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What about "The only way" to make something better. | 282 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
"The only way" ought to lead to invalidation of the patent
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 14 2013 @ 08:26 AM EDT
Isn't getting loads of money by making everone pay whether
they want to or not a useful art?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

I feel like going meta
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 14 2013 @ 10:04 AM EDT
It's my birthday, and I've just gotten away from a wiki walk from "squaring
the circle".

"If sanity prevailed, any patent that cannot be worked around
would be rejected as being overly broad."

Lets take that a step further, to "any finite group of patents that cannot
be worked around is overly broad."

Otherwise a second patent that I own is proof that the first isn't overly
broad.


From that, it follows that a patent pool for a standard is proof that the
patents in it are overly broad, hence invalid! :D

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

You can easily work around the patents
Authored by: cricketjeff on Thursday, March 14 2013 @ 12:57 PM EDT
But not while adhering to the standard!

You do not need to use any of Motorola's ideas to make a mobile telephone
network, but if you base yours on firing infra-red lasers from low flying
satellites it ain't gonna work with your Galaxy S3.

Standards are a deliberate narrowing of boundaries.

---
There is nothing in life that doesn't look better after a good cup of tea.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Yes and no
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 14 2013 @ 12:59 PM EDT

Conclusion: While I agree that if a work around can not be found this could be an indicator the patent is overbroad - it's not, in and of itself, a certainty.

Discussion:

any patent that cannot be worked around would be rejected as being overly broad
However, I'd like to point out:
    it's possible that a particular invention is so unique that although someone with less knowledge in the field could recreate the invention they would not necessarily understand what makes it work
In such a situation, it's possible to not be able to work around the patent on the invention - not because it's overbroad - but simply because no one else has figured out how it actually works yet.

There isn't often in my experience that occurs.... but it has happened. Instructions are clear enough someone can duplicate the item exactly, but asked "how does that work" the answer is "I dunno"....

I have a science book at home that has a levitation device in it I want to try. My very vague understanding of how it works is that the electricity excites the air molecules which end up causing the device to lift.

There are very clear blueprints, instructions and material list provided to go about creating the device.

While I can follow the instructions and have a high probability of making it work (my own experience with such experiments) I doubt I'd have sufficient understanding to create an alternative that could be considered a work around to any of the specifics supplied.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

What about "The only way" to make something better.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 15 2013 @ 04:26 AM EDT
For example I'm given to understand that it's
nigh on impossible to compress digital video
in a meaningful way without infringing on
some patents held by the mpeg.la cronies. Ie
the only "ways" to do it that work, infringe.

I can still encode raw video without
compression, so it's not the only way to
transfer video.

However it may be the only viable way to move
video over low bandwidth (ie mobile) networks
in real time. Does this mean that it is or
isn't the only way? It's contextual.

Would that mean the patents are invalid for
mobile use, but valid for other uses? What
happens when mobile networks get faster?
Would the patents become valid and infringed
again?

"The only way" rule seems liable to cause
many more questions and problems, even though
or sounds reasonable at first glance

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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