Comment by HeikoBehrens
2 months ago
FWIW, we considered this technique back at Pebble to make notifications more actionable and even filed a patent for that (sorry!) https://patents.justia.com/patent/9411785
Back then on iOS via ANCS, the watches wouldn't receive much more than the textual payload you'd see on the phone. We envisioned to be working with partners such as WhatsApp et al. to encode deep links/message ids into the message so one could respond directly from the watch.
Respectfully: how the hell would that be a valid patent? Feels like patenting the idea of writing text in white on white on a Word document such that you don't lose it but it doesn't get printed.
It's just insane to ever call that "an invention".
Companies acquire indefensible patents all the time. They are used in bulk to threaten smaller competitors ("we've got 500 patents in this field, better not bring your product to market"). This is one reason why patents can be terrible for competition.
About 25 years ago, this was explained to me as "sword patents and shield patents".
Sure, some can use patents as swords, to suppress legitimate competition, or to extract undue rents. But you can also use patents as shields, to protect in various ways against those swords.
If I ran a BigTech (like the original warm-fuzzy Google reputation), I'd be registering any plausible patents, and have lawyers figure out how to freely license-out the ones that weren't key secret sauce, under terms that figuratively poisoned anyone doing illegitimate sword patents.
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They are also used in bulk to defend against larger competitors using this type of threat. In a war where the ammunition is garbage, you either lose or you start hoarding garbage.
Patents are part of the game you have to play, like it or not. If you don't patent your inventions somebody else will and they will come after you with their lawyers. Patents are used defensively far more often than they are used offensively in these stupid "Intellectual Property" battles.
Because of this, there is absolutely no point in shaming someone for patenting a thing, especially when they are apologetic about it like parent is, and most especially when they are not threatening to weaponize the patent themselves.
No, I don't buy it. If the patents are publicly and perpetually freely licensed except for defensive-only purposes, then sure, they're not unethical. Red Hat's patent promise ( https://www.redhat.com/en/about/patent-promise ) is one example. If patents were actually intended for defensive purposes only, then this would be an easy and uncontroversial thing to do. However, in practice this is vanishingly rare, and lawyers fight against it tooth & nail. This tells you that the companies do not actually file them for defensive-only purposes, unlike what you claim.
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> Because of this, there is absolutely no point in shaming someone for patenting a thing
Well I wouldn't shame someone whose job was to patent something absurd. I was just saying that this is not an invention at all, and any system that protects that "innovation" is a broken system.
I think the magic is in the context of Unicode. Which also makes it almost twice as ridiculous from my point of view. Because it seems to be doing exactly what unicode is meant to do.
Almost all filed patents are invalid.
But doesn't it say that the whole patent system is broken? I get the "you pay to file a patent, it's your problem if it's invalid in the end". But the side effect of that is that whether it's valid or not, it's a tool you can use to scare those who don't have the resources to go to court.
It's like those completely abusive non-compete clauses in work contracts (yes in some countries that's the norm). They are completely abusive and therefore illegal. But it still hurts the employee: I have friends who have been declined a job in a company because the company did not want to take any risk. The company was like "okay, it's most likely an invalid clause, but if your previous employer sues us it will anyway cost resources we don't want to spend, so we'd rather not hire you". So an illegal, invalid clause had the effect that the company who abused it wanted. Which means it's a broken system.
fun fact: dSLR lenses are patented all the time. Claims are basically "I made it and it works". And it's considered ok.
So whoever now owns that patent (Google? maybe some patent troll picked it up?) could, in theory, sue the author of this article for patent infringement, right? Even though they invented it independently and never once used or looked at your patent. Do you think you made the world a better place or a worse place by filing that patent?
_Can_ they sue them for patent infringement? They just described a technique (that you can see in the patent filing anyway) and not selling a product based on it. I think there's nothing to sue here. I'm curious is my understanding of this is correct.
“Except as otherwise provided… whoever without authority… uses… any patented invention… infringes[.]” 35 usc 271
One of the benefits of the patent system (that now seems to be far outweighed by negatives) is that patents are public information. Your invention is documented for all to see. I don't think that someone writing about public information is a punishable office, but IANAL
No. The author could not be sued for this successfully. All they did was write a blog post about an interesting technique. They could literally read the patent application and write a blog post about that, assuming the methods are the same.
What percentage of your actions are based around making the world a better place, instead of personal fulfillment or gain?
> All they did was write a blog post about an interesting technique. They could literally read the patent application and write a blog post about that, assuming the methods are the same.
Okay, change "sue" to "prevent from creating a marketable product without paying a royalty to the patent owner in return for having provided nothing of value." The point remains.
> What percentage of your actions are based around making the world a better place, instead of personal fulfillment or gain?
Many harms are unavoidable, but I make a point to at least not go out of my way to make it a worse place, for example by filing software patents. The company I work for provides financial bonuses for filing software patents, and I will never participate in that program. (I've even tried to convince the lawyers to license our patents similar to Red Hat's open patent promise, because they claim they are intended only to be used defensively... but no luck so far.)
consider how far you reach to make the world better.
1) thats really good im gonna, strive to keep it.
2) " " tell all and those who want will build one.
3) " " make lots and give them to everyone.
Please see my comment about about the sad necessity for patents
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43026595
> Do you think you made the world a better place or a worse place by filing that patent?
Come on, what does this contribute to this conversation? The poster clearly is aware of the drawbacks of such patents, and didn't clearly play any role in filing the patent (they said "we … filed it," not "I filed it"). This kind of response just encourages people not to mention such things; it can't possibly change their past behavior, and, since Pebble the company per se doesn't exist any more, is also unlikely to change future behavior.
> The poster clearly is aware of the drawbacks of such patents, and didn't clearly play any role in filing the patent (they said "we … filed it," not "I filed it").
A person with the same name as that commenter is listed as an inventor on the patent.
> it can't possibly change their past behavior
Obviously, but it can change future behavior. Maybe realizing that they made the world a worse place by filing that patent will prevent them, or a reader of this discussion, from doing it again in future.
Well, given that the technique itself makes the world a worse place, anything that impedes its use is probably positive...
And, no, they couldn't do anything meaningful to the author of the article. They could get them ordered not to do it any more, and they could recover their economic damages... which are obviously zero.
As a wise man once said: "Don't hate the player, hate the game."
Where’d the game come from? Hint: the players.
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Do you think your comment made the world, and HN specifically a better place?
I think so , yes , it made me be re aware of the patent troll scam in the USA.
In fact it is your comment which to me seems a little hateful , yes the above comment also felt a little hateful
Hate doesn't counter Hate , I guess.
Yes, calling out unethical practices makes the world a better place by discouraging unethical practices.
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Hopefully a wholly undefendable patent, you're essentially trying to patent the Unicode spec. The rest of it is perform an action in response to a text message which clearly isn't novel.
Would this patent cover just the encoding alone? The first sentence says: > A method, apparatus, and system relating to embedding hidden content within a Unicode message and using the hidden content to perform a particular computer action.
So, in my extremely unqualified opinion, just the encoding technique alone is not covered by the patent, only when combined with some action performed based on the encoding?
Just curious this seems like simple digital Steganography or maybe even even the same as Shannon's boolean gate work. Do you think the patent is defendable in court?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography