4 ms·

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for openness and transparency. But I do believe there needs to be some level of legal rights protection, and that it's a pretty fund

by cloudkj 17y ago

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for openness and transparency. But I do believe there needs to be some level of legal rights protection, and that it's a pretty fundamental pillar of our capitalist system. Out of curiosity, what do you (and others) think of a patent for something like Google's PageRank?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
cookiecaper 17y ago
I think it's bad, because the patent wouldn't read "Google's PageRank". It would read "A system that ranks cataloged pages by their relevance to a certain search term", which would mean every other search engine would have to license Google's tech. Copyright already covers specific implementations. That's as far as it needs to go in software.
- kelnos 17y ago
  Well, not really. They'd only have to license it from Google if they implemented their search engine in a manner covered by Google's hypothetical patent. Of course, apparently Google feels they have more to gain by keeping their algorithm secret than by patenting it.
  - cookiecaper 17y ago
    Well, look at some software patents. The kind of scope and specificity in "a system that ranks cataloged pages..." is about par for the course. Look at the patent that caused the injunction against Word ( http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=y8UkAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=y8UkAAAAEBAJ ); it's rather vague and basically includes anything that uses or modifies XML to create a product for end-user consumption. The enforcement depends on the judge and the parties to the suit, but it's got a really, really broad potential scope. It's not unique; most software patents are that way. You think that's a good thing?
dantheman 17y ago
What right? Copyrights & Patents are not natural in a free market; they're government creations. Remember patents and copyright only exist to encourage people to produce, not because you're entitled to profit from it. As of right now there is very little in the way of evidence that patents in anyway contribute to encouraging people to produce. Most small companies don't even bother patenting ideas because they don't have the time or the money to.
- billybob 17y ago
  This is a VERY important point: copyright (and other IP) exists to benefit the PUBLIC by promoting the creation of new works. Granting temporary monopolies is a means to that end. From the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." So: some people may create software, incentivized partly by the prospect of patenting it. Other people will be unable to create or sell software, because of those same patents. The question is, which factor is larger? If software patents are decreasing the amount of good software being produced for the public benefit, then the public no longer has a reason to grant them. Has that point been reached? Many say yes. And the same logic may apply to other areas of IP.
- ghshephard 17y ago
  "As of right now there is very little in the way of evidence that patents in anyway contribute to encouraging people to produce." There are untold exception to this - It's important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Drug Patents, in particular, are incredibly important. Large Pharmaceuticals spent decades and billions of dollars on developing, trialing, and getting their new drugs approved. Why on earth would they have any incentive to do that if, once it was approved, they didn't have a temporary monopoly on it? Remember - Patents are good for only a short period of time, under twenty years in most countries, and after that it's a free for all - anyone can use the process's and systems that were shared and documented. With all that said - 90% of the software patents really are nothing more than crap - usually consisting of an engineer having an idea that most of their "skilled and educated in the arts" peers could have come up with in less than a week's worth of work and discussion. Public-Key cryptography class patents are few and far between.
jacquesm 17y ago
It would in all likelihood simply be called what it is, a citation based ranking algorithm applied to web pages. The implementation of that algorithm would be googles trade secret but you or anybody else would be free to come up with their own implementation. Technically speaking google has patented a number with this (the number required to program a universal Turing machine to exhibit the behavior the algorithm describes). I don't think they should be able to do that. The fact that microsoft is now prohibited from selling their flagship software means that some people might wake up to the downside, the one that smaller parties have been aware of for a much longer time. Of course this will most likely simply end with MS buying up the party that sues or some cross license deal but the better outcome would be a total abolishing of software patents. They're a plague and a brake on progress.
chaostheory 17y ago
"But I do believe there needs to be some level of legal rights protection" It's called copyright. Before software patent wars we had software copyright fights The way things are going we might as well put cooking recipes under patent protection
greendestiny 17y ago
I'm not sure how PageRank always get brought up as the quintessential fair patent. Google most certainly didn't invent the eigenvector of stochastic matrices (and if they did it wouldn't be patentable). The part of PageRank that's patentable seems mostly to be using hyperlinks as an input into known techniques. I don't think its obvious, but I don't think its a clear cut example of something that should be patentable either.
steveklabnik 17y ago
As I said above, I'm against all IP. And PageRank is a trade secret, not IP. There's a reason that Coke hasn't gotten a patent on their forumla, no?
- jazzdev 17y ago
  The formula for Coke is a recipe and recipes aren't copyrightable (in the USA) unless "accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions". See http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#recipe http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#recipe

by cloudkj 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

cookiecaper 17y ago

I think it's bad, because the patent wouldn't read "Google's PageRank". It would read "A system that ranks cataloged pages by their relevance to a certain search term", which would mean every other search engine would have to license Google's tech. Copyright already covers specific implementations. That's as far as it needs to go in software.

kelnos 17y ago
Well, not really. They'd only have to license it from Google if they implemented their search engine in a manner covered by Google's hypothetical patent. Of course, apparently Google feels they have more to gain by keeping their algorithm secret than by patenting it.
- cookiecaper 17y ago
  Well, look at some software patents. The kind of scope and specificity in "a system that ranks cataloged pages..." is about par for the course. Look at the patent that caused the injunction against Word ( http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=y8UkAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=y8UkAAAAEBAJ ); it's rather vague and basically includes anything that uses or modifies XML to create a product for end-user consumption. The enforcement depends on the judge and the parties to the suit, but it's got a really, really broad potential scope. It's not unique; most software patents are that way. You think that's a good thing?

dantheman 17y ago

What right? Copyrights & Patents are not natural in a free market; they're government creations. Remember patents and copyright only exist to encourage people to produce, not because you're entitled to profit from it. As of right now there is very little in the way of evidence that patents in anyway contribute to encouraging people to produce. Most small companies don't even bother patenting ideas because they don't have the time or the money to.

billybob 17y ago
This is a VERY important point: copyright (and other IP) exists to benefit the PUBLIC by promoting the creation of new works. Granting temporary monopolies is a means to that end. From the Constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." So: some people may create software, incentivized partly by the prospect of patenting it. Other people will be unable to create or sell software, because of those same patents. The question is, which factor is larger? If software patents are decreasing the amount of good software being produced for the public benefit, then the public no longer has a reason to grant them. Has that point been reached? Many say yes. And the same logic may apply to other areas of IP.
ghshephard 17y ago
"As of right now there is very little in the way of evidence that patents in anyway contribute to encouraging people to produce." There are untold exception to this - It's important not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Drug Patents, in particular, are incredibly important. Large Pharmaceuticals spent decades and billions of dollars on developing, trialing, and getting their new drugs approved. Why on earth would they have any incentive to do that if, once it was approved, they didn't have a temporary monopoly on it? Remember - Patents are good for only a short period of time, under twenty years in most countries, and after that it's a free for all - anyone can use the process's and systems that were shared and documented. With all that said - 90% of the software patents really are nothing more than crap - usually consisting of an engineer having an idea that most of their "skilled and educated in the arts" peers could have come up with in less than a week's worth of work and discussion. Public-Key cryptography class patents are few and far between.

jacquesm 17y ago

It would in all likelihood simply be called what it is, a citation based ranking algorithm applied to web pages. The implementation of that algorithm would be googles trade secret but you or anybody else would be free to come up with their own implementation. Technically speaking google has patented a number with this (the number required to program a universal Turing machine to exhibit the behavior the algorithm describes). I don't think they should be able to do that. The fact that microsoft is now prohibited from selling their flagship software means that some people might wake up to the downside, the one that smaller parties have been aware of for a much longer time. Of course this will most likely simply end with MS buying up the party that sues or some cross license deal but the better outcome would be a total abolishing of software patents. They're a plague and a brake on progress.

chaostheory 17y ago

"But I do believe there needs to be some level of legal rights protection" It's called copyright. Before software patent wars we had software copyright fights The way things are going we might as well put cooking recipes under patent protection

greendestiny 17y ago

I'm not sure how PageRank always get brought up as the quintessential fair patent. Google most certainly didn't invent the eigenvector of stochastic matrices (and if they did it wouldn't be patentable). The part of PageRank that's patentable seems mostly to be using hyperlinks as an input into known techniques. I don't think its obvious, but I don't think its a clear cut example of something that should be patentable either.

steveklabnik 17y ago

As I said above, I'm against all IP. And PageRank is a trade secret, not IP. There's a reason that Coke hasn't gotten a patent on their forumla, no?

jazzdev 17y ago
The formula for Coke is a recipe and recipes aren't copyrightable (in the USA) unless "accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions". See http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#recipe http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#recipe