Caveat: This is personal opinion and should not be quoted out of context to imply *anything* particular or specific about the Patent 6,988,138. This is general commentary about software patents only. This is not official Sakai position. This post is Copyright Me – All Rights Reserved Period! Do not quote this in ANY media without contacting me for permission which I will likely give freely assuming that you convince me that my comments will be given the right context to maintain my original intent.
Let me add, that I am not categorically opposed to patents or even software patents – the essential problem is that the patent office allows overly broad and non-novel patents to get through because they are not willing to say “no” during their examination of the patent.
During the examination phase – it is a sole lonely examiner buried under a mound of paperwork versus dug-in lawyers from a well-funded corporation with no public scrutiny of the process. So to keep from being pummeled, the examiner lets the patents go through and then dumps them in the court system. *That* is the problem – the only time any true public analysis or dialog around a software patent happens is in the context of a lawsuit. And once a court case starts, we all talk have to each other with our hands tied behind our collective backs.
Each time a patent examiner takes the “easy way out” – doing a quick and dirty prior art search – the market wastes 20 million or so and a couple of years to sort it all out.
Here is the worst part – because the system is so flawed – we cannot fault companies for filing tons of patents in their space to defend themselves from scummy individuals who speculatively patent obvious ideas and then hold companies hostage. We *can* fault companies for what they *do* with those patents once they get them – but we cannot fault companies for going after defensive patents.
Here is one of those scummy individual patents:
http://www.eff.org/patent/wanted/patent.php?p=ideaflood
The patented the concept of “personalized subdomains” like csev.umich.edu. AAARGH!
So we have a bad system that is set up to encourage and reward bad behavior on the part of individuals and companies. A patent which was initially filed as “defensive” may be pressed into “offensive” use because of market conditions – and again if the court system rewards “offensive” use of “defensive” patents – it will happen more and more.
Until we can fix the patent system, we must simply spend the money each time one of these patents come out and pay lawyers to talk to each other – so we need a talented legal team (SFLC) at the ready all the time.
Again – the overall theme from me – if you are unhappy – write a check to the SFLC. Do it now. Not just for any one patent – but for a whole series of patents that are likely to come out and not just for our market – for the next market as well and not just for the next few months – but as long as it takes.