Posts by Fresnel 7 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jun 2011
If a patent battle is too complex for a jury to understand then they should acquit the defendent. Perhaps this is exactly what should happen and the judge should tell the jury this?
Perhaps a patent standard of being able to convince laymen of your 'invention' would bring a bit of sanity-checking back to the system...
There are strict rules about the promotion of prescription only medicines in the UK.
You cannot advertise them to the general public - encouraging people to 'ask your doctor about it..'. Obviously manufacturers can pitch their product at healthcare professionals. Such information is publically available, but you would need to seek it out.
Personally I support this approach. More specifically, advertising a cure for cancer should be a criminal offense in my opinion.
"The problem is patent authorities are reluctant to invalidate patents on the grounds of obviousness. It is generally taken as a weak argument. This is because many good inventions appear obvious after the event. A good example is the Black and Decker workmate, which essentially combined a work-top with a clamp. The guy who came up with the invention spent quite some time and effort trialling it."
The workmate example is often cited, but workbenches and clamps have been around for thousands of years. If no example of a workmate could be found - give the man his patent.
The problem with the sort of patent at issue is that new technologies are entering the market all the time and a whole legal industry to devoted to filing patents that imagines uses for these. In reality, 99.99% of the worthwhile ideas are truly obvious - multiple development teams would independently think of the same idea. These patents then become anti-competitive corporate weapons, rather than protecting true innovators.
In my opinion the burden of proof should be on the defense. The fact that someone thought of a feature before handheld displays were common should be a strong point against it. Someone unware of the patent, independently having the same idea should also score against it. For instance, I would bet that the Apple team who introduced the feature tried to patent it and ran up against the BT patent - which they then brought.
"However then we get to the most important claim in the context of iOS/Android; claim 4, which basically describes changing displayed screen orientation in response to changes in the physical orientation of the device. Which of course all iOS and Android devices do. So unfortunately, if this patent is held to be valid, it very much looks as though Android ( and by using Android HTC) will be said to infringe claim 4."
This 'invention' is too obvious! I remember viewing photographs on my first digital camera (long before smartphones) and wishing it had this feature. Once people start viewing pictures and documents on handheld displays the need for a rotate function is obvious. Making that function automatic is obvious. Patents should not be granted/upheld for such low hanging fruit.
Using GFP modded cells as a gain medium is novel. But the idea of Injecting gene-modded cells into a patient for 'imaging'! Apart from the legal and safety issues - where exactly do you apply them to form a laser cavity and to what end? O er....
Apart from media whoring to generate publicity - this seems like a pointless demo. A candidate for an Ignoble Prize.
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