My existential patent rule

Patents have become a protectionist racket. I always had a better rule.

To test if an idea is patentable, build a theoretical model of the invention out of cardboard. If that cardboard implementation exists, and is unique enough; then patent granted.

The rule came to me one time when hearing about the possibility of a patent on computer file systems, and its presentation of tabbed files on the screen. I thought it odd because there has existed cardboard box and cardboard file folders for thousands of years, prior art anyone?

Bob Metcalfe on prior art:

A big problem was that for 20 years the Patent Office did not issue software patents. It was against the rules. So, for example, when I patented Ethernet I spent a lot of time with Xerox attorneys explaining how you would build Ethernet using hardware, even though we actually built it using a lot of software. But since software was not patentable, we had to express it as a hardware embodiment. And then somewhere along the line, for some reason I don't know, the Patent Office started allowing software patents. That created a big problem, because there was this big gap in the prior art. A lot of patents got issued that shouldn't have been issued, because there is prior art out there that just hasn't been discovered.

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Bob's point is that the the rule change suddenly made common industry practice patentable. So, the government changes the rules and, for example, I patent the software controlled windshield cleaner, generically. Well I have just invalidated a generation of car wash equipment development, including a generation of digital systems deployed throughout car wash equipment. Or simple thing like organizing data on the computer screen were commonly accepted knowledge for way back with old style character terminal screens. But suddenly, this common knowledge gets wrapped in generic patents because of the software rule change.

If you apply the software implementation rule, then all the personal computer property reverts back to Xerox Research Park, Palo Alto. Once you have the mouse and screen icons, you have the whole shebang. But even some of that was suspect because character terminals always had the arrow keys and could move a cursor around. What about the mouse? Probably, but look further back and we have the joy stick and track ball on some early video games. But the joy stick just came out of remote control as a consumer item.