My name is on a pile of US patents, all assigned to whomever employed me at the time that they were filed. It's always been a condition of employment that I would disclose inventions and cooperate with the filing of patent applications. And now there's a bunch of good ideas that I know are not being exploited for value by anybody. I feel as if I have somehow betrayed the scientific Enlightenment by doing my duty by my employers.
This is a big part of why I believe employment is not a good arrangement. They overreach because 90% of their workforce won't have anything worth stealing, so it becomes "standard policy" to require you to sign over rights most of your coworkers won't ever have a need to exercise.
At my last couple of jobs, I actually redlined the employment agreement and put an addendum that said that anything I work on away from work on my own hardware is mine. They all accepted it, sometimes with a little back and forth (and in one case three years in came back to me saying "we don't have your employment agreement" and starting the process over again).
There was only one place I didn't have to do that -- Netflix. It's part of their standard agreement. It even went one step further and said that even if you use their resources, if you do it on your own time you own it, as long as it's not in direct competition with their business. It was a refreshing change for sure.
> There was only one place I didn't have to do that -- Netflix. It's part of their standard agreement. It even went one step further and said that even if you use their resources, if you do it on your own time you own it, as long as it's not in direct competition with their business. It was a refreshing change for sure.
My current company has this exact policy. It's one of the many reasons I enjoy working there so much. :)
I am very interested, may I ask you to provide a reference to such a clause? Maybe when confronted with a real contract it would be better to ask a lawyer, but having seen an example would be useful nonetheless.
I blacked out all the parts that change based on the company, because I'm not sure how much I was allowed to share.
The list of inventions is basically and thing or idea you had that you might want to work on. It's a good place to list any open source projects as well as any ideas you might be working on for a company.
I don't think that's what the parent is saying. The companies aren't misappropriating his private-time work, merely they own the "work for hire" that he invented while he worked for them.
Turning it around, it would be pretty much untenable if employees could file their own parents on work-related inventions done on company time with company equipment.
It's not just invention clauses. It applies to all intellectual property, including copyright (at least in NL), as long as what you're producing in your own time is related to your job.
Exactly how far "related to your job" extends is up for debate. Because of that, I have an additional clause in my employment contract that specifically states that any contribution I write to FOSS projects is mine to license and distribute.
>> And now there's a bunch of good ideas that I know are not being exploited for value by anybody.
I feel your pain. It's bad enough that the company that holds the patent isn't using it, but you can't use it in future employment. I'll always have this nagging desire to just do it the easy/awesome way, but that's off limits now. The money they give to get a patent isn't worth the roadblock you create for yourself down the road.
I don't even feel like I can discuss some of the topics with other experts, for fear that I will share a solution that puts them at risk of infringement, accidental or otherwise.
I've discovered something for the company I worked for, wrote the patent draft and spent weeks trying to explain to the patent lawyers,who wrote the final version, how it worked. So I should have a good understanding of the topic, but yet, I honestly don't understand the granted version of the patent. It's total gibberish.
You are not alone, I also do not understand much of my patents after they've been lawyered up. I attribute it to a) them trying to change the language to be as broad as possible, while b) making it also deliberately hard to figure out what the damn thing is supposed to do in the first place.
One of the greatest crimes of recent history is allowing lawyers to write a document so confusing only their circle of lawyer buds can understand it. Much of the "legal" world is so obfuscated that ignorance SHOULD BE a valid excuse for breaking the law.
I read a (software) patent for a job I was working a few weeks ago. I stumbled on the patent when doing a broad google search on the topic. I had to read it carefully because of the way it was worded, but I will admit that I came away from reading the patent understanding a novel way to solve a problem that I hadn't considered before. It was the first patent I read all the way through, on a topic I didn't have much experience in. Granted, a single paragraph on a forum or blog could have communicated the idea just as well.
In no way am I defending the current state of IP or patent law in the US (on the contrary, I would prefer abolishing all patent law over the current system). However, it's definitely not impossible to learn things from patents.
I always renegotiated that clause in the contract to release all works under a free license (for me, usually GPL), but assign copyright to the corporation.
We really need to get rid of the Federal Circuit. On first blush it seems like a good idea to have a court that specializes on technical patent issues. But it turns out that most lawyers interested and experienced in patent law are corporate lawyers who spent their whole careers creating and defending patents without ever thinking from the consumer point of view at all. So the patent court ends up packed with a bunch of over the top, maximal patent rights judges.
Can confirm this attitude among some lawyers I know. A certain unspecified family member does contract law (not even IP law) and totally buys into the life + 70 years to "promote innovation" copyright BS without question.
I don't really understand what is going on with the legal system in the US lately? We have all those nice protections for the buyer ... unless the seller chooses not to provide them. We have all those nice protections for consumers, like being able to sue in case something goes wrong ... unless the other party decides not to play this whole 'legal system' game and includes an arbitration clause in the initial agreement, which basically means "we can break the agreement but you don't". What's up with that?
Arbitration clauses are wrongly maligned. If I had a conflict with a company I'd want to do arbitration and civil litigation is my day job. The major arbitration companies are fair and professional.
The only downside is that arbitration is still too much like litigation.
The only downside is that the consumer never has a choice in the matter of arbitration at all. There's a take-it-or-leave-it EULA, which if you reject you cannot legally use the $300 item you bought. The consumer never has a chance to choose if they get arbitration or not. The consumer never has a choice of the arbitrator. The consumer does not have a choice of venue. The only choice the consumer has is to whether or not to file suit.
I've been dreaming about a ballot proposition which says that if a person agreed to a contract that enforced binding arbitration, and was never given an opportunity to amend the contract, then the consumer would be eligible to pick the arbitrator from the set of licensed arbitrators. The company still gets its cost savings from avoiding court, but is not in effect buying a whole firm of arbitrators. The consumer at least can get some attempt at a fair choice in a case of a complaint, which is more choice than they have now.
>I've been dreaming about a ballot proposition which says that if a person agreed to a contract that enforced binding arbitration, and was never given an opportunity to amend the contract, then the consumer would be eligible to pick the arbitrator from the set of licensed arbitrators.
The Supreme Court decided in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts state laws disfavoring arbitration. Your proposed law would invalidate a large number of existing arbitration agreements and so would likely also be preempted. At this point, it will take an act of Congress to make any significant changes to existing consumer arbitration laws because conflict preemption will invalidate nearly any conceivable state law favoring consumers.
It's an upsetting state of affairs because the federal government does little to protect consumers yet consistently interferes with the ability of state governments to do so (see, e.g., the Office of Comptroller of Currency's frequent interventions to prevent state regulators from investigating predatory lending practices in the years leading up to the financial crisis).
> Arbitration clauses are wrongly maligned ... The major arbitration companies are fair and professional.
I'm gonna call [citation needed] on this. The recent NYT series on binding arbitration claimed exactly the opposite: that arbitration almost always rules in favor of the company and that arbitration companies which do rule in favor of individuals quickly find themselves getting no more business. They cited peer-reviewed sources and law professors, so I want to see yours.
That seems to be a long article series. I've read most of the first article but haven't come across the data you referenced.
Would you mind highlighting the article with peer-reviewed sources and law professors explaining that "arbitration almost always rules in favor of the company and that arbitration companies which do rule in favor of individuals quickly find themselves getting no more business"?
Furthermore, even if it was true that "arbitration almost always rules in favor of the company", why would that alone be the sign of a problem? We shouldn't just assume that, for example, half of the victories will go to the company and half to the individual; we shouldn't assume any particular percentage breakdown without more information about who initiates arbitration and why. (The "priors", to make an analogy to Bayesian statistics)
Since the prevalent opinion on HN appears to be against contracts of adhesion, a request for sources is an expected request when presenting the minority opinion.
Rejecting the offered source with a "tl;dr" complaint is an invalid distraction from that request.
Not to mention, many topics have not been the subject of peer-reviewed research; if you require peer-reviewed research as a necessary condition on you being persuaded about anything, then you are severely limiting the scope of potential debate.
I don't care if arbitration is better than sex, companies shouldn't be removing customers' right to settle disputes in court, and the government shouldn't allow them to.
Once the government grants a monopoly, no matter how limited or small, the foothold and motivation exist to expand it.
The system is: a small number of monopoly holders, each with strong incentives to expand it, versus the rest of the population, none of whom cares that much about a single case, and a court system that responds to the more motivated party.
> And because patent infringement generally does not require “intent,” a consumer could be liable even if they never saw the notice or agreed to it (for example, if they bought the product used without the original packaging).
Can it? Who can prove that there was such a notice, long after the packaging is gone?
Maybe almost all units had such packaging, but I carefully inspected the box before opening the one that I bought, and didn't see any such notice. Can you produce my original packaging to show me the notice?
Or how about: I got it out of box for a reduced price. At the time I completed the sale, there was no packaging. No implicit contract can possibly bind me to a time prior to the sale, when persons unrelated to me in any way removed the packaging.
If you bought the product out of box, then the person who sold it to you had no right to sell it to you! Our agreement with the distributor specifically states that the product must be sold in the original packaging. In the same way that you can't go around selling your neighbour's house, the distributor had no right to sell that product to you. Give it back now please.
But you got paid and so did the seller. The seller did "wrong", not me; why should I give it back and not be compensated? You can buy it back from me for the full retail price that I paid plus taxes.
With a stolen car when you buy it, you did not do even the most basic of due diligence so there it is understandable. With most other products you cannot do due diligence. Comparing this to stealing makes the case in point though; the original user did not read the small print should be treated vastly different than going out and stealing something.
> Who can prove that there was such a notice, long after the packaging is gone?
The notice does not matter. Patents cover not only manufacturing and sales, but also use of the invention. The patent owner does not need a contract with you, the patent law is enough.
If there exists a valid patent, and you don't have permission from the patent owner, then you technically are not allowed to use your widget regardless of what the packaging does or does not say or where you got it from.
It certainly is. I know that "me-too" comments are generally frowned upon, but an upvote by itself is not enough here. This is really, really bad, particularly with the SC in turmoil.
I think the bigger problem is the ability to sue unsophisticated end users, even when big fat suppliers, retailers or manufacturers exist and are easily sued. The only reason a patent holder would do that is to make the legal defense hard. This is a common troll tactic. Sue people with shady patents who can't mount a defense and avoid the big pockets who would invalidate the patent.
I may have read it incorrectly but didn't Lexmark sue a reseller, not an end-user?
I don't think it changes anything -- my thinking is that suing over what is likely a trivial change made to allow them to screw their customers by giving away the printer and hiding the true cost of ownership in obscenely priced ink by abusing[1] the patent system.
[1] Perhaps this practice is so common-place and blessed by the courts that this is what the "patent system" has become so it's not really "abuse", but if the patent system's design was to encourage expensive R&D by allowing for a brief period of monopoly then it's rarely used for its original purpose.
> But there is a very big reason to make such a distinction: consumers’ expectations based on long-standing law disfavoring these “restraints on alienability of property.” For almost 400 years, it has been widely accepted that those who manufacture goods shouldn’t be able to reach out and exercise a “dead-hand” of control over the goods once the manufacture has long passed ownership on to the consumer.
The EFF takes some artistic license here. The aversions to restraints on the alienability of property apply to real property (i.e. land), which is different than mass-manufactured chattel property for obvious reasons. The doctrine has nothing to do with "consumer expectations" but is instead a way to avoid land-use planning problems that result from use and transfer restrictions in wills.
Their general assertion here stands - there's still a general expectation from consumers that once someone buys something physical it is theirs to do with as they wish.
They're presupposing that there is any legal recognition of that "general expectation." That's why the invoke the doctrine of restraints on alienability--to justify that such an expectation exists.
But something has prevented companies for 100s of years doing this; if they could have done this with, say, cars(and all other things with patented parts or patented as a whole) 100 years ago why didn't they if not for law? Not out the good of their hearts for sure.
Only until the next round of closed trade agreements come into force. ACTA, TPP, CETA and TTIP all do their utmost to bring US-style law tactics to the rest of the world.
'Lexmark’s cartridges are “regionalized” such that a cartridge sold in Europe, for instance, will not work in a printer sold in North America or Latin America.'
Inkjet printers are almost a criminal abuse. The whole idea of putting a chip on a cartridge that simply counts down and after specified amount of prints forces you to replace the whole cartridge is one giant "fuck you" towards the customer.
Japanese and especially European car manufacturers are good examples of the problem. They load so much restrictive software onto their cars, that these cars are now deemed unusable by at least half the global population. This leaves a fantastic opening in the market for producers who offer an alternative. Car manufacturers which are either less reliant on software or else use free software are bound to win substantial market share.
No, it is at least partly an attempt to capture parts of the car service market. Requiring brand-specific (or model-specific) tools for maintenance of cars allows for far more rent extraction than just dealership/garage certifications.
Although I tend to be anti-patent, the circumstances around the case are important and the eff didn't really provide them. The link, included, pointed directly to the ruling which I was unable to grok as a non-lawyer.
The TL;(not-terribly-accurate)DR; is that Lexmark patented some elements of their toner cartridge and sold a "regular" and a "single-use" version at a discount with DRM to prevent its re-use. They sued a reseller that circumvented this single-use restriction and won on the "license" that states the single-use cartridge cannot be resold.
This is the kind of case that makes me hate the patent system when I'd otherwise be a proponent of it in spirit[1]. In the case of Lexmark, it appears they're using the patent system in order to continue the lousy practice[2] of charging very little for the printer while gauging the customer on the ink, a practice that I wish the patent system didn't enable. In all likelihood, they've patented some very tiny, novel part of the toner cartridge (perhaps the chip that prevents its reuse?) and are using it to enforce this sort of bait-and-switch.
I also hate the idea of enforcing a "single-use" rule via DRM and then suing to further push the idea that we don't actually own the things we buy. I'll avoid buying products that have these kinds of restrictions but if the practice becomes common-place, I expect I'll begin to have trouble doing that.
It makes me think of the little plastic cups I purchased for a family party I had last year. I was surprised to see them adorned with "U.S. Patents ####." So does this court order indicate that they can simply write a blurb indicating that they may only be used for a "Single Drink" and they can proceed to sue anyone for infringement if they fail to abide? That's reductio ad absurdum, of course, but there's many products/scenarios in-between that which are possible and likely if restricting your customers is your business model.
[1] In theory, I like the idea of giving an inventor who has created something truly unique a brief period of protection against incumbents, who will likely do whatever they can to either prevent the new product from disrupting their existing sales or copy a small inventor out of business. This is provided that the barriers for entry are particularly high. In tech, they're so low that it seems the only way patents are used is for predatory purposes by large companies.
[2] It's a bait and switch of sorts in that people pay less attention to price-per-page than they do the initial investment. It's this reason that I chose to buy a black-and-white laser printer the last time I purchased a printer (2005?). I've gone through two $35-$65 "compatible" toner cartridges since then.
So does this court order indicate that they can simply write a blurb indicating that they may only be used for a "Single Drink" and they can proceed to sue anyone for infringement if they fail to abide? That's reductio ad absurdum, of course
I can't think of anything that would distinguish the little plastic cup case from the case just decided. This ruling is already reductio ad absurdum.
File a patent on the generic supposed protection of intellectual, design and creative ideas to overworked, inconsisent and vague government entity that are then hoarded by lawyers with lots of money whom frequently visit Texas. Maybe that would wake up some folks to the fact that their ostensible protection process is right now a protection racket.
