An Insider's View of Software Patents 405
An anonymous reader writes "Ross Gittins at the Sydney Morning Herald has published an interesting insider view of software patents. This kind of thing is starting to be a hot issue down here with the US-Australia Free Trade deal about to be ratified and bring our intellectual property laws in line with Micros^D^D^D^D^D^D^D America's."
Poster has the wrong idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Monopolies are the only way to way money... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll say it again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Until we see the Patent Office being sued by someone/company that suffered financially or otherwise because of a bogus patent that the PTO granted, we won't see any significant changes to the way things work now. After a lawsuit or two they might finally get the hint to stop granting such bogus patents and maybe even (gasp!) start reviewing past ones once they realize those might become a liability.
And for those that say such lawsuits would be a burden on the taxpayers, well, I'd say these bogus patent infrigment cases are taking away needed resources to convict criminals.
And besides, the taxpayers might finally take action once they see the PTO's bogus-patent-granting actions is raising their taxes, instead of only bitching and whining all the time.
As bad as software patents are... (Score:2, Insightful)
It gets really confusing to try to figure out the different times at which copyright expires across different countries, or to know where your intellectual property is already protected and where you have to jump through additional hoops.
Settling on an international standard that is mutually agreed upon strengthens the companies within those nations because they don't have to cope with several sets of rules. Like the standardization on the Euro, it reduces complexity and ultimately is a good thing.
Follow the lead of the anonymous author! (Score:5, Insightful)
This article brings up a point I have been thinking about for a long time: The OSS/FS community is losing sight of the trees for the forest with regard to software patentability.
We need to fight the patent war on two fronts - the first front: Lobby to make software patents more difficult to obtain.
And the second front, equally important: Until the rules change in our favor, we need to build up a portfolio of patents, to share and trade with our friends (which anyone in business will tell you is the true purpose of a patent).
Instead of screeching to the heavans, Software Patents Are EEEEEEEEEVIL, the movement would be better served by gaming the system. If a portfolio of patents is what is needed to keep Free Software Free, then so be it - put our minds to making the application and examination system as easy as possible, and assign patents to some organization (a role that would be well served by FSF if they could stop their jihad.
For the record, I do not think that software patents are intrinsically evil. I believe in my heart-of-hearts that algorithms are just as much an invention as a better mousetrap, and I disagree with the article author's assertion that the copyright protection granted to an implementation is sufficient protection for this inventive process.
Plus, you forget that one of the Principles of Free Software, transparency, is fundament in the patent process. The wisdom of the patent system is, In exchange for exclusive right-to-use on your invention, for a limited time, you must fully disclose that same invention.
I am seriously concerned that the patent process may suffer the same slow creep in the meaning of limited time that has happened surrounding copyright, but that is a separate problem for another posting.
Does anyone else find it strange.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Follow the lead of the anonymous author! (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.h
Re:I'll say it again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As bad as software patents are... (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, really. You're right that it strengthens the companies, but does the economic good of certain companies really balance out the evil of stupid patent law? Remember that when a company makes money, they make it from other people.
here ya go... (Score:3, Insightful)
simple easy solution
Tending the coals (Score:3, Insightful)
It is all very absurd, small companies won't be able to write code, hobbyist coders will need legal insurance.
What do we do? I am frothing at the mouth after reading the article (yayyyy slashdot) but really, is it worth thinking about without a realistic response?
Personally as a Canadian working for a Canadian software company that is being sued with a FUCKING STUPID US software patent, I would be happy to invade the USA and blow up the patent office.
Would any of you Americans mind? Could someone provide GPS coordinates and photos with targets circled in red? Call it "compassionate terrorism."
Re:As bad as software patents are... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing. I place more importance on having the laws of my country reflect the wishes of myself and my fellow citizens, than I do on making it easy for you to come over here and engage in commerce.
Re:One quick way to improve the situation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:1, Insightful)
Moral dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
Since we receive a bonus of $8000 per patent, if all goes well we'll share well over $150,000. And there seems no reason we can't keep this game up indefinitely. We should be able to manage around 50 a year, and this nice little earner will see the mortgage paid off in no time.
Now I think that's interesting... This comes from a software engineer, not from the lawyer. Most developers (and presumably the one from the article too) despise this whole mess, yet this guy is being "gently persuaded" by his employer to play the game.
I'd rather not find myself in such a situation, for it's easy to say what I am going to say without having to actually face it. But I'd like to believe that I can be part of the solution and not of the problem; that I can be brave enough to stand by my beliefs and refuse to be part of something like this and still manage to pay my bills.
Re:Follow the lead of the anonymous author! (Score:5, Insightful)
First, going for our own patents in the Free Software community doesn't really help unless we have a huge legal fund behind us to 1) prosecute others and 2) defend ourselves from their patents.
Second, you should think through whether or not algorithms are mathematical in nature, and whether mathematics is discovered or invented.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Software, on the other hand, as intangible data, is dead easy to replicate and distribute. Put up a website, buy a bit of bandwidth - and nowadays, setup a torrent, and bingo - the equivelant of mechanical "manufacture and distribution". You don't need a patent to protect you while you struggle to manufacture your software and bring it to market.
Re:Contradiction (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I'd suggest that "discriminatory" is a lot more accurate than "inconvenient".
And yes, hardware is software these days. Which means that all would better be protected with copyright. Applying both patent and copyright to the same material is too much.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:I'll say it again.... (Score:3, Insightful)
So much for freedom to innovate
So much for justice
So much for the "free world"
Why not criminal law (Score:3, Insightful)
Bruce
Re:here ya go... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll say it again.... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's now clear: the US is a hell hole of monopolies and bought politicians that have no regard for anything but themselves.
Patents=Good (Score:0, Insightful)
You're all blaming the wrong person (Score:5, Insightful)
You see, some coporate lawyers in the late 19thC realized that they could make a lot more money if a corporation had the rights of a person, and the supreme court agreed they were, with all the rights and privileges there-of.
Now a coporation is a 'legal' person whose sole purpose is to make money for the shareholders. The CEO and board are legally bound to do so. Unfortunately, since corporations aren't real people, they don't have real morals... other than what will make $$$ for shareholders. Because shareholders aren't liable for the actions of corportions, they don't CARE how the corporation makes money on their investment.
That's the root of the problem.
Every corporation is in a free-fall race to the bottom to out-compete it's rivals and make 7% growth in profits. While that level of competition has many obvious good points, it has also created some terrible problems.
Once one corporation 'buys' a law (such as software patents), then everyone in the industry has to start using them or die. You don't even have to buy a law... if breaking the law and paying the fine (and paying a nice PR firm to make you look shiny) is cost effective, then that's what you HAVE to do if you're going to raise your stock higher than your rivals.
CEOs and lawyers are not all trolls, they are just cogs in a machine. Corporations have bought off politions all over the world, PR firms, marketers... all so that they can bend and create rules to make more $$$. As soon as one nasty little troll does it... they all have to. If they don't, well, only the fittest survive.
The solution?
We have to unravel the legal framework that has come to define what corporations are. Exactly how to do this???? Well, you tell me =)
Re:I'll say it again.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Saying the system is broken and saying your idea for fixing it is a good one are two completely different things.
Re:Why not criminal law (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with slashdot is that lots of people suggest things that get applause but don't stand a chance of working. Do people really not think before they make suggestions?
The biggest cost to the USPTO is labor. It costs money to pay examiners to do their job. Examiners can't currently do their jobs because they are overworked. And even under good circumstances an examiner won't have access to all the information possible. So patents will always be overturned.
If examiners could be sued they would need incentive to be examiners (otherwise they would do something else). This would probably increase the cost of getting a patent 5- or 10-fold. Just the thing to help the small inventor, right?
Damm pre-registration sites... (Score:2, Insightful)
A Question (Score:3, Insightful)
At the risk of seeming frightfully out of touch and un-733t over the last few month's I've been seeing more and more of this "One wor^H^H^H^H^H^H Another word I should really have used" kind of stuff.
I know how it's used and roughly what it means and how to read it... but does anyone know it's origins or it's precise meaning?
Thanks for enlightening me... I just finally had to ask.
Re:here ya go... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think I really care whether the chemical companies consider patents on their expensive to build and operate production processes to be crazy or not - it's up to them. I do however think your idea of allowing ideas in mathematics and computer science to be patentable to be both crazy and evil.
I have never committed a crime on slashdot before, but I shall do so now, by manufacturing and distributing a patented invention:
echo -n $'__________\r'
for ((i=0;i10;i++))
do echo -n "#"
sleep 1
done
echo
The patented progress bar, enacted in the shell in a few lines and all protestations that this one is trivial and should have been excluded by the patent office are meaningless unless you can describe specific criteria that the patent office bureaucrats can follow to allow them to discriminate. The RSA algorithm is just as trivial and yet I have heard many people mistakenly claim that it deserved a patent for it's originality and cleverness - but that cleverness was all in the maths - the idea, not the algorithmic expression of it and so a justification of patentability of software ideas is a justification of patentability of mathematics. An outrageous position.
Re:here ya go... (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's why copyright works for software, and exactly why software patents should not be allowed. You have a right to protect your work and avoid your work from being copied, but not stifle competition and prevent others from producing similar, yet different, methods.
There are multiple methods of achieving the same results with software, sorting for example, but what is being patented are blanket concepts that are so vague that they cover all possible alternatives, so that anyone attempting to work around them are still in violation of that patent. Instead of patenting specific methods, algorithms, and code, granted patents often resemble something like "a method of sorting data and saving it to semi-permanent storage media", or "a way of storing user information from a website so the user only has to click once to reload his userdata" To me, these broad patens would be like a chemical company patenting "a way of extracting gold from ore", or a manufacturing company patenting "a method of using robotics to fasten screws"
As much as I dislike them, software patents are here to stay, at least in the US. Lawyers make too much money off them to let them go, and what field do most politicians come from?
Re:I'll say it again.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:As bad as software patents are... (Score:5, Insightful)
Settling on an international standard that is mutually agreed upon strengthens the companies within those nations because they don't have to cope with several sets of rules. Like the standardization on the Euro, it reduces complexity and ultimately is a good thing.
Sure, it helps the rich and powerful stay that way, keeps the small and weak from upsetting the apple cart, and assures that the status quo ante favors those already on the top of the heap.
Grrrrreat.
For my part, I think that a little anarchy is a good thing, for those who love freedom. It was the early "standardization" of the Chinese nation, united under the uniform rule of one Emperor, united under one authority, that caused the eventual stagnation of their culture. Similarly, the more "uniform" power and authority became in the Roman Empire, the more oppressive and rotten it became.
Voluntary standards, i.e., those that can be disregarded, are good. Involuntary standards, i.e. those that are backed up with bayonets, prisons, and all the powers of the modern State, are less good, particularly when their effect is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few.
Sorry, this isn't a good thing from my point of view.
Re:Okay, but what's the alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the question isn't "is doing away with the patent system a good idea?",
it's "is doing away with the patent better than any other alternative that's available?"
I've seen very little evidence that patents are good, and a lot of evidence that they are bad.
Doing away with them might be better than living with them.
However, taking it as a given that eliminating the patent office is not an option, what then would be better?
IMO the real problem with the current system is one of risk.
It's almost impossible to do real work without facing the possibility of being sued (successfully) for patent infringement and losing 100% of your efforts.
I.e. you're constantly at risk of total ruin.
And there doesn't seem to be any way to protect against this catastrophic failure.
One solution might be a compulsory licensing fee.
If any patent filed could be released to the public domain by paying the holder
100 times the filing fee, then we could at least make a reasonable risk estimate,
and patent insurance would be a realistic possibility.
Another possibility is a set of guidelines which if followed guarantee that you will not be infringing on a patent.
For example, declare that software which runs on an unmodified computer built before a patent was filed does not infringe that patent.
-- less is better.
Re:I'll say it again.... (Score:2, Insightful)
These days the commercial software market is dominated by off-the-shelf applications, which tend to be be either propriotary systems written in India or Open Source. So there is either a lot of IP costs already or none, it won't make much difference.
The solution to the problem is for the US Congress to fix the US IP system, and the rest of the world will follow. That however is unlikely to happen. The corporations who benefit get large sums of money while the consumers lose only a few cents at a time and don't notice, so they are unlikely to ever get mad enough to exert pressure on Congress for change.
I have no recollection with that (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, a corp will hire someone to find something out, and say they have no knowledge of how that person does business. That person is actually a spy, and everyone knows that he's going to break the law to get that information. But the CEO's aren't responsible unless you can prove that they knew that the spy was going to break the law when they hired them. Convenient that this situation has arisen.
It goes deeper than holding CEOs accountable... if you held shareholders accountable, then things certainly _would_ change, but everyone would cry unfair, and it would defeat the point of a corporation.
Greed is no more basic in shareholders than everyone else, so the definition of a corporation has to change to limit what it _can_ do, because anything it _can_ do it will, including extending the extension of itself, and what it can do.
For example, corporations fought do be able to patent living organizism back in the 80s. People didn't believe that you could own real life. Well a single firm argued in court that they had invented nothing more mundane then a standard chemical when they modified a bacteria.... and the supreme court (curse them!) agreed with the copr!
Now companies are patenting the DNA sequences of all the living creatures on earth. The USPTO said you couldn't patent the human genome (thankfully!), however, corps are patenting discoverings on human DNA - such as what the genes do (?!?)
The limitations I'm thinking of are more along the lines of:
"corporations have a limited lifespan", and
"this corporation is created to refine steel"
This would give a corporation a specific charter that they can't deviate from once it's created.
Obviously I don't believe that these specific examples would be practicle in the current world!
Re:Poster has the wrong idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft may not have created this system and may be paying now, but they're definitely the ones with the most to gain from software patents should they decide to use them to further their monopoly--and they've done nothing to suggest that their intentions are otherwise. The submitter was right--when you think of software patents, you should think of Microsoft owning everything.