Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

eigenham t1_j86k7ly wrote

Reply to comment by impossiblefork in [D] Can Google sue OpenAI for using the Transformer in their products? by t0t0t4t4

There's also a question of whether a patent of this type will hold up in court. Anything reminiscent of a software patent is on shaky footing.

7

currentscurrents t1_j86uoft wrote

Yeah, Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank significantly limited the scope of software patents. It ruled that adding "on a computer" to an abstract idea does not itself make it patentable.

I believe that true inventions of real algorithms (like movie codecs) are still patentable though.

9

eigenham t1_j86v8br wrote

I agree that they should be, but in my experience it's been difficult to get algorithms patented that lawyers felt would actually protect IP. Basically they're not that well tested in court so it's yet to be seen how much protection they'll provide.

0

fullgoopy_alchemist t1_j8s91zn wrote

Which then begs the question - what really is the purpose of filing such patents if they can be circumvented? Seems like a lot of effort for nothing (unless patents are part of some evaluation criteria to climb up the corporate ladder?).

2

eigenham t1_j8sbr6j wrote

It's an arms race. Do Russia and the US really know that each other's nukes work? Or would they rather just not find out. It's like that... will these patents hold up in court? Well if I have enough of them and it's my 20k patents vs your 15k patents, we're probably going to settle based on the likelihood that enough will hold up that we have proportional mutually assured financial destruction.

The crappy part here is that a patent is essentially useless and inaccessible for the individual inventor. A bigger entity will dwarf them. In the end it comes down to money, and it's just a matter of understanding the nature of the investment, which is not as concretely defined as the general public might think.

1