Re: Mailing List Patent Policy (was: Apple Patent Application: Mobile Banking Concept)

While I am new to this list, I think this post is dangerously misguided.
 If the problem is that the patent system is keeping groups such as this
from acheiving results, then groups like this one need to be converted into
anti-software patent, or at least anti-these-particular-patent ones.

We *should* be posting this stuff to email groups such as this - and to
make as recordable as possible its impacts.  Not because we think we can
work around it, *not* because it's unenforcable (in any patent case there
is a probability that it may be enforced) but because hiding from problems
[ie in this case, Apple] only allows them to perpetuate and grow, and
implicitly grants them legitimacy.  The businesses that are going to fail
to participate due to this issue will have an additional datapoint of
organized groups [in this case, a high profile one] which have been
undermined by this problem, and hence, more visible evidence that the
problem needs solving at its core.

Jeff Cliff


On 31 January 2013 14:12, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:

> On 01/31/2013 02:22 PM, Kumar McMillan wrote:
> >>
> http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/apple-patents-crowdsourced-peer-to-peer-mobile-banking-that-could-use-itunes-to-provide-cash-on-demand/
> >> Can you believe this?
> >
> > As sad and depressing as this sounds, you shouldn't ever post patent
> >  announcements to an email list that might be associated with an
> > emerging protocol (such as what this w3c group aims for). Some info
> > on why:
> >
> >
> http://www.radwin.org/michael/2003/02/28/why_discussing_patents_over_email_is_bad/
> >
> > I've done it before myself :(
>
> Having authored several patents by myself and having one of them granted
> before deciding that I never wanted to do that ever again, I have mixed
> feelings about this.
>
> Our (Digital Bazaar's) official company policy is that we don't e-mail
> around patents, no matter how ridiculous, they're always discussed in a
> channel that isn't logged.
>
> I also fear that the "head-in-the-sand" approach will hobble this group.
> We need to know about the patents that exist if we are to work around
> them for the Royalty-Free requirement of all W3C specs. The risk we run
> by doing that, however, is that large companies (like Yahoo, Google,
> Mozilla, etc.) might stay away from this work for that very reason. We
> don't want to risk that either.
>
> So, let's try this as a compromise. If you see a patent that is of
> interest, it is up to you if you want to notify any of the editors or
> mailing list participants OVER A NON-RECORDABLE MEDIUM. Just to be
> clear: Twitter, G+, Skype, IRC, are all recordable mediums. A phone call
> is best.
>
> Folks are free to ignore this advice on the mailing list, but know that
> by doing so, you're going to push some of the companies that are afraid
> of these sorts of damages away from participating in this group (and we
> really, really don't want to do that).
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: Aaron Swartz, PaySwarm, and Academic Journals
> http://manu.sporny.org/2013/payswarm-journals/
>
>


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