Getting around a software patent

meghatronic · 16 Jul 2009 at 16:46

Dj_Jestar said:
Why? So you could patent it and make lots of money from it? Hardly stupid then, is it?

Well, you know I meant! I meant stupidly simple.

Dj_Jestar · 16 Jul 2009 at 16:46

Deleted member 651465 · 16 Jul 2009 at 16:49

Watch those competitors

sunama · 16 Jul 2009 at 16:57

~J~ said:
Good example, I'll try and give one back.

If Patent Holders 1 had a piece of software which showed a picture of a calculator and allowed you to add number together to give a result.

IF you came along and wrote something similar, but the way you got the result was in a method of, I dunno, say multiplying first number by 10, then adding the second number which was multiplied by 10, then dividing the result by 10 (y'know what I'm getting at), then I doubt you'd have a problem.

~J~ said:

Well thats a relief. Otherwise, even bothering to write/produce/manufacture a piece of software for sale to the public would be almost pointless, given that you may end up losing everything in a potential court case, should some patent holder crawl out of the woodwork.

~J~ said:

If patent Holders 1 had a piece of software hardcoded into a physical device that performed the same calculations, and you invented something similar but a different algorhithm, then you may have problems.

Click to expand...

Now this one is a strange one.

We have loads of calculators on the market, from different manufacturers. I assume that at some point the calculator was patented...if so, surely any manufacturer wishing to manufacture a calculator would need to pay royalties to the original patent holder...surely?

Also, how long do software patents last for?

With regards to the 1 click:
What if I had a web page, with a 2 click ordering system, ie. the page requires you to press the same button twice (ie. 1 double click) - would this infringe on the patent held by amazon?

Click to expand...

~J~ · 16 Jul 2009 at 17:00

sunama said:
Now this one is a strange one.

We have loads of calculators on the market, from different manufacturers. I assume that at some point the calculator was patented...if so, surely any manufacturer wishing to manufacture a calculator would need to pay royalties to the original patent holder...surely?

OK, I admit, crap example

RDM · 16 Jul 2009 at 17:04

sunama said:
With regards to the 1 click:
What if I had a web page, with a 2 click ordering system, ie. the page requires you to press the same button twice (ie. 1 double click) - would this infringe on the patent held by amazon?

No, but it might infringe on the one held by others. Doesn't iTunes use something like that?

sunama · 16 Jul 2009 at 17:06

RDM said:
No, but it might infringe on the one held by others. Doesn't iTunes use something like that?

LOL. OK

What if we did a 3 click system, ie. triple click?

Also, what about the conventional system of checking out of an online store, eg. type in name, address, select type of postage, then click confirm...etc

Why hasnt that been patented, ie. the idea of using a checkout, in the above way, on a web page?

If you can patent the 1 click system, surely you can patent the conventional system, too?

meghatronic · 16 Jul 2009 at 17:27

RDM said:
No, but it might infringe on the one held by others. Doesn't iTunes use something like that?

iTunes license it.

Duff-Man · 16 Jul 2009 at 17:30

As far as I'm aware, you can't patent software :confused:

Legal protection, as far as software goes, is in the form of copywriting. That is specific to the piece of software, and not the function it performs. In reality though your best protection is secrecy.

This is the basics of the legal advice we were given with regards to our software, that we are developing for sale.

sunama · 16 Jul 2009 at 17:38

Duff-man. I'm not sure about other countries, you can definitely patent software in the US and in the UK. Furthermore, people have been successfully sued. Ask search engine comes to mind.

Others:
http://searchengineland.com/microsoft-google-sued-over-paid-search-patent-infringement-13409

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...tent+sued&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&lr=lang_en

http://www.out-law.com/page-4599

http://www.pagetrafficblog.com/google-msn-yahoo-sued-over-competitive-bidding-patent/2907/

fini · 16 Jul 2009 at 17:44

Wow there's a load of rubbish in this thread. Lets try to clear things up. I'm going to be a bit obnoxious and not post links to proof for everything, but suffice to say if people have read previous threads related to IP they'll know I actually have a clue.

1) You can patent software.
2) It does not need to be linked to hardware - that was the case a while ago, but is no longer the case
3)People are getting confused because it is not possible to patent software 'as such', but that 'as such' has a meaning dissimilar to what most understand it to be. Basically, you're patenting a process rather than software.
4) A patent is only valid within the country within which it is filed (though there are EU-wide patents).
5) The relevant law in regards to whether a patent can be filed and what happens if it is infringed is different depending on the country we are talking about.
6)Amazon no longer have the one click patent - or at least not in the sense that was once shocking. What they now have/ hope to have, is pretty rubbish tbh.

sunama · 16 Jul 2009 at 18:12

fini said:
Basically, you're patenting a process rather than software.

I think that was the key point that I needed clarification on.
Earlier posts have also stated the same as you.

With regards to Amazon, who has the patent now? How did they lose the patent?

toon_mad · 16 Jul 2009 at 23:28

wouldnt be my fitness trainer would it?

i patented it, cost me £200

jokes aside, if you are interested in patenting software google "Patent Office" you can download in pdf format useful help materials

fini · 16 Jul 2009 at 23:54

sunama said:
I think that was the key point that I needed clarification on.
Earlier posts have also stated the same as you.

With regards to Amazon, who has the patent now? How did they lose the patent?

In a way Amazon have the patent in a way nobody has it. Some prior art was found and, as such much of the patent was destroyed (which was an ironically basic end to what had been a rather complex legal point). Amazon sought to recast the patent around narrower definitions, but in doing so the 'shock value' that the patent had (for seemingly patenting some really basic and necessary on the web) was lost.

Berserker · 17 Jul 2009 at 00:05

Fini is correct. I know enough to know that he knows his stuff.

And to re-iterate one more time, software - as in source code and binary 1s and 0s can't be patented (though it can of course be copyrighted). Instead, you patent the methodology or algorithm. So, for example, you could patent a new computer memory management methodology (providing of course that it really is new), but how that gets implemented in code (or even if it is implemented at all) doesn't enter into the patent - at least not under UK and US rules. I can't comment on others.

philjohn · 17 Jul 2009 at 10:00

Berserker said:
Fini is correct. I know enough to know that he knows his stuff.

And to re-iterate one more time, software - as in source code and binary 1s and 0s can't be patented (though it can of course be copyrighted). Instead, you patent the methodology or algorithm. So, for example, you could patent a new computer memory management methodology (providing of course that it really is new), but how that gets implemented in code (or even if it is implemented at all) doesn't enter into the patent - at least not under UK and US rules. I can't comment on others.

Thank goodness Knuth has documented a great swathe of computer algorithms in TAOCP so there is a huge wealth of prior art there for anything from search functions to complex route calculating. What's quite scary is things like the (now neutered) Amazon 1 click patent.

I'm very much opposed to software patents as in a very fast moving industry they stifle, rather than foster, innovation. Very few are also novel or difficult to come up with; if we must have software patents, I think the bar should be set very much higher than it currently is.

sunama · 17 Jul 2009 at 15:16

philjohn said:
I'm very much opposed to software patents as in a very fast moving industry they stifle, rather than foster, innovation. Very few are also novel or difficult to come up with; if we must have software patents, I think the bar should be set very much higher than it currently is.

Same here. Its just another way to for big corporations to prevent others from developing a technology.

It certainly stifles development as very few big commercial want to develop a technology and take it forward, if they feel that it may infringe on some exisiting patent. Only the small-time one-man-band programmer would risk it, but as his resources are limited, the project would probably die a natural death.

Getting around a software patent

Deleted member 651465

Deleted member 651465