We are actually lucky that no one ever took a patent on our door knob to crank or turn to open the door … or push the button, flip the switch to start any electric/electronic device … or turn the key to start your car … or crank the handle to open your car window … 
Apparently windscreen wipers were patented after some guy demonstrated his new idea to the big automakers. They immediately ripped off his idea without paying him.
There is a semiconductor company in Taiwan (I’d better not mention their name cos they have excellent lawyers) which doesn’t actually have any products. They derive most of their income from taking out patents for commonplace technology that people have known about for decades - not necessarily simple stuff, but well-established techniques. They then sue small companies who are using it. The little guys usually just pay up to avoid being hauled over the coals, but even if they reach the courts, the average judge/jury is unable to comprehend the technical issues involved, and the big company is awarded a payout. They’re mentioned here:
I think the principle at stake here is that ideas should not and can not be justly patented. (a) because they exist on an immaterial level and so are not definable in the same exact way as other things necessary for a patent to be reasonably enforceable (& therefore be legit in the first place) (b) because ideas are ultimately the common possession of all humanity not single individuals as they are the result of the efforts of all previous humanity and constitute the legacy we will pass on as civilisation (and you can’t patent that).
I’m sure that the patent office is neglecting its responsibilities when it allows these ideas to be patented. In practice, they kick the problem down the road, to the courts, as finley mentions.
Actually, the patent office tried to turn away some ridiculous patents and was slapped around by the courts. After that, they pretty much threw up their hands and started handing out patents and letting the courts figure it out. The system’s in wretched condition. ‘Slide to lock’: what a joke.
I patented farting. Any of you dudes does a fart, you owe me 5p.
Is it more if I follow through?
Is it more if I follow through?[/quote]
I don’t have the patent on that. Might be a quick buck in it for the right person…
I’m not a lawyer so I find it somewhat perplexing … what exactly should you be allowed to patent?
You create a arguably original industrial design for a device, it gets copied; garish skeuomorphic interface, seemingly copied; lets build an app store, seemingly copied. You create a unique way to interact with the device (all of which seem obvious now); you get copied. Why go to the expense if you can’t protect your inventions if not for a short period of time?
I’m not defending Apple or this patent, nor do I find the remixing of ideas necessarily bad, but I’m curious as to how this should work for everyones benefit.
It’s defined as something that is new, useful, and non-obvious. The vast majority of patents that are submitted are neither new (as per the semiconductor company I mentioned - they even brag about the non-new stuff they’ve managed to patent on their website), or useful, nor non-obvious, but they get granted anyway. Farting, for instance, doesn’t meet any of the criteria. Thing is, it’s just too complicated to study each application in detail and review all the prior art, which may be obscure. In the slide-to-unlock patent, for example, it could be argued that it mimics a real-life sliding-bolt lock, and is therefore obvious. Of course everything’s obvious with the benefit of hindsight, which is why it’s far better to have patents properly examined in the first place rather than just kicked into the courts, because by that time reality has coloured everyone’s judgement.
The other problem with patents is that, by their nature, they involve full disclosure; the whole point of them, in fact, is that they should stimulate improvements. Therefore, someone who takes an existing patent and applies some demonstrably novel (non-obvious) improvement has a basis for a new patent. The idea is that the original inventor gets protection for whatever he invented, while increasing the pace of future innovation. In practice, again, it’s very hard to tell what constitutes a non-obvious improvement.
Slide-to-unlock is ridiculous. Who owns the patent on the dedicated red and green buttons to answer or end calls that are on all cellphones?
Remember the hullaballoo about Apple suing HTC. What did HTC infringe in the end? The auto recognition of a telephone number to dial in a text message.
I have mentioned on here previously about an idea I might have pursued if only the patent office hadn’t granted rights to a ‘patent hoarder’ 8 years ago. The patent basically consists of a random essay about possible display technologies for cars. How did it get approved? I will try and find it and post the link on here for anybody to see how ridiculous these claims are.
I agree with most posters , the patent offices are not doing their duty and are overwhelmed, they are rubber stamping documents in too many cases.
I think that one can justly patent stuff you’ve actually made that is uniquely, demonstrably and materially new.
Apl, etc, submit blue prints of stuff they think they would possibly like to make one day - thus they try to patent ideas.
Hence turning the door handle to open doors (sorry, door-handles-you-turn) is not suitable to patent because it’s just an idea. You could, if you came up with a new and unique mechanism for the handle/latch/lock part, patent that. I think the problem with ‘slide to unlock’ is the same. You can’t patent pressing buttons (sorry, buttons-you-press) either.
Yes the problem occurs when they put together a list of hundreds of rough concepts only a few of which will become viable and the concepts do not have a clear description of how it will be be achieved in reality for a WORKING device, yet the patents still get approved.
This stifles innovation rather than promoting it.
The problem is that the little guy must patent before he can make anything using his idea, or he’ll lose the right to patent it. So it’s not as easy as saying (in the US) that you should only patent stuff you’ve made.
Did you know there is actually a US patent on “moving the hand to indicate the tones of a tonal language”? Anybody who’s ever waved his hand to help him get a fourth tone falling hard enough is guilty of patent infringement. 
You can’t claim a fart because everyone does it naturally, but I have a design for a chair/stool-like device that has a tube extending from the anus to a tank and stores the methane and other volatile and inert gases and passes it to a combustion chamber that warms up your ass/arse when you pull a lever. Trouble with these new smartass patents is they bybass the lever and make a mere swipe of the finger a patent.
The approach quite a few big software companies take on this is simply to prohibit their engineers from looking at patents. The idea is so they can openly innovate. Some times they will infringe, other times they will generate something new that is not obvious to someone versed in the arts and is thus patentable. At that point, it’s a matter of companies pitting patent portfolios against each other. “Cross licensing” is basically a euphemism for two companies deciding that a set of patent infringements cancels out another set of infringements on the other side.
I have a few patents that came out of big company processes like this, and two that came out of the garage. I can say that for a small company or individual a patent basically boils down to not much more than a promotion tool and a way to build credibility. If a larger company infringes, they’ll likely win from sheer virtue of having more ammunition in legal resources and money.
Thus, what actually matters is what’s mattered all along: you have to actually build it, promote it and sell it better than the other guy. If you’re doing things well, expect to get copied, patent or not.
In the end, I feel software patents aren’t really fitting the spirit of patents in allowing people to risk large capital and time to do research as with say pharma, simply because the cost of R&D in software is so small. The flip side of this is that software of any kind is so easy and low cost to distribute, promote and run these days that one could simply look at it as an acceleration of the process.
That’s why in Europe software can NOT be patented … so, the German court in Munich infringes on its own law …
You should be thankful that the ellipsis hasn’t been patented. Otherwise, you’d be up to your knees in crap.
You should be thankful that the ellipsis hasn’t been patented. Otherwise, you’d be up to your knees in crap.[/quote]
I just patented it … no worries … … … :ohreally: :roflmao:
Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung includes a patent for scrolling down a list and when you hit the bottom, the list makes a slight “bounce.” Note that this idea of images that bounce when you click on them has been around for a long time.
Amazon has a patent on “one-click shopping,” and has sued Barnes-and-Noble for this.
Business methods are patentable in the USA. Ebay was famously sued for a patent about “online auctions.” The lawsuit was successful, and Ebay had to make a huge settlement. The person who sued never attempted to enter the online auction business - he just filed a patent and waited for a company like Ebay to come along so he could sue them for his “invention.”
A whole industry of “patent trolls” has emerged. These are companies that file numerous patent applications, or buy up other absurd patents, and then troll around looking for companies to sue. These patent trolls invent nothing, and have no other business model but suing.
The US Patent and Trademark Office is a profit-making business. They live off of fees collected from patent applications. So they have all the incentive in the world to grant as many patents as possible. They grant patents for things that were invented previously, patented, the patents expired, and then they grant a new patent for the exact same thing to another applicant. The chaos this causes in the business world is of no concern to them, because they have no liability for mistakes that they make. If they had to refund the patent application fees and pay the legal cost of getting a bogus patented canceled, the USPTO would be out of business. It’s a reform I’d like to see.
Do note that this is all very much an American invention. But the USA is trying to push software patents onto other countries via trade agreements. It’s one good reason why I’m totally opposed to Taiwan making a free trade agreement with the USA. America already blackmailed Taiwan into passing the DMCA, which (among other things) is why you can’t legally buy a multi-region DVD player in Taiwan.