Its not the legal system that worries me, but instead, its how the tech community seems to misunderstand how the patent system works. I am not a lawyer, but through this whole affair, I have listened to tech pundits and others opining about the case, and I have become more and more frustrated as these people provide lazy opinion based mostly on irrelevant information. Its not the patent abstract, or common belief of what a specific patent entails, that matter. Its the very specific patent claims. The same goes for "prior art". People really need to read the patent claims, and consider all the claims in the patent as a whole, before expressing frustration about how these cases are developing.
I don't know why more folks on HN don't understand this (or maybe the ones that do are just remaining more silent on the issue). I don't think I've ever seen so much ignorance rise to the top in HN comments as I have the past few days.
I think that the ones who do are silent on the issue because it's not a popular view point to defend these patents (or any patents). There are so many people that already had their minds made up that anything that ran counter to that viewpoint was obviously wrong, or biased, or ignorant. Or they would rather attack the jury for having to try to work through a really complicated case and coming to a different conclusion than they would have. Or maybe they'd rather just ridicule the foreman's patent... because that's helping a lot.
But really, who has read the points of the patents, or the prior art? Who actually followed the case in it's entirely without cherry picking comments from media coverage? And more importantly, who actually understands patent law? I think a lot of people think that they do.
This is one of the persistent issues that we'll have to deal with on HN for the next few months. Any time an Android vs. iOS article appears it polarizes this community like none other. Hopefully after a while it will all die down...
HNers are just regular people. They were regular people when they filled out the registration form that is the sole barrier to entry on HN, and when they did it in years past on Reddit and Digg too.
Ryanhuff, I think you fail to realize how stupid the patent system looks when they grant patents like this. I have read the claims. These patents are junk, all of them, on multiple grounds: prior art, obviousness, failure to describe. Junk, junk, junk. Granting these patents makes the patent office look like either idiots or corrupt officials. Defending these patents is just mindbogglingly stupid.
I would be less concerned about HN'ers being able to decipher the intracies of the law around the US patent system than a jury of 12 random people...
That said, you are likely correct in one common misunderstanding. Too many people conflate,
1. the US patent system
2. patent law.
The latter could be working as well as could be expected in any part of the US legal system or indeed the world. This is difficult to tell without being a lawyer and many HN'ers, like ordinary people, do not grok it.
The US patent system itself, however, is an entirely different matter. The core aspects are far easier to understand and is routinely and increasingly derided, including by top members of many professions the world over as well as representatives of the US justice system. The latest cases have only furthered added to these views.
