from Hacker News

Stupid Patent of the Month: Selfie Contests

by glitcher on 12/25/23, 3:51 PM with 45 comments

• by AlbertCory on 12/25/23, 4:50 PM

  Just wait another year and a half, and then you're free:

  2025-08-10 Adjusted expiration

  No one's bothered to invest the $500,000 or so for an IPR to destroy this patent, which should be easy. Just adding the words "on a computer" to a common activity does not make it patentable.

• by Flux159 on 12/25/23, 5:18 PM

  So how would someone go through the process of invalidating patents like this? I assume that there's no easy or cheap way otherwise the eff would have already done it.

  Another post mentions spending $500k for an IPR to invalidate - would that be the only way, limiting it to only well funded startups or larger established companies?

• by jacobgorm on 12/25/23, 7:25 PM

  Friends of mine ran a site called Hotpeople.dk from around 2002 that seems like it would be prior art, see https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/samfund/article4805511.ece .

• by yieldcrv on 12/25/23, 5:40 PM

  okay since these arent going to to away, lets try something else:

  one stop gap solution would be making it more streamlined and standardized to make a license

  these are antagonistic tolls because the conditions are onerous

  you do something ambitious and lucrative, patent owner comes out of the woodwork and says “cease doing that”, “pay me this toll” or “cease doing that and pay me this toll” or “pay me this toll and continue doing that”

  and you’re like “no, thats ridiculous, have fun in court” and then they go have fun in court and you freak out

  its a state sanctioned monopoly, the state should standardize how the licensing is done. a model uniform patent license, almost like an insurance model that businesses pay into maybe even from existing fees, where patent holders file claims to that insurance pool

• by siliconc0w on 12/25/23, 7:03 PM

  Shown HN: I made a tool to help visualize patent claims - here is the patent in question https://recurveip.com/claims/8655715

  (tool is still WIP, if you're interested I would love to get your thoughts)

• by rpigab on 12/25/23, 7:36 PM

  The Fine Bros youtube channel tried to patent reaction videos.

• by m3kw9 on 12/25/23, 6:22 PM

  What about the idiots that allowed this patent?

• by zw123456 on 12/25/23, 4:39 PM

  Dear eff.org, I am informing you that you are in violation of intellectual property laws by having a contest for "The Stupidest Patent of the Month" you are infringing on the property rights covered by patent No. 8,655,715 which covers all such contests.

• by GuB-42 on 12/25/23, 7:33 PM

  The EFF and similar organizations often voice their opposition against the patent system.

  But why couldn't the EFF use the flaws of the patent system to their advantage.

  They could file all kinds of patents for things they oppose. DRM schemes, surveillance and tracking tech, dark patterns, etc... And then patent troll companies that use these techniques.

  Win/win. If they lose their lawsuit, it creates a precedent against patent trolls. If they win, that's one less of the things they are against.