Comment by Roark66
24 days ago
It is quite funny an EU company patenting a software feature that is basically unpatentable in EU in the US.
Clearly this is an attempt to prevent similar patents from being weaponised against them in the US.
No one cares about such stuff in Europe.
Unfortunately patent offices are using loopholes that reintroduce software patents. Patent law says that a pure software patent is not possible, it has to be combined with a specific hardware application to make it an invention. So they fill in a patent for "XX implemented on a hardware operating on land, in the air, in space, on, or under water.". That's essentially a software patent.
> operating on land, in the air, in space, on, or under water
Thunderbirds are Go!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_mBUaPsX6o
> So they fill in a patent for "XX implemented on a hardware operating on land, in the air, in space, on, or under water.".
I'm glad my servers are operating in a deep undersea cave.
That sounds like patent trolls shenanigans.
You may have heard about a little thing called MP3? Basically, Fraunhofer in Germany filed for (software) patents in the US. They made sure to wait some time for MP3 to become a thing before they started going after people and collect royalties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#Licensing,_ownership,_and_...
Ha, you're misremembering, but it's been a long time so I don't begrudge you.
Fraunhofer is a research institution. They didn't really do licencing, that's why they never went after anyone.
Then Thomson joined the venture (wouldn't you know it, French!) and the fun with litigation got started
Not trying to protect Frauenhofer there at all, if they didn't smell opportunity they wouldn't have teamed up with Thomson after all... But I think the trend is very clear. Germans are generally a lot worse at the litigation game then the french. Historically that makes sense, but it's definitely surprising that it still holds true in modern times
Fraunhofer absolutely does licensing. That is one of their main sources of income. Also,your retelling of the story is off: https://www.4ipcouncil.com/features/mp3-digital-audio-coding
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> Clearly this is an attempt to prevent similar patents from being weaponised against them in the US.
Why do we assume that Mistral is a "good guy" protecting themselves? I'm not sure they necessarily are. Could just be trying to grab any ground they can.
I mean, maybe they are the "good guy", but I don't think we know either way.
Even if it’s good now, three to five years down the line there’s a 50% chance it’s sold for scraps and this may end up in the hands of a patent troll.
I mean they have a healthy dollop of US VC private investment, so good guys is off the cards - but in relative terms, they seem to follow the law, which in Silicon Valley is certainly not a given.