James Gleick On Software Patents 81
haase writes: "James Gleick has written a thoughtful and compelling piece on software patents for the New York Times magazine. This would be a good piece to send to your representatives. You can read it at
the NY Times Web site. (Registration required.)
"
Does it matter who??? (Score:2)
A famous author can be full of shit as easily as a nobody!
You can also find the article on... (Score:3)
The About.com [around.com] site here [around.com].
The sidebar is very good, but you have to hunt for the links if you are using a CSS enabled browser and the article as a whole suffers from formatting problems. Still it is a very good article and I really liked the illustration "Procedure for Simultaneously Walking and Chewing Gum" by Dugald Stermer.
Nonetheless there really isn't much new here for us Slashdot folks. That is, other than some really good new ammunition for the next time you want to talk about stupid patents. (I really cannot believe someone got a patent for measuring breast sizes with a measuring tape!) For us Mr Gleick is preaching to the choir.
Our real hope is that everyone else wakes up and realizes the danger stupid patents (and, perhaps, software patents in general) represent to our currently flourishing 'New Economy'...
Jack
Critical that we stop the patents (Score:2)
Re:WHO!??? (Score:1)
Re:WHO!??? (Score:4)
If anybody knows of other books by him, please let me know. I'll read anything he's written.
Avoid the pesky login... (Score:3)
http://www.around.com/patent.html [around.com]
enclosing the internet (Score:3)
Someone needs to start the Gnu "prior art database" to catalog all of the unpatented implementations and algorithms. And sooner or later, the geek tribe needs to become a political force and kick some butt in Washington.
"Fig.1 - a device for knocking patent officer's heads together..."
We should become patent clerks... (Score:2)
1) Stupid patents would be caught earlier.
2) We would have more time to write code.
Both are important here, remember what Albert Einstein did for a living while working on some of his early theories? It's basically a 9-5, gov't job with full benefits, and you have the rest of the time to yourself. No 80 hour weeks of unpaid overtime, leaving you too exhausted to do a little kernel hacking when you get home.
I think its time we got off our collective asses, and really did something to make a difference here.
Me.
ps, here's his home page: (Score:3)
Re:WHO!??? (Score:2)
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On EU and patents... (Score:3)
But this is not longer true. It appears that the European Patent Office does not issue patents not because they believe that "software is inherently unpatentable", but because originally they believed that they did not have the equipment of skills to judge their quality!
IBM (all hail the mighty patent machine) lodged a software patent with the EPO last year and had it turned down (as per their plan one would assume) and then lodged an objection and while the patent was still refused the appeal [european-p...office.org] ruled that the exclusion of software from patents is not valid under all circumstances
Which all means that companies are falling over themselves to get software patents out in the EU as well, left the good times roll
EPO Appeal [european-p...office.org] search engine, search on software
IBM Appeal [european-p...office.org] (PDF)
C.
Re:WHO!??? (Score:2)
James Gleick has also written "Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything". However, I thought this book was rather poorly written compared to his other two.
Re:Does it matter who??? (Score:1)
And I hope he gets a patent on walking and chewing gum, as although much has been written about accomplishing it I am not aware of anything in the industrial literature about a procedure for it.
The crux of the article (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the dollars-and-cents reality of running the American patent office has also encouraged the patent explosion. In 1991, the patent office was cut off from general tax revenues and required to subsist entirely on fees for its operating budget. The political argument was that customers should pay for government services. Thus, officials think of their fee-paying patent applicants as their customers: the more the better, again. Examiners know that their year-end bonuses depend on productivity. Each morning, as Commissioner Dickinson arrives at his Crystal City office, he walks past a framed poster bearing the motto "Our Patent Mission: To Help Our Customers Get Patents."
It's virtually forgotten that government's customers also include the rest of the nation, the citizenry at large, whose fortunes depend on the agency's judgments and policies.
Also, to the guy spouting on about "Who the hell is James Gleick" - I think you've missed the point. It's common courtesy to attribute an article to an author (in the same way as software to an author, a movie to a director, a song to a singer, a slashdot post to the poster...)
Nobody said "by the wonderful James Gleick", or even "by the authoritative James Gleick".... work it out.
My 2 cent's worth.
reformatted version... (Score:1)
C.
Re:enclosing the internet (Score:2)
Yes you can. All you need to do is agree with the patent owner some means of licencing that is compatible with the GPL. Okay, so this isn't going to be easy, and patents do interefere with the concept of free software but its not totally incompatible.
Re:We should become patent clerks... (Score:1)
The USPTO employees lack of knowledge in the field is only a small part of the problem, the builtin approval of everything policy is the bigger part.
Pat. No. 5,993,366 != Tennis Stroke/Knee Pad (Score:2)
All I can add is, after grad. in '82 I went to the PTO and worked in the "info storage and retrival" section for a summer - it's a ruff job, slogging thru all the legalese and trying to shoot 'em down, but that's the examiners job. I had a few pat. applications, several actually, which were just 'burn a program into a 2716 ROM and patent the ROM' (REJECT!!). I actually was about to issue a Patent on a few but my supervisors said, "What's so new about this" and quickly produced a document that preceeded it if you interpret it broadly enough. They kept emphasizing 'broad' thinking - that is, if someone tries to patent a memory scheme that is implemented electrically in Si chips, you can reject it with a 'similar' memory scheme implemented mechanically in wooden disks and dowell rods.
Re:The crux of the article (Score:3)
You hardcore coders at Slashdot all p*** on this skill, but it is the way the world works, customs are established, and laws get enacted. It is how the ignorant multitudes are induced to vote for the system we have now. You can treat it with scorn, but you will in turn be dismissed as a kook whose ideas are of no interest.
So you can say this article is nothing new, or that everybody knows this, or that his examples are stupid, or that he never wrote a line of code in his life--but articles like this are more likely to bring about change in the law than all your whining.
Excellent article (Score:2)
The ignorance about software at the USPTO is a huge problem. Possibly worse is the fact that the patent examiners have a lot of incentive to grant as many of these patents as they can. JG claims that examiners' bonuses are based on the number of patents they grant.
I'm not sure what the answer to this problem is, but there's no doubt that this is only going to get worse until something is done about it. It seems obvious that software patents are doing a lot more to stifle innovation than to foster innovation. It seems obvious that the big guys will reap huge rewards due to their ability to abuse the patent system so easily. As you can tell from the article, Commissioner Dickenson from the USPTO seems blissfully unaware of the problems with the software patents they are granting. In fact he seems downright pleased with the current state of affairs. Keep in mind that the USPTO's budget comes from examaning patents now--all of it if I understand correctly. And since software patents have become so popular the USPTO has been granting patents in record numbers.
In other words, don't count on the USPTO to try to change things for the better--unless they can find a way to do it that will allow them to issue more patents.
That's my read on it at least. Great article at any rate. The author even used the word "hacker" in a non-derogatory context. I'm impressed
numb
Change the patent system (Score:1)
Economic Incentives (Score:3)
Fairer because approved applications are presumably a public boon, so it is only fair that they be publicly funded, while denied patents are just a public nuisance consuming public officials time and energy, so it would only be fair to make the applicant pay.
More efficient because they would give the examiners an incentive to deny frivolous applications and fees could be set at a level that would be a disincentive to frivolous applications.
As I said I doubt it will happen, but it appeals to me because it would reverse a system that currently seems to be travelling flat out in the wrong direction.
Trademarks (Score:2)
Where to trademarks play into this? I mean there has to be more use of tradmarks than to simply protect the word "Coca~Cola" (tm).
Faster (Score:2)
It even quotes from the Jargon File.
"Can't GPL it it if someone's already patented it" (Score:1)
Of course you can. The GPL makes no pretense of granting rights which are restricted by law. The GPL merely provides that the copyright holder(s) are not restricting use/distribution/modification of the code under copyright law: there may unfortunately be other laws that do restrict use/distribution/modification of the code, such as U.S. export laws, or patents.
That said, the existence of a patent can make software non-free (at least in the portions of the world where the patent is restricted) and free-software authors should use alternatives whenever possible (e.g. LZ instead of LZW compression).
The moral of the story: merely being GPLed (or BSDed, or in the public domain) does not make a piece of software free, but it's all the copyright holder can do. (Unless, of course, the copyright holder is also the patent holder.)
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Oops (Score:1)
Opening the internet, fencing out the proprietary (Score:2)
The biggest problem I can see with software patents vs. open source is that open source has no revenue stream to use to finance a defensive patent portfolio. Though that leads to an interesting idea upon which others have speculated before: the Open-Source Patent Portfolio. Since one of the ways that companies (like IBM!) derive revenue is by licensing patents, the OSPP could patent inventions by open-source inventors (or have the patents sold to them), and license them out under a license which gives anyone the right to use the inventions in open-source software for no fee. Companies wishing to use any OSPP patents in closed-source products could do so for a fee and a cross-licensing agreement which allows all their patents to be used in open-source software for free under the OSPP license. This scheme might even generate enough revenue to kick some back to the inventors.
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NY Times login (Score:1)
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Faster's homepage (Score:2)
http://fasterbook.com/
Re:WHO!??? (Score:2)
Whats up with the submission/editorial decision (Score:1)
It got posted to slashdot after all, so the community got a chance to learn about this, and nothing was lost (except my pride
However, I have to wonder about the editors (all those new, post andover and post valinux guys). If someone rejected a piece that Hemos thought was worthy of being posted, it means they have a different sense of what constitutes a good slashdot article. Which is OK, because different editors can disagree (of course, this seemed like a pretty obvious slashdot piece - and obviously Hemos agreed). The problem being, what if this article had only been submitted once, and was rejected - the community would suffer.
A lot of these new editors have been reading slashdot for a lot less time then some of the readers, wield way too much power, and don't really understand what the community is looking for. People who don't know what we want are controling what we get!
I think some system should be in place, where the editors' actions can be observed, at least by the chief slashdotters (cmdrtaco, hemos). When an article is rejected, it should list who rejected it, so the heads (and us readers) can learn what kind of decisions an editor is making. Perhaps the system could be semi-automatic, when you submit a story, it should log the url of the page, and an editor can see if other submissions to the same page have been made, and their status. Therefor, we can avoid repeat posts, and someone like cmdrtaco or hemos could see if some of the new editors were rejecting good stuff.
www.openpatents.org (Score:1)
It's not just a problem of software patents (Score:1)
Now before you write me off as a kook think about it. Why do we, as a society, grant patents at all?
Usually when I ask this question people answer, "To reward innovation." But that's really only a means to an end. I contend that the real reason we grant patents is to encourage innovation.
What's the difference? Once an innovation has been introduced society gains no benefit from rewarding the inventor.
But most of us consider innovation to be a good thing and we believe that by promising the protection of patents we can encourage individuals to expend time, resources, and their brains to create things that would not ordinarily have been created.
But our economy and population has reached a size where the incentive of exclusive use is no longer a necessary motivation for innovation. I'm sure people can find examples of technologies that probably wouldn't get invented without the incentive of patents but overall the patent system does more to stifle innovation than to promote it.
I say the patent system is not worth fixing. Let's ditch it and we'll see more innovation, not less.
Changes in what is patentable (Score:3)
Current practice, however, is to patent the "use of a calculating device and communications network to distribute news in a timely manner". Suddenly Slashdot, the NY Times, and dozens of sites owe me 0.25% (I wish), even though each uses different methods to implement the concept.
It used to be that people patented specific, and presumably better, designs for implementing a carburator. Now they patent the very idea of a carburator.
It's for real: US Patent 5,993,336 (Score:2)
Also, for those who have browser troubles on the around.com version of the story, there's a stripped down version linked from Advogato [advogato.org].
Re:NY Fscking Times (Score:1)
Can we sue the Patent Office? (Score:4)
BTW, I don't see any kind of change occurring until the megacorps decide that it is in their best interests.
Walk and chew gum WITH A COMPUTER (Score:1)
"Procedure for Simultaneously Walking and Chewing Gum" by Dugald Stermer
It's only logical to replace the mans brief case with a laptop.
I'm sure Jeffs got a team busy on it now...
Re:It's not just a problem of software patents (Score:1)
The point is that if an inventor did not expect to be rewarded afterward, the invention would probably not been created in the first place. By and large, most inventors invent because they dream of hitting on some great idea and becoming rich as a result. The idea of someone inventing solely to make society a better place is, for the most part, a fairy tale. Thomas Edison invented (more accurately, got others to invent for him) pretty much for the benefit of Thomas Edison.
IMO, software patents should be abolished for a number of reasons. First, programming as we know it had been going on for almost 40 years before it could be patented and there's lots of old ideas that are getting regurgitated as a software patents. Remember the patent for "multimedia"? Second, nobody can agree on what software actually is: a machine? a method? a process? a mathematical abstraction?
Other problems with the patent process in general are fixable. One problem is that the patent application is kept secret until granted. Making public applications and inviting comment could nip a lot of problems in the bud while still protecting the inventor. Another is to make it easier to have a patent invalidated. Right now, the only way to invalidate a patent is in court, never a cheap proposition.
real problem (Score:1)
Re:"Can't GPL it it if someone's already patented (Score:1)
Re:You can also find the article on... (Score:2)
Stupid patents are OK - if someone want's to waste money for a patent on a system for measuring bra sizes then fine. Mad, but safe. The problem is obvious patents - software and others - being granted.
There were comments in the article about how difficult it is to test objectively for obviousness, and how restrictive the check for prior art is (basically patents + journals). It does strike me that there is another way - B&N got hit with an injunction soon after Amazon got its patent. Plenty of other sites had one-click ordering, I believe. The multiple independent "invention" (or, more accurately, implementation) of a "one-click" ordering system has got to say something about how obvious the idea is.
Also saying something about obviousness of the invention is its ease of implementation - most decent programmers, if given the spec, could knock it up quickly.
The problem, and it is a big one, is translating "saying something" into real action. But here's a stab anyway (and I'll throw in software patents lasting too long too)
1. Software patents last 4 years from granting. The process is fast tracked and takes exactly six months.
2. The patent must remain secret until granted - this means that you can't use it until it is granted. This gets round the problem drawing out the "patent applied for" process. And it gets rid of frivioulous applications - if sacrificing six months of use of a patent is to much of a price to pay for a four year monopoly, then I think it is fair to question the usefulness of the invention.
3. If anyone else independently invents the patent during the application process (6 months) then tough - the invention is too obvious to be worth a patent. Inventions can either be another application to the patent office, or a public implementation.
What these steps don't cover is how to cope with the "obvious, but no-one bothered to do it". I did think of giving the claims of the patent to some programmers, and seeing if they could quickly reproduce the mechanism, but I don't think that this is fair - a lot of the time the invention isn't about getting the right answer, but asking the right question.
Lost: one plot (Score:1)
So this idea is so innovative and non-obvious that it deserves a patent, but companies who have never heard of this person and their patent probably chose to use this method.
Either somebody's university didn't require a course in elementary logic, or (more likely based on the attitude shown here) somebody cheated their way through it.
On swastikas . . . (Score:1)
glad to see I managed to troll SOMEONE
Re:Whats up with the submission/editorial decision (Score:1)
What's up? Slashdover.net doesn't like a competitor voicing their patented message!
Somebody had to get an AnonymousC ready to
try to divert discussion with an ad-hominymic
first post response post thingie. Eh?
Anyway, if people don't paranoically jump on
faint possiblities of editorial erosion, when
they finally DO sell out, we can say "Told you so."...
HAR. (Or am I HHOS-ing?)
Re:It's not just a problem of software patents (Score:1)
But I also don't think the abolition of patent would force us to depend on these rare souls for our technological advancement.
For one thing, very little is invented in garages, at least in the past few decades. As much as I hate to say it, most innovation goes on in corprate and academic labs.
We've already seen that Open Source programmers are willing to code something up just so they can gain the benefits of better software, even though they know they won't get paid for their code directly.
Academians would obviously continue to do research with or without patents. As long as they can publish and their grants keep rolling in, they're pretty happy.
So the other question is would the private sector continue to innovate without the protection of patents? I think they would. There are still alot of benefits to being the first one to bring a new technology to the market. You automatically get some monopoly time while everyone reverse engineers your stuff, converts their assembly lines, revamps their add campaign etc. You also get bragging rights, "Base your company on our products and you'll have new toys before your competitors do."
As for the small time private investor. They aren't really protected by current patent law. How often do you hear about someone successfully suing a large company that stole their idea? But they can take advantage of bragging rights too, "Hey hire me and I'll invent my cool new toys at your company first."
Trying to fix the patent process is like sticking your fingers in the dike. We should just tear it down and where we absolutly need government sanctioned monopolies let's think them through carefully before we implement them.
James Glick Article (Score:1)
Patent Reform (Score:1)
Amazon would have invented and used 1-click ordering regardless of whether they were going to get a 20-year monopoly on it. So it doesn't meet the first objective.
The author mentions that anyone skilled in the art of web programming wouldn't need to see the patent of 1-click ordering to reproduce it. So it doesn't meet the second objective.
This is a clear example of a gaping hole in the patent system that was at least smaller in the past (right?). Neither objective of the patent system was met.
We need at least a new patent guideline to address this sort of nonsense. What would it be?
-Frank
Remember the Master's roots (Score:1)
From the article:
"...Did Einstein invent his formula, E=mc2, or was it there all along, waiting to be discovered?"
Actually, he probably stole it.
There. You can't say everyone who approves patents were entirely incompetent, can you?
:)
Solomon Kevin Chang
Database Design and Programming
FutureStep.com
OSS Patent Response NOW (Score:2)
1-- Establish a pool of open software patents. Anyone can use any patent in the pool providing they agree to make all of their own patents (if any) available to everyone else in the pool. proprietary developers who want to use some of the patents in the pool may do so: if they add their own patents to the pool.
2-- Establish OSS patent language: you may use this software, but any patented material you add to it must be licensed to all users, etc.
3-- Support reasonable compromizes like the one Amazon is backing. Not the best of all possible worlds, but as someone said, better than a poke in the eye with a broomhandle.
What are we waiting for?
Why patents are, or atleast could be, a good thing (Score:2)
(1) Society benefits from a patent when the idea, design, machine, or program that is patented is (a) useful and (b) would not have been produced if it were not the patent system. Whether the thing patented is idea, design, machine, program is irrelevant if (a) and (b) hold.
(2) Society is harmed by a patent when the thing patented would have been produced anyway because the patent restricts its use.
(3) The problem with the recent explosion of patents is that many of them fall into the second category.
(4) The problem with scrapping the whole patent system or a class of patents, e.g. software patents, is that society would lose the benefit of patents of type. I expect that most slashdot readers would argue that this would be that this would be a good thing despite losing the benefit of type (1) patents. Perhaps this is true, but I think it is easy to jump to the wrong conclusion - when patents work, it is hard to see them working, when they don't work its is very obvious.
(5) The ideal situation would be to only have patents of type (1); the problem is finding an objective way to identify type (2) patents.
(6) Here is my solution. If you have something that you believe is worthy of a patent, you define the problem you have solved and send it together with a fee, say 10,000 dollars to the patent licensing body. The patent licensing body publicises the problem the patent applicant has defined for, say, 3 months. Anyone via the Internet is then invited, to come up with a solution to the problem. If someone comes up with the same solution as the patent applicant, the first person to do so gets to keep the 10,000 dollars and the solution enters the public domain. If no one comes up with the solution before 3 months have passed, then is not something obvious, so worthy of a patent. Clearly, people have a disincentive to apply for frivolous patents, e.g. one click, since there's a good chance they'd lose their money.
I hope this interests someone.
Re:OSS Patent Response NOW (Score:1)
If you're interested in helping with the license, or would be interested in submitting patents under the license, please let me know, or consider joining the mailing list. [openpatents.org]
Amazon's coders must be dumb as posts (Score:1)
Thousands of hours means at least two thousand. That's one person full time for a year. Honestly, a coder that dumb should never be allowed near a keyboard. That demonstrates an incredible (literally, as in, not at all credible) level of incompetence. I honestly can't believe a programmer that dumb exists, even against the dumbest coders I've ever encountered.
Perhaps Amazon's new slogan needs to be "Patents Are Like A Box Of Chocolates".
Re:We should become patent clerks... (Score:1)
The comments from the patent clerk who approved the Amazon One Click patent hint at more than a little frustration at the fact that she couldn't stop what she perceived as an obvious abuse of the system.
You think that's silly? (Score:1)
A battery powered automobile includes an air operated turbine fed by front and side air scoops for providing both charging current to the batteries and driving power for the automobile. An auxiliary internal combustion engine is included for use when necessary. Deceleration and wind sensitive controls operate door structure on the front air scoop so that it opens, increasing drag, only under predetermined conditions. Braking energy is utilized to help charge the batteries.
Yes, you too can patent your own perpetual motion machine! Only don't use those words, say something like "reclaimed energy" or "useful continuous work".
Re:Why patents are, or atleast could be, a good th (Score:1)
OS sanity test: click here [cauxaux].
Re:You can also find the article on... TheOnion (Score:1)
Except when I read it back in the day, it was funny, and not scary :)
NY Times Article (Score:1)
BTW, this (or some variation thereof) works at a lot of "free registration required" sites. cipherpunks, cypherpunks, cipherp, cypherp... Get creative. :)
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EU patents are different (Score:1)
They only cover commercial use, not research or other non-commercial use. So hobbyist programmers and free software would be safe from patent lawsuits.
Re:EU patents are different (Score:1)
Though if it was true twould be cool, but what of a hobbist project that a company decided to sponser as a commercial project, i.e. wine. If wine stumbled over a microsoft patented mechanism of doing something, say the binary loader and was protected by some hobbyist clause, would commercial submissions by corel invalidate that and make the whole project liable to horrendous consequences ?
C.
Bad for USA surely (Score:1)
Patent the patent office (Score:1)
Alternately flood the system with junk patents until it grinds to a halt. Of course, lodging a patent application requires money, which is why a philanthropic billionaire who believes patents are basically defensive might want to fund such a piece of direct action. Mr Bezos?
Re:EU patents are different (Score:1)
Well, actually current EU legislation protects programs as literary works. The patent system doesn't allow software patents, but the new proposed utility model (a weaker patent), which has a shorter duration and is easier to get, seems to allow software patents (the proposal from -97 didn't, but the newest version removed all clauses on the exclusion of software from protection). AFAIK the utility model only concerns commercial use (unless they change that in the future). Algorithms won't be protected since they are mathematical methods and are not in the scope of the utility model.
You can read some of the EU patent legislation here [eu.int]. Note that this probably not the whole of the legislation because the WTO agreements in favor of the total economic domination of large corporations seem to change the game a bit (look up the TRIPS agreement)...
Re:EU patents are different (Score:2)
In any case, it is worth opposing software patents simply for their impact on *proprietary* software developers who are trying to develop new software and make money from it. The effect on free software is another item in a long list of Bad Things.