Open Source Patent Donations? 185
patspam writes "As a software engineer I come up with patentable ideas every now and then, ideas which I'm not interested in pursuing myself but which I'd like to keep out of the hands of private entities/patent trolls in my own personal effort to defeat software patents. Should I patent the ideas and donate them to some sort of open source foundation? Or just blog about the ideas so that the 'prior art' exists in the public domain? What's your strategy for fighting against restrictive software patents?"
legal advice (Score:4, Funny)
sorry mate, somebody beat you to it. (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.totallyabsurd.com/toiletsnorkel.htm [totallyabsurd.com]
Re:legal advice (Score:3, Funny)
wtf legal advice on
The nature of software does not support the.... (Score:3, Funny)
What is universally accepted as not being patentable:
abstract ideas,
natural law
physical phenomenon
Mathematical algorithms as often added to this but in essence are included in the three primary.
The reason these are so universally accepted as not being patentable is that its near impossible to enforce patents against such things.
i.e. patent on gravity... you cannot use gravity without paying me royalties. But if you try and avoid gravity and walk off a cliff, paying royalties to some fool is teh least of your concerns.
How these applies to software:
Abstract ideas is rather obvious as software is the art of abstraction creation and use if anything is to be considered an art of abstraction.
Natural law is that abstraction is naturally a characteristic of human ability. Without it we could do nothing more than preform like any other animal incapable of developing technology, medicine, clothing, etc..
Physical phenomenon - thru the application of non-physical based abstraction we cause physical movement. If I tell you to go to the store and get a gallon of Mayfield milk, I have used abstract ideas communicated and received by you to act upon. If I/we did not have such ability, Mayfield milk would not exist to begin with.
Now many claim that software is in essence mathematical algorithms, but the basis of computer technology, the way it works, defines this constraint as a computer is based on "calculating" defined in terms of numbers (binary based). However, a radio station (fm or am) uses a carrier signal that cares not of what is carried over the signal, be it music, news, talk, noise, etc... And in the same way this basis of computing can as well be used as a carrier of abstraction far beyond math. Yet the carried its still inherently made up of the three primary things universally consider not being patentable.
This software patent fraud that has been going on has, as any attempt to contradict physics and nature, very bad effects, only due to the inherent nature of abstraction the skill of abstraction manipulation (human use and ability to deceive via abstraction manipulation) there are those who have remained fooled by such deception and unfortunately are in positions to indirectly tell people they have to walk off a cliff rather than recognize they are human with inherent abstraction skill and as a natural human characteristic it is to be expected and even encouraged to be what we are and make the best of it.
There is a way to not only prove all of this but in so doing build up a foundation of common knowledge solution direction of anyone "skilled in the field", non novel, and other aspects supporting non-patent-ability.
Humans can be deceptive for a long time and in an environment that even proves otherwise. This might be called the "human denial factor". Examples of this are well known, ie. Galileo and teh exoneration in the early 1990 of his views. But a lot of good such exoneration does Galileo now. Likewise the Hindu-Arabic decimal system took three hundred years to over come the far more mathematical limiting roman numeral system. Lets face it, only a fool would think nothing cannot have value (re: zero place holder), yet accountants using roman numerals were elite.. (sound familiar?)
Anyways, this idea of asking for funds/donations for to support software patents, regardless of the claimed intent of obtaining such patents, is supporting dishonesty and does not help to resolved the real issue of genuinely recognizing the honest nature of software.
for more see: Abstraction Physics [abstractionphysics.net]
Patents are expensive, publishing is cheap (Score:1, Funny)
I've put stuff into the public domain before. It didn't stop anyone from filing patents on some of it anyway.
Send them to me (Score:5, Funny)
Bill G.
oh wait maybe I shouldn't have signed...
Re:As far as US is concerned (Score:5, Funny)
No.