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Stallman on Software Patents
Posted by
michael
on Thu Mar 28, 2002 07:59 AM
from the symphony-in-perl-minor dept.
from the symphony-in-perl-minor dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes "On Monday Richard Stallman gave a speech at the Cambridge University (UK) Computer Lab. Over at ZDNet UK they have a transcription of the speech - the most eloquent discussion of the subject I have yet seen. Software patents victimise developers, he says, but there are ways to get around them. The best part is his comparison of writing software to writing symphonies: 'Oh Beethoven,' they would have said in 1800 if there had been patents on music, 'you're just bitching because you've got no ideas of your own.'"
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Other Talk: Copyright vs Community (Score:5, Informative)
An audio version of the talk can be found at:
http://www.odl.qmul.ac.uk/stallman/ [qmul.ac.uk]
Someone did create innovative software! (Score:2, Funny)
Nobody is so brilliant they can create completely new music that everyone wants to listen to, and nobody can create software that does not use existing ideas.
...end of quote
Well excuse me Honorable Stallman but I know a really original piece of software that does not use existing ideas. Its revolutionary in itself.
Check it out at http://freshmeat.net/projects/gtktrue
Re:Someone did create innovative software! (Score:2)
> GTK interface to the popular console application
'I know a really original piece of software that does not use existing ideas.'
An interface - or even a reimplementation - of a program can hardly be said to not use existing ideas.
<thick mode="off">
Re:Someone did create innovative software! (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course people create original music all the time.
Sure there are a small set of notes, and only so many ways you can arange any two notes in any tempo.
After two notes, it is all in the arrangement, and composition.
But four notes is enough to get sued (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure there are a small set of notes, and only so many ways you can arange any two notes in any tempo. After two notes, it is all in the arrangement, and composition.
The Yes! We have no bananas! [everything2.com] case set the precedent that four notes is enough to get a songwriter sued in the United States. Given that there are only about 30,000 ways to combine four notes in the Western music theory (reply if you want a more detailed explanation of the math), it appears that the only reason songwriters haven't exhausted the melody space [baen.com] is that the big "all your right are belong to us" publishers have entered into cross-licensing agreements with one another. This is part of why you should write your legislators and request a repeal of the Sonny Bono [everything2.com] Copyright Term [wikipedia.com] Extension Act [openlaw.org].
Parent
Music (Score:4, Insightful)
Can Music be patentable? I mean software is just a bunch of zeroes and ones being processed and when they're in a certain order something cool happens. Music is just tones at different pitches and when in a certain order it sounds cool.
If one-click shopping is patentable, shouldn't one-hit rimshot be aswell? Why is copyright enough to protect music but not enough to protect software?
Re:Music (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Music (Score:2)
If you make interactive music, then you have a program that generate music, that is.
You may however GPL your music and send it to my web gallery (see
Re:Music Patents vs Software patents (Score:2)
But here is my take on the analogy... and a pretty good analogy I think it to be.
In Music, there is copyright on pieces of music. You cannot distribute copyrighted music nor resell it without the permission of the copyright holder. I am all for this. In software, if you make a piece of software, you own the copyright and people must get your permission or a license to use the software or source code. That works well too.
Now patents are about ideas. There are no patents in music. You can't stop people from copying the idea that major scales and minor scales sound good. You can't patent the 12 bar blues but you can patent any piece that uses the 12 bar blues. To stop people from using the 12 bar blues seems ludicrous... and it is just as ludicrous as people in software engineering patenting quicksort, mathematical algorithms and compression techniques such that others can't use them for 10 years
I like the music analogy
Re:Music (Score:2, Informative)
Concentrated interests beat diffuse interest AGAIN (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're in the patenting biz, or have some patents (copyrights, environmental problem, any sort of valuable asset/liability), it's worth alot to you. You will spend alot of energy [money,time,...] defending your interests and trying to make things go your way before the Courts, Legislatures, Regulators, media, markets, public opinion.
Your very-numerous prey/antagonists do many things. You little asset/liab is a small part of their lives. It's hardly life-or-death for most of them to put up with you. [Parasitic!] If they ever found out, they might not like what you're doing, but it's not worth enough to them to be worth fighting. A whole reservoir of opposition gets trapped below the inaction thresholdaa.
Now some people will always complain, and more do if the inaction threshold can be lowered [email & Internet]. But how do you _prevent_ the squeeky wheel from getting the grease?
Is RMS a closet Windows user? (Score:2, Funny)
Hmm, but wouldn't you have thought someone like him would use "cp"
biotech? (Score:2, Interesting)
patents obstruct biotech in the same way as they obstruct software development. everyone is holding on to their little precious idea and tries to make as much money from it, and if that's not possible, lock up the idea with a patent.
Stallman is very annoying (Score:2, Insightful)
Richard Stallman is very annoying. Often he comes out with rabid driven that just makes me want to shout "shut up you idiot!" for the damage it does to the OSS community. Then he comes out with eloquent, intelligent and thought provoking prose like this. Most annoying.
I was at the talk (Score:3, Interesting)
Allow an "independant discovery" defense (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue is that if something was independantly discovered, the patent should hardly be granted since it doesn't induce anything that wouldn't otherwise happen.
Re:Allow an "independant discovery" defense (Score:2)
Simply allow the fact that an inventor discovered/invented a thing independantly of the patent as a defense against patent violation. Of course, there are evidentiary problems
In the case of software what you are proposing is just copyright: you can duplicate as long as you don't copy (and can prove it).
TWW
Re:Allow an "independant discovery" defense (Score:2)
Re:Allow an "independant discovery" defense (Score:2)
Surely that's the basis of most plagarism suits; it's pretty rare for a copyright case to be on the basis of an exact duplicate (I doubt that sort of case would get as far as court), particularly in the music industry.
TWW
I think he's on to something. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just think of all the trouble.. (Score:2, Funny)
We'd all be paying out the ass!
Public key cryptography patents, not "PGP patent" (Score:5, Informative)
The "transcript" is abbreviated which is acceptable, maybe even laudable, but it is also an inaccurate record of what RMS actually said --- which is not.
IMO, Stallman gave an extremely good talk aimed at those who were not experts on how the patent system works in practice. Far more eloquent than I'd anticipated from his previous writings on this and related subjects.
Paul
ZDNet coverage (Score:2)
Having written a patent application (Score:5, Interesting)
Now of course the lawyer gets paid each time you file, so it's just fine by him. The management tends to side with lawyers, but honestly, patenting ideas, especially in software is stupid. People confuse patent with copyright. Software should use copyright only, because you're protecting the actual work that went into building the application. It's both impossible and idiotic to patent ideas. Unfortunately lawyers run the country and now we have things like patented business process. Like the company that patented the use of Prozac for treating PMS for women. Ideas should not be patented, since it's not possible to police thought. Well that doesn't stop corporations and the government from trying.
Just because RMS can be a raving nut at times, that doesn't automatically discredit every word out of his mouth. Now if only there were more clear thinking people in government, we can fix this damn problem.
Music comparison is an interesting one (Score:5, Insightful)
One moment I recall quite clearly from my college years is the day in class when the teacher of the survey course in music asked the question "What makes American music American?" This was something I hadn't considered before, and the answer wasn't clear to me until he asked more precisely "Why is the 1812 Overture so distinctly Russian? Why is Appalachian Spring American?" The answer is that both borrow themes from the folk music of each country. The Russians knew that Tchaikovsky was writing Russian music because it had recognizable themes that reminded them that they were Russian. The Shaker melody in Appalachian Spring is something many Americans had heard many times before, when that piece was written. (And even moreso now, as "Spring" is itself a common piece of music to hear performed.)
So without the ability to borrow ideas and themes and work them into new compositions, music would be a barren landscape.
One could argue, similarly, that if we impose stronger and stronger restrictions on what we can build into software, then we are resisting the natural cultural synergy that results from algorithms and features being shared among the community members.
Protecting prior art (Score:2)
Another tactic I've heard was to writee up your ideas and bring them to a notary public to have them notarize the document (being sure to stamp each page).
Perhaps these stories are akin to urban legend. I don't know. But it leads me to wonder what is the best way of recording your work so as to be able to prove prior art. Is publishing your work on SourceForge sufficient? Do you need to have your work recorded in a source control system? Even if you did this will you need to hire a high priced lawyer to prove it?
Does anyone know who else was there? (Score:2)
Anyone that was there fit the bill?
TWW
RMS' Intellectual Dishonesty (Score:2, Interesting)
RMS creates a paper tiger and is nearly mauled by it... One does not patent ideas, one patents implementations. He knows this as should you all. The expression of ideas is covered by copyright and, indeed, the creation of a symphony is thus covered and the questions of originality that RMS warns us that a composer would have to be wary of do indeed exist - as copyright violations.
Patents would cover aspects of the implementation of the idea. For example, the use of a bow run across tight strings to produce sound might be a patent. Stretching animal skin across a hollowed cylinder could be patented. These might limit the choice of instruments a composer would utilize in his production if agreements could not be arrived at but, remarkably, both the composer and the patent holder seem to nearly always find some terms if the invention and idea are truely useful. It would be folly for a composer to consider how to create a 220 hertz tone from a stretched catgut while writing his composition so RMS' comparision is specious at best.
RMS' apparent confusion does betray his underlying premise, however. That is - his belief that no one should own the fruits of their own labour if they are not tangible. This is to deny the very existence of real property rights by reducing the argument to that of how one can physically control and protect what is his. Societies come into being as a result of the voluntary creation of rules governing how people will deal with each other and conduct trade. Intellectual property is fundamental to the peaceful progress of such societies and, without them, everything does break down to the very concept of "might makes right" that RMS claims to fear now. While the well known problems with the current process of granting patents do hurt the rights of legitimate owners, they are reparable. RMS's efforts, however, attack the very foundation of these rights which, once lost, will not be peacably regained. RMS' folly is his blindness to the fact that the result of his efforts will not be the utopia he seeks, but rather, a condition several orders of magnitude worse than what he decries today.
Re:RMS' Intellectual Dishonesty (Score:2)
How?
TWW
Re:RMS' Intellectual Dishonesty (Score:3, Insightful)
And your proof is
Methinks you need to read:
Against IP [danny.oz.au]
The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights [libertariannation.org]
Software patents (Score:2, Insightful)
If I, sitting in a darkened room with no internet access, design and implement a software solution to a real-world problem I can make money from it because copyright in the program belongs to me. No effort involved, copyright automatically belongs to me.
If patents are available as "protection" then wealthy corporations and individuals will take advantage of them, most of us won't.
Pretty soon I won't be able to sit in my darkened room anymore because I will have to conduct exhaustive searches on my ideas just in case somebody, somewhere, has a patent on one of its components.
Is this really the best environment in which to nurture creativity, innovation, self-reliance, etc? Or is it merely the best environment to enable wealthy corporations to stifle competition and get richer?
GPL and public domain confusion (Score:2)
The whole idea of GPL and Copyleft in general is to not put the software in the public domain. Read What Is Copyleft [gnu.org], my emphasis:
It's GNU General Public License, by the way.
Resolving grey areas. (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously, trying to patent something like the wheel is silly, and a patent granted for something so obvious is wrong.
On the other hand, consider something like Olestra (a non fat butter substitute that never really went anywhere). Proctor and Gamble spent tens of millions of dollars trying to make this work, and had a decent product, but by the time they had finished development and gotten past all the government regulatory testing and hurdles, the patent life was down to 5 years or so left. Thats a lot of investment to re-coup in such a short time. After that, it all became public domain, though last I heard P&G was trying to get an extension. Lots of companies took note of this, and I promise it has resulted in lots of products we would all like to have being abandoned for fear of repeating this scenario.
If someone was trying to patent or copyright a "network communications system" to prevent other people from using networks without paying royalties, that would of course be wrong. On the other side, if a certian Redmond software company took the latest RedHat distribution, ran a sed command s/RedHat/Microsoft/g against, slapped a new label on it that read "windows XP extreme", and started selling it at CompUSA, then Red Hat should have legal recourse to have them stopped.
The first time I bought a house, when I was going into the process, I thought the mountian of legal documents were an idiot pain in the rear. By the time I was done, I thanked God for every one of them. Arguing that "legal documents are too complicated and too confusing" is like saying "why can't C++ be more readable". It has constraints and requirements for precision that do not easily translate to high readability. It should always be a goal, but you can't sacrifice precision and completeness for "friendlyness". You hire a coder to understand your C++, you hire a lawyer to understand your contracts.
Last year, an associate came to me with an interesting idea for a very simple but very usefull piece of software. He had the business sense and the capitol, I could code. I threw together a fully functional prototype in a weekend, worked perfectly. It would have been sold to larger hardware companies for free inclusion with products, would have gone for pennies a license, and would have been very usefull (though certianly not revolutionary by any means).
It would have cost us about $15,000 to develop, market, and release it (much of which was simply the paperwork for setting up the corporation and doing the marketing). We were on track to pull the trigger until our legal counsel managed to scare up a public domain program that was remotely similiar (though never used and out in a completely different context).
The day we found out, we immediatly dropped all efforts, had a nice dinner, and went on our seperate ways. We had no way to recoup the investment of time and money we would have had to put into it to get it finished and out to the public. Anyone that argues that patents and copyrights do NOT foster innovation is simply wrong (and more then likely on a government payroll). I have had a firsthand experience where lack of patentabilty stopped an otherwise useful project dead in its tracks.
And before you go flaming, I have written and released open source software. That was my idea, it was interesting to me, and I wanted of my own free will to give back to the community. That model works fine also, but it is not the only viable one.
Stupid patents are granted, but they don't often stand, and they are not easy to get. Don't make a fool of yourself by being a knee jerk reactionary and making blanket statements like "proprietary software is evil" or "there is no such thing as intellectual property". The laws exist to help manage these grey areas, and they will always be compromises between different needs.
First, grow beyond just talking about things, and start doing things. Second, grow beyond just doing things, and grow to doing things that get results. Tilting at windmills might make you feel morally superior, but you will never accomplish much and you will be a real bore at parties.
If this stuff really bothers you, Either develop, improve, and release open source software, or work to improve the more idiotic aspects of the laws that exist or are being proposed. Do something that actually results in an improvement in the situation, don't just bury your head in the sand and keep believing there is no good reason for copyright and patent law. No one will take you seriously.
Bill
Patents on Symphonies (Score:4, Insightful)
You can make an argument that says that protecting a composer who pioneered the glory of God through music is important, maybe patentable. But the REAL issue (in every patent argument I've seen) is that patents are being issued for processes where there is prior art and where the method does not qualify as "not-obvious".
The real issue for Beethoven (and all other composers) was copyright and royalties. Scores might only be distributed hours before a performance. Otherwise, they would be swindled and the composer could not get paid for his/her music. The strong (but not too strong) protection of copyright is a pillar in the Capitalist develompent of Intellectual Property.
Australian Patents Study? (Score:3, Informative)
In his talk, Stallman says:
And I thought to myself "Wow! My home country has a progressive attitude to patents, even back in the eighties! Good for us!". So I went looking for that study and instead I found this PDF [arc.gov.au] (here [google.com] is the Google HTMLised version) of a press release from the Australian Government announcing a more recent (1999-2000) nine-month study into patents, competitiveness, and the "new economy" entitled Inventing Our Future: The link between Australian patenting and basic science. The press release says, in part, that the study found:
This is a good thing in itself or as an indicator of activity in those sectors? And also:
This seems to imply that a higher number of patents as a proportion of GDP is a good thing. Is comparing the number of patents in relation to the GDP really a recognised measure of... something? :-)
Here's [arc.gov.au] the PDF of the actual 1999-2000 report, which I have not yet read. Does anyone have a link to the 1980's Australian report into patents that Stallman refers to? It would be interesting to compare them.
Thanks in advance.
Knuth quote (Score:3, Interesting)
In the recent All Questions Answered [slashdot.org] article, Knuth says
I'd take that a step farther, and say that I'm against patents on things that any competent developer should be expected to discover. I'd like to see a much greater burden of proof put on patent filers to show non-obviousness, beyond the current requirement that appears to be "no one has filed a patent on that yet."The Future of Ideas (Score:4, Interesting)
If you want to read a great book on the topic of copyrights and patents, you must read "The Future of Ideas" by Lawrence Lessig. In it he explains how the current battles are not a Left vs. Right issue, but a New vs. Old issue.
The book is filled with good arguments and strong references. He argues that patents are only one tool in the aresenal of the old that are being used to protect the dinosaurs and destroy the freedom of the end-to-end Internet.
It is key to remember that when deciding whether or not we should have patents, the question we need to ask is "do we as a society benefit from patents." I argue that patents for software, especially as they currently are, have no practical benefit for society. Society is supposed to benefit from patents by studying the disclosure of the design, but noone does this because they are not written legibly. Furthermore, the lifetime of patents greatly exceeds the lifetime of software, so by the time the patent clears, society gains little from it. Also, software patents that are also protected by copyright is ridiculous.
Society gains most in a fast-growing sector by having a large commons of ideas to pull from. It is from this commons that innovators are able to flourish.
The Internet is the greatest proof that patents are not the solution. Only because there was a lot of freedom to innovate, unencumbered by patents, were researchers able to develop one of the most freedom-promoting tools for society.
Solution to patent abuse (Score:3, Interesting)
Solution: The length of patent protection is equal to the amount of time it took to develop.
So, if you spend 10 years perfecting some technology, you get a 10 year patent. If it took you 5 minutes (ie 1-click shopping), you get a 5 minute patent.
Of course, you have to PROVE how long it took you to develop it. Some type of verifiable documentation should do it. Anyone seriously interested in getting a patent for something should have no problem keeping accurate documentation. The patent period starts from the date of first sale. If someone else sells the same technology before you do, no patent (prior art). This will prevent people from artifically extending the development period to get a longer patent.
Note all the benefits. Software patents will pretty much disappear, since it doesn't take THAT long to create it. And it seems fair. If you spend a year developing a piece of software, odds are after about it year it will be pretty much obselete anyways.
Will they ever implement this policy? Of course not. It goes in the bucket with all the other reasonable patent-reform ideas. *sigh*
Patents should include source code (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe something new? (Score:3, Interesting)
What problems? I see no problem with having no patents on software.
Nobody seems to ask the question, "What problem does having software patents solve?"
Re:Maybe something new? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because they are abused doesn't mean they should be abolished.
Do you like eating sound with your bare hands? I mean spoons could be weapons and abused!
From what I gather the biggest flaw with patents are the clerks not the laws. They allow things with blatant prior art or generally vague claims pass through. That is not in the spirit of the Patent office and shouldn't reflect on it.
Tom
Re:Maybe something new? (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate to be the first to call "Bovine Excreta!" but you are so full of it it's a wonder it doesn't come out your nose.
How about the obscure legalese in which patents are written? The lawyers who draft these things are desperate to minimise the amount of useable information contained in a patent, with a great deal of success. Slashdot runs many stories claiming "XYZ Patented!" followed by hundreds of comments by qualified engineers who have scrutinised the patent and come out completely confused as to the scope of the patent claim.
Of course, yet again, all this is covered in the main article. Why don't you read the main article? Read the article, you pathetic apologist. [zdnet.co.uk]
Re:Maybe something new? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that what they do is strike fear into the heart of all but the richest inventors, the legal fight to prove that you are not infringing a patent is more than most people can afford even when they are right. Patents encourage the small inventors to scrap the whole thing and just keep their day job, then everybody loses.
This is not an effect we need in the software industry where so much progress is made by individuals.
From what I gather the biggest flaw with patents are the clerks not the laws.
Software moves so fast that no prior-art system is ever going to be able to keep up. The only way to fix the clerk problem is to slow down the entire field to the point where they can cope. Sacking the idiot in charge of the USPO would help, too; paying clerks on the number of patents they approve is hardly professional or responsible.
TWW
Parent
Re:Maybe something new? (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at RC5 [sorry I'm a crypto nut so I have to pull from what I know]. Its a trivial looking cipher and doesn't look like much design was put into it. You might think that was "an obvious design" e.g. not worthy of a patent.
Don't let simplicity be mistaken for obviousness.
In your case you might have a legitimate claim, but you have to realize that its no the spirit of the patent system to lock out obvious ideas. I'd say get others on your side of the story and see if you can invalidate the patent.
Tom
Re:Stallman strikes again... (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't know the difference between patent and copyright, do you?
Microsoft would make just as much money if the patent system was done away with... it would be just as illegal to copy Windows under copyright law, and, with the closed source code, it would be just as hard to reverse engineer.
Patents have little to do with open-source vs. closed-source, the majority of closed-source software is unpatented.
Re:Stallman strikes again... (Score:2)
I'm not sure whom you're addressing, but I would think that most of us do.
Just because both copyright law and patents are dangerous in the hands of a monopolist, does not mean that anyone is equating the two. Nor does it mean that they are necessarily wrong. Your point about copying software whose license forbids such behaviour is perfectly valid. However, what if Microsoft had been granted a patent on the concept of "an operating system with an integrated graphical user interface", or something similar. This would be much more serious, because any (potential) competition would be stifled by such a restriction on creativity.
I think the root of the patent/copyright confusion stems from the verb "to copy". If you make a verbatim copy a piece of software, or music, or film, when the creator of that work has requested in its license that you do not do so without paying them money, then you are in breach of copyright law. If you take someone else's idea and copy it, in order to produce a competing product, and the creator of that idea had sought patent protection for it, then you are in breach of patent law.
The latter scenario causes markets to stagnate as the company with the most lawyers goes round racketeering from their ability to file more ideas at the patent office in a given period of time. The former scenario royally pisses off the customers who suffer from the copy-prevention madness that is currently circulating in the form of the bill-formerly-known-as-SSSCA.
Stallman's point is that software, like music, art and speech, is not by its very nature amenable to patent protection. In my opinion, enforcing software and business process patents is like legislating water to run uphill. Whereas enshrining some level of copyright protection in law can allow many business models to survive where software developers want to make a living, patent protection on software does nothing for the wellbeing of its creators nor its consumers.
In conclusion... I think I'm agreeing with you, but in a rather roundabout way
Re:Stallman strikes again... (Score:2)
Name a patent that MS has made money off, or even enforced.
Patents on lists of thing to do are a stupid idea, even when you get a computer to do them for you.
Very very few companies have made money off software patents and many have made money off non-patented software.
It is very hard to make money off free software but that's got nothing to do with patents, and nor is the fact that it's a lot easier to make money off private software.
you'll go wtih Closed-Source proprietary, patented software.
Closed-source software is not normally patented, and there's no reason it should be.
TWW
Too broad (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to make nice, solid, constantly evolving software, go with Open-Source. Otherwise, if you're like the rest of the worl, you'll want to make money along with nice software (hopefully). Then, you'll go wtih Closed-Source proprietary, patented software.
The problem with patented software is that the patents that the USPTO has issued in the last 20 years are so d*ng broad that instead of "promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts," they have precisely the opposite effect. For instance: data compression by dynamically building a character-to-string dictionary? Patent 4,558,302. Falling blocks puzzle game whose goal is to remove a specified initial set of colored or shaded blocks from the playfield (in other words, B-type Columns)? Patent 5,265,888. Image analysis by blocks against a smaller version of the same image? Patent 5,065,447. Heck, even topological sorting and XOR drawing were once patented in the U.S. [mit.edu]
And don't count on waiting for the patents to expire. Just as Hollywood managed to get a Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act [everything2.com] passed with tons of soft money and (possibly mandatory) individual contributions [opensecrets.org], watch the pharmaceutical industry propose a Cherilyn LaPierre [imdb.com] Patent Term Extension Act.
Parent
Re:Take a look what someone can do with "software" (Score:2, Insightful)
And now look at the second line of the article you're linking to:
We hope to dispell the myth that this covers all application service providers.
And now say the same thing again...
Re:Music Then And Now (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright yes. Patent no.
That's the fundamental issue here.
Code is an art form. What is intersting about code is that it is also functional. Typically art forms are copyrightable, and not patentable, while functional works (like cars, apple corers, or microwave ovens) are patentable, and not copyrightable.
This puts code into a bit of a legal grey area. Do we treat it as an art form - a form of expression - and give it the protections (copyright) that we give ot other forms of expression? DO we treat it as a functional work, and give it the protections (patents) we give to other functional works?
Do we give it either one or the other? Do we give it both?
What implications does this have for other forms of expression?
If we patent code - then reuse of *any* of it becomes criminal. Under traditional copyright, fair use protects the ability to reuse bits and pieces for interoperability, research, etc... Now - the danger isn't clear - but what would happen if a large company (oh, let's say...Oracle...just for an example) patents the codebase for their product. That codebase contains millions of lines of code. Now let's say someone (or a group of someones) builds, from scratch, a competing product. Let's also say (for sake of argument) that they are both (coincidentally) written in the same programming language, and the person(s) who wrote the competing product had no access to the the code of the large company's product.
With copyright, they're pretty much set. Any similarities in their codebases are coincidental, and inconsequential.
With patents, things become a bit more hairy. If the competing product's implementation of a feature - or possibly (depending on how fine grained the law is worded) even a subroutine - is found to be "too close to" the large company's product - it's a criminal offense, whether there was prior knowledge or not.
That's the danger I see. IANAL, so I'm not sure exactly how feasible/realistic my fears about this are, or if my inderstanding is even correct - but the whole thing scares the bejeezus out of me.
Parent