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Chatbot Mania Patenting & Hindu Speech
Chatbot Mania BBC News reports of a new chat bot developed in India -- Hindi Chatbot Breaks New Ground. The software can understand natural language and speak back, which opens the doors of IT to computer illiterate non-english Indian people... no doubt a big market. Now for the sad, and tragically funny news. ActiveBuddy, makers of chatbot development tools, have patented the entire process of developing bots. Internet News has the full story: ActiveBuddy's Patent Win Riles IM Bot Developers. Sound crazy? Indeed, it's close, but other developers laugh off the patent as indefensible (not to mention the validity). Here's the ridiculous part: "Anybody using his or her own tools (to make bots) is obviously using our technology without paying us." The story is also covered in this slashdot discussion, showing that many people did in fact have identical technology decades before. | NewsCaster 79 posts. Wednesday 28 August, 09:38 Reply
Software patents? I'm not actually sure that you can patent something which is purely software. As far as I was aware you can't patent a piece of software, but you can copywright it so that others aren't allowed to reverse engineer it or make illegal coppies. I think you can patent software as long as it is a component part of a wider invention, such as a machine. For example the industrial machines which I work on contain patented technology, a part of which is some control software. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Wednesday 28 August, 14:46 Reply
Not software I think you are right about individual pieces of software - its like copying somebody's poem about love because you can't write a good one yourself. In this case, though, its not the software but the technology that is being patented. So like in amazon's one-click buying technology its the idea that is important, not how it is written. Linden | Linden Hutchinson 26 posts. Wednesday 28 August, 17:51 Reply
Patenting information I'm not sure that there's a difference between "technology" and "software". I'm not that familiar with Amazon, but surely "one-click" is just a piece of software of some sort. Surely the "technology" which is being used to run the software is a PC, which itself isn't really patentable. Software is really just a combination of data and algorithms (data + interpretation = information), like the words and sentances of a poem. If I could patent a piece of software does that also mean that I could patent one of my poems? For example: Factory worker the watchmakers strongest son arms cascading through space time, the unforgiving metronome on a stage of smoke and tarnish perhaps only those metal hands worn down by years of toil could tell the stories of your forefathers Perhaps more worrying though, what if someone patented the type of vision system software which I'm working on. Would that mean that if I did any further research I would be acting illegally? - Bob | motters 136 posts. Thursday 29 August, 02:19 Reply
Significant difference The concept of patenting ideas like "one-click" is still very much controversial, but technology is not reliant on the software it is written in. It is possible to implement somebody else's breakthrough idea in any programming language there is, so therefore it is necessary to patent the idea rather than the written code (which is copyrighted). Its also important to recognise the difference between software technology and hardware technology. Its a relatively new concept to patent business processes such as "one-click". The type of system that you are working on can only be patented by someone else if they implement it first. They have to produce evidence that they have done the work themselves and there has been no previous precedent. That said, the system is open to abuse, particularly in america where many small companies and inventors claim that opportunists and large companies hi-jack their ideas. Linden | Linden Hutchinson 26 posts. Thursday 29 August, 15:36 Reply
Algorithms? I'm still a little confused about what "technology" means in this respect, which in the context of a patent I had assumed would refer to some sort of invention (a piece of engineering). Does that mean that "technology" in the example case of "one-click" refers to the algorithm, since you can usually implement any given algorithm in any programming language you like. An algorithm is just a systematic procedure for carrying out some operation, rather like a recipe for baking a cake. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Friday 30 August, 02:27 Reply
Software Tech I guess its like building a monitor using some method that was invented by someone else. You may not use exactly the same materials, and your process may have slight differences, but if the end product operates in exactly the same way as, say, Sony's Trinitron, you would be breaching the patent. In software its the same concept. I'm not really an expert, and I'm not sure at what level software tech is assessed but I will attempt explain what I understand by it. Take something like microsofts Active Server Pages for dynamic web application authoring. This consists of various methods, objects and collections, such as Request/Response, file collections, file objects, sessions, applications etc. Microsoft has patented ASP as a technology that it invented and owns. If someone were to now design a system that operated like ASP and used the same objects as ASP then it would be breaching Microsofts patent even if it was written using LISP rather than C#. However, alternative technologies, such as JSP, that ultimately carry out the same functions as ASP, use entirely different methods to achieve dynamic web pages. This is where open source and the Gnu Public Licence come in. There was widespread objection to the patenting of (even fundamental) technologies and whatsis face (can't remember his name) came up with the GPL. Now, if you use a technology that is licenced in this way, your invention must also operate under GPL and it is free for everyone to use and include in their own work. Thats the gist of it as I understand it anyway. Hope that clears things up, Linden | Linden Hutchinson 26 posts. Friday 30 August, 06:42 Reply