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Patents

Stallman on Software Patents 394

Posted by michael from the symphony-in-perl-minor dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes "On Monday Richard Stallman gave a speech at the Cambridge University (UK) Computer Lab. Over at ZDNet UK they have a transcription of the speech - the most eloquent discussion of the subject I have yet seen. Software patents victimise developers, he says, but there are ways to get around them. The best part is his comparison of writing software to writing symphonies: 'Oh Beethoven,' they would have said in 1800 if there had been patents on music, 'you're just bitching because you've got no ideas of your own.'"
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Stallman on Software Patents More

Stallman on Software Patents

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  • Other Talk: Copyright vs Community (Score:5, Informative)

    by thick_sliced ( 548064 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @08:11AM (#3240425)
    Stallman also recently gave a talk at Queen Mary, University of London.
    An audio version of the talk can be found at:

    http://www.odl.qmul.ac.uk/stallman/ [qmul.ac.uk]

  • quote..

    Nobody is so brilliant they can create completely new music that everyone wants to listen to, and nobody can create software that does not use existing ideas.

    ...end of quote

    Well excuse me Honorable Stallman but I know a really original piece of software that does not use existing ideas. Its revolutionary in itself.

    Check it out at http://freshmeat.net/projects/gtktrue

    • <thick mode="on">

      > GTK interface to the popular console application /bin/true.

      'I know a really original piece of software that does not use existing ideas.'

      An interface - or even a reimplementation - of a program can hardly be said to not use existing ideas.

      <thick mode="off">

    • Re:Someone did create innovative software! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If he actually said that about music, he deserves to be ignored from now on.

      Of course people create original music all the time.

      Sure there are a small set of notes, and only so many ways you can arange any two notes in any tempo.

      After two notes, it is all in the arrangement, and composition.

      • But four notes is enough to get sued (Score:5, Interesting)

        by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @09:35AM (#3240853) Homepage Journal

        Sure there are a small set of notes, and only so many ways you can arange any two notes in any tempo. After two notes, it is all in the arrangement, and composition.

        The Yes! We have no bananas! [everything2.com] case set the precedent that four notes is enough to get a songwriter sued in the United States. Given that there are only about 30,000 ways to combine four notes in the Western music theory (reply if you want a more detailed explanation of the math), it appears that the only reason songwriters haven't exhausted the melody space [baen.com] is that the big "all your right are belong to us" publishers have entered into cross-licensing agreements with one another. This is part of why you should write your legislators and request a repeal of the Sonny Bono [everything2.com] Copyright Term [wikipedia.com] Extension Act [openlaw.org].

        • Given that there are only about 30,000 ways to combine four notes in the Western music theory (reply if you want a more detailed explanation of the math)

          How do you count it? Using only 13 sounds? It's quite off-topic, but interesting. Could you explain your math and especially why is it Western-specific?

          • The number of possible combinations of p objects chosen from a total of n is given by the combination formula:

            n C p = n!/(p! * (n-p)!)

            I assumed 7 octaves of the Western scale (has to do with the intervals of the frequencies of the notes) which gives 91 possible notes (also assuming that middle C is a different note to say C above top F)

            That gives an answer of: 91!/(4! * 87!) = 2672670

            If you plug in 13 notes (a single octave) then the answer is: 13!/(4!*9!) = 715.

            Either way, I'd also appreciate a discussion of his maths :)
        • Spider Robinson was naive. He assumed that laws were passed for the public good. And he didn't consider that four notes could possibly be enough. But he saw this problem coming.

          I recommend that everyone who can find a copy read "Melancholy Elephants", a short story. One of the places that it appeared was in a collection of short stories called Melancholy Elephants, and I believe that it was originally published in Analog Sience Fact -> Fiction, but I don't even remember the decade.

          This was a prediction of the problem, and it predicted about this time frame (though the world was rather different!). And it predicted that the cause of the forseen problem was the extension of the copyright laws.

          I recommend it highly. If you are a publisher, please consider reprinting it, as it is quite topical, and will be for quite awhile. If we aren't quite lucky it may be topical for a century or two.

  • Music (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Iamthefallen ( 523816 ) <Gmail name: Iamthefallen> on Thursday March 28, 2002 @08:27AM (#3240473) Homepage Journal

    Can Music be patentable? I mean software is just a bunch of zeroes and ones being processed and when they're in a certain order something cool happens. Music is just tones at different pitches and when in a certain order it sounds cool.

    If one-click shopping is patentable, shouldn't one-hit rimshot be aswell? Why is copyright enough to protect music but not enough to protect software?

    • Re:Music (Score:2, Informative)

      by Libor Vanek ( 248963 )
      IIRC there is one "music" that is patented - sound of Harley ;-)
      • Nope, sound of Harley is not patented. Harley-Davidson tried to register [lectlaw.com] the sound as a trademark in 1994. In 2000, they withdrew the application [auto.com] after much opposition. There's an interesting analysis of the registrability here [bc.edu], which also mentions successful trademarks on color and scent.
    • the big difference between music and a program/algo... is that the later is supposedly interactive, which means it is supposed to be context sensitive and act differently according to external events.
      If you make interactive music, then you have a program that generate music, that is.
      You may however GPL your music and send it to my web gallery (see .sig ;-)
    • Disclaimer: I haven't read the article
      But here is my take on the analogy... and a pretty good analogy I think it to be.

      In Music, there is copyright on pieces of music. You cannot distribute copyrighted music nor resell it without the permission of the copyright holder. I am all for this. In software, if you make a piece of software, you own the copyright and people must get your permission or a license to use the software or source code. That works well too.

      Now patents are about ideas. There are no patents in music. You can't stop people from copying the idea that major scales and minor scales sound good. You can't patent the 12 bar blues but you can patent any piece that uses the 12 bar blues. To stop people from using the 12 bar blues seems ludicrous... and it is just as ludicrous as people in software engineering patenting quicksort, mathematical algorithms and compression techniques such that others can't use them for 10 years

      I like the music analogy
      • I like the music analogy

        I don't. You're forgetting the purpose of patent protection: to encourage innovation.

        There's no real cost to innovating in music or art. It doesn't take ten years and three billion dollars to come up with a new melody. So there's little barrier to innovation in music. Anybody can do it, and many people do.

        But-- to take a counter-example-- consider engines. We've been using internal combustion engines for a long time. To come up with a better engine-- one that runs on water, or chained hamsters, or the moral power of virginity-- would be a huge effort. Ten years and three billion dollars. Why bother doing it? Because you can patent your invention, and for a period of time you can have the exclusive right to build it, or you can collect royalties from other folks who build it. Without patent protection (so the theory goes) nobody would bother building new kinds of engines.

        So ask yourself: is software more like music or more like engineering? It certainly has elements of both: one person, working alone, can churn out page after page of software, just like music. Ninety percent of software is crap, just like music. ;-)

        But software-- and more importantly innovation in software-- is a really important thing. To a large extent, our society and our economy are powered by software. It's in our best collective interest to encourage innovation in software by whatever means we find appropriate, including granting exclusive rights in the form of patents.
        • Part of the reason, though, that developing large software projects can be such a chore, is that developers cannot recycle existing patented/copyrighted solutions. A company like MS might spend ten years and tens of billions of dollars producing a somewhat stable OS. To me, this is an extraordinary example of inefficiency. It's not exactly an argument in favor of working in a vacuum, that's for sure.

          I agree that software is important part of our economy. An important part of the entire economy. Not some isolated junket that should recieve all of our accolades and money.

          Most of us want the same thing: high quality software produced and distributed as efficiently as possible. (Of course there are also those who simply want to take as much as they can get.) I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Fewer high-quality programmers who have access to each other's code will produce better code faster than a whole bunch of overpaid amatuers working in isolation.

          Forget the handwaving theoretical arguments for a moment. Look around. We have examples of both points of view to compare. On the one hand, we have the closed, proprietary, patented, buttoned up shrink wrap license vendors. On the other hand we have free software. Compare the amount of resources each consumes relative to its output. Tough measurement to make, but I'm strongly inclined to believe that the free software movement is producing better software faster per unit input than their proprietary counterparts. All we need are a few more sponsors like IBM to fuel the fire, and this race will be over.

          And this is in spite of the fact the free software crowd oven has to route around existing copyright and patent encumbrances.

          • Fewer high-quality programmers who have access to each other's code will produce better code faster than a whole bunch of overpaid amatuers working in isolation.

            If we were talking about pure research, or the sciences, you'd certainly be right. That's exactly the model that scientists follow: publish early and often, and read everything.

            Maybe we should talk about the difference between academic programming and commercial programming. It's the same as the difference between biological research and drug manufacturing.

            If computer programming is a science, then pure research in the field should be in the public domain. But the use of that pure knowledge to achieve commercial gains is something else entirely.

            On the one hand, we have the closed, proprietary, patented, buttoned up shrink wrap license vendors. On the other hand we have free software. Compare the amount of resources each consumes relative to its output.

            I don't mean to be a grouch, but I disagree. I deal with quite a bit of commercial software, and I have to say that a fairly small percentage of it is complete crap. Of all the freely available software out there, though, there's a lot that's poorly documented, buggy, maldesigned, or all three. A few outstanding exceptions-- like Perl or Apache-- do not an argument make.
        • But [in contrast to music] software-- and more importantly innovation in software-- is a really important thing.

          Woah--you're on really thin ice there, comparing the value of artistic and software innovation. Technology is nice, but I'm damn glad that when I turn on the radio, I don't hear grunts and stone pounding on every station.

          • Maybe I should have qualified "important." I think it should have been clear from context. I meant "important" in the large-scale economic and social senses. New music and art is important, and that's why we directly subsidize artists in some cases, and ridiculously overpay them in others, depending on whether they're popular or not.

            It's the same basic premise, though, implemented in two different public policies. Artistic development is encouraged through subsidy. Commercial development is encouraged-- among other ways-- through the granting of patents.
        • It's in our best collective interest to encourage innovation in software by whatever means we find appropriate, including granting exclusive rights in the form of patents.
          If you read the article, you'll see that Stallman argues that patents don't encourage innovation. Any thoughts on this?
          • If you read the article, you'll see that Stallman argues that patents don't encourage innovation. Any thoughts on this?

            I admit that I didn't read the article slowly or carefully, but that's not how I understood it. (Marge: But you liked Rashomon! Homer: That's now how I remember it.)

            It sounds to me like RMS is arguing that patents are an obstacle to the writing of software using well-known algorithms or principles. The example RMS gives of LZW compression, for instance, says that the programmer who wrote Compress "use[d] an idea he had found in a journal, just like software authors had always done."

            That doesn't sound like innovation to me. It sounds like the programmer wrote a utility using an algorithm that was under consideration for a patent, and got burned by it. That has nothing at all to do with innovation, which is the process of starting from scratch-- or from a foundation of public knowledge-- to come up with a truly new idea. Not program, idea.

            The larger question is this: should the LZW compression algorithm have been patented? This kind of goes back to what I said in a previous post about pure research versus commercial research. There's an argument to be made that fundamental algorithms-- like the stuff in TAOCP-- should be part of the field's collective body of knowledge, unencumbered by rights or ownerships. Maybe things like LZW compression should be included in that category.

            Of course, Unisys disagrees with that assertion.

            It's a tough question, and it's hard to know what to do.
        • I don't. You're forgetting the purpose of patent protection: to encourage innovation.

          There's no real cost to innovating in music or art. It doesn't take ten years and three billion dollars to come up with a new melody. So there's little barrier to innovation in music. Anybody can do it, and many people do.

          I think that you are quite silly. Masterful composers can take years to write innovative new symphonies. There are few people who even are capable of doing this. It is not as though any old Alfred E. Neuman can write a symphony.

          OTOH, any old Alfred E. Neuman with a copy of VisualBasic can choke email servers around the world.

          But software-- and more importantly innovation in software-- is a really important thing. To a large extent, our society and our economy are powered by software.

          Let's take a REALLY good example - the spreadsheet. It was not patented, and its inventors made next to nothing from it.

          Did we not benefit from this innovation (and this would be considered by ANY standard in use today to be innovative and patentable) ? Is this innovation not broadly in use today ?

          In what way would we, as consumers, be better off if the spreadsheet had been patented ?

          I guess the argument is that the spreadsheet may never have been invented if its inventors cared about IP. But that is a moot point; they didn't and we still have the spreadsheet. There are scores of other examples of patentable ideas that were not patented (TeX typesetting is another good one) that are REALLY broadly in use today. I doubt as a consumer I would suffer AT ALL if software patents did not exist.

          Let's not forget - the entire purpose of patents is creating the largest repository possible of public domain IP. Patents encourage disclosure so that the invention becomes public domain after a limited time, and that makes all of our lives richer, because eventually we use the patent for free.

          Software patents rarely become public domain in a meaningful way. They are choking the industry.
          • In what way would we, as consumers, be better off if the spreadsheet had been patented?

            Bah. The fact that you're asking the question means that you fundamentally misunderstand my point. The question to ask-- which is admittedly hard to answer!-- is "What innovations would we, as consumers, have access to if the spreadsheet had been patented, but that were not invented because no patent protection was available for them?"

            I know, I know. It's impossible to answer that question. But that's kind of the point. If we don't offer patent protection for software innovations-- truly deserving ones, I mean-- then we'll never know what we missed.

            I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that software patents truly discourage innovation. In fact, the converse is likely true. Today, it's not legal for me to use LZW compression in one of my programs without licensing it from Unisys. If I choose not to ignore that fact, I can do one of four things: give up, or license the algorithm, or use some other algorithm, or develop my own. If I don't want to license, and I don't want to give up, then I have to innovate! (Or I have to use somebody else's innovation that is freely available to me, but that's basically the same thing.)
            • But that's kind of the point. If we don't offer patent protection for software innovations-- truly deserving ones, I mean-- then we'll never know what we missed.

              You missed MY main point. Patent protection exists to promote the transfer of inventions into public domain. Software patents barely if at all fulfill that role. By the time a software patent expires, it is usually not useful at all. And throughout its lifetime, it prevents others from using it.

              Software, like music, is fundamentally expression based, and copyright was invented to protect expression. And, copyright NEVER protects concepts or ideas embodied in some expression - merely the specific expression of them.
            • If we don't offer patent protection for software innovations-- truly deserving ones, I mean

              Ah, but there's the rub. What's a "truly deserving" innovation?
        • The stated purpose of patents is to encourage innovation. Actually it's supposed to encourage the public release of the information already invented.

          Examining the history of the past couple of decades I see scant evidence that the current patent law fosters this. I appears more likely that it suppresses it.

          Definitely, software patents, as administered by the USPTO, are an anti-innovation mechanism. Except for legal innovation. There's been a bunch of that. Why isn't there a "legal argument patent"? That would make as much sense as a business process patent. Software patents are MUCH worse. The examiners don't have a clue as to what they are regulating. They don't do any search of prior art. And they are paid (well, not exactly, I believe it's performance rating) based on the number of patents that they approve. This is heading toward the worst scenario. Also the process of challenging a patent is rediculously expensive, especially considering the totally slipshod method in which they are granted.

          I increasingly find it impossible to believe that this incredible structure occured by happenstance. However, if it did, is certainly isn't maintained by happenstance. It is to the benefit of a specialized class of lawyers and of large corporations. Is it surprising then that public benefit is of scant concern?

          When I was 20 I was a pacifist .. I wasn't draftable, but my friends were, and I never accepted the rationale for Vietnam.

          When I was 30 I decided that anarchy was too unstable to be a good system. So I became a libertarian.

          When I was 40 I took a good look at the leaders of the libertarian party, and decided that they didn't speak for me.

          So now I am without affiliation. But I'm sure not a republicrat or a demmican.

          The primary difference between the democrats and the republicans is that the democrats are more concerned with people liking them.

          The primary similarity between the democrats and the republicans is that they will both support whatever the people who pay to get them elected want.

          The primary danger of both the democrats and the republicans is that what is good for the people who buy elections is not what is good for the country.

          General Bullmoose lives!
          Compared to the current flock of ??rulers?? he was a patriot.

          And one of the things that the people who buy the elections like is a patent system that allows them to buy up things that nobody previously ever considered property.

        • To a large extent, our society and our economy are powered by software.

          You're going to eat these words. The reason our society depends on software is because there were no patent restrictions hurled upon researchers. Our society benefits from a commons of software much more than if it were locked away in patents.

          Paraphrasing Alan Cox, we have the great Internet and software we do today not due to intellectual property laws, but in spite of them.

        • Your arguments are well represented and correct. Innovation is the most important point about the patent system. However, I would say the the patent system in its current form is far more harmful to software innovation than beneficial.

          I respect your opinion but my opinion is that software is much more like music than engineering when it comes to generating ideas and implementing ideas. Or maybe it is just because the patent system sucks. For example, you bring patented engines as an example. Sometimes I feel that the software world is bringing the equivalent of patenting any and all types of engines as opposed to one type of engine. Many people have a problem with the patent system because the cover of software patents is too wide whereas most physical patents are specific enough to feel fair
        • But-- to take a counter-example-- consider engines. We've been using internal combustion engines for a long time. To come up with a better engine-- one that runs on water, or chained hamsters, or the moral power of virginity-- would be a huge effort. Ten years and three billion dollars. Why bother doing it? Because you can patent your invention, and for a period of time you can have the exclusive right to build it, or you can collect royalties from other folks who build it. Without patent protection (so the theory goes) nobody would bother building new kinds of engines.

          So my go-kart company buys your engine, and connects a drive train to it. Now my product is a go-kart powered by a foobar104 model 1 engine. This is fine. Software companies do this all the time. I don't neccesarily mind this, credit where it is due, you get a return on your investment.

          Now if i want optimise my go-kart. I put a supercharger on your engine. I use special high performance spark plugs. I bore out the cylenders, and put in brand x valves that have less chance of sticking under the conditions my go-kart will experience. Its still a go-kart powered by a foobar104 model 1 engine. But the engine was modified. You still get your return. Its not a new product. Im allowed to do this.

          Joe down the street decides that my modifications are perfect in his dune buggy. He doesnt know how to modify the engine himself, so he buys the engines ive modified to put in his dune buggies. This is still allowed. Joe now makes dune buggies powered by the foobar104 model 1 engine. You still get your return.

          foobar104 is also a songwriter. (S)he (sorry not sure of your gender) has an extremely popular song called foo love. I can't buy a copy of foo love, and change the tempo and the fix the grammer, and sell it on my CD. Thats protected by copyright law. Joe cant buy my cd singles, and use the modified song in his CD. That too breaks the same copyright rule.

          If foo love covers new ground conceputally, say he expresses his love for misquitos. I can write a new song called I love misquitos, only i explore further into it, say i love gay misquitos. I use his concepts, in my own original way. this is allowable.

          Joe loves this. He writes a song about loving gay misquitos. This is still allowed. The concept transfers. loving misquitos (straight or gay) is not patentable.

          This is where patents get sticky with software under the current system. Software is both patentable and copyrightable. I buy foobar104soft's misquitolove engine (c) US patent number baz. I can't make a gaymisquitolove engine mod and sell it to joe, because i violate his copyright. Fine, is cool, foobar104 doesnt like it, i respect it.

          So I engineer the new gaymisquitolove engine that uses the misquitolove concepts. and get my ass sued because i violated his patent. So because of this foobar104 has his cake and eats it too. Unless i pay him lots and lots of money, I can't make my gaymisquitolove engine. This is where the problem lies. Software is the only industry that allows this. Its fairly rediculous.
      • Now patents are about ideas.

        And that's where the problem lies. If you look at the current patent system in most Western countries, it is about protecting process, not ideas. Even the infamous business patents protect a process by which a business objective is achieved. When I went to law school, our intellectual property prof always insisted about the difference between patents and ideas. And then suddenly the legislator introduced these patents on software ideas..

        The problem with software patents is that you're not really protecting a mean of solving a problem, you're actually protecting the very idea that such or such problem exists and that it should be solved by some automated process. This is wrong. If I invent and patent an embedded microwave window defroster, it doesn't prevent you from inventing a different approach to solve the same problem. In the software world I would prevent you from addressing such problem in the first place.

        And this in my view goes against innovation, disclosure and publig good, all honorable objectives for which the patent system was created in the first place.

  • Concentrated interests beat diffuse interest AGAIN (Score:3, Insightful)

    by redelm ( 54142 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @08:31AM (#3240489) Homepage
    The patent problem, as well as many other issues are an example of how political and business systems fall victim to few concentrated interests and underweight more widespread "common" interests.

    If you're in the patenting biz, or have some patents (copyrights, environmental problem, any sort of valuable asset/liability), it's worth alot to you. You will spend alot of energy [money,time,...] defending your interests and trying to make things go your way before the Courts, Legislatures, Regulators, media, markets, public opinion.

    Your very-numerous prey/antagonists do many things. You little asset/liab is a small part of their lives. It's hardly life-or-death for most of them to put up with you. [Parasitic!] If they ever found out, they might not like what you're doing, but it's not worth enough to them to be worth fighting. A whole reservoir of opposition gets trapped below the inaction thresholdaa.

    Now some people will always complain, and more do if the inaction threshold can be lowered [email & Internet]. But how do you _prevent_ the squeeky wheel from getting the grease?

  • In Part III of his speech... "To make a copy of a program you type 'copy', and the same copy command will copy any program."

    Hmm, but wouldn't you have thought someone like him would use "cp" :)

  • biotech? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by koekepeer ( 197127 )
    funny that stallman uses biotech as an example where patents "work differently"

    patents obstruct biotech in the same way as they obstruct software development. everyone is holding on to their little precious idea and tries to make as much money from it, and if that's not possible, lock up the idea with a patent.
    • patents obstruct biotech in the same way as they obstruct software development. everyone is holding on to their little precious idea and tries to make as much money from it, and if that's not possible, lock up the idea with a patent.

      The alternative to patents is secrecy. With the patent system, you have the benefit of access to published research, and the publisher has the right to charge you a fee, NOT for reading the research, but for doing something yourself that uses the idea to make money.

      The software industry is unique in that the barriers to entry are low and the distribution os very cheap (like the music industry) but also that it is based on techniques - algorithms - that may also be as easily duplicated. Listening to a professional musician play won't make you a professional musician, but using a developed algorithm can make you an effective programmer. Given that research costs money, there must be a mechanism by which researchers are rewarded, and that's the patent system.
      • The alternative to patents is secrecy. With the patent system, you have the benefit of access to published research, and the publisher has the right to charge you a fee, NOT for reading the research, but for doing something yourself that uses the idea to make money.

        For biotech, secrecy may be preferrable in many cases. So much of what's being patented (genomic data) is obvious or easily reproduced that patents are simply destructive. They may speed the pace up a little bit, but eventually they'll be a huge stumbling block for anyone interested in doing real science rather than leech off the hard work of others.

        I have nothing against Celera keeping its results private (though they shouldn't be allowed to publish in a peer-reviewed journal). In fact, I'm all for that business model. There's nothing stopping a public group from duplicating their work and providing a free, open version. Sort of like the effects of the BSD license (a bit in reverse). If the data is patented, it's useless to anyone who can't afford to pay license fees- and there's no way around it.
        • I have nothing against Celera keeping its results private (though they shouldn't be allowed to publish in a peer-reviewed journal). In fact, I'm all for that business model. There's nothing stopping a public group from duplicating their work and providing a free, open version. Sort of like the effects of the BSD license (a bit in reverse). If the data is patented, it's useless to anyone who can't afford to pay license fees- and there's no way around it.

          Quite. The problem is not the legal concept of a patent, it's the incompetent way the system has been administered, granting patents without proper diligence.

  • Richard Stallman is very annoying. Often he comes out with rabid driven that just makes me want to shout "shut up you idiot!" for the damage it does to the OSS community. Then he comes out with eloquent, intelligent and thought provoking prose like this. Most annoying.

    • I was at the talk (Score:3, Interesting)

      by xiox ( 66483 )
      He is a fantastic speaker... he managed to speak for 1.5 hrs without notes in totally engaging fashion. I didn't realise he'd be so good. He did have some odd physical habits, but he spoke very well. He was rather rude to the questioners, though.

  • Allow an "independant discovery" defense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by redelm ( 54142 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @08:40AM (#3240533) Homepage
    There is a solution to this morass. Simply allow the fact that an inventor discovered/invented a thing independantly of the patent as a defense against patent violation. Of course, there are evidentiary problems. But there always are.

    The issue is that if something was independantly discovered, the patent should hardly be granted since it doesn't induce anything that wouldn't otherwise happen.

    • Simply allow the fact that an inventor discovered/invented a thing independantly of the patent as a defense against patent violation. Of course, there are evidentiary problems

      In the case of software what you are proposing is just copyright: you can duplicate as long as you don't copy (and can prove it).

      TWW

      • A little stronger than copyright, because you'd have to also prove that you weren't influenced by seeing or hearing of the patentholder's implementation. It's not easy to prove a negative, but fortunately, this is a civil case, so it's "preponderence of evidence" and not "beyond reasonable doubt".

        • A little stronger than copyright, because you'd have to also prove that you weren't influenced by seeing or hearing of the patentholder's implementation.

          Surely that's the basis of most plagarism suits; it's pretty rare for a copyright case to be on the basis of an exact duplicate (I doubt that sort of case would get as far as court), particularly in the music industry.

          TWW

  • What I like is at the end of the article, he implies that part (or most, or all) of the problem is that the US patent system is based on patenting a Physical Process, and here we have people patenting Idealized Processes. Copyrights are more apropriate for the Idealized Process, or at least it's a closer fit.I'm sure he's not the first to notice this, and he won't be the last, but it needs to be repeated over and over until we get it though the US Goverment's Thick Skull(tm).
  • that would be caused if they patented something like, say, the .GIF format.

    We'd all be paying out the ass!

  • Public key cryptography patents, not "PGP patent" (Score:5, Informative)

    by Xilman ( 191715 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @08:53AM (#3240589) Homepage Journal
    I was present at this event. Despite what ZDNet claims, RMS did not use the term "PGP patent" but, correctly, described it as the public key cryptography patent.

    The "transcript" is abbreviated which is acceptable, maybe even laudable, but it is also an inaccurate record of what RMS actually said --- which is not.

    IMO, Stallman gave an extremely good talk aimed at those who were not experts on how the patent system works in practice. Far more eloquent than I'd anticipated from his previous writings on this and related subjects.

    Paul
  • Isn't it lovely to see some of the same old idiotic comments from journalists even when they are trying to be "nice":
    GNU Public Licence ... their software remains in the public domain
    Hmmm, ask RMS if the GPL puts software in the Public Domain .... preferably while standing in the next galaxy!

  • Having written a patent application (Score:5, Interesting)

    by f00zbll ( 526151 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @08:57AM (#3240611)
    For a previous job, I had to research patents and write up a patent application. The instruction from the lawyer was "make it more general than it needs to be." His reasoning is the patent application shouldn't go through the first try. It should take atleast 2 or 3 tries, to make sure the patent is as broad as possible.

    Now of course the lawyer gets paid each time you file, so it's just fine by him. The management tends to side with lawyers, but honestly, patenting ideas, especially in software is stupid. People confuse patent with copyright. Software should use copyright only, because you're protecting the actual work that went into building the application. It's both impossible and idiotic to patent ideas. Unfortunately lawyers run the country and now we have things like patented business process. Like the company that patented the use of Prozac for treating PMS for women. Ideas should not be patented, since it's not possible to police thought. Well that doesn't stop corporations and the government from trying.

    Just because RMS can be a raving nut at times, that doesn't automatically discredit every word out of his mouth. Now if only there were more clear thinking people in government, we can fix this damn problem.

    • Just because RMS can be a raving nut at times....

      When!? Where!? It bothers me on how many here agree with this yet I find no evidence of it. Stallman is a very concise writer and rather than "preaching" as so many put it (which I've never seen it done) always supports his opinions and philosophies with rational argument.

      I've been following the GNU project for a while now and have usually read RMS's articles and interviews with interest. Have we de-evolved so much that everyone we disagree with is suddenly a "raving nut" or is just easier to dismiss opposing arguments that way?

      All this time I've seen few actual counterarguments against Stallmans position. Certainly I've seen unrational responses. Most of these are based upon misconceptions on Stallman's position. The rest are usually mixing together ethical arguments with economic arguments, which Stallman has seemed to traditionally avoid. Arguments like "It is ethically wrong because there isn't a business model that supports it," which is obviously an invalid argument.

      Are people still upset about KDE? Is it the copyleft that people feel threatened by? Are employed developers afraid that free software will put them out of work?

      Please oh please, where are these misconceptions coming from?

    • Like the company that patented the use of Prozac for treating PMS for women. Ideas should not be patented, since it's not possible to police thought.
      Why not? It may sound ridiculous to people that are ignorant of the regulatory and business realities, but this company likely had to clinically show, in so many words, that Prozac offered more benefits than risk in the treatment of PMS. Then this same company has to market the idea to doctors around the country, which costs a lot of money too. As absurd as it may sound, it's not just the idea, it's the execution of the idea that you're rewarding that person for. Both the marketing and the clinical costs offer substantial benefit to society and cost money and demand risk taking on the part of the innovator. This risk may not be as great as actually inventing a drug and bringing it to market, but I can easily see it being substantial enough to require a patent.

      For a previous job, I had to research patents and write up a patent application. The instruction from the lawyer was "make it more general than it needs to be." His reasoning is the patent application shouldn't go through the first try. It should take atleast 2 or 3 tries, to make sure the patent is as broad as possible.
      The lawyer likely didn't feel like explaining the reality to you. The reality is that these cases are tried in courts and if you try to make it too specific to what you are doing they often don't hold up well. For instance, there have numerous cases where competitors have done things like adding a third wheel to a two wheel device to effectively render the patent worthless. Now you can argue that the system is flawed till you turn blue in the face, but: a) the system is not as evil as you make it out to be b) this is real life and there are flaws in most things, that doesn't mean we should try to radically overhaul a system that has worked quite well.

  • Music comparison is an interesting one (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @09:01AM (#3240643) Homepage
    Although I didn't see him mention this specifically, I think it's worth pointing out, given his discussion of music and the borrowing of material from other sources. In particular, how borrowing is important culturally.

    One moment I recall quite clearly from my college years is the day in class when the teacher of the survey course in music asked the question "What makes American music American?" This was something I hadn't considered before, and the answer wasn't clear to me until he asked more precisely "Why is the 1812 Overture so distinctly Russian? Why is Appalachian Spring American?" The answer is that both borrow themes from the folk music of each country. The Russians knew that Tchaikovsky was writing Russian music because it had recognizable themes that reminded them that they were Russian. The Shaker melody in Appalachian Spring is something many Americans had heard many times before, when that piece was written. (And even moreso now, as "Spring" is itself a common piece of music to hear performed.)

    So without the ability to borrow ideas and themes and work them into new compositions, music would be a barren landscape.

    One could argue, similarly, that if we impose stronger and stronger restrictions on what we can build into software, then we are resisting the natural cultural synergy that results from algorithms and features being shared among the community members.

    • One could argue, similarly, that if we impose stronger and stronger restrictions on what we can build into software, then we are resisting the natural cultural synergy that results from algorithms and features being shared among the community members.

      Bingo. You get it. This is exactly the idea that Lawrence Lessig argues in "The Future of Ideas". Intellectual commons are a good thing.

  • I recall it said that in lieu of filing for a patent an individual could write his ideas down on paper and mail it to himself. The idea being that the date stamped envelope and it's contents could be used to indicate prior art.

    Another tactic I've heard was to writee up your ideas and bring them to a notary public to have them notarize the document (being sure to stamp each page).

    Perhaps these stories are akin to urban legend. I don't know. But it leads me to wonder what is the best way of recording your work so as to be able to prove prior art. Is publishing your work on SourceForge sufficient? Do you need to have your work recorded in a source control system? Even if you did this will you need to hire a high priced lawyer to prove it?

    • These tatics are urban legend. They don't work well.

      With a good lawyer, such protection is better than nothing, but not much. You have to pay a lawyer, and then you are taking your chance in court. At best you have even odds of proving that you invented something. At worst you pay all the lawyers, and a pentialty for a frivious law suit.

      If you want real protection, get a patent, or publish your work everywhere when you do it. In the former case the law is on your side, in the later you can supenia half the world as witness that your invention was known at the time of the patent (but not nessicarly that you are the inventor, people tend to forget that)

      • With a good lawyer, such protection is better than nothing, but not much. You have to pay a lawyer, and then you are taking your chance in court. At best you have even odds of proving that you invented something.

        Maybe so, but what you have is still nothing like having a patent. You might possibly prove you created the invention, but that's not at all the same thing as patenting it.

        So you're right, it is an urban legend, but you didn't go far enough dissing it.

      • This tactic is just about completely useless for prior art in a patent dispute, but it IS useful to prove something is copyrighted.

        Since you automatically own the copyright on anything you write originally the moment you write it, this method works to prove you are the copyright holder. If you can come up with a dated work with an earlier date than whoever is contesting you, you win. BUT, if you try to go after anyone infringing on your copyright, all the sealed envelope method can get you is for that person to cease using (publishing or whatever) the material and you can go after lost revenue (which is hard to prove and usually is negligable). If you've filed your copyright properly with the government and sent in the necessary stuff to the library of congress and all that nonsense, only then can you be entitled to some substantial monetary damages.

  • The article is /.ed now and I hadn't got to the end so does it say who was there? It doen't matter if RMS preaches to the converted, it only matters if someone with power was listening. In the UK that boils down to: Tony Blair's wife, Alister Campbell, George W Bush, any very rich Person who one of the preceeding likes/works with/wants to work with in the future.

    Anyone that was there fit the bill?

    TWW

  • As the author of this posting notes, the best part *is* RMS' comparison of writing software to writing symphonies. This is because it demonstrates the intellectual dishonesty (the alternative is just plain stupidity which I don't give any credibility to) in which RMS argues his points. ("GNU"/Linux being another classic example.)

    RMS creates a paper tiger and is nearly mauled by it... One does not patent ideas, one patents implementations. He knows this as should you all. The expression of ideas is covered by copyright and, indeed, the creation of a symphony is thus covered and the questions of originality that RMS warns us that a composer would have to be wary of do indeed exist - as copyright violations.

    Patents would cover aspects of the implementation of the idea. For example, the use of a bow run across tight strings to produce sound might be a patent. Stretching animal skin across a hollowed cylinder could be patented. These might limit the choice of instruments a composer would utilize in his production if agreements could not be arrived at but, remarkably, both the composer and the patent holder seem to nearly always find some terms if the invention and idea are truely useful. It would be folly for a composer to consider how to create a 220 hertz tone from a stretched catgut while writing his composition so RMS' comparision is specious at best.

    RMS' apparent confusion does betray his underlying premise, however. That is - his belief that no one should own the fruits of their own labour if they are not tangible. This is to deny the very existence of real property rights by reducing the argument to that of how one can physically control and protect what is his. Societies come into being as a result of the voluntary creation of rules governing how people will deal with each other and conduct trade. Intellectual property is fundamental to the peaceful progress of such societies and, without them, everything does break down to the very concept of "might makes right" that RMS claims to fear now. While the well known problems with the current process of granting patents do hurt the rights of legitimate owners, they are reparable. RMS's efforts, however, attack the very foundation of these rights which, once lost, will not be peacably regained. RMS' folly is his blindness to the fact that the result of his efforts will not be the utopia he seeks, but rather, a condition several orders of magnitude worse than what he decries today.
    • While the well known problems with the current process of granting patents do hurt the rights of legitimate owners, they are reparable.

      How?

      TWW

    • > Intellectual property is fundamental to the peaceful progress of such societies and, without them, everything does break down to the very concept of "might makes right" that RMS claims to fear now.

      And your proof is ... ?

      Methinks you need to read:

      Against IP [danny.oz.au]

      The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights [libertariannation.org]

    • (RMS really doesn't need a defense here. But since pretty much everything said in the parent post was addressed in the talk, I though I might as well use Stallman's words for his defense. Everything here is out of context but I try to preserve the meaning.)

      RMS creates a paper tiger and is nearly mauled by it... One does not patent ideas, one patents implementations. He knows this as should you all. The expression of ideas is covered by copyright and, indeed, the creation of a symphony is thus covered and the questions of originality that RMS warns us that a composer would have to be wary of do indeed exist - as copyright violations.

      RMS: For instance, in 1984 the Compress program was written. At that time there was no patent on the LZW (compression) algorithm, but the LZW patent was pending at the time, and was granted in 1985. Over next few years those who distributed Compress started getting threats. All the Compress programmer did was use an idea he had found in a journal, just like software authors had always done.

      Patents would cover aspects of the implementation of the idea. For example, the use of a bow run across tight strings to produce sound might be a patent. Stretching animal skin across a hollowed cylinder could be patented. These might limit the choice of instruments a composer would utilize in his production if agreements could not be arrived at but, remarkably, both the composer and the patent holder seem to nearly always find some terms if the invention and idea are truely useful. It would be folly for a composer to consider how to create a 220 hertz tone from a stretched catgut while writing his composition so RMS' comparision is specious at best.

      RMS: Most people who tell you about the patent system have a stake in it, and so they want you to like it. But patents are like the lottery because they only rarely bring benefits to people. Lotteries invite you to think about winning, never about losing, and it is the same with the patenting system.

      RMS' apparent confusion does betray his underlying premise, however. That is - his belief that no one should own the fruits of their own labour if they are not tangible. This is to deny the very existence of real property rights by reducing the argument to that of how one can physically control and protect what is his.

      RMS: However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom.

      This oft-overlooked distinction is crucial. Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom.

      Proprietary software is an exercise of power. Copyright law today grants software developers that power, so they and only they choose the rules to impose on everyone else--a relatively few people make the basic software decisions for everyone, typically by denying their freedom. When users lack the freedoms that define Free Software, they can't tell what the software is doing, can't check for back doors, can't monitor possible viruses and worms, can't find out what personal information is being reported (or stop the reports, even if they do find out). If it breaks, they can't fix it; they have to wait for the developer to exercise its power to do so. If it simply isn't quite what they need, they are stuck with it. They can't help each other improve it.

      Intellectual property is fundamental to the peaceful progress of such societies and, without them, everything does break down to the very concept of "might makes right" that RMS claims to fear now.

      RMS: Publishers and lawyers like to describe copyright as ``intellectual property.'' This term carries a hidden assumption---that the most natural way to think about the issue of copying is based on an analogy with physical objects, and our ideas of them as property.

      But this analogy overlooks the crucial difference between material objects and information: information can be copied and shared almost effortlessly, while material objects can't be. Basing your thinking on this analogy is tantamount to ignoring that difference.

      Even the US legal system does not entirely accept this analogy, since it does not treat copyrights just like physical object property rights.

      RMS' folly is his blindness to the fact that the result of his efforts will not be the utopia he seeks, but rather, a condition several orders of magnitude worse than what he decries today.

      Me: ?

      (Okay, so not entirely a successful excercise but interesting nonetheless. I hope some of what RMS is trying to say is seen from this post. You are certainly allowed to disagree with someone but I doubt you can accuse him of "Intellectual dishonesty or any such nonsense.)

    • While the well known problems with the current process of granting patents do hurt the rights of legitimate owners

      Somehow I get the impression that you think that there are no problems in this universe other than ensuring each owner is properly enjoying his rights.

  • Software patents (Score:2, Insightful)

    by saphena ( 322272 )

    If I, sitting in a darkened room with no internet access, design and implement a software solution to a real-world problem I can make money from it because copyright in the program belongs to me. No effort involved, copyright automatically belongs to me.


    If patents are available as "protection" then wealthy corporations and individuals will take advantage of them, most of us won't.


    Pretty soon I won't be able to sit in my darkened room anymore because I will have to conduct exhaustive searches on my ideas just in case somebody, somewhere, has a patent on one of its components.


    Is this really the best environment in which to nurture creativity, innovation, self-reliance, etc? Or is it merely the best environment to enable wealthy corporations to stifle competition and get richer?

  • The second paragraph of the article [zdnet.co.uk], my emphasis:
    Stallman is well known among free software fans as the writer of the GNU Public Licence, the licensing model used by most open-source software writers to ensure that their software remains in the public domain.

    The whole idea of GPL and Copyleft in general is to not put the software in the public domain. Read What Is Copyleft [gnu.org], my emphasis:

    Copyleft is a general method for making a program free software and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free software as well.

    The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the public domain [gnu.org], uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into proprietary software [gnu.org]. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away.

    In the GNU project, our aim is to give all users the freedom to redistribute and change GNU software. If middlemen could strip off the freedom, we might have many users, but those users would not have freedom. So instead of putting GNU software in the public domain, we ``copyleft'' it. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. Copyleft guarantees that every user has freedom. [...]

    It's GNU General Public License, by the way.

  • Resolving grey areas. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by killbill ( 10058 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @09:31AM (#3240826) Homepage
    Patent law, like any law, attempts to resolve grey areas and create social contracts that reach the best balance of competing needs.

    Obviously, trying to patent something like the wheel is silly, and a patent granted for something so obvious is wrong.

    On the other hand, consider something like Olestra (a non fat butter substitute that never really went anywhere). Proctor and Gamble spent tens of millions of dollars trying to make this work, and had a decent product, but by the time they had finished development and gotten past all the government regulatory testing and hurdles, the patent life was down to 5 years or so left. Thats a lot of investment to re-coup in such a short time. After that, it all became public domain, though last I heard P&G was trying to get an extension. Lots of companies took note of this, and I promise it has resulted in lots of products we would all like to have being abandoned for fear of repeating this scenario.

    If someone was trying to patent or copyright a "network communications system" to prevent other people from using networks without paying royalties, that would of course be wrong. On the other side, if a certian Redmond software company took the latest RedHat distribution, ran a sed command s/RedHat/Microsoft/g against, slapped a new label on it that read "windows XP extreme", and started selling it at CompUSA, then Red Hat should have legal recourse to have them stopped.

    The first time I bought a house, when I was going into the process, I thought the mountian of legal documents were an idiot pain in the rear. By the time I was done, I thanked God for every one of them. Arguing that "legal documents are too complicated and too confusing" is like saying "why can't C++ be more readable". It has constraints and requirements for precision that do not easily translate to high readability. It should always be a goal, but you can't sacrifice precision and completeness for "friendlyness". You hire a coder to understand your C++, you hire a lawyer to understand your contracts.

    Last year, an associate came to me with an interesting idea for a very simple but very usefull piece of software. He had the business sense and the capitol, I could code. I threw together a fully functional prototype in a weekend, worked perfectly. It would have been sold to larger hardware companies for free inclusion with products, would have gone for pennies a license, and would have been very usefull (though certianly not revolutionary by any means).

    It would have cost us about $15,000 to develop, market, and release it (much of which was simply the paperwork for setting up the corporation and doing the marketing). We were on track to pull the trigger until our legal counsel managed to scare up a public domain program that was remotely similiar (though never used and out in a completely different context).

    The day we found out, we immediatly dropped all efforts, had a nice dinner, and went on our seperate ways. We had no way to recoup the investment of time and money we would have had to put into it to get it finished and out to the public. Anyone that argues that patents and copyrights do NOT foster innovation is simply wrong (and more then likely on a government payroll). I have had a firsthand experience where lack of patentabilty stopped an otherwise useful project dead in its tracks.

    And before you go flaming, I have written and released open source software. That was my idea, it was interesting to me, and I wanted of my own free will to give back to the community. That model works fine also, but it is not the only viable one.

    Stupid patents are granted, but they don't often stand, and they are not easy to get. Don't make a fool of yourself by being a knee jerk reactionary and making blanket statements like "proprietary software is evil" or "there is no such thing as intellectual property". The laws exist to help manage these grey areas, and they will always be compromises between different needs.

    First, grow beyond just talking about things, and start doing things. Second, grow beyond just doing things, and grow to doing things that get results. Tilting at windmills might make you feel morally superior, but you will never accomplish much and you will be a real bore at parties.

    If this stuff really bothers you, Either develop, improve, and release open source software, or work to improve the more idiotic aspects of the laws that exist or are being proposed. Do something that actually results in an improvement in the situation, don't just bury your head in the sand and keep believing there is no good reason for copyright and patent law. No one will take you seriously.

    Bill

  • Patents on Symphonies (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jea6 ( 117959 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @09:46AM (#3240922)
    I think this analogy is a bit of a stretch. One of the problems with a software patent is that it can broadly cover A BUSINESS PROCESS. Let's say that a composer had been granted a patent for creating symphonies as "A method to glorify God through the use of music." That patent would preclude anybody else (for a set period of time) from glorifying God through the use of music (unless the method could be improved upon). This patent does not necessarily stop Beethoven from glorifying God and it does not prevent him from finding a better way to glorify God (even through music). While ultimately restrictive, even such a broad based example doesn't fully apply to the situation of the 18th century composer.

    You can make an argument that says that protecting a composer who pioneered the glory of God through music is important, maybe patentable. But the REAL issue (in every patent argument I've seen) is that patents are being issued for processes where there is prior art and where the method does not qualify as "not-obvious".

    The real issue for Beethoven (and all other composers) was copyright and royalties. Scores might only be distributed hours before a performance. Otherwise, they would be swindled and the composer could not get paid for his/her music. The strong (but not too strong) protection of copyright is a pillar in the Capitalist develompent of Intellectual Property.
    • You completely missed Stallman's point. He wasn't talking about patenting music or patenting processes that use music as part of the process. He was talking about patenting the techniques that are used to actually create music.

      Composers don't just create their compositions out of whole cloth. They borrow techniques and ideas from other composers.

      There are many many aspects of a musical composition that are are regularly used by all composers. For example, what if somebody had patented syncopation? Other composers would not be able to use that technique in their pieces. What if somebody had patented the concept of the chorus? What if somebody had patented the guitar riff? The whole punk rock thing would have never happened. What if somebody patented the drum solo? No more drum solos at rock concerts. Actually, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, but you get the idea.

  • Australian Patents Study? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Skevos Mavros ( 460902 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @10:40AM (#3241280) Homepage

    In his talk, Stallman says:

    There was an Australian government study of the patent system in the 80s and this decided that aside from the fact of international pressure there was no reason to have the system.

    And I thought to myself "Wow! My home country has a progressive attitude to patents, even back in the eighties! Good for us!". So I went looking for that study and instead I found this PDF [arc.gov.au] (here [google.com] is the Google HTMLised version) of a press release from the Australian Government announcing a more recent (1999-2000) nine-month study into patents, competitiveness, and the "new economy" entitled Inventing Our Future: The link between Australian patenting and basic science. The press release says, in part, that the study found:

    The number of Australian-invented US patents in high-tech industries such as biotechnology and pharmaceuticals is growing faster than the world average.

    This is a good thing in itself or as an indicator of activity in those sectors? And also:

    The report, however, shows that Australia is below the world average in the overall number of patents as a proportion of GDP. Australia must increase its patenting activity by 70% to be at world average level.

    This seems to imply that a higher number of patents as a proportion of GDP is a good thing. Is comparing the number of patents in relation to the GDP really a recognised measure of... something? :-)

    Here's [arc.gov.au] the PDF of the actual 1999-2000 report, which I have not yet read. Does anyone have a link to the 1980's Australian report into patents that Stallman refers to? It would be interesting to compare them.

    Thanks in advance.

  • Knuth quote (Score:3, Interesting)

    by michael_cain ( 66650 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @10:51AM (#3241352) Journal

    In the recent All Questions Answered [slashdot.org] article, Knuth says

    I 'm against patents on things that any student should be expected to discover.
    I'd take that a step farther, and say that I'm against patents on things that any competent developer should be expected to discover. I'd like to see a much greater burden of proof put on patent filers to show non-obviousness, beyond the current requirement that appears to be "no one has filed a patent on that yet."

  • I don't think that RMS's point about promotion of progress can be emphasized enough.

    One of the main goals in disclosing patentable ideas is to promote progress. The original intention was that you'd see something patented, and since the problem was solved, you'd go on to work on something bigger and better. That you'd be able to use the patent to help solve problems, because paying a license fee was much easier than developing your own solution.

    However, the software patents I've seen or heard about seem to fall into one of two categories:

    1) Blatently obvious. Any resonably skilled practitioner of the art would have found a similar solution to the same problem. How does this advance the state of the art?

    2) Unusuably obtuse. I have tried reading though the legalese in some of the patents before, and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. At any rate, if the public (or even practitioners of the art) can't understand what the patent's about, how does that advance the state of the art?

    There are a few gems in there. Actually, I think most of the patents around public key crypto are indeed novel, and perhaps patent-worthy. At any rate, since software patents don't seem to advance the state of the art (at least in most instances), they shouldn't be allowed.

  • Originally, patents were used to allow inventors to share their non-obvious discoveries with others. Imagine, say, the airplane. Many people tried to make a flying machine, and failed. Now the Wright brothers succeeded. People all over would be asking them "Wow, how did you do that?". Without patents, they would have to answer "We can't tell you, because then you'd take profits away from us". Patents would allow them to share their discovery with the world, while controlling the use of the new technology for a specified amount of time.

    The way software patents are used, on the other hand, is different. Once some idea spreads openly (e.g Lempel and Ziv's compression algorithm), anybody (or at least hundreds of good programmers around the world) can implement it on their own. There are no real secrets that people would be shaking their heads about saying "how did they do that?". None of the software patents that I know of ever gave the companies making them any incentive to publish the code they patented.

    Summary: patents were meant to promote sharing of information and research. I don't see software patents doing that. Ergo, software patents suck.

  • The Future of Ideas (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ftobin ( 48814 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @12:15PM (#3241926) Homepage

    If you want to read a great book on the topic of copyrights and patents, you must read "The Future of Ideas" by Lawrence Lessig. In it he explains how the current battles are not a Left vs. Right issue, but a New vs. Old issue.

    The book is filled with good arguments and strong references. He argues that patents are only one tool in the aresenal of the old that are being used to protect the dinosaurs and destroy the freedom of the end-to-end Internet.

    It is key to remember that when deciding whether or not we should have patents, the question we need to ask is "do we as a society benefit from patents." I argue that patents for software, especially as they currently are, have no practical benefit for society. Society is supposed to benefit from patents by studying the disclosure of the design, but noone does this because they are not written legibly. Furthermore, the lifetime of patents greatly exceeds the lifetime of software, so by the time the patent clears, society gains little from it. Also, software patents that are also protected by copyright is ridiculous.

    Society gains most in a fast-growing sector by having a large commons of ideas to pull from. It is from this commons that innovators are able to flourish.

    The Internet is the greatest proof that patents are not the solution. Only because there was a lot of freedom to innovate, unencumbered by patents, were researchers able to develop one of the most freedom-promoting tools for society.

  • Solution to patent abuse (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stormalong ( 36874 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @01:02PM (#3242294)
    I've been tossing this idea around for a while, and I think it works.

    Solution: The length of patent protection is equal to the amount of time it took to develop.

    So, if you spend 10 years perfecting some technology, you get a 10 year patent. If it took you 5 minutes (ie 1-click shopping), you get a 5 minute patent.

    Of course, you have to PROVE how long it took you to develop it. Some type of verifiable documentation should do it. Anyone seriously interested in getting a patent for something should have no problem keeping accurate documentation. The patent period starts from the date of first sale. If someone else sells the same technology before you do, no patent (prior art). This will prevent people from artifically extending the development period to get a longer patent.

    Note all the benefits. Software patents will pretty much disappear, since it doesn't take THAT long to create it. And it seems fair. If you spend a year developing a piece of software, odds are after about it year it will be pretty much obselete anyways.

    Will they ever implement this policy? Of course not. It goes in the bucket with all the other reasonable patent-reform ideas. *sigh*

  • Patents should include source code (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cyberformer ( 257332 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @04:32PM (#3244037)
    A patent is a temporary monopoly on a process granted in exhcange for a description of how it works. This means that software patents ought to include source code for whatever program is being patented, and pass into the public domain after 20 years (or however long the patent is valid).

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