Tim Bray Finds An Affinity Between Patents And OSS 209
Manuzhai writes "Tim Bray, of XML co-invention fame, is writing about software patents and Open Source software today. While he deprecates the 'business-method' patents like one-click ordering, he thinks some (Open) source code could tell the truth about a patent application: 'In fact, in an ideal world, I'd rewrite the law to allow software patents but require a working Open-Source implementation as a condition of getting one.'"
Novell (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps if slashdotters relied on a software patent as their primary source of income, as I do, they wouldn't be so critical of them.
public patent license (Score:4, Interesting)
is to make a patent license which work with patent law
as the GPL work with copyright law.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Patents are big business for Big Business (Score:2, Interesting)
Just how long do patents last on software, 75 years(ish)? It strikes me that innovation should be rewarded by a short patent of say 7 years then the IT community benefit straight after.
Re:At least... (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, this proposal has a problem of its own: software patents can include so-called "program claims". In that case, not just the use of a program which infringes the patent, but also the publication of such a program can be forbidden. Many software patents (and even non-software patents) are starting to include those.
If you start adding source code to patents, then those patent descriptions themselves can infringe on other patents. It's completely silly since the patent system is supposed to encourage publication of information, but nowadays it can also be used to for forbidding publication of information (because some people think software is the same as a "machine", instead of simply a description of something).
does source code actually violate a patent? (Score:3, Interesting)
As I recall, you are also free to use patented stuff in your own home without paying for it - only commercial use would actually infringe.
IANAL, and while this seems like an attempt to weasle around the system I rather like it.
Re:Novell (Score:2, Interesting)
a) They're good at.
b) It's hard for the FOSS community to do.
c) Helps the FOSS community a lot.
I think I speak for just about everyone when I give a hearty "Thanks!" to Novell.
Perhaps if slashdotters relied on a software patent as their primary source of income, as I do, they wouldn't be so critical of them.
[Sigh] Yes, this is always where the argument gets uncomfortable, because you're forced into a position of attacking someone's current source of income, and that pretty much always makes people unhappy.
You're posting AC and didn't link to the patent, so I assume that you don't want people to know who you are. This is a little unfortunate, since I have to be abstract. However, I can say that, despite reading a number of software patents, I have seen not one idea that I would consider novel enough and intelligent enough in software to warrant a patent -- stuff that wouldn't have been produced without a patent in place and that actually helps mankind. The RSA patent qualifies as a non-trivial, very helpful patent, but the ideas behind RSA were developed without a patent as a driver, more as a personal interest. It is possible, of course, that RSA would not have been publicized in such an event, though, so I'll give RSA a pass. Other than that, though, I've seen a huge flood of bullshit patents. If I go to the USPTO and search for "computer", the hits that come up are a mass of ridiculous, obvious (in the conventional sense, not the legal sense unfortunately used to determine patent validity) patents.
So, I can't see your patent and say "that should really not be a patent". However, I don't understand why, if you have the ability to come up with a new mechanism, you can't simply implement it and make money from that.
Sun employee peddles Sun line, (yawn) (Score:4, Interesting)
Suppose you're a keen young programmer and you've figured out a keen new algorithm for securing a communications channel or crash-proofing a database or animating an MMPORG monster.
He goes on to suggest "well, why not" a patent.
He expects us to believe that he doesn't realize that "a keen young programmer" hasn't got the tens of K dollars to get a patent, and certainly hasn't got the millions of dollars needed to defend a patent against wilful infringers.
I think the article is probably just astroturf; after all, Bray is now a Sun employee and the Sun's line is that software patents are a Good Thing.
Re:Patenting of laws (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, not all lawyers seem to be happy with this, but as Karl-Friedrich Lenz writes: [lenz.name]
Re:Eliminates patent benefit. (Score:1, Interesting)
Not sure this will help (Score:4, Interesting)
Bray says that software patents do a lousy job of disclosing inventions: they are (sez he) ``notoriously inaccurate, incomplete, and unreadable.'' He assumes that the patent office, which can't even seem to read the patent applications, would be able to test the software and determine whether it was indeed a functional and useful implementaion. That sounds optimistic.
Furthermore, any patented methods and the code which embodied them would be of no value to Libre software until the patent had run out. After all, public domain implementation or not, you still have the problem of a license for the method!
Patents and time. (Score:4, Interesting)
Patents for physical things took into account the fact that they needed to be drawn, engineered, factories built to create them, distribute them, have them installed where necessary, and then cover them through a fair lifespan.
Take, for example, valves on a chemical plant. A new and innovative one could be thought of and patented.
Then, the factories set up to produce it (say a year from patent perhaps, now safe to give the designs under contract, as it's patent protected), then it needs to be marketed, so, perhaps 2 years from inception to starting to get used. Initial tests and usage in industry, say, 4-5 years until it really starts to be used industry wide.
Lifetime of a valve, perhaps 10 years if they're in a harsh environment, more if not. So, you get in one round of replacement of the same thing.
But, the timescale there for a physical item that's supposed to last 20, 30 or more years isn't terrible. It's still VERY useful in 30-40 years.
Now, software, protected for the same duration.
Patent is drawn up. Software out the door days later, as there are no real tooling and production costs (relatively speaking). It's possible for sales to ramp up and reach market saturation within a year, if it's something innovative and useful. Industry acceptance and having it treated as 'old and established' within 2.
Within about 5 years, it's (usually) classified as obsolete.
So, for the next 20 years after being obsolete, it's holding back the market from developing it's successor, because it's patent encumbered, and license fees need be paid on it. So, the next generation flounders.
If Patents took into account the average obsolescence period of the market, and allowed a patent for the given period, things would work nicely.
Once it's in the 'getting a little old and clunky' period, anyone can then make a free implementation of it, or perhaps design it's successor based on the original. OR a proprietary new version, or whatever! But it keeps things moving, which is what patents were meant to do all along.
5 years for a software patent? Sure, that sounds fine. Maybe 7 or 8 at a push. If you've not made money off an idea in that time with a captive market in the tech game, you're probably not going to.
But the 5 years is enough to allow something to prosper, while ensuring that you keep thinking of the next idea, or allowing someone else to.
And perhaps it would stop all these patent shops churning out nothing in the knowledge that they've got 20 odd years to sit on it and hope someone comes up with something they can shoehorn into what they've got on their papers.
5 years is a lot less time, enough, really, to say "If you're not going to use it, then you've had your chance to, now let someone else actually do something good with the idea"..
Re:No, it doesn't (Score:3, Interesting)
In the beginning of his article Tim wrote that somebody would invent something, and then build it. The patent would protect the original inventor from having his ideas "stolen". Big companies could build the idea more efficiently and you would be out of business. Folks this is bogus as has been shown very often in industry big companies go out of business because they cannot adapt fast enough. I also disagree that there is more innovation and cheaper products.
Take a look at the following url: http://www.bpmlegal.com/wselden.html. Ever heard of George Selden? Probably not. Ever heard of Henry Ford? Probably yes. You see George Selden invented the car, which he never built. He just invented it and then sold the license rights. In fact because of George Selden's patent the car industry was slowed down. It was not until Henry Ford re-invented the car industry that the car industry came to life. Henry Ford did not see the point of paying license fees, fought George Selden, and eventually won. BECAUSE of Henry Ford average people could own and drive a car.
My point is that patents are problematic and they are monopolies that slow down the adoption of technology. If the inventors were reasonable and said "We only want our invested money back and 15%" then all would be ok. The problem is that inventors use patents to become instant millionaires or billionaires. Many consider the patent lawsuit like a lottery ticket, and THAT is bad in the industry. As the ZDNET Steven Nichols (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1666755,00.
Re:Eliminates patent benefit. (Score:3, Interesting)
In any case, the traditional model of a patent is absolutely inapplicable to software. The original purpose of a patent was a compromise deal between an inventor and a government {acting as a representative of Society}. The problem was that an inventor might have exhausted their capital developing a working prototype; if they now show this directly to an established manufacturer, the manufacturer might decide to cut the original inventor out of the loop; whereas if they approach a {non-technically-minded} banker hoping to obtain a loan on the strength of the invention, with which to set up their own factory to make it, the banker might not be convinced of its viability. So the Patent Office was set up, to give inventors an official letter precisely describing their invention, and granting them a time-limited monopoly over it. This can be used as proof that the invention works {to obtain financial backing} and as a description of how to make it {to obtain manufacturing services}, but it also specifies a date after which the invention is to be given to society at large for the benefit of everyone. If the invention is a good one, then any loan should have been paid off long before such time.
In the case of software, where the cost of reproduction is essentially nil, the inventor is not prevented by financial constraints from further developing their idea beyond the prototype. So the original need for a patent is absent.