EU Patents: Prior Art Finder for European Patent Office EPO is a New Patentability Assessment Tool from Google Continuing Patent Search Tradition Started for USPTO Patents

The newest patentability assessment tool from Google is referenced at Out-Law.com, which refers to Google's new EPO Prior Art Finder for the European Union, as described by Jon Orwant, Google engineering manager.

The new tool continues a patent finding tradition at Google that started with Google Patent Search in 2006 for USPTO patents.

Unified Patents in the EU, nearly: Unified Patent Court to be located in Paris, London and Munich for 25 EU Member States as Italy and Spain Opt Out

Owen Bowcott, the legal affairs correspondent at the Guardian, reports that a new European Union EU Unified Patent Court will be split between Paris, London and Munich as the European Council Summit OKd the new unified court

-- except for Spain and Italy, who opted out.

The agreement of the European leaders means that a single patent at some time in the future -- perhaps by 2014 when the court has been set up -- will be valid across the other 25 European Union Member States.

Advocates of States' Rights in the USA should examine the disconcerting Spanish and Italian opt out. That kind of undesired development is what happens when federalism is too weak and legal authority is watered down by local action.

Internet and More Invented 1934 by Lawyer Paul Otlet, Belgian Entrepreneur and Bibliographer

A "Televised Book", in 1934?

The video below is an absolute must for anyone involved in making policies and laws in the patent field, or adjudicating patents.

Why have we created legally enforced totally absurd patent monopolies for ideas and inventions on paper already thrown into the public domain nearly 80 years ago?

More grist for the mill regarding prior art and the obviousness of many erroneously granted modern patents is this article at the Huffington Post by Sean Captain, TechNewsDaily Managing Editor via LiveScience:

Did Paul Otlet [Lawyer] Invent The Internet In 1934? (VIDEO).



See also Paul Otlet at the Wikipedia.

CNET News Writes that Apple wants to keep Samsung's Galaxy S3 out of U.S

Why are sensible minds against software patents in Europe?
Why are intelligent observers against overly broad patents of any kind?
Because they see what is coming and wish to avoid these kinds of monopolistic charades....but first,
a small look back at history in a short video of Steve Jobs (40 seconds)




Josh Lowensohn has the current story at CNET News in Apple wants to keep Samsung's Galaxy S3 out of U.S. because it allegedly infringes two Apple patents for "unified search" and "links for structures."

Patents for "unified search" and "links for structures"?

U.S. patent law says that obvious, overly broad claims can not be patented, and yet that is the Apple patent strategy, aided by its handmaiden USPTO: essentially invent nothing, steal what you can from prior art, make overly broad patent claims, and then play patent troll against competitors while selling overhyped and overpriced products to consumers.

That has in fact proven to be a very successful strategy, especially in the USA. Just read the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs for lessons on how to sell $10 of cheap materials at 50 times that price to the brainwashed masses. See Steve Jobs' angry quotes from biography can be used in Apple-Motorola trial, judge rules. As one can see in the video above: "We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs, Triumph of the Nerds (1996). Exactly that.

Apple invented neither search nor links. It is absolutely absurd that the USPTO has patented some kind of trivial patents for search or linking, all using the same basic prior art search and hyperlink technology that has been used since the digital era started and long before that.

A patented method to search? Forbidding others to search the way YOU do? Absurd! A patented method to link? Forbidding others to link the way YOU do? Absurd! That the courts tolerate this kind of primitive monopolistic sophistry is a scandal.

We own neither Apple nor Samsung smartphones -- finding both to be overhyped and overpriced -- but we can spot patent trolling scams when we see them.

And we can also see how essentially trivial patents are being shamelessly misused in the courts to delay product rollouts in international trade by competitors.

We are not involved personally in whether Apple or Samsung triumphs in these matters, but it is a scandal that legal systems are permitting these charades, whether in the USA or elsewhere. It is a development which reduces respect for the law -- everywhere -- and that is a dangerous thing.

Hotelling's Law, Patents and Politics: The Principle of Minimum Differentiation is Stronger Than Ever

 
One of the major problems that modern -- stupidly drafted -- patent laws present is that they conflict with Hotelling's Law (we quote from the Wikipedia):

"Hotelling's law is an observation in economics that in many markets it is rational for producers to make their products as similar as possible. This is also referred to as the principle of minimum differentiation as well as Hotelling's "linear city model". The observation was made by Harold Hotelling (1895–1973) in the article "Stability in Competition" in Economic Journal in 1929."

One can surely find querulant economists who dispute this law and there are surely exceptions to Hotelling's Law, but Hotelling's core idea is most certainly correct, as the subsequent TV example demonstrates.

Go down to your local megastore and look at all the TV sets, whose almost universal modern minimalist design consists of a large flat screen held by a thin bezel, and, if mounted on a stand, mounted on a simple stand, with predominant colors of black and silver. This is the "middle" of the TV market.

The inherent idea of Harold Hotelling's law (do not confuse with Hotelling's rule) is that the more differentiated you make your products from "the norm", the more you move away from the middle viz. center of consumer interest, thus hurting your chances of sale.

Just imagine consumer buying behavior as a bell curve. The more you move to the left or the righ on the bell curve, the more you limit and reduce your potential market. You can of course also concentrate on "niche" markets, but by and large, big sellers go after the broad masses. For example, I wear a large shoe size and have trouble finding a good selection of shoes in that size at shoe stores, where the mass of shoes are in "average" sizes. Indeed, if shoe stores do have my size, it is always in very basic "sellable" models, nothing fancy. The variety of selection is much greater in the middle sizes.

Politicians are faced with what we view to be a political variant of Hotelling's Law, i.e. the further that any politician removes himself or herself from the center, the more he limits his voter base. Hence, "successful" politicians invariably adopt positions which reflect the majority view of their constituents -- or - they face the prospect of losing elections.

The perfidy of stupidly granted minimalist design patents to monopolists like the Apple company is that patents are not being given for any real invention or discovery at all, but rather, quite the contrary, stupid government agencies like the USPTO and their handmaiden courts and judges are helping smart companies like Apple to lay claim to the middle center market for certain products by giving them patents on patent and design claims that represent nothing more than recognition of Hotelling's Law, i.e. the more minimalistic that designs are, the more they are likely to represent the undifferentiated, simple tastes of the majority of consumers.

Hence, as in the case of the Apple company -- who itself stole its name from the public domain especially because of the broad familiarity of people with the world Apple (why not simply Wozniak-Jobs, Inc.) -- granting design rights to THEM on rectangles with rounded corners, e.g. is idiotic beyond measure -- yet mainstream law is doing this.

Worse, instead of throwing Apple company design claims out the courtroom door as frivolous, courts have been lending a serious ear to claims that competitors for certain products could not use the same product color (black, the simplest design alternative), could not have symmetrical bezel edges (the simplest design alternative), could not place control features in the middle of bezel edges (the simplest design alternative), could not have the same logical number of icons on the display (the simplest design alternative), etc.

Clueless judges have permitted such absurd claims, showing that some form of CLE should be developed for judges (schooled by INTELLIGENT instructors) to get them into the 21st century and to try to get them to develop some understanding for the fact that monopolistic companies -- under the guise of intellectual property law  -- are claiming patent, trademark and copyright rights not to protect those rights, but rather to carve out age-old monopolistic market niches, while denying competitors middle market access in violation of a recognition of Hotelling's Law.

Minimalism and minimum differentiation are economic necessities -- not designs invented by companies like Apple. That is why there are so many similar designs in many other product fields, as we have posted AT LENGTH over the years on this blog.

Crossposted at LawPundit.