Posts Tagged: "Software"

Automotive software exemptions were only one class of circumvention made allowable by the recent copyright rules which may be exciting for some DIY tech enthusiasts. Jailbreaking, or the process of accessing a device’s operating software to execute software which otherwise could not be run, is now legal in some limited forms for an array of electronic devices. For smartphones and tablets, the Copyright Office favored an exemption for circumvention of operating system software to execute lawfully obtained software applications, or to remove unwanted software from the device. This exemption only applies to “portable all-purpose mobile computing devices” and so only doesn’t extend to specialized devices like e-book readers, vehicle-embedded systems or handheld gaming devices. This rule closely reflects requests made in a petition by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) despite opposition from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) as well as the National Telecommunications & Information Administration’s (NTIA) opinion that the exemption should also extend to e-book readers and other specialized devices.

Topping the list of US Unicorns (a pre-exit startup with a valuation exceeding $1 billion) are high flyers like Uber at $51 billion and Airbnb at $25.5 billion, followed by companies that are mostly concentrated in three industries: Consumer Internet, E-commerce and Software. Overall, we found out that 30% of US Unicorns have no US patent assets at all! About 62% of US Unicorns have only 10 or less (issued and pending) US patents in their name; these companies account for more than $157 billion in collective valuation and $25 billion in combined funding.

The language of the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s ostensible provision on Government Use of Software (Article QQ.H.11) is short and relatively straight-forward. This article examines the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Intellectual Property (IP) Chapter Article QQ.H.11, “Government Use of Software,” now available via WikiLeaks.

While hedging risk is a well known and widely accepted investment tactic, there is something rather bizarre about someone who is such a vocal critic doing exactly what they criticize others for doing.

A dim view of software patents does not make Mark Cuban unique, but his latest foray into the patent debate does provide interesting insights into his arbitrary views on innovation. Like your technophobic grandfather, Cuban seems to believe that innovators are entitled to patent rights as long as the innovations are tangible. When those innovations manifest themselves in the form of intangible software the underlying innovation is for some reason no longer entitled to patent protection. Surely Cuban has to realize that this self balancing scooter could accomplish the same exact functionality if the control logic were software based, right?

KAPPOS: ”Companies like Microsoft and Apple and GE — all of whom are members [of the Partnership for American Innovation] along with IBM, Ford, DuPont and Pfizer as well as smaller companies like Many Worlds and Second Sight — all of them are engaged in the hard work of making major, I’ll call it bone-grinding innovations. Second Sight is literally coming up with electro mechanical and implantable human interfacing medical technology that enables blind people to see. And like you said, Gene, serious software development involving lots of super smart people and putting in tremendous amount of time with a lot of specialized expertise, devising solutions to very important problems. You know, enabling blind people to see — it’s hard to imagine a more tangible, practical and important problem than that.”

The United States Supreme Court is commonly known to resolve difficult issues of law. Yet, Alice v. CLS Bank[ii], last year’s unanimous Supreme Court decision, has caused confusion about whether computer-implemented business methods and software innovations are patentable under 35 U.S.C. §101. The question of patentability of software-related innovations – even those involving merely implementations of business-related innovations – seemed…

Clearly, one does not get a patent on software or a computer program. Software, just like electronic circuits, or steam, or solar energy, or gears, or rubber bands — to name a few — is only a means to an end. Under the USPTO long time guidelines one receives a patent only if a) there is an invention b) if there is a proper Specification (an adequate disclosure to one skilled-in-the-art) and c) the so-called invention in the patent application is not abstract and not obvious.

In general, the courts distinguish between functions and algorithms, and they require patent applicants to disclose algorithms to cure perceived deficiencies in functions. The problem with this line of reasoning is that both algorithms and functions under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) are composed of the same things: steps. So the result of the algorithm requirement is to simply make patent applicants “fix” one step by specifying more steps. Accordingly, if the algorithm requirement is taken to its logical conclusion, then each step would be fixed with more steps, and each of those steps would be fixed with even more steps, like Russian dolls. Instead, the courts do not take the algorithm to its logical conclusion and, instead, only require a single layer: the original step and the further steps (i.e., algorithm) for it. This is arbitrary, confusing for patent applicants and examiners, and a poorly calibrated solution to concerns about software patents.

IBM is involved with the development of medical technologies for fields other than oncology, as is evidenced by the issue of U.S. Patent No. 9064306, which is titled Bidirectional Blood Vessel Segmentation. The method for segmenting blood vessels protected here involves receiving an angiogram frame, processing the angiogram frame by applying a Butterworth bandpass filter to suppress high and low frequency background noise, performing both bottom-up filtering and top-down segmentation of the angiogram frame and repeating that process until the results of the top-down segmentation from consecutive iterations equals or exceeds a threshold value. This process is useful for the analysis of angiogram images captured through cardiac catheterization as it can reduce the amount of feedback noise in those images.

One of the more active areas during this round of public comments collected by the Copyright Office involves the prohibitions against circumvention for Proposed Class 21, which covers vehicle software for diagnosis, repair or modification. John Deere also suggests that enabling these exemptions could encourage the piracy of copyrighted music or film recordings by tampering with infotainment software systems installed on vehicles. As well, modifying vehicle software to reduce the car’s maximum speed when lending it to a teenager or activate lights when the windshield wipers are turned on, both of which are suggested by John Deere, constitutes commercial activity which goes against non-profit fair use principles used to consider exemptions.

Corporate investment into research and development at John Deere has also fallen slightly but the company did manage to maintain a $341.1 million R&D investment during the most recent fiscal quarter. Since the beginning of 2015, Deere & Company has received a total of 92 patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. According to Innography’s text cluster (see left), much of Deere’s innovation is focused on work vehicles, tractors and harvesters. We were intrigued to note, however, that a sizable chunk of Deere’s recent inventions relate to a display screen with icon, indicating a healthy amount of software development at the company.

The price index of personal computing has dropped by greater than 40 percent since 2007; during that time, the average consumer price index rose by about 10 percent. Computer software and wireless telephone technologies have also seen price index reductions. although theirs are much less substantial. Interestingly, the only area of tech related to the digital age where the price index hasn’t fallen in those years is Internet bandwidth provided by Internet service providers.

Changing the rules of the game is fundamentally unfair, which would be obvious to everyone if we were talking about football, soccer or playing a board game. Somehow common sense is abandoned when dealing with patents. Changing patent laws in midstream seems particularly un-American, both because it disturbs vested property rights and because it is quintessentially anti-inventor. If we want to maximize a property rights regime it must be certain, stable and predictable. Patents are no exception.

Interestingly, we noted a great number of innovations filed by IBM that extend into the field of financial services. The company has already been working to develop Bitcoin-style systems, especially the “blockchain” digital currency transaction list supporting Bitcoin, that are capable of serving as digital cash and payment mechanisms for major currencies.