Patents and the Internet

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

A patent gives protection in a closed market, for example when you fabricate a bike and sell it in the country where the patent was filled. If someone else wanted to replicate your bike on another country your protection extends in to them (at least the first world economies) by the Paris Convention Priority and Patent Cooperation Treaty (AFAIU).

But what happens with internet projects?

Suppose someone creates a web portal and gets a patent for it, the portal becomes a success and so a smart ass copy it and is knowledgeable enough to put the server in (whatever country not covered by Paris Convention or Patent Cooperation Treaty).. Can he infringe your patent without worries?

Sure maybe your users are mostly on the States, but your product is on a different space than the territory of the US... What can the patent owner do to protect himself in this situation?

Nope not immense pockets to have a private team of lawyers, nor to prosecute the patent in every possible country... supposing the situation is real, is a Patent advisable in the first place? or just launching the portal in the hopes it succeed and then hire the private lawyers and etc to do whatever is necessary to control the damage?

 

[Francesca R]

I thought you didn't like property rights, still less artificial ones, and didn't want money.

Just launch it and tell everyone what it is and how to copy it. The joy was all in building it, right?

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Well Francesca silly you as you obviously didn't read but what you wanted to read (confirmation bias) now do you have a valuable answer, my guess is that you might have it, because you tend to gravitate to this forum. Thanks.

 

[Francesca R]

I don't think it is going to be worth your while patenting a website, no. If it gets copied that has benefits for you as well. If this is your first venture and you are not established then name recognition should be worth a lot more than present earnings. If it is any good, then you would do best by letting the end user capture at least 95% of the value for free. And copycats will help that happen, not help themselves.

 

[CrikeyBobs]

I would have thought that copyright laws would be the best way to protect your portal. The Berne convention^WP is recognised by most countries in the world.

As for dealing with those who infringe your copyright, first you could start off with an email to the web master and then escalate to their ISP. Perhaps you could encourage your loyal clientèle to express their disapproval of the miscreant's actions.

If that fails, then it's time to get legal.

As a last resort you could lease access to a bot network and DDOS them to oblivion (note I do NOT condone that action).

 

[balrog666]

Suing them in the country they are hosted in will take a great deal of time is unlikely to succeed, especially when they can simply move. And move repeatedly.

Even if, after some significant expense, you win some infringement trial, you will collect nothing. And again, they will simply relocate and restart.

If the idea is perceived up front to be that lucrative, they will simply replicate it in a hundred places to start with and they will not be alone.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

I don't think it is going to be worth your while patenting a website, no. If it gets copied that has benefits for you as well. If this is your first venture and you are not established then name recognition should be worth a lot more than present earnings. If it is any good, then you would do best by letting the end user capture at least 95% of the value for free. And copycats will help that happen, not help themselves.

Thanks. Yes, this is an important point, if you get recognized and people perceives you as the originator of the idea, others will come but you will still have your piece of the pie. This has happened with countless of portals in the past, like for example in the video area, before Youtube arrived. Sure you can't be sure about if someone else will get a bigger slice, but that is a problem with almost every market.

Regarding your last phrase, it got me thinking, yes in a way if someone copies you they are making a free market campaign (sort of). Now it would be crucial to get more money in the project so it stays ahead, but by the time you have the attention of competitors you would also have the benefit of people willing to risk their money to make you stronger. Well at least the scenario is plausible.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

I would have thought that copyright laws would be the best way to protect your portal. The Berne convention^WP is recognised by most countries in the world.

As for dealing with those who infringe your copyright, first you could start off with an email to the web master and then escalate to their ISP. Perhaps you could encourage your loyal clientèle to express their disapproval of the miscreant's actions.

If that fails, then it's time to get legal.

As a last resort you could lease access to a bot network and DDOS them to oblivion (note I do NOT condone that action).

Will read more about the Berne Convention, thanks. But I'm more worried about those replicating the idea than about any copyright. The idea can be protected with a Patent (I hired a patent attorney to be sure about that)... but as it will be on the Internet I began to look further and now I'm not sure about if the effort and money involved in the patent process would be an investment.

The attorney told me that it is better if it is protected than if it is not, but couldn't tell me anything about the relation between cost/benefit involved. Thats why I come here to see what my fellow skeptics would say.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Suing them in the country they are hosted in will take a great deal of time is unlikely to succeed, especially when they can simply move. And move repeatedly.

Even if, after some significant expense, you win some infringement trial, you will collect nothing. And again, they will simply relocate and restart.

If the idea is perceived up front to be that lucrative, they will simply replicate it in a hundred places to start with and they will not be alone.

Yes exactly, this is why maybe the idea about getting a patent for it would be futile. Still, I keep seeing that people patents ideas for the Internet, so maybe it is an important step.. I don't know.

 

[Francesca R]

if you get recognized and people perceives you as the originator of the idea [ . . . ]

It might sound counter-intuitive but the best way of helping that to happen is to encourage copying for nothing as much as you can. A massive loss-leader (except it is only opportunity loss and even that is a fallacy because interest would not be strong if you tried to extract the opportunity value anyway) is just what a startout needs

And a good idea too.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

It might sound counter-intuitive but the best way of helping that to happen is to encourage copying for nothing as much as you can. A massive loss-leader (except it is only opportunity loss and even that is a fallacy because interest would not be strong if you tried to extract the opportunity value anyway) is just what a startout needs

And a good idea too.

Not sure about what you are telling me here. Create a video's portal, like Metacafe (I don't know who started them but it was certainly not Youtube), then encourage others to replicate it and whew, you get someone else getting 1.6 billion dollars out of your idea.

What about Friendster? And I mention this last one specially because its founder has the PATENT for social portals... and it ended up being the social portal of choice in Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia, but not the US.

So, what are you telling me here?

 

[Horatius]

A patent gives protection in a closed market, for example when you fabricate a bike and sell it in the country where the patent was filled. If someone else wanted to replicate your bike on another country your protection extends in to them (at least the first world economies) by the Paris Convention Priority and Patent Cooperation Treaty (AFAIU).

This isn't quite right. Patents are still only national in effect, and you must acquire a patent in each country where you want to protect your idea. Things like the Paris Convention and the PCT help streamline the application process, and give you some recognition for earlier filing dates in some countries, but at some point, you still need to go to the National Patent Office in each country, and ask them to actually grant your patent.

And yes, it is complex, expensive and time consuming. PCT makes it a bit less so than it used to be, but it's still pretty involved.

But what happens with internet projects?

Suppose someone creates a web portal and gets a patent for it, the portal becomes a success and so a smart ass copy it and is knowledgeable enough to put the server in (whatever country not covered by Paris Convention or Patent Cooperation Treaty).. Can he infringe your patent without worries?

If you don't have the Patent in that country, there's not much you can do against the website owner. However, you might be able to sue those using their website, if they're using it from a country where you do have the Patent. Of course, that means you'd have to fight a whole lot of little lawsuits, which is likely to be a waste of time, in most cases.

Sure maybe your users are mostly on the States, but your product is on a different space than the territory of the US... What can the patent owner do to protect himself in this situation?

Nope not immense pockets to have a private team of lawyers, nor to prosecute the patent in every possible country... supposing the situation is real, is a Patent advisable in the first place? or just launching the portal in the hopes it succeed and then hire the private lawyers and etc to do whatever is necessary to control the damage?

The deep dark secret of the Patent World is that the vast majority of patents don't make much, if any, money for their owners. It sounds to me like you'd be hard pressed to make this pay off all by yourself. A larger company with the resources to apply for patents all over, and to defend those patents, might make it work.

You could consider filing a PCT application, and then seeing if any large companies would be interested in buying that application from you. If it's a good idea, that could be patented, and would likely be successful, there might be some takers.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

double post

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

The deep dark secret of the Patent World is that the vast majority of patents don't make much, if any, money for their owners. It sounds to me like you'd be hard pressed to make this pay off all by yourself. A larger company with the resources to apply for patents all over, and to defend those patents, might make it work.

You could consider filing a PCT application, and then seeing if any large companies would be interested in buying that application from you. If it's a good idea, that could be patented, and would likely be successful, there might be some takers.

Horatius thank you for your answer, I was looking forward to read something like this Yes, I'm being pressed to pay for it without knowing if it is an investment or a waste of money. so thanks to you my next move is to do a research on the PCT application. I have a provisional patent application running, so time is a determinant factor.

 

[CrikeyBobs]

With regards to patenting software in the EU, you may find this Patents for software? article from the European Patent Office (EPO) useful.

The EPO does not grant patents for computer programs or computer-implemented business methods that make no technical contribution.

 

[Francesca R]

Create a video's portal, like Metacafe (I don't know who started them but it was certainly not Youtube), then encourage others to replicate it and whew, you get someone else getting 1.6 billion dollars out of your idea.

Confirmation bias. So every new application, yours included, is like YouTube--because you've heard about one or two of those? Do you know why people write open-source content, really? It is not just reciprocal altruism.

I think you would do better to forget about arming yourself to the teeth with expensive protection that assumes you can capture a lot of monetary value from whatever your creation is, and figure out how it could more feasibly benefit you, via maximising and not minimising your expected visibility in relevant circles.

Your choice, naturally.

 

[Modified]

What about Friendster? And I mention this last one specially because its founder has the PATENT for social portals... and it ended up being the social portal of choice in Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia, but not the US.

As far as I can tell from a quick look, all of the Friendster patents would be useful only for intimidating small players. The primary claim of 7069308, for example, is just a general description of a trivial application of a shortest path algorithm. That would be difficult to defend in court.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

With regards to patenting software in the EU, you may find this Patents for software? article from the European Patent Office (EPO) useful.

Interesting. Thanks.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Confirmation bias...

I think you would do better to forget about arming yourself to the teeth with expensive protection that assumes you can capture a lot of monetary value from whatever your creation is, and figure out how it could more feasibly benefit you, via maximising and not minimising your expected visibility in relevant circles.

Nope Francesca, it is NOT confirmation bias if you are talking about an hypothetical scenario, that said, I'm not sure about what you say about "maximizing my expected visibility in relevant circles", but yes, the conundrum here is about if it is needed to protect something that it is not yet generating money.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

As far as I can tell from a quick look, all of the Friendster patents would be useful only for intimidating small players. The primary claim of 7069308, for example, is just a general description of a trivial application of a shortest path algorithm. That would be difficult to defend in court.

This is VERY interesting, I have not seen it this way.. yes, maybe the best bet is to hit first and then being good enough to keep users if somebody attempts a copycat...