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Comment by coopdog | Hacker News Reader

So how can we / could we have stopped this patent. Is there an easy online way to submit prior art for patents under consideration? That way all the reviewer has to do is accept the prior art and nuke the application

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Do you have any prior art? This is not a patent for "Artificial intelligence" in general, it's a patent for a very specific method of doing something that appears intelligent, and this is actually what artificial intelligence is all about. See my comment above to see what is required for something to be relevant prior art. Basically, you're not going to find it. And who cares anyway, the scope of the claims is really quite narrow, it's going to take a lot of effort for someone to actually come up with a system which infringes this patent without having read the thing in the first place.

> my AI background is weak

> it's going to take a lot of effort for someone

First, you assert that you are not an expert in AI. Then you assert how much effort would be required to independently come up with the same implementation.

You have to chose which of those two assertions to make.

My AI background is weak but not non-existant. But this is beside the point. I'm not the one making claims this is a junk patent and that it's clearly obvious. The ones who are have provided no proof that it is obvious. For a patent to be invalid, there must be proof, you can't just say "oh clearly it's obvious" because you can say that about anything at all once you know the solution to the problem.

Regarding my comment on how much effort it would take, I was stating my opinion that it, at face value, doesn't seem obvious to me. But the assertion that it is obvious and a terrible patent is something that can be proven with a single link, but no one has provided one. And I believe the reason for this is because the naysayers have no idea what they're talking about and are too ignorant to know that just because the term artificial intelligence is used does not mean that they are claim all artificial intelligence systems conceivable to man, but merely the system they have invented.

By all means, prove me wrong, find a citation that shows this is either not new or is obvious, but until you do, the patent stands as a valid patent. Any citation you find I'd be more than happy to look through and see whether it is a suitable citation, but until then, the naysayers haven't a leg to stand on.

I'll make an array of the parts of your post that I disagree with. And optionally an array of the parts of your post that I agree with. I'll mark any root concepts, and then highlight where they appear in the rest of your comment. Then I'll make an array of possible responses, and check for frequent use of the root concepts.

Wrapping something in patent-mumbo-jumbo, doesn't prevent it from being bullshit. No one will find a link to prove that making arrays and root concepts and blah blah blah has prior art, because it's all crap. Top to bottom.

That's my opinion.

So you've addressed maybe half the essential features of the claim, and that clearly makes all of it obvious? What about the rest? Is it obvious to do all these things in the way claimed? Do you have proof this it is obvious to do so? The law doesn't work based on opinion, it works on proof first, and evidence when proof is lacking. You can call it bullshit all you want, but until you have something to back it up, you're just talking shit.

> The law doesn't work based on opinion, it works on proof first, and evidence when proof is lacking.

Yeah, and I have enough of a background that my opinion is evidence.

That was simple, wasn't it?

If we found an acknowledged expert in the domain, their opinion would be very strong evidence indeed.

Let me put it this way: the goal of establishing a patent system was to encourage public disclosure of methods. A time window was granted to the patent holder to make exclusive use of the material, but after that, to revert to the public domain.

This patent application ADDS NOTHING THAT IS NOT OBVIOUS to the public domain. That's my opinion, and I think I have enough of a background in the domain that my opinion is evidence.

Your argument is that, if I were MORE of an expert in the domain, I might suddenly realize that the claims are more subtle and inventive, than I can discern as a journeyman in the domain?

And yes, you keep cleverly asking for a link, but that's presuming that prior art is the only way to defeat a patent. An idea can be both NEW (or phrased to sound new) and OBVIOUS to a practitioner. In which case, your asking for a link is a strawman argument.

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