Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patents Won't Come Back Just Because They're (Re)Framed/Branded as "HEY HI" (AI)

Building another house of cards or patent bubble

AI hype at EPO



Summary: The pattern we've been observing in recent years is, patent applicants and law firms simply rewrite applications to make these seem patent-eligible on the surface (owing to deliberate deception) and patent offices facilitate these loopholes in order to fake 'growth'

THIS site has changed a bit this year. Since springtime we've increased focus on GNU/Linux and since last winter we've been gradually reducing coverage of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) affairs, focusing instead on the European Patent Office (EPO) under António Campinos, Battistelli's friend. There's still plenty of coverage about 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 cases in our daily links (which recently became bi-daily) and we habitually write about software patents. It's just that in the world as a whole, notably in the US, such patents are waning. How does one 'work around' Mayo/Alice (SCOTUS)? It's not simple, but at the examination phase it's easier to manipulate the examiners into granting patents on algorithms. Days ago Watchtroll once again blasted the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), equating its work with "harassment" of "patent owners" [sic], then urging Andrei Iancu to stop or at least curtail inter partes reviews (IPRs). This sort of blowhard nonsense from Watchtroll's founder simply reveals just how desperate and foolish patent zealots have become.



"The writers at IAM constantly promote these buzzwords, as does the EPO."Watchtroll, however, does not have a monopoly on such nonsense. And to think that the EPO's management liaises with Watchtroll is a rather disturbing thought.

The desire to 'dance' around the law and grant bogus, abstract patents isn't new. Methods appear to have increased in number and these typically boil down to semantics and buzzwords.

"It certainly seems like the world of patents is increasingly dominated by marketing phonies and imposters, not technical people. That's a profound problem.""Through strategic claim drafting, oil and gas companies can overcome Section 101 and obtain patents covering digital technologies and AI, say Charles Collins-Chase, Jennifer Roscetti and Paul Townsend of Finnegan," wrote the patent maximalists in "Oil and gas digitalisation: overcoming €§101 to obtain valuable patents". They basically celebrate software patents that are fake patents using buzzwords like "HEY HI" and other nonsense put forth by the likes of Finnegan, a litigation giant that sponsors the likes of IAM. The writers at IAM constantly promote these buzzwords, as does the EPO. What would courts say? They're not in the business of granting as many patents as possible, so a sober analysis would likely squash such patents. But it's not cheap; court battles are very expensive.

Citing the EPO's "Problem-Solution Approach", patent attorney "MaxDrei" (frequent commenter on EPO matters at IP Kat) wrote about some of these ridiculous "HEY HI" patents that reach the EPO and other patent offices. To quote the comment:

Let us take the two examples and address them like the EPO does, using its Problem-Solution Approach. So, two part form of claim, characterized by.....fractal. Thus, the beverage container I take to be old except that its bumps and dimples are, well, fractal ones.

According to the application as filed, what is the technical problem (X) for which "fractal" is the solution? What is it that fractal bumps do that conventional bump patterns fail to do? We need to know that, so we can scour the prior art universe for hints or suggestions that, if X is your problem, it might be worth rendering your bumps as "fractal".

Could it be that the only problem we can derive from the application as filed is the problem of finding an alternative? Could it be that the algorithm was also searching the prior art to find an alternative and found it in "fractal"?

As to the candle invention, I can see that random or pseudo-random flickering might command attention more strikingly than metronomic flickering. But again, what is the technical problem (Y) for which the solution is "fractal"?

The imaginary person skilled in the art is deemed dispassionately to scour all the prior art, looking for hints or suggestions. Is this not the same as what the machine "inventor" is doing? If it finds any such hint or suggestion, has it executed an act of invention? But then; what if it keeps quiet about where it found its hint or suggestion and instead holds out its feature combination as its own flash of inspiration? Who can deny it?


As we argued earlier this month, this whole "HEY HI" nonsense poses a risk to the very legitimacy of patent systems. There are several reasons for this. But the aspect most troubling to us is the degree to which "HEY HI" gets leveraged as a mere buzzword; just about any algorithm -- never mind if machine learning-centric or not -- is being cast or framed as "HEY HI" because it does something 'clever'. It certainly seems like the world of patents is increasingly dominated by marketing phonies and imposters, not technical people. That's a profound problem. Watchtroll blocked me in Twitter after it had lost an argument over software patents -- an argument which incidentally revealed that Watchtroll's founder doesn't even know what software is and how it works!

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
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
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
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
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.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day