Why Patent Reform Won't Happen Anytime Soon 110
jfruhlinger writes "'If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.' So said Bill Gates in the 1980s. Now, of course, Microsoft is one of the biggest software patent holders around. And that's the key to the problem of software patent reform: the companies that had the most incentive to face the problem found it cheaper and easier to buy up patent war chests instead. And Congress won't act unless big stakeholders (read: big companies) make a stink."
Re:A patent "reform" bill is almost passed (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah sorry to the people who have to see it again .. I reckon it's relevant twice. Since this bill needs to be zapped - thought there is virtually no chance of it. There's very little awareness about it.
The next hope is the Supreme Court which if properly educated should throw out the First To File nonsense which is clearly unconstitutional.
Re:A patent "reform" bill is almost passed (Score:4, Insightful)
Holy shit, people already tore your post to shreds the last time you posted it [slashdot.org] on account of you being wrong on numerous points. And you're repeating most of those wrong points in this thread, too. Why are you still here?
Why any reform won't happen anytime soon (Score:4, Insightful)
During the Bush/Kerry election, there were plenty of people willing to glumly tell you that preexisting conditions would never ever ever ever be covered in the US because the health insurance industry wouldn't allow it, and a million other reasons. They were wrong. The health care reform that we got wasn't anyone's dream come true, one could argue that the health industry got a better deal out of it than they should, but pre-existing conditions are going to be covered. With patent reform, we should, like with healthcare reform, not expect to get a perfect solution out of it, as those don't actually exist when talking about something as complicated as that. Compromise is an inevitable part of politics.
Even earlier, there were people who said that the soviet union would never fall. Before that, people swore we'd never walk on the moon. Before that, everyone was just positive that man would never fly because there was gravity. And a while before that, there were posts on ITworld.com about how slavery was far too important to the economy of the south and it would never be abolished ever.
I don't see much point in predicting something is not going to happen for a very long time just because businesses may not want it to. Now if he had a crystal ball prediction, that would lend slightly more credibility to it...