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If anyone is curious about the patent the parent is suing for, it is included in the documents he linked to. Here is an handier link: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=132275042&...

I'm afraid that I (and surely many others on Hacker News as well) will not be cheering you on. It's pretty much the definition of something I do not want to be patentable.

I understand it will probably not be possible to convince you to change your mind, so I won't insult you by trying. However, keep in mind that your stance really is diametrically opposed to many groups who do not want software patents.

It's the "for payments" version of all those "but on a screen" patents that people here hate on so much. Prior work includes but is not limited to Facebook tag suggestions, and and just about everything done in facial recognition on any laptop in the world.

> I'm not a troll. I'm an inventor and I made a real product.

Doesn't matter. You're trying to take ownership of an obvious idea. Your patent did not inspire anyone at Square, nor did anyone at Square learn how to perform this process by your patent. They don't owe you a cent. It is only by a shitty quirk of the system, which you are taking advantage of, that allows you to try to extort money out of them. You are part of the problem.

> Your patent did not inspire anyone at Square

question is how do we distinguish between patents that "inspired" and those which did not?

Or does inspiring even matter - anyone can see the "inspiration" on Android from the release of the 1st iPhone (e.g. before and after designs) - yet this fact plus all of Apple's $billions were unable to stop/prevent Android from their clearly inspired copying.

> shitty quirk of the system

Is it still considered a quirk when it's by design and it's the entire point of the system? If we're only talking about damages for when designs are copied (instead of independently developed), we're basically talking about trade secret misappropriation.

There is no evidence that Square viewed and copied this dude's "novel invention".

You're misreading parent's comment. What s/he is saying is that if someone flat-out copied your design, then that would presumably be trade secret appropriation.

Patents are SUPPOSED to cover the case where someone else invents the same thing in parallel, independently. You might not like it, but that's a legal fact. Clearly, you have a different moral opinion of when someone should be able to enforce their patent rights.

Yes, thank you for putting that more clearly than I did.

> I own a few patents, as I'm sure many on Hacker News do. As I write this, I'm in the middle of a patent lawsuit with Square (http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/24u13j6tr/california-northe...). I don't apologize for it. I'm not a troll. I'm an inventor and I made a real product.

That's great you made a real product. So many who file patents don't end up creating real products. But the problem here is you made a real product that's pretty generic much akind to the patents of "input devices changes display on output device" kind of patents. It's an abuse of the system that many are working to eradicate.

So I don't think you're going to find any support on HN for it. It's great you're not like the typical patent troll since you claim you made a product (of which I have not verified but I give you the benefit of the doubt) but obvious design patents hurt innovation. Hell to some degree all patents hurt innovation but the obvious designs are the most egregious in my opinion.

If patents were granted fairly and litigated fairly and efficiently, sure, they'd be great.

But they just can't be. Many millions of dollars are spent gaining bad patents and litigating them unfairly. In practice, they're a tool which enables and amplifies the worse parts of human and societal nature, a tool for the abuse of power.

I say we just give them up. There may be fewer published inventions, but not that many fewer really. Some inventors will be motivated to invent for its own sake. Others will profit from being involved in the implementation and commercialization of their own inventions combined with others. Some inventors will get "screwed" when others get rich off their creations. But that happens today anyway. There will likely be disagreements about who really came up with the core of an idea first, or who's idea is really more core to the product, and without patents, those arguments won't cost millions of dollars and stifle creation. Everyone would be better off IMHO.

A huge part your argument comes down to "it will all be the same as now but magically better" but you didn't bother to make a case, just list out some very assertive predictions.

But I did make a case: no patent lawsuits. That's easily big enough to counter any downsides.

Also, Its very likely that the invention will be reinvented by someone. Is not there a public patent review process before a patent is granted so the other inventors can provide alternative solutions ? This would solve most if not all problems.

No need to downvote a comment that exposes an opinion you disagree with (and I disagree too). The patent is clearly a joke: "A method for transferring an electronic payment between a purchaser and a merchant etc...". Instead of downvote, send a letter to your congressmen to stop this ludicrous software patent thing, it will be more useful.

A patent does not cover what its title describes. Titles are routinely extremely vague, just a few words.

You have to look at the claims if you want to know what the patent is actually about.

Nothing wrong with sending a clear message to someone actively trying to do harm to innovation. That kind of behavior should not be welcome in our industry.

Your message's clarity gets muddied by your overzealousness I'm afraid.

It's absurd to say that I am "actively trying to do harm to innovation." I filed for patents on novel processes to protect myself. That's inherently defensive, not offensive.

Smart people can disagree on this topic. I understand that a lot of people don't think there should be software patents, or patents at all. I don't think it's that simple.

> It's absurd to say that I am "actively trying to do harm to innovation." I filed for patents on novel processes to protect myself. That's inherently defensive, not offensive.

You sued Square, right? Square benefited in no way from your work or from your patent, but now you're either expecting payment from them for no services rendered, or forcing them to waste their resources fighting your shakedown attempt. In what worldview is that not harming innovation?

Based on your response, I'm guessing you didn't take the time to read the complaint. And why bother when you can spew factually incorrect vitriol at someone over the internet?

Not to mention that Square's fundamental innovation, its credit card reader, is premised on intellectual property theft. See http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/lawsuit-questions-s.... So in addition to holding a hundred more patents than my company, Square isn't even being honest about who deserves credit for theirs. Yet you argue that they're the pro-innovation good guys, and non-VC backed independent inventors are actively destroying innovation, because they hold patents? I have to disagree.

> Based on your response, I'm guessing you didn't take the time to read the complaint.

You were right at the time, but I just flipped through it now (the meat seems to be in attachments 4 and 5 at the bottom of the original link) and it doesn't change my argument.

What service did you render to Square to earn the payment you claim to deserve? Did they get the idea for their product from your patent? Did they learn how to implement their process from patent?

Are you just trying to get a slice of the pie because of some childish "I thought of it first" garbage, and because our broken patent system allows it?

I suspect it's that last one.

> Yet you argue that they're the pro-innovation good guys

I never argued that. I argued that you are trying to extort money out of Square despite providing them with no real service or benefit, and that this does real harm to innovation.

> What service did you render to Square to earn the payment you claim to deserve?

the service rendered was he made public the details of the invention. Whether Square read or did not choose to read the patent is beside the point.

> Did they get the idea for their product from your patent? Did they learn how to implement their process from patent?

You are assuming that Square did not read his patent - which if true suggests that Square inefficiently re-invented the wheel. You know, that whole standing on the shoulders of giants thing.

However, what we find happening lately is the concept of efficient infringement where large corporations have found it more cost effective to infringe and fight with their lawyer muscle than to pay inventors their due rights.

> the service rendered was he made public the details of the invention. Whether Square read or did not choose to read the patent is beside the point.

I completely disagree.

what is:

1) http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...

2) www.google.ca/patents/US8396808

3) http://pat2pdf.org/patents/pat8396808.pdf

if not publicly disclosed?

THIS got downvoted?!? People were either too lazy or couldn't come up with a rebuttal

The "'I thought of it first' garbage" is part of the U.S. Constitution, and if you don't agree with it, that's fine, but generally speaking reactionary and incendiary (and often libertarian) arguments like yours are part of the problem. Like it or not, the system is run by patent lawyers, both inside and outside of government, who are not receptive to that kind of language (e.g. "extort"). What they are responsive to is carefully constructed, specific reasons why the system needs to be improved.

If you have any of those, I'd encourage you to file a public comment with USPTO, as I have repeatedly. Otherwise, yeah, in this case I thought of it first, and I filed a patent on it, and I added a number of important limitations, and it was granted.

I'll remember that next time I'm having a discussion with an official and not some patent troll on an Internet forum.

The idea of facial recognition as a form of security has been around significantly longer than the technology itself. It's in sci-fi and spy movies dating back to the 80s. The idea to use it as a means of authorizing payment should have been considered obvious by the clerk that granted your patent, but it wasn't, and that's where software patents are failing hardest today.

I think a lot of folks would agree that face-based payment authorization as an option would have come along eventually, just as every other biometric and security device will eventually get applied to everything anyone might want to secure.

The patent itself is not about facial recognition. It's actually broader than that.

>I filed for patents on novel processes to protect myself.

I think the people here are challenging the "novel processes" part of your patent. I can't look at it myself currently, but based on the replies, I'm a bit skeptical myself on the "novel" part of it. Unless the replies are misrepresenting what your patent is about. Which is totally possible.

There are lots of things where "the idea of them" isn't bad, but they can't be turned into law-enforced policy without leading to bad consequences.

That's not really the fault of lawyers, either.

Since no one else has said it yet, thanks for contributing your insight to this discussion. You must have known it would be a hostile audience, and that many wouldn't agree with you, but we benefit from hearing your side and being able to talk about the disagreement. Genuinely, thanks for your bravery and openness in discussing it.