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Saturday, August 30, 2014 - 6:41amSanction this postReply
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Vera, in theory, the patent examiner is a trained engineer who will not approve faster-than-light travel, perpetual motion, and other impossibilities.  However, your point remains valid.  In 1880, the USPTO no longer required an actual working device to grant a patent.  They have granted patents on plans for 134 years.  Maybe a plan should get some kind of intellectual property (IP) protection.  As in an academic publication, you get credit for the idea.  It ends there.  But then what happens when someone actually builds this "impossible" thing? What rights are owned by whom?  

 

Over on the "Galt's Gulch" website Objectivist patent attorney Dale Halling (dhalling) argues well for granting the high ground to current US patent law.  (He allows some exceptions.  For instance, US patent law just went over to "first to file" from "first to invent."  Until just 2013, in the US filing first you might slip in a patent application, but it could be successfully challenged by someone who proved that they invented it first.  That is no longer true.  The US joined the rest of the world in granting rights to the first to file. dhalling objects to that.  

 

(Note also that his wife khalling also posts what are essentially his opinions.)

 

They do not like the fact that the Uniform Commerical Code "forced" software to be licensed.  I think otherwise on that. I like the UCC and I like the fact that software is admittedly garbage no one could possibly sell to anyone with two fingers of forehead.  "Merchantability" is the issue.  Sofware licenses make no promise of merchantabilty or fitness of use.  In other words, "we don't promise that anyone else will want this; we don't even promise that this will work."  And yet we are enjoying an informatic revolution.



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Saturday, August 30, 2014 - 10:14amSanction this postReply
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Thanx for the background info Michael :)

however if this has been going on for 134 years I don't know which cave I've slept away my life in ... it's only the last 5-10 years that I noticed a huge increase of patents granted for ideas how something could work but no proof required if it actually does. Granted an idea also deserves some protection, but that would be intellectual property, some honorary title or if used as direct input by the actual inventor, a small monetary acknowledgement. Not the wholesale of 'patents on ideas' that's going on these days.

Maybe I'm just so annoyed by this because my understanding of a patent is rather old-fashioned: I always thought they are granted to inventors, people of great minds and ingenuity and perseverance, who make something work that no one else could. Alas as with every other creator in this world those people are getting rather scarce, so it should not be surprising, that patents are now granted to any lunatic with a crazy idea (exaggerating). There goes another beautiful myth of creators in the human world.

Who is John Galt



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Saturday, August 30, 2014 - 10:05amSanction this postReply
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Dear Ms. Vera S. Doerr,

 

If someone displayed the ignorance in criticizing Objectivism that this article does about patent law, Objectivists would be furious.  First of all it is clear that you do not know how to read a patent.  You don’t know the difference between the claims and the background, you don’t know the difference between an independent claim and a dependent claim or a patent and a patent application.  In fact it is clear that you did not read the patent application, which can be found here http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20140215201.pdf.  If you had read the patent application and understood how patents are written, instead of the summary from the article, you would clearly have seen that the invention is not about a device which can turn into a “cell phone, a smartphone, a tablet PC, a laptop, a personal computer, a netbook, a personal digital assistant, an e-book reader, a TV and/or other computing devices...”  You would have seen that this was about a device with a foldable display that takes certain action when it is folded in different ways.  These actions are explained in the patent application as making or receiving a phone call, sending or receiving an electronic document, activating or deactivating a software program, and connecting to or disconnecting from a network.

Despite your ignorance of patent law, electronics technology, and the specifics of the invention, you pontificate that “the technology behind it (the invention) would be so diverse that no material, no hardware, no software, existing today even as a theoretical prototype, could be combined into such a device.” Perhaps you are unaware that one of the requirements of a patent is the enablement requirement under 35 USC 112.  It requires that the inventor explain his invention in enough detail that one skilled in the art be able to practice the invention.  But you don’t have to take my word for it, foldable displays are known, see displays http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/05/samsung-ceo-folding-screens-by-2015/.  Having a foldable display that when folded in a certain way receives a phone call, or sends a document, is well within the reach of today’s technology.  As a patent attorney, with a BS in electrical engineering, a MS in physics, and named inventor on nine patents, I can assure you that this patent application is enabled and could easily be built by one skilled in the art.  Now that I have shown that to you, you will probably turn around and say it should not be patented because it is obvious, further proving your ignorance of patent law, logic, and reason.

Next you state that everyone is doing this and you “simply cannot believe this patent scam! Worse: it's actually legal!”  This is clearly an appeal to emotion not logic.  You continue this unsubstantiated attack on the patent system, suggesting it is a legal hold up game that people are using to get rich.  Your article is worthy of a muckraking SOCIALIST journalist or a follower of Kant, Hegel, or Kierkegaard, but not someone writing on the Rebirth of Reason http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/News/3190.shtml or someone who has studied Ayn Rand.

Rand stated that Patents and Copyrights are the source of all property rights, because they protect the source of all human creation, the products of man’s mind.  Patents are property rights for inventions and your attack on the patent system is really an attack on the very basis of property rights.

There is a SCAM going on here Ms. Doerr, but it is not patents.

 

Sincerely,

Dale B. Halling



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Post 3

Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 4:10amSanction this postReply
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Dear Mr. Halling,

you are of course correct, that a lot of my 'rant' (as I termed it myself) is an emotional appeal not substantiated by technological facts. A large part of my posting pertained to a personal exasperation what today is termed a patent, not an erudited evaluation if all those patents actually have some grounds to be granted. I apologize for the unclear formulation.

Thank you for the additional information on this particular case, some of which I was already aware of, and permit me to answer your points in relation to this case only as an example of what I 'rant' against, as I do not have the background or time (or even interest) to fully investigate all patent claims that 'irk' me and formulate a thoroughly validated and provable theory as to the misuse of the patent office (my bad).

 

The one point I feel safest with to argue with my own background in information technology is the hardware and software to be patented:

You would have seen that this was about a device with a foldable display that takes certain action when it is folded in different ways.  These actions are explained in the patent application as making or receiving a phone call, sending or receiving an electronic document, activating or deactivating a software program, and connecting to or disconnecting from a network.

from the application:

" ... a processor, a foldable display including a bendable material configured to emit light and including a folding axis, wherein the bendable material extends across the folding axis and the foldable display is configured to be folded with respect to the folding axis. ..."

Software that initiates certain actions when a certain device state is recognized (here folding) is neither new nor ingenious. Such devices have already been built and programmed for many years. Toshiba might have claim to the same 'initiating action on folding' (click), to show just one example. A different case would be if the action were initiated by a new technology, e.g. touchpads with NFC communication to tablets or smartphones as GlidePoint is offering (click) or Dimple has integrated in a realised product (click).  At least here I can see some ingenuity in putting existing technologies (NFC and touch-devices) together into new functionality e.g. for tablets and smartphones, and offering these as fully realised products. But even with these products I'd only see the patent-value in fully realised products, not the combination of 'NFC- and touch-technology to initiate actions'.

The device's hardware is again not fully explained: bendable displays have been produced at least as prototypes by other companies already (and I assume have existing patents?). The 'folding' itself is not differentiated whether the bendable display itself folds around the edge fully or whether there is a hinge of some kind along the axis to be folded, where the bendable display is interrupted. The shown diagrams do not explain this either. Or if I were to 'interpret' then one axis is folding around, the other is a hinge with no display folding. The wording in the different text passages is inconclusive which is which or does what. Nor does the application explain if the bending can occur along any user-chosen axis or only along predefined axis, or which bendable materials the patent is to cover in conjunction with the folding and initiating action. These I'd consider important in granting a patent on a 'folding device with bendable display' as it would cover just about every device that can be folded (from eReaders, to tablets, to machine-devices, to ...), that has different (even not yet invented) bendable materials and initiates certain actions via software.

 

Regarding the comparison you make yourself to the announced Samsung devices, I'll defer to your expertise as a patent attorney to distinguish what Samsung has promised to release in the short future as a product and what SAP has applied for as a patent for some unspecified release. From the information available to me as a lay person and what I could glean from the additional information you pointed me to, I do not see much of a difference. However knowing big companies I'm sure Samsung also has some patents to cover their new device. Or am I to assume, that we're looking at the next patent lawsuit?

 

Re my ranting claim that such a technology is not yet available you're right: as a 'foldable device with bendable displays initiating software actions' on it's lowest denominator that is most certainly possible to build today. However the generic terms of the patent you linked also cover all future bendable displays with different folding axis initiating even farther software actions not yet programmed. Which brings me back to my exaggerated claim of the all-in-one devices claimed as patent but not invented yet. It would cover devices like the ereader/tablet combination already offered with different materials on different device-sides or display portions, or even a display that can dynamically switch between eInk and IPS. If you as a patent attorney will prevent such future devices/materials/functionality to be covered by above patent, I withdraw my observation and apologize for my ignorance.

 

My wording itself was certainly not up to objectivist standards - which I would never claim to be able to uphold at all times, otherwise I'd have to shut up about 90% of the times I've spoken up in this forum ;) My apologies for any offence given.

On the other hand I cannot credit patent applications with an abundance of 'understandability' as shown in the document you linked to the details of the patent application. The different 'aspects' specified in that document require some serious interpretation and some creative juggling of wording to narrow down functionality like '... at least one of ...' (limited or not limited to a list?) or '... there may be various different methods employed ...' (which will be employed?) or '... with respect to a second folding axis ...' (which one will that be?) or '... at least one of organic light emitting diodes or inorganic light emitting diodes ...' (how many materials does that include? or would it be easier to specify the few it actually excludes?).

If such complex 'if-when-else-maybe' structures are required to specify the details of a patent and still leave them open to such a wide-spread interpretation it is no wonder patent lawsuits are increasing (again I have no figures for that - ahhh: found one - click - don't know if it holds up to expert evaluation).

 

I hope I could illustrate the point I was trying to make in my initial 'ranting' without the substantiating evidence. I still stand by my claim, that patents today seem (to a lay person) to have become legal excuses for suing each other for money and no longer a recognition of man's mind and it's creations. Materials and functionality is claimed as a patent without specific details what it is actually limited to, even covering inventions still to be made. However I'm willing to defer to your expertise in this field if you can point me to details regarding this specific patent that will prevent my above interpretations and apologize that I smeared an entire profession or you as a patent lawyer. That was certainly not my intention - I was only trying to point out a tendency instigated by many companies and individuals how they are trying to abuse patent law (in my non-expert opinion). The recent slew of patent trials certainly points in the same direction - again unsubstantiated as I have not read thousands of depositions made pro and con.The office of patents and it's intended function to protect  "... the source of all human creation, the products of man’s mind ..." is most certainly not what I'm attacking - only the use many companies and individuals are trying (and in my opinion often succeeding) to make of it.

I hope that exonerates me of the accusation of running a SOCIALIST SCAM ;)

 

Yours

Vera S. Doerr



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Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 1:04pmSanction this postReply
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Vera, first, let me say that I noted Dale Halling's argument from intimidation. As Barbara Branden pointed out, Ayn Rand had in her time an amazing abllity to connect other people's conclusions with their unstated premises.  "You accept Kant..." etc. Her admirers imitate that: "I disagree with you, therefore you endorse Kirkegaard's existentialism; and you are a socialist."

 

For the rest, I assumed the use of hinges on the device and I could imagine its creation: lock a hinge into place and contacts bring up different functions.  But I was not interested in that. I was intrigued by your challenge.  As I indicated with cold fusion and hydrinos, it is easy to see that a truly radical invention would be declared unpatentable, as if it were perpetual motion.  Galt's motor comes to mind, easily.

 

You hold the false belief that patents are for scientific discoveries. That is not true.  Although the US Constitution plainly says (Art I Section 8. Often called the "Enumerated Powers"):  "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"  realize that the word "scientist" was coined in 1833 by William Whewell.  In other words the Constitution was ahead of its time (as in other areas) and the framers did not have our modern idea of science.  In fact, patents have been for incremental technical improvements, not for bold new ideas.

 

Dale Halling's point - and mine in my first reply - is that patent examiners look to explainable (explicable) descriptions that they can understand based on current engineering and technology.  Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, Samuel Morse's telegraph, and the electronic computer were all examples of that.  

 

More subtly, it is only in our time (about 1850 to present) that science as theory actually informed technology as application.  For thousands of years, technical improvements came without firm scientific understanding: we know an electrical battery from ancient Bagdhad (250 BCE to 250 CE). Temples in ancient Alexandria c. 100 CE had "miracles" run by hydraulic and pneumatic actuators. In our time statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics have informed the inventors of steam engines and computer chips.

 

That being as it is, patents always make extravagent claims.  They want to claim everything they thought of and anything they did not but should have. That is formulaic.

 

Myself, I have a problem with much in US patent law. I believe that we need intellectual property rights, property rights for ideas.  I am not convinced that we have a rational basis for that or an objective body of such laws.  I earn income from my writing.  Of course I protect my property.  But I am not irrationally protective, like a spouse who wants to punch out any man who smiles at his wife. 



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Post 5

Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 1:14pmSanction this postReply
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A scientist I have mentioned elsewhere on this site patented the "orbitsphere" great circle loop pattern central to his novel quantum theory of elementary particle structure in 2006.

 

He once told me that it might have been possible for Maxwell to patent his famous electrodynamics equations had he discovered them today.

 

So apparently United States patent law is broad enough now to include "proposed" mathematical laws of nature.

 

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/31, 1:16pm)



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Sunday, August 31, 2014 - 9:45pmSanction this postReply
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Right, Luke.  Penrose Tiles and Trapdoor Ciphers … and the Return of Dr. Matrix by Martin Gardner (Washington DC: Mathematical Association of America, 1989) the first essay is about Penrose Tiles, a mathematical nicety that was granted a patent because it was presented as a way to lay decorative floor tiles.  

Penrose Tiles

It is claimed often that a computer program is not a mathematical idea, but is in fact a set of gates and switches, i.e., a hardware device. That would make every computer program running on every make and model of computer a different patentable machine.  

 

Moreover, a computer program no matter how complex is just ONE number.  When we present a command line view of a program like this 

10110100 00101100 11001101 00100001 10110000 01000110 11111110 11101110 00001010 00100000 00000001 10001001 11000010 10110100 00001001 11001101 00100001 11001101 00100000

The spaces are for our convenience.  To the computer it is just 

1011010000101100110011010010000110110000 etc., with the processor programmed to take each set of 8 or 16 or 64 etc.  This goes back to Alan Turing's paper strip reader.  As George Dyson pointed out in Turing's Cathedral, previously, operations were performed on numbers, but Turing made numbers into operations.  Thus, despite what they claim, the USPTO does indeed grant patents to numbers with every patent on software.

 

Patent law is a non-objective mess.



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Thursday, September 4, 2014 - 4:02pmSanction this postReply
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Michael,

thanx for your kind words :) I was very tempted to let Mr. Halling's arguments slide, but I hoped I'd get a more detailed answer back if I explained my opinion of patents better. Obviously he didn't bite ...

As for the distinction of what is patentable and what not, I still hold with the premise that patent law has to be understandable to the lay person/inventor. If I require vague and all-encompassing clauses that can be interpreted in any way a lawyer sees fit to sell his client, then there's sth fishy about it. Just as there's sth very fishy about this all-encompassing foldable device dreamed up by a software vendor who will probably never build it as competitors like Samsung will by then have far better models on the market. Unless they then get sued by SAP for patent breach on their better products :[

As for 'Galt's motor': that has the added disadvantage that there's no theoretical explanation yet how the actual conversion of static electricity could work in a physically buildable machine (as far as I know - please correct me if I'm wrong). Just theorizing that it is possible, but not having the first clues how to actually implement it, is in my opinion not enough to hog a patent for the possibility - only a 'tip of the hat' for the idea, not the monetary value of the built motor. Otherwise Ayn Rand would have to claim that patent ;)

Same goes for Lukes 'proposed mathematical formulas' - if the patent is only for the realm of theory that's fine, but if it covers actual physical inventions it's a 'scam'. Just as for my second thumb, for which I can explain the entire theory to you, but I cannot do the gene-resequencing myself (though many labs can these days), or brain-repatterning (been done already for artificial limbs), or implant the artificial bones/sinews required (3D printed bodyparts are commonplace). As long as I cannot build it, it's just a fantasy - those who can build it should get the patent and if they want to be very nice they can mention that they first read the idea in my post here and invite me to the Nobel ceremonies as a guest :D

But again that's just my old-fashioned idea which ideas and which inventions should be protected by patents - and why I get so frustrated that they are pushing patent-law (even the sane parts of it) to it's limits where it turns against genuine inventors and becomes a money-printing excuse for lesser minds.



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Saturday, September 6, 2014 - 4:30amSanction this postReply
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Vera, you opened several avenues of discussion. I found it difficult to discuss these problems with Dale Halling. He defended current US patent law without reservation.  He calls names, charging other long-time active participants on the Galt's Gulch site with being socialists when they disagree with him.  I pointed out the change in US patent law from "first to invent" to "first to file."  He acknowledged that and said that he also found it unjust.  But I had to bring it up.  He never crticizes US law.  I think that it is because he does not want to prejudice the courts against himself and his clients. I believe that we need intellectual property rights that are defended by law, but I see many problems with US law.  I have been trying to work this through from first principles.  But at every turn he just calls me names and points to the Constitution.  

As for 'Galt's motor': that has the added disadvantage that there's no theoretical explanation yet how the actual conversion of static electricity could work in a physically buildable machine (as far as I know - please correct me if I'm wrong). Just theorizing that it is possible, but not having the first clues how to actually implement it, is in my opinion not enough to ...

 

I believe based on what Dale Halling provided that John Galt could not get a patent on his engine specifically because it depends on a new theory of energy that he would have to explain to people who could understand it.  I once saw an old news reel where Thomas Edison was asked about relativity and he said that he did not understand it. Would a patent examiner (a lawyer trained in engineering), understand Galt's Theory?

 

The mistake that Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons made was actually building the device and letting other people reproduce their results.  They should have applied for a patent and not built it.  I believe that they could not do that because their theory was too radical.  (And, apparently, it was wrong.)  But you see the point. Here on RoR, Luke Setzer, a NASA engineer, has been touting Randell L. Mills's hydrino theory. Mills asserts that this is just classical quantum mechanics. However, the patent office reversed itself and revoked a patent after Robert L. Park wrote an article against it.  (Wikipedia here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackLight_Power).  Patent here: http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=6024935&KC=&FT=E&locale=en_EP and here: http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=6024935&KC=&FT=E&locale=en_EP

 

(As an aside -- Park is popular (not famous) for attacking what he calls junk science.  I had a class in "Ethics in Physics" in 2010 when I was completing my master's and we read his book, Voodoo science: the road from foolishness to fraud; Oxford University Press, 2002. Park includes manned space flight as an example of junk science, by the way: he calls it unnecessary, dangerous, and unproductive.)

 

Anyway, perhaps Galt's Motor might be patented; and a working model would be a convincing argument. (The law did require working models at first, but that was abandoned in 1880.)  If Professor Park had not blown the whistle, the USPTO would not have re-examined the patent.  But that also does not speak well for the patent office. It validates your worries about patent scams. Obviously, anyone can get a patent on an impossible dream.

 

But again that's just my old-fashioned idea which ideas and which inventions should be protected by patents - and why I get so frustrated that they are pushing patent-law (even the sane parts of it) to it's limits where it turns against genuine inventors and becomes a money-printing excuse for lesser minds.

 

Although the word "science" appeared in the US Constitution, the word "scientist" was 40 years in their future.  It is a principle that scientific laws cannot be patented.  They exist to be discovered. They are not invented.  I believe that the patent office might serve better by operating like the copyright office. They do not judge the quality of a work, only register its creation.  So, too, with the patents, let any and everything be patented, but without monopoly rights as the default.

 

I propose:

  • To gain the monopoly, you would actually have to build the device you are claiming.
  • However, the monopoly would be  specific to the device as built.  Anyone who improved it would have their own monopoly patent on that work.I

My theory is that ideas are non-rival and non-exclusive.  Someone else knowing what you know does not prevent your ownership. Any number of people can know the same thing at the same time.  You would be perfectly free to keep your knowledge and methods secret, of course.  The formula for Coca-Cola is perhaps the most famous example of that.  But if someone successfully reverse engineers Coke, that is their tough luck.



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Saturday, September 6, 2014 - 6:39amSanction this postReply
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Michael,

I once saw an old news reel where Thomas Edison was asked about relativity and he said that he did not understand it. Would a patent examiner (a lawyer trained in engineering), understand Galt's Theory?

That is another point against patent law: if it depends on a (usually) inferior mind than the inventor's to understand what he's trying to patent we're doomed to mediocrity.

... actually building the device and letting other people reproduce their results.  They should have applied for a patent and not built it.

I don't know the particulars of this case, but if it's that obvious where the device comes from and the patent is still granted to someone else, or applying for a patent after building it and other's already reproducing it, and the patent is denied, then I don't want anything to do with patent law.

Park includes manned space flight as an example of junk science, by the way: he calls it unnecessary, dangerous, and unproductive.)

Haven't we heard that argument ad nauseam until it was called Miracle Metal :D

 

I agree to your two proposals to limit patents to the realized theory not the theoretical possibility, however I'm not d'accord with reverse engineering. That's the one valid point that patent law should protect inventions against - and fails miserably, as with the case I posted against Nestlé (click). Apart from the fact that cheap copies are just that: cheap copies - they could at least have the decency to improve on someone else's idea.

 

PS: I have not dealt with Dale Halling directly except in his one post here - however if his aim is to barter with the powers-that-be he'll not be a successful patent lawyer for long - he may hold that title, get paid a lot of money for it, but will not protect ideas and inventions, but only 'appease the beast'.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not criticizing that as I'm doing sth very similar in my IT job (appeasing my customer with crap systems - click) however I'm not defending that mediocrity as 'right' or 'legal' or even sth to be aspired to



Post 10

Saturday, September 6, 2014 - 4:19pmSanction this postReply
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Vera, we seem to be on the same page.  As I said, I am thinking this through from first principles.  I will have an article later.  I am now working on a submission to the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies about a different problem.  

 

MM:  The mistake that Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons made was actually building the device and letting other people reproduce their results.  They should have applied for a patent and not built it.  I believe that they could not do that because their theory was too radical.  (And, apparently, it was wrong.)

VD:  I don't know the particulars of this case, but if it's that obvious where the device comes from and the patent is still granted to someone else, or applying for a patent after building it and other's already reproducing it, and the patent is denied, then I don't want anything to do with patent law.

 

Fleischman and Pon were famous for Cold Fusion.  It was a news event that you should know about, or find out about if you do not know it.  It was a classic failure.  One of my interests is aviation - I learned to fly - and here in the States, it is also a classic failure that with $100,000 of government money, Smithsonian curator Samuel Langley put two planes in the Potomac River attempting to fly.  (He was not the pilot, of course.)  The Wright Brothers spent $14,000 of their own money being successful.  Cold Fusion was a university research project.  

 

That is why Fleischman and Pons demonstrated their results for others to replicate. I believe that they had the right idea in seizing the fame first and getting the fortune later.  They failed.  Their theory and practice were wrong and other researchers could not replicate their results. 

 

My point - and you have agreed more than once - is that if they had not actually built the thing, but only claimed a workable theory, they could have gotten a patent apparently.  That is another condemnation of current US patent law.  I believe that you need an actual working device.

 

However, think about a chemical processing plant.

 

Shale Oil Processing

Es ist ein Bissel schwer solch ein Ding in einem Kasten zu stellen.  (It's kind of hard to put a thing like that in a box, i.e., to show the patent examiners that it actually works.)



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Post 11

Saturday, September 6, 2014 - 11:10pmSanction this postReply
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Thanx Michael,

now we only have to get Dale Halling to agree with us ;)

As for realising cumbersome or expensive working models: I'd have no problem granting a patent on an idea provided that it will be realised within xx time. Build it the patent is yours, fail and the patent goes back to the open market.

Which opens up the next argument: if it would work but I don't have the money to build it (or business savvy or other resource). As you already said: tough luck. Best I can do is find someone with the lacking resource and build it together, not hogging a patent and extorting money from anyone who's actually able to realise the idea.

PS: your German is quite good :)



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Post 12

Saturday, September 13, 2014 - 1:17pmSanction this postReply
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Michael:

 

Patent law is for sure a mess.   It is a domain mostly for businesses in the business of lawyering.

 

"Thus, despite what they claim, the USPTO does indeed grant patents to numbers with every patent on software."

 

This is true in the same sense that the museums of the world are filled with paint and marble and plaster, that Oscars are awarded on the basis of sinusoidal disturbances travelling on two orthogonal planes, E and H, that London Philharmonic commerces in pressure disturbances, and that every book or story or script ever written in English today is made up of just 26 letters(which, if we were to represent as ascii or some other code, after all, are just 010011101010100010010101101010011110101....

 

Through pure monkeys at a keyboard chance, how long would it have taken Dan Bricklin to guess the number that is a functioning VisiCalc?'

 

Likewise, if I were to throw paint at a canvas, how long before the Mona Lisa is a result?

 

The media is seldom as interesting as the local entropy decreasing ordering of the media.

 

regards,

Fred

 



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Post 13

Saturday, September 13, 2014 - 1:45pmSanction this postReply
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"First to file" is a boon for those lawyerly businesses in the bidness of grinding inventors into the dirt.   In this regards, the US has finally officially joined the balance of the world in its race to the bottom.

 

But the primary function of holding a stable of patents these days is as a defensive tactic against the lawyerly agression of other similar holders of stables of patents making legal claims that are nonetheless effective on those unable to cough up the cheddar to play the stables game.   Far from being the midwife of innovation(in large companies who deal in this arena), this process is the death of innovation(in large companies that deal in this arena.)   Slow, sluggish, non-agile behemoths -- elephants with cash to burn -- slug it out with each other.

 

Tiny companies live in the cracks effectively unimpeded by this nonsense; they defend themselves by coming out with products far faster than the elephants can respond with their non-agile cumbersome clinging to their patent stables.   At first, you'd expect pharma to be a different story, played only by the elephants, but if you think about it, that is what the (lucrative)black market in drugs is all about.

 

A patent grants the owner the right to fund a legal battle to stake a claim on a static asset.    The patent itself is an asset only if someone wants to buy that right.   The 'asset' that the patent represents is still an asset without the patent protection, and there are alternate ways (that tiny companies embrace) to protect that 'asset' short of playing the non-agile patent game, one being, rapid, agile self-destruction/evolution of the asset..something that large firms aren't within a million miles of being able to pull off.

 

But what large firms can do is, play the lawyer game...at some completely non-agile pace throttled by the billable hour nature of the media.

 

Another example that gradients drive everything; firms with money to burn do exactly that.

 

regards,

Fred



Post 14

Monday, December 22, 2014 - 11:32amSanction this postReply
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Wow - I have to be very careful what I write here: click

I was looking for some old postings of mine in an old objectivist group and the search engine returned the above link to Mr. Halling's blog tagged directly to my name (plus several other tags).

Apart from the personal attacks he never bothered to answer (not to mention some pertinent points to patent law), I find it very intimidating that my unwise words in a (semi-)public venue are now a 'Rebirth of Reason Website Attacks Patents'. I think Joe would ban me, delete my posts and request a deletion of every mention of my name in regard to RoR from all search engines if RoR were actually attacking patents :D

I've taken the liberty to invite Mr. Halling (again) to reply to the serious points raised here (hopefully my comment will appear on above blog). He can of course skip the unimportant personal attacks if he wishes to. At the very least he could explain/rephrase the title of his blog, if he does not want to be accused of the same inaccuracies, rant, slander, he's been accusing me of.

Unless of course he's just claiming attention for his blog by exaggerated headlines - this is after all a 'media scam', right ;)

Now if that does not get his attention nothing will ;)

VSD



Post 15

Monday, December 22, 2014 - 1:20pmSanction this postReply
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it was not meant to be ... no reply except more personal (and not so personal) slander (click) ... almost sorry to link to that blog, but the few interested parties here may want to understand Mr. Halling's view of RoR in his own esteemed words ;)

VSD



Post 16

Monday, December 22, 2014 - 5:02pmSanction this postReply
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Vera:

 

Here is a better thought:  Happy Holidays!

 

regards,

Fred



Post 17

Monday, December 22, 2014 - 5:22pmSanction this postReply
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Vera:

 

Is the idea of an entire website actually attacking a concept a patentable idea?

 

No matter that the author came up with that idea first; I think as long as we are 'first to file' we are good to go on that.

 

I propose we broaden the concept, for maximum  effectiveness.   Pick one:

 

"In-ter-net attacks <insert idea here>"

 

"Humanity attacks <insert idea here>"

 

I think we are still good to go, but could make it better:

 

"Life attacks <insert idea here>"

 

One more; I think if we're going to file for this term of art, we should go all the way:

 

"Universe attacks <insert idea here>"

 

regards,

Fred



Post 18

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - 3:46amSanction this postReply
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I'll top you one Fred:

"unknown and unimaginable form or non-form of existence or non-existence attacks or does not attack something or other including and/or excluding the known or imaginable" :D

enjoy your holidays - for me it's just unpaid working days (book keeping, insurance updates, taxes, registrations, etc.) ... ah well: such is human life - at least as an atheist I get a headstart ;)

VSD

PS: pity I did not find those old groups (about 15 years ago) - wanted to check if my defeatist view of homo sapiens sapiens was already present at those times or is a part of my growing older, wiser, more experienced and definitely more calcified in the synapses ;)



Post 19

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - 5:34amSanction this postReply
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Vera:

 

End of year books...ugh!

 

It's always boring...I start dreading it in September.   It, and the ice on my sidewalk, are why I'm not a big fan of Winter.

 

But the immense sense of relief when it is over and the package is sent to my CPA is rivaled only by that unbounded joy I feel when I finish sealing the driveway.

 

No, seriously, when it is done, it means ... Spring is just around the corner, and time to do our personal taxes.

 

No-- I mean, Spring is just around the corner.

 

It's not so bad.    I take that back, end of year books is the worst.  

 

Thank God it's the worst!

 

Happy holidays.

 

regards,

Fred



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