创业与商业blog.cloudflare.com
我们对抗专利流氓并赢了
We Stood Up to a Patent Troll and Won
2019 — 2022，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Cloudflare 讲述了它被专利流氓 Blackbird Technologies 起诉后发起“Project Jengo”的全过程：公开征集能推翻对方专利的现有技术并悬赏，最终在专利局赢得胜利。文章剖析了软件专利制度为何容易被用来敲诈真正的创新者。
为什么经久不衰：它记录了一个罕见的、以众包现有技术正面击退专利流氓的实战案例，是理解软件专利制度弊病的经典读本，今天依然有参照价值。
HN 评论精选
建议把现有技术悬赏接入已有的 Ask Patents 众包平台，让反专利流氓的行动更可持续。
USPTO 和 Stack Exchange 前阵子合作，为专利众包现有技术（附两个链接）。看起来这事并没有真正起势。也许 Cloudflare 这类公司可以通过 Ask Patents 来发起现有技术申诉？这有助于提升它的知名度和用户基础，从而让推翻坏专利的过程变得可持续。
twic查看英文原文
The USPTO and Stack Exchange teamed up a while ago to crowd-source prior art for patents: https://stackoverflow.blog/2012/09/20/askpatents-com-a-stack-exchange-to-prevent-bad-patents/ https://patents.stackexchange.com/?tags=prior-art-request It seems like that hasn't really got off the ground. Perhaps Cloudflare etc could do their prior art appeals through Ask Patents? It would help build its profile and userbase, which would help the process of taking down bad patents become self-sustaining.
内部专利申请奖金制度说明：软件专利可以完全脱离实际创造，流程本身就是逐利游戏。
我工作过的公司有一套很强的激励制度：为工作成果提交专利申请，若律师认为值得并提交，每位列名发明人可拿约 2000–3000 美元，几年后获批还有额外奖金。问题是申请蜂拥而至，员工指望不懂技术的律师漏掉现有技术检索等尽职调查。最坏是浪费点时间，最好是轻松赚 3000 美元。这公司不是专利流氓，我不记得他们真因专利起诉过谁，但这让我看清软件专利流程多荒谬：你不需要做出任何东西、写任何代码，甚至不需要有独特想法，只要让想法通过足够多人的审核。不管你站在哪一端，整个行业都是圈钱的骗局。
treesknees查看英文原文
At a company I worked for we had a strong incentive program to submit patent applications for our work, where each listed inventor would receive a monetary payment of ~$2-3k if the patent was deemed worthy and filed by our lawyers, and an additional bonus if it was granted some years later. The problem is the patent applications would flood in from employees with the hopes that the non-technical lawyers would miss some due diligence like finding prior art. Worst case is you wasted a bit of time on the application, best case is you just made an easy $3k. Now the company was not a patent troll, so I don't recall hearing about any instances of them actually suing anyone over patents. But it still opened my eyes to how ridiculous the software patent process really is. You don't have to create anything, write any code, or even be the brightest engineer with a unique idea. You just need to get that idea past enough people. The entire industry is a scam for money, no matter which end of it you're on.
Cloudflare 工程师补充后续：悬赏计划延续多年并再次获胜。
关于我们对抗专利流氓的更多近期消息：“Project Jengo Redux：Cloudflare 的现有技术检索悬赏回归”（2021）与“前研发工程师赢得 Project Jengo 第二轮，Cloudflare 在专利局获胜”（2022），附链接。
jgrahamc查看英文原文
More recent news about our fights against patent trolls: "Project Jengo Redux: Cloudflare’s Prior Art Search Bounty Returns" (2021) https://blog.cloudflare.com/project-jengo-redux-cloudflares-prior-art-search-bounty-returns/ "Former R&D Engineer Wins Round 2 of Project Jengo, and Cloudflare Wins at the Patent Office" (2022) https://blog.cloudflare.com/former-rd-engineer-wins-round-2-of-project-jengo-and-cloudflare-wins-at-the-patent-office/
专利制度只保护得起大公司，作者主张彻底废除专利，让竞争回到执行力上。
我在中国工作过很久，对几点感受强烈：A) Cloudflare 能抗辩，但夫妻小店不行，创业公司也不行。B) 中国能借此对冲西方的官僚主义，在创新和新业务上获得前所未有的速度，正是因为专利法等紧迫的阻碍。C) 即便没有专利流氓，中国依然可以抄袭、复制、搞间谍或大胆创新——因为文化、法律和国际关系这三点。我认为专利应当终结，彻底废除，不是缩短、不是修修补补，而是干脆不再受理新申请；已有专利可继续有效到过期（或更好，缩短有效期）。想法是廉价的，公司该竞争的是执行。这不是公平的竞技场：中国不在乎法律，西方只能眼看它领跑，而我们还在泥地里为小小的专利诉讼折腾。不知道这里的人有没有这种感受：有了一个想法，开始做原型，给朋友演示，朋友建议你去 google.com/patents 查一下，兴奋感瞬间崩塌 :(
spectramax查看英文原文
I've worked in China extensively and I feel strong about the following: A) Cloudfare can defend, but a mom-and-pop small business cannot. A startup cannot. B) China can hedge against western bureaucracy and gain unprecedented speed in innovation and new ventures - precisely because of hard pressing and blocking issues such as patent law. C) Even if there were no patent trolls, China can still manage to steal, copy, espionage or fearlessly innovate - why? Because of three things - culture, law and international relations. In my opinion, Patents need to end. Yep, completely get rid of patents. Not shorten it, not amend it, just simply stop taking new applications. Existing patents can be still be active until they expire (or better yet, shorten the expiration date). Ideas are cheap, execution is where companies need to compete. This is not a level playing field for the rest of the nations. China gives no fucks about law and the west is gonna watch China lead the way in exponential progress while we are still playing in the dirt with our little patent litigations. I wonder if people here have felt this before: Get an idea, start building a prototype, demo it to a friend, friend suggests checking google.com/patents, excitement collapses :(
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