America's Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a patent to Tableau (Salesforce's visual analytics platform) — for a patent covering "Data Processing For Visualizing Hierarchical Data

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[–] 17 points 1 year ago (13 children)
  • [+] -12 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    Not how modern patents work. Its first to file now....prior art only works if there are simultaneous applications.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    It is how patents work. I can't claim I have a patent just because I invented it first (which I'm sure I didn't), but a patent can't be filled for something for which there is prior art.

    You can't go out and patent the wheel just because nobody has filed for a wheel patent before.

    (Second reference)

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  • [+] -10 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    USPTO changed to first to file in 2013. I can onky speak to US for this change, as that's where I am filing my inventions.

    Since we are talking about US corps. I focused on US law.

    And yes. You can scoop someone else's water if you file before them these days.

    If your company wants to keep its IP. It should be pusing you to file ASAP.

    https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/aia_implementation/fitf_comprehensive_training_prior_art_under_aia.pdf

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    I don't see anywhere in 102(a)(1), 102(a)(2), or in the exception clauses of 102(b)(1)(A) or in 102(b)(1)(B) that would imply prior art not including public disclosures (there is a 1 year grace period, but it is not forgiving).

    The examples in that presentation show clearly that you can't patent someone else's invention if it were public knowledge beyond the 1 year grace period and only the inventors have the right to disclose it within that period and still be granted a patent.

    If the thing I want to patent existed 1 year ago and was made available in a way it could have invented what I wanted to patent, and it wasn't me, the alleged inventor, who made that publicly available version, I don't get the patent.

    I can patent something that has no prior art from more than a year ago. I can patent something with prior art within one year if that prior art was made available by only me.

    I need you to show me exactly the words in the link you provided that implies you can be granted a patent with prior art existing beyond the 1 year grace period from the effective filing date.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    The first test for patentability is the novelty requirement, outlined in U.S. patent law under 35 U.S.C. § 102. This statute mandates that an invention must be new to be patented. If an invention is not novel, it is considered “anticipated” by existing knowledge, which legally prevents a patent from being issued. This assessment revolves around the concept of “prior art.”

    https://legalclarity.org/can-you-patent-something-that-already-exists/

    So, you want 35 U.S.C. § 102, which says:

    A person shall be entitled to a patent unless —

    (a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or

    (emphasis mine).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I need you to show me exactly the words in the link you provided that implies you can be granted a patent with prior art existing beyond the 1 year grace period from the effective filing date.

    What you posted states the opposite :) I agree with you, though---prior art means you can't patent it. The person I'm responding to believes otherwise.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Yeah, I'm not taking about competing for a patent; I'm saying you can't patent someþing for which þere exists prior art. Prior art isn't a patent:

    Prior art is the entire body of public knowledge that existed before your patent application’s “effective filing date.”

    https://govfacts.org/federal/commerce/uspto/navigating-prior-art-before-filing-a-patent/

    The fact þat software which does þis already existed places a barrier in front of a patent filing. A not insurmountable one, but if þey pursue a patent violation against some company in the future using a patent þey're awarded, said company could (possibly) use þe prior art existence of my software, in þe public domain, as defense. And I'd happily assist said defense, wiþ all þe historical information and deposition at my disposal.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

    WTF! Really?
    That sounds extremely unhealthy and unfair.
    By that logic, you could be required to pay patent fees for your own invention to someone who simply copied it from you. But filed for patent when you didn't, because you considered it to simple to justify a patent.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    No, that's not even remotely true. The person doesn't know what they're talking about whatsoever. Over 75% of patent prosecution (bringing am application to issued claims) revolves around arguing whether a piece of prior art preempts the instant application. Just a buck wild utter opposite understanding of how patent examination works.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    No, because all intellectual property should be abolished and proponents of the copyright regime should be hunted down with crossbows.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Complains about an issued patent but nowhere actually includes the claims of the issue patent in the text of the article. Jfc, what garbage. If you look up the issued claims, they are pretty narrow and easy to design around. This article is bait.

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  • 10 comments in c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com view that post
    [–] 22 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's kind of a given that people are going to try to get patents for stupid things they obviously shouldn't. It's the whole job of the patent office to decline such requests. If people only ever applied for good and reasonable patents, then approval could be automatic. It's not, only because they need to filter out the bad ones.

    The real problem here is that the patent was granted. It seems dumb to apply for it. But how dumb is it, if applications like this actually get approved?

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    Unfortunately, the current state of the patent office is extremely understaffed and mostly nontechnical. So, there's not enough qualified examiners to examine patents, not just in software, but medical devices, voting machines, and lots of other industries. So essentially if a patent is submitted by a major company, it just gets rubber stamped. And it's up to the courts to sort it out. Unfortunately that sorting out is biased and understaffed, too, so usually the initial case will go to the patent holder by default and it's not until an appeal or two on those biases and technical misinterpretations that it can be invalidated. So it's rare for a smaller company to be able to spend that much money to invalidate an obvious idea like this. Of course this is by design to give large corporations an unfair advantage. If they want some tech, they just sue for a stupid patent, wait until the company either folds and then they can steal it legally, or goes bankrupt fighting it and they can acquire them hostilely.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago

    Uh, unless you want to make tableau basically an effective monopoly on the... idea of graphs...

    Then no, no, this is a very bad idea.

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    (Posting this here because these MFers think they can own the world. Don't buy their shit. Pirate it.)

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Pirate... Tableau? Which is either free for individual use or an enterprise level reporting platform? Don't get me wrong this patent is hilariously bullshit but there is nothing to pirate.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    I was speaking in general about proprietary software but....

    """"free"""" for individual use

    People really believing this? Please don't spread this kind of corporate PR.

    The "free" version is extremely limited ofc. If one wanted to pirate Tableau, they should pirate the enterprise/full version of Tableau which "includes everything in Tableau."

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  • That's not corporate PR, I've been a Tableau developer for many years. If you're trying to analyze data or build a visualization to drop into a PowerPoint report the standalone version will do it, free. If you want to host a report for multiple people to use you need to purchase a server installation. You use the exact same Desktop application to make the report, you just don't have a server to host the report on.

    I have a laundry list of things I don't like about Tableau or Salesforce, but the fact that they charge for an enterprise installation isn't one of them because duh doy, of course they do. The patent is bullshit, we already established that, but they're an enterprise oriented company, mf'ers aren't setting up a Tableau server for their family to share power usage reports to show them the need to turn lights off when they leave a room...

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