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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

It shouldn't be, but the world of software patents is truly bizarre. I have several patents in my name that are completely meaningless to the point of being satirical (stuff like "system to show a list of options and dispatch and action to a web server", "validating information submitted in a web form and returning errors"). Each is 40+ pages of filing, complete with diagrams, and all of them approved. And we need to do it otherwise someone will sue us with an equally bogus patent and we will have no defense.

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I have my name on a patent for an imaging pipeline.

I have no idea why it was granted. I sent it to headquarters as a design pattern description.

That’s pretty much the definition of “prior art.”

I guess they were able to reshape it into a form that the patent office wouldn’t laugh out the door. I never really looked at it. I hate reading patents; even my own.

Yup, my name is on two patents that IMO are just mundane semi-obvious stuff. But our investors insisted on building a portfolio of patented IP, so there you go.

The system is super broken.

> no defense.

I am not a lawyer, but I suspect prior art is a defense.

It's more complicated than that. A patent troll will hold a patent for X and then claim you are violating that patent. You, the holder of Y, can then say "well you're violating Y so fuck right off". Or maybe there's another patent that could potentially indicate prior art, but it isn't your patent. Or you're just a really small player with a few patents in your portfolio trying to defend against a troll.

Companies pool their patents together, promising not to sue each other over patents, in order to collectively defend themselves against trolls.

the world would be better if more companies were able or daring enough to fight bullshit patents directly (with prior art, obviousness, etc defenses).

but instead every company chooses to defend themselves by deluging the patent office with more crap, and collective abuse of the patent system to patent stuff even the “inventor” thinks is obvious becomes accepted totally normal behavior.

"The world would be a lot better if <very large group of people/companies> independently did xyz" can be applied to pretty much anything. Except tragedy of the commons is a real thing, and this is why you need governments to step in and regulate.

yes, you are right. meaningful voluntary collective change is unlikely.

however, i believe that individuals should respect the commons, and don’t believe in the tragedy of the commons as an excuse for individual actions that contribute to the problem.

(insert starfish on the beach story)

Well employees could stage a walk out as they do for other causes because the abuse of property rights costs the American economy, worker, and consumer and forces employees to participate in these unethical abuses.

Story time. I worked for a company who did prior art on something that was frankly fucking to obvious and is now ubiquitous (but as far as I know we did it first). At one point a patent troll sued us. Our clients were on our side and one of them (a very prestigious law school that rhymes with Barvard), offered their resources to help us fight the troll. The C level management decided to not risk it and just paid the troll. We were a 20 person company at the time and it wasn’t worth it I guess.

I think Alibaba did this a little while ago - someone tried to sue them for infringing a one-click checkout patent and they did challenge them in court and won.

The solution is pretty simple. Just stop allowing software patents.

Maybe if employees of big tech would whisteblow to Congress on being forced into the unethical abuse of property rights that would help?

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