IBM Adopts Open Patent Policy 91
Andy Updegrove writes to mention a New York Times article about IBM's bold new move to reform patent practices. The nation's largest patent holder will adopt several new policies intended to clear up the veil of secrecy and wall of lawsuits that plague the patent process. From the article: "The policy, being announced today, includes standards like clearly identifying the corporate ownership of patents, to avoid filings that cloak authorship under the name of an individual or dummy company. It also asserts that so-called business methods alone -- broad descriptions of ideas, without technical specifics -- should not be patentable. The move by I.B.M. does carry business risks. Patents typically take three or four years after filing to be approved by the patent office. Companies often try to keep patent applications private for as long as possible, to try to hide their technical intentions from rivals."
Value proposition (Score:5, Insightful)
If companies just focused on things they can offer, at qualities no one else can then they'd make money. It's when they get this entitled sense of "I have a right to be making gobs of money regardless of what I do" that we get into this patent mess.
Tom
Re:Value proposition (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's not a case of "regardless of what I do" - it's a case of "I did something unique, and I want to be rewarded for it". That's why the US Constitution specifically provides for patents of limited duration. If they truly developed something new, they are entitled to a reward (as opposed to the ridiculous "business model" patents that caused RIM and the Blackberry so much trouble). If IBM is truly leading the way to junk the business model patent, they are doing all of us a service.
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I'm all for copyright, because at least you have to create something. Patents are far too often abused in terms of proof of concept, vagueness, etc to actually be considered a goo
Re:Value proposition (Score:4, Insightful)
If your competitors can't do it, there is no reason for a patent.
The patent is made to protect the filer. The protection is that it protects his time and money.
If i create the better mouse trap, and the world starts beating a path to my door, i need to invest money to start making more. The problem is, by the time i put the money and effort in to getting my factory going, an old-style mouse trap company will use one production line to make this new one. End result, i'm out all that money because they can outsell me due to preexisting infrastructure. However, if i get a patent, i can put my money and effort into it, knowing that i am protected for a period of time.
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I agree there is a problem if your employees steal your companies technology and take it elsewhere. That's where employee contracts come in handy. I think instead of a Patent act we should have a secrecy act. That is, you can be sued if you take advantage of someone elses secrets by poaching employees or espionage [but not vi
Re:Value proposition (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe not, but I can with the following assets:
FIB (Forced Ion Beam)
E-Beam
SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope)
AFM (Atomic Force Microscope)
Industrial espionage
Hiring some of your key staff
Bribing your FAB &&|| Foundry (especially if in APAC)
Bribing your customers (they often have datasheets not publicly available)
(honestly I don't need all of this, various subsets can accomplish the same end results in varying ammounts of time (days, weeks, monts. Always < 1year)).
Ask me how I know (Hint, my company has both been on the receiving end and giving end of this. The giving end was to prove/disprove whether they stole our design. They did.)
-nB
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Sure... Curiosity wonders how many of those methods were used by hinted companies on hinted product(s).
I really is interesting to hear.
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"Process to determine method of creating a duplicate manufactoring process of electronic and other systems".
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Except that we want inventions to be disclosed, which is why we have patents in the first place!
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Interesting, if we switch the two bolded words (minus the "ed") we get:
Except that we disclose inventions to be wanted, which is why we have patents in the first place!
It also makes sense in a devious sort of way.
Re:Value proposition (Score:5, Insightful)
We do. It's called trade secret law, and it's a very old form of law rooted in British common law. Virtually every tech company out there makes use of trade secret law on a day-to-day basis. Of course, the problem with trade secret law is this: what if I can figure out how to make a 65nm circuit by examining it with electron microscope? Well, then guess what? The trade secret isn't secret anymore and it loses its protected status. That's where patents come in.
I'm not in favor of abolishing patents -- I think patents are a good thing when used correctly. It's the patent abuse that ruins the whole system. I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bath water. What we need to do is reform the patent system, and IBM has taken a good first step in leading the way. No more business process patents, no more vagueness, and for godsakes, if you haven't implemented your invention yet, you don't deserve a patent. And the USPTO needs to stop granting patents for things that are blatantly obvious to anyone skilled in the art.
Re:Value proposition (Score:5, Informative)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
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Plenty of innovation took place before there was a patent system. However, the only way of protecting your invention was by keeping secrets. The patent system requires inventors to share details of their inventions for several purposes. Researchers can build upon your technique and use the theory behind i
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A lot of bad patents seem to simply cover implementing an idea in sof
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We've lost sight of what patents are for. If the knowledge contained in the patent is not valuable to the public then it should not be patentable -- let the company keep it as a trade secret (if they can). Patents are a reward the public gives in exchange for the inventor placing useful knowledge in
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I believe what you are refering to is a COPYRIGHT. That is an exclusive right to produce a specific written/drawn/taped/otherwise recorded production for a scope of time as the creator of that content. It is fundamentally different from a patent in that it does not control production of a thing, but publication of an idea.
Patents provide
Copyrights becoming as broad as patents (Score:2)
You claim that patents are much broader than copyrights over their respective subject matter. I can think of an exception: why is copying a single phrase of music [slashdot.org], with 9 or fewer notes, considered copyright infringement?
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or is that method already patented?
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But the whole point of the patent system is -- well, was originally -- that you don't get rewarded for doing something unique. You get rewarded for sharing the special thing that you've done with the rest of the world. Doing something new and unique and then keeping it to yourself is not worthy of reward; which is why if, instead of patenting something you invented, you keep it a secret, then anyone else who gets the same idea ind
Seriously? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
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heh heh heh...
Not so fast (Score:4, Interesting)
See, patents were supposed to do two things, in this order:
1. First and foremost, to make sure we're getting the exact recipe to make something, instead of ending up buried somewhere out of reach. Sure, you get your monopoly on sewing machines, Mr Singer (for example), but in return society gets the _exact_ recipe and description of how it works. After 20 years, we get that in the public domain.
2. To stimulate innovation. Go research something already. If someone else patented it, well, research something else.
The current non-patented programming fuck-up serves neither point. We have millions of monkeys who don't invent anything, and don't share anything. They just copy-and-paste (even via memory, but copy-and-paste nevertheless) someone else's algorithms, and never invent anything new. Ever. And the results of even that unoriginal copied-and-pasted work remains buried somewhere behind a wall of NDAs, on some old tape in a steel safe.
Sorry, people, that's not how technological progress works. What we have here is stagnation and waste of resources.
You're affraid that patents will put your company out of business? Well then how about said company starts investing in research already? How about inventing something new already? How many people does your company pay to research new algorithms? No, seriously. Be honest. Zero, perchance? No, that's not innovation, that's not progress, it's just copying someone else's work, over and over again.
Yes, software patents do carry the stigma of having been abused and mis-used by patent-trolls. There were a lot of bullshit and obvious patents snuck through just because the patent office got disoriented by anything that mentioned "in software" or "on a computer". Ooh, it's the same old volume knob, only now "on a computer"... that sounds soo high-tech, let's patent it. Duly noted, and I too wish we'd be rid of _those_ already.
But there are lots of things which aren't trivial at all. And blimey, I'd love to see more of those researched and documented.
E.g., to give the old (and now expired) whine about the LZW patent, how about you invent a compression algorithm from scratch, if you think compression is trivial. Yes, LZW (and LZSS and arithmetic compression and everything else) seems trivial when you just copy it (even via memory) from someone else's book. Sure, copying is easy. Now you try _inventing_ a new one, then tell me how trivial that was. If you're not damn good at maths, I doubt that you'll even know where to start. No offense. I tried and didn't know either.
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If you look at history, yes, there were inventions before... at the rate of 2-3 per century at best. E.g., it's easy to look at the ancient Greece period and see how many new things they invented, and all that mat
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So culture has changed, but it won't change again? Makes no sense to me.
With no financial incentive, nothing gets done.
It always annoys me to hear this argument. If that were so there would be no open source. In fact there might not be any computers at all if it weren't for the early mathematicians and researchers who had little financial incentive. It also presumes people never perform charity work. I assume ther
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Except it often took centuries or even millenia to change again. So we could sit and wait until it changes again for the better, or we could do what works here and now. Dunno about you, but I'll pick the latter.
What, you mean like most of Linux being the work of paid employees of IBM, RedHat, SuSE, Intel, etc? Or like OpenOffice being an ex-closed-source program that's being developped now b
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Re:Not so fast (Score:5, Informative)
I was not familiar with exactly how LZW worked, but I am familiar with basic information theory. To test this, I sat down for a minute (actually, I was already sitting) and considered how I would go about creating a universal stream compressor. I then checked the Wikipedia page for LZW. Reading around that, it seems that LZW is very similar to the algorithm that I came up with in a short time (different symbol lengths, slightly different encoding, but comparable. I'd have to implement them both to see which was better, but a quick information theoretical examination shows that they should be relatively close). Of course, these days there there are much better algorithms available; I would claim to be able to come up with something better than, or even equivalent to, the algorithms used in bzip2, for example.
About the only thing LZW had going for it was its ubiquity; the fact that the UNIX compress tool and the GIF file format used it. Designing an algorithm better than LZW is not hard, as is shown by the plethora of better compression algorithms that exist. I would expect that anyone with a degree in Computer Science or Mathematics could come up with one at least close to LZW (and if they couldn't, I'd like to know what institution awarded their degree). The difficult thing is generating a better decompression algorithm that still lets you view your GIF images.
Another good example of a software patent is the Marching Cubes algorithm. This is the standard way of generating an isosurface of a volume. Or, rather, it would be. Since it was patented, the community responded by developing the Marching Tetrahedra algorithm. Anyone with any experience working with volume graphics will tell you that both are trivial to derive from first principles (i.e. obvious), being little more than extensions into three dimensions of flood-fill algorithms (a slight oversimplification, but not a huge one). Similarly, LZW is obvious to anyone with a background in information theory.
By the way, both of these patents were filed within a year of each other. This means that both of them are expiring about now. The only positive benefit that either has had is to force implementers to come up with better algorithms (almost the opposite of the stated aim of patents) as a work-around. This is fine (although smacks of re-inventing the wheel in a lot of cases) for the most part, but in cases like LZW it is a huge impediment to the industry since it requires the abandonment and replacement of an established file format.
The independent reinvention problem (Score:2)
Assuming that Congress doesn't enact the Cher Patent Term Extension Act. And given the pace of independent reinvention in computer science, is a 20-year term anywhere near optimal "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"?
So what should I do if I end up like Ross Williams and end up independently reinventing several patented processes in a row? Williams
Here's an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, allow all patent holders to submit their votes for the most frivolous patents. Prosecute the top 100 holders every month. Rinse, repeat (until their are no more frivolous patents).
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I've just instructed my lawyers to send you the suit. You are clearly infringing on my patent:
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How about saving everyone a lot of time, trouble and expense and just not grant frivolous patents?
Just stamp all such applications "Dumbass" and send 'em back. Problem solved.
KFG
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If not, why don't we fire all the current patent reviewers and replace them with the people we hire to detect frivolousness? Then retroactively review all patents ever granted to specifically check for frivolousness that we previously could not detect due to our patent reviewers inattention to frivolousness, thus letting frivolous patents through and getting us in
Office is flooded (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll throw out an idea. The patent office is flooded; frivolous patents are accepted because the resources aren't there to examine applications with anything near the correct level of scrutiny.
Why is the patent office flooded Because teh potential benefits of securing a patent are significant enough to justify the cost of flooding it.
Reduce the benefits. Scope and term. 5 year term for most patents; 2 years for software if you really don't think we can live without software patents. 0 years for "business
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K.I.S.S. (Score:2)
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i agree with your principle, however, of some form of penalty for frivolous patents. Perhaps a ban on filing future patents for a period of time?
a patent review would be a good start. a faster expiry on patents would also be beneficial.
The way some of you "paint a picture" with words.. (Score:3, Funny)
{Jepordy music plays in background}
I bet most of these guys are thinking they probably don't even have cookies in prison and their worn-out asses would probably look big in an adult diaper. So I'm thinkin' they'll take the lemon cookie.
I mean, that what *I* would do.
Applause (Score:3, Insightful)
And so IBM is taking this bold step and should be commended for its actions. Clearly the USPTO is in over its head thanks to the explosion of technology (brought about in no small part by IBM) and it takes a forward-thinking company to put this stuff out there and risk losing some of their competitive edge. I'm just wondering if this might prove more of a trigger for lawsuits as other comapnies peruse these patent applications looking for infringements on their current patents?
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They are no way interested in reducing the number of patents they want to obtain every year. They are getting the most patents in any given year, and ofcourse by definition they must be getting the most number of frivolous patents also in any given year.
There is no need for applause till they lobby for
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That assumes that all patents have an equal chance of being frivolous, which is not necessarily true. For example, I'll wager that patents applied for by Infinium Labs are much more likely to be frivolous than those applied for by IBM.
What kind of math is that? (Score:1)
What crack are you smoking? Just because they get the most patents in no way shape or form means they get the most frivolous patents. To claim that is "by definition" is idiotic. Suppose we have 100,000 patents filed a year, 30% of which are "frivolous", g
awareness of the problem (Score:2)
Patented Buzzzzzzzzzz words! (Score:1)
*Evily twists moustache*
Ummm.. whatsat?
*Looks at prior art from SCO*
Ewwwww... Maybe IBM is right.
Soko
It's not just IBM (Score:5, Interesting)
The above-mentioned corporations do all skilled legal staff but patent litigation is not their business. IBM and GE in particular have expertise that allow them to follow through on their patents. Any "copy-cats" would have difficulty producing products from many of the more esoteric, high tech or highly process oriented technologies these companies have to offer.
If patent finding publishing becomes widespread, it will give companies the legal footing to allow them to concentrate on creating technology rather than split hairs over buzzwords. We see an aligning of real innovators against those who simply gamble that some court will award them money like mana from heaven.
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You are aware that this (i.e., getting people to publish inventions in a clear and reproducible manner) is what patents are supposed to be doing, right? I think we ought to fix the mechanism we already have...
materials and expertise (Score:1)
The point of the article is that companies keep their patents completely secret until t
not often you see (Score:3, Insightful)
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Building a New IP Marketplace (IBM Research) (Score:4, Interesting)
Via the ConsortiumInfo Standards Blog [consortiuminfo.org]
good, cause patents are anti free market (Score:4, Interesting)
IBM is trapped by its own invention (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble is, there is no dividing line between a patent for microcode, and a patent for swinging a pizza. The moment you allow the definition of a software model to be patented, you open the gates to patents on every idea. It just takes time - 10 years - before the patent industry assiduously hacks every single definition, but it happens.
IBM is now very unhappy with the patent situation. They have invested hundreds of millions (billions, probably) in their patent portfolio but it mostly covers older technology where there is less and less licensing opportunity. Meanwhile the patent business is creating record turnover, which deflates their patent portfolio.
Yes, IBM is against business process patents. Big deal. Any business process can be reworked as a software patent. Any border that tries to separate the 'good' software patents from the 'bad' ones can be hacked until it's gone.
The only reason large firms like IBM, SAP, and Microsoft still support the software patent model is because their patent policy is dictated by patent attornies. If the CFO or CTO was in charge, it'd be different.
As for the suggestion that patents were "closed" before... bizarre. The whole justification for granting a patent monopoly is to reward the inventor for publishing his work.
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Considering that IBM is asserting " that so-called business methods alone -- broad descriptions of ideas, without technical specifics -- should not be patentable.
Like Timothy Leary supporting drug reform? (Score:2)
Duh (Score:3, Interesting)
More serious note though: has this policy been influenced at all by that SCO guff? I wonder...
The only "Open" Patent Policy... (Score:2)
In a bizarre twist... (Score:1)
About Keeping Patent Applications... (Score:2)
"Companies often try to keep patent applications private for as long as possible, to try to hide their technical intentions from rivals."
You mean like the "Ultra-Capacitor" guys?
Or, alternatively, did you mean something more like the "Ultra-Capacitor" guys?
{sorry}
skepticism (Score:1)
Now I can find out what McKenney is up to :) (Score:1)
This will be interesting since I was
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Why software patents are retarded... (Score:2, Informative)