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Search found 92 results on 4 pages for 'patents'.

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• The DPL and the "Fair Trolls" Business Model: Make Money Fighting Patents with Patents

  <b>FOSS Patents:</b> "But no matter how defensive the DPL may be at first sight, it could pave the way for a whole new business model: that of the Fair Troll (which I'll explain in this post)."

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• Patents, Patents, Everywhere...

  <b>Open Enterprise:</b> "But recently something seems to have got into the water, for the entire world, apparently, has gone software patent mad."

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• Is there a good argument for software patents?

  - by David Nehme

  Now that it looks like software patents are going to be severely limited, does anyone have a good argument for keeping them. It seems like copyright law serves software fine and patents just add overhead to what should be an almost frictionless process. Are there any examples of software that wouldn't have been written if not for patents?

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• Legal issues in Europe: check patents ?

  - by Bugz R us

  We live in Europe and are releasing commercial software in multiple countries. Besides of the licensing issues (GPL/LGPL/...) we have a question about patents. I know that if you're in the US, before you release software, you have to check if there aren't any patents you're infringing upon. I also know most of these patents or usually irrational and form a heavy burden on developers/software engineers. Now, as far as I know, EU rules are lots more ratinal, but there has been lobbying to also apply the same rules in EU. http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com http://www.stopsoftwarepatents.eu So what's the deal actually ? For example, there's mention of a patent on a shopping cart : http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=EP&NR=807891&KC=&FT=E Is that true ? Is a "shopping cart" patented ??? .................. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1396191/what-should-every-developer-know-about-legal-matters : 4.Software patent lawsuits are crap shoots. You should not, of course, knowingly violate a software patent. However, there is a small but real chance some company will sue you for violating their patent. This may happen even if you develop your software independently, you never heard of the patent, and the patent covers a technique that is intuitively obvious and almost completely unrelated to your software. There is not a lot you can do to avoid this, given the current USPTO policies, other than buy insurance. The good news is that patent trolls generally sue large companies with lots of money.

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• Patents and intellectual property

  - by MrDatabase

  A colleague of mine made an assertion that "your employer owns all patents that you file while an employee". Is this accurate? For example: Suppose I'm an employee of company xyz where I make widgets of type "w". In my spare time I make widgets of type "t" as a hobby. I do not use any resources from company xyz at all for my hobby. Also the widget types are completely different. For example w could be lawn mower wheels and t could be sliding door frames (so I'm not using any skills learned from my employment at company xyz when making widgets of type t). If I were to file and receive a patent for widgets of type t would company xyz have any rights/ownership to this at all?

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• Software patents in US/Europe? [closed]

  - by WeNeedAnswers

  I don't quite understand how the patent system works in the US and in much respect to Europe. I have heard that a pattern of operation can be patented. what are the implications, has anyone been taken to court yet over a software patent based on pattern of usage. I have seen the cases with nokia, palm and Apple. If I write something based on these patterns of operation, will I need a licence?

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• Copyrights, Trademarks, Patents - Oh My!

  - by kennedysteve

  Good references when looking to see if someone really legally owns a name, copyright, etc. Copyrights = http://cocatalog.loc.gov/ Trademarks = http://tess2.uspto.gov Patents = http://patft.uspto.gov/ Website Address = http://www.internic.net/whois.html   Copyright Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed.   Trademark A trademark protects words, phrases, symbols, or designs identifying the source of the goods or services of one party and distinguishing them from those of others.   Patents Set of exclusive rights to an inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention.   Website Address (aka "Domain name") The core portion of a website name (such as "apple.com" or "msn.com") of a web site, which is uniquely registered to an individual or company (also found to the right of the @ sign in an email address such as "[email protected]".)   Side note #1. LLC Company Names appear to be registered and maintained by state only. If you want to reserve a LLC name nation wide, you may have to register with each state.   Side note #2. The copyright office's FAQ has a question called "How do I protect my sighting of Elvis?". No kidding. Check it out. http://www.

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• Of patents, open source, and IBM

  <b>Cyber Cynic:</b> "After covering the war of words over IBM's use of patents in a business dispute with French start-up TurboHercules and giving my two cents on this open-source family fight, I'd hope the matter would die down. I was wrong."

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• Why I Am Against Software Patents

  <b>Redmonk:</b> "I am against software patents because it is not reasonable to expect that the current patent system, nor even one designed to improve or replace it, will ever be able to accurately determine what might be considered legitimately patentable..."

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• The Defensive Patent License makes patents less evil for open source

  <b>Network World: </b>"Two law professors from UC Berkeley have come up with a novel idea to protect open source developers from patent bullies. They call it the Defensive Patent License. They hope the DPL can address the objections FOSS developers have with patents the way the GPL addressed them for copyright."

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• Software patents [closed]

  - by user71622

  not exactly sure where I should post this but I have a question about filing for software patents. If I have an idea for a UI feature, how do I go about patenting that feature. I don't have any code written and I'm afraid my coding skills aren't up to snuff in order to code the thing I imagined but aside from that, can anyone give me any general guidance and info? I've gone through the CIPO site (Canada's patent office) but haven't come away with enough information on what I'm trying to patent but what I have understood is that I have to very thorough in describing what I'm trying to patent and showing that it could work. If anyone has gone through the process of patenting software, can you tell me about your experience? I would like to hear about US and Canadian experiences Thank you!

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• Week in Geek: Microsoft has Bought Underlying Patents for Netscape Browser

  - by Asian Angel

  Our latest edition of WIG is filled with news link goodness covering topics such as ChromeOS has received a new desktop-style look, a roundup of tools to remove Flashback malware on Macs, Kubuntu has a new official sponsor, and more. Wedding clipart courtesy of CartoonClipArtWorld. How to Stress Test the Hard Drives in Your PC or Server How To Customize Your Android Lock Screen with WidgetLocker The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit

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• Microsoft Sued Over Zune FM Radio Patents

  What does an eye doctor with a penchant for inventions have to do with Microsoft's Zune, and will the company ante up with him in a patent dispute or fight to the finish?

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• Why Mobile Patents are Such a Mess

  Our patent system is so under-funded, its mission, criteria and processes so broken and ill-suited to today's economy that the best solution is to just dismantled the patent office and start over.

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• Got an idea for an application, but part of it is patented, any suggestions?

  - by tekiegreg

  Hi there, so I've been working on developing an idea for an application that I think has the potential to be successful, however after some initial research I've discovered that at least part of my ideas are covered by a patent out there, the patent in particular is held by a really large company (I don't want to give away specifics for fear I'd draw their attention for sure). I'm debating a few options: 1) Develop patents around my ideas that don't conflict and maybe approach the company in question for a license exchange 2) Just approach them for a license outright 3) Just develop around it anyways and hope for the best :-p What have other people done in these situations? Are companies generally willing to grant patent licenses? Are they willing to grant them at reasonable prices? Thoughts?

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• Got an idea for an application, but part of it is patented, any suggestions?

  - by tekiegreg

  so I've been working on developing an idea for an application that I think has the potential to be successful, however after some initial research I've discovered that at least part of my ideas are covered by a patent out there, the patent in particular is held by a really large company (I don't want to give away specifics for fear I'd draw their attention for sure). I'm debating a few options: 1) Develop patents around my ideas that don't conflict and maybe approach the company in question for a license exchange 2) Just approach them for a license outright 3) Just develop around it anyways and hope for the best :-p What have other people done in these situations? Are companies generally willing to grant patent licenses? Are they willing to grant them at reasonable prices? Thoughts?

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• The patent difference between software and other technologies

  - by hstoerr

  Now and then someone makes a weird argument for software patents. What are the best reasons against software patents? What are the best replies for commonly heard arguments of patent proponents? See also the converse question of the dark side. :-) If you are for patents you might want to answer there to keep the stackoverflow philosophy of answers instead of discussions.

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• What should JavaScript be renamed to [closed]

  - by Evan Plaice

  Background: I have been watching Douglas Crockford's series of presentation about JavaScript History (which I highly recommend) lately and a one comment of his specifically piqued my attention. The trademark for 'JavaScript' is owned by Oracle History: Due to time constraints at Netscape, the language was literally written in weeks and released in very buggy form. To make it seem more appealing, Netscape picked JavaScript to appeal to the massively growing population of Java developers. Unfortunately, this pissed off Sun and stirred up a lot of controversy between the two organizations. At some point, they came to an agreement whereby Netscape was given permission to use the name as long as Sun owned the trademark. Some people incorrectly refer to JavaScript as ECMAScript because that's where the standard for the language is registered but, aside from it's current marketing-driven label, it doesn't really have a name. Fast Forward Sun goes down only to be swallowed by Oracle, who has no reservations about litigating for profit, now owns the name. So... If Oracle decides and forces JavaScript to take on a new name, what name would best represent the language?

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• The Apache License, v2.0: Copyright License vs Patent License

  - by user278064

  The Apache License, v2.0 [..] 2. Grant of Copyright License Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense and distribute the Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form. [..] 3. Grant of Patent License Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including cross-claim or counterclaim in lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within theWork constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. While the meaning of the Copyright License provision is rather clear, I did not get the meaning of the Patent License provision. Which advantages does the "Grant of Patent License" provision further give to Contributors? Why are they useful? Is the "Grant of Patent License" provision useful only in case of patent litigation?

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• How does Google maintain its codes?

  - by John Maxim

  Pagerank algorithm is not revealed to any of their associates programmers, but only accessible by Larry Page or maybe Sergey Brin. I wonder how do they go about managing their coding? There are times when you need to build something up and you may need more hands to help with coding, but you may also want to keep some secrets to yourself, I'm not saying I have secrets, but I wonder how do they manage their coding. I'm sure there are some ways to do it decently and professionally. The reason why friendster failed was because one of the factors they lost control over their coding part. I think this is an interesting question. But not easy to answer, maybe only a marginal knew.

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• How do people get around the Carmack's Reverse patent?

  - by Rei Miyasaka

  Apparently, Creative has a patent on Carmack's Reverse, and they successfully forced Id to modify their techniques for the source drop, as well as to include EAX in Doom 3. But Carmack's Reverse is discussed quite often and apparently it's a good choice for deferred shading, so it's presumably used in a lot of other high-budget productions too. Even though it's unlikely that Creative would go after smaller companies, I'm wondering how the bigger studios get around this problem. Do they just cross their fingers and hope Creative doesn't troll them, or do they just not use Carmack's Reverse at all?

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• Making money from a custom built interpreter?

  - by annoying_squid

  I have been making considerable progress lately on building an interpreter. I am building it from NASM assembly code (for the core engine) and C (cl.exe the Microsoft compiler for the parser). I really don't have a lot of time but I have a lot of good ideas on how to build this so it appeals to a certain niche market. I'd love to finish this but I need to face reality here ... unless I can make some good monetary return on my investment, there is not a lot of time for me to invest. So I ask the following questions to anyone out there, especially those who have experience in monetizing their programs: 1) How easy is it for a programmer to make good money from one design? (I know this is vague but it will be interesting to hear from those who have experience or know of others' experiences). 2) What are the biggest obstacles to making money from a programming design? 3) For the parser, I am using the Microsoft compiler (no IDE) I got from visual express, so will this be an issue? Will I have to pay royalties or a license fee? 4) As far as I know NASM is a 2-clause BSD licensed application. So this should allow me to use NASM for commericial development unless I am missing something? It's good to know these things before launching into the meat and potatoes of the project.

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• Why is (Ogg) Vorbis not automatically supported by Windows?

  - by flying sheep

  Vorbis was never threatened by MPEG LA, so it is undoubtedly completely patent free. (MPEG LA never misses a chance to spread patent FUD) Windows supports mp3, so it isn’t because they want to push their crappy wma. The GPL allows distribution alongside commercial products, and Even if they fear to ship GPL software, they can still load it automatically, like they do with XviD So why can’t a windows customer not simply drop a ogg vorbis file into his/her music library and listen to it via WMP? PS: To counter misconceptions: They already download the GPL’d XviD codec on demand, so they already have 99% of what it takes to do the same with Vorbis. It would take me about 5 minutes to do this, if I were familiar with the WMP code base and directshow filter system. PSS: I was told to ask this here rather than on stackoverflow, so i do.

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• Are there Adaptive Replacement Cache patent-free alternatives?

  - by aleccolocco

  An open source high-performance project I'm working on needs to keep a cache of parsed/compiled files. A plain LRU or a plain LFU wouldn't fit. Plain LRU wouldn't work as there will be remote batch/spider processes hitting the service regularly. Plain LFU wouldn't work because content will age. ARC seems like the perfect solution but since IBM holds patents to it at least one open source project dropped it. Are there any (good enough) alternatives? EDIT: I'm not looking for exactly the same thing, just something that could handle those two situations. Perhaps some simple strategy with timestamps and sources. There have to be many programmers who faced this situation before. That's why the "good enough" bit.

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• Because of over incumbent patents, is it possible to safely develop any software without the risk of legal action?

  - by Chris Barry

  Take this System and method for restricting user access rights on the internet based on rating information stored in a relational database There are hundreds of thousands of them out there. So basically you can't program anything really without breaching one of thousands of software patents. If your program succeeds you will be sued by someone! Does this happen all the time and people get silenced? Do trendy startups get hit by things like this? Surely all major web properties would have been hit by the example above by AT&T?

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