Hi James
I think, a bit of ranting aside, what people dislike is that software
patents are a net lose to the economy, software progress and meritocracy.
The patent mine-field isnt good for the industry nor society as a whole as
it adds economic friction, uncertainty and therefore holds back progress.
That the system + or - works as it is defined or not isnt really the
question.
The problem is the way the patent system is defined has over time turned out
badly. I have my name on a few patents. Three of them originated when
someone asked a question and I said after literally 5 seconds of thought,
"sure you can do that". And those are I think quality patents by the
standards. That just cant be right.
Many of the issued patents arent even novel in the sense of "technically
slightly different" - prior art is evidently not being respected because few
are spending resources protecting it.
Adam
On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 10:29:45AM -0800, James S. Tyre wrote:
At 12:11 PM 11/20/2010 -0500, Steven Bellovin wrote:
Let me repeat a previous question: do you have *any* first-hand
experience with patent litigation? There are a fair number of
people on this list who have such experience. There is at least
one attorney on this list (who hasn't posted publicly).
Not that anyone should doubt Steve's word, but that would be me.
Mostly I lurk (here and on Perry's on again off again list) because I
am not a skilled technologist, let alone a crypto expert. But I have
represented many in various court matters, I learn from them (and
from these lists, among other places).
Might I *strongly* suggest that people confine their assertions
of fact to things that they've experienced, rather than read on a
blog or mailing list somewhere?
As for your specific question: opposing counsel can deal with such
issues with good questioning, either during a deposition or during
cross-examination on the stand. If you get the opposing expert
contradicting him or herself in front of the jury, or unable to
explain to the jury the bad answers in a (videotaped) deposition,
the jury will come to the proper conclusions.
The U.S. court system is far from perfect. Having spent 32 years
working in it, I think I'm qualified to express that opinion. '-)
But, most of the time (not always), things do work out as they
should. What Steve writes aren't the only ways to separate truth
from fiction, and my point here isn't to write a treatise. It is
simply to reinforce what Steve says here and in a few previous posts.
Some folks here clearly do not know of what they speak when it comes
to legal matters. Such posts are no more helpful than were I to
write about my (hypothetical) build-a-better-mousetrap-crypto-scheme.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
James S. Tyre jst...@jstyre.com
Law Offices of James S. Tyre 310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512 Culver City, CA 90230-4969
Co-founder, The Censorware Project http://censorware.net
Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org
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