The Beginning of the End of the Internet?
Over the past few years, the U.S. Patent Office has been releasing a steady stream of patents, leaving people in the software industry angry and frustrated.
Many people have wondered what is going on in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in light of the enormous media attention given to the patents granted to Amazon, Alta Vista, and most recently McAfee.How did "One-Click Purchasing," "Search Engines," and now "Auto-Downloading of Software / Software as a Service (SaaS)" evolve into things that businesses are permitted to patent?
The majority of patent specialists do not take these "junk Patents" seriously because they are aware that the courts and other systems in place to regulate the system would invalidate them.
In September 2001, Amazon plans to test its patent against Barnes & Noble.
The judge said he had nothing to say against BarnesandNoble's use of this buying mechanism if they just implemented a two-click system during an injunction hearing. Because the designer of Archie has evidence that his system was in fact "prior art," Alta Vista's Search Patents will be invalidated.
What does the fact that Archie created the first search engine tell us about Alta Vista management's efforts to assert that they created search technologies?
What this reveals about our patent system, which enables Alta Vista to obtain a patent on search technology in the first place, is more crucial to this issue.
"What it truly holds is a Patent on the future of the Internet," McAfee now brazenly asserts.They would be correct in their evaluation if there was even a remote possibility that this Patent would stand the test of time.Once more, the main concern is how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office could have concluded that McAfee invented these ideas and were deserving of receiving a Patent for such even after two and a half years of investigation. The fact that procedures that have long been regarded as common knowledge are routinely awarded patents is what makes the current system so aggravating. All facets of software development are being adversely affected by the broad definitions being provided by current patents. Numerous software developers have already commented on the McAfee patent article on ZD-Net, eWeek, and Talkback.
Here are a few of their comments:
( http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2802506,00.html )
Allen Vander Meulen, an Independent Consultant from West Chester, PA said:
A patent on "Auto Update"????? Ridiculous!!! I was writing code to do auto-updates for PC software across LAN's and via modems in the late 1980's and early 90's. (Of course, there was no internet component or any need for authentication at that time!)
Al Pareigis, a Software Professional from Oak Brook stated:
The patent is nuts!
The core idea of automatically checking for and downloading updates has been a cornerstone of software delivery.
Heck, I last wrote one in the middle of the 1990s.That was being done for a 911 centre using OS2 clients and Rex routines.The core idea remains the same even when words like "web," "browser," and "server" are added. It is standard procedure and professional knowledge.
Mauri Presser, a Computer Specialist from Virginia stated:
This makes me think of the dispute between Apple and Microsoft over the Trashcan vs. the Recycle Bin.The same purpose is served by both icons (folders).Any software's "Auto Update" functionality has the same function, which is to automate the procedure.similar to script files, batch files, or any software, like in the days of the command line.I can recall using the Sperry Univac AN/UYK-20 computer, which was sold to the US Navy and lacked a keyboard, to enter instructions.
Using a 16 switch maintenance panel, instructions and data were entered during troubleshooting. Additionally, magnetic tape or paper tape can be used to load the operating system and parameters. The process was simply mechanised by these methods of programme entry.
The "idea" of automation—does anyone have a patent on it?
Or is the patent just granted to the method?
Martin Willcox, an IT Manager from Manchester, United Kingdom cut to the chase:
"The McAfee case amply reveals how counterproductive and anti-competitive the idea of software patenting is.
Since most of us in the development community spend our days either improving and expanding concepts that have been around for a while or adapting those ideas to new technology, very little software is actually new or original." Martin Willcox accurately described the scenario in his analysis. Companies are increasingly trying to bury their rivals by manipulating the patent system. Consider Amazon for a second.Two months after receiving their patent, Amazon initiated a lawsuit against BarnesandNoble.com, their main rival.The legal costs could have killed BarnesandNoble if they weren't in such good financial shape when this lawsuit started.
Since it takes years and costs around $1 million to invalidate these useless patents, this folly boosts the cost of conducting business.
( Quoted from: http://www.trudelgroup.com/pwars.htm )
What if BarnesandNoble had just started out?
Might they If they had only a million dollars and little money, they might judicial bill
How many small businesses were able to afford this? attack?
How many small businesses were able to withstand the even when they were in the right, the litigation process?
Under our method, an inventor must submit an application for a application stating the innovation and claiming it (which be novel, non-obvious, and, in the broadest sense, and beneficial) to the US. Office of Patents and Trademarks (PTO).
An examiner assigned by the PTO to the application does a a lookup of past inventions (often called "prior art"), and then issues a patent if nothing suspicious is discovered. Under this system, which was last modified in 1999, the only real method for weeding out the bad patent is through costly litigation.
There are indications that there are actually several factors at play in the problems that exist within our Patent system:
* The PTO examiners are not given the kinds of tools they need to complete their jobs as they would wish, as indicated by this story:
"What examiners are requested to perform, and what influence those directed activities will have on the quality of patents, are definitely subjects of significant concern," the head of the Patent Examiner's Union wrote in a letter to the Patent Advisory Committee in September 1999. WEST, an information retrieval system with "debilitating flaws; not only is the system frequently unable to perform even simple word searches, the results are frequently woefully incomplete and even inaccurate," is being forced on PTO examiners, who claim that "searches using the new system take longer to perform, produce fewer results than the systems that they replaced, and thus prevent us from doing our jobs."
(Source: Washington Post, November 19, 1999).
* The staff at the Patent and Trademark Office is understaffed and under prepared to meet the challenges of the system in today's rapidly expanding technology sector and technological knowledge base.
Think about this. None of these patents would have happened if a web-savvy programmer had worked for the PTO; he would have had the information at his disposal to make wise decisions.
* Unscrupulous companies are taking advantage of the inadequacies of our Patent system to position themselves in such a way that they can legally extort their competitors through the use of the U.S. Patent and legal systems.
* The only recourse available, to those who feel that a bad Patent has been imposed, is expensive litigation or submission to the legal Patent holder.
By approving our petition right away, you can support our effort to persuade the US Congress to take into account the possibility of repealing the application of patents to the software industry or to look into the workings of the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in order to identify and address the underlying issues that allow the system to be abused.
http://www.PatentTrail.Org/petition.html
Source: Free Guest Posting Articles from ArticlesFactory.com