Valve losses Steam controller patent lawsuit.

[pas008]

this is just ridiculous

 

this makes me wonder what patents are on keyboards/mice button locations and how many buttons

or even the location of a power/reset/etc button on a computer case or smart phone or laptop  lol

 

 

[Vanderburg]

I hate when I losses.

[PlayStation 2]

Patents are a huge double-edged sword. This, however, really doesn't get any point across outside of the fact that someone just wanted money.

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I would perhaps add “shouldn’t exist any more”. Back when Disney forced patent extension in an epically expensive multi year federal thing involving massive lobbying in order to protect its going-out-of-copywrite stuff the did a major disservice to the world.  People knew what would happen at the time but were unable to stop it.  

It wasn't Disney, and you are I believe confusing copyright and trademark reform with patent reform (two very separate things)

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

It’s not nonsense. The patent system remains the primary driver of invention.  It is broken though. As far as I can tell, It was broken by making patents last too long, and some other knock-on abuses like the way patents are filed today by large companies.  It was done by Disney during iirc the Carter administration.  Patents were great for 400 years before that.  The issue with open source is it has its own economic drivers involving fame and hireability.  It can produce incredibly effective systems but it doesn’t always.  More did than does lately it seems.  It’s the older open source stuff that is the most useful it seems.  I don’t know if the world can survive without patents or not.  They are diseased though.

To be clear, patent reform occurred in 1995 (boosting 17 years to 20 years).  Copyright reform (and lobbying) occurred in 1976 (Steamboat Willy was close to expiration) and 1998 (again the expiration of Steamboat Willy).  Anyways though this is about patents, the copyright system is even more majorly broken than patents.

 

Patents are entirely broken though, but I do agree they need to exist.  For all those patent trolls out there, there are legitimately many patents that do deserve to exist.  I just think that the way novelty is defined in patents should be expanded to include concepts of how unique the idea would be presented with the same problem (and the work that is required to come up with a solution...yes very vague intentionally).  e.g. If someone asked for a controller that you could use more fingers on, and the solution was like this from multiple people...then it wouldn't work.  If someone asked how do you make a transistor and many people spent thousands of man hours devising formula's/material science to discover how, then it should be.

 

At the very least, I think most patents should be reduced to 5 years...in our modern economy and the ability to gain traction quickly, I no longer see the need for the 20 years.

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

Yeah urm it sure is broken, world would be fine without them I'm sure. For sure sure they are, diseased.

Dumping them entirely is risky.  Repair or replace.  I’d like to see a repair attempt more than a replace attempt.   There needs to be something to drive people to accept the risk that invention requires.  Open source is not flawless.  Redhat has proven that. They’ve found a lot of holes in the system and abused them. I’m sure more would be found.  A repair attempt wouldn’t destroy open source necessarily.  Open source licenses such as GPL to some degree even relY on the brokenness of current patent law, Protecting things that have been made open source effectively infinitely.  A repair would not be easy.  It’s a hard problem.

[GoodBytes]

3 hours ago, pas008 said:

this is just ridiculous

 

this makes me wonder what patents are on keyboards/mice button locations and how many buttons

or even the location of a power/reset/etc button on a computer case or smart phone or laptop  lol

 

 

Well, maybe...I mean it's Corsair... they make mouse and keyboards as well as cases.... soooo, if they have this on controllers, they probably have similar things on other of their products

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Dumping them entirely is risky.  Repair or replace.  I’d like to see a repair attempt more than a replace attempt.   There needs to be something to drive people to accept the risk that invention requires.  Open source is not flawless.  Redhat has proven that. They’ve found a lot of holes in the system and abused them. I’m sure more would be found.  A repair attempt wouldn’t destroy open source necessarily.  Open source licenses such as GPL to some degree even relY on the brokenness of current patent law to some degree.  Protecting things that have been made open source effectively infinitely.  A repair would not be easy.  It’s a hard problem.

 

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Well, maybe...I mean it's Corsair... they make mouse and keyboards as well as cases.... soooo, if they have this on controllers, they probably have similar things on other of their products

What does Corsair actually make though and what do they just verify and license?  I remember Corsair memory from way back so they probably make that.  I rather doubt they make PSUs.  I just don’t know though.  They’re unlikely to be a paper company like skullcandy.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It wasn't Disney, and you are I believe confusing copyright and trademark reform with patent reform (two very separate things)

To be clear, patent reform occurred in 1995 (boosting 17 years to 20 years).  Copyright reform (and lobbying) occurred in 1976 (Steamboat Willy was close to expiration) and 1998 (again the expiration of Steamboat Willy).  Anyways though this is about patents, the copyright system is even more majorly broken than patents.

 

Patents are entirely broken though, but I do agree they need to exist.  For all those patent trolls out there, there are legitimately many patents that do deserve to exist.  I just think that the way novelty is defined in patents should be expanded to include concepts of how unique the idea would be presented with the same problem (and the work that is required to come up with a solution...yes very vague intentionally).  e.g. If someone asked for a controller that you could use more fingers on, and the solution was like this from multiple people...then it wouldn't work.  If someone asked how do you make a transistor and many people spent thousands of man hours devising formula's/material science to discover how, then it should be.

 

At the very least, I think most patents should be reduced to 5 years...in our modern economy and the ability to gain traction quickly, I no longer see the need for the 20 years.

They’re related in law though.  They tend to be pushed through at the same time.  If it wasn’t Disney who was it?  All the major news at the time was about Disney.  The issue I think is different sectors of industry are progressing at different rates.  They’re all a bit faster. But it varies a lot.  Computer technology has in general experienced the most change.  Not all of it though.  Fans for example had most of their work done at the end of world war 2 with a small update regarding bearings and new materials. In the last 20 years or so. (I don’t remember the date.  It coincides with the rise of noctua). Some are massively damaged though.  The speed of technological innovation (as opposed to basically every other type of “innovation” all of whom want to confuse themselves with technological innovation) varies a lot by sector of industry and for some the “new”system has proven to be less damaging.   For others it absolutely is though.
 

 

As to administrations I accidentally ignored that it was done in two steps and the first was the Carter administration while the second was Clinton administration.  More or less the same thing happened each time though.  I suppose I could have said Carter and Clinton administrations.  

Edited February 4, 2021 by Bombastinator

[wanderingfool2]

10 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

They’re related in law though.  They tend to be pushed through at the same time

They are two completely separate beasts.  It's simply incorrect to say that Disney is a major driver in patent changes, Disney has their hands in copyright and trademarks but not as much in patents (in the sense of pushing for changes).  There is quite a significant different between patents and copyrights and confusing/mixing them together doesn't help.

 

I think it call comes down to the fact that patent laws need to be changed to prevent such things happening though.  (Again, the concept of novelty needs to change).

 

 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

They are two completely separate beasts.  It's simply incorrect to say that Disney is a major driver in patent changes, Disney has their hands in copyright and trademarks but not as much in patents (in the sense of pushing for changes).  There is quite a significant different between patents and copyrights and confusing/mixing them together doesn't help.

 

I think it call comes down to the fact that patent laws need to be changed to prevent such things happening though.  (Again, the concept of novelty needs to change).

 

 

Yes. But only technically.  In practice trademark, copywrite, and patent stuff  is worried about by the same people.

[wanderingfool2]

5 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Yes. But only technically.  In practice trademark, copywrite, and patent stuff  is worried about by the same people.

No, that is wrong.  Look at people like LTT, or any youtuber their focus would be on copyright and not patents.  Automotive cares about patents, and less so about copyrights.

 

Copyrights in the court of law are also drastically different...so yes it is wrong to say Disney lobbying for trademark and copyright changes is the same as patent reform (which btw has only been extended from 17 to 20 years, which isn't that much compared to copyrights which went from 56 years to 75 years (1976) to 95 years (1998)).

 

[Heliian]

Patents are there to protect new innovations from being stolen and reproduced. 

 

Imo, extra buttons is not worthy of a patent.  That's possibly why the judgement was so low, if it includes legal fees then even better.  

 

I didn't bother to research the whole issue but I'm sure there's a workaround for valve. 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

No, that is wrong.  Look at people like LTT, or any youtuber their focus would be on copyright and not patents.  Automotive cares about patents, and less so about copyrights.

 

Copyrights in the court of law are also drastically different...so yes it is wrong to say Disney lobbying for trademark and copyright changes is the same as patent reform (which btw has only been extended from 17 to 20 years, which isn't that much compared to copyrights which went from 56 years to 75 years (1976) to 95 years (1998)).

 

You found exceptions.  Congrats.  There always are some.  Apparently you tubers who would all be small rather than large businesses.  I stand by my statement. 

[Doobeedoo]

4 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Dumping them entirely is risky.  Repair or replace.  I’d like to see a repair attempt more than a replace attempt.   There needs to be something to drive people to accept the risk that invention requires.  Open source is not flawless.  Redhat has proven that. They’ve found a lot of holes in the system and abused them. I’m sure more would be found.  A repair attempt wouldn’t destroy open source necessarily.  Open source licenses such as GPL to some degree even relY on the brokenness of current patent law, Protecting things that have been made open source effectively infinitely.  A repair would not be easy.  It’s a hard problem.

Repair maybe sure, though there will still always be flaws no doubt. The open source may not be flawless but wouldn't say it's worse and complete share of ideas would drive invention though. But capitalism is a thing so there's that.

[Athan Immortal]

On 2/3/2021 at 9:48 PM, Orangeator said:

Wow, that is super lame of Microsoft to even patent such an "invention"... 

Microsoft didn't patent it. You don't even need to read the source, just the first line of the quote to understand it's a company called Ironburg that holds the patent, and Microsoft correctly licensed it for use.

 

Not only that, 4 people actually ticked agree or like on your comment... yikes.

[Orangeator]

3 minutes ago, Athan Immortal said:

Microsoft didn't patent it. You don't even need to read the source, just the first line of the quote to understand it's a company called Ironburg that holds the patent, and Microsoft correctly licensed it for use.

 

Not only that, 4 people actually ticked agree or like on your comment... yikes.

I saw this after the fact, forgot to update the comment. That said, its lame of Ironburg to have patented such an "invention"...

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

Repair maybe sure, though there will still always be flaws no doubt. The open source may not be flawless but wouldn't say it's worse and complete share of ideas would drive invention though. But capitalism is a thing so there's that.

I absolutely wouldn’t either. Especially right now.  That’s part of what makes the whole “destroy all patents!!” Argument possible.  It’s that patents don’t have to be as messed up as they are right now, and they weren’t for a really really long time.  They were never perfect the history surrounding the smith&wesson number one pistol is a great example.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Bombastinator]

27 minutes ago, Athan Immortal said:

Microsoft didn't patent it. You don't even need to read the source, just the first line of the quote to understand it's a company called Ironburg that holds the patent, and Microsoft correctly licensed it for use.

 

Not only that, 4 people actually ticked agree or like on your comment... yikes.

There’s a lot of axe grinding around here.  A certain amount of “this company good!  That company BAD!!” there are situations where folks will support or oppose nearly any comment in support of or detracting to a given company without looking at the particulars.  I’m no better I guess.  Everyone has their axes and they’re often invisible to the wielder.

[whm1974]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

I absolutely wouldn’t either. Especially right now.  That’s part of what makes the whole “destroy all patents!!” Argument possible.  It’s that patents don’t have to be as messed up as they are right now, and they weren’t for a really really long time.  They were never perfect the history surrounding the smith&wesson number one pistol is a great example.

It was a revolver in .22 Short based off the BB/CB Cap. Not a Pistol at all.

[Brooksie359]

17 hours ago, whm1974 said:

Actually the Modern World can exist w/o Patents.

Absolutely not. If patents didn't exist then most expensive research would be pointless. If you spend tons of money trying to find out a way to do something only to have it copied as soon as you release it to market then nobody will want to invest alot of money into research. 

[jagdtigger]

38 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

. If you spend tons of money trying to find out a way to do something only to have it copied as soon as you release it to market then nobody will want to invest alot of money into research. 

They will copy it regardless, very blatantly in some cases and you cant do anything about it if they are outside of the country where the patent was registered. No to mention all the patents like this one where there is no investment and work was done. Just an empty money grab that has no real value behind it. Or to bring up one other which is a bit off for this topic: asetec (this one got invalidated though).

[Mark Kaine]

8 hours ago, Athan Immortal said:

Not only that, 4 people actually ticked agree or like on your comment... yikes.

Welcome to the internet!   

[wanderingfool2]

16 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

You found exceptions.  Congrats.  There always are some.  Apparently you tubers who would all be small rather than large businesses.  I stand by my statement. 

No, it's not exceptions...the fact that you treat copyright and patents as pretty much the same thing and are making claims as such, it's up to you to prove not me.  Those "exceptions" are just a small amount of examples.  Patents protect inventions, which inherently puts them in a different category as copyright (and the fact that patent vs copyright court cases are wildly different).

 

You are the one that falsely accusing Disney of being the cause of patent reform "As far as I can tell, It was broken by making patents last too long, and some other knock-on abuses like the way patents are filed today by large companies.  It was done by Disney during iirc the Carter administration.".  Like I've literal shown, patents went from a whopping 17 years to 20 years, vs copyright 56 years to 95 years (15% increase vs 70% increase).  Which btw, between 1836 and 1860, patents were for 21 years . The expiration date of 20, yes, is an issue but hardly the real reason why patents are broken.  So if you want to claim Disney is the reason for patent issues, then you are the one who has to show proof.

 

14 hours ago, Athan Immortal said:

Microsoft didn't patent it. You don't even need to read the source, just the first line of the quote to understand it's a company called Ironburg that holds the patent, and Microsoft correctly licensed it for use.

 

Not only that, 4 people actually ticked agree or like on your comment... yikes.

Yea, that is concerning

[owwnoooo]

I don't understand why do microsoft or valve have a patent for such a trivial thing , it is no x86 or some discovery , it is just a place to put buttons .who grants patents for that ?

 

[Bombastinator]

8 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Absolutely not. If patents didn't exist then most expensive research would be pointless. If you spend tons of money trying to find out a way to do something only to have it copied as soon as you release it to market then nobody will want to invest alot of money into research. 

This is why patents were created in the first place.  Patents created the industrial revolution.  There was a period when there were no such things as patents.  This is what happened.  There was next to no innovation for literally hundreds of years.   The sunset on patents is just as important though.  If there is no sunset (as is perilously close to what is happening now) you get what amounts to inherited wealth.  An entity simply squats on innovation created by others long ago and does none itself.  Patent sunsets mean the entity has to KEEP innovating. Patents don’t need to go away, they just need to be generally shorter and more variable by industrial sector.  There are potential problems with this. 

 

 I give as evidence the TIZIO lamp.  It’s a great desk lamp.  Much better design than spring arm lamps.  It’s based on weight and friction.  Springs wear out.  Weights don’t.  It does everything that a spring arm desk lamp does except it lasts multiple times longer than a spring arm lamp.  And they still cost a couple hundred bucks only because copywrite.  The thing is because the inventor was an artist he managed to get a copywrite rather than a patent.  Copywrite lasts a lot longer than patent. So the dude managed to squat on his design for a very long time. Spring arm desk lamps shouldn’t exist anymore.  Shouldn’t have for near 20 years.  They still do though because the dude effectively has a lifetime patent. 
 

So the problem is you’ll have entities attempting to get their device used for one thing classified as another thing so they can get a longer patent.