Former patent examiner here. One problem I've seen time and time again with respect to patents on Hacker News is that people don't read the patent claims, the legally enforceable part of a patent. They just assume that because some journalist or blogger or attorney or whatnot says that this patent covers something, it must cover all instances of that. And that would be a big problem, preventing people from using a technology that should be available to the public. But the reality often is that what the patent covers is quite narrow. Yes, mistakes happen in granting patents, but not as frequently as people here seem to think.<p>Example of this phenomena on HN: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30387833" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30387833</a><p>The claims there don't cover as much as people think they do! <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30388857" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30388857</a><p>While I've never been involved on the litigation side of patents, if I received an email like this, I'd ask for not only the patent numbers but also a detailed "mapping" of how my product is infringing. The mapping is what I had to do as a patent examiner. Just show how my product infringes on the claims. That's what would have to be done in court, after all.<p>If they claim<p><pre><code> A widget consisting of 3 bars.
</code></pre>
and my product has 4 bars [0] then I'm not infringing!<p>[0] "Consisting of" in patents means exactly. If they said "comprising" then 4 bars would infringe as they could point to any 3 of the 4. You need to know a little legalese, sure, but it's not hard.
> The two example patent numbers that I sent you are U.S. patents, but each of these patents has also been filed as patent applications in the Netherlands. Also, as I’m sure you are aware, your blogpost may be viewed internationally. As a result, you may contribute to someone infringing our patents in any part of the world.<p>This seems like a gross misunderstanding of patent- and IP-law. I can't know this, but I strongly doubt those patents would be valid anywhere in Europe.<p>Furthermore, releasing source code and information on an algorithm that someone claims is protected in US would still be akin to explaining an already published patent. Any information he shares beyond what is in the patent is, obviously, not protected. Further still, when patents are granted all information contained in the patent application becomes public domain. This is actually at the core of patent law.
Those patents are apparently no longer valid in the Netherlands. Their status is: "Lapsed by non-payment of annual fee Art. 62 ROW" [1]. So he could publish the source I guess?<p>[1] <a href="https://mijnoctrooi.rvo.nl/fo-eregister-view/#/query/KGFhbnZyYWdlcmhvdWRlcjoobGFuZG1hcmsgZGlnaXRhbCBzZXJ2aWNlcykgQU5EIChyZWNodHNvb3J0OlNQQyBPUiByZWNodHNvb3J0OkVQViBPUiByZWNodHNvb3J0Ok5QIE9SIHJlY2h0c29vcnQ6U0MgKSkgQU5EIHBhdGVudFJlY29yZFNlcTox" rel="nofollow">https://mijnoctrooi.rvo.nl/fo-eregister-view/#/query/KGFhbnZ...</a>
Part 2: <a href="https://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/11/patent-infrigement-part-2/" rel="nofollow">https://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2010/11/patent-infrigement-p...</a> TL;DR:<p>> I’m sorry, but I can’t comply.<p>> Good luck.<p>The follow up around 2016: <a href="https://twitter.com/royvanrijn/status/788436253532426241" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/royvanrijn/status/788436253532426241</a><p>> Nothing happened, never heard from them again...<p>I couldn't find the code anywhere on his Github profile, so not sure if he actually took the step to publish the code.
It really looks like US7921296B2, which has a priority back to 2001 is prior art for 7,627,477.
They both create a database of id strings which are located at specific locations within a file. They then sample the same locations in the file to be compared. The only real differences is that the US7921296B2 patent uses hash strings, while Landmarks patent uses "fingerprint object". The US7627477 does not does NOT describe how those "fingerprint object" are created. In their description they state(with a prior citation to Knuth) "One way of preparing the data to allow for fast searching is to encode the fingerprint objects into numeric tokens, such as 32-bit unsigned integers, and using the numeric tokens as a key for sorting and searching". I wonder what method are going to use to create that 32-bit uint, without collisions LOL.<p>And whoever wrote 7,627,477 was a moron, unless the examiner required them to restrict their comparisons to strictly audio files. But since their earliest grant also is dedicated to audio, I'm guessing they were not thinking ahead. US7921296B2 on the other hand applies to multimedia files in general.<p>What get's me is that it was the examiner that cited US7921296B2.<p>Have I misinterpreted this?
It's a real travesty that law suits cost money. It basically ensures the one with the deepest pockets has the largest chance of winning. I would love to see a country that doesn't allow commercial lawyers for lawsuits. But instead both parties get a randomly assigned lawyer from the state. The party that is suing also has to pay a sum of money which they get back if the case is deemed non-ridiculous.
I've had similar interaction with American companies and their lawyers in the past, and basically told them to sue in NL or get lost. They never did.<p>Nothing more annoying than these legal parasites.<p><a href="https://jacquesmattheij.com/my-brush-with-a-patent-troll/" rel="nofollow">https://jacquesmattheij.com/my-brush-with-a-patent-troll/</a>
The whole system isn’t fit for purpose given how vulnerable it is to this sort of abuse. Even if one accepts patents as a useful construct the practical implementation makes it a net negative Id say<p>It shouldn’t take millions for someone innocent to defend themselves.
This makes me think an important question. What can individuals in western countries with imported IP-imperialism do to protect open source and other independent innovation from attempts at censorship by anti-hacking laws such as CFAA, DMCA and their foreign analogues or vaguely worded patent claims leading to a faux-monopoly on innovations?<p>Better to do something than wave the white flag and surrender all ideas to big-tech companies.
How do people fight the urge to tell these people to fellate a phallic object and then later sign up their emails to all possible gay dating sites and spam newsletters? The audacity of these parasites to gangstalk you with patent claims of a country thousands of km away is just incredible...
In case the blog disappears<p>* <a href="https://archive.ph/kkebe" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/kkebe</a> OP blog, does not seem to infringe anything<p>* <a href="https://archive.ph/PjIVA" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/PjIVA</a> Another blog, explains shazam
the first time i encountered this algorithm it was in a class and the paper was presented. i wonder if the paper existed when this all happened.<p>glad to read he called their bluff. rewarding threatening behavior rarely leads anywhere good and only encourages more bad behavior.