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E-The-People petition against overly-broad patents 34

Posted by sengan from the isn't-USPTO's-purpose-to-create-corporate-monopolies? dept.
Peter Leonard writes " EThePeople.com has put up an electronic petition for all of you to sign opposing all the lame patents the USPTO has given out recently such as MS getting a patent on CSS."
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E-The-People petition against overly-broad patents More

E-The-People petition against overly-broad patents

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  • I bet Sen. Hatch and quite a few other people like Nader would very interested in this subject. Does anyone know if anyone has started writting letters and sending email to them informing them just what is going on?
  • How long has that Leave MS Alone petition been up? A day? 11 votes? Wait until normal business hours when the suits arrive at Redmond. There will be some activity... The brains of the monster is sleeping. Be very, very quiet...
  • Mr. Anonymous, for whatever reason wrote:

    >Yeah, but what if you invented that twisted door
    >hinge and wanted credit for it?

    That's the point. Who makes money off these patents? The individual, or the inventor? I have assisted with a patent search for a sugar substitute for an individual. It was 2000 times sweet compared to sugar gram per gram. Patent granted. Sold to a big corporation that could bring it into market? No way.

    However, that patent it did good on her resume and got a job at a big drug company. Guess who has the patent now and no, that invention never made it to market. Granted, it would have cost much in FDA approval, but it is NOT in public domain.

    >So, we should just be gratefull that Microsoft isn't charging us.

    And the non Jewish residents of Germany should have been grateful that they were not Jews.
  • Thanks for the comment. Since I was the one who started the petition, let me state (for your edification, if not your education) that 1) I most certainly understand the issue, and especially the technology, 2) I have nothing to do with "E-the People" -- they simply run a site that met my needs, 3) my outrage is hardly "fad-driven" -- I assure you, it's genuine, and is driven not by a desire to "ride others' hard work" (I work quite hard myself, thank you) but to guarantee that hard work is not circumvented by silly legal tricks and tactics, 4) if you're going to try to dissuade folks from expressing their opinion, perhaps a solid argument on the issue would be more appropriate.

    Kythe
    (Remove "x"'s from
  • Well duh! I'm in the UK and can file US Patents, and Patents in half the countries across the world.

    This vote should be open to non-US citizens. Stupid bloody form insists on a ZIP code... and UK post codes don't quite fit... ;-/

    PS: You should check out Sun's Java(TM) Patents...
  • Petitions to US government representatives only have force proportional to the number of US citizens signing the petition.

    Good point. Actually, most of the points in this thread are good ones. Yes, the policies of the US patent office have a direct impact on companies and users in the rest of the world. Yes, we Canadians in particular do a lot of business with the US, and so are especially affected.

    But yes, US politicians can more easily ignore petitions with a bunch of "foreigner's" names on them.
  • The was also a "prosecute Microsoft to the gills" petition. It was started after the "leave Microsoft alone" one, and has more signatures.

    SteveM
  • Perhaps. But the people accessing the site can make their own petitions also, so it isn't that bad. Very few of the petitions have more than 20 signatures (except of course the ones that get posted on slashdot) -- it hasn't been a very effective forum so far, but it could be...
  • Yeah, but you don't have to be from the U.S. to file for a patent at the U.S. patent office. It is often advantageous for Canadians to do so because that way they gain access to a monopoly in a bigger market. The USPTO's policy will stifle innovation in many places, not merely the states.
  • Of course, the fact that the "Leave M$ alone" petition only had 10 signers is probably a good sign...
  • Hmmm...What do you think 1% of MS's gross
    receipts is?

    ;)

  • Looking back at my comments I suppose they could be considered a bit "biased and unfair" as you put it.

    However, the thread of discussion to which I was posting to was revolving around Microsoft (Note that I spelled just the way you *like* it!)

    I do however, think that the government should regulate what is being patented and not granting any 'ol ya-hoo ( I hope Yahoo! doesn't have a patent on that word) a patent who applies for the patent.

    There has to be a way to discourage such behavior. One way to do it is to impose somewhat of a high penalty for such inappropriate practices.

    This is analogous to the punishment criminals face when they commit a crime. You steal a car you face x number of years in prison. You steal a car by forcing the driver out at gun point (ie. commit a car-jacking) you face y (where y > x) number of years in jail. And so on and so forth...

    If you didn't have this type of system in place and a government which inforced the system you'd have chaos. Since there would be no repercussions to face up to. Say, I see you driving a nice lexus and I like the colour of it... hell I'll drag you out of it and drive off ... of course I'll only possess the lexus until a bigger and badder guy pulls me over and takes off with it.

    Are you getting the picture I am trying to paint for you?

    There has to be measures taken to prevent such behavior in the real world... and hence, there should be such measures in place in the US Patent Office.

    sidster--

  • Hmm...

    I wonder if this post and this other one [slashdot.org] are the type of posts we've been reading about on /. lately.

    You know, Micro$oft employees getting on the web and posting annonymously defending their anti-everything and everyone company!

    I think the US government should review all the patents granted to Micro$oft and for every patent that they find which is either too broad in scope or is a "twist" on a public-domain idea they should fine Micro$oft say $5,000,000? (USD)

    sidster--

  • So what? Internic is in USA too, silly. :-| And the United Nations building. Does it mean other contries not invited? If something is discovered and patented in USA and I invent the same thing independently and at the same time but in a different country I have to deal with US laws if I want to market and sell the product or technology in states. And if that is a lame patent as it's been happening recently I would like to fight it as well as you do.

    Vlad

  • I noticed that the pulldown menu for states has no Canadian provinces.

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