[Opensim-dev] personal plea on patents

Thu Feb 4 00:38:08 UTC 2010

Patents are just used by "patent troll" lawyers, that spend their time just
screwing with people (and corporations) by threatening with expensive
litigation/law suits.

These companies/managers just apply for patents on just about anything, and
after looking at this past patent application, I'm quite surprised that IBM
hasn't filed a patent application for using the "internet".

This poor country definitely needs some copyright/patent reform.  The patent
office doesn't do much when it comes to searching for prior art (or previous
works) and many patents are just "umbrella patents" that are used in a
"shotgun" approach to stifle competition.

Anytime a patent gets approved, it generally turns into expensive litigation
for any competing technologies.  These "patent trolls" use these silly
things as a means to extract large sums of cash (settlements) or even
attempt to put competitors out of business (with legal fees/lawsuits).  The
best possible thing that we can do is make sure that these patents are
properly disputed, and that we use whatever legal means are available to
ensure that these patents are NOT granted.

Approving these patents is similar to attempting to patent the "internet".
 Allowing no one to use it.  It's silly and absurd, and it stifles
development, creativity and innovation.

Large companies (like IBM) with deep pockets use these silly patents to just
kill off any competition.  The problem is that the things discussed in these
patents is NOT original, and NOT new.

The point of a patent is an ORIGINAL and NEW idea.  These are not ORIGINAL
or NEW ideas.

A few corporate clowns get together and decide to copy what everyone else is
doing, and decide that it might give them an advantage to steal other
people's ideas and apply for a patent to kill off what everyone else is
doing, and has done in the past (and is currently) doing and working on.

Patents are bad for science, technology and innovation.  We definitely need
patent and copyright reform.

The problem is with "shotgun" patents (that use open-ended language, and
generalizations) so they can use these "shotgun" approach to file lawsuits
against anyone they please.

This is what the clowns over at Divx.com have currently been doing.  Patent
trolls are everywhere.  Patent trolls are worse than ambulance chasers.  All
we can do is use whatever legal means we have available to fight these types
of patent applications.  If we can get them stopped, and help educate the
examining patent officers by providing examples of prior works so that these
silly patent applications will get denied.  There is nothing original, new
or creative in these patent applications. These silly patent trolls use
these "shot gun" patent applications with the hopes that some examiner might
just approve it, and then these large corporations can use these silly
objects as weapons to kill off anyone that tries to develop innovative
technologies.

I'm extremely disappointed that IBM would stoop to such a low level.  Large
corporations seem to do a good job using teams of lawyers to just create
these silly "blanket" patents, and "shot gun" approach to patents.

IBM's patent application is NOT for an ORIGINAL or NEW idea or "invention".
 It's just a weapon to try and stifle innovation and competition in science
& technology.  It would be similar to Netscape attempting to "patent" a web
browser, or "patent" the internet.  It might sound absurd, but that is what
these corporations (like IBM) try to do with these silly blanket patent
applications.

If these patents are not properly disputed/objected/opposed to (once they
are published for opposition) then some idiot judge (who knows absolutely
nothing about computers/engineering/development) will end up being the one
to hear these silly litigation cases in courts that are "friendly" to patent
attorneys (i.e. Los Angeles, parts of Texas, etc.) where most of the patent
troll attorneys spend their days just sending out blanket legal threats to
anyone they can find that is working on or developing anything innovative.

If anyone knows of any patents, contact me off-list.  I'd definitely be
interested in working with any legal teams to at least help bring ANY of
these silly patents on "3D Virtual Worlds" to an end.

These silly legal patents are nothing but nightmares and headaches on the
developers and Open Source projects and organizations like OpenSim (or
anyone that even attempts to use the technology).

These patents are NOT original or new and these are NOT new "inventions" by
IBM or anyone at IBM.

             Mark

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Mircea Kitsune <
mircea_the_kitsune at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  Although I don't know all the details on how this works, I know patents
> are horrible thing that should not exist, and people use them in ways that
> should never be allowed. I dearly hope Opensim will never have to face such
> dangers, and that it will always stay clear of these things. I guess hoping
> is the best we can do, if nothing can be done to actively secure it.
>
> Anyway Diva, that's a very nice and correct post, and hopefully people will
> listen do that. But imho, as long as any company has a possibility to harm
> Opensim, the project is unsafe. I wonder if the laws allow code owners to
> forbid anyone from placing patents on anything. After all, the code belongs
> to the devs, and no one should be able to invade it and put "rules" on
> Opensim without their permission. Of course other libs it uses aren't the
> case, if I am correct.
>
> > Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 09:15:05 -0800
> > From: diva at metaverseink.com
> > To: opensim-users at lists.berlios.de; opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> > Subject: [Opensim-dev] personal plea on patents
>
> >
> > In the light of recent events, I want to make this plea explicit and
> > widely distributed:
> > http://www.metaverseink.com/blog/?p=30
> >
> > No need to panic, the project is not in danger. But it became clear to
> > me that we need to raise awareness of this issue, so that people in this
> > community stop and think before they file patents to please investors
> > and managers.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Opensim-dev mailing list
> > Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> > https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
>
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