[HN Gopher] U.S. government owes over $100M for TSA's patent inf...
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U.S. government owes over $100M for TSA's patent infringement
Author : throw7
Score : 158 points
Date : 2021-10-28 12:55 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| stevespang wrote:
| Yup, we always knew the US Gov't was full of thieves, just look
| at civil forfeiture, what else is new ?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I see a lot of discussion assuming the patent covers "putting an
| ad on a tray." Claim 1 of [1] says (when you see the word "said"
| you can just replace it with "the" -- it doesn't become any more
| legal just because it has "said")
|
| A method comprising: positioning a first tray cart containing
| trays at the proximate end of a scanning device through which
| objects may be passed, wherein said scanning device comprises a
| proximate end and a distal end, removing a tray from said first
| tray cart, passing said tray through said scanning device from
| said proximate end through to said distal end, providing a second
| tray cart at said distal end of said scanning device, receiving
| said tray passed through said scanning device in said second tray
| cart, and moving said second cart to said proximate end of said
| scanning device so that said trays in said second cart be passed
| through said scanning device at said proximate end.
|
| There are 14 dependent claims, all depending from claim 1. We
| don't see anything about "advertising" until claim 4.
|
| If you knock out claim 1, then all the others fall as well. I
| won't even try to defend claim 1 -- if you're saying "how else
| would you do it?" you're on the right track).
|
| [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US6888460B2/en
| rkagerer wrote:
| The examiner initially rejected this patent filing due to
| obviousness. Can someone please explain to me like I'm stupid how
| it was eventually ruled valid in court?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| The examiner rejected it as obvious. More limitations were
| added that made it no longer obvious. It's the new version that
| was ruled valid.
|
| Consider (120 years ago) a patent on "using energy to move a
| vehicle quickly". Well, that's stupid and obvious. But using an
| ICE to move a car was not. So you add more details and limits
| until it's no longer obvious.
| dathinab wrote:
| How is that even Patentable?
|
| I mean it doesn't seem to pass the necessary burden of ingenuity
| as it's IMHO/as far as I can tell just a trivial combination of
| long known methods.
| YPPH wrote:
| Patent law is hard and generalising it is very difficult. It
| all depends on the nature of the claims.
|
| What can be said, generally, is that patentability isn't
| assessed with the benefit of hindsight, and a combination of
| well-known methods may, in some circumstances, be patentable.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Yeah as ridiculous as this patent is, the context is
| important here. The TSA tested this method, then refused to
| license it and continued to use it. In another world where
| the TSA had no idea about this guy and just came up with this
| method on their own, this would be a very different case.
|
| This is more of a case of "knowingly infringing on a patent"
| rather than "infringing on a patent"
| itronitron wrote:
| I talked to my lunch lady and she thinks she can establish
| prior art.
| mmaunder wrote:
| I have a patent on breathing that I'd like to chat with you
| about, assuming you're alive.
| cronix wrote:
| Right after I patent this rectangle with rounded corners
| paulgb wrote:
| Well, see, the trays used to be different sizes so you couldn't
| stack them, so without this patent the TSA wouldn't have
| thought to do that /s
|
| > A disadvantage to the present system used in security areas
| is that the trays for holding laptop computers are not part of
| a uniform system and do not protect the items from possible
| damage. Therefore, it is possible that multiple size trays that
| do not in any way correspond with one another may be used at a
| security area thus making storage of the trays when they are
| not in use cumbersome.
| beervirus wrote:
| I'm guessing you haven't read the claims of the patent yet?
| alach11 wrote:
| I'm reading it and it seems ridiculous to me.
|
| > It was the final step in the method of claim one - "moving
| said tray cart to said proximate end of said scanning device"
| - that was added at the PTO to overcome the examiner's
| initial obviousness concern.
|
| So the lynchpin of the case earning this company $100m is the
| idea of moving trays on a cart from the exit to the entrance.
|
| https://www.eff.org/files/2016/12/22/security_point_ruling.p.
| ..
| [deleted]
| apendleton wrote:
| As to "how is it patentable," I think lots of other responses
| are probably right as to the current state of the law, but to
| me the more interesting question is the policy one: "why should
| it be patentable." Like, to the extent that patents are a
| deliberately market-distorting mechanism that's meant to
| incentivize invention, do they actually work as intended here?
| Like, does anyone seriously believe that if patents _didn 't_
| protect this idea, nobody would have "invented" the idea of
| putting trays on a cart anyway? And assuming they would have,
| what's the social/public utility of having a patent system with
| a bar as low as ours, if it doesn't actually incentivize
| anything at least in the case of these most-seemingly-stupid
| patents?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Slightly off topic: "Travel speeds are back to 1960's with
| incredibly low tech airport security process" - Peter Thiel.
|
| At this point, we need to throw the baby and the bath water,
| discard the entire security theater and have some SV company
| innovate in this area.
|
| Edit: I suspect the downvotes are because I quoted Peter Thiel.
| Very reasonable.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| No, because removing restrictions or changing how we do it
| would compromise "safety". I put that word in quotes because
| it's not actual safety, it's the feeling of safety.
|
| Masks on airplanes are the same deal. There have been numerous
| reports that masks don't provide that much protection,
| airplanes have superior air filtering systems, yada yada yada.
| Yet the FAA will likely keep extending the mask mandate
| indefinitely. The masks don't make us any safer, hell they
| might make us less safe when you consider the number of "mask
| related" unruly passengers. But they provide "safety", and
| that's the key driver here.
|
| Really this trend can be seen everywhere. We make sacrifices as
| a society to feel "safe". Whether that thing we are doing is
| actually making us safer is irrelevant, it's all about feeling
| good about yourself and your "safe" decisions.
| [deleted]
| froggertoaster wrote:
| CMV: As much as I hate the TSA (and security theatre in general)
| this is a bad patent and feels more like a loss than a win.
| aurizon wrote:
| Well, the USA has refused to deal with their bad patent system
| that has enabled generations of patent trolls to enrich
| themselves at the expense of the rest of us due to lobbying(I use
| the term in the East Texas bribery sense), and now they have got
| bit. Live by the sword.....
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Not everyone knows the government has 'March in rights' when it
| comes to national security concerns. Eg it can decide that it
| needs to immediately use certain technology and violate IP in
| certain circumstances.
| polynomial wrote:
| What was the actual method? I've been through airports where
| trays were returned using a second set of rollers going in the
| opposite direction, and I've been through airports were they were
| manually collected in an ad hoc fashion when they were either
| close to running out or already had run out on the supply side.
| Needless to say, the latter approach results in total cluster
| forks.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The government could have got it for free:
|
| St. Petersburg, Florida-based SecurityPoint's founder Joseph
| Ambrefe offered the TSA a license to his patent in 2005 in
| exchange for the exclusive right to advertise on the trays at
| U.S. airports.
|
| The TSA had success testing SecurityPoint's technology and
| equipment, but refused SecurityPoint's offer.
|
| The court said the TSA began using the same method with its own
| equipment later that year at most or all of the airports under
| its control, and SecurityPoint sued the U.S. government for
| patent infringement in 2011.
|
| The government conceded that it had used the technology since
| 2008 in 10 airports including Dallas/Fort Worth, Boston Logan,
| Phoenix Sky Harbor and all three major Washington, D.C.-area
| airports.
|
| The court rejected the government's arguments that
| SecurityPoint's patent was invalid in 2015, leaving questions
| about the extent of the government's infringement and how much it
| owed in damages.
| mmaunder wrote:
| The issue I see here is that would be an acknowledgement of
| ownership, which leads to greater demands as time passes.
| staticman2 wrote:
| That's literally not free since they would have had to turn the
| security process into more of a clown show with advertisements.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >That's literally not free since they would have had to turn
| the security process into more of a clown show with
| advertisements.
|
| As I recall (I flew a couple weeks ago), the bins where you
| need to dump your belt, shoes, carry-on, etc. have
| advertisements on them.
|
| But even without the ads, the TSA security theater was
| already a clown show, IMHO.
| Marsymars wrote:
| One of the nice things about China is that they don't sell
| off naming rights to their stadiums to the highest bidding
| advertiser:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_in_China
| seattle_spring wrote:
| That's always bothered me about stadiums here in the US.
| There's one in Seattle with this joke of a name: "Climate
| Pledge Arena."
| toast0 wrote:
| Climate Pledge, brought to you by SC Johnson, cleans and
| polishes your surfaces in more varied conditions for
| people who live in extreme climates. Makes sense they'd
| sponsor a hockey arena. /s
| brewdad wrote:
| Considering Amazon is paying for that name, I find it far
| more appealing than "Amazon Prime 2-Day Delivery Arena".
| wang_li wrote:
| It's the home of the Seattle Krakens. We call it the
| Krakhaus.
| loosetypes wrote:
| Similar but unrelated, the audacity to post-facto denote
| something a Netflix Original.
| kube-system wrote:
| Why is that nice? Shouldn't we want to encourage the rich
| to finance large projects of cultural benefit?
| anm89 wrote:
| Sounds like a good trade for concentration camps and organ
| harvesting.
| donarb wrote:
| Except former Wukesong Arena in Bejing has been named
| "MasterCard Center", "LeSports Center" and is now "Cadillac
| Center". Then there's "Mercedes-Benz Arena" in Shanghai.
| Shaanxi Province Stadium was for a few years named "Coca-
| Cola Stadium".
| rspoerri wrote:
| Apropos free:
|
| https://geek-and-poke.com/geekandpoke/2010/12/21/the-free-
| mo...
| anm89 wrote:
| Thank you for defending the purity of sanctity of the TSA. I
| don't know what we would all do if we couldn't look up to TSA
| as a shining beacon of morality and it turned into a "clown
| show".
|
| Putting an ad on a tray would at least be somewhere in the
| top 500 most atrocious things the TSA regularly does.
| paulgb wrote:
| As it happens, one of the violations the TSA admitted to was
| the part of the patent that covers putting advertisements in
| the trays.
|
| (It boils my blood that the patent system rewards the people
| who essentially "call dibs" on ideas like this, instead of
| the people who build things.)
| vmception wrote:
| > (It boils my blood that the patent system rewards the
| people who essentially "call dibs" on ideas like this,
| instead of the people who build things.)
|
| To me that's a really bad take, obsessing on builders, do
| you see how much _additional_ wasted energy and mindshare
| that requires?
|
| "woah hey there, I don't respect you because what I
| _wanted_ you to do was build the security apparatus and
| tray system _yourself_ and find the product market fit
| yourself, despite the TSA monopoly on all the checkpoints,
| don 't worry about that part its about how much _I_ respect
| you, not the higher capital requirements, time requirements
| and worthlessness of attempting any of this! "
| mindslight wrote:
| You've got a valid general point about the scapegoating
| of NPEs. But it isn't applicable here, where the _lack of
| building_ being referenced is the seeming impossibility
| of doing anything novel and non-obvious with plastic
| bins.
|
| If you click through to the patent filing (linked
| elsewhere in this thread), the claims are quite easy to
| read. If someone notices something novel in the claims
| that I've missed, I'd love to be wrong and learn about
| some fantastic new invention for plastic bins. But all
| indications are that this is yet another utterly bullshit
| patent that should never have been granted.
| vmception wrote:
| Right, I actually disagree still, not because of the
| genericness of the patent itself but because it was a
| good finesse. And also because we are looking at it from
| 2021's eyes and not 2001's eyes.
|
| We need to rewind to 2001 and 2002 here, where the
| priority date of this patent begins.
|
| TSA was created as part of a series of kneejerk reactions
| to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks in November
| 2001. Congress was merely a tool here as there was almost
| zero original bills passed, just pet projects that
| enterprisers and war hawks had already written as bills,
| forwarded to their favorite committees when it was
| convenient.
|
| Within 8 months this person has their provisional patent
| filed that predicts how these checkpoints will be
| structured and how they could further function. July
| 2002.
|
| Here, I agree that it was patentable because this level
| of security really was not in use anywhere back then.
| There was no need for an efficient baggage binning system
| back then. Just a few government buildings had scanners
| for just a couple people at a time.
|
| The TSA did not implement this _until after_ this patent
| holder presented the proposal to them.
|
| The TSA also had a choice of not doing these obvious
| things. The patent system allows for infinite
| permutations to be patented, as well as patents to cover
| many of those permutations. The TSA did a very specific
| one, this isn't really that ambiguous.
|
| I agree with the patent examiner, I agree with the judge.
| Also thank you for validating my point about how non-
| practicing entities get scapegoated way too much, I
| appreciate that. Hope my perspective still offers more
| insight others can agree with.
| mindslight wrote:
| I'd say the shape of our disagreement here follows a
| fundamental problem with the patent system.
|
| It's impossible to directly refute the argument that it
| only seems obvious in retrospect, short of finding some
| people who became isolated/frozen/etc in Y2K and asking
| them to judge.
|
| Which is why we look to _prior art_. But that forms a
| much weaker argument - while we 've seen stackable bins
| and bin aggregation carts for decades, we hadn't seen
| them in use at high volume invasive security checkpoints,
| as such checkpoints didn't exist before. Does applying a
| longstanding technology to a newly needed purpose
| constitute invention?
|
| The patent system asserts that this answer is
| undecidable, and thus defaults to issuing a patent.
| Whereas to everyone else looking at the constructive
| behavior of this system, it looks an awful lot like
| lawyers getting paid a bunch of money to generate
| paperwork that divvies up ownership of the intellectual
| commons.
| nickff wrote:
| > _" Does applying a longstanding technology to a newly
| needed purpose constitute invention?"_
|
| Yes, if the technology is new in that 'field'.
| paulgb wrote:
| Yes, exactly, you put it better than I could have.
| dathinab wrote:
| How is putting advertisement on ANYTHING patentable, that's
| driving me nuts.
|
| If there is space, you can put a ad on it, that's a trivial
| truth older then the patent system itself.
| Frost1x wrote:
| Keep in mind, a system of rules is just a system of
| rules. It takes someone to come along and knowingly look
| for "ah ha, gotcha" loopholes in a system to exploit for
| their own advantage.
|
| It's completely possible to look at a system, realize
| there's a flaw, and not take advantage of it--perhaps
| even try to fix the flaw you discovered.
|
| In the US, we're increasingly normalizing the culture of
| "well, it's legal" as to whether we should or shouldn't
| do something--the baseline of morales is becoming law.
|
| Part of this is driven by competitive forces that put us
| at critical disadvantages if we don't follow suit. Taking
| the "high road" often costs more and hinders us to points
| we can't survive, so even if you don't want to play
| exploitative games on systems and people, in some cases,
| your very livelihood may actually depend on it.
|
| "Don't hate the player, hate the game" comes to mind as
| players unwilling to come to a consensus that the game is
| flawed and adjust the rules so they can follow the intent
| of the game and not the flaws in the rules of the game.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > It takes someone to come along and knowingly look for
| "ah ha, gotcha" loopholes in a system to exploit for
| their own advantage.
|
| This isn't a witty corner-case hack. This is a system
| intentionally designed to reward insiders.
| FourHand451 wrote:
| > It takes someone to come along and knowingly look for
| "ah ha, gotcha" loopholes in a system to exploit for
| their own advantage.
|
| Obviously it's not a positive thing in this case, but
| there seems to be a lot in common with a hacker sort of
| mindset here. Figuring out loopholes in laws seems
| awfully similar on some level to figuring out how a piece
| of tech works and making it do goofy things the designers
| never thought of or intended.
|
| Obviously, ethics enter into the equation, and there's a
| collection of things that are legal but unethical whether
| you're talking about legal loopholes or traditional
| hacking. Though given this discussion I'm able to think
| of more in the legal realm that's unethical.
|
| Maybe we need an analog to red-teamers in the legal
| world. I guess that's a lawyer? A certain kind of lawyer
| anyway.
| lostcolony wrote:
| Need, yes. Have any way of achieving, no. Those holes are
| a feature, not a bug; to mix metaphors a bit, the black
| hats are funding the lobbyists.
| chmod775 wrote:
| In some countries courts have the option to honor the
| spirit of the law instead of the letter when deciding in
| favor of the defendant.
| agustif wrote:
| I saw this phrase in the context on how people might
| cheat stupid rules from their religion without feeling
| bad about it
| webmaven wrote:
| _> In some countries courts have the option to honor the
| spirit of the law instead of the letter when deciding in
| favor of the defendant._
|
| In the US as well, though the system is geared toward
| hiding that fact.
|
| Jury nullification is a thing, though if you admit to
| have heard about it you'll be booted off the jury.
|
| Judges may not have as much leeway in sentencing as they
| used to, but they do for verdicts, though no judge likes
| to be reversed on appeal, the threat of which tends to
| constrain verdicts and opinions (which sometimes seems to
| lead to more creativity in findings of fact).
| _jal wrote:
| > In the US, we're increasingly normalizing the culture
| of "well, it's legal"
|
| Yes, this makes me sick. I know a disturbing number of
| people who, to varying degrees, seem to think gaming
| things without regard to positive-sum outcomes is just...
| right and normal.
|
| People want to talk about a morality crisis, there's your
| crisis. Way too many people seem to want to live in
| Soviet-class corruption.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Indeed, reasserting true American values and ideals over
| the corrupt Soviet ones would help ease some of this
| moral failing.
|
| One thing that a society under communism has to deal with
| is reckoning with the fact that, actually, its all a game
| and there is little difference between what you can get
| away with, and what is right. In fact the Soviets
| celebrated and rewarded those people who, as individuals,
| could play the game best.
|
| while in America we have always valued human enterprise
| in itself. It's not about the money, it's about
| collectively coming together to maximize prosperity and
| well being. People know whats right and good because, as
| a nation, its manifest that greedy individuals should not
| be celebrated; goes against the whole idea of the United
| States that's been there from the start.
|
| It's really sad, I feel like I'm living in the USSR more
| and more everyday
| codeproject wrote:
| have you ever lived in the soviet union before? or You
| just read about it from the media? Not to defend the
| system here. Just a gentle reminder of a bit critical
| thinking. >its all a game and there is little difference
| between what you can get away with, and what is
| right<...Here what about the Jeffery Epstein?
| a1369209993 wrote:
| What about Epstein? His misdeeds were only acknowledged
| when he could no longer get away with them.
|
| Edit: to be clear, I'm pretty sure they intended "right"
| to be sarcastic in that statement, not that they're
| actually endorsing something as depraved as cultural
| relativism.
| vkou wrote:
| > Yes, this makes me sick. I know a disturbing number of
| people who, to varying degrees, seem to think gaming
| things without regard to positive-sum outcomes is just...
| right and normal.
|
| It's right and normal because the US[1] has a very rule-
| based social system. Break the rules with the best of
| intentions, and you're not going to have a good time.
| Follow the rules with the worst of intentions, and you
| are.
|
| [1] And it is by no means alone in this.
| dspillett wrote:
| It is a similar innovation to "<anything> on the
| internet", just inverted so "advertising on an
| <anything>".
| inetsee wrote:
| It's not clear to me if SecurityPoint's patent is for
| putting advertisements on the trays. I thought
| SecurityPoint offered to let TSA use their technology
| without paying fees, if the TSA would include
| SecurityPoint ads?
| akersten wrote:
| > How is putting advertisement on ANYTHING patentable
|
| Because our patent system is broken beyond repair and
| should be entirely dismantled never to be rebuilt.
|
| Remember cases like this the next time you hear anyone
| try to justify existence of something like a software
| patent. A monopoly on ideas is an absurdity laid bare to
| most people only by glaring examples like this.
| cosmojg wrote:
| I wonder why we don't implement a Georgist tax on 80%-100%
| of the value of a patent to discourage patent hoarding and
| incentivize building on top of patents held. The
| intellectual property market would become a lot more
| efficient and productive.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Georgist taxes are taxes on uncreated property i.e. land.
| Intellectual property is created property, it's just
| intangible.
| xxpor wrote:
| Granted, the original idea was on real property. But
| practically speaking, is there much difference with the
| way IP law works in the US? Patent trolls are essentially
| rent seekers, with similar economic effects. Even worse,
| it's much harder to realize you're infringing a lot of
| the time. At least with land there are lines in the sand
| you can look up at a county clerks office.
| thechao wrote:
| I like this. We should do the same for copyright: the
| owner of the thing (patent; trademark; copyright)
| declares a value, then they pay a tax on the value;
| anyone else can "pay the balance" to buy off the
| monopoly.
| gameman144 wrote:
| The issue here is that the value of things is not
| universal, nor is the means to pay such a tax.
|
| For instance, I may discover a manufacturing machine that
| cuts the cost of building semiconductor chips in half. My
| options under this model, though, are to either price it
| low enough that I can actually afford to build up a
| business on top of it (in which case a bigger company can
| swoop in, buy the rights from me, and destroy my
| business) or price it high enough that the incumbents
| can't afford to buy me off (in which case, the proposed
| tax will be large enough that it'll stifle my business,
| and the incumbents can just wait until my business dies
| on its own.)
|
| The current system is far from perfect, but it _does_
| favor upstarts and entrepreneurs ' ability to build
| business rather than incumbents. The big thing I'd love
| to see is a shortening of the patent exclusivity period
| before becoming public domain.
| karlkeefer wrote:
| > The current system is far from perfect, but it does
| favor upstarts and entrepreneurs' ability to build
| business rather than incumbents.
|
| I think exactly the opposite is true. Patents are one of
| the primary ways that incumbents are able to rent seek on
| their inventions for decades. These large companies hoard
| patents, and are legally granted monopoly on a given
| technology, making direct competition on their invention
| illegal.
|
| A world without patents would be more enabling to small
| entrepreneurs, because the amount of things they are
| _allowed to attempt_ is so much higher than in our
| current world.
| gameman144 wrote:
| > Patents are one of the primary ways that incumbents are
| able to rent seek on their inventions for decades. These
| large companies hoard patents, and are legally granted
| monopoly on a given technology, making direct competition
| on their invention illegal.
|
| Totally agreed, and the solution there is (in my opinion)
| to reduce the duration of such patents to the point where
| newcomers have a reasonable chance to bootstrap a
| business based on that patent, but not so long that
| patents bar competitors from coming to market down the
| line.
|
| Value-based taxation will _always_ favor those with deep
| pockets who can afford to pay top dollar to scrape the
| cream off of small businesses.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Let's suppose you had some novel idea that would greatly
| increase the value of a social network, idea X. In the
| current system, you can patent it, build a working
| version, and then either sell out to FB or another major
| tech company (ala Instagram) or go public (like
| Snapchat). Without patents at all, FB sees your app start
| to take off, looks at it's key feature, assigns N
| engineers to duplicate it and rolls it out to billions of
| users. Your app then is a sad knockoff of FB's shiny new
| feature, withers and dies.
|
| Meanwhile, with a Georgist tax, either you have to raise
| hundreds of millions just to pay the tax when created, or
| FB buys your patent for peanuts.
| michaelt wrote:
| Has anyone ever had a novel idea for a social network,
| patented it, and been paid for it by FB?
|
| Because it seems to me, the way the patent system is
| supposed to work, and the way it actually works in
| practice, are very different.
| thechao wrote:
| Geoist taxes are always problematic for this reason. I
| suspect that if the tax valuation is phased in slowly
| it'd have a good trade-off.
| gameman144 wrote:
| I'm curious what you mean by phasing these in slowly.
| I've seen the issue crop up in every Georgist or
| valuation-based tax proposal I've seen, but I'd love to
| learn more if there are reasonable ways around these bad
| incentive structures.
| thechao wrote:
| I haven't thought about patents. But, for copyrights, I
| think there should be two "schedules":
|
| 1. A fixed original-author schedule which is 28 years,
| tax free; and,
|
| 2. A "work for hire" schedule which is 70+ years, where
| the Geoist tax is free for the first 7 years, then
| increases by 1% every 7 years.
|
| Again, the rule is this: you self appraise, and pay your
| tax. Any other entity can pay the balance due (in my
| opinion, to the Treasury: the monopoly is granted by the
| people, not the copyright owner), and it places the copy
| into the public domain.
|
| For patents... I'd probably say its "free" unless you
| enforce its monopoly. Then, if you value the patent at
| "100 million$" you owe the government N-years X
| percentage X 100 million. Obviously, the valuation isn't
| the infringing value -- infringement is a fraction of its
| value. That means a patent only "has value" when it's
| used to enforce its monopoly.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Part of copyright is the right to exclude. Adding a
| compulsory buyout provision would make copyright so
| unrecognizable as to not be a copyright anymore.
|
| Imagine the Hobson's Choice you just offered small-time
| artists. If you don't want to work with a large
| publisher, you either have to overvalue your copyright to
| the point of being buried by ruinsome, confiscatory
| taxes... or, if you don't want the taxes, then a large
| publisher can buy you out for pennies on the dollar. What
| that would mean is that you would _lose_ the legal right
| to write your own work anymore.
|
| Large publishers would benefit handsomely, as they'd be
| able to buy into a new market of hilariously undervalued
| work. You would turn every independent creative endeavor
| into the highly exploitative contracts that the average
| record label M&A lawyer writes on a day-to-day basis.
| Meanwhile, _because these companies are already rich and
| powerful_ , they can just afford to pay the tax to
| overvalue their copyrights. So the end result would be a
| transfer of wealth from artists to publishers.
|
| Furthermore, what happens to any existing licensing
| agreements? What happens if Microsoft buys out Linus
| Torvalds or the FSF with the intent of making Linux or
| GNU proprietary software? Does the GPL still hold, or
| does the buyout override the licensing agreement? The
| latter is bad for obvious reasons. The former would allow
| the use of improper transfers and creative accounting to
| partially evade the taxation regime. Hold your copyright
| personally, exclusively license it to an LLC on very
| generous terms, and then undervalue the copyright on your
| taxes. If someone does buy you out, they can't terminate
| the license for at least 35 years - upon which most of
| the copyright's value will have already been exploited.
|
| What you seem to be asking for is a way to attack large
| companies for being large. The answer to your question is
| not to break copyright and patent law (more than it
| already has); but to actually enforce antitrust law, and
| reduce the scope and scale of copyright back to something
| reasonable.
| kfprt wrote:
| If you set a price and multiple people are willing to pay
| it then it can't be exclusive.
| thechao wrote:
| First, I'm restricting this to the US!
|
| I replied elsewhere, but will reply here, as well. I
| think there should be two "schedules":
|
| 1. A private schedule, which is tax-free which terminates
| at 28 years or upon any (or all?) of the authors' death,
| whichever is first; and,
|
| 2. A work-for-hire schedule, which begins at 0% tax, and
| increases by 1% every 7 years after that.
|
| A "private" copyright can be converted to a "work-for-
| hire" by paying past taxes. A work-for-hire may not be
| converted to private.
|
| First, when a copyright is "bought out", the payment is
| made to the Treasury -- the copyright is granted by the
| people via the US government, that is the beneficiary of
| the buyout. Second, the buyout places the work into the
| public domain; this is not a transfer sale! Third, the
| copyright owner can increase the value whenever they feel
| like, but the valuation can never decrease. For example:
| the owner could value the copyright at 50 gajillion
| dollars; at the end of 7 years, if they can't pay the tax
| on the 50 gajillion dollars, the copyright lapses.
|
| For patents, I think a tax is owed _when the patent is
| enforced in a court of law_. I don 't know the schedule
| for that.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > the patent system rewards the people who essentially
| "call dibs" on ideas like this
|
| Patents are regularly invalidated due to prior art. As long
| as you document your inventions thoroughly, then even if
| you don't patent the idea yourself, you can invalidate the
| person who did. If the people who "call dibs" are being
| rewarded, it's only because the inventors either weren't
| patenting, or weren't documenting.
| karlkeefer wrote:
| Calling dibs is still problematic, even with proper
| documentation... independent inventors often come up with
| same thing at a later date, because it's obvious, but
| they are still prevented from using their own invention
| because someone else had the same idea.
| SomeCallMeTim wrote:
| The problem is that the law isn't being enforced with any
| consistency.
|
| You know what's _required_ for a patent to be awarded? It
| has to be _non-obvious._ It has to be something that
| someone "the typical person in the field" wouldn't think
| to do, when given that problem to solve.
|
| If the patent office (and later, the courts) would _just
| apply the non-obviousness criteria reasonably_ we wouldn
| 't have these problems.
|
| And yes, that means they'd likely need to consult with
| people in various fields. It's not exactly free to get a
| patent; some of that money could go to pay those same
| consultants to judge the obviousness of each patent as it
| is reviewed.
| webmaven wrote:
| _> If the patent office (and later, the courts) would
| just apply the non-obviousness criteria reasonably we
| wouldn 't have these problems._
|
| Agreed, but given that inventors can endlessly refile
| with whatever minor tweaks they like, and examiners are
| incentivised according to the number of patents they
| grant, it isn't hard to wear them down, eventually.
|
| Courts then presume a patent is valid and it takes a lot
| of effort to convince them otherwise, and typically it is
| only prior art that will do it.
| nickff wrote:
| > _" examiners are incentivised according to the number
| of patents they grant"_
|
| This is completely wrong; their incentive is actually to
| reject an application. The optimal strategy for an
| examiner seems to be to reject an application at least
| twice, usually more. There is abundant literature on this
| topic, and I encourage you to explore it.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| On the plus side, that means that nobody _else_ can put ads
| there without violating the patent...
| notRobot wrote:
| The TSA is anyway almost entirely security theatre:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-
| bus...
| JoshTko wrote:
| I agree that TSA is ineffective against any sophisticated
| attack, but couldn't it potentially be a great filter for
| the many run of mill crazy person? Not suggesting its an
| efficient use of funds in either case.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Yeah I've thought this too. Measuring TSA effectiveness
| by number of knives, guns, and TNT caught in backpacks
| seems insufficient, because the very existence of the TSA
| likely dissuades loonies from considering commercial
| aircraft as a viable option in their plans. But you can't
| measure the number of events that never happened, so we
| can't get a full picture of exactly how many attacks the
| TSA prevents by existing.
| VRay wrote:
| You could measure the number of incidents that didn't
| happen before the TSA was formed, though
|
| Even the deadly hijackings it was formed to prevent
| wouldn't ever happen again, since the passengers would
| fight back now
| missedthecue wrote:
| Between 1968 and 1972, over 130 commercial aircraft were
| hijacked in the US. No hijackings have been reported in
| the US since 2001.
|
| https://www.datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2016-03/hija
| cki...
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/29/hijackings
| -ra...
| arbitrage wrote:
| .... what happened between 1972 and 2001?
| missedthecue wrote:
| Take a look at the graph in my first link. Looks like
| dozens and dozens of hijackings.
| jonwachob91 wrote:
| ^^^ This, so much this.
|
| Especially with how common we've seen violent outbursts
| on airplanes since post-pandemic flights have resumed.
| It's almost a daily occurrence. If those individuals had
| weapons during flight, the outcomes would be very
| different.
|
| Leave the detection and prevention of sophisticated
| threats to agencies better equipped.
| mindslight wrote:
| You're assuming that the people who are throwing tantrums
| on planes are premeditating enough to prepare by bringing
| weapons. Yet if they had those kind of planning
| faculties, they would realize that flipping out at flight
| attendants doesn't further their cause at all.
|
| Alternative take: the people throwing tantrums have
| reached their breaking point from the stress of being in
| a totalitarian environment [0]. And all the security
| theater of airports is a major and needless contributor
| to that stress.
|
| [0] Just to be clear here, I think masks are highly
| necessary and if I had to fly somewhere I would be
| wearing a full face P100. But the act of forcing people
| to wear them is still totalitarian, regardless of how
| justified it is.
| pessimizer wrote:
| That's the same way I feel about being forced to drive
| between the lines. I do it because I don't want to kill
| myself or other drivers, but forcing people to do it is
| clearly a sign of fascist dictatorship no matter how many
| lives it saves.
| mindslight wrote:
| When I pass cyclists on single lane roads I'm generally
| more than halfway over the dividing line, conditions
| permitting. If someone gets a ticket for going over a
| line in a safe and reasonable manner, then yes it is
| quite appropriate to call that overbearing law
| enforcement.
|
| Wearing something over your face is annoying. Loops
| around your ears are irritating. Confronting someone that
| they need to put something on their face creates an
| adversarial situation. These are facts that the
| (otherwise sensible) pro-mask political dogma has rallied
| around rejecting, rather than focusing on the more
| enlightened viewpoint that wearing a mask is indeed a
| burden but we all have the responsibility to do it.
| gameman144 wrote:
| Not sure if serious or sarcastic. If serious, I'd love to
| hear more about your world view here.
| delecti wrote:
| The run of the mill crazy person could bomb the TSA lines
| and easily get dozens or hundreds of people. The reason
| there aren't more bombings is because there largely
| aren't people who want to do more bombings.
| kfprt wrote:
| Every societies security model relies on people simply
| not wishing to act violently. Literally followed by a
| police team and still stabbed people. https://en.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/2021_Auckland_supermarket_stab...
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| Run of the mill crazy you say - this happened in last 24
| hrs
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/american-airlines-flight-diverted-
| pas...
| lowkey_ wrote:
| It appears the attacker didn't have a weapon, though,
| which is the TSA's job you're saying they didn't
| accomplish?
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| I guess putting ads in the security check area works? If I
| were the buyer, I would be wondering if people would
| associate my brand with the negative experience which is
| airport security.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It depends on whether it's advertising advertising, or just a
| sticker or maker's mark - you know, the ones these trays and
| other products in use at airports and security checkpoints
| already have.
| troyvit wrote:
| They already advertise on the trays in DIA if I remember
| correctly. And besides, airport security is a clown show.[0]
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa.
| ..
| [deleted]
| paulgb wrote:
| The patent in question:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US6888460B2/en
| hannibalhorn wrote:
| So the "invention" is stackable trays on a cart? :-( I guess
| it's not just software patents that have become problematic.
| brentm wrote:
| It's crazy that patents can be granted for 'inventions' that
| are nothing more than common sense. Being the first mover on
| hiring a patent attorney and filing the paperwork should not
| be rewarded.
|
| I suppose drawing a definitive line where common sense ends
| and invention begins is difficult so we end up with the
| current system.
| YPPH wrote:
| "Not common sense" is not the legal test for patentability.
| But it is in effect incorporated within the requirements
| that a patentable invention be novel, have an inventive
| step, and be non-obvious (assessed without the benefit of
| hindsight).
|
| The US Government could dispute the patent claim if they
| think the so-called invention is not an invention.
| rkagerer wrote:
| What stage in the process of disputing the patent's
| validity are they at?
|
| Are there higher judges they can appeal to for a more
| rational outcome?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the "invention" is stackable trays on a cart?_
|
| Look at the claims, not the general descriptions. "A better
| stapler" may just be a stapler, but that description elides
| the novel mechanism contained within. (There may be no novel
| mechanism here. I don't know. I'm not a cart expert.)
| patentatt wrote:
| I'm usually one to defend patents on the grounds that the
| claims are far more narrow than the general idea being
| criticized in internet comments... that being said, claim 1
| is, on its face, very broad. Like super broad. I'd be
| curious to check out the prosecution history and the spec
| on this to see if there's anything limiting in there.
| Because in plain language, claim 1 is ... broad.
| IshKebab wrote:
| If you look at the claims they actually patented this (I
| translated it into English):
|
| > For a scanner with a near and far end, position one cart
| near the near end. Remove a tray from the cart. Pass it
| through the scanner. Put the tray in a second cart at the
| far end of the scanner. Move the second cart to the near
| end of the scanner.
|
| I'm not exaggerating. That's what claim 1 says. If you do
| that they can sue you for infringement.
|
| The subordinate claims talk about stackable trays, but you
| only have to infringe claim 1 to be infringing. Claim 1 is
| written as broadly as possible in order to "catch" as many
| infringers as possible, and then the subordinate claims are
| there in case the courts actually rule that claim 1 was too
| broad.
|
| So you can say "Fine, we can't patent using a cart to move
| trays, but what about claim 3? We patented using stackable
| trays! That's very novel!"
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > We patented using stackable trays!
|
| I'd just start gesturing wildly at cafeteria trays that
| have been around for decades.
| amalcon wrote:
| Basically that, plus swapping the carts when more trays are
| needed at the inlet, plus putting advertising on everything.
| How "putting an ad on a visible surface" even passes the
| smell test is beyond me, but those claims are valid it
| seems...
| JamesCoyne wrote:
| I guess this counts as novel and non-obvious then:
|
| > One embodiment of the present invention may be a system
| including a security scanning device through which objects may
| be passed, having a proximate end and a distal end, a plurality
| of trays, and a plurality of tray carts adapted to receive the
| trays, wherein the plurality of trays are provided in a first
| tray cart at the proximate end of the scanning device, and
| wherein the trays are adapted to be passed through the scanning
| device at the proximate end, and wherein the trays are received
| in a second tray cart after passing through the scanning device
| at the distal end of the scanning device, and wherein the
| second cart is adapted to be relocated to the proximate end of
| the scanning device.
| josaka wrote:
| Better to look at the claims, which define the scope of
| rights granted. That said, the broadest claim pretty much
| tracks this language. I wonder if the broadest claim
| survived, or if the verdict was based on a narrower dependent
| claim.
| paulgb wrote:
| Translation: a stack of trays on one side of the xray
| machine, that get passed through the xray machine to the
| other side, where they are put in a second stack. The second
| stack can be moved as a stack (presumably on wheels or
| something) back to the near side of the xray.
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| Does it? What's the novel part? Using two carts so you don't
| have to wheel the empty one around? That doesn't sound novel
| to me. I've don't that at the grocery store before.
| satya71 wrote:
| I wonder if it would be a good idea to form an NPE solely to
| assert patents against the government. It might finally irk them
| enough to improve the patent laws.
| tyingq wrote:
| I imagine if you specifically targeted Congress or the
| Executive Office you might get some movement. A voting related
| patent would be amusing. They would have to violate your patent
| to do anything about it.
| exabrial wrote:
| Wow. There is no positive outcome in this case.
|
| If the patent troll wins, we lose, and low quality shit patents
| are further confirmed.
|
| If the TSA wins, it allows the TSA to continue to incinerate cash
| in a never ending play of "security theater".
| jaywalk wrote:
| I don't think TSA's cash-burning security theater is under any
| real threat either way.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| How many trillions does the US government owe? Is anyone even
| counting at this point? Just add it to the pile.
| [deleted]
| asah wrote:
| I'm sorry, but isn't $100M a rounding error to USG ? That's like
| one missile or a toilet seat or something...
| bell-cot wrote:
| This "invention" (see paulgb's link to the patent) sounds far too
| much like stackable plastic milk crates with $Logo_Of_Dairy
| printed on the side of 'em.
|
| Or even more like the stackable plastic trays (and carts designed
| specifically for them) that you could find in the dishroom of
| most large cafeterias 50+ years ago.
|
| And running actual stacks of those trays through the big
| dishwashing machine (say, to heat up a bunch of clean soup bowls
| right before they hit the serving line) was "d'oh, obvious" when
| I briefly had a dishroom job in the early 1980's.
| tantalor wrote:
| Nope, sovereign immunity insulates federal government from patent
| or copyright claims.
|
| > states enjoy unfettered sovereign immunity with respect to
| copyright, trademark, and patent infringement claims in federal
| court
|
| https://www.vorys.com/publications-2574.html
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Actually, sovereign immunity protects states, but not the
| federal government.
|
| (In the specific case of IP, not in general. This is because
| the fed. gov. waived sovereign immunity for itself and the
| states, but the courts found that the fed. gov. couldn't waive
| the immunity on the state's behalf.)
| tantalor wrote:
| Interesting, thanks did not know that.
| m0llusk wrote:
| All so that we could take our shoes off even though there was
| only the one shoe related incident some years ago. When will we
| have enough of this security theater? The costs just keep
| mounting.
| mbg721 wrote:
| It's broken-windows adopted as public policy rather than
| recognized as a fallacious waste.
| burkaman wrote:
| Don't worry, soon the TSA will pay millions for electromagnetic
| scanning mats so you don't have to take your shoes off:
| https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/10/28/lifestyle/please-do-n...
| _fat_santa wrote:
| BRB, filing a patent for taking your shoes off.
| silexia wrote:
| The patent system needs to be abolished. People patenting trays
| is "patently" ridiculous. Patents crush innovation. Ideas are
| worthless, execution is everything.
| bogwog wrote:
| And most patents are built on top of the work of others who did
| not patent their ideas. If they did, then those derivatives
| would not be able to exist.
| josaka wrote:
| The most recent ruling in this case is available here:
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=506583781665731...
| Validity was addressed back in 2016, but has not been reviewed on
| appeal yet. If others can find a link to that case, it might help
| folks understand what's happening here.
| josaka wrote:
| Here's the ruling where validity is analyzed by the court
| (again, which has not been reviewed on appeal as far as I can
| tell): https://cite.case.law/fed-cl/129/25/
| josaka wrote:
| This is probably the key passage in the validity ruling:
| "Defendant's disavowal in pretrial practice of having its
| experts combine prior art was a serious handicap at trial."
| Not a good place to be as a defendant in a patent suit.
| varenc wrote:
| Can you explain this more for me?
|
| Basically, the TSA didn't try to establish that prior art
| for this patent existed? Why would they not do that? Is it
| too late for them to try now?
| josaka wrote:
| TSA's counsel argued that the asserted patent was obvious
| in view of one prior art reference that disclosed
| scanning trays and a second prior art reference that
| disclosed carts at both ends of a machine processing
| trays. To make this argument, they needed an expert
| witness to say that it would have been obvious to combine
| the two prior art references in the way claimed. My read
| of this comment is that they failed to get their expert
| witness on record as having that opinion before trial,
| and so they were prevented from effectively presenting
| the position at trial. This is the sort of thing that
| keeps patent attorneys up at night.
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