Patent prior art for Oculus Rift

[blazespinnaker]

I don't think that's why you aim to get patents. Patents aren't there to protect the invention that is patented. Patents are there so that you can attack the person that is attacking you.

No, the point of patents is in return for a monopoly over your invention you will instruct others how it's made.

Before patents existed (around 1475 in Venice), a lot of trade secrets would be kept by families and guilds. If those families or guilds were wiped out for whatever reason (war, plague, etc), all the secrets they held would be lost. There was no incentive for these trades people to share their knowledge.

Patents also provide you with incentive to do R&D, knowing that there is some protection for the very significant investments you might make (in the case of Drug Companies, for example, this can be 10s to 100s of millions of dollars).

The patent system today is unfortunately very dysfunctional in many ways, and undermines innovation rather than encourages it. Many very obvious things are being patented, in particular - pretty obvious Software Patents. It's being abused by those who'd rather compete in law courts than invest and risk doing real R&D.

It's also being used by patent trolls who are filing patents with no intention of doing real R&D but rather simply to blackmail companies into giving them money. Recent changes in the laws have made this harder.

Also, communities have arisen on forums like this where IP is being generated and freely donated to the commons via disclosure. It's important that nobody tries to take advantage of that and tries to patent knowledge that others are freely sharing.

Another part of the problem with patents, is that unfortunately sometimes smaller individuals don't quite appreciate how hard it is to develop original IP. They don't quite realize that there is probably someone out there who is highly educated with years of experience getting paid real money to work full time researching something a garage inventor can only do in their spare time.

[geekmaster]

... Also, communities have arisen on forums like this where IP is being generated and freely donated to the commons via disclosure. It's important that nobody tries to take advantage of that and tries to patent knowledge that others are freely sharing.

I have heard rumors that Obama passed a law that gives corporations up to one year to patent stuff they find in forums like this, calling it their own "invention". The new law is supposed to "encourage" innovation, but like many government programs, it may well have the opposite effect (reduce open sharing of ideas, slowing progress).

I hope that is not true, but I read it on the interwebs so it must be true...

[blazespinnaker]

... Also, communities have arisen on forums like this where IP is being generated and freely donated to the commons via disclosure. It's important that nobody tries to take advantage of that and tries to patent knowledge that others are freely sharing.

I have heard rumors that Obama passed a law that gives corporations up to one year to patent stuff they find in forums like this, calling it their own "invention". The new law is supposed to "encourage" innovation, but like many government programs, it may well have the opposite effect (reduce open sharing of ideas, slowing progress).

I hope that is not true, but I read it on the interwebs so it must be true...

Unfortunately, online forums don't work very well in a court of law. I think there is a website where you can submit all your IP to though, and they will archive it for patent purposes. They would then become official "prior art".

Something Neil might consider, I suppose.

[yautjacetanu]

No, the point of patents is in return for a monopoly over your invention you will instruct others how it's made.

Again, you missed the point of what I was trying to say.

I understand that you are right about why they were originally made. You are also right about what they ought to be for. Also you're right in lots of other industries. There are plenty of industries where

But what I'm saying, is that now, this year, in this industry (tech) patents are not acquired for this purpose anymore. Everyone talks about "patent trolls" but pretty much every tech company is doing it not the companies that count as trolls. No one is innocent in their mis-use of patents because if you don't mis-use patents you will get destroyed. The laws that have made things harder for patent trolls have also made things easier for the big companies with real money, power and influence. Those laws do make patents better, yes, but thats not why the law got passed. The laws got passed because it was harming those big companies. I really think this focus on trolls is just a diversion tactic.

Also people have been complaining about patents for at least a decade. Its very unlikely to change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_ ... ggregation <---- This is the issue. I think even the FSF foundation were looking at buying up patents for this purpose? The thing is you keep arguing that Oculus should not patent what they have done. You've put forward arguments that suggest that if they tried, they would fail. But you've also hinted at it being almost a moral argument. That it is a good thing that they would fail.

But today, the moral argument is not about whether you should try and get a patent (answer always yes) but when you have that patent, what do you do with it. It would be a good thing if oculus got that patent, it would be bad if they started suing community members. Its very very sad that we live in a world where we have to rely on the goodwill of corporations but occulus do seem a lot better then most.


This is the problem

[Vin]

Wait, are we discussing hardware or software patents now? The "problem" image combines contractual disputes with hardware patents with software patents. As far as the filings I've seen over the last few years, hardware patents remain fine. One of the biggest problems in the market has been the software patents, which are handed out like candy for amazingly unnovel ideas.

[KBK]

patent examiners require better searching capacities for the net, so they can find that prior art, which may just be a simple idea spoken out loud somewhere on the net.

Perhaps they need the help of the NSA.

[Inscothen]

I posted this in the celebrities thread when I meant to post it here.

"If the Rift was originally conceived as a open source HMD, how would this affect patents, and commercial competition in relation to patents for Palmer and OculusVR? For at least what the open HMD was at the time, never mind prior art and already previously patented HMDs. Would a person or company be able to make a Rift clone sans SDK circa pre-kickstarter and sell it without legal action from Oculus so long as nothing post kickstarter was copied?"

[blazespinnaker]

I don't know how much forum postings will stand up in a court of law.

But, I think that statement from Palmer does show at one point he appreciated the contributions from the community.

[Inscothen]

I don't know either but the rift was palmers project with input from the community. From his thread announcing a open source HMD for kickstarter(with the intention to expand the VR community) I wonder how that would impact commercial competition and protection against copycat designs. Online communication may be admissible as evidence because other online communication in other legal fields have been used in cases before.

[yautjacetanu]

Wait, are we discussing hardware or software patents now? The "problem" image combines contractual disputes with hardware patents with software patents. As far as the filings I've seen over the last few years, hardware patents remain fine. One of the biggest problems in the market has been the software patents, which are handed out like candy for amazingly unnovel ideas.

I was thinking about that as I wrote my post. Most of what I've seen is about software patents whilst most of the fights have been about hardware... although even then its usually software patents used in order to attack a hardware product. But if the rift got any patents it would probably be in hardware and if it was software it would probably be even more reasonable to be awarded the patent. (as far as patents are reasonable)