Most people, including myself, cannot actually read patents. Being told that the summary is irrelevant does not help at all. What are we supposed to do, ignore the patent because we don't understand it?
If you're a programmer, you can read software patents.
If you're a mechanical engineer, you can read mechanical patents,
If you're a farmer, you can read farming patents.
See how that works? The language is dense, and you must read carefully, but the patents I have actually read are not particularly difficult to understand.
> If you're a programmer, you can read software patents.
Here I can bring in a different definition of "can". I could if I wanted browse different software patents, but that just puts me or my company in more legal trouble especially if sometime later I happen to develop something similar enough to a patent I've previously read that I get sued over it. It's not a good idea to just read patents blindly if you have any interest in building stuff that might get popular.
Rabble rabble rabble. I hate this attitude: I don't understand software patents, and I'm not going to take the time to learn about them, therefore they need to go.
No, I don't. I just get annoyed at all the misinformation that gets repeated about patents in general and software patents specifically.
The discourse around HN is generally of a pretty high level, and it's disappointing to see people just blindly accepting the party line: software patents bad, I don't know how to read a patent and that's ok, and anyone who disagrees is just stifling innovation.
>The discourse around HN is generally of a pretty high level
Yes, I agree. The people here are generally very intelligent.
>it's disappointing to see people just blindly accepting the party line: software patents bad
...Have you considered that they've applied this intelligence to the topic? They've all come to the same conclusion because it is the most logical one? I wouldn't be so quick to jump to "everybody is stupid because they don't agree with me" on this. Maybe you're the one who is wrong about it.
Well, that may be. But almost all of the posts you see around here decrying them are just steeped in ignorance. Titles like "Microsoft has patented <whatever the title of the patent is>. Software patents have to go." When the reality is that they have merely applied for a patent (not gotten one granted), and it's actually something really narrow if you read the claims.
Stuff like that does not fill me with humility and make me think, hey, maybe these folks are right and I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. Because I do know what I'm talking about. There are defensible arguments for why software patents may not be a good thing... but you don't see them here. You don't often see anything well-reasoned, just a bunch of groupthink.
What makes you more qualified to comment on them than anybody else? Do you work in patent law?
If so, how does that qualify you to speak to their implications in the software world (since that is where people have a problem with them; not the wording, or the format, or the location of the building, just the effect on the community).
Yes. As for the effect on the community... well, are you just talking about the way that patents make software developers feel? Because obviously developers would know more about that than I do. But it's also not a particularly relevant question--patents are what they are, and the way they make you feel doesn't really matter.
Well, maybe so. But I stand by my disappointment at the lack of knowledge about patents around here. We don't understand patents, but we're mad as hell about them!
Have you actually read them? Read the claims? They're software patents, so plenty of folk will hate them just based on that... but they really are not poorly drafted patents.
No. As I am not a patent attorney and do not speak legalese, I had to concern myself with the abstract descriptions only. Have you? These appear to cover what is essentially the * symbol appearing over your "notifications" icon after a timeout on facebook, or the (1) appearing on twitter if you leave it idle for long enough and a new tweet appears in your stream.
Do you think that this is unique enough an idea that others should have to pay Paul Allen's company for the rights to use it? This was something that I was going to implement on thingist. Should I not do this because I would be infringing on a legitimate (legitimate in the spirit of patent law) bit of intellectual property?
This is why patent trolling is so damaging to the community. I'm not a lawyer, I have no idea. The best I can do is read the abstract of a patent (if I can even find it) and try not to step on anybody's toes. For somebody like me, a lowly 23 year old kid making side projects in his spare time and day-dreaming about someday moving to San Francisco and getting to hang out at the cool kids table, this stuff is terrifying. Paul Allen, a multi-billionaire with a fleet of private jets and private yachts and private submarines and private multi-million-dollar-per-year-retainer lawyers might SUE ME.
SO I have a couple of choices. I can implement what seems like a completely obvious feature and risk being sued by the largest Goliath in the industry, or I can follow the written law and not.
That's kind of my point. The title means nothing. The abstract means almost nothing. The figures mean almost nothing. Have a look here for a brief guide to reading a patent, written for nonlawyers. http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-read-a-patent-...
That isn't what I asked. This has nothing to do with understanding the world around you, this has to do with understanding things that were written down on small slips of paper and filed away in boxes inside of a building in Virginia.
The slips of paper (which have now been scanned into a computer; images of them are now available on the internet) are there to mark the occasion of the first person writing that particular series of symbols down on that particular piece of paper. The idea is that if you write a certain series of symbols down on the paper, you are the only person that is to be allowed to do whatever it was that you described with the symbols. If somebody doesn't know about the occasion of you writing down the symbols and does whatever it was you described (well, in this case, predicted they might do), then you are entitled to a portion of that unlucky person's assets.
The entire thing is absurd, and if you can't see that, then I suggest you devote more time to "understanding how the world around you works".
His point is that people who read the abstract to a patent and declare that it's not novel are making the people who actually read the patent and come to the same conclusion look bad.
The abstract is not the patent. It's not meant to be the patent. It's not a legally binding part of the patent. So talking about it in a way that refers to its novelty is just as useful as talking about the novelty of the typeface they used or the brand of paper they used.
> That isn't what I asked. This has nothing to do with understanding the world around you, this has to do with understanding things that were written down on small slips of paper and filed away in boxes inside of a building in Virginia.
Unfortunately, the Vogon Destructor Fleet was not moved by this appeal to reason.
Understand that the patent is really just a pretext. If Paul freakin' Allen the billionaire wants to make trouble for you, he can and will. He probably won't. Just do your thing. If there's something you can do to get his attention on that level, you win.
He's trying to write this up as a neat hack ($300 for an hour of work? where do I sign up?), but all he's really done is waste a lot of other people's time to exploit a silly loophole. I wonder how many man-hours the bank spent moving and counting 300 pounds of coins, not to mention how much tax money was spent shipping the damn things to him. What an unproductive waste.
"It's funny how often we hear patent system supporters tell us that if you haven't actually gotten a patent for your invention, it's perfectly reasonable for someone else to go and patent it instead."
A big deal with this may be due to upbringing and what part of the country/world you come from. While part of me dreams of being able to do this kind of work (I’m the exploration type), I can’t, since I can’t drive, limiting my searching ability. Regardless, my background keeps a nagging sense of impropriety of arbitrage in my mind. To my parents and my childhood role models, it’s not “real work,” since it neither creates anything new or abides by the “sweat of your brow” requirement my more religious acquaintances would demand.
TL;DR: I believe in “work smarter, not harder,” but most people I know/knew believe in the opposite.
It does create something new, it creates value. I'm amazed at the 'arbitrage is bad' comments, I can't remember seeing it anywhere before. Someone who finds a buyer for a thing that couldn't be sold before (i.e., was worthless) creates value by enabling the transaction.
It creates a new opportunity for the seller - those individual books were previously not available online. they were just sitting in a bookshop.
Finding these books, then placing them online, and handling the shipping to the buyer is certainly adding value.
I agree that there's nothing necessarily dishonourable about arbitrage, and I agree that based on his story, this man is doing honourable work.
However, I think that there is a potential problem in some arbitrage. Arbitrage depends on information asymmetry, and I think that labouring to perpetuate information asymmetry is unethical. (I would say that failing to eliminate the asymmetry when you could easily do so is a grey area.) So if you are an arbitrageur in an area where the market is trying to eliminate your advantage, you have a moral hazard.
This perspective was driven by utilitarian ethics, of course.
This example, at least, does not depend on asymmetry of information. It depends on the willingness of the parties to invest extra labor.
The business model of the thrift store requires treating the books as commodities ("all hardcovers $2/ea", etc.), as they don't have the volume to invest time in research. The business model of the used book seller requires knowledge, amortizing the cost of researching each book over a global (or at least national) customer base.
Adam Smith would find this a wonderful example of division of labor.
No. He didn't. And regardless of whether software patents need to go, ignorant media coverage certainly needs to go.