Obama Taps IBM Open Source Advocate For USPTO 88
langelgjm writes "President Obama has announced his intent to nominate David Kappos, a VP and general counsel at IBM, to head the US Patent and Trademark Office. This move is particularly notable not only because of IBM's much friendlier attitudes towards open source compared with some of their rivals, but also because Kappos himself is open source-friendly: 'We are now the biggest supporters of the open source development project,' explains David. 'Admittedly this policy is not easily reconcilable with our traditional IP strategy, but we are convinced that it is the way to go for the future.' Not just a lawyer, Kappos earned an engineering degree before working in the legal field. Kappos has been described as 'critical of the American approach to patent policy.' Given his background, could this mean a new era for US patent policy?"
By Neruos (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that IBM has applied for about every known patent over the past 9 years never came up either.
Change (Score:3, Insightful)
I sympathize for (but don't agree with) people who call out Obama's (admittedly many) poor decisions and shout "Is this the change you voted for? That was one hell of a marketing scheme"
Well I'm proud to say that, yes, this is the change I voted for. This is exactly the type of decision that makes me happy of my choice. Go Obama! I'm not thrilled about all of your decisions, but it's things like this that make me guardedly optimistic that the future of our country is in careful and intelligent
(Though I can't see at the moment how this will be spun as a negative, I'm sure it will be).
Re:Some other points... (Score:4, Insightful)
America, love it or leave it
If we're discussing de facto jurisdiction, the latter is currently pretty much impossible.
Re:Actually . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
The actual truth doesn't matter to them.
Nor to the people who can't help but praise him every time he farts. Be at least half honest and admit that there are two sides to this zealotry.
Those "people" don't exist. They're strawmen created by people who are desperately afraid that the guy they voted against will turn out to be a good president.
During the election, the hardcore conservative nitwits were claiming that Obama's supporters thought he was the second coming. Did anyone actually believe that? No. But if you lie enough, people start to believe it. That's been the GOP's specialty for the past several years. I hope they get back to normal soon, but I suspect I have quite some time to wait.
I'm supposed to think this is a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what being "more open to open source-type ideas" means. Nor would I use the term "IP" as you did. Software patents hurt all developers except those at IBM because IBM holds the most patents. Holding the most patents means IBM can cross-license far more easily than any other patent holder. In fact, we know how valuable cross-licensing is to IBM because IBM has told us. IBM has told us cross-licensing outweighs the value of collecting patent license fees by an order of magnitude [progfree.org]. IBM got ten times the value of using patents held by others than licensing its own patents. This means IBM alone can skirt the trouble the patent system causes everyone else. IBM can completely undo the alleged advantage the patent system is supposed to give smaller organizations trying to commercially launch their work. You really should read Richard Stallman's examination of the US patent system as it applies to software development [gnu.org] for a fuller description of the details on how IBM's statement in 1990 reveals the harm done to all software developers under the USPTO's thumb.
The solution is to completely deny anyone software patents [swpat.org] so software developers can go back to relying on trademark and copyright law which is sufficient to avoid defrauding consumers and enforcing licenses, respectively. But I doubt the world's largest patent holder is in favor of disempowerment, and now that they have a man running the USPTO I doubt we'll see that office seeking to make software algorithms unpatentable.
I think what we're seeing here is just another instance of how corporate-friendly President Obama is. The more I read self-identified "open source" adherents saying how good this move is, the more I think that the open source movement is too corporate-friendly as well. Mere affiliation with a movement that isn't fighting for software freedom isn't doing you any favors; raise your critical standards and keep on fighting for the end of software patents.