New patent troll Kootol emerges(macworld.com)
macworld.com
New patent troll Kootol emerges
http://www.macworld.com/article/161154/2011/07/kootol_sues_apple.html
11 comments
I am not a lawyer, so run this by a lawyer before acting.
If you get a notice from them, you can just toss it in the trash. They cannot sue you over a patent application.
Furthermore, their application was filed on 2010-12-20, so even if the patent issues nothing that was in use in public before 2009-12-20 can infringe.
If you get a notice from them, you can just toss it in the trash. They cannot sue you over a patent application.
Furthermore, their application was filed on 2010-12-20, so even if the patent issues nothing that was in use in public before 2009-12-20 can infringe.
Is there a typo in your nubmers (filed for in 2010, valid from 2009) or is it really how patents work over there in USA?
Whole year worth of time travel -- i.e., of retroactive monopoly?
Whole year worth of time travel -- i.e., of retroactive monopoly?
If you invent something, and then before you get your patent application filed someone else invents the same thing and puts their version on sale or describes it in a publication, theirs does not count as prior art against yours if their sale or publication was within one year of your application.
So, we can divide potential prior art into two groups:
1. Publications or products from 2009-12-20. Definitely prior art, even if Kootol actually was the inventor of the technology and invented it before the prior art. Too bad for them--they shouldn't have waited so long to file.
2. Publications or products from 2009-21-21 through the filing date. Not prior art. (That doesn't mean others using the technology in this period might not be useful against Kootol--it could be useful for showing that they were not the first to invent the relevant technology).
So, we can divide potential prior art into two groups:
1. Publications or products from 2009-12-20. Definitely prior art, even if Kootol actually was the inventor of the technology and invented it before the prior art. Too bad for them--they shouldn't have waited so long to file.
2. Publications or products from 2009-21-21 through the filing date. Not prior art. (That doesn't mean others using the technology in this period might not be useful against Kootol--it could be useful for showing that they were not the first to invent the relevant technology).
If they had filed a provisional application a year before (2009), and the patent is granted, the effective time goes back to the provisional filing date. I suppose that is what the gp was alluding to.
There are some definitely some quirks in the US patent system. I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I understand it, entities have one year from the date of disclosure to file for a patent in the US, where other countries generally view disclosure as precluding patenting.
Surely if you've got a brand new patent, by a company no one's heard of, and it's already being infringed by Apple, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, Nokia, Foursquare, IBM, LinkedIn, MySpace, RIM, Quora, Salesforce, Twitpic, Ubermedia and The Iconfactory, it's a bit of a stretch to claim it's novel and non-obvious?
To those of us who are software devs, so many of these patents don't seem to pass the "non-obvious" test. Who evaluates the novelty of a patent application? Does the USPTO employ experts in the field to exam these claims, or is it up to whatever random examiner picks up the next application in the queue?
AFAICT these days they just rubber stamp whatever comes through the door and let the lawyers figure it out later.
It seems to me developers have the following options regarding this sort of thing:
1. Only remake software that has obvious prior art you can refer to, preferably if the software being replicated is past the age of patent expiration.
2. Release anything that might infringe as open source, with a patent protection license clause (Apache, etc.), using a pseudonym to avoid being targeted.
3. Move to a location outside of legal jurisdiction, and use business trickery to operate in countries. Have fun setting up shell companies and other ways to frustrate litigants.
1. Only remake software that has obvious prior art you can refer to, preferably if the software being replicated is past the age of patent expiration.
2. Release anything that might infringe as open source, with a patent protection license clause (Apache, etc.), using a pseudonym to avoid being targeted.
3. Move to a location outside of legal jurisdiction, and use business trickery to operate in countries. Have fun setting up shell companies and other ways to frustrate litigants.
4. Get rid of the ridiculous patent system in the US
"Application No. US 12/973387 filed on 20-Dec-2010"
One can only laugh. They founded an entire company on a patent put together by looking at what people are currently doing, and noticing that there isn't a patent for it yet.
I can't wait to see how hard this one gets smashed into the ground!
One can only laugh. They founded an entire company on a patent put together by looking at what people are currently doing, and noticing that there isn't a patent for it yet.
I can't wait to see how hard this one gets smashed into the ground!
It looks like they tried to patent Twitter. I'm pretty sure that's existed for longer than this has been in development.
Good luck with that.
Good luck with that.
I am annoyed at MacWorld for not using the words "patent troll". The whole article is depressingly neutral. I realize that there is virtue in reporting the news objectively, but these people are thieves and MacWorld should regard them as such.
I'm hoping this might be 'steam engine time' - in this instance, a self-organized cue for 'civil disobedience'. If the system is so utterly broken that innovation is forced into stagnation - fight it! Flaunt the unjust laws, openly develop cool ideas using appropriate technologies, 'do no wrong' (in a moral sense), and FIGHT your corner.
Living in the EU, I'm not quite clear on some of the legal aspects - can't defendants represent themselves in court in the US? It would be a pleasantly unbalanced situation: nominal legal fees on the individual's side, but many magnitudes higher on the opposing party's.
Imagine a legal wiki, with shared experiences and legal knowledge... Why not use our common smarts and networking savvy to take on this biggest of threats to the independent developer?
Living in the EU, I'm not quite clear on some of the legal aspects - can't defendants represent themselves in court in the US? It would be a pleasantly unbalanced situation: nominal legal fees on the individual's side, but many magnitudes higher on the opposing party's.
Imagine a legal wiki, with shared experiences and legal knowledge... Why not use our common smarts and networking savvy to take on this biggest of threats to the independent developer?
My understanding is that if, as the article says, Kootol has received a Notice of Allowance, this patent has been examined and will be published unless Kootol abandons it (by not paying the publication fee). Additionally, the priority date on the patent is July 22, 2005. The priority date is documented by referencing patent 878/MUM/2005[1] filed in India on that date. I believe any prior art would have to predate the priority date, not the date of filing.
This does not mean that Kootol is not a patent troll or that this is a legitimate invention. I don't know what the claims in 878/MUM/2005 are, and its title reads completely insane in American English ("connecting brains to equally like brains?"). Kootol has filed for several other, similar patents[2] that cite 878/MUM/2005. I wonder if 878/MUM/2005 really backs all of these different claims, or if it is simply a vague-enough tool for them to be using to make new claims that can be applied retroactively?
[1] http://india.bigpatents.org/apps/RvhMPZb
[2] http://ip.com/patapp/US20100030734
This does not mean that Kootol is not a patent troll or that this is a legitimate invention. I don't know what the claims in 878/MUM/2005 are, and its title reads completely insane in American English ("connecting brains to equally like brains?"). Kootol has filed for several other, similar patents[2] that cite 878/MUM/2005. I wonder if 878/MUM/2005 really backs all of these different claims, or if it is simply a vague-enough tool for them to be using to make new claims that can be applied retroactively?
[1] http://india.bigpatents.org/apps/RvhMPZb
[2] http://ip.com/patapp/US20100030734
It will be a sad day if this patent is actually granted, especially with how vague of a technology it defines and how much the technology is already used by current giants (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, etc)
It seems that what really needs to happen is all of these companies being sued need to team up and grind these patent trolls into pulp to keep people from doing crap like this.
Well, some of the companies you mentioned are using the same obvious and/or prior art laden patents as a weapon against their competitors, so that 'sad day' has obviously already happened.
This is starting to get scary. An indie developer like me can have their life's work crushed with a single letter for something as ridiculous as having a method to transfer bytes from one storage medium to another.
For smaller (i.e. one-person) companies targeted by this kind of insanity, would it make sense to dissolve the corporation being targeted and simply transfer ownership of the targeted product to a new business entity instead of even bothering with investigative legal costs?
For smaller (i.e. one-person) companies targeted by this kind of insanity, would it make sense to dissolve the corporation being targeted and simply transfer ownership of the targeted product to a new business entity instead of even bothering with investigative legal costs?
This is like the thousandth time I've heard of a ridiculous software patent. The USPTO is a horrible, broken farce and more of a bane to software innovation than a boon. Not technically a bane to true innovation, but to every day engineers-doing-normal-non-innovative kind of work, applying standard patterns and techniques in obvious ways.
Craig wrote the much linked to article about the fall of the independent developer yesterday: http://furbo.org/2011/07/13/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-indepen...
and today has been tweeting about how he feels like his ability to control his own products has been taken from him:
http://twitter.com/#!/chockenberry/status/91904807748640770 http://twitter.com/#!/chockenberry/status/91905256870510593 http://twitter.com/#!/chockenberry/status/91940943183347712 http://twitter.com/#!/chockenberry/status/91972743561613312
It is depressing. And enraging.