Good News on Software Patents

The current system of software patents has been criticized by many for years now. Overly broad patents granted based on simplistic descriptions with nothing to back them up have been, in the opinion of many, a bane to real technological innovation for quite a while. I admit that I agree with that view. But then in June of this year the Supreme Court made a ruling concerning software patents. As Vox reports, while that ruling still leaves some questions about software patents up in the air it is already having an affect in lower court decisions concerning software patents. Why some software patents are no longer valid is explained by Timothy B. Lee as follows:

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Patent Office handed out a growing number of what might be called "do it on a computer" patents. These patents take some activity that people have been doing for centuries — say, holding funds in escrow until a transaction is complete — and claim the concept of performing that task with a computer or over the internet. The patents are typically vague about how to perform the task in question. The Supreme Court invalidated a patent like that in its decision this year. The patent claimed the concept of using a computer to hold funds in escrow to reduce the risk that one party would fail to deliver on an agreement. The Supreme Court ruled that the use of a computer did not turn this centuries-old concept into a new invention.

And the impact is already being felt in lower court decisions on software patents.

On July 6, a Delaware trial court rejected a Comcast patent that claimed the concept of a computerized telecommunications system checking with a user before deciding whether to establish a new connection. The court noted that the steps described in the patent could easily be performed by human beings making telephone calls.

On July 8, a New York court invalidated a patent on the concept of using a computer to help users plan meals while achieving dieting goals. The court was unimpressed with the patent holder's argument that some of the details in the patent — such as the use of "picture menus" to choose meals — was sufficient to render it a patentable idea.

On July 17, the Federal Circuit Appeals Court (which is in charge of all patent cases) rejected a patent on the concept of keeping colors synchronized across devices by building a profile that describes the characteristics of each device. The court held that the creation and use of these profiles were merely mental steps that could be done by a human being and were therefore not eligible for patent protection.

On August 26, the Federal Circuit rejected a patent that claimed the concept of running a bingo game on a computer. "Managing the game of bingo consists solely of mental steps which can be carried out by a human using pen and paper," the court ruled. Converting that process into a computer program doesn't lead to a patentable invention.

On August 29, a California court struck down a patent on a method of linking a mortgage line of credit to a checking account. The court said that the generic computer functions mentioned in the patent were not enough to merit protection.

On September 3, a Texas trial court invalidated a patent on the concept of using a computer to convert reward points from one store to another. The court held that the "invention" claimed by the patent "not fundamentally different from the kinds of commonplace financial transactions that were the subjects of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions."

In a second September 3 decision, a Delaware trial court rejected a patent on the concept of an intermediary selectively revealing information about two parties to each other — using a computer. The court noted that it has long been common for corporate headhunters to withhold certain information about an employer from potential employees (and vice versa) until both parties are ready to proceed.

On the same day, the same Delaware court invalidated a patent on the concept of using a computerized system to "upsell" customers who buy one product on other products that might interest them. The court pointed out that upselling is as old as commerce itself. In a final decision the same day, the Federal Circuit appeals court struck down a patent that claimed the concept of using surety bonds to guarantee a transaction — using a computer. The court pointed out that surety bonds have been around since ancient times, and performing this well-known transaction with the help of a computer doesn't turn it into a patentable invention.

On September 4, a California trial court rejected a patent on the concept of using a computer network to ask people to do tasks and then wait for them to do them. The court pointed out that people have done this with telephones for decades, and that doing the same thing over the internet doesn't count as an invention.

On September 11, a Florida court invalidated a patent on the concept of subtracting a small amount of money from each of many payments in order to accumulate a larger sum of money — using a computer. The court noted, these kinds of schemes have been widely known for centuries. For example, the plot of Superman III involved a villain using this kind of scheme to steal from co-workers' paychecks.

I look forward to more patents like the ones in Vox's list being invalidated and hope that companies quit filing them. If you can't show code that takes a unique approach to solving a problem then you shouldn't be granted a software patent in my opinion.

Miniaturization Comes to Particle Accelerators?

After reading this article on Red Orbit my first thought was that if it pans out the implications for fusion power could get very interesting.

Cory Doctorow on the Digital OED

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing fame has an interesting article in The Guardian about the Oxford English Dictionary in the digital age. The idea of access to the OED is great but isn't going to be in my budget soon.

Careers Are the Craziest Things Sometimes

Ars Technica has an interesting article about a major career shift made by a NASA engineer. Mark Rober became a halloween costume designer after 9 years at NASA where he spent most of his time working on the Curiosity rover. A big shift that's really panned out for Rober, who started a company with friends to expand the idea and then sold the company to British company Digital Dudz.

Another new hope for solid state storage

If this storage technology pans out it seems to me that it would have the potential to eliminate hard drives as we know them. The remaining questions I didn't see addressed is expense of scaling up production and number of read/write cycles it can survive.

A good first step for asteroid mining

It was just a short while ago that Planetary Resources was in the news for it's crowdfunded telescope project. Now astronomers have identified a dozen asteroids that would make good targets for the company's goal of moving asteroids into an orbit that would make it easily accessible from Earth.

iTelescope - A Timeshare Telescope program

I always wondered if something like this existed. I thought it would be a cool thing several years ago and pictured an array of automated telescopes somewhere where viewing conditions would be good yet you could run broadband to them. Now if someone could do the same thing with adapting old satellite TV dishes to arrays of radio telescopes.

No, technology is not an unmixed blessing

Jaron Lanier cautions against the common wisdom that technology will replace the jobs it eliminates. His new book, Who Owns the Future? he tries to make this point among others.

A rather good example is mentioned in this article from Time.

The bankruptcy of the photography-giant Kodak occurred within months of Facebook‘s billion-dollar acquisition of the photo-sharing site Instagram. This would be just one example of the destructive dynamism of American capitalism, a process through which old companies are overtaken by new technology and new firms more in tune with the needs of customers — and that arguably benefits us all.

Except for one thing, that is: Whereas Kodak employed 140,000 workers during its heyday, Instagram employed just 13 people when it was purchased in April 2012.

“Where did all those jobs disappear to?” Lanier asks. “And what happened to the wealth that those middle-class jobs created?” Lanier’s answer is that the new “information economy,” which is now superseding the manufacturing economy, is developing in such a way that the rewards are filtering to an elite few at the expense of everybody else.

Anyone who has read a variety of posts I've made for a while now in various places will realize that this ties in to what I've believed for a while. The new economy just doesn't need as many people to produce things. Data centers of thousands of square feet might employ a hundred people. For a comparison Facebook is currently valued at $67.8 billion as of February according to Forbes and employees 4619 people according to an article on TechCrunch whereas Ford Motor is valued at $55.6 billion and employs 171,000 people. This is fairly typical so far as I can tell.

But it's not just the differing nature of technology companies versus manufacturing. There is also another way in which technology affects jobs in the modern world. As noted in the article:

One popular view of the American economy’s recent troubles is that we’ve become too decadent, that we no longer make anything the rest of the world wants, and that our economy will not recover until we can learn to overcome our addiction to debt and cheap, foreign-made goods. And if one were to look at where the average American gets his paycheck these days, there’s evidence to support this worldview. Fewer and fewer Americans are employed in making physical goods — just 9% of the population works in manufacturing, compared with 40% during World War Two. But total manufacturing output – that is, the dollar-value of all the things American companies make — has continued to increase. In fact, by some measures the U.S. produces more stuff than any other country in the world, including China.

The missing variable in this equation is automation. We’re still making a ton of stuff here; it’s just that machines are doing more and more of the making. As a technologist, this dynamic is obvious to Lanier, though it tends to sneak up on the rest of us.

Do these changes inevitably portend doom for our society as we know it? Well, probably. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing if for once we admit to ourselves that this is a possible outcome of what lots of people and businesses are doing and try to adapt without judgement or labels, just by looking for something that works.

Los Alamos National Lab has had quantum-encrypted internet for over two years

It will be very interesting to see when this actually starts rolling out. I do believe the DoD will be the first ones to have it, though.

ORBX streaming tech could revolutionize computing

CNet reports on ORBX streaming tech, which seems to offer a lot of promise in reducing bandwidth for demanding streaming applications.

There's a place where an 'anti-incest' app is a good idea

It's really hard to know what to say about this app created in Iceland to avoid awkward social situations other than I suppose it's understandable in a country with a population only two-thirds the size of Kansas City. Just the city, no suburbs or ex-urbs counted.

How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 “moon rocket” engine back to life

Ars Technica has a great story about NASA engineers "reverse engineering" an F-1 engine so that the plans could be put into modern systems for design and computer modelling purposes. Starting from the outside everything was imaged and in one case a custom torque wrench was recreated. The original work was done in ways that wouldn't be used now and basically resulted in an engine where every one built was unique in some way and built largely by hand. It's a really fascinating story.