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Mistral Patent for "Code implemented tool calls"(patentsgazette.uspto.gov)
51 points by theanonymousone 37 minutes ago | 38 comments
Ekaros 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Do software patents only exist for rich players to build a moat against poorer players? At this point with patents of this quality only reason for them to exist seems to be to cross-license them for extra revenue and to possibly block anyone too poor to fight for themselves...

rusk 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Precisely the reason is to give breathing room for big players to invest in development of technology so they can capitalise exclusively for a period

wyzer 10 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

They exist so you can not be forbidden to do what you invented.. but there might be unintended correlation ;)

dummydummy1234 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So anyone have prior art we can point to? Because no way is a rpc call novel.

rozenmd 15 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

September 26, 2025: https://blog.cloudflare.com/code-mode/

abecedarius 23 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I didn't carefully read either of these, but it reminds me of https://blog.cloudflare.com/code-mode-mcp/ (note it predates the filing).

c7b 24 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Seems that this is a patent application from March, so a challenge should still be possible. But it would have to come from a named entity afaik (not a lawyer).

Roark66 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It is quite funny an EU company patenting a software feature that is basically unpatentable in EU in the US.

Clearly this is an attempt to prevent similar patents from being weaponised against them in the US.

No one cares about such stuff in Europe.

maeln 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How is the US patent registry easy to search ? I would be curious to see the patent registration of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc. One way or another, I do fully expect every of those companies to try to fill these kinds of "almost for sure invalid and overturnable" patent as a way to defend themselves from every other actor (the classic "Oh I infringed on your patent ? Well here are some of MY patent you are infringing on, so let's call it a day").

hmokiguess 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/ try this

nrabulinski 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Patent for the most basic pattern seen in literally all of software engineering

plufz 19 minutes ago | parent [-]

Or it’s a patent for ”a method” of doing that, that is much more specific?

d-us-vb 14 minutes ago | parent [-]

The question is whether the method is sufficiently novel or specific enough to the problems/difficulties of solving a specific domain’s problems to warrant a patent.

It’s one of those kinds of patents i assume I’m violating every 100 lines of code I write.

davemp 22 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It should be embarrassing and shameful to apply for such a trivial patent.

derektank 10 minutes ago | parent [-]

“Claude, please review my repo for any work that could be novel enough to receive a patent. Be liberal in your definition of ‘novel’”

Topfi 7 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Still pending, or am I mistaken? Can anyone with knowledge on the US process make an estimate how likely this is to go through? I know of Uniloc and their "efforts", is there a possibility that this could take a similarly damaging path?

sam1r 5 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Can somebody care to explain if the 2013 and 2006 refer to IDs or reference to past years.

_pdp_ 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Plenty of previous art.

butterisgood 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

TONS of prior art.

rvz 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is just an RPC with JSON being passed around like a messaging system.

So we are just vibe patenting rubbish and rebranding it with AI?

InsideOutSanta 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

> So we are just vibe patenting rubbish and rebranding it with AI?

"Patenting rubbish" is a description of pretty much all software patents since forever.

conradfr 24 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The irony is that it's not probably not patentable in Europe.

dwedge 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Mistral has set off my stink test for a while now, they seem to be a "friendly EU AI provider" who are really an EU mouthpiece for regulation and stifling competition instead of actually innovating

Edit: downvote if you want, but here's another example: "Companies selling artificial intelligence models in Europe should pay a "levy" to support cultural industries, the head of French developer Mistral said on Friday, March 20." https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/03/20/m...

Roark66 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This will not fly anywhere outside France Polish here and the very first question I have is "who would decide which cultural industry representatives would get the money"? And what right the decision makers have to decide that. How about they send few k EUR a month to my friend who is a struggling painter :-D

Somehow I doubt that will happen.

It reminds me of those taxes on CD-R disks to support "Art associations" that were proposed before.

Voices like this are useful to spark a debate on AI basically taking content owned by other people and selling it, but no one will agree to implement anything like what is proposed.

dwedge 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> This will not fly anywhere outside France Polish here

> It reminds me of those taxes on CD-R disks to support "Art associations" that were proposed before.

I find it funny when citizens of a country say things like this. Are you unaware that the Polish government brought in the same tax, 1-3%, on smartphones, laptops, desktop computers and SD cards from November this year? https://tvn24.pl/biznes/tech/nowa-oplata-od-smartfonow-table...

realusername 5 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> It reminds me of those taxes on CD-R disks to support "Art associations" that were proposed before.

They're not just proposed, they are implemented in a lot of countries and France actually has the highest CD tax in the EU (and probably in the world but I haven't checked)

shakna 10 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Mistral aren't an EU mouthpiece. They're a startup backed by Microsoft, nVidia, and Salesforce.

realusername 10 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

They all do that, when OpenAI reached a licensing deal with Reddit, it's to prevent less financially capable competitors to enter the market. (And I'm not saying that's right either)

hhh 15 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

no shot my gpt-3 discord chatbot that did this beats it as prior art

amberjack 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

EU AI innovation is really amazing.

monster_truck 13 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

These don't really do anything, its just investement bait/participation trophies.

Once worked at a startup with a legendary dumbass who would tell anyone who listened about their patent for URL routing in javascript. Please don't hurt yourself rolling your eyes

mlinhares 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

what an insane thing to have a patent for.

baalimago 18 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So without sandbox: it doesn't apply. Without explicit tool approval step: it doesn't apply. Response in xml: it doesn't apply.

What is the point?

nicman23 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

that is just ipc

wannabe44 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I come up with at least two ideas like this every time I sit down in the toilet to poop.

sam1r 6 minutes ago | parent [-]

One could also have their preferred AI draft + deploy the white paper prior to flush.

petcat 27 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

isn't mcp just JSON rpc anyway

GrayHerring 11 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I'd like to patent the term "disadvertisement" and use this as a prime example.