However, the way patents are filed is wrong. There's so many issues with first to file. It's a good system when your office sees 100 patents a year. All of them are likely to be novel, and likely to be made by independent inventors. The problem we have now is there are entire companies (IBM, Google, RAND, TI, etc) that exist solely to farm patents. In fact, there are so many patent farms disguised as businesses I challenge you to sit, think of something, and search for a patent for it. I guarantee you one exists. Moreover, pursue the patent office if you never have. The definition of invention, especially in tech, is so vague it may as well not exist. Vomit some smart sounding stuff on paper with drawings and you've got yourself a patent that, if written correctly, will almost certainly produce a profit. Hell, take a cat and draw a stereo speaker on top of it. Call it "animal sound machine". I guarantee you if it hasn't already been done someone will do it. Better, draw a cat with a USB stick duct taped to it and call it "IP over Feline". Devise a stupid protocol. Then sue every idiot who thought it'd be funny to make one. This is seriously how lame modern patent law is. You might even be infringing on a patent with IP over Feline because someone already "invented" transportable storage.
I don't have a solution to the problem. Part of me wants to say one patent, per inventor, per term (10 years). You have the option of canceling a patent to put a new one in. But this seems like it's too strong. Maybe there's another way that legitimate inventors for an appropriate amount of time, and also disincentivizes patent trolls through some measure. Maybe we could start with "common good" patents (as determined by a board of smart people) being invalidated.
Nice try, Opposing Counsel.
You might find this now 11 year old writeup informative:
https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_com...
But even that assumes that there is some actual valid patent, in this case no patents are identified on the website, they're simply "calling" for patents.
Are they? Inventors need to eat and sleep, and that's hard to do if someone else with a higher marketing budget and fewer qualms about lying to make a sale rips off your invention a day after launch day.
For example the situation between AWS and many open source server-side tools. Recently several companies based around open sourced software with auxiliary monetization plans have chosen to abandon open source in favor of more restrictive licenses that prevent cloud providers from re-branding their software and selling it as their own.
> They could be outspent and out marketed by established companies and end up working for them.
Or they could decide inventing isn't worth the hassle and they'd rather be a Dentist or something that pays well.
Or established companies can simply steal their ideas and try to bury them in legal bullshit—like Ford, etc tried to do :
* https://thehustle.co/windshield-wiper-inventor-robert-kearns...
* https://www.autonews.com/article/20081002/ZZZ_SPECIAL/810029...
* https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/how-robert-kea...
Solutions which require "choose the right people" usually degenerate into corruption.
Google exists "solely" to farm patents? I'd think they exist to sell advertising, but that's just my uninformed opinion as a layman. Am I missing something here?
The Case Against Patents:
The article is specifically about hardware and excludes software:
The planned Opus program will focus on hardware devices and will not be directed towards open-source software, applications, services, or content
> The Opus pool license covers the specifications […], and the official software releases of the Opus audio codec, […]
(Which is kind of in the chicken-egg position where there's no hardware to receive it outside of other pipewire clients anyway.)
Edit: It's already merged and ready for use, and is the only thing that'll do multi-channel audio over bluetooth?
My question is, how can someone just step in, say "this mine, give money" and the world just goes with it? Did the opus developers (inadvertendly) use some patented tech? Do hardware makers use it? Or do Dolby and Fraunhofer have patents so broad that they cover anything encoding audio?
(1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_(audio_format) (2) https://opus-codec.org/
It's called violence. Might is right [1] means the world goes along out of fear, not agreement. Violence need not appear physical, but is always backed up by physical violence in the end. There's no irony that so-called "intellectual property" is backed up by thugs with guns. Whatever noble aims patents began with they are now nothing more than a form of violent "political language" against the intellectual classes, designed, as Orwell said, to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Might_Is_Right
[2] https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
That’s certainly the claim since it’s a patent pool.
> Do hardware makers use it?
If it’s a fundamental building block of opus then necessarily, no?
In this case, they seem happy enough for people to keep using it under the open source license (I'm not sure the patent pool has any direct power over the software), and seemed more focused on where the money is: people building this into hardware.
I'm with you though. They shouldn't have described it as royalty-free.
However, Fraunhofer and Dolby are apparently thinking that they are holding patents that are relevant for Opus. It will be interesting to see what these patents are.
Software licenses primarily deal with copyright -- the ability to control how a concrete representation of an idea can be copied or performed. Patents deal in the abstract idea itself.
If the patent system sought to promote innovation, rather than stiffle it, we'd stop using "first to file" and move to "all to independently derive".
Yes, independent derivation may still end up in court - but there's at least reasonable standards of evidence either way.
In theory that's a strictly tighter constraint than non-obvious, although it's impossible to actually implement.
However, independent invention isn't necessarily a proof that the particular patent should not have been granted.
Often, it is not the solution but its problem space that's obvious. There tends to be a finite domain of reasonable solutions, and solutions converge to that domain.
In which case you probably want some sort of thicket busting legislation.
Once your rival has manufactured and sold their sausage making machine you can take it apart to see how it works. Perhaps you just claim you’ve never done this?
I said things will still end up in court - and the end-product in the example that you're giving will be too similar to the patented invention to stand up in court.
You seem incredulous that a "first to invent" system could work, but US moved away from that system less than a decade ago.
Edit: Never mind the first post was about independent derivations. That's not the same thing. My mistake.
There are a LOT of commercial apps using Opus. Like Skype.
The fact that they are only going after hardware at present will brings Apple into the mix, because iOS devices support Opus.
This should be interesting.
So there's not many ways this pool can work. A company can only join it if they want to give up on ever using Opus themselves.
It's a really crazy move from Dolby since they have at least a few products that use Opus ( https://professional.dolby.com/product/dolby-voice/dolby-voi... , https://docs.dolby.io/communications-apis/docs/guides-dolby-... , likely more)
Seems like the strategy here is going to be to use FUD to leech small amounts of money from individual hardware device sales from the companies that can afford to pay it. It's just rent seeking. So long as they never actually sue anyone for their use of Opus, it seems like they'll be in the clear as far as the Opus license goes.
It's more like - Opus' voice part IS Skype. Skype contributed all their patents, technologies and key engineers to the development of Opus.
Do you mean Oracle is being defensive and doesn't want to be sued ? Or that Oracle is going to join this patent pool and go after others, and hence won't be able to use Opus themselves without being counter-sued ?
And possibly laches. Patents are highly dependent on the technological context of when they're written. The Opus development process deliberately sought to avoid existing patents, and trying to reverse these judgements a decade later is disingenuous.
Maybe something similar should be applied to patents.
or is EUR 20c per unit for hardware 'reasonable' -on Apple volumes, thats a lot of money.
Apple thought they should only paid $1.5 / unit to Qualcomm for all of Qualcomm's patents. 20c per unit is a lot for single type of patents with limited coverage. Their "reasonable" range is probably 1c per unit.
Which is still about $3M / year.
'The planned Opus program will focus on hardware devices and will not be directed towards open-source software, applications, services, or content.
'“We are pleased to act as administrator in the development of this important patent pool which aims to support efficient, fair, and transparent access to hundreds of patents covering technologies used in the Opus codec,” said Giustino de Sanctis, CEO of Vectis IP. “The reasonable royalty rates of this pool will balance the interests of both the program’s innovators and end-user device manufacturers whose products benefit from use of these patented technologies.”
'Vectis IP expects to launch the program in the coming months and for the program to include access to hundreds of patents with a royalty rate in the range of €15-20c per unit. Royalties for willing licensees will be applicable from the program launch, with further incentives available for licensees that promptly execute a pool license.
'Vectis IP welcomes other innovators with patents essential to Opus to submit applications for consideration in the program at opus@vectis.com.'
In other words: Yeah, we know that the IETF put out an IPR on Opus years ago. We don't care. We smell money.
As in, over a decade ago.
(Though they are covering more recent work in their patent pool, explicitly including stuff that they declare the planned program will not be directed toward.)
That it is only persecuting hardware inplementations gives me little relief. Low power hardware blocks should be readily available & usable, be a great help to making computers & sound devices better, with low power consumption.
This is, as much as anything, a huge blow against making bluetooth generally good & better; a great potential general use codec, encumbered! Alas! Make sure we cant use anything but locked-in overpriced proprietary codecs. Keep standards from actually developing healthily, fighting a 10+ year old codec from growing. Everyone associated with this patent pool should be blocked from the OIN patent pool immediately & with malice. Alas OIN is too old to have defenses against these here new crust of aggro lawyering stasists.
AOMedia fights against this with its defense program: "Established the AOMedia patent defense program to help protect AV1 ecosystem participants in the event of patent claims" https://aomedia.org/press%20releases/the-alliance-for-open-m...
It makes sense to go after hardware vebdors, because that is where the money is and shaking down open source software users is a lot of work and bad press.
Why would any business want to use a codec associated with patent trolls?
Are there other IETF protocols subject to retroactive patents?
Fraunhofer and Dolby make money from patent royalties on standards. If standards no longer want patents or royalties, then they are out of business.
It's obviously going that way long term, but in the meantime a bit of "Linux is cancer/communism" type FUD will more than pay for itself in extending their patent royalty collecting time.
Their problem is that Opus serves many of those use cases for free. They can't allow that to happen, so scaring potential customers away is good for business.
proxy from companies of mpeg?
This is also a peculiar choice from Dolby because the patents that do cover Opus are licensed with an exception for companies that sue saying they have patents covering Opus [2]. Dolby has at least one product that uses Opus [3] so if this pool goes ahead and sues someone then it looks like Dolby is open to being sued themselves.
[1] https://www.opus-codec.org/license/
[2] "If you ... file a Claim for patent infringement against any entity alleging that an Implementation in whole or in part constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement ... then any patent rights granted to you under this License shall automatically terminate retroactively as of the date you first received the grant."
[3] https://professional.dolby.com/product/dolby-voice/dolby-voi...
This is an attempt to prevent hardware for multi channel opus, for use in film/TV, and eventually inhibit the open source CODECs. Because only Dolby is allowed to have hardware for this.
