Topic: You can patent that??

[Pugnate]

http://kotaku.com/5127959/nintendo-microsoft-sued-over-parental-control-system

You can patent parental controls??

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[gpw11]

I didn't read the article, is it the V-chip guy?

[idolminds]

Patents and copyrights are SOOOO fucked up.

[Cobra951]

Patents especially.  You can patent just about anything.  If there wasn't prior art on driving nails into boards with a hammer, carpenters would get sued daily.  It really needs a complete overhaul.  Reform is too wimpy a word.

[idolminds]

The problem is you don't even need a working prototype to make a patent. You just have to think something up, patent it, wait for someone to make the thing for you, and then sue them. The fact that there are companies whose entire business model is to hoard patents and sue anyone that dares make something productive should be a red flag that the system is broken.

[Pugnate]

This is so ridiculous. I mean, something as simple as parental controls is almost a basic necessity for such devices. I can imagine parents suing these companies, if they didn't have parental controls.

You just can't patent such vague and basic concepts.

[Cobra951]

The first thing I would do is throw out every patent that doesn't deal with a physical invention.  I'd then set much stricter rules in place and allow people who lost their patents to reapply under the new rules.  Software patents and process patents would then be hard as nails to obtain.

The best thing for a startup software company to do is to go to some country that doesn't recognize US IP laws.  Without a pile of money to begin with, there's no other way to innovate here.

[Xessive]

That seems frivolous. I mean if Guardian Media did in fact develop the patented technology I'd understand, but this is like getting sued for using metal or plastic.

[scottws]

This is far from the most ridiculous patent.  Look at this one.

The scariest part of software patents is that judges, who are not computer scientists, are the ones deciding on these cases.  They have no fucking clue what they are deciding on.  How can they make the right decision?

[Quemaqua]

*Sigh*

[Cobra951]

This is far from the most ridiculous patent.  Look at this one.

The scariest part of software patents is that judges, who are not computer scientists, are the ones deciding on these cases.  They have no fucking clue what they are deciding on.  How can they make the right decision?

They can't.

That patent is exactly the same level of crap as the XOR patent, which affected my work in a small company in the '80s.  XOR was the most obvious way to change an area of the screen non-destructively, because you get it back by XORing the same data again.  It was perfect for cursors in more primitive computers.  You know what I mean by "obvious".  As obvious to a programmer as my carpenter example above is to anyone.  Yet it's patented.

This is a subject that gets me angry every time it comes up.  It's so obviously fucked, and the fix is equally obvious.  (Throw the leeches of the patent office.)  Yet no one will do it, or even entertain doing it.

[Pugnate]

The funny thing is I get pissed off by this shit every other month, and then post the news here, and then you guys get pissed off too. What is this, the 50th such story I've posted over the years?

Also, Scottws made an excellent point. The people passing judgment on such cases should have some background on the matter on a professional level.

[Quemaqua]

Absolutely in agreement.  I find this subject so intolerably frustrating that I usually can't come up with much of a response... but yes, the people need enough background to understand what the fuck the patent is even about, and the system needs to be completely obliterated and we need to start over.

[Ghandi]

I actually have a patent on breathing. So...all you bitches owe me. Big.

[gpw11]

The problem is you don't even need a working prototype to make a patent. You just have to think something up, patent it, wait for someone to make the thing for you, and then sue them. The fact that there are companies whose entire business model is to hoard patents and sue anyone that dares make something productive should be a red flag that the system is broken.

The theoretical reason for that is that defining something well enough should just be every bit as accurate and descriptive as having the prototype.  Plus, for a lot of patents, you'd have to contract the work out for a prototype and that's probably when you'd get ripped off.  I agree with Cobra in that the entire system needs to be ripped down, updated, and started over but requiring a working prototype probably isn't the way to do it.

[Pugnate]

Yup, the problem with that is that your working prototype could cost a lot of $$$, and while you put that together, someone else might beat you to it, and thus put everything you did to waste.

[Cobra951]

Isn't that's what "patent pending" is for?  Stake your claim; go develop it; show that it works; then get your patent.  If it isn't, it should be.

[gpw11]

Patent pending means the patent has been filed but not necessarily approved.  I'm not 100% sure of the legal ramifications, like if anything is actually protected from that point or if it just means that it probably will be protected in the future.  The key thing is that in order for it to mean anything the patent has to already have been filed.