Tech Dirt - Patent Not Sufficiently Broad Or Generic? Cloem Will Help You By Automatically Generating Dozens Of Nearly Identical Patents

Tech Dirt's article Patent Not Sufficiently Broad Or Generic? Cloem Will Help You By Automatically Generating Dozens Of Nearly Identical Patents  has "news about two startups that could upend intellectual property laws: Qentis (copyright) and Cloem (patents)."

Tech Dirt claims "Cloem's business model seems a bit more grounded in reality" and notes VentureBeat describes Cloem as providing "software that ... appears to linguistically manipulate a seed set of a client’s patent claims by, for example, substituting in synonyms or reordering steps in a process, thereby generating tens of thousands of potentially patentable inventions."

"Cloem is a mixture of patent experts and computer linguistic specialists. The key element of its potentially-patentable variations lies within 'seed lists,' which draw from a variety of sources, including (according to Cloem) 70,000,000 patent documents. Its algorithms then brute force together lists of 'new' patent claims, which can then be filed and used offensively or defensively."

Tech Dirt concludes "Cloem's business model seems custom-built for patent trolls who will be able to "expand" their already-broad patents to nail down even more IP turf. Cloem's service also makes it easy for non-inventors to jam up patent offices with me-too "inventions" based on minor iterations of existing patents."

In my opinion, the business model has significant issues:

Inventorship - The software generated claims make murky who invented. Can we safely conclude the inventor of the seed claim invented the computer generated set of claims? I am doubting the authors of the software intend to be named as inventors, read any part of the application, or interact with the inventors of the seed claim. So how could this business model scale?

Reordering steps of a method - In general, the order the steps are recited in a method claim does not dictate a certain order. Yet the assumption is reordering the steps gets you different protection.

Lack of accounting for prior art - You must be aware of the prior art to draft a claim that maximizes the protection.

No value in filing dozen of nearly identical patents - Filing dozens of nearly identical patents will only trigger double patenting rejections and if not caught in examination will serve as a valid defense in court.

No perceived users - Cloem is not a startup, but the article doesn't identity a single patent troll that uses the software much less file dozens of nearly identical patents with thousands of claims using this software.

Copyright © 2015 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.

Professor Hricik - Patent Attorneys Become Inventors?

Tonight, I am reading Professor Hricik's article Save a Little Room For Me: The Necessity of Naming as Inventors Practioners Who Conceive of Claimed Subject Matter. My comments will be brief.

The article is worth reading if you are a patent attorney or agent preparing US patent applications. If nothing else it will increase awareness of the issue and give guidance on how to handle a practitioner's inventive contribution to a claim of an application.

As a matter of practice, I think it's better to conduct an inventor interview so you don't increase the possibility of contributing to the conception of an invention. Ask questions rather than suggest things and listen more than talk. However, if you have contributed inventive material, Professor Dolak's proposal appears to be right: (1) add your name as an inventor to the application to satisfy US requirements that all inventors be named, and (2) assign your entire ownership to the client to satisfy your fiduciary duty.

Copyright © 2014 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.

Bill Gates - American Inventor

Many would credit Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with bringing desktop computers to the world, but Bill Gates also deserves credit in establishing the PC industry. He has been such a fixture that I was initially surprised when he stepped back from his full-time role at Microsoft to establish the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Sure it might help solve pressing issues like malaria, tuberculosis, and clean water in developing countries, but I was concerned if Microsoft would be the same after he stepped away in 2006. Well history shows when he resigned as Microsoft's CEO in 1999 Microsoft was a $600 billion company and today it is $270 billion. But then I realized who can criticize his desire to help others? Certainly it appears to be the right decision since the Gates Foundation has made real progress in addressing these problems.

Less known is Mr. Gates has also been inventor since leaving his day-to-day role at Microsoft, mostly working with friends at Intellectual Ventures. I find that hard to criticize, but one article has spun this as Bill Gates still helping known patent trolls obtain more patents. Does anyone think he is interested in helping a patent troll get more patents in his "spare" time? Couldn't we give him the benefit of a doubt that he is engaging in creative thinking on how to help the world in this context? For some the answer is yes and no, because they see every bit of news as supporting their presumptions.

Copyright © 2013 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.

Doug Engelbart - Legendary Computer Pioneer and American Inventor Passes Away at 88

On July 2, Doug Engelbart, American inventor and computing pioneer, passed away of kidney failure at 88 in Atherton, California. Mr. Engelbart invented many features of the modern computer interface, including the mouse, windowing, text editing, bitmap screens, video conferencing, hypertext, networking, collaboration software, and the graphical user interface. He was awarded a number of US patents including one on the computer mouse that SRI licensed to Apple for about $40,000. Working in relative obscurity at SRI he contributed much to the modern computer interface.

See NY Times Computer Visionary Who Invented the Mouse and GigaOm Doug Engelbart, America inventor and computing legend, has passed away.

Copyright © 2013 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.