8 ms·

One of the worst patents ever just got upheld in court

192 points by alsothings 13y ago

vonskippy 13y ago
Normally I'd be upset that another patent troll was winning in court - but come on, this is about a slimy patent troll that will be suing even more slimy advertising scum. I have to say I'm on the fence on this one.
- moomin 13y ago
  Except WildTangent isn't scrappy ad farm, it's a games company.
  - goldfeld 13y ago
    Regardless, I don't side with advertising models, they're what got us into this whole collecting data as a business hole, so if these scumbags can prevent companies from getting revenue from ads and thus encourage them to seek actual decent business models (as a non-intended adaptative collateral effect), I'd think it's one evil doing us good.
    - cglace 13y ago
      You are against all ad revenue?
      - goldfeld 13y ago
        Taking the internet as a whole, I think what ads contribute negatively more than offsets what small businesses and independent publishers gain from, well, existing and surviving because of ads. If that wasn't an option, we'd be forced to come up with more intelligent business models that would also tend to respect more the end user (i.e. so I'm not the product). Making ad revenue, e.g. from Google, means you're reinforcing the big corporations who really need to market themselves through ads--those are the ones who could not live without ads (they need the constant intrusive, paid-for flow of unwilling eyeballs to keep their investors happy), not the independ publishers (who I think could.) Niche ad networks are alright, but nevertheless they contribute to making it easy not to think hard (and work hard) to pursue alternate business models.
        chaz 13y ago
        Advertising is a two-sided market. As a business with a product/service to be advertised, how would I go about acquiring customers without ads? Everyone from credit card companies to the local dentist has the need to market.
        icebraining 13y ago
        Instead of looking from the point of view of business, why don't you try to look from the point of view of the consumer and see where it gets you? That's the approach taken by the people behind Project VRM and Doc Searls' Intention economy[1]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_economy
        chaz 13y ago
        It has its merits, but can't completely supplant the value of advertising. The biggest need is brand advertising. If Coca Cola reduced their brand advertising, their sales would go decline. Maybe I'm not imaginative, but I don't see an intention economy product for beverages, where the transaction cost is low and the switching cost is zero. People don't actively think, "what would I like to drink today?" Another need is driving awareness. Movie releases depend upon heavy ad campaigns to ensure that people know when a movie is coming out. A different example is changing service providers, like a cell phone or car insurance. Sure you might one day decide to comparison shop, but Sprint's new unlimited plan, or Geico's "save 15% or more" campaign are effective at encouraging a switch when it wasn't within consideration.
        goldfeld 13y ago
        I don't drink soft beverages whenever I can buy/order beer. And whenever I can order several types of beer, I think "what would I like to drink today?", so I don't see the problem. It's actually a pretty fun decision. "Brand advertising" means making companies far more rich they than needed to be. I'd prefer an economy where companies actually rely on their product being good and people telling each other (see craft beers), and no, I don't think it's healthy for them to grow into mega-corps (which they wouldn't be able to do without ads.) As for awareness and changing service providers, again, word of mouth and spontaneous sharing of links and stories on the internet.
    - deckar01 13y ago
      Collecting data is not part of the patented business model. You don't have to show ads to collect and sell user data.
    - drawkbox 13y ago
      Every TV show, magazine or newspaper you liked, watched or read is the result of advertising. The internet is no different except that it is a larger market where you make less with advertising. Yes old model ads suck even on Hulu Plus you get them, but content costs are high without them or may not even exist. Many a good shows would have not existed. Advertising has been an engine to creative entertainment + information.
      - goldfeld 13y ago
        I haven't read newspapers or magazines in a long, long time, and TV shows I could easily live without (don't watch any in close to a year), especially if we had indie shows with interesting business models to replace them. I'd gladly pay for my content, but I think there's other models to be explored without appealing to ads. Ads are everywhere because they're easy to put to work, and the payout is potentially really high (if you're ok with helping big corps, their investors, and the centralization of wealth.)
        ShawnBird 13y ago
        There have been a lot of indie shows popping up via Kick starter funding. Here are two off the top of my head: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video-game-high-school-season-two http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video-game-high... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pemberleydigital/the-lizzie-bennet-diaries-dvdand-more http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pemberleydigital/the-liz...
      - morsch 13y ago
        It has. It's also the reason why alternative ways of financing the content aren't being widely explored. And it's not like you're not still paying for those TV shows and magazine's, indirectly and inefficiently and fueling the brainscrambling agencies along the way. TANSTAAFL.
      - dwb 13y ago
        > Every TV show, magazine or newspaper you liked, watched or read is the result of advertising. No it isn't. Aside from that which I pay for through Netflix (no ads), I pretty much only watch and listen to the various BBC outlets (no ads, and I pay my license fee). I pay for Spotify and Audible and I buy CDs. I like paying money for things because I also hate advertising.
  - makomk 13y ago
    WildTangent? Aren't they an ex-spyware firm?
  - TylerE 13y ago
    A "gaming company" that has knowingly developed and distributed spyware.
- deckar01 13y ago
  These media providers may have to pay licensing fees to show ads. The margins are so slim, some media could become paid content or just stop being produced.
- austenallred 13y ago
  Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Wordpress, and over half of the top websites in the world are slimy advertising scum?
  - nfoz 13y ago
    Yes.
    - diminoten 13y ago
      Exactly what is so terrible about advertisement, may I ask?
    - devcpp 13y ago
      No.
  - gonzo 13y ago
    Google, YouTube, and Gmail are all the same company.
- john_b 13y ago
  Thankfully, one's legal rights don't depend on how "slimy" you are and abuses of the law remain abuses even when slimy entities are the ones abused.
- robomartin 13y ago
  Let me suggest you are not thinking straight. Advertising, like it or not, is what keeps the internet alive. Without this revenue stream it would collapse. The internet doesn't run on idealism, it runs on money. Before making statements like that go start a non-trivial internet-based based business and gain some understanding.
  - goldfeld 13y ago
    I think what crowdfunding has been showing us is that we have gone through a dark ages of internet business models (ads), in that the ease of marketing through ads blindsided people to pursuing more creative (and yes, often more laborious) business models. I disagree ads are what keeps the internet alive. What keeps it alive are hackers and artists. They share this: an itch to create. They will create even for free. But we would have been so much ahead in creative business models that they could explore (see Kickstarter) in an alternate reality where ads did not exist.
    - coldcode 13y ago
      Unreality. You can't run a business on Kickstarter money. It's a kick start. After that you need money from somewhere. Or do you expect people to eat bits?
    - robomartin 13y ago
      If you are going to create an internet-based business that will support more than a few people (both users and employees with their families) you need money. Lots of it. The user side is simple: As the user base grows your infrastructure requirements grow as well. And, at certain milestones these needs grow in large capex bursts. Flexible services such as AWS have made scaling far cheaper, more linear and less expensive, but it it still very expensive once you cross certain business-dependent thresholds. Hardware is hardware, whether you own it or not. Of course, the team will scale based on other parameters. More engineers, more designers, customer service, accounting, operations, whatever. More people. Not working for peanuts of feel good hippie thoughts but for money. They need it to live, rent or buy a place to live, feed themselves and their families, save, invest, have fun, etc. Given that internet culture quickly --from the very early days-- levitated to free and add-supported free most internet users only want to pay for their connectivity. Nobody wants to pay for anything on the internet. That's just a fact. Pick any service, say LinkeIn, far more free users than paid users. It's like that across the board. Hell, it's even like that in mobile. Unless you get lucky it's nearly impossible to make money with paid apps. Make them free and then sell them something from within the app or support it with ads. I stand by my original sentiment: The internet would collapse tomorrow if advertising was banned. That doesn't mean I prefer it that way. I am simply reflecting reality.
zk2 13y ago
how long until building a site is patented?
- mtgx 13y ago
  That's why it's so good the vast majority of web technologies are open/open source. I can't imagine an Internet where most of the technologies would be proprietary. It's for the same reason why I'm so up in arms against proprietary video codecs, and why I hope we'll move to an open source one sometimes soon.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Daala just came out (hopefully DarkShikari will evaluate and speak up on it). What would be even better is to at least take RMS's suggestion regarding how to handle existing software patents while we wait for the legal system to finally get rid of them.
  - hmahncke 13y ago
    That may be a good thing, but open source doesn't mean non-patent infringing.
    - muyuu 13y ago
      It often does. When an OSS establishes a new system/standard, prior art invalidates any future patent on it.
      - genwin 13y ago
        Most possible system/standards are already covered by multiple patents. "A system for electronic transfer of information", for example. I made that up, but there are many super broad patents like that.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        If one is careful you can even take steps to actively invalidate prior art. You don't need to just make a new standard either, we've already seen people get away with patently new ways to do the same old thing. Look up Open Invention Network when you get a chance. The idea is to simply publish the general techniques you use to solve a given problem in a fashion that's easy to search, as a defense against people later trying to patent the same idea.
drawkbox 13y ago
When newspapers + magazines used to fund content by showing ads before TV existed, imagine showing TV ads as a patented innovation and how that would have destroyed lots of content. It was an obvious progression to fund content online supported by ads. This decision is absolutely wrong. Greed over real innovations.
austenallred 13y ago
The first few lines of the article speak to the closest snake to kill for patent legislation: You don't have to patent an invention, just an idea. This goes above and beyond the typical patent trolling of, "Well we bought the patent for x from whomever built it first, even though that technology is ubiquitous..." to "Let's see what general concepts are so obvious that no one has bothered to patent them." My brother was starting a real estate app company and was sued for breaching the patent that allowed one to "find an address using a mobile device." The patent was filed in 1989, with no technology behind it whatsoever, just someone saying, "You know, I bet in the future someone will..." You could patent "a car that flies in the air without touching the ground" today without having any idea how to build it (except I'm sure that's been patented). That should be step one for legislators to kill.
- alok-g 13y ago
  A patent is technically also required to teach to a person skilled in the prior art on how to build the invention. Here is an excerpt from [1]: "Second, if the inventor did possess a best mode, it must be determined whether the written description disclosed the best mode such that a person skilled in the art could practice it." I have heard that the recent changes to the US patent laws have weakened this [2], though I have never read the details. [1] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2165.html http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2165.html [2] http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/05/best-mode-only-mostly-dead.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/05/best-mode-only-mostl...
btilly 13y ago
Ah, this decision is from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Totally expected, and we need to get rid of that court. For those unfamiliar with the history, that is the court that all patent cases go to. They've been co-opted by patent lawyers, and decide very much in favor of patent holders. Every so often the Supreme Court takes the time to review one of their decisions, and inevitably overrules them. So in their next ruling they find a way to pay lip service to the Supreme Court while ignoring what that court said. So the rhythm goes like this. You go to your local court, and win or lose based on the jury. Then if the patent holder does not like the decision, you go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. And pretty much inevitably will win. If the challenger is very, very lucky, the Supreme Court will have time to hear the case. And you'll get a balanced decision for the challenger. (I mean that literally. The Supreme Court does not have time to hear many of these, so they just pick the most egregious, and issue a balanced decision. But since they picked egregious cases, the patent holder always loses.) If we could just replace the one court in the middle with one that actually listened to the Supreme Court, then patent trolling would be dealt a fatal blow. I shudder to think of how much its existence costs legitimate business in this country every single year.
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  The CoA for Federal Circuit operates very much like the FISC for patents.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Except that's not remotely the case, at all. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issues precedent binding on all the lower federal courts in the country, to the exclusion of any of the other Courts of Appeal. The FISC issues precedent binding on... no one (other than itself).
    - bobwaycott 13y ago
      Apologies for not being excessively explicit--I was referring only to the fact that given their caseload and decisions, the CAFC often appears as a rubber stamp court for patent litigation. I was not speaking about establishing binding precedent. However, even on that note, your argument rings hollow--the FISC has established precedent that has very much become the prevailing understanding of "legal" where its cases are concerned. That's why we've arrived at the mess we're in. Whether the precedent is binding or not is debatable, as nobody I've yet heard of is quoting FISC decisions in other law enforcement actions/cases. But when we have every official from the President onward declaring that everything is "legal" because it has been reviewed and decided upon repeatedly over the last few decades by "the courts", I think trying to make a technical argument on the binding nature of the precedents established is misguided.
skwirl 13y ago
It sounds like this court is saying: A. Abstract and not patentable: "Instead of charging your audience for your service, allow others to advertise to them via your service and charge the advertisers." B. Patentable and not abstract: "Instead of charging website users for the use of your website, allow others to display advertisements on your website and charge the advertisers." There is something about patents that seems to melt the brains of certain judges.
- flixic 13y ago
  A can apply to anything, like car wash or cinema. B is limited to websites. Not that this patent makes sense even then, but B is much more limited.
roc 13y ago
That the court doesn't find these claims any more broad or abstract than any other is more a condemnation of the status quo for these kinds of patents. Because, truly, this one isn't egregiously bad in its phrasing. It's at least as well-defined as any number of such patents that have held up under re-examination. And therein lies the larger problem.
- gweinberg 13y ago
  Exactly. This is a typical "business method" patent.
DanBC 13y ago
Wait? I thought patents required a working prototype. If that's not the case I'm going to patent everything, but with quantum computers. And then everything, but with nanotechnology.
- chc 13y ago
  You probably could, but you'd need pretty deep pockets to get decent coverage — it costs in excess of $1000 per patent. Filing dumb patents is a lot like a lottery.
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  "Wait? I thought patents required a working prototype." Not since 1880. "If that's not the case I'm going to patent everything, but with quantum computers. And then everything, but with nanotechnology." This is essentially what patent troll corporations do -- patent obvious mashups of New Technology X with Old Use Case Y. This sort of idea canvassing has been going on for a very long time.
- alok-g 13y ago
  Note: IANAL >> I'm going to patent everything See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5934890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5934890 The following are the requirements for filing a patent: 1. Usefulness 2. Novelty: The invention must not have existed from before 3. Non-obviousness: The invention must not be obvious to those skilled in the prior art. When filing a patent application, you are required to describe the invention in full, including the best mode. So while a working prototype is not required, satisfying 1, 2 and 3 above is still theoretically hard and requires a lot of work for filing a good patent. The issue is that the system is abused as each one of 1, 2 and 3 are subjective more or less. While not explicitly stated, I believe the concept described in the application must be correct [1]! Since a prototype is not required, it is sometimes the case that things that do not even work the way inventors thought get the patent granted anyways. Finally, just for completion sake, there are things that cannot be patented like laws of physics, theorems in mathematics, and material that is a subject for copyrights instead. [1] I am not sure of this. There may or may not be specific legal criteria on this.
danbruc 13y ago
What about this? Why not only grant a patent if you can prove that you invested a considerable amount of time and/or money to come up with the invention? This protects the often cited expensive research done by pharma companies and puts a stop to all the patents on problems with trivial solutions once you have to deal with the problem. And you still have the first-on-market advantage if you are the first to come up with a trivial idea although you have no patent for it. Can you think of good examples where this will not work, where we really should grant the patent but coming up with the invention was neither time consuming nor expensive? Of course, proving how much the invention cost you and that it could not have been done with considerably less effort is a non-trivial problem on its own.
TheMagicHorsey 13y ago
This problem won't be solved until software engineers organize, go to Washington DC, and demand reform. If we don't do that, our competitiveness over the next decade is going to take a hit. Its not like everyone in the world is loaded down with the same kinds of legal costs that we suffer here in the states. Chinese, Indian, Australian, New Zealand, Latvian, Estonian, and Brazilian startups are not a huge threat to us now ... in the future they will eat our lunch if our country fucks us in the ass like this moving forward. Why is an investor going to give me money in Silicon Valley, knowing I'm going to get taxed by a dozen or more trolls. He's going to take his money and shop for a foreign team first ... not now ... but in the future when economic incentives bring those teams into existence abroad. Little things like this start the snowballs rolling down the mountain that turn into an avalanche. We think we are the center of the world right now. We sleep on our success, tomorrow someone else will eat our lunch. Right now these patent laws are being used to tax engineers in order to pay lawyers. The lawyers produce nothing. The laws are set up so we can't do business without shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars to them monthly. This makes it so its harder for us to bootstrap. When we try to get to MVP our attention is divided from the things that matter to all this other bullshit that the lawyers have cooked up. If you are lucky to get a good lawyer, maybe you don't have much of a headache. But even with the best lawyer, if you see some modest success, the leeches come out of the swamp to suck at your blood ... I mean the patent trolls, and various other lawsuits. The laws make you a criminal no matter how honestly you do your work. You could sit in a clean room and make something all on your own. When you emerge, the leeches will still be granted a right to suck at your revenues. That's how this blasted patent system works today. Are we going to organize ever and reverse this trend? Probably not. We are all too busy trying to run businesses. You know who isn't busy? You know who has every incentive to spend every waking hour in Washington DC to make sure nothing changes? The patent trolls and the patent lawyers. As we say after playing a game of Starcraft: GG.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Appealing to the "engineers versus lawyers" dichotomy is a predictable play, but not really one rooted in reality. To use copyright law as an example, it wasn't the copyright trolls that created the modern "copyright infringement is a crime!" regime--it was Adobe and Microsoft and all the engineering companies that lobbied to get software pirates treated like arms traffickers. Similarly, it wasn't patent trolls and patent lawyers that created the modern patent regime--it was the IBMs and GEs and Mercks of the world. I do agree about your general point, which is that the new generation of engineering companies should lobby for reforms that they think necessary. Though I'd be interested to see if they have the same sort of principled objections to the trademark regime that is the bedrock of the advertising industry that is now their lifeblood.
dllthomas 13y ago
So, let me preface this by saying I'm well aware this isn't the most important issue here, by miles. Having said that, is anyone else bothered by the (to my ear) misuse of "let alone"? The phrase "Not X, let alone Y" is supposed to have Y be more extreme than X, right? Implying "certainly not Y, because not even X, so we can let Y alone and not even talk about it."
- itsybitsycoder 13y ago
  Yep. People hear idioms, like the way they sound, and repeat them without stopping to understand what they mean. In this case it's clear what he meant, but sometimes people will string together a bunch of these occurrences and it can become extremely confusing. I've read comments on HN where people are mistakenly arguing the exact opposite of the point they're trying to argue, because they're using their idioms the wrong way around.
graycat 13y ago
Okay, here's my argument against computer software patent trolls. Since IANAL, attacks from knowledgeable readers are requested although I can't promise a good response because I know next to nothing about patent law although am learning and if my start up works may have to learn. Dear Patent Court Judge: Don't worry, I'm not going to throw rotten tomatoes at you now. And, no, I didn't slash the tires on your BMW 7 Series. But here's what's wrong with likely most software patents (or patents on devices consisting of routine computer hardware but with some new software). We start with three parts: (1) Real problem to be solved. (2) Some "abstract" ideas for how to solve the problem. (3) Using the abstract ideas, some software to solve the problem. The users/customers use the software. Okay, now we understand that solving real problems (1) is important but that we can't patent abstract ideas (2). For more clarity an abstract idea might be just how to manipulate some data in a way a clerk could be taught to do. We can't patent the clerk or their work, right? Well, for more, the abstract idea might be some applied math or some of the math of physics or engineering. Since that's abstract stuff, we can't patent it, right? Moreover, before computers, mathematicians and scientists commonly did such mathematical manipulations by hand arithmetic, that is, with paper and pencil. No opportunity for patents there, right? So, on to the software (3): Assume, as is usually the case, the software is just something routine (for software) to have a computer do the data manipulations specified by the abstract idea, what we could teach a clerk, what's in the math, or what the person with the abstract idea 100 years ago likely did with paper and pencil. That is, the person with the abstract idea 100 years ago could tell a clerk how to do the data manipulations and not get a patent but now can tell a computer how to do the same data manipulations but get a patent? Something's fundamentally wrong here. In particular, assume that without the abstract idea, the clerk would have no idea at all how to do the data manipulations and the computer programmer would have no idea at all how to write the software. So, all that's crucial or original is just the abstract idea and not the routine software. That is, between (2) the abstract idea and (3) the computer software, only (2) is crucial or original and (3) is routine. So, with this scenario, why the heck grant a patent on the computer software (3) when we can't get a patent on the abstract idea (2)? But not all software is like that. Instead, some software is tricky stuff. E.g., how the heck to backup a relational database while it is being used and changed? One might argue that just how to do that could be, and really should be, written up as an abstract idea and maybe even some form of math and, thus, not be patentable, but sometimes all there is is the computer software. So, maybe, maybe, I'm not fully sure, such software, or a computer with it, could deserve a patent. Generally, then, I conclude that most software patents have to be based on bad thinking when we can't patent the crucial, logically prior abstract idea. Finally, let me be helpful: When you get a case of a software patent, just rule right away that the patent is invalid and take a nice long vacation with the time you would have spent listening to nonsense about that case! Take along some good hiking shoes or a good book!
DigitalSea 13y ago
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is the equivalent of a bicycle with no wheels or chain: completely useless and I think we need to get rid of it. For those who are familiar with the Court of Appeals in this instance, this decision will hardly surprise you. Comedic incompetence at its finest here, folks.
atarian 13y ago
Suppose I wanted to create a startup and not have to worry about infringing software patents. What would be a sensible way of going about it? Or would I have to move to a different country?
- fpgeek 13y ago
  Sell out the the first big tech company interested? Make sure one of the co-founders is a kick-ass patent lawyer? Don't? Moving to another country is problematic. Other countries have their own software patent quagmires too (though, admittedly usually less developed ones). You're also probably going to want to sell to US customers at some point and then... In the past, I'd have said don't make money, but in a world where patent trolls target end users of things like scanners, I no longer think that's enough. More seriously, there's just too much risk and uncertainty with software patents. I think the only realistic option is to accept that risk and move on with the rest of your startup.

192 points by alsothings 13y ago

Normally I'd be upset that another patent troll was winning in court - but come on, this is about a slimy patent troll that will be suing even more slimy advertising scum. I have to say I'm on the fence on this one.

moomin 13y ago
Except WildTangent isn't scrappy ad farm, it's a games company.
- goldfeld 13y ago
  Regardless, I don't side with advertising models, they're what got us into this whole collecting data as a business hole, so if these scumbags can prevent companies from getting revenue from ads and thus encourage them to seek actual decent business models (as a non-intended adaptative collateral effect), I'd think it's one evil doing us good.
  - cglace 13y ago
    You are against all ad revenue?
    - goldfeld 13y ago
      Taking the internet as a whole, I think what ads contribute negatively more than offsets what small businesses and independent publishers gain from, well, existing and surviving because of ads. If that wasn't an option, we'd be forced to come up with more intelligent business models that would also tend to respect more the end user (i.e. so I'm not the product). Making ad revenue, e.g. from Google, means you're reinforcing the big corporations who really need to market themselves through ads--those are the ones who could not live without ads (they need the constant intrusive, paid-for flow of unwilling eyeballs to keep their investors happy), not the independ publishers (who I think could.) Niche ad networks are alright, but nevertheless they contribute to making it easy not to think hard (and work hard) to pursue alternate business models.
      - chaz 13y ago
        Advertising is a two-sided market. As a business with a product/service to be advertised, how would I go about acquiring customers without ads? Everyone from credit card companies to the local dentist has the need to market.
        icebraining 13y ago
        Instead of looking from the point of view of business, why don't you try to look from the point of view of the consumer and see where it gets you? That's the approach taken by the people behind Project VRM and Doc Searls' Intention economy[1]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_economy
        chaz 13y ago
        It has its merits, but can't completely supplant the value of advertising. The biggest need is brand advertising. If Coca Cola reduced their brand advertising, their sales would go decline. Maybe I'm not imaginative, but I don't see an intention economy product for beverages, where the transaction cost is low and the switching cost is zero. People don't actively think, "what would I like to drink today?" Another need is driving awareness. Movie releases depend upon heavy ad campaigns to ensure that people know when a movie is coming out. A different example is changing service providers, like a cell phone or car insurance. Sure you might one day decide to comparison shop, but Sprint's new unlimited plan, or Geico's "save 15% or more" campaign are effective at encouraging a switch when it wasn't within consideration.
        goldfeld 13y ago
        I don't drink soft beverages whenever I can buy/order beer. And whenever I can order several types of beer, I think "what would I like to drink today?", so I don't see the problem. It's actually a pretty fun decision. "Brand advertising" means making companies far more rich they than needed to be. I'd prefer an economy where companies actually rely on their product being good and people telling each other (see craft beers), and no, I don't think it's healthy for them to grow into mega-corps (which they wouldn't be able to do without ads.) As for awareness and changing service providers, again, word of mouth and spontaneous sharing of links and stories on the internet.
  - deckar01 13y ago
    Collecting data is not part of the patented business model. You don't have to show ads to collect and sell user data.
  - drawkbox 13y ago
    Every TV show, magazine or newspaper you liked, watched or read is the result of advertising. The internet is no different except that it is a larger market where you make less with advertising. Yes old model ads suck even on Hulu Plus you get them, but content costs are high without them or may not even exist. Many a good shows would have not existed. Advertising has been an engine to creative entertainment + information.
    - goldfeld 13y ago
      I haven't read newspapers or magazines in a long, long time, and TV shows I could easily live without (don't watch any in close to a year), especially if we had indie shows with interesting business models to replace them. I'd gladly pay for my content, but I think there's other models to be explored without appealing to ads. Ads are everywhere because they're easy to put to work, and the payout is potentially really high (if you're ok with helping big corps, their investors, and the centralization of wealth.)
      - ShawnBird 13y ago
        There have been a lot of indie shows popping up via Kick starter funding. Here are two off the top of my head: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video-game-high-school-season-two http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/freddiew/video-game-high... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pemberleydigital/the-lizzie-bennet-diaries-dvdand-more http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pemberleydigital/the-liz...
    - morsch 13y ago
      It has. It's also the reason why alternative ways of financing the content aren't being widely explored. And it's not like you're not still paying for those TV shows and magazine's, indirectly and inefficiently and fueling the brainscrambling agencies along the way. TANSTAAFL.
    - dwb 13y ago
      > Every TV show, magazine or newspaper you liked, watched or read is the result of advertising. No it isn't. Aside from that which I pay for through Netflix (no ads), I pretty much only watch and listen to the various BBC outlets (no ads, and I pay my license fee). I pay for Spotify and Audible and I buy CDs. I like paying money for things because I also hate advertising.
- makomk 13y ago
  WildTangent? Aren't they an ex-spyware firm?
- TylerE 13y ago
  A "gaming company" that has knowingly developed and distributed spyware.
deckar01 13y ago
These media providers may have to pay licensing fees to show ads. The margins are so slim, some media could become paid content or just stop being produced.
austenallred 13y ago
Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Wordpress, and over half of the top websites in the world are slimy advertising scum?
- nfoz 13y ago
  Yes.
  - diminoten 13y ago
    Exactly what is so terrible about advertisement, may I ask?
  - devcpp 13y ago
    No.
- gonzo 13y ago
  Google, YouTube, and Gmail are all the same company.
john_b 13y ago
Thankfully, one's legal rights don't depend on how "slimy" you are and abuses of the law remain abuses even when slimy entities are the ones abused.
robomartin 13y ago
Let me suggest you are not thinking straight. Advertising, like it or not, is what keeps the internet alive. Without this revenue stream it would collapse. The internet doesn't run on idealism, it runs on money. Before making statements like that go start a non-trivial internet-based based business and gain some understanding.
- goldfeld 13y ago
  I think what crowdfunding has been showing us is that we have gone through a dark ages of internet business models (ads), in that the ease of marketing through ads blindsided people to pursuing more creative (and yes, often more laborious) business models. I disagree ads are what keeps the internet alive. What keeps it alive are hackers and artists. They share this: an itch to create. They will create even for free. But we would have been so much ahead in creative business models that they could explore (see Kickstarter) in an alternate reality where ads did not exist.
  - coldcode 13y ago
    Unreality. You can't run a business on Kickstarter money. It's a kick start. After that you need money from somewhere. Or do you expect people to eat bits?
  - robomartin 13y ago
    If you are going to create an internet-based business that will support more than a few people (both users and employees with their families) you need money. Lots of it. The user side is simple: As the user base grows your infrastructure requirements grow as well. And, at certain milestones these needs grow in large capex bursts. Flexible services such as AWS have made scaling far cheaper, more linear and less expensive, but it it still very expensive once you cross certain business-dependent thresholds. Hardware is hardware, whether you own it or not. Of course, the team will scale based on other parameters. More engineers, more designers, customer service, accounting, operations, whatever. More people. Not working for peanuts of feel good hippie thoughts but for money. They need it to live, rent or buy a place to live, feed themselves and their families, save, invest, have fun, etc. Given that internet culture quickly --from the very early days-- levitated to free and add-supported free most internet users only want to pay for their connectivity. Nobody wants to pay for anything on the internet. That's just a fact. Pick any service, say LinkeIn, far more free users than paid users. It's like that across the board. Hell, it's even like that in mobile. Unless you get lucky it's nearly impossible to make money with paid apps. Make them free and then sell them something from within the app or support it with ads. I stand by my original sentiment: The internet would collapse tomorrow if advertising was banned. That doesn't mean I prefer it that way. I am simply reflecting reality.

zk2 13y ago

how long until building a site is patented?

mtgx 13y ago
That's why it's so good the vast majority of web technologies are open/open source. I can't imagine an Internet where most of the technologies would be proprietary. It's for the same reason why I'm so up in arms against proprietary video codecs, and why I hope we'll move to an open source one sometimes soon.
- mpyne 13y ago
  Daala just came out (hopefully DarkShikari will evaluate and speak up on it). What would be even better is to at least take RMS's suggestion regarding how to handle existing software patents while we wait for the legal system to finally get rid of them.
- hmahncke 13y ago
  That may be a good thing, but open source doesn't mean non-patent infringing.
  - muyuu 13y ago
    It often does. When an OSS establishes a new system/standard, prior art invalidates any future patent on it.
    - genwin 13y ago
      Most possible system/standards are already covered by multiple patents. "A system for electronic transfer of information", for example. I made that up, but there are many super broad patents like that.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      If one is careful you can even take steps to actively invalidate prior art. You don't need to just make a new standard either, we've already seen people get away with patently new ways to do the same old thing. Look up Open Invention Network when you get a chance. The idea is to simply publish the general techniques you use to solve a given problem in a fashion that's easy to search, as a defense against people later trying to patent the same idea.

drawkbox 13y ago

When newspapers + magazines used to fund content by showing ads before TV existed, imagine showing TV ads as a patented innovation and how that would have destroyed lots of content. It was an obvious progression to fund content online supported by ads. This decision is absolutely wrong. Greed over real innovations.

austenallred 13y ago

The first few lines of the article speak to the closest snake to kill for patent legislation: You don't have to patent an invention, just an idea. This goes above and beyond the typical patent trolling of, "Well we bought the patent for x from whomever built it first, even though that technology is ubiquitous..." to "Let's see what general concepts are so obvious that no one has bothered to patent them." My brother was starting a real estate app company and was sued for breaching the patent that allowed one to "find an address using a mobile device." The patent was filed in 1989, with no technology behind it whatsoever, just someone saying, "You know, I bet in the future someone will..." You could patent "a car that flies in the air without touching the ground" today without having any idea how to build it (except I'm sure that's been patented). That should be step one for legislators to kill.

alok-g 13y ago
A patent is technically also required to teach to a person skilled in the prior art on how to build the invention. Here is an excerpt from [1]: "Second, if the inventor did possess a best mode, it must be determined whether the written description disclosed the best mode such that a person skilled in the art could practice it." I have heard that the recent changes to the US patent laws have weakened this [2], though I have never read the details. [1] http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2165.html http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2165.html [2] http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/05/best-mode-only-mostly-dead.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/05/best-mode-only-mostl...

btilly 13y ago

Ah, this decision is from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Totally expected, and we need to get rid of that court. For those unfamiliar with the history, that is the court that all patent cases go to. They've been co-opted by patent lawyers, and decide very much in favor of patent holders. Every so often the Supreme Court takes the time to review one of their decisions, and inevitably overrules them. So in their next ruling they find a way to pay lip service to the Supreme Court while ignoring what that court said. So the rhythm goes like this. You go to your local court, and win or lose based on the jury. Then if the patent holder does not like the decision, you go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. And pretty much inevitably will win. If the challenger is very, very lucky, the Supreme Court will have time to hear the case. And you'll get a balanced decision for the challenger. (I mean that literally. The Supreme Court does not have time to hear many of these, so they just pick the most egregious, and issue a balanced decision. But since they picked egregious cases, the patent holder always loses.) If we could just replace the one court in the middle with one that actually listened to the Supreme Court, then patent trolling would be dealt a fatal blow. I shudder to think of how much its existence costs legitimate business in this country every single year.

bobwaycott 13y ago
The CoA for Federal Circuit operates very much like the FISC for patents.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Except that's not remotely the case, at all. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issues precedent binding on all the lower federal courts in the country, to the exclusion of any of the other Courts of Appeal. The FISC issues precedent binding on... no one (other than itself).
  - bobwaycott 13y ago
    Apologies for not being excessively explicit--I was referring only to the fact that given their caseload and decisions, the CAFC often appears as a rubber stamp court for patent litigation. I was not speaking about establishing binding precedent. However, even on that note, your argument rings hollow--the FISC has established precedent that has very much become the prevailing understanding of "legal" where its cases are concerned. That's why we've arrived at the mess we're in. Whether the precedent is binding or not is debatable, as nobody I've yet heard of is quoting FISC decisions in other law enforcement actions/cases. But when we have every official from the President onward declaring that everything is "legal" because it has been reviewed and decided upon repeatedly over the last few decades by "the courts", I think trying to make a technical argument on the binding nature of the precedents established is misguided.

skwirl 13y ago

It sounds like this court is saying: A. Abstract and not patentable: "Instead of charging your audience for your service, allow others to advertise to them via your service and charge the advertisers." B. Patentable and not abstract: "Instead of charging website users for the use of your website, allow others to display advertisements on your website and charge the advertisers." There is something about patents that seems to melt the brains of certain judges.

flixic 13y ago
A can apply to anything, like car wash or cinema. B is limited to websites. Not that this patent makes sense even then, but B is much more limited.

roc 13y ago

That the court doesn't find these claims any more broad or abstract than any other is more a condemnation of the status quo for these kinds of patents. Because, truly, this one isn't egregiously bad in its phrasing. It's at least as well-defined as any number of such patents that have held up under re-examination. And therein lies the larger problem.

gweinberg 13y ago
Exactly. This is a typical "business method" patent.

DanBC 13y ago

Wait? I thought patents required a working prototype. If that's not the case I'm going to patent everything, but with quantum computers. And then everything, but with nanotechnology.

chc 13y ago
You probably could, but you'd need pretty deep pockets to get decent coverage — it costs in excess of $1000 per patent. Filing dumb patents is a lot like a lottery.
georgemcbay 13y ago
"Wait? I thought patents required a working prototype." Not since 1880. "If that's not the case I'm going to patent everything, but with quantum computers. And then everything, but with nanotechnology." This is essentially what patent troll corporations do -- patent obvious mashups of New Technology X with Old Use Case Y. This sort of idea canvassing has been going on for a very long time.
alok-g 13y ago
Note: IANAL >> I'm going to patent everything See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5934890 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5934890 The following are the requirements for filing a patent: 1. Usefulness 2. Novelty: The invention must not have existed from before 3. Non-obviousness: The invention must not be obvious to those skilled in the prior art. When filing a patent application, you are required to describe the invention in full, including the best mode. So while a working prototype is not required, satisfying 1, 2 and 3 above is still theoretically hard and requires a lot of work for filing a good patent. The issue is that the system is abused as each one of 1, 2 and 3 are subjective more or less. While not explicitly stated, I believe the concept described in the application must be correct [1]! Since a prototype is not required, it is sometimes the case that things that do not even work the way inventors thought get the patent granted anyways. Finally, just for completion sake, there are things that cannot be patented like laws of physics, theorems in mathematics, and material that is a subject for copyrights instead. [1] I am not sure of this. There may or may not be specific legal criteria on this.

danbruc 13y ago

What about this? Why not only grant a patent if you can prove that you invested a considerable amount of time and/or money to come up with the invention? This protects the often cited expensive research done by pharma companies and puts a stop to all the patents on problems with trivial solutions once you have to deal with the problem. And you still have the first-on-market advantage if you are the first to come up with a trivial idea although you have no patent for it. Can you think of good examples where this will not work, where we really should grant the patent but coming up with the invention was neither time consuming nor expensive? Of course, proving how much the invention cost you and that it could not have been done with considerably less effort is a non-trivial problem on its own.

TheMagicHorsey 13y ago

This problem won't be solved until software engineers organize, go to Washington DC, and demand reform. If we don't do that, our competitiveness over the next decade is going to take a hit. Its not like everyone in the world is loaded down with the same kinds of legal costs that we suffer here in the states. Chinese, Indian, Australian, New Zealand, Latvian, Estonian, and Brazilian startups are not a huge threat to us now ... in the future they will eat our lunch if our country fucks us in the ass like this moving forward. Why is an investor going to give me money in Silicon Valley, knowing I'm going to get taxed by a dozen or more trolls. He's going to take his money and shop for a foreign team first ... not now ... but in the future when economic incentives bring those teams into existence abroad. Little things like this start the snowballs rolling down the mountain that turn into an avalanche. We think we are the center of the world right now. We sleep on our success, tomorrow someone else will eat our lunch. Right now these patent laws are being used to tax engineers in order to pay lawyers. The lawyers produce nothing. The laws are set up so we can't do business without shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars to them monthly. This makes it so its harder for us to bootstrap. When we try to get to MVP our attention is divided from the things that matter to all this other bullshit that the lawyers have cooked up. If you are lucky to get a good lawyer, maybe you don't have much of a headache. But even with the best lawyer, if you see some modest success, the leeches come out of the swamp to suck at your blood ... I mean the patent trolls, and various other lawsuits. The laws make you a criminal no matter how honestly you do your work. You could sit in a clean room and make something all on your own. When you emerge, the leeches will still be granted a right to suck at your revenues. That's how this blasted patent system works today. Are we going to organize ever and reverse this trend? Probably not. We are all too busy trying to run businesses. You know who isn't busy? You know who has every incentive to spend every waking hour in Washington DC to make sure nothing changes? The patent trolls and the patent lawyers. As we say after playing a game of Starcraft: GG.

rayiner 13y ago
Appealing to the "engineers versus lawyers" dichotomy is a predictable play, but not really one rooted in reality. To use copyright law as an example, it wasn't the copyright trolls that created the modern "copyright infringement is a crime!" regime--it was Adobe and Microsoft and all the engineering companies that lobbied to get software pirates treated like arms traffickers. Similarly, it wasn't patent trolls and patent lawyers that created the modern patent regime--it was the IBMs and GEs and Mercks of the world. I do agree about your general point, which is that the new generation of engineering companies should lobby for reforms that they think necessary. Though I'd be interested to see if they have the same sort of principled objections to the trademark regime that is the bedrock of the advertising industry that is now their lifeblood.

dllthomas 13y ago

So, let me preface this by saying I'm well aware this isn't the most important issue here, by miles. Having said that, is anyone else bothered by the (to my ear) misuse of "let alone"? The phrase "Not X, let alone Y" is supposed to have Y be more extreme than X, right? Implying "certainly not Y, because not even X, so we can let Y alone and not even talk about it."

itsybitsycoder 13y ago
Yep. People hear idioms, like the way they sound, and repeat them without stopping to understand what they mean. In this case it's clear what he meant, but sometimes people will string together a bunch of these occurrences and it can become extremely confusing. I've read comments on HN where people are mistakenly arguing the exact opposite of the point they're trying to argue, because they're using their idioms the wrong way around.

graycat 13y ago

Okay, here's my argument against computer software patent trolls. Since IANAL, attacks from knowledgeable readers are requested although I can't promise a good response because I know next to nothing about patent law although am learning and if my start up works may have to learn. Dear Patent Court Judge: Don't worry, I'm not going to throw rotten tomatoes at you now. And, no, I didn't slash the tires on your BMW 7 Series. But here's what's wrong with likely most software patents (or patents on devices consisting of routine computer hardware but with some new software). We start with three parts: (1) Real problem to be solved. (2) Some "abstract" ideas for how to solve the problem. (3) Using the abstract ideas, some software to solve the problem. The users/customers use the software. Okay, now we understand that solving real problems (1) is important but that we can't patent abstract ideas (2). For more clarity an abstract idea might be just how to manipulate some data in a way a clerk could be taught to do. We can't patent the clerk or their work, right? Well, for more, the abstract idea might be some applied math or some of the math of physics or engineering. Since that's abstract stuff, we can't patent it, right? Moreover, before computers, mathematicians and scientists commonly did such mathematical manipulations by hand arithmetic, that is, with paper and pencil. No opportunity for patents there, right? So, on to the software (3): Assume, as is usually the case, the software is just something routine (for software) to have a computer do the data manipulations specified by the abstract idea, what we could teach a clerk, what's in the math, or what the person with the abstract idea 100 years ago likely did with paper and pencil. That is, the person with the abstract idea 100 years ago could tell a clerk how to do the data manipulations and not get a patent but now can tell a computer how to do the same data manipulations but get a patent? Something's fundamentally wrong here. In particular, assume that without the abstract idea, the clerk would have no idea at all how to do the data manipulations and the computer programmer would have no idea at all how to write the software. So, all that's crucial or original is just the abstract idea and not the routine software. That is, between (2) the abstract idea and (3) the computer software, only (2) is crucial or original and (3) is routine. So, with this scenario, why the heck grant a patent on the computer software (3) when we can't get a patent on the abstract idea (2)? But not all software is like that. Instead, some software is tricky stuff. E.g., how the heck to backup a relational database while it is being used and changed? One might argue that just how to do that could be, and really should be, written up as an abstract idea and maybe even some form of math and, thus, not be patentable, but sometimes all there is is the computer software. So, maybe, maybe, I'm not fully sure, such software, or a computer with it, could deserve a patent. Generally, then, I conclude that most software patents have to be based on bad thinking when we can't patent the crucial, logically prior abstract idea. Finally, let me be helpful: When you get a case of a software patent, just rule right away that the patent is invalid and take a nice long vacation with the time you would have spent listening to nonsense about that case! Take along some good hiking shoes or a good book!

DigitalSea 13y ago

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is the equivalent of a bicycle with no wheels or chain: completely useless and I think we need to get rid of it. For those who are familiar with the Court of Appeals in this instance, this decision will hardly surprise you. Comedic incompetence at its finest here, folks.

atarian 13y ago

Suppose I wanted to create a startup and not have to worry about infringing software patents. What would be a sensible way of going about it? Or would I have to move to a different country?

fpgeek 13y ago
Sell out the the first big tech company interested? Make sure one of the co-founders is a kick-ass patent lawyer? Don't? Moving to another country is problematic. Other countries have their own software patent quagmires too (though, admittedly usually less developed ones). You're also probably going to want to sell to US customers at some point and then... In the past, I'd have said don't make money, but in a world where patent trolls target end users of things like scanners, I no longer think that's enough. More seriously, there's just too much risk and uncertainty with software patents. I think the only realistic option is to accept that risk and move on with the rest of your startup.