Patents – conventional warfare?

“After all a patent is only what it is claimed to be under its claims, nothing more, nothing less. And even those are eventually validated in courts, not in patent offices. So in real life, nobody knows what has been patented until it has been tried in a court. …. It is only about patent strategy and tactics. If you don’t have one, your competitor might have. It is war after all.”

WHY ARE PATENT APPLICATIONS SO COMPLEX AND HARD TO UNDERSTAND?

[Edit: See also Part 2: Patents — non-conventional warfare]

Writing a patent application is a skill honed to the extremes over the last two centuries. It is a mumbo-jumbo-techy-legal text that needs great expertise to understand what its actually being said. I have often heard from colleagues that they do not recognize nor understand. But what is that they don’t understand? The draft patent application they are asked to comment that is written based on their original idea. They don’t recognize the idea anymore nor find it in the written text. They can read the words but do not understand the sentences.

What is behind this all then?

Filing and receiving patents is also a game blown to the extremes. Individual patents have very little value as such. It is easier to understand the text if one tries to understand them through the system. It is like politics, lot of words but less concrete actions. Although there are agreements signed here and there now and then, they too are valuable only as long as everyone respects them.

Patents can have real value in several ways. An individual can show in his CV how many patents he holds and thus is inventive or where his interests lie. A company or an (academic) institution may have protected and published their new results as patents. Sometimes it is deliberately chosen not to patent and rather publish the results so nobody can claim those in the future. Quite often very important ideas related to manufacturing are not patented at all. It is better to keep a secret and not show competitors how things are done. If someone later receives a patent for the same idea, a company may be able to prove they’ve done it for years and keep using it.

But the ultimate question is if someone infringes your patent – what are you going to do about it? If you do nothing, your patent is just gathering dust. You must have the capability to protect your rights as well. Be ready to fight and have the resources and willingness to do so. In some cases it is not beneficial to attack the small fish but rather wait for the more lucrative cases to emerge and only then hit – being a shark. The old term of Shark has been turned into Troll when someone does not produce anything but just owns patents and actively seeks compensation for its rights. According to our laws and practices it is legal to do so and there are no clear boundaries when one could not protect his rights.

The real value of a patent is settled when it is sold or a court decides a company must pay another for infringements. Before the actual tried case, nobody can exactly say how valuable an individual patent is. Just like in military, one can only plan strategies and gather equipment, but the value of preparedness and tools are measured only in real use.

There is a heated cold war going on in several industries where companies are fighting for market position and revenues. Some technological areas rise in importance and 10-20 years later the original and subsequent patents become of value. In some areas standardization and games played there adds another aspect. Consider these as being equivalent of UN when compared to warfare. And patents are the needed tactical weaponry one might need one day – uncertain is only which and when. Enter patent portfolios that try to enumerate tactical advantage with numbers over quality. An individual patent is relevant only when backed up with other patents in the same and other areas. The patent costs are not so important as you have to have the army in any case to be taken seriously.

Only when you cannot afford to keep an army does the situation change. Well of course companies actively prune their patent portfolios by trying to understand and focus on the important, strategic ones. Old patents can be discarded or sold to someone else, perhaps to NPEs (sharks, trolls, non practicing entities). But overall I would claim most smaller companies do not understand the strategic role of the patents. They either over- or underspend resources, but when a company and an idea is growing, nobody knows what eventually will result. Patent strategy for a start-up may be a shot in the dark that may be prematurely required by the investors. Of course this is not a general rule, but I’ve seen this happen.

So there are reasons why the patent system is like it is, but why are the patent texts then so hard to understand? Can’t one just say what one means and has done?

Of course, but… For a patent to have some value and merit, it usually should not be too restrictive. For example if one protects a door opening mechanism with one hinge, another company may show why a two hinge mechanism is so much better and bypasses the original idea. To be generic enough but still have some merit and validity in other areas as well is one of the reasons why the descriptions are so hard to understand. A patent should have Generalizability.

There are processes and technicalities to be followed when filing patents – one may amend the original application given it has been covered in the original application. Thus from one perspective it is good to cover a lot in the first explanation as it can be used to alter the claims later. If something is not described in the original,  no later changes are possible, as a general rule. Another reason to describe the idea broadly is to have the patent text itself act as prior art for future development. Patents are far from the only form of prior art. Future technical development is a question mark for everyone, so it is better if your patent is not tied only to the current implementation. Sometimes a very narrow patent is the best thing to have, but it may be hard to think about all the circumstances that the future may hold. Patents can be amended and used to describe prior art covering more than the patent itself.

Those are some of the easy reasons and excuses for the mumbo-jumbo-techy-legal aspect. It is possible that the application is deliberately written to be hard to understand. If you don’t understand it, the chances are the competition does not know what you are after. Some have speculated that being vague enough is a tactical move to get a patent granted. The patent examiner gets overwhelmed and is buried in prior art so that it is actually unclear what the idea is – it is claimed and seems to be new and innovative thus patentable. Patent text can be used to distract not just the competition but also the examiners.

In some cases the text may be written as a strategic weapon, thinking ahead what type of litigation may be waiting ahead. “Yes, we have independently come to that conclusion, please see our original patent application preceding the date…” and the like. Patent applications can be used to show and prove a point or any point.

Then there must be all the other reasons as well that one just cannot think of that somebody else does. It is a system and it acts like a system with its rules and weaknesses built in. But it is the system we have right now.

After all a patent is only what it is claimed to be under its claims, nothing more, nothing less. And even those are eventually validated in courts, not in patent offices.

So in real life, nobody knows what has been patented until it has been tried in a court. Different countries and courts may decide differently. And of course some patent applications take those into account during writing and filing as well. It is only about patent strategy and tactics. If you don’t have one, your competitor might have. It is war after all.

Energiajäte ja hyötyjäte: Kuka mitä häh?

“Energiajäte on eri asia kuin polttokelpoinen jäte. Hommatkaapa ite tarrat astioihin.” —-  “Sekajäte nimenomaan on sitä poltettavaa jätettä…haloo.” —- “No HALOO kyllä säilyketökit on sekajätettä..” —- “Kun on vain yksi astia, sekajäte, joka menee nytkin jo polttoon.” —- Miksi meidän taloyhtiössä on edelleen oranssi energiajäte-astia ja harmaa sekajäte-astia?”

Who’s on first?   Normaalisti en naura kenellekään ja ikinä en siteeraa nettikirjoittelua, mutta nyt teen poikkeuksen. Juuri viime viikolla kirjoitin kierrätyksen hankaluudesta. Kuinka ollakaan, tämän viikon Kalevassa oli artikkeli jonka yleisökommentit kertovat enemmän kuin tuhat blogia (Kotitalouksien jätteiden lajittelu tökkii). Näistä kommenteista saisi pienin muokkauksin Kummeli-sketsin.

“Ei minulle ainakaan ole tullut mitään tiedotetta, että sekajäteastia olisi nykyään polttokelpoista jätettä sisältävä astia.”

“Onpas. Vai laitoitko sen kenties samantien (seka)jätteeseen?”

“Hyvä on laittaa kun laatikoissa ei ole merkintöjä ja lajitteluohjeista puuttuu ohjeet mitä saa laittaa poltttoon (kun polttoa ei mainita missään sanallakaan, mitkä laatikot menee ja mitä niihin saa laittaa), näin ainakin SATO:n asunnossa. 

“Jos nyt jutussa olisi ollut lista, että mitä saa laittaa ja mitä ei, niin ehkä olisin oppinut jotain. Sekajätteeseen menee meillä ainakin mm. säilyketölkit, saako niitä pistää?”

“Laita säilyketölkit metallin keräykseen.”

“No HALOO kyllä säilyketökit on sekajätettä.. kuka omakotiasuja viitsii kiikuttaa säilyketölkkejä kierrätyspisteeseen? Eri asia kerrostaloalueiden keskitetyissä kierrätyspisteissä.”

“Minulla on sopimus sekajätteen hakemisesta, ei energiajätteen.”

“Sekajäte nimenomaan on sitä poltettavaa jätettä…haloo.”

“Kun on vain yksi astia, sekajäte, joka menee nytkin jo polttoon.”

“Ehkä olisi voitu jakaa kotitalouksiin kunnon kierrätysoppaat niin tietämättömätkin osaisivat lajitella ja tietäisivät minne sen vaihdelaatikon voi toimittaa (ilmaiseksi) jatkossa.”

“Onhan ne jaettu, jo vuosikausia.”

“Eihän sinne sekajätteeseenkään saa laittaa mitä tahansa! Ne menee nykyään poltettavaksi nekin.” 

“Mutta kun sun sekajäte justiinsa meneekin polttoon…ilman että teet mitään. Ei sitä energiajätteeksi muuteta, se on mennyt Laanilaan kesästä asti.”

“Meidän taloyhtiön jäteastiassa on kyltti SEKAJÄTE, jos olisi astia nimeltä ENERGIAJÄTE niin muutkin ymmärtäisivät laittaa siihen vain palavia jätteitä.”

“Energiajäte on eri asia kuin polttokelpoinen jäte. Hommatkaapa ite tarrat astioihin.”

“No kun se sekajäte ON sitä polttokelpoista jätettä…eli nimenomaan sekajäte menee polttoon. Kahta astiaa ei tarvita. Vaihdat vaan tarran. Ilman tarraakin sun sekajäte menee Laanilaan eli turhaa meuhkaa…”

“Miksi meidän taloyhtiössä on edelleen oranssi energiajäte-astia ja harmaa sekajäte-astia,eri auto tyhjentää astiat..mikä järki tässä on??”

“Oranssiin energia-astiaan laitettua poltettavaa jätettä ei viedä suoraan Kemiran ekovoimalaitokselle eli sitä voidaan polttaa muissakin laitoksissa toisin kuin sekajätettä. “

“No nyt saa ilmeisesti tunkea syyskuusta alkaen roska-astiaan kuivaa risukkoa,kantoja jos lootaan mahtuu,muovia,lautaa,vaneria, polkupyöränrenkaan ym. polttokelpoista roskaa.”

“KAIKKI on polttokelpoista jätettä kunhan uunissa on tarpeeksi kuuma..”

“Mihin pannaan tavalliset roskiin menevät jätteet, jos sekajätteisiin saa laittaa vain polttoaineeksi kelpaavaa materiaalia?”

“Monelta on saattanut mennä ohi mediassa tämä ekovoimalaitokseen liittyvä muutos kotitalouksien jätehuollossa.” 

Niinpä.  Vakavasti ottaen, ei tämä ole mikään naurun paikka. En muuten halua nostaa juuri Oulun jätehuoltoa kepin nokkaan, pahoittelen. Kaikkialla on samanlaista.

Suunnittelun ykkössääntö: jos asiakas ei ymmärrä systeemiä, se on systeemin vika eikä asiakkaan. Jos käytettävyys puuttuu, puuttuu kaikki.

Oulussa ja muuallakin on nyt vapautunut eräistäkin suurfirmoista UX-eksperttejä (käytettävyysosaajia). He ovat nykyoloissa vähään tyytyväisiä eivätkä paljon laskuta.  Ja saisivat ehkä tilannetta selkeytettyä juuri siksi, että tulevat perinteisten piirien ulkopuolelta. Olisiko syytä harkita?

Aiempi kirjoitus: Energiajäte ja hyötyjäte: Ei energiahyötykäyttöön.

Jätteisiin liittyviä muita kirjoituksia: Jätteet

(Kuva: Sami Jumppanen)

 

Troglodyte: How farmers were punished for using a shovel

“Whether or not the cases had any actual merit, the farmers could not afford lawyers. They always caved in and paid a “licensing fee” of $10-$100 (real money in 1875).”

The purpose of Project Troglodyte is to hunt for bad patents and to show what went wrong. For more information, please see the web page.

HOW FARMERS WERE PUNISHED FOR USING A SHOVEL

[Edited Appendix 2 on 30.8.2012 to suggest a more realistic cost estimate.]

The dystopia described in Trolling on the human rights  is no dystopia. I suggested there that patent trolls (companies owning essentially worthless patents for the sole purpose of extracting licensing fees) could start demanding such “license fees” for basic human rights such as clean water or education.

It turns out this has happened. It happened in the 1870’s, but similar patent mechanics apply today. Weaknesses in 1870’s patent law allowed ruthless operators to collect “license fees” from ordinary farmers who happened to be using shovels. The case is described by Gerard Magliocca (Blackberries and barnyards: Patent trolls and the perils of Innovation, Notre Dame Law Review, June 2007). [See Appendix 1 for more details].

HOW DID THE 1870s SHARKS OPERATE? 

The 1870 Patent Act loosened the criteria for filing patents. Pure design elements could now be patented, rather than functional elements. In other words, tiny (even ornamental) changes to basic designs could be patented and the patents enforced, and it was extremely difficult to know if a given product actually infringed the patent. Magliocca summarized the problem as being that “almost any farm tool could be classified as a design”.

This was quickly abused by patent sharks (as they were called then). By patenting tiny changes to essential equipment such as shovels, they could demand royalties, targeting individual farmers. Whether or not the cases had any actual merit, the farmers could not afford lawyers. They always caved in and paid a “licensing fee” of $10-$100 (real money in 1875). According to this site, ten dollars would have been a week’s salary for an urban fireman. In a  rural economy, this would have been a proportionately much larger sum of money.  Painful but not ruinous.

(I want to make a personal comment here. I do not consider patents as such to be the evil issue here. If someone uses significant money to develop, say, a truly new composite-material shovel that weighs a fraction of current shovels, they are entitled to protect it. It may not sound ethically nice, but at least it is not gaming the system, in the way that trolling is).

According to Magliocca, USPTO practices were changed during the late 1880’s so that pure design elements could no longer be patented. Shark activity was thus no longer profitable.

WHAT ALLOWS TROLLS TO THRIVE?

Magliocca sees direct parallels to today’s trolling situation, especially in software and business patents. He suggests three criteria that breed trolling behavior.

1. Substitution effect. It must be extremely difficult to find a substituting solution, either by bypassing the patents or by using a competing technology. Currently, software is dependent on multiple interacting modules, and redesigning one module can be too difficult to be realistic. On the other hand, in the 1870s, “there are only so many ways to design a shovel”. Once a patent had been granted, much anything could be alleged to infringe it. Since farmers needed shovels, they were open to attack.

2. Marginal improvements. When almost all patents look almost the same, it is difficult to know whether one is infringing or not. This is true of today’s software patents; it was true of design elements for shovels. When one has no prior way of actually knowing whether an infringement has taken place, going to court is a huge risk.

3. Cheap technology. Trolling only makes sense if it is very cheap to file and maintain patents, and owning just one critical patent can bring the targeted system to a halt. In the 1870’s the problems were due to the loose standards for patenting. Today, systems are highly integrated, and just one patent can block an entire system.  In both cases, a strong “portfolio” could be created by just owning one single patent.

Cheapness is also related to the ability to hold on to patents for a long time. In the 1870s, “inventors” could patent small design elements, and then allow the patents to stay inactive until they saw them actually being used.  Currently, this practice is discouraged by making maintaining a patent more expensive over time. However, Magliocca doubts whether the cost currently rises sharply enough.  See Appendix 2 for details.

COULD 1875 BE REPEATED IN 2015?

Patent weirdness today get the most press in areas which are, in my opinion, socially irrelevant. We could survive without pinch-and-zoom user interfaces on touchscreens. We could not survive without water. Could trolls start to interfere with, say, access to water?

I will focus on sensor systems needed to monitor and optimize irrigation. Such ensors are a crucial part of controlling irrigation and conserving water.  I will focus concretely on a patent which I have analyzed already (see Troglodyte: Cleantech 2). That patent is only one specific sample; there could be significantly worse ones.

1. Substitution effect. This might not seem like a severe risk, as a variety of sensor technologies that can be used.  However, patents in the core of data transmission protocols are difficult to bypass because of their very generality, and because a single patent on a small detail can block an entire complex system.  The Cleantech 2 patent certainly is in the category.

2. Marginal improvements. To exaggerate a little, all patents these days look alike. A small company won’t have the time or competence to estimate whether a case is valid. (Bizarrely, trying to do so could actually make things worse. If an infringement is judged to be “willful”, courts may triple the damages. In other words, if a company does try defend itself, in principle it risks being punished three times more severely.  It is a Catch-22). An average company confronted with the Cleantech 2 patent probably would have no idea what to do.

3. Cheap technology. Patenting is cheap compared to the possible profits (see Appendix 2). And the USPTO is in serious trouble with spurious patents. Companies can now file spurious patents in critical areas, and keep them quietly hidden away. The Cleantech 2 patent is a good example. It may (at least partly) be in force for the next twenty years. If someone during that time develops a good real-time system for optimizing irrigation using rain sensors, the patent could come to haunt them.

I truly don’t know if we could see a repeat of 1875. Magliocca’s criteria do seem to be satisfied. The magnitude of the risk is completely impossible to predict. It could lead to severe disruptions in the development of irrigation technologies; it could be a minor irritant that slightly raises licensing costs; or, nothing at all might happen.

However, the right time to start preparing for potential attacks is now, before litigation (or threat of litigation) has even begun. Whether anything can actually be done I do not know; but being unprepared is the worst possible option.

 

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APPENDIX 1: STATISTICS

It appears that Magliocca’s paper is the only major study of that case, and the subjective description is largely based on one historical paper from the 1940’s (however, the paper is backed by extensive legal references).  For the sake of general skepticism, I decided to see whether there are other sources that would support that description.

I made a Google Patents search for patent applications with the term “shovel” between 1860 and 1895 (Figure 1). There is indeed a dramatic peak after 1870, decreasing in the 1880’s. (I have no explanation for the secondary peak before 1890).

It is necessary to consider whether the growth could be due to general trends in patenting after 1875, rather than the specific shark effect. Figure 2 shows the number of patent applications, from USPTO statistics. There is more or less consistent growth throughout the same period. The peak in “shovel” applications is not related to any general growth of patent applications. The statistics are consistent with the shark hypothesis.

Figure 1: Number of patent applications with keyword “shovel”



Figure 2: Overall number of patent applications

 

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APPENDIX 2: HOW CHEAP IS PATENTING, ACTUALLY?

[Edit 30.8.2012: It was pointed out by an experienced reader that a more realistic cost for getting and maintaining a patent for 20 years is closer to 75 kUSD than 15 kUSD, if done properly.  I accept that the estimate below is unrealistically small. However, if a higher cost estimate is used, then part of my point is made stronger: doubling the lifetime of the patent only adds some 5-10% to the overall cost].

From the USPTO’s current fees, filing a patent costs in the ballpark of 1500 USD. If the patent is granted, an issue fee of about 1700 USD must be paid. There can be various hard-to-predict fees which may raise the cost considerably.

In order to maintain the patent, maintenance fees must be paid: 1100 USD at 4 years, 2900 USD at 8 years, and 4700 USD at 12 years. The patent is then valid for 20 years. (The prices can be halved for small entities such as individual inventors). The absolute minimum cost to maintain a patent for 20 years is in the ballpark of 12,000 USD. A practical estimate is at least 15,000 USD, including patent attorney fees.

Magliocca notes that the purpose of the maintenance fees is to make it sharply more expensive to maintain patents for long periods. However, he suggests the rise is not sharp enough. Indeed, given the the initial filing phase also includes requires the patent application to be written by a patent attorney (not cheap), a good ballpark estimate is that the patent has already cost at least 6000 USD by the time of the first renewal, and there are no significant attorney fees after that. A large part of the money has thus already been spent up front.

In practice, maintaining a patent for eleven years easily costs about 10,000 USD, while maintaining it for the whole twenty years costs only 5,000 USD more. This does seem like a no-brainer: if there is any potential, one might as well go the full twenty years.

Troglodyte Driverless vehicles 5

 

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PREDICTING BEHAVIORS OF DETECTED OBJECTS

“Majority of the description text could be condensed to: autonomous vehicles should mimic the behavior of human drivers.”

The purpose of Project Troglodyte is to hunt for bad patents and to show what went wrong. For more information, please see the web page.

This patent is the fifth in a series of Google autonomous vehicle patents/applications analysed to get an understanding of the level of their inventions and the state of the autonomous car project.

 

Figure 1.

 

TIER 1: SUMMARY

It appears that the main purpose of the application is to expose a lot of prior art in one document, to make sure that it is easily found and public. This conclusion is made as there are about 12 000 words in the description but the claims only touch a very small part of it and much of the description text is obviously obvious to anyone skilled in the art, or misquoting from the application: “…understood by those of ordinary skill…“.

The actual idea that protection is sought for is changing how the vehicle is controlled based on detecting an object, classifying the object and based on the classification predicting the behavior of the object. And as Google is involved, creating a massive cloud based database of said behavioral data and sharing it around.

Majority of the description text could be condensed to: autonomous vehicles should mimic the behavior of human drivers. The description explains that processing of the object related information can be done at a location external to the car, this is also mentioned to be possible for the processing related to vehicle control decisions. This might open an interpretation that any controlling of traffic based on information originating in behavior prediction of single vehicles would fall under the protection of this patent. It would mean that any system arbitrating route decisions between vehicles to lessen traffic jams might need to license this.

Being able to predict behavior of nearby objects based on common experience is a valuable feature and will make traffic flow faster and safer. It isn’t mandatory for every autonomous vehicle though and thus wouldn’t likely block competitors from entering the field.

 

TIER 2: AVOIDING LICENSING

It seems that the possibility of using predictions of object behavior of nearby objects observed by other vehicles (or systems) is not mentioned. This would be useful in case large objects create shadows preventing direct observation. Using direct or network based vehicle to vehicle communication might be bandwidth limited in transferring the whole awareness of another vehicle. It would also be wasteful in use of processor resources as the same data would have to be analysed several times, so it would be prudent to  transfer only information deemed important for other vehicles.

If the classification scheme is left out it makes it possible to implement simpler threat prediction based on observed speed and direction. It would still be possible to use context dependent database to predict that for example vehicles in the left lane are more likely to transfer to the right lane during a certain time window at a certain time. This would likely be good enough for autonomous vehicles, but it would be less optimal as the classification scheme will lower the number of times the vehicle needs to alter it course to accommodate other vehicles. Vehicle without the classification ability would likely appear more selfish but if all vehicles are eventually  automated this would have less of an impact as it would now when all the drivers are humans.

 

TIER 3: TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

As stated above, major part of the description just portrays how humans approach driving. Context sensitive behavior prediction of classified objects is what humans are good at. But sharing the accumulated experience between humans is cumbersome. With this invention autonomous vehicles could share automatically on a massive scale. The invention here is not mind boggling, but they usually aren’t. I didn’t do a proper prior art search so it could already be out there, but generally this type of thing (essentially an optimization of a more general approach) is less likely to pop up in science fiction than most of the other stuff in the description.

The description is mostly useless. If the patent system worked, most of the stuff would have to be cut. If there is need to create prior art to stop trolls, write a white paper and publish it somewhere. For the price of a patent attorney it is probably possible to buy enough space in some regional newspaper to show the whole 12 kwords. On the other hand the description of the invention itself is very shallow in detail. Much more should have been given regarding possible ways to implement it, how to handle false identifications, how to handle different sensing abilities, who is responsible if bad data leads to accidents etc. Of course if the patent office doesn’t require this then it would be foolish for anyone to give it. Writing it down might have given a good patent engineer the chance to claim more and could have made this patent more valuable.

The claims only use a small portion of the text but cover that part fairly well. They are almost understandable, although the last one is complex enough that reading it requires more uninterrupted concentration than is usually available when the kids are around.

Troglodyte: Driverless vehicles 4

 

“The idea is perhaps geared a bit too much around the concept of a “driver” and the thinking that she is actively following what the car does.”

The purpose of Project Troglodyte is to hunt for bad patents and to show what went wrong. For more information, see the  web page.

 

Zone Driving

This analysis is part of a series of Google driverless car related patents and applications. This application can be found here.

When reading the analysis it might be interesting to keep in mind that Google possibly uses this idea in their test cars all the time. It would be interesting to know how much the test drives are affected by it. If driverless car development wasn’t a sideshow for Google this could even have an impact on its market value as it could conceal the technology readiness level.

Figure 1.

TIER 1: SUMMARY

This application describes a way of generating, sharing and using information about areas where the driver might want to take control of an autonomous vehicle. These areas are called zones in the text. The idea is perhaps geared a bit too much around the concept of a “driver” and the thinking that they are actively following what the car does. I for one think the exact opposite is the reason to buy an autonomous vehicle in the first place.

My real problem with this idea is the wordplay; a zone is defined as a place where the autonomous vehicle is not that autonomous or where there is a risk that it can’t cope with the environment. If a company wants to come to market before it can handle every aspect of the traffic environment it need this sort of approach. For example the vehicle avoids certain types of intersections or areas of intense pedestrian traffic where it might not be able to move as the pedestrians would be very close. One might be able to argue that a system driving solely on highways needing the driver to take control when exiting the highway is using this system if it automatically recognizes the upcoming exit and gives a warning. This in turn is pretty much a must, as highways sometimes morph to regular roads. Defining the points where control is needed as zones makes it sound like this would be something completely new.

While I don’t know how novel this idea is (I didn’t do a prior art search) it is certainly a powerful way of categorising this information. After realising what is meant by a zone the rest of the related ideas kind of flow naturally.

I would imagine that this is something the development team stumbled into as they wanted to try the car before the algorithms were able to control it in all circumstances. The difficulty of environments likely varies greatly, so it is prudent to start with the easier ones to get some experience. Come to think of it, it is possible that the first autonomous cars will be limited in their ability to navigate completely independently as they probably will be developed from cars that have some of the required features but not all, for example from cars that will be able to drive in light traffic on divided highways.

One important aspect might also be the reluctance of drivers to leave all control to the computer, this fear would likely be alleviated if there was a possibility to set parameters that trigger a notification about difficult spots. As one of the main reasons to get an autonomous car is to be able to do something else when travelling, this sort of warning/notification feature might be a must for all early models.

I noted in some of the other driverless car analysis that they are transition period ideas, that is also true in this case. The proposed feature would get most use when the roads are not built for autonomous vehicles and people are not used to the new technology. After the transition period it might get very little use as it would be required only in exceptional circumstances.

 

TIER 2: AVOIDING LICENSING

The zone concept could be further developed by adding some parameters such as time of day, day of week, temperature, forecasted low friction, local rush hour etc. Pop-up zones could be created if a school bus is detected or a driver indicates that one is close by, this sort of zone could expire for example in 15 minutes. The computer could automatically generate zones if it needs to use unexpected deceleration or manoeuvre violently to avoid impact.

Further there could be a voting scheme to establish and remove a zone. For example if one driver indicates a zone is needed those approaching immediately behind would get a zone warning, but if none of them takes control of their autonomous vehicle the zone would not be established.

Two obvious methods of bypassing exist, the driver follows the situation closely or the car really is autonomous. Neither is good for the business of selling autonomous cars. One possibility might be to analyze map data constantly to identify spots where the computer might need help. Roadworks are often indicated by signs which can be recognized by cameras. Some places could be indicated by a special sign which might have an RF transmitter to make them detectable beyond visible range and add some determinism. These however do not quite reach the dynamic nature of the zone idea (its best contribution I think) which could prove to be quite difficult to bypass if this application is granted in its present form.

 

TIER 3: TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

The word vehicle is used throughout the text, by definition it includes things such as aircraft and helicopters. Autopilots have been in use in those for some time, devices such as autothrottle seem similar to the description of taking over part of the control from the computer. Aircraft autopilots also disengage if they lose control and naturally give a warning. Almost certainly modern autopilots can be engaged for a part of the planned route and be configured to give a warning before that part ends. For example an autopilot would be used through cruise and a warning would be given when the planned descent point is reached. If the descent point is called a zone, it is at a waypoint and the waypoint information can be found on a map which is downloaded from a server the similarities a quite noticeable.

Without the zone system drivers of early autonomous vehicles may feel the need to continuously monitor the performance of the car. With it they may first set a very strict warning level and include a lot of zones and after they feel more comfortable they can let the car do more and more of the driving by itself. Because the zones are proposed to be in a map, any route can be designed so that the number of zones on the route are as few as practicable. If the driver feels tired she can select a route that is a bit longer but has less zones in it and use the time to rest.

In the description it is noted that it is not sufficient for the vehicle to be close to the zone to trigger action, the vehicle also needs to be affected the by the zone in the future. For example if the vehicle is driving on a lane that is on top of the zone on a bridge, no action is required. This is important for the functioning of the zone concept as false positives could degrade user confidence in the system. To be able to solve this problem one needs understanding of the map side of the equation: when the route is planned and then followed, the computer knows which lane it is likely going to be on when the vehicle is close to the zone. The description of this is rather sketchy and actually making a system that does this requires some knowledge of an art that is not that closely related to the zone concept.

The claims are related to the description. As mentioned above some part of the idea may have novelty issues and this of course reflects on the claims that cover that part of the description.

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