Making the Case Against Software Patents? 346
heretic108 asks: "I'm an open-source developer in a small western nation, which is slowly starting to take interest in Open Source, but whose (still MS-dominated) government is currently considering adopting a software patents regime similar to USA. This nation boasts a smart and feisty IT community, who have been terribly under-represented in government. I have a meeting in a week with a prominent member of the legislature (who has IT portfolio interests), during which I will have the opportunity to put the case against software patents. I'm asking for help in assembling information for use in the anti-patents case. Thank you dearly for any and all help you are able to provide here."
"I'm looking for references that cover the following subjects:
- Triviality of some patents
- Patents as anti-competitive instrument
- Patents' discriminatory nature - difficulty faced by smaller developers with patent enforcement
- Costs of patent searches, and their impact on the creative flow of software development
- Clear evidence that a software patents regime is squeezing small and independent players out of the industry and creating an oligopoly for the largest players
- Clear evidence that under the software patents regime, the entire 'space' or public commons of programming concepts is being subsumed into private ownership
- Clear evidence and examples of patent law being abused and having a net anti-innovation effect
- Anything else you have bookmarked, or can google upon, which can help build the most solid case.
(Also, if anyone can find the source of the quote attributed to Bill Gates arguing that the modern patents regime, if it existed decades ago, would have slowed the industry to a standstill).
Also very desirable will be testimonials from senior staff of small to medium R&D and body-shop houses, truthfully showing the negative effects patents have had on their ability to compete.
And, very importantly, any brief testimonials from indepenedant developers who have not intentionally stolen intellectual property, but have actually been squashed under patent laws."
A very simple proposal (Score:2, Interesting)
Secondly, software patents go beyond the original idea of patents, in that if you designed something different enough, it would get it's own patent, but in the software world you must build your program in almost the same way in order to maintain compatibility. Otherwise, the company that patented the thing in question could have a stranglehold on the computer world for twenty years.
Re:can we play guess the country? (Score:2, Interesting)
A request in return (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a bit more (Score:1, Interesting)
Source: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15
so is math patentable? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you believe this, then do you believe that mathematics can be patented? How about the Pythagorean theorem? Root-finding by the Newtonian method? Eulerian primality testing? Or the number Pi?
You don't seem to have thought very much about the implications of algorithm patentability for the progress of mathematics and computer science generally. It is the nature of our highly networked, competitive society that most discoveries are made nearly simulataneously by two or more groups. Granting a 20-year monopoly to the "first" of these - as opposed to simply insisting on their rights of citation - does nothing to advance the progress of science under these conditions. Abolish all patent rights tomorrow, and progress in these fields will continue - or, more probably, accelerate.
The quicksort algorithm - developed prior to the present age of software patents, and available in many free implementations - is actually a perfect example of this.
-Renard
Patents (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately for software (and also for business ideas) the costs are exactly reversed. Anybody capable of inventing something already has spent 100% of the manufacturing costs and already possesses the machinery necessary to produce the invention (ie a computer). The patent does not protect the small guy. I expect if you check you will find that there are absolutly NO examples of any single inventors owning a patent on software or business methods.
Instead patents can be used now by large companies as the only method they have to prevent the little guy from starting up. This was true before but completely dwarfed by the need for expensive manufacturing facilities, so before patents did not screw up the market.
There is also the problem that due to the average public's poor understanding of software, the equivalents of nuts and bolts are being patentened. Or a certain thread spacing on bolts is being patented after it has been adapted by virtually every manufacturer, forcing the inventor who cannot afford to license the patent to mill their own bolts and make a machine that nobody can fix because standard bolts don't fit.
Today it is impossible to write any piece of software without violating patents. Linux probably violates hundreds. Windows probably violates hundreds as well (many of the same ones as Linux). Nobody knows.
Any real invention in software is large and complex enough that it covers many pages of paper. It is easily protected by copyright. Or you can make it a trade secret and try to obfuscate the invention in the resulting product (this works very well, simple compiling seems to hide the original in a way that makes it very difficult to retrieve). There is absolutely no reason for patents in this area, their only purpose is to deprive the small inventors patents are designed to protect, and move power to those able to afford the patents.
Best Reference (Score:2, Interesting)
Definite sources (Score:1, Interesting)
Should I even point it out? (Score:3, Interesting)
At the risk of getting modded -1 flame for taking a politically incorrect position in a slashdot post, I feel compelled to point out that there is nothing wrong with software patents.
There *may* be something wrong with some of the patents that have been issued. And that goes for all kinds of patents, software or non-software. But I'm not even sure about that.
There's certainly nothing wrong with the length of the patent. 20 years sounds really long in computer time but it isn't really-- the fact that computers move so fast means that the patent is more likely to be worthless before it expires... meaning if you want to exploit your patent you have to strike while the irons hot. There is no potential of monopolizing a segment of the industry for 20 years here like there was when the cotton gin was patented.
As party to a couple patents, one of which was claimed by posters on Slashdot to have "ethernet networks" as prior art-- I think a lot of the hullabaloo is from people who don't bother to read the patent, see what really IS being patented, and then just claim that anything that does networking is not-patentable because ethernet's been around. Never mind that it is a novel and original process (which to this day has not been beaten by others.)
Now, the market being what it was we were unable to successfully exploit that novel process. But if we had, the 5 years since the patent was issued would have given us time to get some business going. As the SMALL GUY, the patent was critical to protecting the company's interests--- otherwise a large company would have just taken our idea and run with it and we could have done nothing. Eventually one of the large guys bought the company, something that also never would have happened if we hadn't been able to patent the product.
So, basically, all the people saying "software patents are wrong" are saying that the dozen of us who labored for 4 years coming up with this novel process should have enjoyed no protection from others copying it and profiting from our work, and deserved, essentially, no compensation for our work at all. You literally want to take food off of our table. You want us to be poor and possibly unable to feed our families. You are arguing for the oppression of the small guy (as usual) under the guise of protecting the small guy.
Anyone with a two bit lawyer can get themselves a patent. Only multibillion dollar corporations have multibillion-dollar market presences to leverage in the competitive landscape. The patent is an EQUALIZER, not an OPPRESSOR. If the corporation came up with the novel idea first, then they earned it and deserve the patent... but fortunately something about large organizations makes them less competitive. They are less likely to come up with the killer innovation-- hell its even become a trend with companies acquiring innovation by buying small companies rather than developing it in house.
Without intellectual property protection, how is the small guy to protect himself from the bigger companies with better market presence who can just copy the product wholesale, put their name on it, and sell it? WE were dealing with the constant announcements by Microsoft that they had already exceeded our capabilities (A flat out lie, but one that the potential customers had to take seriously.)
Yes, there may be poor software patents. But I don't think Amazon's "one click" covers just clicking a button, the prior art of the Macintosh in 1984 does not obliviate that patent-- there's got to be more too it.
If your country wants to be a good country for IT, to compete against the US. Go to your political friend and make the case FOR software patents. Caution him that the patents have to be decent, and that they need engineers who can understand them to evaluate them. But if you want to have a job a decade or so from now, the best thing your country can do is protect intellectual property.
After all, as IT people we don't make widgets, we move bits. Either the configuration of bits has value or it doesn't. Any configuration of bits is only intellectual property, its not real property, its not a physical product. Since it has value to those who need it, those who made it deserve compensation, and protection from those who would steal it.
Support software patents. They are not only necessary to protect the small guy, they are a form of HUMAN RIGHTS.
It not coincidental that those who lead the opposition of software patents, in the guise of stallman, et. al, also opposed human rights. If they had their way, nobody would be allowed to charge for their labor, no programmer would be allowed to get paid. Oh, they won't admit to it, but what else will it be when it is illegal to ship software without the source code?
The software economy is driven by innovation, and getting paid for that innovation. Once its no longer innovative, its in everyone's best interests to open source it. Market forces will insure a continuing supply of new open source software.
But if you take it too far and make selling your innovation illegal -- by removing the protections of patent and copyright and implementing the Stallman Politburo-- you will kill the software industry.
Protect software patents. You have a right to your body-- you own it, it is property. The work you do with it you own as well, as property. You have a right to trade that work for money, and to REFUSE to make the trade with people who won't pay.
Taking away software patents is essentially saying that anyone who is a programmer doesn't have the right to refuse to work for someone who won't pay.
Research saying patents are harmful (Score:1, Interesting)
These guys have lots of economic studies and papers
explaining how patents can and do harm innovation.
Make bad patents difficult to hold (Score:2, Interesting)
If a company holds a patent and say a person or a company thinks that it is a bad patent then they can sue the patent holding company. When the court case is decided then if the patent holding company wins the case then they get money for the case proceedings, but if they lose they have to pay in addition to the court proceedings a hefty amount depending on the amount of time the case took plus another amount depending on the income of the patent holding company. There should also be an extra fine when patents have been made in bad faith, like the Rambus patent.
This will enable people to do bounty hunting on bad patents. And it will be extremely dangerous for companies to acquire bad patents. Companies will make sure that they only claim patents which are defendable. I think patents are not bad Bad Patents are bad, and they should be made extremely expensive. If it is done this way Patent Office will not have to police things at all companies will police themselves. I am sure once it is done there will be a scramble by companies to throw away their bad patents, and world will be a better place.