[nulbyte]

I stopped after claim 9 on the first patent linked. It had, up until that point, described: peer-to-peer routing, downloading data and programs, running downloaded programs using downloaded data, redirection, and variable length strings.

The next of claims seemed to begin to regurgitate the previous ones with some indiscerbable minute difference.

None of this sounds novel. I read another of their patents where they invented a directory backed DNS service and web browser connections. This company sounds like one massive troll.

[tsimionescu]

Another poster I think put it better: what the patent is describing is essentially building a DNS system for data. Claim 1 describes how DNS forwarders work (the "client" is a DNS client, the "server" is a DNS forwarder, and the "data location server" is a DNS authoritative name server). Claim 10 then describes how a DNS recursive resolver works (the "client" is the rescursive resolver, and the "data location servers" are authoritative name servers). Claims 17 and 18 then essentially describe the full distributed DB that uses this DNS-like mechanism for retrieval.

The sub-claims are just covering minor variations of the implementation, and can safely be ignored in general in any patent.

[maratc]

IANAL but there was a patent describing a USB-powered vibrator.

While the idea of a vibrator is not new, and the idea of powering devices via USB isn't new either, the combination of these two non-new ideas was new.

The patent was granted, and when someone (not the patent holder) produced a USB-powered vibrator, they were found in a violation of the patent in question.

Similarly, if someone made a patent about "building a DNS system for data", and someone else used that idea to actually build that system, they may be in a violation of the patent. The more claims (or sub-claims) there are, the more specific the innovation was, and now the question is whether the supposed infringement was actually implementing all of the claims of the patent.

[McBun]

That sounds ridiculous to me... By the same logic, I could patent a car that is charged by USB (not very efficient, but eh, it's new !) and then nobody could build a car charged via USB ?

[LordKeren]

One of the strangest aspects of patents is that it is much easier to get a patent than it is to defend that patent in court.

Many patents are granted by the patent office then revoked by judges.

[maratc]

> I could patent a car that is charged by USB

If you paid the filing dues (a significant sum), and nobody has patented that before, then yes.

> nobody could build a car charged via USB?

Anybody could build a car powered by USB, and you could then sue them for the infringement of your patent. It could then go in many directions, from you becoming very rich, to your patent being invalidated and you found responsible for court fees.

This system is not as ridiculous as it sounds.

[mrguyorama]

>This system is not as ridiculous as it sounds.

It's so not ridiculous that Amazon was able to prevent the entire ecommerce industry from implementing anything even close to a "one click purchase" flow because of a patent. Not because you couldn't see Amazon's source code for the feature, or couldn't come up with your own completely different implementation of the idea, but because as long as you can convince a completely unsophisticated and inexpert jury members that a paragraph of extremely vague text can be read in any way to apply to anyone else's system, you are violating their patent.

Imagine being able to patent addition, or the very concept of a cake, such that nobody could make a product that was bready and/or sweet without paying you a protection fee.

Remember that the US patent office had to expressly ban any patent for "perpetual motion machine", not because it is literally impossible by physical reality, but because they kept granting patents for physically impossible perpetual motion machines

[yareal]

You've correctly identified how patents work, at least in the U.S.

[rasz]

Except for the "non obvious to the practitioner" part.

[SkyBelow]

You missed the part where I filed the patent first, so I am now the one in charge of USB charged cars.

Yes, it is even more complicated than that; I'm just trying to toss out a joke while also pointing out the system is even worse than implied.

[Workaccount2]

Missed opportunity to patent putting a USB-C port in a car...

[shuvuvt5]

Why do we cling to this idea of patent trolls?

The patent system is the problem. None of this should have been granted but when you really try to define what software patents are novel it becomes incredibly difficult.

Just because you think this is trivial does not mean a layperson does.

Is an encryption algo novel? What's novel about it, it's just a hashing function with some new parameters.

The reality is, software patents are a joke and should be dropped entirely. Copyright is enough protection for most use cases.

Aka, don't hate the player, hate the game. And ideally, do something to fix it instead of complaining about "trolls" as if that'll ever fix the issue.

[highwaylights]

IANAL but the route to resolve this seems to be to challenge the patent on the grounds it should never have been granted and have it overturned, which it looks very much like it would be an easy argument to make, if not easy to achieve in practice.

[zupa-hu]

The problem is the cost of doing this. If it gets overturned, the defendant shouldn’t be the one to bear the cost. I’d be happy with either 1) the patent owner or 2) the patent office, who didn’t do its job properly.

[pbhjpbhj]

The UK and USA patent offices, I understand, have procedures to file evidence showing a patent application is not valid - eg because of the 'invention' already being known.

Your comment seems to relate more to unfairness in [lack of] awards of costs in USA legal proceedings.

If you sue me for something I didn't do then it shouldn't cost me anything; that seems reasonable whether the domain is IPR or any other aspect of life.

[graemep]

This varies between countries. AFAIK it is far harder to get the other side to pay your costs if you successfully defend a case in the US than it is in the UK.

[zupa-hu]

Indeed.

[Draiken]

While I agree with you, I can't see how we could ever fix the issue.

The same patent holders are the biggest backers of our politicians and will absolutely never allow any reasonable fix to the system itself.

All I read is how we should vote and yell at our representatives, completely ignoring the fact they were only elected because of donations from those benefiting from this system in the first place.

[shuvuvt5]

It costs relatively very little to "buy" Washington. Any group of fang like companies could do it and have good reason to do so.

NZ abolished software patents years ago, literally nothing bad happened as a result, companies didn't even notice.

[j16sdiz]

> None of this sounds novel

None of these sounds novel now.

It was much more back in 2000.