I did an email interview with Arno Gourdol, co-inventor of a gui theming related patent that was obtained while he worked at Apple. It's a nice insight to a non-lawyer perspective of how patents work by someone that has been there.
http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=12117
Interview with a patented inventor
Re:Interview with a patented inventor
I'm disappointed that a person like him (i.e., a developer type) actually echoes the drivel about patents "protecting intelectual property", and patents as "sharing knowledge". ::) :-[
Every good solution is obvious once you've found it.
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Colonel Kernel
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Re:Interview with a patented inventor
I have a confession to make. I am also named as an inventor on a patent application (not sure if it has gone through yet). No, it's not a frivilous, obvious, morally objectionable patent. 
It also has nothing to do with operating systems, and furthermore would bore you to death, so don't ask. ;D
I am not categorically against software patents (else I wouldn't have my name on one), but I do think that the review process at the USPTO is horribly broken. The suggestion to shorten the protection period is a very good one IMO. I think 2 years ought to be plenty, given the speed at which this industry moves. 20 is just outrageous, while 2 is probably enough for a company to do something useful with their "invention".
It also has nothing to do with operating systems, and furthermore would bore you to death, so don't ask. ;DI think he was talking about the idea of patents in general, not their application to software in particular, which he acknowledged is quite broken in many ways.I'm disappointed that a person like him (i.e., a developer type) actually echoes the drivel about patents "protecting intelectual property", and patents as "sharing knowledge".
I am not categorically against software patents (else I wouldn't have my name on one), but I do think that the review process at the USPTO is horribly broken. The suggestion to shorten the protection period is a very good one IMO. I think 2 years ought to be plenty, given the speed at which this industry moves. 20 is just outrageous, while 2 is probably enough for a company to do something useful with their "invention".
Top three reasons why my OS project died:
- Too much overtime at work
- Got married
- My brain got stuck in an infinite loop while trying to design the memory manager
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Kemp
Re:Interview with a patented inventor
Yeah, if you don't do anything with it within two years (by which time the industry has moved on substantially) then in general you only got the patent to stop other people having fun.
Re:Interview with a patented inventor
i have a mate who worked at cannon and has half a dozen or more patents in his name. for real world things, they are good to stop competition from abusing _your_ r&d. software is diff story tho
-- Stu --
Re:Interview with a patented inventor
Patents are like telling everybody exactly what you've invented insofar that you can claim that if they do the same, they got it from you, and then to threathen everybody to sue them to bits if they try to make something like it. Of course, you needn't tell everybody, you only need to tell the patent office.Solar wrote: I'm disappointed that a person like him (i.e., a developer type) actually echoes the drivel about patents "protecting intelectual property", and patents as "sharing knowledge". ::) :-[
Allow me to explain babies to you *cough*.
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Bob the Avenger
Re:Interview with a patented inventor
Is it anything like an explaination i was given of serverlets which started "When a Mummy server loves a Daddy server very much..."Candy wrote: Allow me to explain babies to you *cough*.
Re:Interview with a patented inventor
Oh wait, should've patented the method of creating babies first.Bob the Avenger wrote:Is it anything like an explaination i was given of serverlets which started "When a Mummy server loves a Daddy server very much..."Candy wrote: Allow me to explain babies to you *cough*.
Re:Interview with a patented inventor
The main problem with patents is that they don't work in the initial stages of a field. Computer science is still too young to apply it, although I have seen ideas that were novel enough to allow some protection. It's going too fast for the 20-year term and it's not developed enough, there are not enough examples of what "simple" and "hard" mean. I've seen patents for stuff I wouldn't think up but I've also seen patents for stuff I wouldn't even consider thinking about.
The main problem with young sciences is that the development sort of develops like a tree, with a constant amount of branching. At first, each new branch branches away quickly and is required in new branches. After quite a while, the branches reduce in speed and increase in refinedness. That is the time when patents help R&D companies and departments make ideas public, since the widest branches aren't advanced upon for years to come and won't be created if there isn't any assurance that you'll make some money with it.
Until the time that the R&D tree of CS is wide enough to do so, patents greatly stifle innovation by limiting the use of a branch in sub-branches. There are CS patents for just about every branch in the tree, including a few that are plain impossible. Ideas are being patented before people have given the ideas enough thought.
The Apple patent would fit in the tree under the "protection for 5 years" category, imo, since it is an idea that deserves some protection, but not so much as to punish everybody not thinking of that way yet. In more than one way, however, you could consider numerous common examples to be prior art. For the record, IANAL and I didn't read the patent itself (gee, feel like a slashdot reader now) so I cannot speak for it.
The main problem with young sciences is that the development sort of develops like a tree, with a constant amount of branching. At first, each new branch branches away quickly and is required in new branches. After quite a while, the branches reduce in speed and increase in refinedness. That is the time when patents help R&D companies and departments make ideas public, since the widest branches aren't advanced upon for years to come and won't be created if there isn't any assurance that you'll make some money with it.
Until the time that the R&D tree of CS is wide enough to do so, patents greatly stifle innovation by limiting the use of a branch in sub-branches. There are CS patents for just about every branch in the tree, including a few that are plain impossible. Ideas are being patented before people have given the ideas enough thought.
The Apple patent would fit in the tree under the "protection for 5 years" category, imo, since it is an idea that deserves some protection, but not so much as to punish everybody not thinking of that way yet. In more than one way, however, you could consider numerous common examples to be prior art. For the record, IANAL and I didn't read the patent itself (gee, feel like a slashdot reader now) so I cannot speak for it.