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| A Prior Art How To |
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Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:07 PM EDT
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At last! A patent attorney willing to teach us how to find prior art.
Here's a wonderful new aid. PubPat has released a How To, on finding prior art. It's an audio file, with an accompanying PDF, which has slides to help follow the talk and then the patent he uses to teach the process. Here's the Ogg file. And here is the MP3. The PDF is here. The MP3 is 43.6 MB. I wonder. Should we cut it up into segments for dialup users? If so, any volunteers would be welcome.
UPDATE: Here you go, with the smaller files first:
http://groklaw.net/pdf/FindingPriorArt-PUBPAT-3to1-low-mono.mp3
http://groklaw.net/pdf/FindingPriorArt-PUBPAT-3to1-low.mp3
http://groklaw.net/pdf/FindingPriorArt-PUBPAT-3to1.mp3
http://groklaw.net/pdf/FindingPriorArt-PUBPAT-3to1.ogg
Patent law is a legal speciality, and it's not my speciality, so I've been asking lawyers in the field to help us. The help is now here, and there will be more coming. The important point is this: searching for prior art isn't quite as simple as you might think. PubPat's Executive Director Dan Ravicher explains the difference: "To be worthwhile, the prior art has to be exactly the same or any differences between it and the targeted patent have to fall within the judicially narrowed concept of obviousness that exists in patent law today, which is much, much less than what most reasonable technologists would consider obvious."
If Microsoft or one of their friends does, in fact, bring a patent infringement action against GNU/Linux, maybe against Samba or OpenOffice or Wine, or whatever, we need to be ready. The time to learn is now, before it happens, so if and when it does happen, we can quickly be effective. I'm learning right along with you, so let's get started. Also, be aware that we have expanded our permanent Patents resource page. It now includes a new feature, Patent Stories in the News This Week, listed by date. We'll be storing them on a new linked-to permanent page as well, in case you want to find them again later. These are patent-only stories, separate from and in addition to the Groklaw Latest News Picks that we have featured every day on the home page. Here's PubPat's press release about the teaching aid.
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PUBPAT RELEASES FREE "FINDING PRIOR ART FOR AN ISSUED PATENT" PROGRAM
NEW YORK -- The Public Patent Foundation ("PUBPAT") released a free program today that details how to find prior art for issued patents. The hour long audio recording with supporting written materials uses a model patent as the basis for examples during the session. PUBPAT's program is made available as part of the organization's ongoing efforts to inform the public and provide advocacy about the patent system.
"One of the biggest problems with the patent system today is that it is not capable of being easily understood by the general public, because it has been intentionally made overly confusing and complex, highly non-intuitive, and extremely expensive for anyone to know what it all means and how patents impact them," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director and the author of the "Finding Prior Art for an Issued Patent" program. "The program we released today is one way in which PUBPAT is enabling the general public to better understand the patent system and defend itself from the harms caused by wrongly issued patents."
More information about PUBPAT's education and advocacy activities, including links to the "Finding Prior Art for an Issued Patent" program, can be found at http://www.pubpat.org/Educating_and_Advocating.htm.
About PUBPAT:
The Public Patent Foundation ("PUBPAT") is a not-for-profit legal services organization working to protect the public from the harms caused by the patent system, particularly the harms caused by wrongly issued patents and unsound patent policy. PUBPAT provides the general public and those specific persons or businesses otherwise deprived of access to the system governing patents, with representation, advocacy, and education. To be kept informed of PUBPAT News, subscribe to the PUBPAT News List by sending an email with "subscribe" in the subject line to news-request@pubpat.org. To be removed from the PUBPAT News List, send an email with "unsubscribe" in the subject line to news-request@pubpat.org.
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| Authored by: fredex on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:13 PM EDT |
| Thanks, PJ, I'm sure this will be instructive! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:14 PM EDT |
| I can't wait to get started. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: WhiteFang on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:16 PM EDT |
| :-) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: overshoot on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:17 PM EDT |
Please post links as <a href="http://www.example.com/">clickable
HTML</a> and as always previewing your post is a good idea.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Linux world apologises (sort of) - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:52 PM EDT
- OT slightly - trash patents - Authored by: webster on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 06:05 PM EDT
- "It's mankind against IBM Global Services." - Scott McNealy - Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 07:45 PM EDT
- Phillips, Toshiba go to darkside - Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 07:53 PM EDT
- Antitrust panel hears proposals on updating law - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 08:44 PM EDT
- Interview with CEO of SYS-Con - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 09:00 PM EDT
- CEO of SYS-CON doesn't see any problem with recent O'Gara article - Authored by: haphazard on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 09:04 PM EDT
- CEO of SYS-CON doesn't see any problem with recent O'Gara article - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 09:09 PM EDT
- CEO of SYS-CON doesn't see any problem with recent O'Gara article - Authored by: nattt on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 09:14 PM EDT
- CEO of SYS-CON doesn't see any problem with recent O'Gara article - Authored by: stend on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 10:14 PM EDT
- Interesting snippet regards quoted email - Authored by: lifewish on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 10:20 PM EDT
- Perhaps as PJ suggested - Authored by: dyfet on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 10:42 PM EDT
- Appearing or not appearing on SYS-CON TV. - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 10:49 PM EDT
- CEO of SYS-CON doesn't see any problem with recent O'Gara article - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 11:11 PM EDT
- CEO of SYS-CON doesn't see any problem with recent O'Gara article - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 11:45 PM EDT
- New Turner blog entry re: O'Gara - Authored by: fudisbad on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 02:13 AM EDT
- Senior Editorial Staff of LinuxWorld Magazine Announce Resignations - Authored by: fudisbad on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 02:20 AM EDT
- CEO of SYS-CON doesn't see any problem with recent O'Gara article - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 09:45 AM EDT
- Interview with Fuat Kircaali, CEO of Sys-Con - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 09:11 PM EDT
- The mainstream press are disgusted also.... - Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 10:33 PM EDT
- Avistar vs. Tandberg - Authored by: Mysjkin on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 02:39 AM EDT
- Resignations at LinuxWorld - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 03:01 AM EDT
- Paul Crowley - Authored by: blang on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 03:25 AM EDT
- Editors at LWM quit! - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 04:06 AM EDT
- Defense of the community - Authored by: Ninthwave on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 06:45 AM EDT
- Firefox -- who was asleep at the wheel? - Authored by: belzecue on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 10:34 AM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:41 PM EDT |
Enhanced formats such as Audio, Movies, PFD are great for those who want to
spend the bandwith and live with the restricted usability of these files, but in
general, information should be made available in the least enhanced format that
is usable. This seems to be your method for handling PDF documents, and I think
the same would work for other files.
In this case, a text transcript would do nicely. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Format - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:43 PM EDT
- Format - Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:50 PM EDT
- Format - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 05:09 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:56 PM EDT |
I will be filing a patent on a method for using the National ID number and
Biometric information just signed into law by President Bush as a unique and
secure method of logging on to computers. All open source software will need to
pay a royalty or be incompatible with this nationally used log in method.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jeffb on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 04:57 PM EDT |
As an engineer, wouldn't I be better off not knowing?
If I stumble across something, I would be liable for willfull infringement.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Kevin on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 06:00 PM EDT |
... that a patent issued on chocolate chip cookies.
(This is just reading the patent in the PDF; I haven't
had time even to begin listening to the audio.
---
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin (P.S. My surname is not McBride!)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 06:14 PM EDT |
I have converted the ogg file you posted into a 3MB Speex file. Speex is a
codec (compression format) made by the same people who made Vorbis (ogg) but it
designed specifically to compress speech allowing much smaller file sizes
without losing much quality. Where should I upload or email the file to have it
posted on groklaw?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 06:44 PM EDT |
PJ:
I think that downloading a 40+ MB audio file will be impossible for me and most
dial-up visitors.
Perhaps Groklaw could transcribe the talk into one file so that we could read it
while looking at the .pdf slides accompanying in another window?
That's my advice,
JR[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: DanBerlin on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 07:55 PM EDT |
If they take up KSR International v. Teleflex, currently on petition for cert.
Basically, what happened is the federal circuit got bored and added their own
requirements to obviousness that are nowhere in the actual law, or even
explicitly in conflict with Supreme Court precedent. The particularly onerous
requirement they added is that if you combine completely obvious elements to
make something patentable, the only way it is obvious is if teaching explicitly
provide a "motivation to combine" the two. No common sense is
allowed.
So for example, you could patent the combination of toothpaste and a toothbrush,
and it wouldn't be obvious unless you found something explicitly saying it would
be a good idea to combine those things.
Which is of course, ridiculous.
According to http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/05/supreme_court_p.html
Two amicus briefs in support of cert have been filed so far.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 08:03 PM EDT |
While following the talk, you may find the slides helpful, along with the text and image of the example patent
in question.
(PJ - could you add these links to the article,
perhaps?) [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Whoops - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 08:12 PM EDT
- Whoops - Authored by: PJ on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 02:35 AM EDT
- Whoops - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 07:11 AM EDT
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| Authored by: fyredragon on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 08:35 PM EDT |
I'd like to volunteer my time to anything that PJ needs regarding file
conversion, splitting, and formatting as it pertains to
PDF/HTML/TXT/MP3/OGG/WAV/ETC and any other formats.
In other words: I'd love to help. You got my email addy :)
---
Toodles!
Fyredragon
fyredragonfyre@gmail.com[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 08:51 PM EDT |
Non-clickable link on purpose
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/pills/fuat_kircaali_interview/
It's an interview with the CEO of Sys-Con, a *former* syndicator of O'Gara's
"works."[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Griffin3 on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 10:17 PM EDT |
A 40MB audio file? Seems to me, the first thing to do should be to make a
bittorrent out of it. The very purpose of peer-to-peer file sharing is to
publish documents like this, where the entire world can download it without
overwhelming any particular server.
Then again, Groklaw has also had a smashing success with distributed
transcription of audio files, with everyone transcribing a bit, turning a huge
task into a parallel swarm of tasklets.
I've got a long list of honey-do's (mostly out-of-town) all weekend, but if I
have time enough in the morning, I might try to set these up , unless someone
else can ... [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 13 2005 @ 10:18 PM EDT |
| For dialup users, I have posted a 3.5 MB Speex files (10 times smaller, but also
lower quality) here
For those not
familiar with Speex, you can get it at http://www.speex.org/ or get a DirectShow
plugin at http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/
D
on't worry, it's a free format like OggVorbis. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 12:40 AM EDT |
Why not have a WIKI up so we can store prior art? Perhaps even the people of
Wikipedia/Wikiquote/Wikibooks etc can help (although the GNU FDL can be a pain
in the ass).
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mdf013 on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 12:48 AM EDT |
| I've reduced the size of the mp3 and posted it:
Fi
nding Prior Art - Full length
It also can be downloaded in four
parts:
Part
1
Part
2
Part
3
Part
4
I'll remove them if there's any concerns. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 01:27 AM EDT |
| judicially narrowed concept of obviousness that exists in patent law today,
which is much, much less than what most reasonable technologists would consider
obvious.
With the law screwed up like this, there is no way we can win.
The effect of case law is that Microsoft (for example) will be able to generate
thousands of patents per year, spending tens or hundreds of $millions to do
so. This is negligible to Microsoft, but a complete killer to free
software.
I don't know what the answer is. We can't change the law
because MS has bought most of the pols. We can't fight the patent flood because
it needs $billions. We need to come up with some other
solution.
Step #1 is to realize that we have a serious problem, and
that proposals like the current one are not a solution. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 03:32 AM EDT |
The defenders of Maureen's unethical conduct are singing in VERY close harmony
here: all hitting the same notes:
THEY have "freedom of the press", and any criticism of themselves is
not acceptable.
THEY are not responsible for "journalistic ethics" -- it impedes their
freedom.
So long as something is so, it's OK to print. And if it ain't so, you can print
it anyway, as long as you mention in small print in the last paragraph that,
after all, you have no earthly idea whether it's so or not.
But -- that freedom is reserved to themselves alone. Anyone who DOESN'T have a
large firm to support them (and insulate them from pesky criticism) doesn't have
that freedom. The mere peons, "bloggers", can be suppressed with
impunity.
The Founding Fathers would be spinning in their graves. By our standards they
were all "bloggers" -- Ben Franklin bought his own desktop publishing
hardware and went to work with his own hands and his own writing. And, poor
foolish deluded man, he though he deserved freedom of the press.
No, say Maureen's backup chorus, "freedom of the press" is only for
the "elite."[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 05:09 AM EDT |
Everything I draw is prior art. And what my brothers create, and my sister! ;)
--
Chris Prior[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: stephenry on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 07:30 AM EDT |
PJ,
In the future, it may be better to link to a bit-torrent of large files opposed
to the actual files themselves. The simultaneous download of large files by
thousands of Groklaw readers would likely reek havoc on your host.
Stephen[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Wol on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 10:33 AM EDT |
I wonder how this scenario sounds?
A certain big monopolist is apparently making noises that "you may be
infringing on our patents". While it might be expensive :-( if we can
actually get any evidence of such threats, could an Open Source project sue for
a declaratory judgement that "we do not infringe any monopolist patents (or
they cannot sue because of ant-trust)".
Given that they are making the threats, such an approach sounds plausible. And
it puts THEM in a very big bind. They now must tell us ANY and ALL patents that
we might infringe. Once our "prior art" guns are in place, that could
be a very risky business. And it's less work for them to discover than for us
:-) so they have to do the discovery :-)
Let's say they put up a load of patents. We can, hopefully, blow them all away.
Which is better? Surrender and allow "OS project" to be declared
patent-free, or watch as patent after patent is destroyed. And to make matters
worse, every destruction will increase the chances of the next one being
destroyed, too :-) Plus every one they put up, if it quotes other patents as
prior art, they'll get taken out too...
The end result could (and hopefully will be) that software patents are so badly
discredited they end up not being worth the paper they're written on. What's
even nicer is that WE (if we can find a friendly sponsor - hint hint IBM) will
be in control of when WE decide to press the button and blow the whole mess
sky-high :-)
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 04:06 PM EDT |
Assuming that PJ does get permission for us to transcribe this talk, it's
going to make sense to split the work up, much like we did here for the mammoth September 15
transcript. The talk's an hour long, so I've gone through it and split it
into twelve segments, each roughly five minutes long. I'd suggest that people
offer to do one (or more) here, or if you've already done some, let us know
what. Once it's done, posting the resulting transcript sections back under this
comment would seem sensible.
- A From: 00:00 (Hello, my name
is...)
To: 04:55 (... refer back to the cover.)
- B From: 04:56
(Now, if you flip...)
To: 09:43 (... one just long
sentence.)
- C From: 09:43 (If you turn to the next... )
To:
14:48 (... claim terms mean.)
- D From: 14:48 (The first place to
go...)
To: 19:56 (... invalidate this claim.)
- E From: 19:57
(So now we've defined...)
To: 24:40 (... actually invented
something.)
- F From: 24:40 (But what patent law does...)
To:
29:52 (... other kinds of documentation.)
- G From: 29:52 (And if they
were...)
To: 34:28 (... whatever dates are keyed here.)
- H
From: 34:29 (Now this is a little bit...)
To: 39:33 (... is highly
relevant.)
- I From: 39:33 (So, going back ...)
To: 44:53 (...
claim is invalid.)
- J From: 44:53 (Now I've added in ...)
To:
49:41 (... street on Monday.)
- K From: 49:41 (Now that reference
...)
To: 54:39 (... finding some references?)
- L From: 54:42
(There are some good free ...)
To: 62:02 (... in your
jurisdiction.)
(Sorry about the formatting. I wanted to use
<pre> tags, but it kept adding extra newlines in, messing up my
layout.)
Also, it would be helpful to put a timecheck in the transcript
every so often, so that we can refer back and forth between the two, and to make
references easier, much like we put page numbers into transcribed texts. How
about roughly one per minute?
Tim Reid [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 07:39 PM EDT |
| Torrent for the mp3 here (42.5MB), and a smaller version for dialup here; this smaller file is resampled at 32kbps mono mix
(14.1MB) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 14 2005 @ 09:03 PM EDT |
Is it merely product distribution? And if so, is source code considered a
product, or is it merely a formal description of the patent [and thus
distributable freely]?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: macrorodent on Sunday, May 15 2005 @ 07:08 AM EDT |
I wish Dan Ravicher or another expert would also
give some guidance about
how to find out whether
an old patent is expired. I know this depends on
the
jurisdiction, but guidance concerning USA and Europe
would be a start.
The
USA situation would be especially important, both
because of its large number of
software patents, and
because the rules are a bit more complex after a
fairly
recent patent law change: I have heard some patents follow
old rules,
some new, and then there are some years where
a sort of mixture applies.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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