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

[Mike Scott]

  WordSmith Tools has been referred to a couple of times. Speaking for 
myself I do not think I have created anything which I could imagine 
myself (ethically) attempting to patent. The kinds of commonly-processed 
lists such as concordances, key word plots etc. WordSmith creates are 
open to anyone to reproduce -- AntConc and WMatrix have both done so, 
with my expressed enthusiasm behind them -- and I didn't invent the idea 
of a concordance or key words either, just implemented them.

I do agree there is always a danger of somebody causing a painful and 
expensive nuisance in the ways discussed, however. There is also some 
danger of getting food poisoning or having a motorbike crash but I still 
ride a bike and eat.

Cheers -- Mike

On 01/09/2010 17:43, Laurence Anthony wrote:
> Hi again,
>
> This discussion of patents is an important discussion that more of us
> in the world of corpus linguistics (which in some way is part of
> software engineering) should be concerned about.
>
>> 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.
> I still think the comment "anybody who uses those public domain
> methods is in danger of being sued." is a little too strong. Are there
> any patent lawyers in the discussion list that can give a more
> definitive answer about the potential risks here?
>
>> 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.
>>
> I may have misunderstood your  original statement, but it seemed that
> the implication was that a case could be made against someone
> producing the same *results*. I would still say that this is
> incorrect. However, I think you and I agree that a case can be made
> against software that uses an identical *algorithm*.
>
>> LA:
>>> This also seems incorrect, in Japan at least. If you publish something
>>> (in a journal for example), it automatically becomes public domain.
>> JFS:
>> 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.
>> 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.
> JFS:
>> 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.
> I see what your argument is now. You are worried that some patent
> holder could sue someone else (even if/when they have no chance of
> winning). And, that person would then have the grief of trying to
> defend their perfectly legal methods/tools in an expensive court case.
>
> So, coming back to an earlier comment, you are worried that the day
> might come when Mike Scott could get sued for developing WordSmith
> Tools, because some person has got a patent on this public domain
> idea. It's becoming a very sad world when we have to think about this
> kind of problem, isn't it?!
>
> I think this might be a greater concern for those who live in the
> states, where it is more common to sue people (at least that's what we
> hear). Here in Japan, such cases very, very rarely get to court. In
> the end, I think it's incredibly difficult to defend ourselves against
> trouble of this sort. And, an escalation in protective measures just
> leads to an increasingly worse situation.
>
> So, assuming you think this is a serious problem, what would you say
> the corpus community should do from now?
>
> Laurence.
>
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-- 
Mike Scott

***
If you publish research which uses WordSmith, do let me know so I can include it at
http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/corpus_linguistics_links/papers_using_wordsmith.htm
***

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