[ih] Why the six month draft expiration ?

[Vint Cerf]

Thanks Karl, that's helpful. I like your idea for ISOC - a service that
they could be compensated for doing. As you know, ISOC has a challenge
demonstrating the level of public support it has (the so-called IRS Public
Support Test) that requires it to show that at least 1/3 of its income
comes from a broad range of public sources. They can only count a fraction
of the PIR income as "public".

vint


On Sat, Feb 3, 2024 at 4:20 PM Karl Auerbach <karl at iwl.com> wrote:

> I'm not sufficiently skilled with the changes to the US patent law to know
> a full answer to your question.  (I'm more into the copyright side of
> things - although yesterday I was nearly drowned in academic discussions of
> trade secret issues, particularly with regard AI, and fair/transformative
> copyright use after the Warhol decision.)
>
> I am really glad you said "an issued patent claim" - most people don't
> distinguish between a full patent and the hierarchies of claims of which
> the full patent is composed.
>
> One thing about patents is that they are composed of a tree of claims.
> When we talk about invalidating patents we are actually talking about
> invalidating specific claims in patents.  Sometimes invalidating a single
> claim can trigger complete invalidity of a patent, or it might just
> partially weaken a patent.
>
> Slightly jumping to a couple of related topics: 1) an ISOC or IETF arm to
> collect and license patents, and 2) provisional patents
>
> - I think it would be cool if ISOC or the IETF established an arm that
> could accept and hold network related patents and issue licenses (for free
> or for reasonable low fees and non-discriminatory terms.)  I have nothing
> more detailed that that thought, but I do so much dislike the surfacing of
> patent trolls, always at the most inconvenient of times.
>
> - I've suggested (and myself have used) provisional patents to nail down a
> specific date.  Provisionals are easy and inexpensive; they can give a head
> start when one has an idea but needs time to develop it into a full patent
> application.  I am, however, unsure the degree that provisionals can
> establish prior art (but they can, I believe, sometimes be used as evidence
> to help establish prior use of an idea when one is accused of violating a
> patent issued subsequent to the date of the provisional.)
>
> (Because they are so cheap and easy I've done provisionals on ideas that
> never gelled - like an idea to have stick-on things to put on various LED
> indicator lights on equipment so that the state of the LEDs could be
> published to a network based monitor via SNMP or Netconf - there's multiple
> patentable ideas in there, such as how-to-adhere the widget or how to read
> and express the state [or color] of a rapidly blinking LED.)
>
>         --karl--
> On 2/3/24 12:35 PM, Vint Cerf wrote:
>
> Karl,
> under the current "first to file" USPTO rules, would the primary grounds
> for invalidating an issued patent claim be validated public prior art or a
> prior patent grant that conflicts with the later one?
>
> vint
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 3, 2024 at 3:23 PM Karl Auerbach via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> You (and Scott) are both correct that the USPTO has improved from the
>> days when Bruce Lehman used to call those submitting patent applications
>> and paying USPTO fees "our customers" and promised to focus on servicing
>> those paying customers.
>>
>> (Lehman was so deeply in the pocket of patent applicants that he was
>> actually booed after a presentation to a meeting of IP lawyers in San
>> Jose.  And Carl Malamud's buying - and then publishing - USPTO's
>> income-generating, but public domain, DVDs of patent materials - drove
>> Lehman to turn apoplectic shades of red at the mere mention of Carl's
>> name, a fact that I have personally tested and verified.)
>>
>> To provide an example, although not IETF related:  One has to wonder at
>> the institutional blindness when the USPTO issued to IBM a patent on
>> token ring well after Farber's work on DCS at UC Irvine.  (Eventually,
>> if memory serves, the IBM patent was cancelled after issuance because of
>> DCS.)
>>
>> Today the community (in part thanks to EFF) has become more vigilant
>> about recent era applications and raising awareness of prior thinking
>> before issuance.
>>
>> The key word, as you note, is "before".
>>
>> Once issued a patent gains a rebuttable presumption of validity; that
>> presumption changes the calculus of the weight of evidence that is
>> needed to reverse the granted patent.  It's the usual case of "easy" (or
>> "easier") and less expensive before but "harder" and more expensive
>> afterwords.
>>
>> Long ago I suggested that the IETF follow the path of entities such as
>> the IEEE, by which I mean, the IETF should create a printed (yes, paper
>> [perhaps only printed on demand] as well as online) quarterly journal,
>> call it "Proceedings of the IETF", which would publish every ID and
>> minutes of every working group (including email interactions).
>>
>> (Ole Jacobson's Internet Protocol Journal is already a great start in
>> the right direction.)
>>
>> While this level of formality may now be unnecessary in the US (and I
>> emphasize the word "may") the world of patents is broader than the US
>> and not all patent offices around the world may have become as willing
>> as the USPTO to go beyond classic professional journals.  For the IETF
>> and Interenet, in this particular area, it's best to look and act like
>> an old time professional engineering or scientific body.
>>
>> (I wonder, could one of these new LLC generative AI systems be trained
>> on IETF materials, including e-mail of working groups, and be provided
>> as a service to the community?  It would be nice if other bodies such as
>> 3GPP, W3C, and Chinese Next Gen IP, and other networking materials could
>> be included, but that could raise copyright/licensing issues.)
>>
>>      --karl--
>>
>> On 2/3/24 11:12 AM, John Levine wrote:
>> > It appears that Karl Auerbach via Internet-history <karl at iwl.com> said:
>> >> Back in the day (whenever that was) the US Patent office only
>> considered
>> >> filed (and perhaps only issued) patents and items published in a small
>> >> set of professional technical journals as representing "prior art".  (I
>> >> don't know whether that self-inflicted blindness still exists, I
>> >> certainly hope it does not.)
>> > I think you're confusing what the examiners use to search and what's
>> prior art.
>> >
>> > You're right, the searches for software patents used to be terrible so
>> > they allowed patents on stuff that was widely used and not at all
>> > novel. I believe they use more sources now, what with Google and all.
>> >
>> > It's always been possible for a third party to challenge a patent,
>> > formerly via reexamination, now by inter partes review or post grant
>> > review. Anything published more than a year before the application was
>> > filed is prior art, and as Scott noted, I-D's count.
>> >
>> > They also allow Preissuance Submissions for applications that have
>> > been published but not allowed, to alert the examiner to prior art.
>> > IPR and PGR are very expensive, tens of thousands of dollars to apply,
>> > while PS are cheap, free for up to three documents and $180 for each
>> > 10 thereafter.
>> >
>> > R's,
>> > John
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>
>
>
> --
> Please send any postal/overnight deliveries to:
> Vint Cerf
> Google, LLC
> 1900 Reston Metro Plaza, 16th Floor
> Reston, VA 20190
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>
>
> until further notice
>
>
>
>

-- 
Please send any postal/overnight deliveries to:
Vint Cerf
Google, LLC
1900 Reston Metro Plaza, 16th Floor
Reston, VA 20190
+1 (571) 213 1346


until further notice