Austin Meyer (creator of X-Plane) updates us on his patent troll problem

[vololiberista 205]

The American pentent system is completely over the top. This kind of trash simply would not get to court in Europe. I read somewhere that someone had a patent on the air we breath!

[Harold_Finch 29]

The patent belongs to an European Corp (Luxembourg) founded in Australia. The patent is filed in Australia.

 

This is international greed, folks.

[Luke 782]

The problem isn't one of the patent system being rotten, or America or Obama or Republicans. The problem is that the courts in America have been captured by industry, specifically the appeals courts - Ars Technica had an excellent review of the subject. The Supreme Court has been weighing in on the subject recently, as has Congress and have been pushing to invalidate non-obvious patents and to more easily grant costs for frivolous suits.

 

Patents and IP law, by the way, when applied correctly are a major asset for a small company making novel inventions - like Laminar.

 

Cheers!

Luke

[CyberMike 18]

Some more examples:

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/673436-patent-trolls/

[Longranger 148]

 

Patents and IP law, by the way, when applied correctly are a major asset for a small company making novel inventions - like Laminar.

Not in the Software business. Patents were invented to protect people that put a lot of ideas and money into the development of this idea. When people simply stole their plans they had a real advantage.

In the software business most ideas and principles are rather simple. You get and develop the idea in a single day. The tricky part is the implementation of this idea. This depends totally on your environment and methods. This implementation takers years of development and testing.

So the simple idea doesn't really help you in any significant way. It is much easier and faster to develop an idea on your own way than to look into a databank and look igf there might be an idea that might help you.

The basic ideras and principles are so common that it would be a pretty good idea to simply ask someone.Even if you would listen to his ideas the end result would be something completly different.

 

In fact mjany of the patent trolls simply register well known methods or even standards that were established to allow the communication between programs. The main reason why they don't dare to go to court with software patents is in fact that it is especially permited to even reverse engineer another program if you need this information to properly connect to the other program.. The second reason isthat the judge can decide that one side wanted to abuse the justice system and that he has to pay a penalty. So a patent troll would often loose money in court.

[Luke 782]

 

 

In the software business most ideas and principles are rather simple. You get and develop the idea in a single day. The tricky part is the implementation of this idea. This depends totally on your environment and methods. This implementation takers years of development and testing.

 

One could easily say that the internal combustion engine is no different - you're merely using the energy from burning fuel and converting it into rotational energy. The idea is very, very simple - you can explain it to a middle-school student - and all of the hard work in the last 100 years has been in implementation. Yet no one challenges the notion of patents in this space.

 

The problem isn't that software isn't novel or is unpatentable - it's that there are plenty of invalid patents floating around.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

[Longranger 148]

Luke, on 09 Jun 2016 - 11:35 PM, said:

 

One could easily say that the internal combustion engine is no different -

But you have to show that you were the first one with this idea, Most ideas that stand behind software were developed years before. Your extremely simple description doesn't really work. If this would be the case the diesel engine would have been a simple copy of the steam engine, which is not the case. But it is nearly impossible to get into more details without giving roadmap how to modify a program, to get around this patent.

Software patents are so generic that they are more or less stupid. In a computer you only have rules, but I can simply redifne the rules. You can protect an idea for the real world, which has fixed rules, but in a computer there is no reality.

If I invent an idea that I only have to redefine certain values and get a very goot solution for a real problem, I can protect this idea, but not the code that describes this solution.

Computer code is best protected by copyright law. And you can easily prove that someone copied you code by the pattern of its systemcalls and values.

[n4gix 4,947]

Did anyone catch that Uniloc is an Australian Corporation suing in USA?

Uniloc is an American company who acquired the rights to the patent from the Australian "programmer" who wrote the silly and vague definition for the "idea."

[n4gix 4,947]

I did not know that John Oliver had done a show on "Patent Trolls" that actually had Austin Meyrs' case near the beginning of the segment. Man, I just love John Oliver. He is not only funny, but on target with his scathing scorn:

 

[tf51d 284]

Uniloc is an American company who acquired the rights to the patent from the Australian "programmer" who wrote the silly and vague definition for the "idea."

 No it is originally an Australia company,  They do have a US subsidiary called Uniloc USA which was setup in 2003, but the parent company is Uniloc Corporation in Australia.

[Luke 782]

Most ideas that stand behind software were developed years before. Your extremely simple description doesn't really work. If this would be the case the diesel engine would have been a simple copy of the steam engine, which is not the case.

 

As you point out, ideas build on things that were done before and not just in software. A diesel engine is based on the idea behind the steam engine, in that it has a cylinder of expanding gas used to generate energy. It is derivative, but quite patentable. Same with fuel injection.

 

You're complaining about vague patents, not software patents. There are plenty of software ideas that are quite novel and valuable - public/private key cryptography was one of them. It meets the textbook definition of a patent in that it was truly novel, specific and not obvious to someone versed in the art.

 

Protecting code with copyright doesn't prevent someone from reimplementing the algorithm without reference to the original code, and trade secrets provide no protection at all. There is a role for software patents for truly novel inventions in software. With the Alice decision, the Supreme Court is finally moving in that direction.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

[vololiberista 205]

I think that simply "owning" a patent without benefiting from its use is the key. If I buy a patent because I want to sell or manufacture something that benefits from it then there is a case. But if I simply own a patent without benfiting from its use then that should be outlawed. This is the loophole in the law that should be closed. Just owning a piece of paper and sueing on the basis that the only benefit I get from that ownership is that I can sue you each time you log onto the internet is rubbish and certainly would not stand up in European courts as it would be recognised for the scam that it is.

[wolke85 150]

I did not know that John Oliver had done a show on "Patent Trolls" that actually had Austin Meyrs' case near the beginning of the segment. Man, I just love John Oliver. He is not only funny, but on target with his scathing scorn:

 

 

Thank You very much for sharing this great video by John Oliver here as well - really worth watching!

[scottb613 1,186]

Hi Folks,

 

To bring a real world aviation spin on this - a few years back there is a company called "FlightPrep" that after years of being denied a patent - finally managed to get an ultra vague patent approved... It was something as vague as putting a course line on a chart on a website... Once awarded - they began a systematic approach to sue just about every flight planning site out there... Sadly - they started with the smallest ones - you know - the hobbyist who toiled for years to make something of use for the community and provide it for free - as a labor of love... NavMonster was one of it's first victims - when faced with a lawsuit for something that generates no revenue - how can you fight it... The aviation community responded angrily against FlightPrep - but - for all our attempts - letters - posts - boycotts - I don't think it really had an impact... I know they went after AOPA and Garmin - which didn't settle and mentioned being ready to fight - but I don't think they went to court... I'm not sure what the final resolution was - as it just kind of died away... New flight planning sites have popped up and I haven't heard mention of any further threats... FlightPrep is still out there and has a web presence...

 

Regards,
Scott

[vololiberista 205]

There actually is a patent on how you hang your toilet roll. So any of you who don't hang your toilet roll with the loose end facing outwards can expect a letter of summons any day! This is no joke btw.