Need something? Download free app.
- Related Stories
-
Legislating creativity--feds plan patent reform
September 13, 2005 -
Staking a claim in the patent gold mine
July 20, 2005 -
Web services patents fetch $15.5 million
December 6, 2004 -
Tech giants edgy over Web services patent sale
November 24, 2004 -
XML makes its mark
February 10, 2003
(continued from previous page)
contacted by Scientigo, according to spokeswoman Janet Daly.
Daly noted that companies or even individuals often make patent claims on XML. For example, Microsoft, which uses XML as the foundation of many of its products, was awarded a patent for programming techniques related to XML.
"Regularly there are small companies or even individuals who have one or two or 10 patents. And when the company doesn't do very well, the patents become a means of revenue," Daly said.
Scientigo does fit the profile of companies looking to buttress their finances by better commercializing their intellectual property.
The company, once known as Market Central, went through a complete overhaul this year after the arrival of Bryant as CEO. It sold off its call center business, eliminated debt, and focused its product development on content management software.
Hue and cry
As part of the restructuring, company executives decided to try to draw revenue from its patents--including the two in question that came through Scientigo's acquisition of the assets of a Texas company called Pliant Technologies.
Bryant does not dispute the company's interest in potentially huge revenue from these patents. A multimillion-dollar annual royalty from Amazon.com, for example, would not be onerous to Amazon and yet would help revitalize Scientigo, Bryant said.
"This could be a pretty significant income stream for us," Bryant said.
He declined to indicate which company he is negotiating with to handle licensing.
Bryant did, however, detail the outside firms he enlisted to examine Scientigo's patents and formulate its IP strategy. Those companies include law firms Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati. Another is Inflexion Point Strategy, which describes itself as an intellectual property investment bank set up to buy and sell IP.
Even with the aid of an outside licensing firm, Scientigo will face a great deal of difficulty extracting royalties from XML users, said Andrew Updegrove, a partner at Gesmer Updegrove and attorney for the standards body Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).
OASIS is one of several standards bodies and organizations that uses XML as the basis for its work, noted Updegrove, who runs the ConsortiumInfo.org site that tracks industry standards. With so many people heavily invested in XML, any patent claims over portions of XML would be challenged, much the way the Eolas patent claim against Microsoft was reviewed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
"The world has learned that you don't mess with the Internet, the Web, or anything crucial to its operation. Mighty will be the hue and cry against any assertion of patents against XML in any kind of broad sense or even in any sense at all. There will be a call for re-examination of the patents, and there will also be refusals to license that will lead to litigation if the patent owner chooses to sue," Updegrove predicted.
Bryant defends the company's plan, saying it's the "right move to make" for his company and shareholders.
On Friday, he intends to fly to the West Coast and finalize an agreement with an IP licensing firm, a move he hopes will validate Scientigo's claims.
See more CNET content tagged:
patent,
SGML,
XML,
claim,
royalty
standard infringes on their patents. Incredible.
I hope these folks are tarred and feathered. Have they never heard
of EDI, which is a data in a neutral form and dates back to the
1960's?
Clowns.
standard infringes on their patents. Incredible.
I hope these folks are tarred and feathered. Have they never heard
of EDI, which is a data in a neutral form and dates back to the
1960's?
Clowns.
I haven't seen these patents, so I don't know if they are valid or not, but in general, and in the realm of software, the PTO needs to take a closer look at patent applications.
I haven't seen these patents, so I don't know if they are valid or not, but in general, and in the realm of software, the PTO needs to take a closer look at patent applications.
The Odom dates for the patents in question are May 21, 2002 and November 24, 1998.
The Odom dates for the patents in question are May 21, 2002 and November 24, 1998.
I would like to patent English language and all the other languages in the world. Evidently, I'm a human being and happen to have evolved from apes(unless you believe in Intelligent Design). So the development of various languages was done by my forefathers. I would like to get a patent for all the spoken, written communication in the world. Please do the needful.
Thanks,
Descendant of Inventor of Languages
I would like to patent English language and all the other languages in the world. Evidently, I'm a human being and happen to have evolved from apes(unless you believe in Intelligent Design). So the development of various languages was done by my forefathers. I would like to get a patent for all the spoken, written communication in the world. Please do the needful.
Thanks,
Descendant of Inventor of Languages
Of course, it could just as easily be that the claims are completely invalid and the patent is no good.
Of course, it could just as easily be that the claims are completely invalid and the patent is no good.
1. A method of organizing and storing a set of information in neutral form in a computer based environment comprising the steps of:
a) organizing the set of information into instance data sets;
b) defining a time basis for the collection of instance data sets;
c) organizing each instance data set into an instance cluster comprised of data instance nodes;
d) assigning to each data instance node in an instance cluster a distinguishing structural tag comprising the following three components:
a data reference;
a data type;
a data organization;
e) defining the components of the structural tag for each data value in each instance cluster;
f) assigning properties of the data value to each structural tag;
g) storing the names of all of the structural tag elements together with their respective definitions and properties in a suitable format;
h) combining each data value and its respective structural tag to form a neutral form expression of the data; and
i) storing the resultant neutral form expression of the data value.
1. A method of organizing and storing a set of information in neutral form in a computer based environment comprising the steps of:
a) organizing the set of information into instance data sets;
b) defining a time basis for the collection of instance data sets;
c) organizing each instance data set into an instance cluster comprised of data instance nodes;
d) assigning to each data instance node in an instance cluster a distinguishing structural tag comprising the following three components:
a data reference;
a data type;
a data organization;
e) defining the components of the structural tag for each data value in each instance cluster;
f) assigning properties of the data value to each structural tag;
g) storing the names of all of the structural tag elements together with their respective definitions and properties in a suitable format;
h) combining each data value and its respective structural tag to form a neutral form expression of the data; and
i) storing the resultant neutral form expression of the data value.
Trolls sit on their patents like this company has for a decade and wait for it to become a standard before stepping forward with their hands out saying "pay up."
Make the SoL two years to bring a claim on a software patent. If they don't step forward early enough, they get nothing. NO more of this raping the industry years later.
Would make sense in a patent situation as well. And if I'm not mistaken, I think there are types of acquiescence and estoppel that operate similarly in patent law, but I don't know the details offhand.
Trolls sit on their patents like this company has for a decade and wait for it to become a standard before stepping forward with their hands out saying "pay up."
Make the SoL two years to bring a claim on a software patent. If they don't step forward early enough, they get nothing. NO more of this raping the industry years later.
Would make sense in a patent situation as well. And if I'm not mistaken, I think there are types of acquiescence and estoppel that operate similarly in patent law, but I don't know the details offhand.
We've gotten reform on frivilous consumer lawsuits, how about some reform for these companies that are fishing for IP revenue on technologies that they are really reaching on.
This one is almost as bad as the patent on hyperlinks.
Good luck in court. You'll need it.
We've gotten reform on frivilous consumer lawsuits, how about some reform for these companies that are fishing for IP revenue on technologies that they are really reaching on.
This one is almost as bad as the patent on hyperlinks.
Good luck in court. You'll need it.
I think that people who are opposed to patents should imagine themselves in the shoes of inventors from small companies who are getting infringed upon by the big guys, who on one hand are inforcing their own patents with an iron hand, and the next minute accusing the small companies being "trolls". The patent is the last line of defense for the small inventor.
The average prosecution of the patenting process takes 18 hours over a 2-3 year period. In litigated cases that actually result in a final judgment on validity, issued patents are held invalid 46% of the time.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/blewp/19/
Some libertarian free market extremists are opposed to all patents and they are "balanced" by the "patent everything under the Sun" extremists (who currently have the upper hand). The rest of us are - or should be - pleased that the patent system has worked so well and continues to do so for some industries and technologies, but appalled by its uncontrolled and unjustified extensions over the last 2-3 decades. We should not put ourselves in the shoes of any one stakeholder, especially not a potentially very unrepresentative hypothetical or anecdotal one. The overall picture from an economic and social welfare point of view is what is important.
Conclusion: They did nothing useful for industry and anyway want make a lot of money from that nothing!
And you really believe somebody have to pay for theirs patents?
Is your company using XML? Maybe answer is yes. So to be honest you have to pay to them from your pocket because yours post support them. By the way do you know how many things in any industry could be patented? The number is unlimited! So you want make that happen? Please don?t lost common sense.
I find a hard time believing that the patent system is as difficult as you state given the absurdity of some of the patents granted. It seems that patents are sometimes just a revenue stream for people who are unable to actually produce anything as opposed to proper government protection of "useful arts."
- Software patents very difficult obtain
-
by ChipVenters
October 21, 2005 11:15 AM PDT
- As the CEO of a small company that has successfully patented several software technologies, I can tell you that the patent office does not grant these easily. It took over 5 years to get one of our patents that was applied for in 1998. The process is intensive and very expensive. The examiners have tremendous research resources available to them and use them exhaustively looking for prior art. Sometimes they get it wrong, but their track record speaks for itself where nearly 95% of all the patents stand up in court.
-
Reply to this comment
-
-
- Source/context of 95% figure?
-
by
October 21, 2005 2:41 PM PDT
- Paraphrasing Mark Lemley (Berkeley):
-
-
- be honest
-
by vladperl
October 22, 2005 9:10 AM PDT
- I don't know about yours patents. But in this case that is definitely fraud. They made these patents only because they have believed there are possibility to make profit from that later. They did not help in any way to develop xml and related technologies. I'm sure nobody who invented XML had read theirs patents.
-
-
- so?!?
-
by computerjunkie
October 22, 2005 3:31 PM PDT
- So you patent a series of 1's and 0's- e.g. math! Many concepts, as opposed to tangible items, only have one realistic way of being stated. This is why process patents and software patents are a travesty. It's one thing to patent a better mousetrap and wholly another to patent the only way of doing something that everyone else would do the same way only with you thinking to patent it first.
-
-
See all 150 Comments >>I think that people who are opposed to patents should imagine themselves in the shoes of inventors from small companies who are getting infringed upon by the big guys, who on one hand are inforcing their own patents with an iron hand, and the next minute accusing the small companies being "trolls". The patent is the last line of defense for the small inventor.
The average prosecution of the patenting process takes 18 hours over a 2-3 year period. In litigated cases that actually result in a final judgment on validity, issued patents are held invalid 46% of the time.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/blewp/19/
Some libertarian free market extremists are opposed to all patents and they are "balanced" by the "patent everything under the Sun" extremists (who currently have the upper hand). The rest of us are - or should be - pleased that the patent system has worked so well and continues to do so for some industries and technologies, but appalled by its uncontrolled and unjustified extensions over the last 2-3 decades. We should not put ourselves in the shoes of any one stakeholder, especially not a potentially very unrepresentative hypothetical or anecdotal one. The overall picture from an economic and social welfare point of view is what is important.
Conclusion: They did nothing useful for industry and anyway want make a lot of money from that nothing!
And you really believe somebody have to pay for theirs patents?
Is your company using XML? Maybe answer is yes. So to be honest you have to pay to them from your pocket because yours post support them. By the way do you know how many things in any industry could be patented? The number is unlimited! So you want make that happen? Please don?t lost common sense.
I find a hard time believing that the patent system is as difficult as you state given the absurdity of some of the patents granted. It seems that patents are sometimes just a revenue stream for people who are unable to actually produce anything as opposed to proper government protection of "useful arts."