Comment Re:That's not exacly the case.... (Score 1) 321
Because after the flurry of papers, alligations, and FUD by their pack of million-dollar-priced lawyers, there's not a jury or judge in the world that will rule in my favor.
Actually, that wouldn't likely be decided by a jury. It's possible that it would be decided in an interference proceeding by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. You would attempt to show (based on your *documentary evidence*) that you invented your fabulous product first. Also, only the true inventor can file a patent application, so if you can show that MS "derived" their invention from you, they don't get a patent. It may be true that the party with more money (or the one with Lawyers on salary) can make things difficult for the one with less, but that's a product of the capitalist economic system in which we live rather than of the legal system. The law is balanced toward all parties. It's what allows small companies to prevail over large ones, even if you choose not to acknowledge those triumphs. It's the economics of the world in which we live that favors the wealthy, the law is an attempt to bring balance to an unbalanced world.
SURE, the law might SAY incremental changes can't be patented...
Where does the law say that? The law says that an invention must be "useful," "novel" and "non-obvious." Nothing about no "incremental changes." How would that be defined, anwyway?
And by the way, the word "obvious" has a different meaning in patent law than it does in normal English. In normal English, the word means, "readily apparent, or easily understood." In patent law, it means something closer to "A person having ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made (usually seen as the filing date) could have made this invention by combining the teachings of prior art references A, B and C." This is a very subjective definition, so of course it can always be argued that my invention is not obvious. Apparently Amazon was able to convince the patent Examiner that the invention claimed in the One-click patent was not obvious. It's a point on which reasonable people may (and clearly do) disagree. The real problem with software/internet patents seems to be a lack of a useable database of prior art that includes all of the things that people seem to think it should.
Actually, that wouldn't likely be decided by a jury. It's possible that it would be decided in an interference proceeding by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. You would attempt to show (based on your *documentary evidence*) that you invented your fabulous product first. Also, only the true inventor can file a patent application, so if you can show that MS "derived" their invention from you, they don't get a patent. It may be true that the party with more money (or the one with Lawyers on salary) can make things difficult for the one with less, but that's a product of the capitalist economic system in which we live rather than of the legal system. The law is balanced toward all parties. It's what allows small companies to prevail over large ones, even if you choose not to acknowledge those triumphs. It's the economics of the world in which we live that favors the wealthy, the law is an attempt to bring balance to an unbalanced world.
SURE, the law might SAY incremental changes can't be patented...
Where does the law say that? The law says that an invention must be "useful," "novel" and "non-obvious." Nothing about no "incremental changes." How would that be defined, anwyway?
And by the way, the word "obvious" has a different meaning in patent law than it does in normal English. In normal English, the word means, "readily apparent, or easily understood." In patent law, it means something closer to "A person having ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was made (usually seen as the filing date) could have made this invention by combining the teachings of prior art references A, B and C." This is a very subjective definition, so of course it can always be argued that my invention is not obvious. Apparently Amazon was able to convince the patent Examiner that the invention claimed in the One-click patent was not obvious. It's a point on which reasonable people may (and clearly do) disagree. The real problem with software/internet patents seems to be a lack of a useable database of prior art that includes all of the things that people seem to think it should.
