[throwaway54_56]

> Violating patents is one thing, as you're only violating the concept/idea, but the implementation is still up to you

The concept/idea is not what is patented. The patent is (or should be) for the specific execution of the idea. Competitors are free to implement their feature using methods other that what is covered by the patent, even if the end result gives the exact same functionality.

[dctoedt]

> The concept/idea is not what is patented. The patent is (or should be) for the specific execution of the idea. Competitors are free to implement their feature using methods other that what is covered by the patent, even if the end result gives the exact same functionality.

IP lawyer here (EDIT: not yours, of course): That's a considerable (and potentially-dangerous) oversimplification. What matters is whether what you do comes within the claims of the patent.

(For a more-detailed explanation, written in pseudocode-like terms, see a 2010 post I did: https://www.oncontracts.com/how-patent-claims-work-a-variety....)

[dmoy]

Yea, this is a more correct explanation. Not a patent lawyer, but raised by one lol.

Tangentially, it gets difficult in software because a lot of patents are .... maybe overbroad in their wording of claims. Lot of ambiguous looking landmines.

This is somewhat similar to business method patents (which were curtailed a little by the SC a decade ago, but were already known to be kinda sketchy for decade+ before that). Can't patent a pure algorithm, for example.

[david-gpu]

At some point I was told to never ever look at a competitor's patents, because doing so would worsen the penalties if it turned out that our design infringed upon them. Can you confirm that's true?

Doesn't that mean that in general it is also a really bad idea to ask an engineer questions about a particular piece of tech that they patented at a previous employer, even though the specific information is a matter of public record by virtue of being explained in the patent?

[toast0]

Willful infringement allows for up to triple damages. The expectation is you can't do willful infringement if you're not aware of competitor's patents, and you can't be aware of them if your policy is to never look at patent documents. Or that's the idea anyway.

[dctoedt]

> The expectation is you can't do willful infringement if you're not aware of competitor's patents, and you can't be aware of them if your policy is to never look at patent documents. Or that's the idea anyway.

"Willful blindness" can be a danger (according to the Supreme Court, albeit in a different context).

Possibly a bigger danger: Your product gets kicked out of the market by an injunction (a court order to stop making, using, selling, etc.)

[pierat]

Just search it in Yandex with a VPN, and in a Tails VM just for paranoid-icity.

I did similar for medical self-symptom before ACA prevented "pre-existing condition" scam.

[teddyh]

That stuff is exactly what the Tor Browser is for: <https://www.torproject.org/download/>. No need for any of that other stuff.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Question, in this case, is it a violation of patents + trade secrets, or just the patents?

[dmoy]

The case in the original article is not patents at all. Closer to copyright? Idk if it's actually copyright or some other trade secret law (? sorry, don't know much about non-patent IP law)

[FirmwareBurner]

>The concept/idea is not what is patented. The patent is (or should be) for the specific execution of the idea.

Have you ever seen patents? They rarely cover the implementation details, or at most they're intentionally super vague about that, most of the time it's just the general idea on how the widget would work and what it does, but not how to implement it technically.

[throwaway54_56]

I have seen patents. The whole point is to share a method of doing something, in return for exclusive use of that method for a period of time. That's the theory, anyway.

[anon373839]

I’m sure we’ll all be glad one day that Apple shared this research breakthrough:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/6/16614038/apple-samsung-sl...

[criddell]

A good example of a patent that was challenged in court and wasn’t totally invalidated is Amazon’s 1-click ordering. They patented storing customer shipping and payment details in a database so they could purchase something with a single click.

It expired in 2017 but for the period it was in force, Amazon collected millions in licensing fees.

[SoftTalker]

Patents really shouldn't be granted when any competent junior engineer could have designed and implemented the feature. This method is doesn't pass the "nonobvious" test.

[User23]

Batteries used to have cardboard instead of metal shells. Because of this batteries used to leak prolifically. Then an inventor patented the modern metal shelled battery. His competitors all started infringing so he sued. They claimed that the invention was "obvious." The judge ruled that it clearly wasn't obvious, because if it had been they wouldn't have been making the obnoxiously stupid cardboard batteries for so many years.

[objclxt]

You realize the patent you’re referring to was a design patent, not a utility patent? They are very different, the former only covers look and feel, not method.

[anon373839]

I wasn’t aware of that. But it’s even more baffling: how did they qualify for a patent on the design of a basic sliding latch?

[FirmwareBurner]

Then you misunderstood or saw too few patents.

[BaculumMeumEst]

> They rarely cover the implementation details

if you can’t figure out how its implemented you’re looking at an invalid patent or an application

> they're intentionally super vague about that

yes that’s how claims work

> most of the time it's just the general idea on how the widget would work and what it does, but not how to implement it technically

you’re looking at an invalid patent or an application

[atq2119]

Idea is a pretty general term. I have a bunch of patents and I would describe them all as patenting an idea (for how to achieve some goal).

The implementation or execution of the idea usually takes the form of some Verilog or some C++. That is covered by copyright.

The patent is for the idea. Which is part of why I'm so opposed to patents, not just in software. In other fields, like medicine, patents are perhaps for discoveries, which are IMHO similarly valuable as the execution. But ideas aren't that valuable, or shouldn't be.

[conradev]

The specific execution of an idea is also an idea, though

I feel like the granularity of patents is defined more so by where the frontier of knowledge is for a given domain than the patent office (i.e. what is hard but also valuable). But, I also haven’t spent a lot of time with patents