[HN Gopher] SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll
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SparkFun Hooks a Patent Troll
Author : mkeeter
Score : 763 points
Date : 2021-06-30 23:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sparkfun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sparkfun.com)
| ncphil wrote:
| The terms for both patent and copyright are way too long. Instead
| of increasing over the years as we advanced further into the
| Digital Age, they should have been gradually decreasing. The
| whole point of the US patent and copyright system is not to "give
| a special reward" to inventors and authors, but to "promote the
| Progress of Science and the useful Arts" by building up the
| public domain commons of inventions and art. The current law,
| with its lenghthy terms and slipshod processes that invite abuse
| by trolls and encourage the smothering oppression by monopoly
| power, is at odds with those original goals. It needs to be torn
| down completely and rebuilt for this not-so-new century.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| > _The whole point of the US patent and copyright system is not
| to "give a special reward" to inventors and authors, but to
| "promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts" by
| building up the public domain commons of inventions and art._
|
| First, citation needed.
|
| Second, these two things are not at odds. People require
| incentives. If you want people to submit their inventions to
| the public domain, you _do_ need to provide them with economic
| incentives for it. Otherwise, people will simply keep their
| inventions to themselves, as they did before, and as many do
| now.
| P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote:
| Why not just kill patent trolls? That should solve this problem
| real quick.
| [deleted]
| legel wrote:
| I have personally enjoyed community SparkFun events in Boulder,
| Colorado, which were hosted at a level that was both cool and fun
| for kids, adults, and experts alike. A really creative and
| intelligent company. Thanks Nathan for the courage to publish
| this, and helping other entrepreneurs inventing the future, to
| not be afraid to call fraud (and prior art) exactly what it is.
| ww520 wrote:
| (Note that none of the following is legal advice.)
|
| One tip on reading patent - ignore most of the diagrams and
| description, and go straight to the claims. The claims are the
| only valid part of the patent. In this case, all the
| static/dynamic RAM, signals, memory cache, and malloc stuffs are
| irrelevant and misdirection.
|
| This patent has only 1 claim [1]. The claim has a series of
| elements making a number of conditions for the patent. Notice
| that semicolons separate each claim elements. That means these
| are AND-conditions. All these conditions need to be met to fit
| the patent. Also notice the colons. These list the sub-elements
| or sub-conditions.
|
| Reading the claim. It seems to be a system with a number of
| processors of different kinds. There's some memory with
| input/output ports. The memory holds the instructions and data.
| The input/output ports of the processors connect (coupled) to the
| input/output ports of the memory to read the instructions and
| data. Do computation on the data based on the instruction. Spit
| out the result. The kinds of processors are: multiplier,
| arithmetic unit, arithmetic logic unit, and a bit manipulation
| unit. The processors run simultaneously.
|
| To defeat this patent, you can list prior arts. This is the most
| damaging because it invalidates the whole patent. Or you can go
| by the claim conditions. You can either claim your product
| doesn't have any one of the kind of the processors (no bit
| manipulation), or the processor doesn't read instruction/data
| from memory (instructions are hard-coded or a processor gets its
| input from another processor), or the processor doesn't connect
| to the memory directly (via a bus or via a data switch or via
| special registers), or the processor doesn't do computation
| according to the instruction (e.g. a doubler always double the
| data), or your processors run serially in some fashion, etc.
|
| And then there's the legal definition of the terms in the claim,
| such as what is a multiplier, an arithmetic unit, an ALU, what's
| a bit manipulation unit, and what's "coupling." This process is
| called claim construction and done by the court via precedents
| and the intents described in the description of the patent. Many
| times a patent lawsuit falls apart during the claim construction
| phase because the definition of the terms don't apply to the sued
| product.
|
| [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US6289434B1/en
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Thank you. I'm glad I stopped by HN today. You write well.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Great analysis. I bought from sparkfun, but they should be
| taken better advice to deal with it. The article is not good
| enough as defence, just like a stand or a wish more.
| [deleted]
| ww520 wrote:
| Just reread the claim after went home. Some fixes below.
|
| All processors are the same. Each processor has the following
| required components: multiplier, arithmetic unit, arithmetic
| logic unit, and a bit manipulation unit. Each internal
| component has input/output ports which connect to the
| input/output ports of the processor. The ALU and bit components
| can run concurrently to the other components.
| nkssy wrote:
| It might help if the patent dispute involved or required actual
| instantiations of the content of the patent.
|
| It should be a valid argument that if no device exists for a
| category of patents then the patent is unenforceable. There must
| be a prototype. Set a threshold. After filing, there has to be
| some kind of prototype to demonstrate as an example. Otherwise
| what was the point of the patent anyway? Especially if its only
| good for 20 years. It should manifest within 5 years in the least
| otherwise where was the benefit to society of granting an
| effective monopoly?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Me: software engr, retired; also patent agent who worked in
| Google Patent Litigation.
|
| A rookie mistake is reading the TEXT of a patent. A pro looks
| only at the claims. The text is only there to "support" the
| claims, which boils down to using the same words. Cynical, I
| know.
|
| Claims unfortunately look like gibberish if you're unschooled,
| but "construing" them is an early step in a trial, and often if
| you get a bad claim construction you give up. I worked on tons of
| claim construction briefs.
|
| I'll read those claims a little later this evening.
| robomartin wrote:
| > A rookie mistake is reading the TEXT of a patent. A pro looks
| only at the claims. The text is only there to "support" the
| claims
|
| That's how I have always looked at patents...until I ran into
| an attorney who insisted that you have to read both and that
| the text is just as important. The context was in reviewing
| patents for prior art. This confused the hell out of me because
| very often the text is where you see someone throw the kitchen
| sink at the patent. In other words, you often run into things
| in the text that are not really being claimed.
|
| Not sure who's right any more. Color me confused.
|
| Is the difference between the two cases one where, in the first
| case, one is using all of the patent (text and claims) as a
| source of prior art (the text being like a magazine article
| where someone discusses a bunch of ideas) vs. the second case,
| where one is looking for infringement of an existing patent
| based on what is claimed?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Bingo. You've got it. I was talking about SparkFun trying to
| determine if he's infringing. When we look at a patent that
| way, we care mainly what the claim says.
|
| On the other hand, every word of everything ever published
| can be used as prior art. So if SparkFun was trying to
| _invalidate_ the patent, they would look for anything
| published anywhere, including patents but also journals,
| books, etc.
|
| Your comment about the kitchen sink is also true -- when
| you're trying to get the patent through the PTO, you may want
| to add claims later, and you cannot change the spec. So you
| put everything in the spec you _might_ want to claim later.
| mlyle wrote:
| The text is the authority on what the phrases in the claims
| mean. So, you can be surprised when the text sets out a much
| broader meaning of a term than is used in common parlance.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Ah, if only you'd seen some of the claim construction
| briefs and opinions I've seen. The text is not the ONLY
| authority, and if it contradicts common practice then the
| lawyers can argue about it.
|
| For example, in chemical cases, you cannot have your own
| definition of "methylated." There are standard definitions
| of terms. Regrettably, in software not so much.
| akersten wrote:
| > I'll read those claims a little later this evening.
|
| I'll save everyone the trouble and tell you without reading
| them: they're bullshit and so are most software/computer
| patents. We really need to come together as an industry and
| fight this crap. Huge props to SparkFun for taking on these
| bottom feeders.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| The paper in [1], which I wrote in 2014, was rejected (in a
| slightly different version) by CACM. The referee was a
| Microsoft researcher, who knew nothing about patents and
| relied on some "expert" who told him "the patent law has
| changed." This was completely bogus because the law on
| obviousness hadn't changed at all.
|
| So the big companies, e.g. IBM and Microsoft, are not on our
| side at all. Neither are ACM and IEEE. I've been on this
| issue for a long, long time, and it really WILL take a
| bottom-up revolution. We will get no support whatsoever from
| the people who should be leading.
|
| [1]
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399580
| a1371 wrote:
| How did you learn to read the claims?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I took the Kayten course [1] to review for the Patent Bar
| exam. It was three days, and then I spent a couple months
| reviewing all the old exam questions.
|
| [1] https://passingpatentbarwithprg.tumblr.com/post/999221851
| 3/w...
| gyc wrote:
| Note that the patent bar exam tests you on knowledge of
| rules and regulations of the patent office and of the
| Patent Cooperation Treaty that many countries have signed
| on to. So you won't necessarily learn to draft a patent or
| how to read a patent just by studying materials for the
| patent bar exam.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| True. Like anything, you only learn the REAL practice of
| it by doing it. In my case, I found a lawyer who made a
| practice of taking novices & training them (then they'd
| eventually go on to higher-paying jobs).
| FpUser wrote:
| I do not want to go in the details of particular case. My opinion
| is that in general the paten system had outlived its purpose
| since some time and is now nothing but a detriment to society. It
| only benefits big corps at the expense of everybody else.
|
| I can say that it is not possible for a regular person to do
| anything without breaking some patent. Mostly obvious and not
| deserving being granted in a first place. The only reason said
| person is not always sued is because of being too small of a
| fish. The minute a couple of bucks is made all of the vultures
| come down.
| cormacrelf wrote:
| Altair Logic actually sued Asus as well in 2019, after the patent
| had expired in 2018, alleging that Asus sold products infringing
| exactly this patent 6,289,434 before then. Asus tried,
| unsuccessfully, to get it dismissed, so we'll see where it goes
| later.
|
| But the dismissal judgment is enlightening about what happens
| when you sit on a patent for 20 years and then start to sue
| people. The 'marking requirement' referred to is that you stamp
| products with a US patent number.
|
| > The '434 Patent was valid for 20 years from the filing date,
| meaning that it expired on February 27, 2018. See 35 U.S.C. SS
| 154(a)(2). Because Altair did not bring suit until after the
| patent had expired, it is entitled to relief only if it can
| ultimately establish notice of infringement prior to the patent's
| expiration date. Here, Altair would need to prove either that it
| satisfied the marking requirement or that neither it nor any of
| its licensees ever made a product which needed to be marked.
|
| It seems the fact of never having licensed your patent to anyone
| allows you to avoid having to give notice to infringers. I'm
| guessing the damages limitations around non-marking are drafted
| to avoid a situation where someone sees a product, sees it and
| copies it thinking that because it has no patent number, it
| hasn't been patented. There appear to be other 'constructive
| notice' provisions. But it seems a little perverse that you're at
| an advantage, notice-wise, as a patent troll if you avoid the
| marking requirements by never attempting to license the patent to
| anyone in 20 years, and separately nobody takes a second look
| when searching for patents applicable to their products. Normally
| both those things point to the patent not being useful or
| valuable from a licensee perspective.
|
| https://casetext.com/case/altair-logix-llc-v-asus-computer-i...
|
| (Morbid detail: the patent was issued on September 11, 2001.
| Somehow the USPTO worked through that day.)
| civilized wrote:
| Why not just abolish patents? Who or what would oppose this?
| Ballas wrote:
| Well patents were designed so that you give away your "recipe"
| in exchange for a limited time monopoly. Clearly that is still
| a valid use case, but it seems that with patent trolls, patents
| are getting misused.
|
| Software patents should 100% be abolished - for the same reason
| that mathematical formulas are not patentable.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I wonder if one could make trolling patent trolls self-
| sustaining.
|
| For example, let's say you get hit with a demand letter. I review
| it and agree to finance your case. Using my resources, I prepare
| to invalidate the troll's patents _unless_ they settle for some
| amount less than their expected lifetime value from said patents.
| This gets split between you and me (after litigation costs), with
| maybe some of my share reserved for the eventual holdout who
| fights and gets their patents invalidated.
|
| Less emotionally satisfying than invalidation. But far more
| scalable and thus threatening to the model.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The lifetime value of having _a_ patent is much higher than the
| lifetime value of any specific patent. That 's because the scam
| works whether the patent is valuable or not. Invalidating a
| patent costs them the time it takes to get a new one.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Invalidating a patent costs them the time it takes to get
| a new one_
|
| The threat would only work if it were in respect of a large
| swathe of the troll's portfolio. Agree it would be
| meaningless if done against a few of their patents, or if the
| patents were trivial to file for.
| bob33212 wrote:
| I think you could scare off a good number of these trolls by
| saying.
|
| "I look forward to the discovery processes during this lawsuit
| as well as reviewing the prior art associated with this patent.
| I will be creating a blog to document this process for public
| consumption as soon as the lawsuit is filed."
| wiredfool wrote:
| """Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes
| rather miss it."""
|
| https://www.audioholics.com/news/blue-jeans-strikes-back
| simiones wrote:
| This only works if the patent troll believes the patent can be
| invalidated. This is rather hard for many patents - a lot of
| the time patent trolls own legitimate patents, they just try to
| apply them over-broadly. You would defeat them in court, but
| would not automatically invalidate their patent - you may only
| be able to show that their claims do not cover your work.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| In that case, the troll can almost always just drop the suit
| and then you have no claim against them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the troll can almost always just drop the suit and then
| you have no claim against them_
|
| I do not believe that would suspend an _inter partes review_
| [1]. Of course, if this method of relief is not available the
| above wouldn 't work.
|
| [1] https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/trials/inter-partes-
| revie...
| _pmf_ wrote:
| > So imagine you're a small business
|
| Is SparkFun considered to be a small business?
| croo wrote:
| The comments are about the contradictions between the patent and
| the blog post and the technical discussion are great. I would
| point out another angle.
|
| I had a loud and irritating neighbour who patronized me
| (everyone) and I had hard time coping until I gave the guy a
| stupid nickname. When I was able to laugh the whole ordeal went
| away and no longer stressed me. This blog post is the same: it
| helps SparkFun shifting the seriousness of the threat into
| something laughable so it can be handled in a calm manner as it
| should be and to not loose another night of sleep over it. How
| exact or rational are the snarky remarks about the pattern
| doesn't really matter.
| ladyattis wrote:
| These kinds of patents really prove that we need to boost the
| budget for the USPTO since they're always having things like this
| slip through despite the prior art out there. It's much like the
| FTC in this situation where Congress knows that if the FTC is
| well funded then nonsense that businesses do won't get by so
| easily so they starve the beast just enough to keep it
| ineffective. I swear it's the same kind of setup for the patent
| office.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| > Patent trolls are Americans that are destroying American
| manufacturing and small business
|
| Why should the identity of their victims matter? Also, are they?
| dbt00 wrote:
| > > Patent trolls are Americans that are destroying American
| manufacturing and small business
|
| > Why should the identity of their victims matter? Also, are
| they?
|
| Because this is a fairly American problem with the American
| patent system in particular and the ultimate target of pieces
| like this are American lawmakers and voters.
|
| It's not that only American victims matter, it's that this
| problem is fairly American in nature and scope.
| Covzire wrote:
| Democrats have a chance at overhauling the Patent system
| tomorrow, the pathetic nature of these thieves is hated
| across the entire political spectrum and it would pass with
| an overwhelming support if voted on by itself.
| keithnz wrote:
| I wonder whether I could get GPT3 to write patents for me so I
| can be lazy patent troll? hmmm
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| Reading that article makes me not want to open a business in the
| USA, and I really want to open a business in the USA...
| desine wrote:
| Interesting read. Much more in-depth bullshittery than the usual
| patent troll. I love sparkfun, I've spent far too much money
| there building small trinkets, but I like supporting a local
| independent shop, and getting quality builds, rather than waiting
| and risking lower quality direct from Shenzen. I'm almost glad
| they got hit by the troll, because they're one of the companies
| with the wherewithal and life to blow them out of the water.
| yborg wrote:
| Once the law firm realizes that their potential score here is
| at best in the low hundreds of dollars, they will undoubtedly
| never follow up. It's like any spam, the few victims they land
| on will pay for dozens of pointless filings.
| kens wrote:
| I like SparkFun and I don't like patent trolls, but I have to say
| that SparkFun's mockery of the patent doesn't make sense. It is
| pretty clear that this patent was written by an engineer
| describing their actual system in great detail followed by one
| fairly narrow claim. I've seen many patents that are mostly
| written by lawyers, and I don't see any influence of lawyers in
| this patent.
|
| SparkFun's criticism is kind of painful to read. The diagram that
| SparkFun claims is SPI is not SPI. The discussion that SparkFun
| claims is malloc is entirely unrelated to malloc. SparkFun claims
| that when the patent discusses processing multiple streams of
| data that it's discussing variable length arrays, but it's not.
| They claim that a MAU doesn't exist, but a MAU is a multiplier-
| accumulator unit. SparkFun seems to be entirely confusing the
| motivation of the engineer filing the patent in 2008 with the
| motivation of the patent trolls. I've seen many patents that are
| fluff and nonsense, but this one is a solid patent.
|
| The infringement claim is probably bogus; I don't see any
| evidence that the pcDuino infringes the one narrow claim in the
| patent. I hope that SparkFun can quickly get rid of this lawsuit.
| I don't get any enjoyment out of criticizing SparkFun's post, but
| having spent the time to look over the patent, I feel that I
| should comment.
| Traster wrote:
| >SparkFun's criticism is kind of painful to read. The diagram
| that SparkFun claims is SPI is not SPI. The discussion that
| SparkFun claims is malloc is entirely unrelated to malloc.
|
| Yeah this is where my spidey sense started tingling. He mocks
| "Dynamic RAM" but I don't understand the joke, there is dynamic
| and static RAM and presumably this patent is talking about
| loading the configuration at run-time as opposed to using
| something like Flash. What's funny about this?
|
| As far as I understood the parts he was narrating it sounds
| less like malloc and more like a reprogrammable instruction
| memory. It's certainly not something unique and patentable but
| might be valid context for a real innovation.
| [deleted]
| jayzalowitz wrote:
| Most likely: Kens runs a site on reverse engineering and the
| first result is a arduino. Ken is advising/writing/a part of
| the suit somehow.
| kens wrote:
| Let me state that this[*] is 100% not true. I have no
| connection at all with this suit, except seeing it on HN like
| everyone else. It's a bit bizarre to appear in some sort of
| conspiracy theory.
|
| [*] i.e. the second sentence. I do have a blog on reverse
| engineering.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Yeah. This was painful.
|
| > Al is claiming that they have patent number 6289434 which
| they quickly start referring to as patent '434. Can I tell you
| how humorous it is that an attorney feels it necessary to
| shorten a 7-digit number to a 4-character abbreviation? Thanks
| Al. That really saves me some time.
|
| The 3 digit "abbreviation" is a common thing in patent law.
| It's because, when in court, they refer to them by those last
| three if they're unambiguous (to save time). So it would make
| sense to use the "abbreviated" form in the legal filings.
|
| Now, about it being expired:
|
| > Patent 6289434 was written in 1998 and granted in 2001. I'll
| start by pointing out that patents are valid for 20 years from
| the date on which the application for the patent was filed, so
| 2018, but I'm no patent attorney.
|
| IANAL as well, but Google Patents[0] lists it as expired
| worldwide... Can anyone chime in about this?
|
| [0]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6289434B1/en
| josaka wrote:
| 20 years is a good first approximation for patent term.
| Patents expire 20 years from the first non-provisional
| priority date in the US, plus whatever term extension is
| granted by the USPTO to compensate you for USPTO delays, less
| any term lost for a terminal disclaimer.
|
| It's fair game to sue on an expired patent, because in some
| cases, you can collect for past damages that accrued up to
| six years in the past. That's probably why the complaint
| focused on an older product, potentially sold during the
| patent term.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Having significant Gell-Mann amnesia here after reading the
| article... and some of the comments here.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| I'm no patent lawyer either, but I skimmed over the pages of
| "434" and it's clearly a bunch of half baked shit. Can you list
| one novelty in there worthy of patent, even for 1998?
|
| I'll grant you that `malloc` might be a bit of a stretch for
| the full extent of the patent, but surely FPGA manufacturers
| aren't sweating about this, right!?
|
| Anyway, space-time tradeoffs and the like, it's all basically
| the same shit, so why not just patent the whole shebang.
|
| Well, at least Sparkfun's Nate is out to call you out.
| colanderman wrote:
| If you "skimmed pages" you are reading the wrong pages.
|
| The only page that matters is the final one, the text after
| "I Claim". It is very narrow (as the GP points out), and for
| something that probably actually existed and did something
| arguably, if minutely, novel. It sounds like a particular
| implementation technique for some sort of MIMD vector
| processor.
|
| The entire rest of the document is explicatory, and indicates
| nothing about what was actually patented, just about how the
| invention is actually used in a system.
| zh3 wrote:
| Bit of a stretch to claim MIMD/vector processing covers
| that particular product [0]; maybe they're going after that
| because it's got a Mali 400 GPU (in which case I'd just
| refer them to ARM's lawyers).
|
| [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20160909142123/https://www.s
| parkf...
| mannykannot wrote:
| The trolls presumably picked on SparkFun rather than ARM
| because the latter has the resources to fight back hard.
| zh3 wrote:
| I once had a similiar situation, where we were going to
| be sued if we didn't pay up. I sent back a letter asking
| them to explicitly identify the infringing item; never
| heard back.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| The claim as I understand it (for reference: based on the
| description on the last page of https://cdn.sparkfun.com/as
| sets/home_page_posts/3/9/1/7/Pate..., after "I Claim"):
|
| "A data processing device with these components:
|
| - RAM for storing data and instructions - Multiple
| processors, each connected to the RAM, each with a
| multiplier, an arithmetic unit, an arithmetic logic unit,
| and a bit manipulation unit, all of these units coupled so
| that output from one can be used as input for the next.
|
| The processors can work in parallel. They can - read
| instructions and data from RAM - execute the instructions
| to process the data - output the results "
|
| That's it (unless I missed something, but I don't think
| so). That is not very narrow. On the contrary: it describes
| pretty much any multi-processor system. It certainly
| doesn't describe a particular implementation technique.
| alias_neo wrote:
| If I didn't know better, I could easily mistake that for
| a description of the Cell microarchitecture[0]
|
| "...that combines a general-purpose PowerPC core of
| modest performance with streamlined coprocessing elements
| which greatly accelerate multimedia and vector processing
| applications, as well as many other forms of dedicated
| computation."
|
| and
|
| "To achieve the high performance needed for
| mathematically intensive tasks, such as decoding/encoding
| MPEG streams, generating or transforming three-
| dimensional data, or undertaking Fourier analysis of
| data, the Cell processor marries the SPEs and the PPE via
| EIB to give access, via fully cache coherent DMA (direct
| memory access), to both main memory and to other external
| data storage"
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_%28microprocessor%29
| mannykannot wrote:
| There is only one claim, and the whole claim is a bit
| more specific that that. This prompts a couple of
| questions for those who know more about these things than
| I do:
|
| 1) When a claim consists of a conjunction of clauses,
| must an allegedly infringing device match all the clauses
| in order for it to be infringing that claim, or can each
| clause be infringed independently of whether the others
| are? At first sight, the latter seems unworkable, as an
| effective way to specify something is to say "it is a
| sort of X, except that..."
|
| 2) One of those clauses specifies "A plurality of media
| processing units, each media processing unit having an
| input/output coupled to at least one of the addressable
| memory input/outputs and comprising:..." (four short
| paragraphs follow, each describing, in general terms,
| some aspect of these units.) For the purposes of
| determining infringement of this patent, would any
| component matching these four paragraphs be considered a
| media processing unit?
| colanderman wrote:
| Regarding (1), yes, it must match all. Because of this,
| patents usually enumerate variants as separate claims.
| E.g., the 1st claim will be something very broad. The 2nd
| claim will be, "claim 1, with feature X" [1]. The 3rd
| claim, "claim 1, with feature Y". The 4th claim, "claim
| 2, with feature X". etc. This (a) allows the inventor to
| claim each aspect of their invention separately; (b)
| since claims are invalidated independently, allows the
| inventor to still claim the very specific combination of
| _all_ parts of their invention, if the broader claims are
| invalidated; and (c) allows the inventor to claim
| refinements of the invention which might otherwise be
| considered novel and therefore patentable by someone
| else.
|
| This patent is odd in that it _doesn 't_ follow that
| pattern. Just one solitary claim.
|
| (For reference, a random unrelated patent I happen to be
| reading now uses 26 claims to basically say "we invented
| a slightly different way to lay out RAID-6 parity
| blocks".)
|
| [1] The specific verbiage used is usually something like
| "the system/method of claim N, further comprising
| [additional mechanism]", or "the system/method of claim
| N, wherein [specific design choice]".
| Taniwha wrote:
| I've said this elsewhere here but I think that 1) it's likely
| been written by an engineer, not a patent lawyer, and 2) it's
| possible that one reason for the large initial exposition is
| not to claim new invention but to establish prior art - to
| protect the engineer against patent trolls
| barbegal wrote:
| I agree, the patent is slightly odd in that it only makes a
| single claim on the media processing units. I think any multi-
| core processor would fit the claim of the patent. It seems that
| in this case the engineer was told to file the patent but they
| didn't have enough money to get the lawyers to produce some
| proper claims to protect the unique elements of this design.
| colanderman wrote:
| Agreed. Most patents include a sequence of progressively
| narrower claims building on one another, including
| permutations of subsets of the new mechanisms claimed, with
| the expectation that the broadest is likely invalid, the
| narrowest is definitely novel, and the courts can determine
| where the boundary falls between the others.
|
| That this patent does none of this I agree suggests a lawyer
| did not get paid enough, or the patent was intended to
| publish the ideas (i.e. stop the "big players" from copying
| an idea and patenting it).
|
| As-is, depending on how you squint and read it, the single
| claim either is too specific for anything but a clone of the
| product it's describing to infringe, or so generic it's just
| describing prior art.
| fossuser wrote:
| I wonder if it's possible to make some sort of patent troll
| insurance company.
|
| Basically a company that attempts to collect as many patents as
| possible to weaponize against trolls and then provides legal
| protection to clients from trolls. The clients can share their
| patents with the insurance company too to help them become more
| powerful.
|
| Then when sued by a troll the insurance company goes scorched
| earth to destroy them as a matter of policy. So their clients get
| the benefit of also deterring suits just because they're
| represented by this insurance company.
| bjt wrote:
| See https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/defensive-patent-
| licen...
|
| I did some work on this years before the article, while in law
| school. Seems to be defunct now.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| This is a good idea.
|
| I'm surprised a clever 501c3 isn't quietly buying up patents,
| and burying them, or using them as legal weapons against
| companies that abuse the patent system.
|
| Just did a quick search, and there is a company.
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-takes-another-step-t...
| ineedasername wrote:
| Unfortunately the economics of insurance & low settlement
| demands from patent trolls would simply come into sync at some
| point.
|
| This is because patent trolling is a low effort attack, while
| fighting them is a high effort activity. With an insurance
| company it would be no different: The pool of money from
| premiums still wouldn't be enough to fight all of the trolls
| because they would also all be pooled.
|
| It's cheaper to just collect premiums, payout claims as little
| as possible, and if claims get too high you re-assess your
| actuarial tables and raise premiums where appropriate.
|
| Insurance companies simply aren't in the business of solving
| the root-cause of any given problem. They're in the business of
| risk analysis & pooled risk & selling financial risk mitigation
| on that basis.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Insurance companies simply aren't in the business of
| solving the root-cause of any given problem. They're in the
| business of risk analysis & pooled risk & selling financial
| risk mitigation on that basis.
|
| Insurance companies generally hold vast amounts of assets -
| and some already shift their investment strategy based on
| policy, e.g. climate change and other sustainability goals
| (see https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-
| services/our-i...), work with large customers to reduce their
| risk exposure or indirectly go after the root causes, e.g. by
| exiting risk-prone markets (basically, no insurance any more
| for flood or fire prone areas).
| ineedasername wrote:
| Risk reduction is a little different than attempting to
| solve the root cause. It's also notable that risk reduction
| generally doesn't include launching massive litigation
| initiatives. An important distinction is that insurance
| companies try to reduce risk so that they reduce claims,
| not solve the root problem. In fact solving the problem
| could put them out of business. Any effort towards risk
| reduction is to maximize profit, not solve the problem.
|
| I also don't see any market that insurance companies could
| exit to reduced patent trolling.
| wpietri wrote:
| This surely is true for things where insurance company
| behavior doesn't increase risk. But here the incentives are
| different because every dollar they pay out to a patent troll
| is a dollar that can be used against them.
|
| I could believe that they wouldn't be "scorched earth" about
| it. But I could see them being incredibly difficult to get a
| dime out of. Insurance companies tend to be like that
| normally, but here the incentives are even stronger.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Insurance companies simply aren't in the business of
| solving the root-cause of any given problem.
|
| There is precedent for insurance underwriters to attempt to
| modify/reduce the risks of their underwriting.
|
| Aviation insurance often comes with training or other
| restrictions more severe than what the FAA requires.
| "Coverage shall not be in effect until pilot completes
| FlightSafety initial. Coverage will then be only for
| supervised operations by a pilot meeting the open pilot
| requirements listed in ___ until a further 25 hours of
| supervised operating experience is completed." or similar.
|
| UL (Underwriters' Laboratories) origin story is from building
| insurance underwriters seeking to understand their risk.
| 6510 wrote:
| You could gather a bunch of anons on some hard to track website
| then mail bricks and letters to them.
|
| Every envelope has to be opened. The content can be the usual
| wordy mess and be made to look a lot like the official kind of
| mail they receive so that it all has to be kept and sorted to
| make sure nothing important is skipped.
| akdor1154 wrote:
| Might work, still sounds like a protection racket though.
| lozaning wrote:
| >Basically a company that attempts to collect as many patents
| as possible to weaponize
|
| You've more or less explained IBM. You cant come at IBM because
| their patent portfolio is so vast, they you're bound to be
| doing something that infringes on some patent they have.
|
| When I working there you wouldn't get promoted from being an IC
| to a manager unless you had at least 10 patents to your name
| during your tenure there.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Hold on, I'm going to go patent this idea. :)
| alisonkisk wrote:
| 1. This is called a patent pool. It's very common.
|
| 2. You can't sue a parent troll for patent infringement, since
| they don't have any technology business. They are only
| "companies" on paper.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| You can preemptively sue them, albeit not for infringing on
| your IP. It's called declaratory relief.
| _jal wrote:
| You can only try that if you know they exist.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Sure, but they have to come up for air sooner or later.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Unfortunately it would basically be an ongoing DDoS on the
| court system to try to get declaratory relief for existing
| garbage patents and the never ending stream if them created
| every day.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Maybe. I'm not sure anyone has tried it. It wouldn't work
| against a party like Intellectual Ventures but in theory
| you might be able to take out a nascent troll with a
| smaller war chest, and if you win they might have a tough
| time selling off their portfolio.
| lathiat wrote:
| See also the Open Invention Network:
| https://openinventionnetwork.com/
| foodstances wrote:
| https://lotnet.com/
| rawtxapp wrote:
| This is it, for companies that are not generating money, it's
| free to join too.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| There's a ton of asymmetry that makes this not work. One,
| patent trolls are "non-practicing entities". They don't build
| anything, or do anything other than sue people, so you can t
| sue them for infringement of patents. Two they shard their
| portfolio into very small chunks, often one patent per company.
| If you knock down one patent, you just take out that one
| patent. Three, they are usually run by lawyers, so their cost
| to attack is just their time, whereas you'll have to hire an
| attorney at market rate to respond. Four, if things get hairy,
| they can almost always just dismiss the case, and then you lose
| any claim you have against them, because they're not suing you
| any more. It's tricky to get counterclaims set up so you can
| continue grinding them down after they try to dismiss - and it
| will cost you money. And, at the end of the day, you'll at best
| invalidate their one patent.
| ohazi wrote:
| > > The cost is further reduced by employing only static or
| dynamic ram as a means for holding the state of the system. [...]
|
| > Dynamic ram? Can I poke fun at them for not knowing what RAM
| is? Yes I can.
|
| > The above paragraph succinctly describes malloc(), which is
| perhaps one of the most fundamental advancements in modern
| computing. The problem is that Al didn't invent it. Memory
| management (the ability to take RAM and then give it back when
| your function is done) goes back to the dawn of computing.
|
| No, this is wrong.
|
| Nathan is referring to _dynamic memory allocation_ , which is
| what malloc does, but that isn't what this line in the lawsuit is
| talking about.
|
| Dynamic RAM, or DRAM is RAM that stores state in a capacitor.
| This is what your laptop uses -- DDR4 SDRAM is "Double data rate
| (version 4) synchronous _dynamic RAM_ ". In DRAM, the charge on
| the capacitors slowly dissipates, so DRAM needs to be "refreshed"
| periodically, which is why it's referred to a "dynamic" RAM.
|
| _Static_ RAM, or SRAM, is RAM that stores state in a register-
| like structure (usually cross-coupled inverters). It 's "static"
| in that it doesn't need to be refreshed -- as long as the supply
| voltage is maintained, the bits stored in an SRAM will remain
| intact.
|
| I agree that this patent lawsuit is bullshit, and I really hate
| to derail the conversation, but I'm surprised by Nathan's
| misunderstanding here, given that SparkFun makes embedded boards
| that use all kinds of memory. SRAM/DRAM isn't unusual
| terminology. The distinction doesn't even matter in the context
| of this line in the lawsuit, but if you're going to make a point
| of nitpicking about something, you should really make sure that
| you're actually right about it first...
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| You are mistaken. The lawsuit itself is clearly referring to
| dynamic memory allocation. It refers to "static or dynamic ram"
| to mean RAM in general, but the paragraph has nothing to do
| with the characteristics of SRAM vs DRAM.
|
| From page 6 of the lawsuit [0]:
|
| > in fixed function implementations all possible functional
| requirements of the necessary data processing must be
| implemented on the silicon regardless of the final application
| of the device or the nature of the data to be processed.
|
| > Therefore, if a fixed function device must adaptively process
| data, then it must commit silicon resources to process all
| possible flavors of the data.
|
| > The inventors therefore sought to provide a new apparatus for
| implementing systems on a chip that will enable the user to
| achieve performance of fixed-function implementation at a lower
| cost.
|
| > The lower cost is achieved by removing redundancy from the
| system. The redundancy is removed by re-using groups of
| computational and storage elements in different configurations.
|
| > The cost is further reduced by employing only static or
| dynamic ram as a means for holding the state of the system.
|
| > All of this reconfiguration can take place dynamically in
| run-time without any degradation of performance over fixed-
| function implementations.
|
| > The present invention is therefore an apparatus for
| adaptively dynamically reconfiguring groups of computations and
| storage elements in run-time to process multiple separate
| streams of data and control at varying rates.
|
| As you can see, it's saying that rather than pinning RAM (as
| previous fixed-function approaches did in the 80s), this system
| allows you to request memory dynamically.
|
| I mean, it's a garbage patent anyway and not really worth so
| much time trying to analyze what they are claiming, but Nathan
| isn't wrong - the patent really isn't referring to SRAM and
| DRAM.
|
| [0]
| https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/3/9/1/7/Alta...
| ohazi wrote:
| The lawsuit is decidedly _not_ referring to dynamic memory
| allocation. There 's no way to "request" a runtime-specified
| amount of memory dynamically here.
|
| The memory in question is a tiny, fixed-size block of RAM
| inside the chip that's directly connected to the various
| logic blocks. There is no way to allocate or request anything
| -- that memory is all you've got, and all of the bits have
| been spoken for by the time the chip is taped out.
|
| What they seem to be describing is something resembling a C
| union mapped directly onto that RAM block. That's not
| _dynamic_ allocation, that 's "these bits are interpreted
| differently depending on which logic blocks are active, so
| that we don't have to have a separate RAM block for each
| functional unit, because that would be a waste of space."
|
| Every legal combination and order of configuration structures
| in this RAM block is specified and tested, that's why it's
| not dynamic allocation. If anything, it's a really big list
| of possible _static_ allocations.
|
| I agree with you that the SRAM/DRAM distinction is
| immaterial, but that's just how patents are written.
|
| But of course, all this is a complete tangent. Nothing that
| SparkFun makes has _anything to do with any of this_.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| What chance does our legal system have of gauging the
| validity of these patents when we can't even get a forum of
| technical people, with no horse in the race, to agree on
| what these things mean?
| [deleted]
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| My understanding is that this is basically the endgame of
| all patents related to computing. You want to patent
| something so vague and poorly defined that it can be used
| to make a claim against anything.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Yes, that is very common for patents, but is not the case
| here. The patent and even lawsuit are very explicit that
| the "invention" works with _both_ static and dynamic RAM.
| There is no point where they claim that dynamic RAM is
| better or some novel part of their invention. They are
| instead excluding the need for things like ROM.
| simondotau wrote:
| In a reasonable world, benefit of the doubt shouldn't be
| given to the patent holder when there is genuine
| confusion. It should be incumbent upon the filer to
| describe their invention in a way that is clear to
| experts in that relevant field.
|
| Sadly I suspect the world we live in isn't so reasonable.
| URSpider94 wrote:
| The patent holder didn't receive their patent by
| accident. It was reviewed by an examiner in the patent
| office. Patent examiners are skilled technical
| researchers who are trained to comprehend the matter they
| are examining. Once a patent has been granted, indeed,
| there is benefit of the doubt that the patent is valid.
| However - when it comes to whether the patent applies to
| a given invention, that's a matter of debate in a
| courtroom.
| sircastor wrote:
| In think you are grossly overestimating the effort and
| expertise being applied in patent approval.
|
| Or more specifically, I think you're overestimating the
| expertise of the examiner in the relevant field.
| smaudet wrote:
| This is also completely ignoring economics of quality for
| government - the folks working there typically are either
| bottom rung (willing to accept non-competetive lower
| pay), or as a 'civic duty' of some sort. There is some
| exception perhaps for the intelligence community (NSA et
| all) because they have had somewhat a monopoly in that
| legally speaking, although again, there are private
| entities out there you never hear of which may be of
| higher quality.
|
| But even there, talk to pretty much any vet - you can
| quickly surmise that as far as classifications go, most
| stuff is over classified without valid reason, because
| the safest thing to do for the low level peon is slap a
| "top secret" on anything and everything...
|
| And there's plenty of evidence otherwise as others have
| mentioned - most patents are garbage and should never
| have been given out.
| chris_wot wrote:
| Patent examiners seem to grant all sorts of crap that is
| prior art. I have very little faith in them.
|
| Edit: removed example, it was wrong.
| simondotau wrote:
| That's certainly a good description of how the patent
| registration process is designed to work. Unfortunately
| reality, as represented by the broad proliferation of
| exceedingly moronic patents, begs to differ.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| No, you are obviously wrong here. Even the wording of the
| lawsuit is extremely clear: "The cost is further reduced by
| employing only static or dynamic ram as a means for holding
| the state of the system." - that is, they only use S/D RAM
| for holding the state of the system, no other kind of memory.
|
| I have no idea how you can misread this to think it refers to
| requesting memory dynamically - they _explicitly_ say
| "static or dynamic ram" - they claim the system can work with
| static RAM just as well as dynamic RAM. How do you or
| SparkFun come up thinking they are saying dynamic RAM is
| better?
| Nevermark wrote:
| Requesting memory "dynamically" has nothing to do with
| "dynamic' in 'dynamic memory".
|
| Requesting dynamically means that RAM is allocated while a
| program is running, not at compile or simply launch time.
| That is a software consideration.
|
| Dynamic RAM means memory that requires refreshes to
| maintain the information it stores. A completely unrelated
| hardware concern.
|
| The word dynamic simply means something that happens in
| time so is used in a myriad of otherwise quite different
| computing concepts.
| mirker wrote:
| I'd just like to add that "Dynamic Programming" is one
| example of word fluff. "Dynamic" is somewhat of an
| ambiguous marketing buzzword, unfortunately.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > Requesting dynamically means that RAM is allocated
| while a program is running, not at compile or simply
| launch time. That is a software consideration.
|
| Yes, that's part of my point. The lawsuit and patent
| clearly say dynamic/static RAM, they never talk about
| software and never mention requesting/allocating memory,
| dynamically or otherwise.
| smaudet wrote:
| You are cherry picking:
|
| "The '434 patent refers to the aggregate of the dynamically
| reconfigurable computational and storage elements as a
| "media processing unit."
|
| They are broadly talking about loading things in RAM. If
| there is a more specific purpose, its not mentioned here.
|
| I.e. there is no special purpose chip here which happens to
| be embedded in some other special purpose device, it
| honestly sounds like some engineer wrote a driver that
| could live in RAM and they tried to patent that.
|
| It then specifically goes on talk about it being a thing at
| runtime, not some pre-soldered state, i.e. software, so
| yes, malloc.
|
| Utterly ridiculous.
| jhgb wrote:
| > As you can see, it's saying that rather than pinning RAM
| (as previous fixed-function approaches did in the 80s), this
| system allows you to request memory dynamically
|
| I must have missed the "as you can see" part since I see
| nothing in the quoted passages that would contradict the
| notion of a device configured by the contents of some SRAM or
| DRAM cells. At the very best one could say that the text
| might be ambiguous. After all, "cost is further reduced by
| employing only static or dynamic ram as a means for holding
| the state of the system" is a statement that you could easily
| make about a bog-standard von Neumann computer as well.
| sharemywin wrote:
| I remember when I toured a research nuclear reactor and I was
| talking with the nuclear phd student and I said something about
| an alpha particle and the protons and neutrons. And they were
| trying to say alpha particles aren't made up of protons and
| neutrons. Made me realize than that even an expert in the field
| might not know something that I would have thought was common
| knowledge.
| dekhn wrote:
| Right. I was pretty surprised and amused when I was learning
| nuclear chemistry and realized: an alpha particle is also a
| helium-4 nuclei, a beta particle is an electron/positron, and
| a gamma ray is just high energy electromagnetic radiation.
|
| This is sort of because the discoveries were made before
| people were really aware of helium nuclei,
| electrons/positrons, or high energy EM, they just ran
| physical experiments in a lab and saw there were different
| kinds of radiation that had different physical properties,
| and under close inspection of those properties, the nature of
| the radiation was deduced.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I would think that not thinking alpha particle as "made up"
| from protons and neutrons helpful abstraction in thinking
| about fission. Yes, they are, but we can't really form them
| or deform them at will. Specially when you already deal with
| free neutrons.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's not uncommon for someone to be so focused on their
| specific area of a field that they loose sight of the rest of
| the areas.
| lamontcg wrote:
| They may have been so into their own bellybutton lint that
| they were very concerned about the difference between bound
| quarks on a QCD lattice compared to just elmer's gluing 2
| free neutrons and 2 free protons together or something like
| that.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yes, I have heard a lot of times how atom nuclei and alpha
| particles aren't made of protons and neutrons. It's always
| on this sense.
|
| Some times the difference is relevant (and people dealing
| with radioactivity see those times more often than others),
| but some people insist on the pedantic distinction even
| when it isn't.
| adrian_b wrote:
| The binding energy of protons & neutrons into nuclei is
| less than 1% of their mass, so the energy required to
| separate a nucleus, like an alpha particle, into all its
| constituent protons and neutrons, is negligible in
| comparison with the energies required for interactions so
| intense that they would generate any other hadrons except
| protons and neutrons, for example pi mesons, which would
| expose the inner structure of protons and neutrons.
|
| This is an important feature of nature, whose consequence
| is that the most convenient way of understanding the
| world is that the first approximation, which is useful
| for almost all practical purposes, is to consider
| everything as composed of protons, neutrons and
| electrons, which are bound by strong, electromagnetic and
| gravitational forces and that there are also positrons
| (antielectrons), which can be generated in sufficiently
| intense interactions and which will annihilate with
| electrons.
|
| Only for few purposes it is necessary to go beyond this
| and take into account that there are many other hadrons
| composed of quarks, besides protons and neutrons, and
| that there are also other leptons.
|
| The distinction between these 2 level of approximation is
| important and whoever likes to think that alpha particles
| as not being made of protons of neutrons fails to get it.
|
| Of course, for many purposes you can ignore the strong
| nuclear forces and you can consider the surrounding world
| as being made of electrons and of a little less than 300
| kinds of long lived nuclei, which are bound by
| electromagnetic and gravitational forces.
|
| At this other level of approximation, you should ignore
| the proton-neutron composition of any nucleus, but when
| you talk about alpha particles, you normally mean helium
| nuclei having a kinetic energy high enough to not be
| negligible in comparison with the binding energies of
| nuclei, so you are not in a situation when you can ignore
| the nuclear compositions.
|
| In any physical model, it is important to specify clearly
| which is the level of approximation at which it works.
| Mixing randomly various levels of approximation of the
| structure of things is usually a bad strategy.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Yes, but very smart people are often hyperfocused on
| their own particular bellybutton lint like I said.
|
| For someone whose whole job revolves around the quark
| structure of nuclei they may see it important enough to
| "correct" someone who only thinks of nuclei as protons
| and neutrons flying around each other in relative
| isolation like planets.
|
| Add a dash or ten of Asperger's (we're talking about
| nuclear physicists here) and that's how you wind up with
| an expert "correcting" a non-expert about a casual fact
| which is 99.9% correct.
|
| Thinking that the expert was too dumb to know that fact
| is probably the wrong interpretation.
|
| Thinking that the expert was making a
| social/communication mistake is probably the right one.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| There are some pretty obvious followup questions:
|
| - What are alpha particles made of?
|
| - When an element undergoes alpha decay, its atomic number is
| reduced by two. Where do the protons go?
| [deleted]
| cjtrowbridge wrote:
| An alpha particle is a particle produced during alpha
| decay. It's always just a helium-4 which is made of two
| protons and two neutrons but with no electrons. This is why
| we have to mine for helium because it is produced in the
| ground by alpha decay.
|
| It's different from normal helium because it doesn't have
| any electrons and it has an empty orbital which means it
| really really would like to have some electrons and also
| it's going crazy fast when it is created so that's why it's
| dangerous. But then once it takes those electrons from
| somewhere it becomes normal helium. You just don't want
| that happening in your body.
|
| It seems like the other commenters in this thread are
| alluding to the electron thing maybe? Not exactly sure what
| point they're making.
| shkkmo wrote:
| I believe that is clear, those questions were intended to
| be read as ones to put to the nuclear engineer who
| claimed an alpha particle was not made of two nuetrons
| and two protons.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| As far as I understand, the claim is actually that an
| Alpha particle is made up of quarks and gluons, the same
| number you would find in 2 protons and 2 neutrons, but
| that the proton and neutron are different things.
|
| It sounds like there's a very technical distinction about
| exactly how you define a particle. Essentially, I believe
| that the claim is something like saying that modeling an
| alpha particle as 2 neutrons and 2 protons loses some
| information that you would have if you model it as 12
| quarks, because the 12 quarks interact in (slightly)
| different ways than a proton and a neutron would.
| rrss wrote:
| pretty sure the author is describing how the "runtime
| reconfiguration" described in the next two sentences of the
| lawsuit after the one you quoted is a memory allocator, not
| confused and thinking "dynamic RAM" means "dynamically
| allocated memory"
| simiones wrote:
| But that would also be a wrong interpretation: the runtime
| reconfiguration refers to something more similar to (but
| differen from) the programmable gate array of an FPGA, where
| the interconnect between all the components gets re-
| configured to achieve different logic while other
| computations are running.
| ohazi wrote:
| This line appears to suggest otherwise.
|
| > Dynamic ram? Can I poke fun at them for not knowing what
| RAM is? Yes I can.
|
| He's trying to nitpick about the term "dynamic" in this
| context, which he has misunderstood to mean "dynamic
| allocation" (i.e. the alternative to "static allocation").
| The phrase "static or dynamic RAM" is basically never used to
| refer to memory allocation, it refers to the physical
| construction of the memory. This is especially true if the
| paragraph is next to a block diagram that includes an ALU...
| They are five levels removed from any sort of allocator.
|
| The rest of the paragraph doesn't describe a memory
| allocator, it's describing runtime reconfiguration of a
| circuit, which you can do (and often _do_ do) using a
| statically allocated configuration block or even a hard-wired
| dedicated memory. Again, nothing to do with malloc.
|
| Whether a configuration memory is SRAM or DRAM based is
| immaterial, but patent language likes to make a point of
| enumerating the possibilities.
| rrss wrote:
| > The rest of the paragraph doesn't really describe a
| memory allocator, it's describing runtime reconfiguration
| of a circuit, which you can do (and often do do) using a
| statically allocated configuration block or even a hard-
| wired dedicated memory.
|
| IMO you are being much too generous in your interpretation
| of this trolling.
|
| The claim is that pcDuino is infringing because it has a
| Cortex A9 with addressable memory. This chip does not have
| any of the fancy reconfiguration you have in mind, but the
| trolls believe it implements their patent, so I don't see
| how they can mean what you think they do.
| ohazi wrote:
| No, I completely agree with you.
|
| I'm nitpicking about a nitpick, and I feel kind of bad
| for derailing the conversation, because the patent
| assertion _is_ completely ridiculous.
|
| I just think that Nathan shouldn't have made the jab
| about malloc, because making that kind of mistake
| detracts from his otherwise very valid criticism.
| rrss wrote:
| I read that line as poking fun of the fact that RAM is not
| capitalized because the lawyers that wrote this think "ram"
| is a word, not an acronym
| ohazi wrote:
| Eh, _shrug_. I don 't think so.
|
| In any case, the fact that SparkFun _doesn 't even do
| semiconductor design_ makes this whole lawsuit even more
| ridiculous. They put chips onto boards, they don't design
| ALUs with special configurable control bits!
| URSpider94 wrote:
| It actually doesn't matter if SparkFun designs chips.
| They do buy them, and re-sell them in devices. Patent law
| continues to apply to all downstream implementations of a
| product, until the claim is "exhausted" by a license. So,
| if the maker of the SoC doesn't have a license from this
| troll, then the troll is free to sue all of their
| customers, and in turn their customers, all the way down
| until someone pays up.
|
| It's a bit absurd to imagine, but if someone has a patent
| on a CPU design, which is then used in a radio, which is
| installed in a car, which is driven by a taxi driver,
| then the patent holder can in principle sue the taxi
| driver for using their radio without licensing the
| patent.
|
| In practice, patent trolls will figure out who they can
| sue who is big enough to extract $$, but not so big as to
| run the risk of them fighting back and invalidating the
| patent.
| ohazi wrote:
| Yeah I know that this is how it works, I just think it
| happens to be the worst possible way for it to work. If
| anything, pointing to the upstream manufacturer should be
| the end of it.
|
| The fact that someone can sue me over some proprietary
| implementation of something buried inside a chip I bought
| where the only way to defend myself is for _me_ to go
| chase down NXP or ARM is indeed absurd.
| rytor718 wrote:
| I know nothing about patent law but this strikes me as
| false. I cannot be sued for turning on a radio in a
| vehicle that I bought or rented. I've never heard of a
| court thats accepted such frivolous claims either, nor of
| any law that asserts such.
|
| The manufacturer of that radio can possibly be downstream
| sued, sure. That sounds at least plausible if they're
| assembling said radio without proper license for the
| parts. But simply using a radio _in my car_ doesn 't
| strike me as something enforceable nor legitimate in any
| way.
|
| How do you figure a user downstream could be sued for not
| licensing a radio in a car they bought/rented? You're
| claiming we're all legitimate targets at this point in
| the eyes of the law (anyone using a radio in a car) so
| I'd like to understand this.
| caf wrote:
| That's exactly what I understood it to mean when I read
| it.
| mbreese wrote:
| I read it the other way, but now that you mention it,
| this interpretation makes _much_ more sense.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I was under the impression that modern patents had to have a
| clear list of claims but this one has nothing but technobabble
| and "1 Claim, 64 Drawing Sheets". How was this approved?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It was approved in 2001. They weren't as tight on this kind of
| nonsense back then.
| Taniwha wrote:
| As I've mentioned elsewhere here I suspect that most of this
| patent was originally written at least in part to establish
| prior-art and as a result to avoid future patent claims - it's
| some guy describing his quite valid new architecture - don't
| tear him down for that.
|
| What is an issue is: 1) the actual claim (last 2 pages) which
| tries to essentially claim any multi-cpu shared memory computer
| from the 1960s onwards, and 2) the patent troll trying to claim
| this is valid
| mikedilger wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the patent office has been doing less and less
| actual work, approving more and more patents, and figuring that
| the courts can sort it out.
| defaultname wrote:
| What is the penalty for the USPTO if they grant patents that
| shouldn't have been granted?
|
| The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing at all. If someone
| wants to force a review, the USPTO actually charges to give a
| patent a second, more thorough look, effectively double
| dipping.
|
| It is a profoundly broken system, and people do just push
| tonnes and tonnes of nonsense patents. This includes the major
| companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google) who start shoveling
| patents in the notion that they'll have a warchest of bullshit
| if push comes to shove.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I could see why seeing as they don't want to screw around
| with patent trolls either.
| av3csr wrote:
| I think MAUs are multiply-accumulate units.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| So, like DSPs have had forever?
| av3csr wrote:
| Yep, nothing novel about it
| [deleted]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| The patent is indeed expired (there's a website that will tell
| you that date, but I forget its URL), but they can still sue for
| infringement that took place before the expiration date.
|
| If the total damages are small (as it appears), then you are
| probably costing them more than the suit is worth. So I'd expect
| them to offer to settle for a token amount, to avoid having an
| official loss on the record. But IANAL and this is not legal
| advice.
| arvindamirtaa wrote:
| > offer to settle
|
| They can do that. But there isn't much leverage for them if
| they do that. They'll be giving their hand away and at that
| point SparkFun has almost no reason to pay a single dollar.
|
| Disclaimer : IANAL
| AlbertCory wrote:
| At Google I went to a talk by a former patent troll about
| their business models.
|
| They buy a patent, and then milk it for what it's still
| worth. Eventually that goes to zero.
|
| If they lose a case publicly, then it's zero immediately. If
| they settle privately, then the patent is still useful
| against other victims. The main goal isn't to get $$ from
| SparkFun -- it's to keep SparkFun from destroying their
| asset.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I've said it before, but if you support the patent system, but
| say patent trolls should be abolished you are essentially saying
| that patents are only for big corporations to protect their turf
| from new incomers.
|
| One argument is often patent trolls don't make anything
| themselves. So someone who makes a truly groundbreaking invention
| but for some reason (e.g. it requires huge capital) does not want
| to create a company for manufacturing it, should not be able to
| use patents? Also if they would actually make a company to build
| it and then try to go after a big player who infringes on their
| patent, if the big player doesn't want to pay the big player
| would most certainly win. They would just bring out lots of their
| patents that the small player supposedly infringes and thus make
| the suit to expensive to win. Essentially, if being an actual
| "builder" becomes a requirement, only big players will profit,
| because they have the pockets to kill off any small competitor
| through costs.
|
| The other argument is patents are to bogus/general. Which is
| true, but what is the alternative, make the patent investigation
| even more elaborate and costly (it already is very expensive), so
| again only the big players gain.
|
| The problems people point to with patent trolls, are problems
| inherent in the patent system. Patent trolls are just a
| convenient boogey man to blame so the big players can keep a
| system that disproportionately be if its them. There is virtually
| no benifit to the patent system overall and it should be
| abolished.
| jdmichal wrote:
| > So someone who makes a truly groundbreaking invention but for
| some reason (e.g. it requires huge capital) does not want to
| create a company for manufacturing it, should not be able to
| use patents?
|
| If it's "truly groundbreaking", how are so many other entities
| which are being sued blindly stumbling into the exact same
| thing? That seems like a loose definition of the "obviousness"
| part of patent invalidation to me.
|
| If an inventor doesn't want to manufacturer it, they're welcome
| to sell licenses or even the whole patent. That should mean
| going out and actually selling the damn thing. Make a case for
| its value to buyers, which should be easy for anything "truly
| groundbreaking", right?
|
| But to just patent something, do absolutely nothing, then
| circle back around 15 years later and sue everything that
| _might_ be infringing? That 's the (potential strawman)
| situation that people are actually reacting to. I would not
| have any issue if these patents or licenses to them were
| actively being marketed and sold.
| cglace wrote:
| Maybe they spent billions to stumble into it.
| hrishi wrote:
| Agreed about size when it comes to suing for patent rights.
| However, the problem with patent trolls is the same as
| copyright trolls: they send out unimaginable amounts of
| spurious notifications in the hope that some will pay. The spam
| really is the problem here.
|
| I have no problem with a company - any company - making a
| serious allegation against someone else using IP they hold.
| They deserve to be heard. Being able to send out 1000 of these
| in a day without consequence is a big problem.
|
| How about something like an exponential ratchet or cool down
| period for losing patent lawsuits? Maybe the cost to file (or
| damages if you lose) doubles after every 10th lawsuit you lose
| against 10 different entities, for a year.
| mindslight wrote:
| I generally agree that patent trolls are just particularly good
| at highlighting general problems with the patent system itself.
|
| However, one real difference is that it seems large companies
| aren't particularly looking to enforce patents like this one.
| If this patent were in the hands of IBM, Microsoft, Oracle,
| etc, would they actually be suing competitors (the ones that
| hadn't signed on to a non-aggression agreement), or would they
| consider it junk for purely defensive purposes?
|
| Given that small businesses generally aren't receiving such
| shakedown letters from large corporations, I'm guessing the
| latter. Large companies have determined that it's not in their
| best interest to pursue such action. While for small non-
| practicing entities a few junk patents are all they have, and
| so they might as well try fooling some people.
| burnished wrote:
| "So someone who makes a truly groundbreaking invention but for
| some reason (e.g. it requires huge capital) does not want to
| create a company for manufacturing it, should not be able to
| use patents?"
|
| Correct. A patent is for protecting your profits after you
| invent something, right? So if you aren't making anything then
| all you are doing is fruitlessly locking up some novel insight
| for a period of time. You also aren't experiencing a damage to
| your zero profit. Worse, what we are seeing is questionably
| novel patents being used years after their time to browbeat
| people that actually do things and actually make things.
|
| I would not weep if we were to abolish patent laws. I've been
| told they are there to help and support inventors but I've seen
| little evidence that this is the case.
| smaudet wrote:
| Hmm, I mostly agree that patents should be abolished, at least
| for software systems...
|
| But I'd like to examine this concept as patent trolls as heroes
| for the little guy - are there any actual examples of this, at
| least in the domain this usually is found (software)?
|
| The only example I can think of is the inventor, who does
| indeed come up with concepts which he may only journal -
| ironically it used to be there was provision for this, having
| prior art on the subject invalidates the patent, even if only
| in concept. The difference being that this precludes the
| inventor from being sued for having invented, versus the first
| to file as it is now, which is what creates the whole pyramid
| of perverse incentives in my view.
|
| Patent trolls typically have done no work or have no prior art,
| subsisting solely on "purchasing" invented arts - i.e. they
| have done no previous work.
|
| As you say, this mainly creates a system where the 'little guy'
| just loses out, or people who have done nothing seek to
| swindle. You can have a system which protects concepts only if
| you also allow in the system that it is a system only to be
| used in an actual defensive situation, such as an inventor with
| an idea being protected from a large company trying to sue for
| so called copying (under copyright law)
|
| Of course you would need to create a second classification at
| present, i.e. if you actually create a widget then you can only
| claim a limited right to exactly thay widget and nothing else -
| just the hint if non specificity would mean that the 'patent'
| was invalid. And a broader class of patent which would be
| claimed only in defense, i.e. public or private prior art.
|
| What is broken seems to be the implementation (heh) not the
| concept of patents.
| ajnin wrote:
| Don't patents examiners receive bonuses based on the number of
| patent applications they process? And isn't accepting a patent
| basically checking a box, while rejecting one requires an
| argumented memoir and a lengthy back and forth discussion with
| the applicant and an appeal process? The patent system is skewed
| by design towards accepting patents too easily. I don't believe
| that patents are entirely harmful, but I think they actually
| hinder progress in 95% of the cases. The system works like this
| by design, and a lot of interests rely on it. It will be very
| hard to fix.
| patentatt wrote:
| They do receive bonuses for doing more work, not necessarily
| for granting a patent. And you're dead wrong on the second
| part, it's way way way way easier to write a rejection than
| issue a patent because there's a good chance the applicant will
| file a continuation and you'll get more counts for the same
| work for an application that you already know well and have
| done the legwork on. So no, examiners are not incentivized to
| grant bullshit parents in any way shape or form.
|
| Source: former examiner, current patent attorney who works with
| examiners regularly.
| rrss wrote:
| There's sort of a lot of literature that suggests that the
| USPTO does have a number of incentives to grant invalid
| patents. Even if they are all mistaken, this suggests to me
| that the issue is not as clear-cut as you say.
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1756-2171.12.
| ..
|
| > This means that the fastest way for an examiner to obtain
| two counts is to dispose of an application through a first-
| action allowance.
|
| I think this is what you are saying.
|
| > Disposing of an application through an abandonment or RCE
| usually requires working through a series of responses and
| amendments by the applicant and issuing a second office
| action, none of which earns the examiner any counts.18 As a
| result, it is more time consuming to earn the second count
| through a rejection than through a grant. As others have
| noted, the count system thus essentially rewards examiners
| for granting patents (Merges, 1999; Jaffe and Lerner, 2004;
| Lemley and Shapiro, 2005)
|
| But this disagrees on whether the examiners get points for
| the rest of the work on the same application.
|
| https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/publications/2017-decreasing-.
| ..
|
| https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Frakes_Michael_IPSC_paper.
| ..
|
| https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/0895330054048650
|
| > legal scholars who have studied the patent prosecution
| process have pointed to structural problems that encourage
| the PTO to grant patents of doubtful quality, including high
| examiner turnover and an incentive system that rewards
| examiners for allowing but not for rejecting applications
| (Merges, 1999; Thomas, 2001). As a result, the overwhelming
| majority of patent applications in the United States, perhaps
| 85 percent, ultimately result in an issued patent--far more
| than in Europe and Japan (Quillen, Webster and Eichman, 2003;
| NAS, 2004).
| patentatt wrote:
| Thank you for replying with citations and data - very cool
| way to debate!
|
| So I'm surprised at what these sources say, and I think it
| may come down to tech center / art unit differences. I
| worked in a very 'high technology' art unit, where first
| action allowances were unheard of. A SPE would laugh you
| out of their office if you proposed a first action
| allowance. I don't think I ever even heard of one in my art
| unit. So first action allowances just weren't on the table
| for us in any meaningful way. But, I suppose it's possible
| that examiners in some other art unit may look at it that
| way.
|
| I also disagree with the statement about RCE's. Examiners
| definitely get (or used to get) a count for a first action
| after an RCE. That first action is a gimme in terms of
| difficulty, as the examiner already knows the application
| well and knows the applicant well. In fact, it seems like
| from the USPTO's website that they're working to
| incentivize first action allowances over examiners
| encouraging continuation practice, likely for this very
| reason:
|
| https://www.uspto.gov/patents/initiatives/patent-examiner-
| co...
|
| The other thing I'll say is that all issued patents aren't
| the same. A patent with very narrow claims is harmless. So
| just incentivizing issuance isn't necessarily bad. In fact,
| most people don't realize it's very easy to get a patent
| issued, as long as your claim is super long and therefore
| super narrow. We used to call them 'two-handers' as in, it
| takes both hands to cover it up on a printed page.
| Encouraging more of those doesn't really harm anybody
| (except the applicant).
| acomjean wrote:
| I'm not sure about the bonus situation, but the US patent
| office is self funding (their budget is filing fees), so
| they're is the perverse incentive to approve more patents.
| civilized wrote:
| I read the patent claim and ignored the rest, as the pros in
| these threads have been recommending that we do. I paid careful
| attention to the colons and semi-colons. There is one claim and
| it is short and not hard to understand. Take a look for yourself,
| you should be able to get the gist in well under 5 minutes:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US6289434B1/en.
|
| To me, it looks like the patent is for.... "hooking up memory
| together with several processors in a system, and having that
| system process 'media' data in parallel" with "processor" defined
| as "multiplier unit + arithmetic unit + arithmetic logic unit +
| bit manipulation unit" (quotes mine, not from the patent text).
| There's also a bit of stuff about how the arithmetic logic unit
| and the bit manipulation unit should be able to "operate
| concurrently" with some of the other units. It seems like this
| patent is basically for the idea of parallel processing on modern
| computers in general. If so, most of the computing industry
| infringes this patent today.
|
| I'm not a hardware expert, though, and it's possible I'm missing
| something and the claim is more narrow. It depends on the exact
| definition of those processor components and whether this ability
| of some CPU sub-units to "operate concurrently" with others is
| common on modern computers.
|
| All that aside, the patent seems to have no intellectual value
| whatsoever. I have no idea what the history of parallel
| processing is, but it definitely predates the writing of this
| patent in 1998. The only thing that seems even possibly new is a
| tiny bit of text specifying which units should be able to operate
| concurrently with other units. Is that supposed to be the novelty
| that we're protecting with the power of the law for 20 years?
|
| The point of patents is that the public benefits from novel
| invention ideas being published, in exchange for the publisher
| getting exclusive rights to the idea for a few years. The public
| can build upon the idea sooner if it's published earlier. In what
| universe do we imagine that someone reads this patent claim and
| is enlightened and inspired to build upon it?
|
| How is this patent anything but yet another insane, horrific
| abuse of the system?
| tyingq wrote:
| If I give it some broad leeway, it sounds somewhat similar to
| the Parallax Propeller.
|
| This diagram, for example, has some resemblance to his claims:
| https://demin.ws/blog/english/2012/11/22/personal-mini-compu...
|
| Compare to his drawing:
| https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/67/ad/43/be96187...
|
| But, personally, I don't understand why we're able to patent
| something just by making narrow definitions of specific "ways"
| of doing things in parallel, especially when they don't feel
| "novel".
| postmeta wrote:
| Do the people that work there know it's a troll company I wonder?
| Maybe like working at an MLM company, you've rationalized it in
| your own mind as protecting inventors and creative people!
| https://www.linkedin.com/company/ip-edge-llc
| unclekev wrote:
| From their LinkedIn
|
| > We offer expertise in all phases of patent monetization. Our
| team has helped inventors and companies alike establish
| licensing revenue streams from IP. We specialize in uncovering
| hidden value in IP assets, and monetizing such assets at a
| price point that maximizes value.
|
| They know that it's a troll company, The "About Us" is
| essentially "DO YOU HOLD A PATENT?!? CALL US NOW TO MAKE $$$"
|
| If there About Us was more along the lines of "our mission is
| to protect inventors and represent creative types.." then I
| would be more inclined to believe the people working there
| might not be fully aware.
| DarkmSparks wrote:
| Austin Meyer of XPlane fame did a good documentary on this a few
| years back.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/johngreath...
|
| Basically Laminar got sued for having an application on the apple
| mobile store.
|
| You Americans are crazy.
| W-Stool wrote:
| Did I miss in the article what the author plans to do about this?
| It is one thing to poke fun at patent trolls, but when you are
| the target of the troll legally you need to do something. What's
| their response going to be?
| arvindamirtaa wrote:
| The author mentions that the product on which the suit is being
| brought about sold very few units and that if they really want
| to collect on their under-$500 in royalty, they are free to
| bring up an expensive-for-them suit to do the same.
| mrandish wrote:
| Until and unless you've actually been sued in a relevant court,
| you don't need to do anything (and frankly probably shouldn't,
| it's like replying to spam). It appears Spark Fun has actually
| been sued in this instance, which is a slightly more aggressive
| form of trolling. IANAL but I am a very experienced serial
| entrepreneur (and after a few decades you've pretty much seen
| all the relevant flavors of this shit). Spark Fun probably
| didn't say anything about their specific response in this case
| because the general and prudent advice is to never publicly
| discuss anything about an active suit without really good
| reason.
|
| Since the initial demand from the plaintiff already names a
| price for settlement, that's a huge sign they aren't serious.
| The fact it's $500 further reinforces this is a routine bulk
| scam. In theory, if you don't respond at all they _could_ get a
| default judgement when you no-show at the eventual hearing
| date. The odds are overwhelming they don 't ever show up for
| these, plus they'll (usually) also need to write and pay to
| file some actual, specific argument in advance of the hearing
| which you'll be able to see (when and if they actually filed
| anything) putting you on notice they are actually playing.
|
| If you're a cautious person and you or your firm have
| significant enough business interests to care at all, then the
| prudent thing to do is send it to your lawyer and tell them you
| authorize 15m billing to read it and 15m to draft a response,
| basically saying "fuck off". That way you're fully covered from
| a _legal_ standpoint. If you 're just a guy in a garage selling
| some stuff but aren't incorporated and don't really make any
| money, then you _could_ just ignore it. Once again, this is
| _only_ because they filed a suit. Just a random letter from an
| obvious, known troll should be tossed. If you decide to
| respond, be careful your diligent lawyer doesn 't run up >$500
| just drafting up a routine response (which happens).
|
| If you're a garage guy, you can probably find a pretty decent
| 'mad libs' suit response online you can adapt yourself to just
| file. It doesn't HAVE to come from a lawyer (although if it
| were a _serious_ suit it 's always a good idea to get a
| lawyer's input). At $500, the troll will lose money if they
| respond to you at all (they already had to pay some minimum
| filing and service fees).
|
| I've had countless dozens of these patent troll registered
| letters and zero of them ever amounted to anything at all. In
| all these years and across dozens of products and technologies
| I've had exactly ONE sort-of serious patent claim. It was
| easily recognizable because it was a "letter of concern" from a
| long-time leading company in that product space. They've been
| around decades and have lots of patents. In some ways, they
| pretty much invented the whole area. So I took that pretty
| seriously. I talked about it with a good patent lawyer and also
| read the patent and it's clear that our software wasn't
| actually doing what their hardware did 15 years ago. Our
| approach worked great but it was a bit of unorthodox counter-
| intuitive cleverness (aka hack). We called them up and
| determined they didn't really know "how" our software worked
| and were just assuming it might infringe their patent. We told
| them it didn't but they were still kind of concerned, so our
| lawyer suggested "Hey, they seem pretty reasonable and they
| aren't _that_ much bigger than you, why don 't you just fly
| down there and white board just enough of your approach that
| they understand it's _very_ different. "
|
| So we flew down and met with their CEO and CTO and explained
| until their CTO said "Oh, cooool." They went and talked for a
| few minutes, came back, thanked us for coming down and gave us
| a really nice tour before we left. Yes, we _possibly_ disclosed
| a small part of a trade secret but the reality was those guys
| were never going to compete with us as we were going after
| different markets. Also, they clearly had nowhere near the low-
| level software chops to emulate what our code did. At the end
| of the day, the typical lawyer approach could have put us
| through discovery and perhaps a summary judgement (and a
| hundred grand in costs (min)) but looking at the circumstances
| and just being reasonable was the smart play. In all my years
| in business I 've never been to court over a patent thing and
| only had to go to court once because, early on, I did a deal
| with a crazy sue-happy partner who I didn't do enough due
| diligence on. Lesson learned - and in that case, the litigious
| idiot ended up dropping his suit when time came for discovery
| and then paying all our costs just to get out of the counter-
| suit we had to file. So... worked out okay but it was
| expensive, distracting and annoying for six months.
| rossjudson wrote:
| I wonder how good GPT-3 is at generating really, really,
| really lengthy legal responses. You just have to embed
| something in the middle of it that's a bit more "real".
| mrandish wrote:
| That is a deviously _excellent_ thought. :-)
| silexia wrote:
| Patent trolls are pure evil.
|
| The solution is to dismantle the system scummy patent attorneys
| built and use to steal from good companies.
|
| The entire patent system only serves to prevent competition
| through a government enforced monopoly. Why is there only one big
| aircraft manufacturer (Boeing) left in the US? Patents. Why is
| there only one major DB maker (Oracle)? Patents. Get rid of
| patents and you will greatly increased innovation and competition
| and the consumer will win.
| simiones wrote:
| Isn't Microsoft (MSSQL) also a major player in the DB space?
| justshowpost wrote:
| No way. Without patents some angry consumer would write such
| comment on lamb leather with goose feather. Just because ball-
| point pens, ink and cellulose paper would be... a trade
| secrets. Now think how much collaboration in exchange for
| royalties in your PC and whatever network equipment you just
| used to publish this opinion.
| BeetleB wrote:
| BTW, for anyone who hasn't heard it, the This American Life
| episode linked to is absolutely worth listening to (or just read
| the transcript).
|
| They should link to the update to that story:
|
| Transcript: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/496/transcript
|
| Audio: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/496/when-patents-attack-
| par...
|
| One key takeaway: If you yield to a patent troll and agree to
| give them some percentage of your earnings, and later that patent
| gets invalidated - you still have to keep paying.
| akudha wrote:
| _If you yield to a patent troll and agree to give them some
| percentage of your earnings, and later that patent gets
| invalidated - you still have to keep paying._
|
| This broke my brain. How does this make any sense
| whatsoever??!!
| compiler-guy wrote:
| It's a term you agree to when you sign the settlement to get
| them to go away the first time. And one of the reasons that
| you shouldn't give in the first time either.
|
| It makes sense to sign it because they have you over a
| barrel.
| Taniwha wrote:
| OK - so I vaguely skipped through the patent looking for claims -
| mostly it's a description of some guys possibly novel media
| processor architecture, remember the description is not the
| patent, the claims are. I could only find a short claims section
| at the end (1.5 pages out of 56).
|
| This doesn't read like most patents which tend to be lower on the
| details, and longer on the claims, I suspect that this was either
| written directly by the engineer, or written to effectively
| publish the details of the design to avoid others patenting their
| stuff out from under them (or both). Probably the original
| company went under and the patent was onsold to the troll.
|
| The actual claims have nothing to do with SRAM vs. DRAM (or even
| malloc) - my (lay) reading of these claims are that you have to
| have:
|
| - memory containing instructions and data - more than one
| processor containing a multiplier, an ALU, a logic unit, a bit
| processing unit - all the media processors running in parallel
|
| this does describe pretty much any modern multicore chip, or
| graphics chip, and perhaps more closely Sony's Cells for example.
|
| As a sometimes computer architect having a bunch of CPUs execute
| code and data out of shared memory is 'obvious' (and was at the
| time, I was building media processors before 1997, and frankly
| was 30 years before). As far as prior art - I'd consider any
| multi-cpu mainframe starting in the 1960's onwards to be valid
| prior art here
|
| If I were Sparkfun I'd pull in Arm, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Sony, IBM
| .... and nuke this thing from orbit
| leeter wrote:
| nVidia and Sony actually cited this patent I'd think you'd need
| to look further back. I'd guess Cray? This seems like something
| they would have patented very early on with the Cray1.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Oh there's lots of prior-art way before Crays (B5500, CDC6700
| - mid sixties for example)
|
| Again the idea of sharing main memory between more than one
| CPU is very old (and arguably 'obvious to an ordinary
| practitioner of the art' who had taken a few comp sci
| classes)
|
| I mentioned nVidia/Sony et al because they're the ones
| selling multicore CPUs right now and have the most to lose to
| this sort of predatory troll
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