Matt, WOW, a fascinating story.
Continuing... On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 1:27 PM, Matt Mahoney <[email protected]>wrote: > On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 12:00 AM, Steve Richfield > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> It just has to be disclosed, as in a > >> research paper, technical document, or open source code. > > > > I would have to go back and read carefully, but I suspect that open > source > > code would NOT be considered prior art, unless: > > 1. You could PROVE that it was around before the patent application, and > > 2. Its operation was explained OUTSIDE of the code in some publicly > > accessible way, e.g. on the Internet. > > Actually, that's not so. In 2009, a company that had a reputation for > stealing data compression code tried to patent my PAQ algorithm. Here > is their application: > > > http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20070233477.PGNR.&OS=DN/20070233477&RS=DN/20070233477 > > When someone pointed this out to me, I wrote to the USPTO and included > a copy of a technical report I had written earlier. If you read both, > it is clear that they had also plagiarized substantial sections of it. > > http://cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/compression/cs200516.pdf > An alternative approach might have been to contact them and offer a technology trade - your technology (that they already have) in return for a half-interest in the patent (that they doubtless paid plenty of money to get). > > Ultimately the USPTO rejected all of their claims. In the rejection > letter, they found prior art not only in my TR, but in several other > later versions of PAQ on my website. There is a fine line here. As I am reading this, it isn't so much "prior art", but lying on the patent application where every inventor must sign under penalty of perjury that they are the original inventor. This isn't so much a civil issue of prior art, but a criminal issue of perjury. Of course the USPTO is too busy to put the patent crooks in jail, and the patent crooks know it, so this practice continues. It was just easier to recognize your "prior art" than to go to the hassle of a criminal proceeding. However, had they been granted the patent, your "prior art" might well have been inadmissible in a civil proceeding, and the priority of your code might have been difficult to establish years in the future, so they might well have ended up owning your invention. All of the programs are described > in the source code comments, and that was enough. > > http://mattmahoney.net/dc/paq.html > > And none of this was patented either. I publish open source so that > nobody else can patent it. > There is a missing opportunity for people that I am attempting to set up with my own invention - the ability to patent things and then grant awards for patent royalties to developers. Done well (I'm still chasing the bugs out of this approach), it would work like open source, only when outfits like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc., start using it, you would get some royalties. After all, why should a smart guy like you work for free? > > I had been critical of the USPTO in the past for making a legal > morass. It is nearly impossible to write any software at all without > stepping on somebody's claims. Sure, but the vast majority of those interferences are uncollectable, so who cares? For example, suppose you included some infringing code in your open source code. You are giving it away, so they are welcome to 100% of everything you collect from it with no problem. Then, someone incorporates that code into a product - but there is no accounting for its use, so the patent holder would never know. But in this case, they ultimately did > the right thing. > With my patent, I am sort of doing the reverse, in spreading it across the Internet and looking for anyone (equivalent to you in your story) who will stand up and say "that is MY invention". If such a person were to stand up, I would carefully review the patent, and drop any interfering material. If all I hear is a deafening silence here and at WORLDCOMP, I can semi-safely presume that if there is any prior art, that it would probably be inadmissible in an interference proceeding. This is an important step to getting people to invest time and money in this direction. > > >> You think Forgent could have made more than $105 million before the > >> USPTO invalidated the key claims of the patent, 6 months before it was > >> to expire anyway? > > > > The last 6 months probably didn't make all THAT much difference, but why > not > > wait until it has expired to sue? At least that way, you can collect from > > everyone who does NOT insist on being taken to court to be made to pay. > > No, that's not how they did it. Nothing went to trial. The hammer that > Forgent held was the threat of an injunction on the sales of > infringing products (anything that reads or writes JPEG, such as > cameras, phones, printers, etc). A company can appeal the validity of > the patent, but meanwhile they can't sell their products. Even if the > companies thought they could have won (and they would have been > right), they still lose millions in sales until the appeals ruling. > Sony alone paid $30 million. > OK, I see what you mean. They DID wait until the last minute before going on the attack. Nice. > > But good luck trying to collect for past infringement after your patent > expires. > This will get refined as we go along. I suspect that the patent will be vetted by some big players before they even make a decision to pay or infringe, and this feedback will help guide my efforts ***THANKS*** for your input regarding strategy. More money is made on strategy than is ever made on technology. Steve. ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
