Here's Another Inventor Who Willingly Gave Away His Greatest Idea In Order To Establish It As A Global Standard

Patents

from the true-generosity dept

Beyond the fact that you are using it to read these words, the Web has undeniably had a major impact on a large part of the world’s population. It’s certainly one of the greatest inventions of recent times, and as Techdirt has noted before, one of the reasons it has taken off in such an amazing way, and led to so many further innovations, is because Sir Tim Berners-Lee decided not to patent it.

Few would argue that the Musical Instrument Digital Interface — MIDI — is quite in the same league as the World Wide Web, and yet for musicians it has been hugely important in providing a common standard for playing and composing digital music. As an article in Fortune reminds us, one reason for that success is that like Berners-Lee, MIDI’s inventor, Dave Smith, also gave away his brilliant creation:

What’s noteworthy here — aside from the ridiculous use of the word “steal” — is that letting people use the MIDI standard for free was not some accident or oversight: well before the example of Berners-Lee, Smith understood that it was the best way to get his standard widely adopted. That’s not to say that he hasn’t occasionally hankered after the riches he might have received had he charged for a license, but in the end he recognizes the “obvious” rightness of the move:

Indeed: thanks to that far-sighted decision 30 years ago, he joins Berners-Lee as one of the true benefactors of humanity. Let’s hope that in the coming years there are many more with vision enough to join them.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: adoption, dave smith, innovation, inventions, midi, patents, tim berners-lee

New Study: USPTO Drastically Lowered Its Standards In Approving Patents To Reduce Backlog

Patents

from the shockingly-under-shocking dept

The massive problems of the patent system really started getting renewed attention between 2002 and 2004 or so, highlighted by the publication of the book Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System Is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It by Adam Jaffe and Josh Lerner. By that point, the combination of two key events in the late 90s was clearly being felt on the patents system. First, and most importantly, was the impact of the State Street decision that announced to the world that the courts considered software and business method patents legal. Also important was the 1999 publication of Rembrandts in the Attic: Unlocking the Hidden Value of Patents by Kevin Rivette and David Kline, which led patent lawyers and tech companies alike to suddenly both ramp up their patenting, but also to look to sell off “unused” patents to companies (lawyers) who did nothing but threaten and sue over them. Suddenly, patent trolls became a big, big issue.

Around the time of the Jaffe and Lerner book, the USPTO seemed to actually take much of the criticism to heart. One big part of Jaffe and Lerner’s criticism was the simple fact that patent examiners had significant incentives to approve patents, and almost none to reject patents. That is, the metrics by which they were measured included the rate of how many patent applications they processed. But, since there is no such thing as a truly final rejection of a patent, people would just keep asking the USPTO to look at their application again. Each time an examiner had to do this, their “rate” would decline, since they’d be spending even more time on the same old patent application. But approving a patent got it off your plate and let the court system sort out any mess. However, after the book was published, the USPTO actually seemed to pay attention and changed its internal incentives a bit to push for high quality approvals. Not surprisingly, this meant that the approval rate dropped. But, since there was more demand for bogus patents to sue over, more people appealed the rejections and the backlog grew.

Patent system lovers started whining about the “backlog,” but what they were really pissed off about was the fact that their bogus patents weren’t getting approved. Unfortunately, their message resonated with the new regime of the Obama administration, mainly Commerce Dept. boss, Gary Locke, and head of the USPTO, David Kappos. Back in 2010, we noted that the USPTO had shifted back to approving “pretty much anything” and had clearly decreased their quality standards in an effort to rush through the backlog. Not surprisingly, in stating this, we were attacked mercilessly by patent system supporters, who insisted that we were crazy, and the truth was that David Kappos had found some magic elixir that made all USPTO agents super efficient (or something like that — their actual explanations were not much more coherent). No matter what, they insisted that it was entirely possible to massively ramp up the number of approvals, decrease the backlog and not decrease patent quality.

Needless to say, we’ve been skeptical that this was possible.

And now the data is in, suggesting we were absolutely right all along. A new study done by Chris Cotropia and Cecil Quillen of the University of Richmond and independent researcher Ogden Webster used information obtained via FOIA requests to delve into what was really going on in the patent office (link to a great summary of the research by Tim Lee). The key issue, is (once again) the fact that patents are never truly rejected in full, and the people applying for patents just keep on trying again and again until someone in the USPTO approves it. However, the USPTO, to hide some of this, counts some of those “rejections” that eventually get approved as “rejections” to artificially deflate the actual “approval rate” of patent applications.

When the researchers corrected for all of this, they found that the actual patent approval rate in 2012 was almost 90% of all patents eventually get approved. 90%! That’s about where it was in 2004 and 2005 (as discussed above), though in 2001 it actually came close to 100%! However, as noted above, by the second half of 00’s corrections had been put in place and the approval rate had declined to under 70% in 2009 — meaning that the USPTO was actually rejecting bad patents. But over the past three years, we’ve shot right back up. And it’s clear that if the approval rate is much higher, the USPTO is approving many, many more bad patents.

In fact, it’s likely that the story is even worse than before. Back in 2004 and 2005 when the approval rates were similar, it was really before the public was aware of just how bad the patent troll problem was, so you had many fewer people trying to get their own bad patents to troll over. In the past five years or so that has changed quite a bit. So the number of applications has shot up massively as well. In 2004 there were 382,139 applications. By 2011 that had shot up by 50% to 576,763.

I don’t think anyone thinks that we suddenly became 50% more inventive between 2004 and 2011. No, the truth is that people were suddenly flooding the USPTO with highly questionable patent applications on broad and vague concepts, hoping to get a lottery ticket to shake down actual innovators. And, the USPTO under David Kappos complied, granting nearly all of them. Incredible.

When Thomas Jefferson put together the first patent system — after being quite skeptical that patents could actually be a good thing — he was quite careful to note that patents should only be granted in the rarest of circumstances, since such a monopoly could do a lot more harm than good. And yet, today, we encourage tons of people to send in any old bogus idea, and the USPTO has turned into little more than a rubber stamp of approval, allowing patent holders to shake down tons of people and companies, knowing that many will pay up rather than fight, and then leaving the few cases where someone fights back to be handled by the courts (who seem ignorant of the game being played).

The end result is a true disaster for actual innovation and the economy. We should all be able to agree that bad patents are not a good thing. And the USPTO is, undoubtedly, approving tons of awful patents when its true approval rate is hovering around 90%.

Filed Under: approvals, innovation, patents, quality, standards

Awesome Stuff: Lasers, Infrared And Photons

Innovation

from the beam-it dept

Another week, more awesome crowdfunding projects. No need to waste time with the intro, let’s get right to it.

• Lasertag has been around for a while but a bunch of students (high school?) have tried reinventing it for the modern era, using infrared devices that are more stealthy and have some advantages over the old game. First, they have a system of LEDs that will light up and show how many hit points you have left when hit, and second is that pretty much any IR device can act as a “gun.” I’ll be honest that I was never a huge lasertag guy, but a project that involves students building something cool seems pretty awesome. Of course, lasertag has always been misnamed, since I’m pretty sure it’s always been IR devices rather than lasers, but it’s cool to see how it’s being reimagined by some students. The project is definitely still a work in progress and looks fairly crude at the moment, but many of the rewards involve sending you the schematics to build your own out of various household items.
• Okay, you say that’s unfair and you want real lasers? How about the Blue Laser Lamp. While they talk about its use for home theaters and outdoors, it really does seem most likely to be useful as a nightlight of some sort. It also has a vibe that suggests that this could be the next lava lamp. Something that stoned college kids think looks awesome, but has little functional practicality. Still, it’s a unique design, and I figured some folks out there might appreciate it. The early bird pricing ($35) sold out quickly, and the project has gained a huge amount of support pretty quickly, though it still has a ways to go before reaching its goal. Given the time left, however, I doubt it will have much trouble getting there.
• Finally, perhaps something a bit more useful. The first time I ever got to “play” with a 3D scanner was in 1997 when I took a class with Donald Greenberg (who I later went on to work for and consult with), one of the pioneers in 3D computer graphics and the Director of Cornell’s Program for Computer Graphics. He had a massive 3D scanner in his lab, and I got to be the guinea pig in our class, getting my head scanned. Even though I recognize standard technology trends in which products get cheaper as they get much better, it still seemed ridiculous to think that there’d be a day not that far in the future where personal home 3D scanners were possible and reasonably priced. There’s been plenty of talk about 3D printers, but less attention has been paid to the scanning side. So it’s cool to see the Photon 3D Scanner, which is an attempt to make an affordable home 3D scanner. The early birds sold out at $349 and $399, but everyone else can jump in at the $449 level if you feel the desperate need to scan things in 3D in your home any time soon.

And that’s it for this week — and a special thanks to folks who have started submitting examples of crowdfunded “awesome stuff.” It’s really helpful, since there are so many interesting projects out there these days.

Filed Under: 3d scanning, awesome stuff, infrared, lasers, lasertag, photons

Awesome Stuff: Computers And Gesture Input Devices

Innovation

from the fruit-ninjas-are-everywhere dept

Okay, I really thought this week was going to be the one where our awesome stuff posts didn’t have a theme. But… because of some last minute finds, you not only get two separate themes, but also four projects, rather than our standard three. First up, we’ve got two different takes on a computer, and then we’ve got two projects that help you rethink how you input data into a computer.

• First up, is the MiiPC. It’s an Android-powered PC that’s designed for family use. From the screenshots/video they show, they at least appear to have done a decent job making Android functional as a desktop OS. Some of the “family” features seem a little hokey and overhyped, but perhaps it appeals to some people. Of course, what struck me as most interesting about this was actually the price. $99 for a simple computer seems like a potentially good deal for people looking to just do simple stuff. This project blew past its funding targets quickly and has already more than doubled it with over a month to go.
• So that’s a more modern take on a PC, but how about one that’s a bit more retro? The the X500 is a modern computer case, but which takes its design cues from classic early 1980s gaming consoles like the Amiga, Atari and Sinclair. My first computer was an Atari 800, so I’ve got a soft spot for this style of design, even if it’s probably not that practical these days. It’s just a case, so you’ll have to want to do some DIY computer building to get an actual computer in there. Also, if this one interests you, don’t wait too long. The project ends tomorrow. It’s already just barely squeaked over its target, so it will definitely be funded.
• Since we’re talking about DIY, howzabout the DUO, the world’s first DIY 3D sensor. If you’ve been living under a rock for a while, you may have missed all the buzzy and hype about the Leap Motion controller for gesture recognition on your computer. The DUO, conceptually, is pretty similar to the Leap, except that this not about fancy shiny locked up boxes, but about making your own damn fancy gesture controller. Basically, the different levels get you started at different points along the process of making your own such device (though, yes, you can also purchase fully assembled ones, but they’re much more expensive than the Leap). The DUO is still only about 1/3 of the way to its target, but with nearly a month left, it seems like it will probably get there. Might not be as fancy as the Leap, but how much cooler is it to show off that you made our own?
• And since we’re on the subject of gesture recognition for computers, how about the the NUIA eyeCharm, which is an add on to the Kinect (which we’ll assume you already know about…), to make it so you can control your computer via eye movements. There were rumors that Samsung was working on something like this to be built into phones and tablets, but these guys are doing it as a simple add on to the Kinect. This one has just a week to go and is hovering right near its target, and should easily pass it soon (if it hasn’t already by the time you read it).

Well, that’s it for this week. Bonus points figuring out how many times Fruit Ninja appears in the Kickstarter videos above. I had no idea that that game had become such a “must show” in any such demo.

Filed Under: awesome stuff, computer cases, computers, crowdfunding, gesture, input devices
Companies: duo, miipc, nuia

Wal-Mart Wants Store Customers To Deliver Packages To Online Shoppers

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the leveraging-the-customer-base dept

Having just seen cases where legacy players have felt threatened by more innovative startups that take advantage of more distributed “peer-production” rather than top-down centralized systems of old, it’s interesting to see a counter example. Apparently, Wal-Mart is considering a plan in which it tries to get in-store shoppers to help deliver packages to online buyers.

“I see a path to where this is crowd-sourced,” Joel Anderson, chief executive of Walmart.com in the United States, said in a recent interview with Reuters.

Wal-Mart has millions of customers visiting its stores each week. Some of these shoppers could tell the retailer where they live and sign up to drop off packages for online customers who live on their route back home, Anderson explained.

Wal-Mart would offer a discount on the customers’ shopping bill, effectively covering the cost of their gas in return for the delivery of packages, he added.

The company admits that it’s just brainstorming the idea at this point, but it’s always interesting to see big established companies recognizing that others have been disrupting parts of their core business, and rather than freak out about it, try to take the disruption even further. Of course, this might serve to disrupt other legacy providers, such as UPS and FedEx. Hopefully they won’t freak out about it, but who wouldn’t be surprised to start seeing stories raising moral panics about how “dangerous” this new plan will be since the drivers won’t be wearing uniforms any more?

Filed Under: crowdsourcing, customers, delivery, disruption, innovation, peer economy
Companies: walmart

Why Google's 'We Won't Sue' Patent Pledge May Actually Suggest A Greater Proclivity To Sue Over Patents

Patents

from the don't-launch-patent-suits,-period dept

Google is getting some attention today for taking an official pledge that it won’t initiate patent lawsuits over open source software on certain patents:

At Google we believe that open systems win. Open-source software has been at the root of many innovations in cloud computing, the mobile web, and the Internet generally. And while open platforms have faced growing patent attacks, requiring companies to defensively acquire ever more patents, we remain committed to an open Internet—one that protects real innovation and continues to deliver great products and services.

Today, we’re taking another step towards that goal by announcing the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge: we pledge not to sue any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked.

Initially, this pledge only covers 10 patents, but they claim they’ll be adding more.

While this pledge is better than nothing, it feels like really weak sauce from a company that could and should go much further. For nearly Google’s entire history, it simply did not act as a patent aggressor at all. It grew its own portfolio, and in some cases I believe it would use patents in countersuits against companies that sued it, but as far as I can remember, it was never an initial plaintiff in a patent lawsuit (feel free to point out an example case where that’s not true). As far as I can tell, the first time Google acted as a patent aggressor was last summer, when its Motorola Mobility subsidiary went after Apple.

How much stronger and more powerful a statement would it have been for Google to not limit this patent anti-aggression pledge to just ten patents and just open source projects? The company easily could have come out and said: we won’t sue over patents unless sued first. It would have been a clear and definitive statement that actually took a stand on a broken patent system — and it would have been almost entirely consistent with the company’s history. The fact that the company chose not to do this actually suggests that they’re even more likely to be patent aggressors. This is unfortunate. It is not uncommon for larger companies to switch to a patent litigation strategy as they get bigger and as smaller upstarts start disrupting their markets, but Google had, in the past, indicated that it wouldn’t follow that path. This pledge actually suggests an evolution in their thinking… and not in a good way.

As we’ve seen, historically, it’s when companies start having trouble innovating and competing that they switch to litigating over patents. One hopes that this is not an indication that Google has reached that stage.

Filed Under: open source, patent aggression, patents, pledge, won't sue
Companies: google