EFF Gets Another Victory Over Bogus Patents
from the good-for-them dept
It's been four years since the EFF first announced its bogus patent busting project, where it lined up 10 awful patents that needed to be revoked. While it's taken some time, slowly but surely it's been winning each battle. Back in January, we noted another win, and now the EFF has announced that the Patent Office has rejected all 95 claims on a patent held by NeoMedia. The patent in question covers scanning a barcode and connecting it to a website to look up info about the product. The EFF presented a bunch of prior art that (of course) the Patent Office had failed to consider. This is just the preliminary rejection, so NeoMedia can (and probably will) respond -- but it's going to have to explain why not a single claim survived.
Reader Comments (rss)
(Flattened / Threaded)
ZOMG INTELLECTUAL TERRRISTS!!!
This kind of subversive activity could DESTROY THE ENTIRE PATENT SYSTEM!!! It MUST NOT BE ALLOWED!!! How many patents could survive this kind of critical examination? It could turn patents into ENDANGERED SPECIES!! And the only thing that tells us apart from those uncouth unwashed savages out there is that WE have Intellectual Property, and they DON'T. If you threaten this distinction, that makes you nothing but a TERRRIST.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: ZOMG INTELLECTUAL TERRRISTS!!!
Poor grammar and spelling ruin some of the best satire.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: ZOMG INTELLECTUAL TERRRISTS!!!
Angry Dude, is that you ?
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Not so fast...
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Not so fast...
Sorry, hit send by mistake.
Before jumping for joy it is always useful to actually read what the Patent Examiner had to say.
Most of the claims were rejected over the disclosure of a patent application filed one year before this particular patent was filed as an application. Thus, while this one has an uphill struggle as it wends its way through the appeals process, bear in mind that there exists another patent that the Patent Examiner decided covered basically the same invention. In other words, even if this patent is eventually invalidated, or at least amended to place its claims in condition for allowance, there is still another patent in full force and effect covering virtually the same invention.
All that has really been done thus far is to substitute one patent for another. This is not what I would by any measure claim as a victory.
It seems to me the EFF is milking this for publicity, all the while failing to note that another patent is still in force and potentially assertable against alleged infringers.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Where art thou angry dude?
Angry Dude, PHd, Poet, and holder of several patents...
We the lemmings of TechDirt SUMMON YOU to comment on this post.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: ZOMG INTELLECTUAL TERRRISTS!!!
Maybe this is the new, cool way to spell. You know, misspell words so your "homies" don't think you are a geek or nerd. For examples visit myspace and just pick a profile, any profile. As for the article, yay! Hooray for common sense. Perhaps we can coax it out of near extinction.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: Not so fast...
Sounds like the EFF is creating more work for themselves. Perhaps they should not have been so ready to pat themselves on the back.
Oh well, kudos on getting the reexam.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: Re: Not so fast...
I tell you what really surprised me is that virtually all of the references were very close in time to the date the application was filed. I would have thought that such references would have pre-dated the application by many years. Perhaps the subject matter of the patent was not quite as obvious as some seem prone to believe.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: Re: Re: Not so fast...
Not necessarily. Yes, the '193 patent reference has a priority date in 1994, but the OA claims to reject a majority of the claims as being anticipated under 102(b) by a 1985 patent, USPN 4,780,599. So unless there's some cognizable differences between the '193 patent and the '599 patent, the subject matter very well may be that obvious.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: Re: ZOMG INTELLECTUAL TERRRISTS!!!
not every profile on myspace is filled with this new spelling trend. I've seen a couple besides mine that don't have it. mine doesn't count though because I never use or update my profile.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Victory?
Victory? Victory you say? Master Mike, not victory. The shroud of the Patent has fallen. Begun the IP War has!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
EFF=corporate shill?
who funds the EFF?
by the way, read....
http://www.genengnews.com/blog/item.aspx?id=419
and you'll understand (well, maybe not you) that the PTO routinely rejects all claims.
If the PTO did not earlier consider any of the art the EFF churned up, that could be because it wasnt particularly relevant. Name one case wher eteh EFF has in the end prevailed.
Stop the shilling!!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: EFF=corporate shill?
You do realize that you are, in fact, a shill yourself?
If the PTO did not earlier consider any of the art the EFF churned up, that could be because it wasnt particularly relevant.
Actually, if the patent office didn't consider any prior art, then that is a problem. The other thing you failed to mention is that your article is actually complaining more about claim rejections before the patent is issued. But why bother with details?
Name one case wher eteh EFF has in the end prevailed.
The EFF has successfully helped defend plenty of people. Chamberlain v. Skylink, Online Policy Group v. Diebold, JibJab Media v. Ludlow Music, etc. If we're only talking about patents, the EFF successfully had all the original claims of patent #6,614,729 rejected on re-exam.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: EFF=corporate shill?
If the PTO did not earlier consider any of the art the EFF churned up, that could be because it wasnt particularly relevant.
If that were true, then why would the PTO consider this prior art relevant now, so relevant as to raise "a substantial new question of patentability?" If this prior art wasn't relevant then, it would have been noted then, and the PTO would not have granted the reexamination. The fact that the PTO granted the reexam based on this prior art seriously undercuts your argument.
In all likelihood, this prior art was never brought to light during prosecution.
Name one case wher eteh EFF has in the end prevailed.
It doesn't matter what the EFF did or didn't do in the past. It succeeded (to an extent) this time.
Stop the shilling!!
Look who's talking.
Look, if you're pro-patent like I am, then this is a good thing. The PTO is correcting the errors it made in the past, and it is in the interest of everyone that only good patents be issued. Bad patents deserve to be cancelled on reexamination. It strenghtens and raises the integrity of the system.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: EFF=corporate shill?
@13
who funds the EFF?
according to their (EFF's) website, individual donors. while this could easily include large corporations wh/ the EFF could in theory shill for, a quick bit of digging shows that the EFF has, from the time of it's founding, mostly worked in the favor of individuals and small organizations without alot of money/resources against big large organizations with lots of money/resources. Not only is this behavior opposite to what you would expect from a shill, but considering who the EFF butts heads with (case in point, the US government), if they were a shill those organizations would be making a LOT of noise about the EFF's motives. I may be wrong, but if it looks like, walks like, and quacks like a duck, and you have no other evidence to the contrary, why assume it's an alligator?
by the way, read....
interesting article, but you fail to consider the following:
If the PTO did not earlier consider any of the art the EFF churned up, that could be because it wasnt particularly relevant. Name one case wher eteh EFF has in the end prevailed.
well, if they're not relevant, why on earth are they reconsidering them now? As for 'one case', go here, wh/ is the EFF patent busting case. out of the 10 on the list, 1 has been busted, and 4 (including the 1 in the article above) are being reexamined
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Were you aware that this ruling is a non-final action. Meaning that this is not a final rejection of NeoMedia’s patent.
The USPTO has set aside claims 1-95 by marking them as rejected for reasons cited in the USPTO document. This is standard procedure. NeoMedia now has 60 days to formalize their response to the USPTO and demonstrate to the USPTO why the claims in their patent are valid.
The claims of a patent undergoing reexamination are not invalidated until a reexamination certificate canceling the claims is issued.
Educate yourself on how the reexam process works:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2200_2201.htm
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re:
Were you aware that this ruling is a non-final action. Meaning that this is not a final rejection of NeoMedia’s patent.
Hence the phrase "This is just the preliminary rejection, so NeoMedia can (and probably will) respond" in the original article.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
I don't understand why people are allowed to patent such a trivial concept. Is it the case then that every time some new entity appears in the world, you should rush to patent everything that could possibly be done with it?
So, once the micro computer was invented, quick, patent the concept of 'putting your pc on your desk' and 'putting your pc under your desk', or 'a desk, intended to put a PC under'.
Quick, the cd has been invented, I should patent the idea of putting the wrong cds in the wrong cases, because the wrong case is nearest to hand and it saves time looking for the right one (anyone else out there who does this - cease and desist!).
Patenting 'using a bar code scanner connected to the web to look up info', I'm sorry but that's not an 'invention'. Its just an obvious way to use existing technologies.
If no one else patented it its not because its 'not obvious' but because no one else was petty-minded enough to bother, or was aware that the patents system had done such violence to the concept of 'invention'.
And weren't shops doing that before 1999? I vaguely remember selling cds to a second hand shop before that year, and they scanned the barcode on them and looked them up on a computer to find a suitable price. Later I remember they looked them up on Amazon, though I can't remember if they were using the web before '99 or just doing it locally.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
NeoMedia’s Patent Review Moves to Next Phase
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/080725/0419248.html
:)
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Add Your Comment