1. Junk patents abound in today's digital world, where "method" and "computer" have been endlessly linked to suggest that something is innovative when it is not. YogaGlo's patent is a bit different but in the same spirit of method madness.
2. For much of this, we can thank the loosening standards imposed over the past two decades by a specialized patent appeals court that has given overblown significance to what once was a highly specialized field of tremendous importance to the competitors immediately involved but not to average people. Result: average people see the flood of junk limiting, irritating, and frustrating their lives and are mad as can be at the skewed results.
3. In a parallel world known as that of the law, it is business as usual, with the junk patents having become monetizing weapons in the hands of aggressors and with the industry generally profiting at every angle from the "growth business" that patent litigation has become. Most of the actors see the insanity but also see nothing at all that is poised to dislodge it because the many tentacles that combine to choke off common sense are so diffused and dispersed, with each having its own reason for failing to act: congressional leaders beholden to lobbying interests, market-leading device-makers seeking to keep competitive advantage by any means possible, those who seek to challenge them having of necessity to spend billions to buy their own arsenal by which to protect themselves, federal circuit judges who have a built-in incentive to magnify the importance of patents and of their role in shaping the "inventions" of the future, a federal system of checks and balances in which a Supreme Court must defer to constitutional restraints on its power to reform the mess it sees before it, a patent office that is overwhelmed with junk applications and simultaneously pressured to move them along in the system without being too finicky about which ones pass or not, and a startup community that is basically schizophrenic on the point in philosophically condemning the system while, in the case of any given venture, embracing it insofar as it gives to the venture a potential sustainable competitive advantage.
4. Seen in this context, the YogaGlo defense is actually as good a technical defense of a junk patent as one might make: it pleads that people try to understand that, as a business matter, the company needs to stake out its turf and block others from intruding on it through the same sort of legal means that all other ventures use and, thus, what should be so wrong in its doing what the whole world is doing anyway; it argues that the thing really is as narrow as one might imagine given that all sorts of non-patentable ways do and always have existed for filming yoga classes; and it claims that the company is really just reasonable and restrained and hardly intending to create the sort of dust-up that followed in the wake of people's shocked realization that they (or people they like) might get sued for doing what used to be a routine filming of an instructional video. Imagine if you were given the awful task of trying to defend this thing. How would you have done it better? From the company's standpoint, this is the baser half of the startup world's schizophrenic attitude toward patents: we may oppose the hell out of it philosophically but, when it comes to pragmatic advantage, stand aside and let us do what we must do to meet our business goals.
5. Of course, in the end, this is really just one more junk patent and so the company's defense comes off as inadequate and even insincere. Yes, others may have made some unfair statements that distorted the facts but the company's problem is that such statements, though perhaps unfair in a narrow sense, perfectly capture the sense that most people have that this grotesque thing should not be allowed to stand and that no tears of sympathy need be wasted on those who brought it into existence, whatever their motives.
> 2. For much of this, we can thank the loosening standards imposed over the past two decades by a specialized patent appeals court that has given overblown...
No, this is just a common misconception. If you look at the history of rulings from east Texas, you will see they invalidate a higher percentage of patents than other courts in the US. East Texas just implemented rules on length of filings and length of arguments to cut out most of the crap out of patent cases, making the process cheaper and faster for both sides.
So, if you have an iffy patent, and you want to have the best odds of winning, don't file in east Texas. But expect to pay a lot more.
I guess the east Texas model is bad for lawyers who file thousands of pages of "supporting material", and then get paid $200/hr to read it. But how much of this supporting material was actually relevant? Not much, which is why the judge in east Texas was able to enforce page limits.
The east Texas model is the right way to rule on patent cases. But the patent system needs to be supported by better laws.
> > 2. For much of this, we can thank the loosening standards imposed over the past two decades by a specialized patent appeals court that has given overblown...
> No, this is just a common misconception. If you look at the history of rulings from east Texas, you will see they invalidate a higher percentage of patents than other courts in the US.
The "specialized patent appeals court" that GP is referring to as having imposed "loosening standards" over the past two decades is certainly the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, not the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, for the following reasons:
1. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is a trial court, not an appeals court,
2. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is a regular federal court, not a specialized patent court (even if it may have attracted some attention because of patent litigation that has gravitated there),
3. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is an appeals court, not a trial court,
4. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is unique among the Circuit Courts of Appeals in that it has national jurisdiction for appeals of certain classes of cases (including, notably, patent cases) based on subject matter.
So, however interesting your essay on the merits of the patent procedures of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas might be, it really is completely irrelevant to the post you are responding to, which wasn't talking about that court at all.
Sorry, but I don't think you're right. The data shows that in east Texas, patent holders win injunctions or damages nearly 2x of the time. That's why they go to trial there.
The author of that article, James Bessen has been called out on questionable methods or analysis in some of his studies. For instance, he's the guy who created the "trolls cost 29 billion" meme out of thin air, the debunking of which [1, 2] never got much press.
Here's a study that directly refutes the claims article from another researcher with a lot more data:
> 2. For much of this, we can thank the loosening standards imposed over the past two decades by a specialized patent appeals court that has given overblown significance to what once was a highly specialized field of tremendous importance to the competitors immediately involved but not to average people.
Since (AFAIAK) you're an attorney but not a patent attorney, I'm curious, are you speaking from experience, or basing this opinion on a certain Ars Technica article?
> Below are a few visual examples of what our patent protects. Note, there are many other ways companies and teachers can create yoga classes that do not look anything like YogaGlo’s classes:
I discounted every single word they said after seeing the pictures! I cannot believe any sane person, much less a patent official, can believe that those ought to be patentable.
What came to mind was a Sanskrit proverb many Indians would be aware of: "Vinaash Kale, Vipreet Buddhi", which roughly translates to, "When the hour of destruction is near, the brain abandons all logic."
I hope (against hope) the end of the patent system as we know it is nigh :)
Their style reminds me of the expertsexchange guys after it had gotten obvious that StackOverflow pwned their asses. They sounded genuinely offended about their own asshole behavior biting them back.
NBA broadcasters sometimes describe a play using phrases like "his patented turn-around jump-shot". Imagine if you really could patent such a thing? The YogaGlo patent seems to be in the same vein.
That assumes people are working together to fight them, and that the court systems and judges aren't unreasonable. You could spend $ millions in court fees, and they could uphold it.
I go to any conference which is being filmed and what does the setup look like?
-- Aisle down the center, speaker at the front ("a line of sight corridor between the rear area of a class and the instructor in the front of the class")
-- Camera at the rear in the middle of the aisle, providing clearest, centered view of the speaker ("an image capturing device located in the rear area with an unobstructed view of the instructor, to provide a participatory view through the line of sight corridor")
-- Everyone seated facing the speaker (duh) ("students in a class, facing the instructor, distributed across the classroom between the instructor position and the image capturing device wherein the students do not block the corridor.")
So they just took a standard filming technique and added 'yoga' to it.
Does prior art mean anything with the US First to File system?
Is anyone looking through old DVD or VHS videos of Yoga lessons, or through Youtube (or similar) video sites?
This strikes me as another reason why DMCA is bad. Backing up an old VHS tape might require breaking the macrovision copy protection. Yet it's important to keep this old stuff around because it might be useful in cases like this.
"Does prior art mean anything with the US First to File system?"
Yes, first to file is about what happens when two people invent the same thing within the same year, not about "first guy to ever file something gets a patent".
They are also wording their defense very carefully:
"[people claim] YogaGlo will now try to shut down any business or individual teacher that films a yoga class, which again is not true. There are many ways to film a class as evidenced by the many videos that currently exist that do not violate our patent."
Note how the overall tone here is "it's incorrect to suggest we're going to shut down all yoga class filming," (incidentally, a suggestion nobody is making) and the subtext is "so long as you film in a way that doesn't violate our patents."
edit: This post of theirs really seems to just dig them in deeper. They look like clueless assholes.
That is the point of the patent, isn't it? They have the patent so that no one else can use the same filming style. They don't intend to sue anyone, but if someone is filming in ways that are too similar to theirs, they will try to get them to stop. That can range from polite emails to cease-and-desists.
So basically, they don't intend to sue anyone over the patent unless they can? How exactly would you sue people who stop the infringing behavior upon request?
Also... frankly, this is awesome. We need increased lunacy outside of the software industry for people to understand how broken patents are. This story is getting enough traction that "Patent Reform" is likely to be an idea that will resonate with substantially more people.
They claim their patent is very specific, then list points that amount to 'a camera on the back of the room, with a view of the instructor, and students around the room who aren't blocking the camera'. The supposedly non-infringing examples are silly, too - a bunch of videos with people standing in the way of the instructor. Can they realistically assert that not having students stand in the way, blocking view of the instructor, in an instructional/exercise video is novel, non-trivial, non-obvious and not done before?
After reading a few sentences, it all started sounding the same to me. I still came away from this with the perception that they patented a camera angle. This will not win back any points for them.
Since this is relevant to the tech community let me paint a picture before people start sharpening the pitchforks...
I've been meeting with investors recently and one of the most common questions/comments has been - "Why can't someone else just do the same thing? Can a group of Stanford grads build this in a weekend?" This line of questioning is relevant to pretty much all startups today.
The reality is, from what I can tell, to build YogaGlo, you could build this in a month with a fairly decent tech team and a little bit of hustle. Now imagine you're the CEO of YogaGlo today and an investor asks you these questions. Easy answer - "they can't, we have a patent". Think of this in another light. What happens if the company goes bust and there are no physical assets to liquidate? A patent (or IP) is an asset that can be sold. (think Nortel[1])
We've significantly lowered the barrier to pretty much every industry in the world. The production cost of one of these yoga classes can't be more than $100 per video and yet can reach a million in a click of a button. Since it's so "easy", we come full circle back to how important ownership, rights, IP and patents are. Otherwise your business is simply another replaceable middle man.
However here is where I believe YogaGlo has just screwed up in playing this game. Because it's so easy to reproduce their IP, companies like YogaGlo should be focusing on mindshare, and less about patentability and competition. Create such good relationships with yoga instructors and the people watching the videos that they wouldn't dare go to the competition. This sentence stuck out more than anything:
"Several companies offered to buy us, invest, license our technology, or hire YogaGlo to film their classes. When we declined, a few grew unhappy with us." You declined?! Are you out of your mind? Why not become the de facto company for licensing your technology, filming other Yoga classes, etc? That's how you build mindshare - and mindshare is IMHO the "new IP".
I think it's mistaken for Yogaglo to believe that what distinguishes their business is some specific camera angle and frankly it's disingenuous for them to pretend so. They have a set of very popular teachers (even celebrities within the yoga world). That's the reason why Stanford grads can't build it in a weekend -- are they going to be able to get Kathryn Budig and Jason Crandall and the others? I really think they just got greedy, and want to force their competitors to film their classes at awkward angles and in undesirable formats.
If a business is easily copyable and no-one will finance it for that reason, that business may never come to exist, which is clearly a net loss to society. Of course, this does not apply to yoga videos, but a lot of startups that venture into unproven technologies or markets are very risky investments.
Having new businesses is not a net loss to society? Sure, a vast majority of them will be worthless, but without experimentation how else will valuable new markets be discovered?
well wait a second, whether or not they do facilitate is not the same thing as whether or not they are necessary for it to happen. Clearly, the latter is true since there's that other 33%
Yes, they're clearly not necessary, and you'll find many entrepreneurs right here who'll be living proof of it. But if VCs ask for them, having at least one patent does make it easier to secure financing.
And there are other, less obvious, reasons VCs may be interested in patents. The second study (and other studies) showed that having at least one patent is correlated with significantly higher chances of a startup having a successful exit.
The reasons behind this correlation is not clear, but if it presents such a powerful signal, VCs have a good reason to look for patents.
I basically read "this is an incredibly strict patent. We didn't blatantly patent filming from the back of the class. Our patent only applies when the camera can see the teacher."
I've followed online yoga sites for years and this is by far the most common and obvious way of filming a class.
The really upsetting thing is that the patent seems to center around a certain photographic composition. They've just added "oh and we stream it too". Couldn't this be extended to also cover non-yoga courses with the same composition technique?
"Setting the record straight" has only emboldened my opinion that this patent is pure baloney and YogaGlo is a disgrace to the yoga community AS WELL AS the business community. I hope this patent goes down in flames and YogaGlo is put out of business in the process
That looks pretty close (although I can't tell if the camera is at a height of 3 feet), but it was uploaded in 2011. This patent has a priority date of 27 Aug 2010, so to invalidate this patent, any videos like this from before that date would be needed.
The patent says "about 3 feet" instead of 3 feet, and while that's vague enough to be stupid they've helpfully provided images of their classes that represent a camera at that height in the post. Skimming that video it looks to be a very close match.
I'd be interested to know whether arguments used defending against prior art are legally binding afterward. For example if they said "nope, the camera looks to be 1m, not 3ft", would they be unable to consider something at 1m infringement forever?
> I'd be interested to know whether arguments used defending against prior art are legally binding afterward. For example if they said "nope, the camera looks to be 1m, not 3ft", would they be unable to consider something at 1m infringement forever?
Yes, it's called estoppel [1] which, amongst other things, basically means, "whatever you say can and will be used against you". This includes whatever comments and arguments they made during prosecution of the patent.
They are definitely soliciting people to respond on that statement page, I'm sure of it. That, or they're making accounts to validate themselves against the people who ARE real.
Or people really just don't care, which is entirely possible, but I won't let my faith sink that low just yet. If you'd patent a camera angle then you'd probably have no problem creating accounts to bolster your ego.
Ha, and here I thought they were going to apologize and release the patent as the nonsense it is. Nope! Even better, a self-righteous screed about how there is nothing to worry about... for most of you.
As an American and a Yogi I have to say America has to be the only country where "entrepreneurial" teachers of Yoga feel the right to patent Yoga.
Exactly when Yoga started is a matter of debate but most will grant it a couple of thousand years at least and most much farther back.
As an example is [Forrest Yoga](http://www.forrestyoga.com/) where prior art is technically in illustratiosn and text in ancient books. (There are diligent engineers in India working to scan every single page of these books as so people can claim it as prior art.
In Forrest yoga though they have made slight different in some of the poses to justify it.
More importantly its the morality of feeling like as a teacher with maybe 40 years or less experience that you have mastered Yoga enough to own it.
So, now in the US there is a lot of money in Yoga, and Americans at every level are trying to create patents to
protect their "business" Be it in Yoga itself, in the teaching of Yoga, in the franchises, and apparently the filming of Yoga.
I feel we need a rule that will punish an organization or person filing or a patent that is objectively illegitimate.
I suppose the punishment would have to be based on a percentage of the gross earnings of the company.
While the usage of the word "Yoga" to describe spiritual practices is certainly quite old (the Yoga Sutras were apparently compiled a bit before Jesus), Hatha Yoga is only a few centuries old, and the gymnastic practice that is common today (asanas) is pretty modern (~150 years).
Doesn't make patents any less ridiculous, of course.
Let’s be clear: there is nothing inventive about having a camera pointing down an aisle. If that’s patent worthy, then so is wiping my ass with my left hand.
I feel like it would be easy to make money with workout videos if you can get Netflix to stream it. Currently there's no streaming Netflix workout videos. Yeah, none. On my Roku box I have a few options for yoga and workout channels including YogaGlo channel. However I don't see how $18/mo just for streaming yoga videos is an option when I only pay $8/mo for Netflix streaming videos.
"Yoga International could keep the videos on its website until it had a chance to re-film the classes using a different style."
So they say they're not using the patent as a weapon, but then describe themselves harassing another organization with it. Their patience is generous only if we can assume it's no trouble at all to re-film those classes (ugh).
And doesn't the existence of videos they "felt were very close to ours" imply a bit of prior art and/or lack of originality on the so-called patented style? Or perhaps are they are insinuating that Yoga International willfully "stole" or "reverse engineered" their style before the patent was issued?
You can't patent or copyright a film technique, this thing would never stand up in a court. Unless they had discovered a new kind of camera that was the only way to take the shot, it is not an invention.
Translation: "We exercised common sense in taking a video and have patented this." Prior art, I would have hoped, amounts to framing and take a video of anything and capturing essential attributes to deliver a valuable online experience. I'm a subscriber to yogoglo, and I'm ashamed. Any alternatives without scummy patent tactics you can recommend?
desktop zen rock gardens. I was looking for an authentic full size zen rake, and I couldn't find one, at all, since the search only yielded those kitchy things you find on some people's desks.
I wonder if they're moderating for comments on their blog - or adding fake ones; I think those kinds of behaviour are in line with patenting and trying to control an environment.
1. Junk patents abound in today's digital world, where "method" and "computer" have been endlessly linked to suggest that something is innovative when it is not. YogaGlo's patent is a bit different but in the same spirit of method madness.
2. For much of this, we can thank the loosening standards imposed over the past two decades by a specialized patent appeals court that has given overblown significance to what once was a highly specialized field of tremendous importance to the competitors immediately involved but not to average people. Result: average people see the flood of junk limiting, irritating, and frustrating their lives and are mad as can be at the skewed results.
3. In a parallel world known as that of the law, it is business as usual, with the junk patents having become monetizing weapons in the hands of aggressors and with the industry generally profiting at every angle from the "growth business" that patent litigation has become. Most of the actors see the insanity but also see nothing at all that is poised to dislodge it because the many tentacles that combine to choke off common sense are so diffused and dispersed, with each having its own reason for failing to act: congressional leaders beholden to lobbying interests, market-leading device-makers seeking to keep competitive advantage by any means possible, those who seek to challenge them having of necessity to spend billions to buy their own arsenal by which to protect themselves, federal circuit judges who have a built-in incentive to magnify the importance of patents and of their role in shaping the "inventions" of the future, a federal system of checks and balances in which a Supreme Court must defer to constitutional restraints on its power to reform the mess it sees before it, a patent office that is overwhelmed with junk applications and simultaneously pressured to move them along in the system without being too finicky about which ones pass or not, and a startup community that is basically schizophrenic on the point in philosophically condemning the system while, in the case of any given venture, embracing it insofar as it gives to the venture a potential sustainable competitive advantage.
4. Seen in this context, the YogaGlo defense is actually as good a technical defense of a junk patent as one might make: it pleads that people try to understand that, as a business matter, the company needs to stake out its turf and block others from intruding on it through the same sort of legal means that all other ventures use and, thus, what should be so wrong in its doing what the whole world is doing anyway; it argues that the thing really is as narrow as one might imagine given that all sorts of non-patentable ways do and always have existed for filming yoga classes; and it claims that the company is really just reasonable and restrained and hardly intending to create the sort of dust-up that followed in the wake of people's shocked realization that they (or people they like) might get sued for doing what used to be a routine filming of an instructional video. Imagine if you were given the awful task of trying to defend this thing. How would you have done it better? From the company's standpoint, this is the baser half of the startup world's schizophrenic attitude toward patents: we may oppose the hell out of it philosophically but, when it comes to pragmatic advantage, stand aside and let us do what we must do to meet our business goals.
5. Of course, in the end, this is really just one more junk patent and so the company's defense comes off as inadequate and even insincere. Yes, others may have made some unfair statements that distorted the facts but the company's problem is that such statements, though perhaps unfair in a narrow sense, perfectly capture the sense that most people have that this grotesque thing should not be allowed to stand and that no tears of sympathy need be wasted on those who brought it into existence, whatever their motives.