Microsoft employee: 'Ignorance is bliss and strongly recommended' on patents
A Microsoft employee--Eric Brechner--has finally stated the obvious on patents: they're worthless in terms of providing "disclosure" for would-be infringers (or licensees). It would appear that they're also worthless in terms of helping licensors:
When using existing libraries, services, tools, and methods from outside Microsoft, we must be respectful of licenses, copyrights, and patents. Generally, you want to carefully research licenses and copyrights (your contact in Legal and Corporate Affairs can help), and never search, view, or speculate about patents. I was confused by this guidance till I wrote and reviewed one of my own patents. The legal claims section--the only section that counts--was indecipherable by anyone but a patent attorney. Ignorance is bliss and strongly recommended when it comes to patents.
Techdirt gets the best shot in based on this feedback:
Of course, technically, a patent is supposed to be written so that someone skilled in the art can replicate the invention from the patent alone. But, when even patent holders can't understand their own patents, it's quite clear that reality doesn't match up with the theory here. So, the next time you hear a patent system defender claiming the importance of disclosure, it might be worth pointing out that one of the biggest patent holding companies in the world instructs its own employees to ignore patents, because you can't actually learn anything from them in the first place.
In short, we have a mess on our hands. We've been talking for years about fixing the patent system, but the only thing we've received for all our talk is a growing mountain of patents that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is incapable of clearing in an expeditious fashion, given a lack of expertise and a lack of resources.
Yes, the USPTO occasionally gets things right, as with its smackdown of Dell's attempted trademark around cloud computing, but this is the exception, not the rule.
We're left with a dysfunctional system that rewards ignorance and eventual litigation. Can we get some sanity around here?
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Personally, software patents need to die. Mathematical algorithms are already unpatentable - so why is software?
All that said, maybe Ballmer needs to ST-F-U about patents once and for all, ne?
/P
"The legal claims section -- the only section that counts -- was indecipherable by anyone but a patent attorney."
The source does not state he doesn't understand Microsoft's patents, he doesn't understand the legal side-effects of the patent, which are two completely different things. I do have to commend you on your ability to twist the words of any MS employee to fit your socialist agenda.
I concur with plbyrd
You twisted the entire sentiment of this employee. "Ignoring the patent" is also not what the Microsoft employee is plainly saying here. He's saying "don't attempt to interpret the patent yourself - ask a professional (ie, your attourney)". This is much different advice, and pretty much the same advice can be said for all legal matters.
Nice try though.
I don't expect you to be a lawyer, but I expect you to read the post before you comment on it. Try again.
The point of the patent is to protect the content. Programmers shouldn't be interpreting legalese, they should be interpreting the content. And yes, I've been reading (and criticizing) this blog for quite a long time and you are buried so far into the socialist counter-culture of FOSS that you may never find your way out again no matter how much you protest the label. You cannot claim to approve of Richard Stallman or anything related to the GNU Manifesto and claim to be anything other than a socialist.
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/paytonbyrd/free-as-in-libre-15019
I disagree with Matt fairly often, but one thing you can not call him is socialist.
Open source is not socialistic. You need to pull your head out and try to understand the concept of F/OSS before commenting.
Nowhere on the FSF web pages does it equate free with cost. You don't even understand the principles of OSS.
Go do some real programming little API monkey and let those who innovate have the freedom to do so.
a) The reason for Microsoft's guidelines re. (not) researching patents is to prevent being found a "wilful infringer": in the US, if you can be found to have known about a patent that you are infringing, you are liable for triple damages. To prevent this, Microsoft has this policy (which most people in intellectual property find unnecessarily draconian).
b) A patent has basically two parts: the specification and the claims. The specification should disclose at least an embodiment of the invention sufficiently clearly and completely for the skilled person to reproduce it (this requirement is taken quite seriously, by US patent courts in particular). The claims define precisely what is protected by the patent, and drafting them is indeed a dark art (they must define the invention broadly enough not to be easily circumvented, yet still find support in the specification and define something which is new and nonobvious). If Mr. Brechner was looking for disclosure in the claims, he was simply not looking in the right place.
This said, I find it strange that Mr. Brechner thought the claims undecipherable. A patent attorney drafting a patent application should always get the inventor to double-check the claims, to at least make sure that he's really claiming what the inventor has actually invented. And once you get used to the particular legalese of patent claims, they are quite precise and straightforward.
So, enlighten me here. Communism is a subset of Socialism. If I call someone a communist, I have associatively called them a socialist as well. If I point out that a specific quote by a specific person means X, and then prove that theory through the application of available factual resources (ie. The GNU Manifesto and the Communist Manifesto), then you need to come back with something a bit more tangible than name-calling.
And for the record, what is an API monkey? Is that "big thinker" speak for someone who gets stuff done? To paraphrase Ray, "The private sector expects results".
API monkey is a term of derision for "programmers" that can't do anything clever unless a library to drive it is available. See: .net "programmers".
If you drivel was correct and communism is a subset of socialism, then using the term interchangeably is still wrong, unless it is not a proper subset i.e equivalent sets. I wouldn't expect someone of your background to understand basic set theory.
I think it is funny how you use fallacy to try and prove your points. Open source is the epitome of the free market. Unlike MS, open source providers can't use artificial means to gain an advantage.
One last time there is nothing socialist about open source, it is a method of licensing, and is compatible with just about any business model you need to use.
- by plbyrd November 14, 2008 2:45 PM PST
- @The_Decider
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(16 Comments)Well, it's obvious that you've decided everything about how the world works and that no amount of fact or logic will make a difference to you. However, for the sake of people who may not understand the issues involved here, I'll go ahead and detail them.
1) Socialism is the idea that the people vis-a-vis the government should own communal property and that personal property be strictly limited, such as the right to own land, set your own wages, etc. It's basic tenant is the redistribution of wealth for the sake of social equality, the above methods are simply means to that end. Now, go read the Communist Manifesto and you'll see that it is indeed a targeted form of socialism. By definition, all Communists are Socialists, but not all Socialists are Communists.
2) I used the term socialist instead of communist with these comments to prevent people from seeing red before thinking about the facts.
3) You have no clue what you're talking about when you accuse me of being an API monkey. I've built many complex systems in software much less sophisticated than the .Net Framework. Have you ever designed and implemented a game in 6510 machine language which drives graphics and sound hardware directly? If so, then me and you are in the same very exclusive club! Dismissing .Net because it provides an extremely flexible and efficient library just shows that you have no value for anything that you yourself did not create from scratch.