[bdowling]

Patent reform is fundamentally about business interests, which are non-partisan. Some business want more patent protections, others want fewer. None of them care whether it is a Democrat or a Republican who makes their desired reforms.

Groups like the EFF try to make patent law into a civil rights issue. They'll regularly frame the issues as being about big corporations misusing patents against "the little guy", often a sympathetic figure like the activist and language learning site admin here. They try to get ordinary people riled up about what patent law should be, often by misconstruing facts and simplifying current patent law, which can be quite nuanced.

Actual patent disputes are always between businesses and always concern financial interests. There is always one party who doesn't want to pay licensing fees or wants to do something that the other party doesn't want to license. The businesses could negotiate a deal where they would all make money, or the allegedly-infringing party could "invent around" the patent, but for whatever reason they can't agree on how much money each of them should make and they decide that a lawsuit is a better course of action.

In any case, some businesses will give money to the EFF and the EFF is happy to present views that are compatible with those businesses' interests. Everyone else is just taken for a ride.

[TaylorAlexander]

Patents are absolutely not just about business interests. Patents affect individuals and open source projects just as much as they affect commercial businesses.

Take for example the Makerbot patent on the Thing-O-Matic, a conveyor belt add on for 3D printers. Makerbot patented the concept, then discontinued the product. Hobbyists who designed upgrades to share freely openly expressed frustration for years about this. Many people wanted the device but community members regularly expressed in online communities that they feared legal action if they designed an open source replacement for the defunct patented product.

Finally recently some hobbyists have found a way to work around the patent by designing a printer where the print head is not parallel to the build plate (a key claim of the patent in question). However printing this way has some major limitations, and the original process would be simpler. The 3D printing community was held back for 5-10 years in sequential printing technology because of this patent.

When a free group of people are prohibited from sharing ideas with each other due to fear from state intervention, it absolutely becomes a civil rights issue. Is it fair for the government to prevent individuals from freely exchanging information because a third party has laid claim to that idea? Is it even a legitimate claim that one entity can own an idea that they formed through the integration of preexisting ideas? From a practical perspective does the legal artifice of intellectual property even serve the oft-cited purpose of improving the general welfare? Should we continue to support this notion?

These are questions we all should ask ourselves and debate amongst each other. We invented intellectual property and created laws that enforce it. We must continue to discuss if such an extreme limit on human behavior is rational or fair in the modern world. Billions of people are prohibited from accessing information that could help them thrive. We can now copy information at almost no cost, but our legal system prevents us from doing so for the bulk of the world’s knowledge. Is this just? Is it sensible?

[consp]

> feared legal action if they designed an open source replacement for the defunct patented product.

As far as I know you can make it as the patent expression (not patent itself) had been invalidated by pulling the patented product from the market and providing no alternative. It's a bit different from trolls as there was a product and it was pulled.

[bdowling]

Your response reflects some misunderstandings about patent law. It's true that the law is complicated and there is a lot of misinformation out there. And, unfortunately the EFF doesn't help that situation when it misconstrues the law and gets people all riled up. I'll address a couple of your points:

Regarding your 3D printer example, there will always be ways to "invent around" to accomplish the same result. For example, if the patent claims a 3D printer with a conveyer belt, that would not prevent someone from building a 3D printer with a turntable to accomplish the same goal. (There is a caveat here if a turntable is considered an equivalent to a conveyor belt.)

Historically, there has been an experimental use defense for those seeking to improve upon a patented invention. Theoretically it still exists, but it wouldn't apply in a commercial context, which would include a hobbyist distributing small numbers of infringing devices. This exception should be more clearly defined, but that probably won't happen because patentees don't bring frivolous lawsuits against non-commercial experimenters. Again, patent law is all about business interests.

Another way to avoid infringement is to make either (1) a component which has substantial non-infringing uses, such that it does not fall under 35 USC 271(c), or (2) an a improved replacement component for the patented device. Using your 3D printer example, a generic conveyor belt might be a staple article with substantial non-infringing uses. You would be able to make and sell those without infringing on the Makerbot patent. You could also sell a replacement component that only works with the Makerbot printer, because that would fall under the Patent Exhaustion Doctrine, which says that once a patented device is sold, the buyer can replace worn-out parts without infringing.

Patent law does not prevent anyone from sharing information about the invention or about improvements to it. A problem only arises when people cross the line to actively inducing the infringement of others, knowing of the patent and knowing that their actions will induce others to infringe.

Again, these issues are primarily about business interests and competition, not civil rights. Unfortunately, the EFF does a lot of misconstruing the facts to get people agitated, and very little to actually educate the community. Communities of hobbyists who fear lawsuits would be better served by an organization that taught them how to accomplish their goals without getting sued, rather than one which just wants to agitate to overthrow the entire patent system.

[TaylorAlexander]

A turntable wouldn’t be sufficient, as one important feature of the belt is that it ejects parts which are stuck to it when the part is pushed past the roller.

Perhaps the burden is small in some cases, but it is nonetheless a burden placed on individuals. You claim the law doesn’t prevent people from sharing improvements may be true (you sound knowledgeable) but this was lost on the community members who wanted to design upgrades. I specifically remember mailing list discussions where individuals believed that sharing infringing designs was a violation of the law. Which is something it seems you verified (inducing infringement). I reiterate that this is a legal restriction placed on free individuals operating outside of commercial interests, and so I continue to believe this is a civil rights issue. I will also say that upgrades to the original device are of limited utility because the original device was small. It also does not help that the largest community for sharing 3D designs is owned by the patent holder.

It seems as though you’ve confirmed that knowingly inducing infringement by sharing infringing designs would be a violation of the law, so I find it puzzling that you continue to insist that this primarily affects businesses. Certainly it affects individuals as well, yes?

[taeric]

Business interests are non partisan? This is close to claiming national interests are non partisan. Which just feels laughable.

Political parties are made up of members. Some members will benefit from some policies. Many because their business interests will benefit from said policies. To claim they are unrelated seems fishy, at best.

Now, you are probably right that nobody cares at high level whether it is a Democrat or a Republican policy that is benefiting them. I would wager the odds are good that businesses frequently get benefits from one more than the other, though.

[mc32]

Though (commercial?) business interests can be partisan, I’d like to see the EFF just mind the law (legal) aspect of things, rather than get into politics.

What I mean is act more like a non partisan judge who puersues justice rather than an entity that evolves into a political entity which becomes activist in pursuit of its own goals.

[taeric]

This honestly sounds like you just disagree with them. They are literally a political organization. They are, ideally, not just a front for democrats or republicans. However, if they were just a front for the law, they would be unnecessary. Since, well, the law should already be a front for the law. :)

[alsetmusic]

It sounds like you’re accusing EFF of having pretty loose ethics. Can you provide references to back up your position?

[bdowling]

I did not intend to accuse the EFF of anything unethical. Just because their positions on patent law are aligned with those of certain corporate sponsors does not mean that their views are influenced by those corporate sponsors. I assume that their association is merely one based on common beliefs.