www/philosophy trivial-patent.html

[Karl Berry]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Karl Berry <karl>       06/11/26 14:15:12

Modified files:
        philosophy     : trivial-patent.html 

Log message:
        restore missing text, ticket 321307

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/trivial-patent.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.1&r2=1.2

Patches:
Index: trivial-patent.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/trivial-patent.html,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -b -r1.1 -r1.2
--- trivial-patent.html 20 Sep 2006 14:49:11 -0000      1.1
+++ trivial-patent.html 26 Nov 2006 14:12:05 -0000      1.2
@@ -186,6 +186,99 @@
 </i></p>
 
 <p>
+This says that they keep track of who you are and what you access--a
+common (though nasty) thing for web servers to do.  I believe it was
+common already in 1996.
+</p>
+
+<p><i>
+     * c) choosing at least one pre-selected portion of the pre-recorded
+       music products from the central host server;
+</i></p>
+
+<p>
+In other words, the user clicks to say which link to follow.  That is
+typical for web servers; if they had found another way to do it, that
+might have been an invention.
+</p>
+
+<p><i>
+     * d) receiving the chosen pre-selected portion of the pre-recorded
+       products; and
+</i></p>
+
+<p>
+When you follow a link, your browser reads the contents.
+This is typical behavior for a web browser.
+</p>
+
+<p><i>
+     * e) interactively previewing the received chosen pre-selected
+       portion of the pre-recorded music product.
+</i></p>
+
+<p>
+This says that your browser plays the music for you.  (That is what
+many browsers do, when you follow a link to an audio file.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now you can see how they padded this claim to make it into a complex
+idea: they included important aspects of what computers, networks, web
+servers, and web browsers do.  This complexity, together with two
+lines which describe their own idea, add up to the so-called
+"invention" for which they received the patent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This example is typical of software patents.  Even the occasional
+patent whose idea is nontrivial has the same sort of added
+complication.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now look at a subsequent claim:
+
+<p><i>
+       3. The method of [149]claim 1 wherein the central memory device
+   comprises a plurality of compact disc-read only memory (CD-ROMs).
+</i></p>
+
+<p>
+What they are saying here is, "Even if you don't think that claim 1 is
+really an invention, using CD-ROMs to store the data makes it an
+invention for sure.  An average system designer would never have
+thought of that."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now look at the next claim:
+</p>
+
+<p><i>
+       4. The method of [150]claim 1 wherein the central memory device
+   comprises a RAID array drive.
+</i></p>
+
+<p>
+A RAID array is a group of disks set up to work like one big disk,
+with the special feature that even if one of the disks in the array
+has a failure and stops working, all the data is still available on
+the other disks in the group.  Such arrays have been commercially
+available since long before 1996, and are a standard way of storing
+data for high availability.  But these brilliant inventors have
+patented the use of a RAID array for this particular purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trivial as it is, this patent would not necessarily be found legally
+invalid if there is a lawsuit about it.  Not only the US Patent Office
+but the courts as well tend to apply a very low standard when judging
+whether a patent is "unobvious".  This patent might pass muster,
+according to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
 What's more, the courts are reluctant to overrule the Patent Office,
 so there is a better chance of getting a patent overturned if you can
 show a court prior art that the Patent Office did not consider. If
@@ -238,7 +331,7 @@
 
 <p>Updated:
   <!-- timestamp start -->
-  $Date: 2006/09/20 14:49:11 $ $Author: jimcrow $
+  $Date: 2006/11/26 14:12:05 $ $Author: karl $
   <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>