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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 07 2018, @01:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the imaginary-property dept.

Today on this March 6, 2018, this Reuters article describes:

BlackBerry Ltd on Tuesday filed a patent infringement lawsuit against social media platforms Facebook Inc and its units WhatsApp and Instagram.

BlackBerry said Facebook and its companies developed "competing applications that improperly used BlackBerry's mobile messaging intellectual property".

There are more details on the lawsuit at Ars Technica:

BlackBerry, the once-great smartphone maker that exited the hardware business in 2016, is suing Facebook for patent infringement. BlackBerry owns a portfolio of broad software patents that cover some of the most basic features of modern smartphone messaging services—and the company says it wants Facebook to pay up.

[...] BlackBerry began its own campaign of patent litigation in 2016, suing the little-known Android phone maker BLU and the Internet telephony company Avaya. BLU agreed to pay up last year, and BlackBerry is now moving on to Facebook—potentially a much more lucrative target.

BlackBerry is asserting seven software patents against Facebook, and they're remarkably broad:

  • Patent 7,372,961 covers the concept of generating a cryptographic key by choosing a pseudorandom number and then checking if it is "less than order q prior to reducing mod q." If it is, the key is used. If not, another key is chosen at random and the process repeats.
  • Patent 8,209,634 covers the concept of using icons with numeric badges to signal the arrival of new messages.
  • Patent 8,279,173 covers the concept of tagging people in photos using an auto-completing search box.
  • Patent 8,301,713 covers the concept of marking a significant lull in a text message conversation by inserting a timestamp reflecting the time of the next message.
  • Patent 8,429,236 covers the concept of changing how a mobile device sends messages depending on whether they're being actively read by the recipient's device. For example, if updates aren't being read in real time, then the sending device may be able to conserve power by sending messages in batches rather than one at a time.
  • Patent 8,677,250 covers the concept of tying a messaging service and a game application together so that a user playing a game can send messages to contacts on the messaging app that includes updates on the player's progress in the game.
  • Patent 9,349,120 covers the concept of muting a message thread.

How fitting it is that today is the 15th anniversary of the SCO vs IBM lawsuit.


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  • (Score: 3, Disagree) by WizardFusion on Wednesday March 07 2018, @03:16PM (20 children)

    by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 07 2018, @03:16PM (#649008) Journal

    They need to stay, but only have a life of 3 years, then are open.

    This gives the holders time to make a product and make money.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday March 07 2018, @03:34PM (16 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 07 2018, @03:34PM (#649020) Journal

    I think software should be protected by copyright and not by patent. Software patents need to go.

    Software patents are ridiculous. They end up protecting very basic ideas that are easy to implement. This Blackberry lawsuit is an example. Messaging? Really? Doesn't this go back to text messaging, usenet, CompuServe, AOL, BBSes, SMS, IM, Google Hangouts. What exactly did Blackberry invent that Facebook infringes? Other than some obscure hand waving explanation that they can technically get away with because the system is broken.

    Before software patents are allowed to stay in any form, including your 3 years, the system first needs to be reformed quite seriously.

    Another example. Apple's lawsuit against Samsung. Bouncy scrolling? Slide to unlock?

    Let's just take Slide To Unlock. Before iPhone there were candy bar phones and flip phones. Now flip phones present an obvious way to know to unlock, when you flip open the phone. On a candy-bar phone, you would press some unlikely combination of keys to unlock. Now suppose an engineer is presented with the problem of how to unlock a modern smart phone. You have an "activate" button, and a touchscreen. Clearly, the activate button can be pressed accidentally. So what do you do? The OBVIOUS examples are:
    1. Some kind of simple gesture, such as a swipe in some direction.
    2. enter a PIN or password
    Slightly less obvious:
    3. The modern pattern of lines connecting dots

    Example 1 is obvious to anyone presented with the basic problem -- even if you've never seen an iPhone. You understand that the touchscreeen can respond to gestures. And a highly unlikely one is to swipe a certain way on the screen, guided by images underneath drawn on the screen. Such as a picture of a slider.

    I understand why Apple was upset that others were able to write their own software (Android) and build a market where all OEMs could participate, and all mobile network operators could participate, and all third party developers could participate without paying Apple for the privilege of bowing down to be privileged to be permitted to write for Apple's platform. But the world doesn't work that way. One would think Apple would figure this out when Windows became a de-facto standard on all non-Apple PCs, sold by any dealers who wanted to sell them (back when PCs were sold by dealers), and anyone could write software for them without getting any permission.

    Back to the topic: I don't really see any way to reform software patents. Your 3 year proposal simply means the abuse is shortened to 3 years.

    The scope of what could be covered by a software patent needs to be severely limited.

    The fact that software patents exist at all means that You and I cannot write any software at all without a lawyer. Because we might violate some patent that we don't even know exists. Even if it were only for 3 years. The liability is REAL.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 07 2018, @05:48PM (5 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday March 07 2018, @05:48PM (#649091)

      The patent office is just not doing their jobs.
      Patents are intended to protect an invention. The concept of invention is that you come up with something new and non-trivial, which makes a significant (positive or negative) difference compared to what was before.
      Most of the listed patents fail that test. They are minor experience optimizations, which most engineers working in that field would eventually implement. They are not inventions worthy of decade-long protection.

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 07 2018, @08:47PM (4 children)

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday March 07 2018, @08:47PM (#649164) Journal

        > The patent office is just not doing their jobs.

        I'll say. They have incentive not to seriously vet patents. Their revenue is directly proportional to the amount of patent applications. So if by being very lax they give hope to businesses that getting a patent is easy, and get patent trolls into a fever over a patent rush, a grab to patent every idea under the sun, and also scare others into getting defensive patents, they bring in more revenue.

        > Patents are intended to protect an invention.

        It's even narrower than that. They're supposed to protect an implementation, a physical device, that does something novel. It was too short a conceptual step between that and protecting an idea, and that step was taken when the US allowed the patenting of software alone. Otherwise, it would. be impractical to patent software. It would have to be separately patented on PCs, MacIntoshes, Raspberry Pis, Xboxes, and maybe even Commodore 64s and Turing machines, as well as every other computer system capable of executing the algorithm.

        • (Score: 2) by VanessaE on Wednesday March 07 2018, @10:49PM (1 child)

          by VanessaE (3396) <vanessa.e.dannenberg@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 07 2018, @10:49PM (#649213) Journal

          [...] and maybe even Commodore 64s [...]

          Too late. That already happened, after a fashion. A software patent on XOR'ing the crosshairs for some old CAD system (so that it can be drawn and moved around non-destructively) is why C64 and relatives have inverse-image portions of their respective character sets, to enable them to fake a flashing cursor (and is why Apple II has a little "checkerboard" symbol for it).

          • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday March 09 2018, @10:00PM

            by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday March 09 2018, @10:00PM (#650254) Journal

            Huh, that's a bit of computer history I didn't know. Always wondered why an Apple II had 3 ways to display a glyph: white on black, black on white (inverse), and blinking (argh!). Never made much sense. Figures it was patent insanity.

            Patents have driven computer system designers to do lots of nutty workarounds. Apple and their "ownership" of the whole "look and feel" of the MacIntosh GUI forced Windows into welding titlebars to the individual windows rather than having a dedicated space at the top of the screen, and using a recycle bin icon rather than a trash can icon, stuff like that.

        • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @01:35AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @01:35AM (#649265)

          It was too short a conceptual step between that and protecting an idea, and that step was taken when the US allowed the patenting of software alone.

          Note that the US did not allow patenting abstract ideas, including software. The Supreme Court explicitly ruled against it in the Alice decision [wikipedia.org] (2014), which has since been used hundreds of times to invalidate such patents.

          Despite the Court's avoidance of mention of software in the opinion, the Alice decision has had a dramatic effect on the validity of so-called software patents and business-method patents.[39] Since Alice, these patents have suffered a very high mortality rate.[40] Hundreds of patents have been invalidated under §101 of the U.S. patent laws in Federal District Courts. Applying Alice, district court judges have found many of these claims to be patent-ineligible abstract ideas.[41]

          The US Patent Office, however, keeps approving software and business idea patents, acting explicitly against the SCOTUS and patent law itself, because the USPTO employees are evaluated on "number of approved patents". The incentives are wrong, and lead to the billions of dollars of direct economic damage from patent trolls like the current BlackBerry.

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:03AM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday March 08 2018, @08:03AM (#649395) Homepage
            > ... USPTO employees are evaluated on "number of approved patents". The incentives are wrong ...

            Yes, absolutely. And there's such a simple solution to this problem.

            Incentivise them on the number of *rejected* patents.

            They'll still be stamping papers as quickly as they land on their desks, and we get rid of all of the pollution. (Yes, I'm convinced they don't read them.)
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday March 07 2018, @07:21PM (5 children)

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday March 07 2018, @07:21PM (#649125) Journal

      I think software should be protected by copyright and not by patent. Software patents need to go.

      Software patents are ridiculous. They end up protecting very basic ideas that are easy to implement.

      Hold on here..... That's just not true.

      Patent protection has specific OBVIOUSNESS limitations, as well as specific prohibition of patenting an IDEA.
      (I'm not digging up the obvious case law on this, because you already know better than to make that claim).

      There's no such protections or prohibitions in copyright law. So be careful what you wish for.

      If there were such, there would be no more than one trashy Romance novel every 70 years (And the world would be a better place).

      I find it highly SUSPICIONS that TFS and Ars cites each and every patent as "covers the concept", when I suspect that the author (Timothy Lee) knows full well that is specifically NOT stated in any of these patents, they all patent a specific "method and apparatus".

      Note: This isn't a defense of software patents in general, just a rebuttal of a claim and a a false claim in the Ars article.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 07 2018, @07:52PM (4 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 07 2018, @07:52PM (#649138) Journal

        You're saying patent protection is supposed to work well to protect only actual innovations.

        In practice it does not work and is broken.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday March 07 2018, @08:10PM (3 children)

          by frojack (1554) on Wednesday March 07 2018, @08:10PM (#649143) Journal

          Actually, I think if you look around, there have been a number of patent decisions that are slowly bringing patents closer to where they should be, and reducing nuisance law suits. Its not as broken as you think.

          http://www.iam-media.com/blog/detail.aspx?g=e67f38bd-ef61-440d-9877-e1cfe47f59e5 [iam-media.com]

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday March 07 2018, @09:24PM (2 children)

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 07 2018, @09:24PM (#649178) Journal

            there have been a number of patent decisions that are slowly bringing patents closer to where they should be

            At what great cost! And it is a cost borne by victims of patent shakedowns. Not to mention the RISK of losing and incurring huge liabilities.

            You view it as acceptable. I do not.

            It is broken. Seriously broken. I wouldn't mind software patents being burned to the ground. We seemed to get through the 80's and some of the 90's without software patents. I remember when I could just write code without needing a lawyer.

            I don't understand what you see about software patents is worth defending? I seem them as being a gigantic net drag on innovation. Not something that promotes innovation. The rewards and who gets rewarded is perverse and wrong. Ancient, obsolete and useless abstract paper patents (without any demonstratable invention) get used a couple decades later to shake down innovative businesses. And some ridiculous patent lawsuits are now in the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

            It should all end in fire.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @01:39AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @01:39AM (#649268)

              I wouldn't mind software patents being burned to the ground.

              From the legal standpoint, they've already burned down. [soylentnews.org] It's just that the US Patent Office is doing a terrible job and keeps approving them even though it really, really shouldn't, and challenging those patents in court to get them invalidated costs a lot of money.

              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:30AM

                by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:30AM (#649364) Journal

                There should be a penalty for the patent office if they grant patents that are later invalidated. So that they have an incentive not to grant them to begin with.

                --
                The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 07 2018, @08:32PM (1 child)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday March 07 2018, @08:32PM (#649158)

      I hate to argue in favor of software patents, but let me play devil's advocate here for a bit.

      You're absolutely right about patents where it's "something we've been doing for ages + 'on a computer'": those are total bullshit, and the USPTO is negligent in allowing these broad and obvious patents.

      But what if your software really is an invention, and not something obvious like a graphical slider on an iPhone? For an example here, I'll point to the infamous MP3 patents. Devising and implementing the MP3 codec was not a trivial task: it required an extremely advanced understanding of mathematics, and the "invention" of an algorithm to use math to lossily compress musical data. I doubt most people on this site could come up with something similar on their own, myself included. Should this be patentable? Why or why not?

      Mind you, I never liked the fact that (until recently when the patents expired) you couldn't legally use MP3 on a Linux system without going to the hassle of buying a license, and because of this a lot of distros didn't have it included by default. But I also can't really put it in the same category as these bullshit software patents like those about online shopping carts or whatever.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 08 2018, @05:25PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 08 2018, @05:25PM (#649568) Journal

        I can't really disagree with that, on it's face. But stick with me.

        1. Suppose someone writes their own implementation of mp3 codecs. Should that be an infringement?
        2. Suppose someone devises their own codecs (say ogg-vorbis). Should that be an infringement?

        To 1 I would say Maybe.
        To 2 I would say Not infringement.
        Those answers lean towards only reluctantly allowing patentability. Sadly, my answers here might lead to the situation that you and I both hate: that people can't independently implement their own open source codecs without obtaining a license.

        And THAT is why I think all software patents need to go. It brings us right back to the situation where I cannot write software without a lawyer. Who knows what submarine patent is lurking out there somewhere. Even worthless patents in big bundles like Intellectual Vultures. You are forced to pay handsomely to buy a big bundle of worthless patent licenses -- because the cost of litigation and the potential liability are too high.

        You bring up an interesting situation where maybe there should be some patent protection. But it's like opening the door just a crack to the devil who has a wedged foot. Or the camel's nose under the tent. Or the slippery slope. Once you allow software patents, even a little bit, you end up with the current mess we presently have.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday March 07 2018, @10:29PM

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 07 2018, @10:29PM (#649205) Journal

      Software patents are ridiculous. They end up protecting very basic ideas that are easy to implement. This Blackberry lawsuit is an example.

      Some food for thought as to why patenting ways to put things together is a bad idea:

      - Hi, welcome to ThisRestaruant. I'll be your server. What are you having today?
      - I'll have the BLT.
      - I'm sorry, SomeOtherRestaurant has the software food patent on "Using bacon to offset the health benefits of vegetables," so we legally can't make food like that. Legal would kill us!
      - How about a Reuben?
      - Well, ReubensRestaurantHoldings still holds the software food patent on "A method for combining roast beef and sauerkraut into a bread-conveyed device", so...
      - Didn't that one expire?
      - No, that was their earlier one, "A method for combining bread and sauerkraut into a roast beef-conveyed device."
      - Ah. Okay, something simple like a ham sandwich then.
      - Oh, I'm so sorry, BeingADickIncorporated actually sued us last year for using cured, prepared pork products in violation of their totally valid software food patent.
      - Who're they?
      - A "software food patent holdings" group. They used to make phones that did email, but changed their business model and their name when people stopped buying their products.
      - They don't even make software food ?
      - No, but they hold the sacred trust of software food patents on how to combine things to make a finished product. It's a very valuable role.
      - Doesn't sound like it.
      - Well, no, but that is what legal makes us say. Anyway, what can I get you for lunch?
      - Is there anything you can legally serve me?
      - Well, arguably, no, even the software food that we ourselves have patented probably violates innumerable other silly patents. That's the consequence of allowing patents on any step of making any recipe, I guess.
      - You people are insane.

    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday March 08 2018, @01:54AM

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday March 08 2018, @01:54AM (#649275) Homepage Journal

      patents are ridiculous. They end up protecting very basic ideas that are easy to implement. This Blackberry lawsuit is an example. Messaging? Really? Doesn't this go back to text messaging, usenet, CompuServe, AOL, BBSes, SMS, IM, Google Hangouts.

      No. It goes back much, much, farther [wikipedia.org]

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:55PM (2 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:55PM (#649061) Journal

    They need to stay, but only have a life of 3 years, then are open.
    This gives the holders time to make a product and make money.

    1. Invent - no one knows what you invented unless you tell them. Don't. If it's really inventive, you're golden.
    2. Make product - still no one knows. Still golden. Unless, you know, your idea is obvious.
    3. Sell product, make money - others are (perhaps) now scrambling to re-invent. Unless, you know, your idea is trivial.
    4. You had first crack, made money - Now go invent something else. Society, and you, win. Without artificial boosts.

    Here's the question I have:

    Why should you get some magic time slot because you're 5 seconds, or 5 minutes, or 5 months ahead of someone else who is just as clever as you are? If you have something non-obvious and highly inventive, you will almost certainly get a sales window. If it isn't one or both of those things, then it has no real intrinsic value except if that is enforced artificially – and that does society no good at all, most certainly in software development, which can be very inexpensive, unless done by incompetents. Which are, generally speaking, not a great group to hand advantages to. So: Why?

    • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday March 07 2018, @11:32PM (1 child)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday March 07 2018, @11:32PM (#649223) Journal

      Why?

      I'm not going to try to argue for a line about where software patents should be drawn and what is "trivial." (Software patents seem to be a particular zone for abuse.) Nor am I going to argue in favor of the current patent system in general, which has many flaws.

      But why patents as a general concept? Because people can't always get money to make something themselves, or because they don't have the resources to get production going as fast as some behemoth company that can take the idea and run with it. Or because "trivial" things are often only "trivial" in retrospect. Sometimes a simple mechanism is a game-changer, but can take thousands or tens of thousand of hours to develop.

      Watch the movie "Flash of Genius" about the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper for a counterargument. The guy tries to do exactly what you say, but Ford grabs hints about the mechanism in a demo. Then they just build their own. Major car manufacturers had been working on the problem for years, and this guy found what many teams of engineers had been unable to perfect.

      And what did Ford argue in court? That the invention was trivial -- a mere combination of a few simple circuits. Yes, it was trivial in a sense, but it also took a guy to figure out what many others couldn't. He probably saved them tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands in development and testing expenses, even by just the hints they gleaned from his demo.

      Bottom line is that just because something is simple to implement (and therefore could be easily copied and mass produced by a big company as soon as they see it) doesn't mean it's simple to figure out how to make the first one. Shouldn't the person who spends many hours of his/her life solving that problem be granted a benefit for it? And if we don't grant such benefits, will it lead to inefficiencies because smart people don't want to spend time tinkering to solve such issues outside of a corporate structure... Thereby slowing pace of innovation?

      • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday March 08 2018, @12:17AM

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday March 08 2018, @12:17AM (#649241) Journal

        But why patents as a general concept?

        First of all, we're talking about software patents here. Not patents as a general concept. Physical products are radically different: development time, costs, risks. You can't make a truly new drug or a truly new motor design without a non-trivial investment. You can make software at home, between dinner and putting the kids to bed. While chortling to yourself. For zero dollars.

        Shouldn't the person who spends many hours of his/her life solving that problem be granted a benefit for it?

        Not if it's software, and either trivial or obvious, no. Or both. If it's neither, the window to make money will open naturally. If it's not, it won't.

        Protip: Don't give away your source code. Or, if you do, accept that you did. You make it public, someone will use it if it's useful. This, IMHO, is a good thing. Unless you want to make money. Because most good software with good documentation can't be easily monetized with "support." Because it isn't broken, and how to use it is well established and easy to understand. So if you give the code for good software away... you'd better have another way to pay the piper.

        Or, you can just make lousy software / documentation. If you can still make people want to use it (which will last until someone makes a good version... and which they likely will because you gave the code away), why then you can monetize support.

        OTOH, if you use a trade secret approach – tell no one it exists until it ships, and tell no one how you did it, ever – it's yours to monetize unless someone else can duplicate or better it. If it's non-obvious, that will take time. If it's non-trivial, they may not even be able to pull it off, or if they do, it might take them a lot longer than it took you. There's your money-making window. One you deserve.

        The guy tries to do exactly what you say, but Ford grabs hints about the mechanism in a demo.

        No, he didn't do exactly what I said, because if he had, there would have been no demo from which the invention, such as it was, was easily lifted: There would have been a non-trivial product that was non-obvious.

        And what did Ford argue in court? That the invention was trivial -- a mere combination of a few simple circuits.

        If that was true, then it was trivial. Furthermore, in a demo of a wiper controller doing something that they could not figure out, how is it that they trivially figured it out? Apparently, this wasn't a demo of the device to a prospective buyer who had never been able to figure it out; this was an exposure of the method, which is just.... dumb. Should have been a black box with a price list for the contents, and a lawyer right there to see to it that no other information transfer took place without a contract. If your assertion is that they would have figured it out anyway... then it was not only trivial, it was obvious. Which I not-so-humbly submit should mean "not worth much, if anything."

        Even so, your example is a physical product, not software, and the unavoidable costs and risks are radically different, as are the benefits to society. Software can move much faster than hardware, presuming it isn't crippled by IP issues. Which is the point. Software patents are crippling. They need to go away.

        Bottom line is that just because something is simple to implement (and therefore could be easily copied and mass produced by a big company as soon as they see it) doesn't mean it's simple to figure out how to make the first one.

        If invention by A is trivial/simple for B once its function or effect is merely described, then I think it is clearly too obvious to patent. Software or hardware. This is a huge problem with the hardware patent system. The software patent system shouldn't even exist but as it does, it's ended up with those problems as well.

        Too much crap is patented. The system is utterly broken. It's holding almost all of us back while a very few moneyed individuals get rich off it. That's terrible.