FIRST's patents

[Jeff Rodriguez]

I wasn't in Atlanta, but I heard that FIRST was awarded a patent for 'a method of coopertition'. A little seaching on the patent site yielded this:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...S=PN/7,507,169

I guess I don't really understand the need for the patent, but it seems like a cool thing.
The more I thought about it though, the more I started to question it. While the patent seems pretty specific to ranking scores in our competition, the idea of patenting it doesn't sit well with me.
If FIRST is really about changing the culture, wouldn't they want as many people as possible to emulate them? Doesn't the patent prevent people from doing that?
To me, this patent seems unnecessary. If another competition were to use this method and infringe on the patent, than they would be trying to promote the same fundamental that FIRST is. This seems like a very good thing that should be fostered, not guarded against.
I suppose that you could just not enforce that patent, but that would defeat the entire purpose of patenting it, wouldn't it?

[EricH]

Jeff, as I understand the purpose of a patent, it is to both protect and to proliferate.

The idea: Some guy comes up with some crazy idea that will make life better, but the technology hasn't caught up yet or he can't get funding. He's got time to do either one, but he's in a car accident and dies after months in the hospital. His idea, which wasn't really recorded for fear of somebody else stealing it, dies with him.

So, the patent serves to document the idea. However, most inventors don't like their inventions going public and having somebody else make money off of a stolen invention. So they don't like the idea of a patent.

So, patents have a limited life. For commercial use, you have to a) own the patent, b) get a license from the patent holder, or c) buy the patent from the patent holder, unless of course you like getting sued for breach of patent. However, for individual use, nobody really cares. Once the patent "expires" (they don't, you just can't sue for breach of patent), it's anybody's game. First one to the idea can make money, if you so choose. You can only renew by improving the device, IIRC. You can also make it better and get your own patent and you can't be sued.

And the patent holder has the option to not go after patent violations.

To make matters more fun, if you read the full patent...
It has the 2003 game rules. Even FIRST doesn't use most of those anymore... Other than the "standard" ones.

My guess is that FIRST was trying to publish their idea to get it out to more people and will choose not to enforce the patent during its life.

[Beth Sweet]

Yeah Jeff, I thought the same thing as you when I heard this. If words are TM, I'm pretty sure that means that anyone who wants to use them has to pay (I think that's why the octuplet's mom is TMing the word "octomom")

Now, if we're trying to get out into the media as much as possible, we would want to communicate gracious professionalism and coopertition, would we not? But from my understanding of the TM, media using these words will now have to pay fees for using those words. Seems counter intuitive to me...

(Please note, it's been a few years since I took media law on this topic, I may not be remembering correctly)

[keehun]

Sorry for not saying an intelligent comment, but I really think this is funny. But I do agree that a possible intent is to have it "on record"

[DonRotolo]

They may also choose to license their patent and permit others to use the intellectual property (IP). If profit were a motive they might seek the highest payment for a license that the market would bear; however licensing a patent for $1 is not unheard of either.

If they choose to not enforce their patent, thet can lose their IP rights protected by it.

2003 to 2009 sounds about right for getting a patent approved.

Also remember that a patent is best when it is as broad as possible, but broad patents are less likely to be approved; thuis the relatively narrow scope of their claims (relative to all the concepts we consider part of FIRST).

Don

[Alan Anderson]

Patent holders are not required to prevent people from using their invention. On the contrary, the patent system was designed to encourage inventors to make their inventions available for use.

Dean Kamen has joked on occasion about suing organizations for non-infringement of the coopertition patent.

So does this mean we have to use a little ™ whenever we say gracious professionalism (™) or coopertition (™)?

[Roger]

Originally Posted by tanmaker

So does this mean we have to use a little ™ whenever we say gracious professionalism (™) or coopertition (™)?

I wandered thru wikipedia finding an answer to this, but my brain is a little foggy right now. I was thinking it's more like coopertition® as it is a registered trademark now, not just trademarked, but a patent isn't a trademark, right?

Patents are for ideas or methods -- an invention -- that may or may not turn into a product. Trademarks are for names that a product is traded by. Both in the US are done by the same people, the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Other people above I think have the right track on this. FIRST wants to hold onto the phrases "gracious professionalism" and "coopertition" by patenting it, not to prevent others from using it, but to prevent another party from registering it and requiring FIRST or whomever to pay usage fees. Sort of like me racing to the USPTO to get "Big Mac" registered in my name before MacDonalds thought to register it. I could be wrong about this, but it was my first thought.

My favorite "trade name" story was way back in the 80s when they came out with the auto named "mpg" that naturally had some fantastic miles per gallon -- back then this was new. MPG, a group that also goes under the name Maine Potato Growers, were not pleased that someone took their name.

[JamesByrne]

I think that the patent helps first spread it's idea actually. Other people can start robotics competitions, such as IFI. But what if these do not promote the same values as FIRST. As a FIRST alum i know that one of the main things that makes first such a great competition is the values it instills in the students. I think that the patents and trademarks just make sure that there values can continue.

If someone wanted to start a competition and woddy and dean were sure that someone else could start a competition that would instill the same values I think that it would be just fine with them to let them use the same type of system.

I do not think that FIRST is trying to keep competitors out of the market they are a non profit organization. But I do think that FIRST is making sure that there values continue for a long time into the future.

Just my ideas

[shgshgshgshg]

Hmmmm
I'm not entirely sure why they patented the general concept, but I can think it is a nice step in establishing a long term future for FIRST. After all, better safe, than sorry...

[dtengineering]

Patents, like most legal documents, are interesting things. They are both clear and easy to read (for the most part) but often difficult to fully interpret unless you are familiar with the relevant laws and case law (court decisions and precedents). So I'll begin with a couple of disclaimers... first of all, I am very much an amateur at patents, but an interested amateur nonetheless, and second of all, I'm Canadian... so unless this patent is filed in Canada (where, I suspect, it would be rejected as we have slightly different rules and precedents here) it doesn't affect robotic competitions held in Canada... or any other nation outside the USA.

I won't try to get inside Dean's head to figure out why he filed the patent, but getting a patent is an expensive process. There are several thousand dollars in government fees involved, and... unless the legal advice was provided pro bono for this patent, likely many thousands of dollars in legal fees. Obviously Dean perceives value in the patent, but I am unsure of why.

To get some idea of what value the patent may have, or is perceived to have, it is useful to look at the prosecution history. Hopefully that link works... otherwise just go here enter the no-bot code and search by patent number, then look at the "Image File Wrapper" tag.

The inital patent's claims (the claims being the most important part of the document) were as follows:

What is claimed is.
1. A method for scoring a competition between a first team and a second team, in which one of the first team and the second team is the better scoring team and the other is the lower scoring team, the method comprising:

a. determining the raw score accumulated by the first team according to the rules of the competition;
b. determining the raw score accumulated by the second team according to the rules of the competition;
C. comparing the score accumulated by the first team to the score accumulated by the second team to determining which team is the better scoring team; and
d. computing the final score of the better scoring team by adding the raw score of the better scoring team to two times the score of the lower scoring team.

This caused the patent examiner to reject the application several times, pointing out that the claims were too broad, and were "obvious" in light of previous patents and other works.

Finally, after years of back and forth, the claims that were issued are:

What is claimed is:

1. A method for fostering coopertition and gracious professionalism among students while inspiring an appreciation of science and technology, the method comprising:

1) establishing a contest played on a playing field with at least four robots, such robots designed and built with participation of such students, such contest requiring accomplishment repetitively of a designated physical task on the playing field, wherein:

2) (i) each robot is controlled by a distinct team of students and designed to repetitively accomplish the physical task, performance of which on the playing field by a given robot triggering attribution to a score based on frequency of achievement of the physical task by the given robot; and

3)(ii) the contest is conducted in matches between two competing alliances of the teams, each match including a plurality of teams from each alliance;

4) assigning a raw score after each match to each alliance based on frequency of achievement of the task by robots of each team in each such alliance;

5) determining a final score for a winning alliance in each match, such winning alliance having a raw score exceeding the raw score of the other alliance by enhancing the raw score of the winning alliance by adding to the raw score of the winning alliance the raw score of the other alliance, so that the winning alliance is thus motivated to cause the other alliance to achieve a high raw score, and the teams of each alliance must work cooperatively

6) setting a final score for the other alliance in each match equal to the raw score achieved by that alliance;

7) ranking the teams based on the final scores achieved in matches in which they participate;

8) so that the students, by engaging in the contest, are provided with an experience involving science and technology under processes as recited herein that motivate cooperation in the midst of competition for a highest final score on the playing field.

It seems to me that the crucial aspect of this invention is likely lines 5, 6 and 7. It is interesting to note that the formula for determining the final score of the winning alliance changes from adding twice the lower score in 1d in the initial application to simply adding the lower alliance's score in 1.5 of the final patent.

At this point, however, I am unsure of a few things... as this patent seems to be based on the 2003 game, "Stack Attack", which occured the year before I got involved with FRC.

1) Did the 2003 game use this method of ranking participants?

2) Was our current system of Qualifying Points and Ranking Points used prior to the filing of this patent? (If so, then that should constitute public disclosure and that particular method of fostering competition should not be patentable.)

3) Did FIRST, or any other organization... anywhere on the planet... establish a competition involving four or more robots built with student participation and each controlled by a distinct team of students accomplishing repetitive tasks on a playing field on for the purpose of fostering co-operative competition and good sportsmanship, while inspiring an appreciation of science and technology prior to 2003? If they did... and even if it was FIRST that did it... that should constitute public disclosure of that part of this claim.
What I'm getting at, I guess, is that even if a patent is issued, it is still up to the patent holder to enforce and defend the patent. If Dean (and I'm specific here... I may have missed it, but I don't see where Dean has formally assigned the patent to FIRST) were to want to enforce this patent, he would have to file a lawsuit against whomever he felt was infringing it. That person or organization could take a number of steps to either point out that they are not infringing, or, as a more aggressive tactic, point out that the patent is not valid. This strikes me... and again... I'm an amateur at this, as a fairly weak patent, limited in scope and quite possibly subject to challenge on several counts.

Still, there has obviously been a lot of work put in to it, so congratulations to Dean on filing (yet another) patent. But like most of the rest of you... it's the "why" that leaves me kind of baffled...

Jason

Apologies for a lengthy post....

[Imadapocalypse]

wait so do these patents mean that there will be no other robotics competitions other than FIRST? meaning other organizations like vex may be disbanded?

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by Imadapocalypse

wait so do these patents mean that there will be no other robotics competitions other than FIRST? meaning other organizations like vex may be disbanded?

It's going to come down (as Jason suggests) to another competition meeting ALL the points in the patent, not just one or two. It's not the sort of patent that anyone is going to make money from, and might not even be enforceable. I doubt it threatens other robotics competitions, especially those that don't use the exact scoring methodology outlined in points 5 & 6. Since not even FIRST uses this scoring, I'm not sure what the point of this patent is.

Could you imagine the outrage in the world of FIRST teams and sponsors if FIRST tried to enforce this patent broadly on all youth robotics competitions? I don't think it would be pretty.

Sometimes patents are all about being able to brag that your technology is patented, and not about trying to protect the patent. This may be why Kamen and company followed through on this one.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Imadapocalypse

wait so do these patents mean that there will be no other robotics competitions other than FIRST? meaning other organizations like vex may be disbanded?

No. Remember, FIRST has the option to "forget" to enforce any patent they hold. Also, this was filed BEFORE FVC, and therefore VRC (which was a continuation of the direction FVC was going when it was changed into FTC) could be a violation of the patent. However, if FIRST decides to go after VRC, they will probably get every single participant in VRC and half of the FRC community (the other half either not caring or in VRC) angry, and lose many students and mentors because of the loss of face.

Also, remember that the patent protection, for practical purposes, doesn't apply if money isn't being made. Why? Well, who'd be stupid enough to sue for patent violation when there isn't any money to be made off of it? If VRC itself isn't making money, then there is no point. If they are, then there may be, but then it's bye-bye to Victors and Spikes being provided--and until there's another way to control the compressor, that's a bad idea.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Imadapocalypse

wait so do these patents mean that there will be no other robotics competitions other than FIRST? meaning other organizations like vex may be disbanded?

I'm no lawyer but I fail to see how FIRST could patent something that numerous other companies/organizations have been doing for years, sue, and expect it to hold up in court.

My first reaction to hearing that FIRST is trying to patent robotics competitions is that they're like a playground bully-trying to steal the ball and take it home with them.