Searching for U.S. patents that encumber a standard

The USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) has a website that permits searches of issued patents (database extends to 1790). A separate search engine finds patent applications currently under review by the USPTO.

If you are developing a standard and you wish to avoid including patented technology in the methods included in your standard,

or

if you have developed a standard and are interested in protecting your users against trivial or non-innovative patents attached to the uses of your standard,

or

if you are a standards user and wish to avoid using standards that are encumbered by patents,

or

if you are a standards user who has chosen a standard and wish to avoid infringement on a patent that encumbers the standard,

you will want to visit the USPTO patent search site.


Here is the web page at http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.html for a search of pending applications with the word "DICOM" in the title of the application.



Here is the returned web page:



In the next blog, I will use DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) as an example of a standard for which a user can conduct USPTO patent searches.

- Jules Berman

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My book, Principles of Big Data: Preparing, Sharing, and Analyzing Complex Information was published in 2013 by Morgan Kaufmann.

I urge you to explore my book. Google books has prepared a generous preview of the book contents. If you like the book, please request your librarian to purchase a copy of this book for your library or reading room.

tags: big data, metadata, data preparation, data analytics, data repurposing, datamining, data mining, coercive standards, data standards, DICOM, embedded patents, intellectual property, patent search, sdo, specifications, standards development organizations, uspto

Data standards should not be coercive

In a prior post, I wrote about monopolistic standards: "Yet somehow, when a committee gets together to write a data standard, they often develop a very self-centered culture that tries to eliminate the 'competing' standards."

Standards committees sometimes display group behavior that can be described as antisocial or even sociopathic. They often want their standard to be the only standard used in a data domain (self-centered behavior). If there are other standards in the data domain, they sometimes use coercive methods (bullying) to force everyone to use their standard. They might also actively enlist organizations to enforce the standard on their members.

The most common coercive argument involves telling people that everyone else is using the standard, and if they don't use the standard, they'll lose business or they will be ostracized or ignored by the user community. Coercive behavior should not be tolerated in the user community.

I've personally seen coercive behavior in colleagues who are very decent people who would never dream of bullying another person. Somehow, when sociopathic behavior is developed through a committee process, people lose sense of what they are really doing. To my way of thinking, this is just another reason to favor specifications over standards, when feasible.

-Jules Berman

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My book, Principles of Big Data: Preparing, Sharing, and Analyzing Complex Information was published in 2013 by Morgan Kaufmann.

I urge you to explore my book. Google books has prepared a generous preview of the book contents.

tags: big data, metadata, data preparation, data analytics, data repurposing, datamining, data mining, coercive standards, data standards, specifications, standards development organizations

Data standards should not be monopolistic

In a prior blog, I listed 16 good practice suggestions for SDOs (Standards Development Organizations).

One suggestion was:

"Make optional standards, not required standards, so that the user community is not locked into one implementation."

This suggestion seems to defy common sense. The purpose of a standard is to provide a common process for a user community. Wouldn't a standard lose its significance if it were designed to be one of many?

First off, remember that I'm only addressing data standards (not physical standards). Data standards are special because, in many cases, you can interconvert data from one standard to another quite easily. Data standards are usually developed to facilitate data exchange and interoperability in a defined data domain. It is seldom the case that a given data standard will have universal appeal. We have dozens (if not hundreds) of image format standards. The multiplicity of standards can be useful. There are times when a GIF format is superior to a JPEG and other times when a PNG format is appropriate. Most people who work with images have robust file conversion applications that make it easy to exchange many different image formats.

Yet somehow, when a committee gets together to write a data standard, they often develop a very self-centered culture that tries to eliminate the "competing" standards.

If a data domain has one standard, then patents that encumber the uses of the standard will impact negatively on everyone. If a data domain has multiple standards, then the user community can simply switch between available standards to avoid patent prosecution. They might use one standard to accomplish a task that is exempt from patent infringement (typically the task for which the standard was designed and for which no patents apply). If/when a newly patented use of the one standard emerges, the user can avoid legal headaches by switching to another data standard not covered by the patent. It's really quite simple.

Members of data standards committees should understand that the purpose of any standards effort is to serve the user community with improved methods for exchanging data, for software interoperability and for enhanced opportunities to use data. A data standard is just an arbitrary document. It hardly even rates as a "thing" since it has no physical existence. SDOs should try to make new standards that fill a particular utility "niche" not covered by other standards in the same domain. If users gravitate to the standard in preference to other standards, that's OK. But crushing the "competition" should not be a goal for any SDO.

-Jules Berman

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My book, Principles of Big Data: Preparing, Sharing, and Analyzing Complex Information was published in 2013 by Morgan Kaufmann.

I urge you to explore my book. Google books has prepared a generous preview of the book contents. If you like the book, please request your librarian to purchase a copy of this book for your library or reading room.

tags: big data, metadata, data preparation, data analytics, data repurposing, datamining, data mining

Why governments rarely create data standards

As someone who has been involved in a variety of standards initiatives, I'm amused when the suggestion is raised that the federal government create the standard. The reasoning often goes something like this: "If the federal government produced the standard, the costs of developing and maintaining the standard would be absorbed by taxpayers, and the standard would be legitimized and maybe even required by government regulation."

Well it doesn't work like that. Aside from the show-stopping law that severely limits the U.S. government from creating data standards, there are practical reasons for the government to demure.

First, most data standards fail. They are either never finished, or they are immediately ignored by the intended user community, or they are replaced by competing standards that cover the same data domain, or they eventually become so obsolete that they are abandoned. There's very little reason for the government to become embroiled in efforts that typically fail.

Second, standards often impose significant implementation costs on the user community. As discussed in earlier blogs, standards can be encumbered by intellectual property, requiring users to pay license fees or patent royalties for the uses of the standard. Also, the standard may benefit some users and hurt others. If a standard benefits the members of the committee that created the standard at the expense of members of the user community who were excluded from the standards development process, lawsuits from allegedly injured users may result. SDOs are aware that, unless their standards are created fairly, the SDO (and its entity members) may be vulnerable to prosecution under the RICO Act.

Why would the government want to get involved in this kind of mess?

As discussed in a prior blog, there are instances when the functionality of standards can be achieved with specifications. The flexibility and freedom of specifications reduces many of the problems inherent in standards. Methods for developing specifications as an alternate to standards, have been described in a draft white paper and will be will be the subject of future blogs.

-Jules Berman

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Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Standards developers can help the Patent Office

In an earlier post, I listed 16 ways for standards development organizations (SDOs) to reduce the likelihood that their standard will contain embedded patents.

One of those ways was for the SDO to work with the USPTO, the US Patent and Trade Organization.

The USPTO seeks help from the community of software developers and has set up a new project, called peer to patent for this purpose. SDOs should avail themselves of this opportunity to ensure that trivial or non-original patents are not awarded patents that would encumber their standard. In addition, SDOs should contact the USPTO and offer their collective expertise to patent examiners who are reviewing applications related to their standards. SDOs should monitor new patent applications (all of which are publicly available) and contact the USPTO patent examiner when they see a trivial or non-original application related to their standard.

- Jules Berman

---

My book, Principles of Big Data: Preparing, Sharing, and Analyzing Complex Information was published in 2013 by Morgan Kaufmann.

I urge you to explore my book. Google books has prepared a generous preview of the book contents.

tags: big data, metadata, data preparation, data analytics, data repurposing, datamining, data mining, encumbered standard, european patent office, non-original patents, patent review, sdo, standards development organizations, trivial patents, uspto

Bad ideas to stop patent farmers

Earlier, I posted a blog that described patent farming (inserting patented methods into new standards with the intention of asserting the patent against the users of the standard). Yesterday, I suggested 16 steps that SDOs can take to reduce their vulnerability to patent farmers

SDOs sometimes pick the wrong tactics to protect themselves from patent farmers. Here are some ideas that are likely to be counterproductive.


1. (Bad idea) Try to get the U.S. government to create the standard.

2. (Bad idea) Make the standard a requirement for your user community (usually done by lobbying the government and/or user organizations.

3. (Bad idea) Encumber the standard under a pre-paid user license.

4. (Bad idea) Focus the standard for a single imagined user (e.g., radiology
departments)whose needs may not fall under an existing patent claim.

5. (Bad idea)Make no special accommodations for research/testing activities that arise from or use the standard.

6. (Bad idea) Pretend there is no problem and try to marginalize people who disagree.

In a future blog, I'll explain why these ideas are bad for the SDO or the intended user community.

- Jules Berman

tags: intellectual property, ip, patent farming, patent infringement, risk, sdo, standards development organizations

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Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.

Protecting standards from embedded patents

In a prior blog, I discussed patent farming within standards. I promised another blog with suggestions for SDOs (Standard Development Organizations) that would reduce the risk that their standards were victimized by patent farming.

Here is the list:

1. Work closely with the USPTO (US Patent and Trade Office) or the EPO (European Patent Office) to block trivial or non-original patents applied to your standard. Take advantage of the USPTO peer to peer project.

2. Collect and publish a list of prior art for all the methods included in your standard

3. Where no prior art exists, develop and publish your own "prior" art as open source projects

4. Do your own careful patent search to ensure that your standard does not include any previously patented methods

5. Require your members to search their company's patents to ensure that they have no patents within the standard.

6. The patent searches conducted by companies that are members of the standards committee should include all patents transferred to patent holding
companies

7. Require members of the standards committee to sign agreements (co-signed by authorized representtives of their companies) that no company patents (held or transferred) or claims will apply to the standard.

8. Whenever possible, use open, or public domain, or old (> 20 years) methods within your standards.

9. Whenever possible, use "escape" methods in the standard so that users are not locked into a single method that implements the standard

10. Make optional standards, not required standards, so that the user community is not locked into one implementation

11. Make interoperable standards (that can port to-and-from related standards)

12. Make specifications, not standards (to be explained in a later blog - JB)

13. Have open [to the public] committee meetings and publish the minutes of your meetings

14. Include a "user advocate" in the standards committee

15. Publish the efforts you have made to comply with some or all of the suggestions in items 1 through 14.

16. As a user, whenever possible, use standards that were developed with most of the suggestions from this list. Remember, it is the user (not the SDO) that will pay for patents embedded within standards.

Nothing can reduce your risk to zero, but following these items can help. I will be writing future blogs that explain specific items from the list.

- Jules Berman

tags: embedded patents, european patent office, hidden patents, medical standards, patent farming, prior art, sdo, specifications, standards development organizations, trivial patents, uspto

---

Science is not a collection of facts. Science is what facts teach us; what we can learn about our universe, and ourselves, by deductive thinking. From observations of the night sky, made without the aid of telescopes, we can deduce that the universe is expanding, that the universe is not infinitely old, and why black holes exist. Without resorting to experimentation or mathematical analysis, we can deduce that gravity is a curvature in space-time, that the particles that compose light have no mass, that there is a theoretical limit to the number of different elements in the universe, and that the earth is billions of years old. Likewise, simple observations on animals tell us much about the migration of continents, the evolutionary relationships among classes of animals, why the nuclei of cells contain our genetic material, why certain animals are long-lived, why the gestation period of humans is 9 months, and why some diseases are rare and other diseases are common. In “Armchair Science”, the reader is confronted with 129 scientific mysteries, in cosmology, particle physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Beginning with simple observations, step-by-step analyses guide the reader toward solutions that are sometimes startling, and always entertaining. “Armchair Science” is written for general readers who are curious about science, and who want to sharpen their deductive skills.