[Patents] Re: On GPL Ideas and Limited Software Patentability

[orre@nada.kth.se (Roland Orre)]

On Tue, 8 May 2001, Ronald J Riley wrote:
> Regardless of race, environment, etc. - most all inventors suffer
> from big egos which are often engaged before they think. In many
> ways inventors are their own worst enemies.

Roland:
It doesn't seem as you are understanding what I'm trying to protect.

J Riley:
> Look at what Mr. Aharonian had to say about enabling inventions.
> American patents are generally allowed to contain much more material
> than their none US counterparts. In fact, it is law that the
> inventor must disclose best mode. It sounds like you are suggesting
> that you are not going to disclose best mode, perhaps in favor of
> treating some of the material as a trade secret? Well, if you do
> that with a US patent it is grounds to invalidate the patent. make
> no mistake that if you do get a patent, and if that patent has any
> value, that an opponent will uncover your comments on Internet and
> much more.

Roland:
You are certainly aware of, that most rather complicated software
solutions not only can, but should, be modularized into parts,
which may still be useful and non obvious on their own. It would
not be provable that I'm trying to hide any trade secrets. Look
upon existing patents, there are patents which are obviously a
try to patent the modules of your solution to avoid as much
competition as possible. How is it with yor own inventions for
instance? Now I don't know what you have done in any detail, but
can you prove that the different patents you have are not really
just a modularization of the problem, to make the patents strike wider?

J Riley:
> And you belief that you know the field so well that there could not
> possibly be art you are unaware of is a joke. Inventions have a

Roland:
Did you intentionally change the meaning of what I wrote?
I wrote:
   "I know enough about all existing data mining technologies to
    know that my ideas are both novel and non obvious."

I never said that there could possibly be art that I'm unaware of,
because I'm not able to read all other researchers mind, but I'm often
going to conferences in the field, I'm reading articles about the latest
achievements within statistics, data mining, bayesian statistics,
and knowledge engineering.

J Riley:
> season, and generally many people think of the same invention when
> the time is ripe. But only one will be the first to disclose that
> invention in their patent.
Now you are speaking against yourself, because this makes the whole
idea about "intellectual property" regarding inventions ridiculus.

J Riley:
> Rather than looking for what to take offense to we all need to be
> separating the gold from the chaff, ignoring chaff and ego in favor
> of concentrating on the gold nuggets which are often hidden in such
> posts. That means suppressing the ego in favor of learning what we
> need to succeed in a very difficult business.
????? Didn't get the message!

J Riley:
> This kind of bluster and posturing only makes the poster look
> foolish in my view. Come on, you are going to make four or five
> trips to the US to sue Mr. Aharonian, and spend at least $10,000 in
> legal fees? Get real.
Roland:
So, what's the problem. I'm often going to US anyway, in my data
mining business, but thanks for the hints about the price. I thought
it would be even more expensive. Certainly you also understand that the
technology I'm working with is worth many many times more than this.

J Riley:
> The reality is that the remarks we all make on public forums are
> often accessible for many years, even decades, to other people.
Roland:
Yes, this is very good, for those who are seriosly discussing and can
stand for what they say with there names. Expressing oneself in
a public forum is a good incentive to carefully consider what
one is saying before pressing the send button.

J Riley:
> I know for a fact that many patent attorneys on US based inventor
> forums take note of how the inventor handles themselves on those
> forums. And the opinions they form impact rather they accept those
> inventors as clients, doubly true when we are talking contingency
> litigators.
Roland:
Being an attorney is a job which certainly needs a lot of empathy
and understanding to help one's client in the best possible way, I
can only agree upon that.

J Riley:
> Now will you recognize constructive criticism when you see it, or is
> my post going to be cause to threaten to sue me also.

Roland:
No, I did not find your criticism as offending, but I did not find it
constructive either from my point of view, because we seem to have a
lack of mutual understanding and a discrepancy on how we value things.

>From my point of view I can see that you are not dissatisfied with the
patent system because I know that you are actually making some money on
your patents, but you have certainly not estimated alternative potential
benefits with other solutions. I guess that you are most likely seeing
your benefits with the system only from your own experience with it, and
the reason for this is that you are actually gaining something from it,
so in your own interest you certainly don't have a reason to complain,
but you have certainly not analyzed how much alternative benefits there
would have been with another system.
You have to look upon different factors as:
        1) your own credit/satisfaction from your invention
        2) your own short term benefits from an invention
        3) your own long term benefits from an invention
        4) benefits for the whole society
        5) potentials for competitiors to invent alternative solutions
        6) incentives for competitiors to invent alternative solutions
        7) overall technological development speed as being a tradeoff
           between monopolism (wideness and time) and fair competition
           mainly due to factors (5) and (6)
and certainly a lot of other factors as well, but these are
the most important for me. What is "fair" competition and what benefits
are mostly worth with a specific system? That very much depends on how
you weigh the different factors and your view about what is fair.

In your case I guess that you may look mostly upon (2), above, but
if you would consider an alternative system which would allow for
higher (4) and (7) for instance, then this would feed back on (3)
so when integrating your own benefits over time they will be much
higher than with the original solution which only gave you a good (2).

I want a system which is optimal from as many aspects as possible,
without introducing any contradictions into the system, this is
what I consider a true system.
This is something I will elaborate on more in later writings.

        Best regards
        Roland Orre