[Corpora-List] Patent application for "Referent tracking of portions of reality"

[John F. Sowa]

I would like to reiterate the point of my previous note:  the so-called
"inventors" have been patenting methods that were in the public domain
for years.  Publication is the most effective way to protect oneself
(and the whole community) against lawsuits.

But if patents of public domain methods are granted (as they have
been in one of the patents, and as the inventors threaten to do
in the other patent application), then anybody who uses those
public domain methods is in danger of being sued.

JFS:
>> But you can change the names of all the variables and rewrite all
>> the comments in a program, and every variation will compute exactly
>> the same results.  If somebody is granted a software patent, they
>> can threaten to sue anybody who uses an algorithm that is provably
>> equivalent.

LA:
> This is not correct, at least in Japan where I have successfully
> applied for and received two patents (except possibly the last line).

Both sentences are true.  If you relabel all the names, you still
have exactly the same algorithm.

JFS:
>> Prior publication is sufficient protection.  If you publish something
>> prior to the date of a patent application, anything that is described
>> in the publication is protected.  But it's important to describe your
>> software with the same terminology used in the publications.  That
>> makes it easier to defend against some patent that uses weird words.

LA:
> This also seems incorrect, in Japan at least. If you publish something
> (in a journal for example), it automatically becomes public domain.

By "protection", I meant protection against being sued.  I have been
publishing books and papers about conceptual graphs for 34 years, and
I would prefer not to be sued for using those methods.

the other patent application covers any method of resolving anaphoric
references, but they disguise it by talking about "referent tracking
of portions of reality."  If they had actually discovered a method
for relating character strings to some reality outside the computer,
that would indeed be a breakthrough.  But all that their invention
does is to relate character strings to other character strings.

LA:
> If someone does manage to get a patent on their software, we still
> have nothing to worry about because we are using and developing
> software based on much earlier public-domain ideas.

There is something to worry about:  the patent may be unenforceable
if carefully examined in court.  But the people who hold the patent
can still threaten to sue, and defending against such a lawsuit can
be very expensive.

TM>
> ... given the link to conceptual graphs, is probably insulting from
> your POV. What nonsense - they will be taking out a patent on
> anaphoric expressions next. Actually, from what they have written
> they are not very far from doing so!

Insults are cheap, but lawsuits can be horribly expensive.

And the patent application for "referent tracking of portions of
reality" is broad enough to cover any method of relating anaphoric
expressions.

CB>
> It is difficult to be definitive about the commercial value of
> patents that would probably be struck down in court. Partly
> this is because nobody can predict with certainty what a
> court would do, partly it is because it is almost always the
> commercially sensible thing to do to settle out of court even
> if you are in the right.

Those commercial implications can also have an indirect effect
on research by determining what topics do or do not get funding.

John Sowa

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