[proksoup]

"What we do know is that Microsoft makes approximately $3.4-billion a year from its Android patent licening deals. " [sic]

I guess this might be good news for Google?

From my perspective, patents are a toxic drain on morale/intelligence/innovation that we have no hope of curtailing in my lifetime.

[doubt_me]

I have always had this feeling that patent wars are only around to make the lawyers more money.

Imagine how many firms would lose millions if the major tech companies worked together

EDIT: (nothing against lawyers in general since they are obviously just doing their jobs)

[throwawaykf05]

Not a big fan of lawyers (personally seen people screwed by them twice) but there's this weird meme that lawyers can make lawsuits happen as they please. The cases where this can happen are very rare as far as I can see, yet the meme persists.

[rhino369]

In some situations you actually can essentially create lawsuits out of thin air. In class actions, you can pick and choose people to be "class representatives" and file a suit.

Patent trolling is a pretty good example too. You buy some patent you find and then start suing anyone under the sun.

But this sort of competitor patent battle isn't easy to start by a lawyer. You'd have to convince your client to start it. But a huge F500 doesn't just have one lawyer, they have their own in house lawyers who make the choices. And then go find a firm to carry it out.

[throwawaykf05]

I was thinking more of the corporate warfare type of lawsuits, but I would still say, given the litigation landscape, that lawyer-initiated lawsuits are rare. Both class-action and patent trolls, despite the disproportionate media attention they garner, appear to be statistically a small fraction of the total litigation activity.

[doubt_me]

Well I am not at all knowledgeable about the different types of lawyers out there but in general the problem doesn't even begin to start with them. Its all the USPTOs fault for even allowing software (zeros and ones) to be patented in the first place (There are probably very legitimate reasons for this that I don't know about). I don't even know how many resources and time are wasted in courts but I imagine it would be pretty shocking.

I haven't heard anything about patent trolls for a while but their entire existence is based on bullshit lawyers and wasting the courts resources. (kinda getting off topic I guess I am done here)

[icebraining]

It's not up to the USPTO to decide what is patentable. The courts have repeatedly reaffirmed the legal validity of software patents, so the Patent Office would probably get sued itself if it discriminated against software inventions.

[WildUtah]

The USPTO isn't required to follow court rulings. The MPEP (Manual of Patent Examining Procedure) isn't even updated to reflect what the courts say unless the PTO likes it.

If you don't like what PTO says, you can always just go to your local federal courthouse to sue for your patent. And the PTO gets sued all the time.

The courts are split on the idea of software patenting because the Supreme Court doesn't understand what software is. Nobody alive can reconcile Benson, Flook, Diehr, Bilski, and Alice. There were four Supreme votes in 2010's Bilski that pure software logic was unpatentable but software that changed the hardware to make it work better was patentable and the example of eligibility was linear programming and compression. Only Scalia was smart enough to see the problem there and even he can't articulate why.

The CAFC -- the patent appeals court -- is relentless in overturning Supreme Court precedents against software patents. Known for being contemptuous of the law and harboring a deeply corrupt majority, the CAFC sees software patents as a gravy train for the patent bar and a permanent tax on a major industry for the benefit of the judges and their friends. Their opinions on the most awful abusive patents reflect a pirate's mentality deliberately ignoring cheating to reach the most harmful conclusions.

[throwawaykf05]

> The USPTO isn't required to follow court rulings.

While technically true, it does not match reality. The PTO does update its processes to reflect recent cases:

http://patentlyo.com/jobs/2009/03/ptos-current-examination-s...

http://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/06/issues-examination-instr...

> The CAFC -- the patent appeals court -- is relentless in overturning Supreme Court precedents against software patents.

If this appears to be the case, it's mostly because as you said, the Supreme Court does not understand software, and has consistently made everybody's lives harder by issuing vague, non-concrete opinions about patent eligibility and validity, overturning well-established procedures. The SC's current stand is "we know an invalid patent when we see one and will make up arbitrary reasons to invalidate it", but that does not help the PTO or the lower courts clear guidelines that they can implement.

Also, it is not true that the CAFC overturns Supreme Court precedents, as can be seen in the spate of decisions following Alice: http://www.law360.com/articles/662776/a-look-at-everything-t...

[icebraining]

The USPTO isn't required to follow court rulings. The MPEP (Manual of Patent Examining Procedure) isn't even updated to reflect what the courts say unless the PTO likes it. If you don't like what PTO says, you can always just go to your local federal courthouse to sue for your patent. And the PTO gets sued all the time.

Wouldn't the plaintiffs likely win? I fail to see the major difference.

[tdylan]

Patents seem to have a net negative effect, blatantly anti-competitive.

[jupiter2]

This is another issue that irks me to no end. Companies like Microsoft and Apple reaped the benefits, early on, of little to no software patent protection laws. They copied and outright pilfered everything out there - and it was ok... Those early years saw tremendous competition.

It's hard to explain how exciting technology was back then - so many options. I remember learning about and trying to decide between DOS, Amiga, Commodore, Apple IIs/Mac, Atari. These were the OSes/PCs I focused on (not including Unix). Yet, this was nothing compared to the (healthy) competition among app developers. Very innovative times.

Nowadays, if you have even a smidgeon of success - you're either bought out by those who successfully gamed the system or sued into submission.

[DanBC]

> Companies like Microsoft and Apple reaped the benefits, early on, of little to no software patent protection laws. They copied and outright pilfered everything out there - and it was ok

Law suits over look and feel have been happening since the 1980s, well before MS or Apple got big.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderbund_Software_Inc._v._Un....

Lotus started look and feel lawsuits in 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Software#.22Look_and_fee...

Apple tried to sue MS over look and feel in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros....

They've always aggressively used law.

[bsimpson]

Seriously. It sounds a lot like a "we were here first" shakedown.

[rhino369]

That's sorta the purpose of patents. Incumbent companies create a ton of valuable technology that new competitors would otherwise get access to only because the incumbents invested in them.

You can disagree with rewarding it, but it's not totally insane.

[jeswin]

That an idea can have ownership is totally insane. The only reason it doesn't sound insane is because we've been told over and over that it's a good thing.

- People will invent no matter what. Money is just one type of reward.

- If you don't want competitors copying immediately, don't announce or demo it before hand and keep it secret until you have all marketing in place. Or limit distribution and offer it in controlled, supervised environments.

The solution can't be "this idea is mine". Nobody must own ideas.

[rayiner]

That really misses the point of how R&D works in most fields. LTE wasn't invented by people tinkering in their basement. It took rooms full of PhDs and those cost money. At the same time, it's not technology where having a first-mover marketing advantage matters much. It may take six months for someone to reverse-engineer your technology, but much longer than that to recoup your initial R&D.

There is a reason companies like Qualcomm and most Internet companies are on opposite sides of the patent debate, and its not because Qualcomm is evil and Twitter isn't. It's because what it takes to make their respective products, and what it takes to protect their markets from copycats is fundamentally different.

[jeswin]

LTE could very well be invented by international collaboration involving academia, industry and individuals. Why should industry get into it? To build expertise. Need to shift from companies seeing patents as assets to expertise/people as assets. That will also create better work environments.

[throwawaykf05]

Not all collaboration is equal, or even comparable. If your part of the collaboration is sinking huge amount of resources into inventing the technology, and somebody else's is turning it into marketable products, shouldn't both enjoy the rewards? There are straightforward mechanisms for the latter party. What mechanism would you propose for adequate compensation to the former?

[digi_owl]

Well patents are not really an ownership. It is a time limited exclusive use of what the patent covers, in exchange for writing it down. This so that once the patent runs out, the wider society benefits.

Mind you, patents came about when the steam engine was a new thing.

Also, that they cover software is a very recent thing. Initially they covered mechanical systems (pistons, rods, cogs etc etc) set up to specific tasks, and chemicals (put X parts of Y into Z under boil).

What seemed to happen was that at some point software got involved as controlling these earlier items in a more precise manner than humans or mechanics alone could (monitor temperature, put stuff into other stuff when it hits the exact one, extract everything a precise number of seconds later etc).

This was then declared, by court, to be a distinct patent from the same process done via purely manual or mechanical means. A ruling that later lawyers built on to basically get de-facto software patents.

[forgotpwtomain]

It's a tricky subject. The argument from the patent side is that if these companies could not patent their technologies / products, they would not be willing to invest nearly as much in development and this would generally hurt human progress.

On the other-hand if you look at big companies like Apple, Facebook the amounts the are investing in genuine human progress is truly paltry compared to their net-worth, and what they are patenting is often ridiculous, generic and clearly not in any way conducive to human progress.

[tracker1]

The problem is that in certain segments, most specifically in terms of software development... the "valuable technology" can generally be implemented by anyone skilled in the crafy, and generally speaking doesn't have a lot of outlay in terms of research/development. That's not to say there aren't segments of software development that should qualify, but imho if allowed should really be more like 5 years, not 20 for software patents. And most software patents should simply have been denied outright.

[throwawaykf05]

Sure, most things in software can be implemented by anyone skilled in the craft, but how many can invent it? And furthermore, when speaking of "skilled in the art", let's keep in mind the perennial HN threads about hiring and how 99% of developers can't do FizzBuzz.

[tracker1]

I'm pretty sure a significant portion of software developers working a decade ago could "invent" one click ordering, podcasts, or double-tap actions.

[throwawaykf05]

It would be helpful to augment your perspective with multiple studies about patents based on empirical data. The situation week not appear so gloomy then, though it's certainly very complex.