I'd say 95%, - which are almost all patent people - are just hardworking Joes that work in this particular field. They used to be scientists or engineers, they have families they love and life goals just like you and me.

As for reasonableness, they argue by profession, so they tend to look at all angles and if you give them a good argument, they'll consider it. And just like any profession, there are bad apples too (primarily they are just greedy, not amoral); sadly I know of some. But the vast majority of attorneys are normal people.

There are problems with the patent system. I openly agree to that. And I have very reasonable friends that disagree with me, even on the troll issue (the argument being that although trolls are bad, forcing some sort of use requirement or preventing the assignment of IP would be worse). But no system is going to be perfect. I give Obama and Congress credit for pushing some good change through. For example, it is now impossible for trolls to file a lawsuit against unrelated parties. All we can do is keep trying to tweak it to get it right.

Thank you for the response. Now I see where your coming from. But let's take it a step back. Creation will happen whether there are patents or not. Can we agree on that? Cavemen didn't need patents to invent the wheel. The goal though is disclosure. I'll tell the world about my wheel if I get some sort of exlcusivity. That exclusivity IS a weapon against the competition. That's exactly what a patent is. It's anti-competitive by nature.

What really sticks in people's craw - as best I can tell - is that unlike copyright, where originality is a defense, patents are a strict liability tort. You can infringe without knowing about the patent at all. Developers can grok that code shouldn't be stolen, but can't wrap their head around someone preventing you from independently coming up with something. But that's what patents are.

As for the delay, honestly, whether you sue someone or not is a huge decision. If it would cost 2 million for Acme to sue yoyodyne, but in 2002 it looked like yoyodyne was only going to take away 100k in business, it doesn't make sense to sue them. And no one can really predict the future. In 2007 though, "holy crap, yoyodyne is a big issue, and they are doing exactly what we did," then it makes sense to sue. Plus there's the delay that you're not going to know all your competitors right away, etc, etc. There are dozens of factors that come into play.

I don't buy that the software industry is faster-paced than any other. Moorse's Law? Not software related. Pharma? New drugs come out every day.

I disagree. There have been only two or three responses, mostly by Anthony Mouse, that really illustrate some issues. Most are just saying "I write software. My beliefs do not align with patents [in general, whether the poster realizes it or not]. Therefore software patents are bad."

It is complete speculation whether or not Apple or Microsoft could exist today. Google rose during the Time of Patents, as have many tech companies. And in fact, many startup investors will NOT invest in a company that doesn't have patents, simply because it gives the investors something to hold onto if the business is a failure. Your response is no better than anyone else's. You state a conclusion (important companies couldn't exist), but have provide zero analysis or supporting facts. Which are all necessary for a cogent, well-thought out rebuttal.

By that argument, manufacturing processes - which no one seems to have an issue with - should also not be patentable. Yet they are.