How are intellectual property/patents enforced on the Internet?

Question

It seems that throughout the Internet, different companies often take core ideas from one another and implement it on their own website. A good example is Facebook taking ideas from Twitter and Friendfeed and incorporating it into their news feed, although there are hundreds of other examples of products being "inspired" by other products. (another one is how all search engines are beginning to have the same design as Google)

I assume companies have probably filed patents on their "inventions". Yet the internet is continuously evolving, and successful designs and themes are often taken and adapted and improved on.

As a web developer, how do you know what you can replicate from other websites?

Answer 1

As a web developer, how do you know what you can replicate from other websites?

if ( $your_laywers > $their_laywers )
   do whatever you want
else
   they do whatever they want

Answer 2

Now I'm no lawyer, but this is what I've read:

Copyrights tend to only protect your source code from being copied and pasted on another site. (I.e. does not protect algorithms or design) I believe that by default all you developed is copyrighted, unless you state otherwise.

Patents can protect a certain algorithm, and design patterns (like a look and feel), but you have to pay for this. Also, the line for what is and isn't patentable isn't always very clear.

So if your planning on ripping off a known algorithm or certain design of a company I would double check to make sure they don't have a patent.

Answer 3

You sue.

A lawyer friend of mine who does software law (for a very very big company everyone's heard of) said that the tried and true practice is don't check for other people's patents and just do whatever you are going to do. If you do your due diligence and it turns out you violated someone's patent then you are liable for triple the damages you will be liable for if you don't do any due diligence.

Answer 4

You'd really have to break this down into a couple of separate cases:

• Designs are generally protected under some form of copyright (as "artworks"), unless the author explicitly licenses the design under a specific license such as GPL or Creative Commons.
• Algorithms and source code can be protected by patents or copyright laws, or be licensed under a less restrictive license such as GPL or Creative Commons.
• Ideas cannot, to my knowledge, be protected. Would Microsoft be able to sue the developers of OpenOffice for creating software that mimics the behaviour of theirs? I don't think so.

But then, I'm not a lawyer, so I might be wrong.

Answer 5

There's a new case out there called "Bilski v. Doll" (http://www.uspto.gov/main/homepagenews/2009jun26.htm) that concerns business method patents. While not exactly on point, it may concern software in the sense that software is not (usually) making a tangible "thing".

Also, designs can be protected as either a copyright or by a design patent. Further, ideas CAN be patented with a utility patent in the sense that you don't need an actual working version of what you want to patent.

Moreover, Microsoft could sue the developers of OpenOffice for creating software that mimics Microsoft's if it was the same as Microsoft's (or even just very similar under something called the Doctrine of Equivalents).

As for the "tried and true practice" of not checking - I've found that to be untrue. Many companies get what are called "freedom to operate" opinions which are written by lawyers. A simple way of thinking of these are that they are something written by an attorney saying that a patent search has been done, and X amount of relevant patents have been found. However, the client's product does not infringe any of these patents for the following reasons (which are then discussed in some detail). You can also get an opinion concerning a specific patent, if you are aware of the existence of one. These noninfringement/invalidity/unenforceability patents state that the known patent is not infringed by the client's product and/or the patent is invalid and/or the patent is unenforceable.

The triple ("treble") damages thing is for willful patent infringement. Having an opinion is meant to nullify this. True, it can't be willful if you haven't done a search and are not aware of what's out there, but I wouldn't necessarily want to take that risk. Just my opinion.