The USPTO giveth and the USPTO taketh away.
More than 80% of software patents are ultimately found invalid. Get used to this - if the long history of software patents is any indication, there will be a lot more invalidations coming.
You're going to need a citation, an authoritative citation, to back that up. I don't think you can find one.
This absolutely false. No patent lawyer would ever try to improperly influence a patent examiner. You cannot even talk to an examiner unless you schedule an appointment and put an interview summary in record saying what was discussed. Going to lunch is beyond preposterous. Both the patent attorney and the examiner would get fired for offering/taking free lunches where there is a pending case between the two.
There is a lot of corruption in the world, but U.S. Federal judges and quasi-judges like patent examiners are anything but corrupt. Some of them may be stupid and/or stubborn, but they are not corrupt.
Google is one of the most corrupt companies in the world. They may not quite be up to Haliburton levels, but they are close. Given the complete lack of ethics at Google, and among Google management, I wouldn't discount the possibility of "undue influence".
The USPTO is devolving into joke status. It is understaffed and backlogged, taking about 4 years to issue patents. One of the only "profitable" agencies of the government is being milked by the rest of then government to pay for money pits. It is the peak of incompetence for the Office to issue a patent only to have to retract EVERY single claim. Our patent system, which lets people with money support people with ideas because they anticipate a return on investment, is on the verge of collapse.
This case has the stink of corruption to it, too. You may not like that "pinch-to-zoom" was patented, but that is what the law allowed. Evidently, Samsung knows how to make the law irrelevant. With the demise of the American patent system, our entire economy will regress to where innovation grinds to a halt. It will be quite depressing.
The USPTO is devolving into joke status. It is understaffed and backlogged, taking about 4 years to issue patents. One of the only "profitable" agencies of the government is being milked by the rest of then government to pay for money pits. It is the peak of incompetence for the Office to issue a patent only to have to retract EVERY single claim. Our patent system, which lets people with money support people with ideas because they anticipate a return on investment, is on the verge of collapse.
This case has the stink of corruption to it, too. You may not like that "pinch-to-zoom" was patented, but that is what the law allowed. Evidently, Samsung knows how to make the law irrelevant. With the demise of the American patent system, our entire economy will regress to where innovation grinds to a halt. It will be quite depressing.
You're right, the USPTO is a joke. But Apple has taken advantage of this fact, and has been granted many patents which, if the USPTO actually had time to investigate, would have never been granted.
Like it or not, but the USPTO's de-facto behaviour is to grant every patent and then wait for them to get challenged.
By the way, patents are invalidated all the time in various countries. Even more shocking to you I'm sure, is that laws get changed all the time...
Not true. The US still works on a first to invent principle. At least until end of this year. For those crying out for overhaul of the American patent system, this was part of the overhaul passed in the America Invents Act last year, going into effect at the beginning of next year.
You cannot "understand" whether desks are considered a different market or not. It's all about how the patent disclosure is written.
More than 80% of software patents are ultimately found invalid. Get used to this - if the long history of software patents is any indication, there will be a lot more invalidations coming.
Quote:
You're going to need a citation, an authoritative citation, to back that up. I don't think you can find one.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Oracle-Google-case-shows-patent-system-flaws-3507618.php
Sadly for you, you are doing what most do here - quickly surf the internet and remember only the highlights that support your presumption. First of all, read your own words - "More than 80% of software patents are ultimately found invalid."
Then read what you cited: "software patent holders lose nearly 90 percent of the time in litigation".
Are they even the same thing? Only if every single software patent is litigated. Do even YOU believe this is true?
But it's worse than that. SF Gate article (highly the authoritative source you are asked to present), like you, also misconstrued (or deliberately obfuscated) their source. And their so-called source in fact quotes yet another source. In the original publication, it states that 90% of the "most asserted" software patents are invalidated, but only if there is no settlement. Guess what - settlement happens nearly 90% of the time!
So, in reality, it is not true that 90% of software patents are invalidated. It is not even true that 90% of litigated patents are invalidated.
Do yourself a favor, abstain rather than ejaculate prematurely.
More than 80% of software patents are ultimately found invalid. Get used to this - if the long history of software patents is any indication, there will be a lot more invalidations coming.
Quote:
You're going to need a citation, an authoritative citation, to back that up. I don't think you can find one.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Oracle-Google-case-shows-patent-system-flaws-3507618.php
Sadly for you, you are doing what most do here - quickly surf the internet and remember only the highlights that support your presumption. First of all, read your own words - "More than 80% of software patents are ultimately found invalid."
Then read what you cited: "software patent holders lose nearly 90 percent of the time in litigation".
Are they even the same thing? Only if every single software patent is litigated. Do even YOU believe this is true?
But it's worse than that. SF Gate article (highly the authoritative source you are asked to present), like you, also misconstrued (or deliberately obfuscated) their source. And their so-called source in fact quotes yet another source. In the original publication, it states that 90% of the "most asserted" software patents are invalidated, but only if there is no settlement. Guess what - settlement happens nearly 90% of the time!
So, in reality, it is not true that 90% of software patents are invalidated. It is not even true that 90% of litigated patents are invalidated.
Do yourself a favor, abstain rather than ejaculate prematurely.
@Ankleskater: Whether by intention or omission, your argumentation is also confusing rather than clarifying anything. While your comments are probably reasonably accurate, you are omitting some rather relevant factors which need to be taken into account.
One such factor is of course the fact that a huge but hard-to-verify proportion of victims of patent-trolls actually decide not to contest and pay up simply because it is cheaper (or thought to be) to pay up rather than litigate to the end-game. This is one of the fundamental weaknesses of the US legal system. In the EU, the loser pays. In the US there is no financial risk or penalty associated with asserting patents which have a high probability of being invalidated. The key is to set the license demands high enough to make money, but to stay under the line where the defendant will have to let the matter go to court. So these figures are largely unknown and distort the overall picture considerably. I note that you do mention that settlement happens 90% of the time, but that is in itself not germane to the real problem which is that junk patents are regularly issued in the first place. So I think, unless you can produce good data to support your argument, you should acknowledge the fact that the validity or otherwise of noncontested patents is something that is not resolvable.
So that leaves us with those patents that actually do get to court .... and here the picture is quite clear, that the vast majority of software patents seem to get invalidated in the courts.
@Ankleskater: Whether by intention or omission, your argumentation is also confusing rather than clarifying anything. While your comments are probably reasonably accurate, you are omitting some rather relevant factors which need to be taken into account.
One such factor is of course the fact that a huge but hard-to-verify proportion of victims of patent-trolls actually decide not to contest and pay up simply because it is cheaper (or thought to be) to pay up rather than litigate to the end-game. This is one of the fundamental weaknesses of the US legal system. In the EU, the loser pays. In the US there is no financial risk or penalty associated with asserting patents which have a high probability of being invalidated. The key is to set the license demands high enough to make money, but to stay under the line where the defendant will have to let the matter go to court. So these figures are largely unknown and distort the overall picture considerably. I note that you do mention that settlement happens 90% of the time, but that is in itself not germane to the real problem which is that junk patents are regularly issued in the first place. So I think, unless you can produce good data to support your argument, you should acknowledge the fact that the validity or otherwise of noncontested patents is something that is not resolvable.
So that leaves us with those patents that actually do get to court .... and here the picture is quite clear, that the vast majority of software patents seem to get invalidated in the courts.
What are you talking about?
First, to focus on patents that actually go to court in order to say MacR is right and I am wrong by intention or omission is absurd.
Second, it's also not true that 90% of patents that go to court are invalidated. Only 90% of those that are "most asserted".
But this is pointless. I get the game here - keep parsing words and facts until you find a way to satisfy yourself that you weren't wrong in the first place. Few people here would ever have the humility to say - "Damn, I was wrong. Thanks for schooling me, again." Hell, few people here actually read something completely before they comment.
Right now these are ex parte reexaminations triggered by a request which were filed anonymously. And by anonymously we all know that at least one of those anonymous parties is Google. ...Or Microsoft? You should have noticed the change in tone towards Apple when Florian Mueller discusses any of the touch patents, particularly with zero evidence these have ever been licensed to anyone but Nokia, IBM and now HTC. IMHO it's a dead giveaway that something opposes MS interests if FOSSPatents doesn't fully support an otherwise frontal assault on anything that harms Google. With multi-touch patents he's found ways to object to some of the claims. Otherwise he's been generally supportive of Apple, particularly when something has the potential to harm Google in any way.
melior diabolus quem scies
"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012
melior diabolus quem scies
"No theatrics and no more personal attacks, just stick to the logic and tell me why I don't have any argument ~ Jragosta/2012
...Or Microsoft? You should have noticed the change in tone towards Apple when Florian Mueller discusses any of the touch patents. IMHO it's a dead giveaway that something opposes MS interests if FOSSPatents doesn't fully support an otherwise frontal assault on anything that harms Google. With multi-touch patents he's found ways to object to some of the claims. Otherwise he's been generally supportive of Apple, particularly when something has the potential to harm Google in any way.
Oh, please, Microsoft and Apple have cross-licensing agreements. It's Google.
Sadly for you, you are doing what most do here - quickly surf the internet and remember only the highlights that support your presumption. First of all, read your own words - "More than 80% of software patents are ultimately found invalid."
Then read what you cited: "software patent holders lose nearly 90 percent of the time in litigation".
Are they even the same thing? Only if every single software patent is litigated. Do even YOU believe this is true? ...
He doesn't care if it's true. None of the Android enthusiasts and shills who post here are interested in truth.
All the news sources are saying this is an ex parte reexamination request.
Anyone can request such, after paying a fee. Or it can be started by the Patent Commissioner.
It could even be done by Apple itself, with the intention to modify / nail down a claim if need be.
The USPTO keeps statistics on the outcome of such requests. You can read the latest PDF here or view this:
He doesn't care if it's true. None of the Android enthusiasts and shills who post here are interested in truth.
Truth as defined by you?
The world does end tomorrow... Maybe it'll be a zombie apocalypse and he'll be part of it.
Too soon?
Well, no, you're only 24 hours off; that's fine.
I'm set for a zombie apocalypse, myself. House is easily defensible and I'm semi-proficient with a sword, which, if the media is any indication, has the best fun to effectiveness ratio when the time comes to go out and get more supplies.
I see what you mean about desks vs. phones.
Apple HAD to patent this if it was patentable, or someone else could copy the iPhone, then sue Apple for things like this!
I hope Apple licenses it out on livable terms, at least.
That's simply not true. If something has been publicly demonstrated or disclosed, then a claimant has a certain amount of time to file for a patent-- otherwise, anyone else can come along and reproduce or take from the invention. But someone else can not come along and patent something that has already foregone the patent. Actually in a way that's what Apple may have been found to do-- i.e. it's being alleged that Apple's patent is being invalidated due to "prior art", which means another entity had previously demonstrated something similar to what Apple is claiming to have invented. So in a way, Apple is being accused of having tried to patent something that has already been invented (i.e. nagromme saying that if something is patentable but not patented, someone else can copy it and then sue people for it).
Also, some people need to keep in mind that just because something was made popular by a company-- just because you never saw it in a product before company X started selling it, does not mean that the company has invented it. Plenty of things are being invented and even demonstrated outside of the general public's awareness (and yes, you're the general public unless you're in the labs/etc. that are doing this sort of stuff). I admire Apple as much as anybody else, but that doesn't mean everything you see from Apple had never previously existed outside of Apple.
For the purpose of invalidating patents, "prior art" in the USA, both now (before the transition to first-to-file), and next year (after the transition) includes more than just other issued patents.
"Prior art" also includes, for example, purely academic white papers, provided they go into enough detail about the construction and outcomes of the prospective technology.
The distinction between "first to invent" and "first to file" in the near future really only comes into play when two people make competing applications to own a patent on the same technology, and there is no evidence of prior art which would act to invalidate both claimants.
You can see their example of a two finger zoom at 4:30 into this 1988 video, of research that started in 1983:
Heck, in early 2006, a year before the iPhone was shown off, you could get a multi-touch bartop installed in your restaurant... the iBar (Interactive Bar):
I was working on capacitive touchscreen interactive video gaming (Poker, Bingo and Slots) machines for casinos in the early 1990s. (Casinos are incredibly wealthy and can afford almost any technology.) If you went to Manitoba Lotteries in Winnipeg, or Foxwoods Casino, or Potawatomi Bingo in Milwaukee, or others in Palm Springs and around the world back then, you very likely used some of my work. We even connected casinos across the continent for progressive payouts, using dialup modems.)
Before someone asks, the first known multi-touch capacitive touchscreen was invented at Bell Labs (naturally!) by Bob Boie in 1984... at the time that Apple was just starting to sell its new mouse-driven Mac.
Apple would've known about it because they bought Fingerworks in 2005, and its owner... who went to work for Apple... had written about Boie's work in his 1999 thesis.
By now, no knowledgeable person debating timelines should be unaware of the fact that multi-touch... and pinch to zoom... has been around for decades.
