Bonum Certa Men Certa

USPTO in Doubt

David Kappos
No change yet



Summary: Critics of the US patent system -- and by extension other patent offices around the world -- subjected to scrutiny

MR. Cuban [1, 2] recently gave money to the fight against software patents. The USPTO is aware of public backlash and it opens up to feedback:



In response to the USPTO's call for comments on how to enhance software patent quality, Groklaw has a draft of a response to the USPTO's Topic 1 question, on "how to improve clarity of claim boundaries that define the scope of patent protection for claims that use functional language". We'd like your input before we finalize our comment. Do you see a way to improve it? Make it clearer and more accessible to non-programmers? Any further references you think would be useful?


Here is a new post about Cuban's experiences with patents:

Outspoken billionaire, Mark Cuban, is fed up with America’s patent system. “Dumbass patents are crushing small businesses. I have had multiple small companies i am an investor in have to fight or pay trolls for patents that were patently ridiculous,” he says in an email to TechCrunch.

The noted investor and Dallas Mavericks owner is perhaps best known for his unfiltered tweets against clumsy NBA officials, who he believes are endangering his star athletes. Now, he’s leveraging his penchant for attention-grabbing headlines with a newly endowed chair at digital civil rights organization, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, dubbed “The Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents.”


Even Microsoft, a patent aggressor, suffers from this lawsuit from Vringo, which sued Google:

A lawsuit filed on Thursday alleges Microsoft has been infringing patents that allow internet search engines to most effectively place advertisements.

I/P Engine said in the suit filed in Manhattan federal court that Microsoft uses search technology based on inventions by two employees of I/P Engine's parent company, Vringo.

Microsoft uses the technology in systems that generate advertisements and associated links for users of the world's largest software company's search engine, Bing, the lawsuit said.


Well, if one is to believe that innovation comes from patents, then the above is a wakeup call. Some critics of software patents address the misconception:

Patents, for all their flaws, are a widely used proxy for innovation. And a new study from the Brookings Institution shows just how clustered patent-related innovation is in America.


Unless innovation is restricted by geography, we may as well assume that patents are a business culture, not innovation culture. It's time to rethink this out-of-date establishment, which used to be all about publication but is now redundant because we have the Internet and digital registries.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
 
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October