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Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. And there you have why your situation is no different. Software is a dish, we are chefs, and techniques a

Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. And there you have why your situation is no different. Software is a dish, we are chefs, and techniques are our recipes and principles. You should no sooner be able to patent a chicken casserole than a baseband. We merely discover what is already true and turn it into code.

chris_va 11y ago
> Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. Maybe they would, but they didn't. The point of the patent system is to incentivize people to publish their inventions. The secondary purpose is to encourage invention. Giving a temporary monopoly is not the greatest solution, but try coming up with a better one.
- cmdrfred 11y ago
  > Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. What is missed here is they might of come up with a better solution, but due to the risk of a lawsuit they never even try.
  - sgt101 11y ago
    I don't follow this - why would anyone get sued for trying to come up with a different solution?
    - thawkins 11y ago
      Because they may contravene, a vague overly broad software patent, that effectually locks up ideas, not implementations.
    - justinclift 11y ago
      Because the current way patents in the US are viewed, is as ammunition to attack competitors (and potential competitors). :(
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Open Source software largely handles what patents are intended to do. If someone makes some cool software, then someone else works out how that works. Then they develop code, which they publish under an open license. Then others contribute to it, or if that doesn't work then they fork the code and thus innovation AND publication occurs. And as software gets more complex, you need to support it and build new features. That happens all the time without the aid of patents. In fact, when a patent is made, then sure its patented but so what? It can't be used for decades, and so only one party benefits and the idea that is beneficial to society stagnates. This is not a zero sum game here. If you patent a medicine for 10 years, then people like Martin Shkreli come along and jack up the price of their product, nobody is allowed to offer cheaper medicine and literally millions die. Or you have a situation where a non-lethal arrow is patented, someone independently comes up with the same idea, documents it and sells it, does to want to patent it and then gets sued to an inch of their life. Then you have an independently document invention, and no innovation. The argument doesn't stack up.
  - mamon 11y ago
    Open Source accomplish exactly the opposite of what patents are for: instead of encouraging innovation by providing financial incentive (from temporary monopoly on selling said innovation) it discourages it because it basically ensures that you'll never make any money on your invention. Maybe I'm missing something but there aren't many examples of truly innovative open source software - most of OSS projects even describe themselves as "Open Source alternative to [insert innovative commercial product here]"
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Email isn't patented, not it the web, nor is TCP/IP, nor is any one of dozens of non-patented inventions you use on a daily basis. If TCP/IP was patented, do you think you'd see the Internet as we know it today? Would NetFlix, or Wikipedia or even Google would exist in the form it is now? I don't think so. edit: removed the "that's ridiculous" comment. I'm sorry, you aren't ridiculous, nor is your comment. That showed you a great deal of disrespect, and I was out of line. I hope you can accept this apology. My disagreement with your argument should never have led to disrespectful comments. (I just hit the up vote arrow) I think some of my other comments have this language in them. That's unfortunate, it's just this is just the first one I noticed.

chris_va 11y ago

> Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. Maybe they would, but they didn't. The point of the patent system is to incentivize people to publish their inventions. The secondary purpose is to encourage invention. Giving a temporary monopoly is not the greatest solution, but try coming up with a better one.

cmdrfred 11y ago
> Bet my team of PhDs would come to the same solution. What is missed here is they might of come up with a better solution, but due to the risk of a lawsuit they never even try.
- sgt101 11y ago
  I don't follow this - why would anyone get sued for trying to come up with a different solution?
  - thawkins 11y ago
    Because they may contravene, a vague overly broad software patent, that effectually locks up ideas, not implementations.
  - justinclift 11y ago
    Because the current way patents in the US are viewed, is as ammunition to attack competitors (and potential competitors). :(
chris_wot 11y ago
Open Source software largely handles what patents are intended to do. If someone makes some cool software, then someone else works out how that works. Then they develop code, which they publish under an open license. Then others contribute to it, or if that doesn't work then they fork the code and thus innovation AND publication occurs. And as software gets more complex, you need to support it and build new features. That happens all the time without the aid of patents. In fact, when a patent is made, then sure its patented but so what? It can't be used for decades, and so only one party benefits and the idea that is beneficial to society stagnates. This is not a zero sum game here. If you patent a medicine for 10 years, then people like Martin Shkreli come along and jack up the price of their product, nobody is allowed to offer cheaper medicine and literally millions die. Or you have a situation where a non-lethal arrow is patented, someone independently comes up with the same idea, documents it and sells it, does to want to patent it and then gets sued to an inch of their life. Then you have an independently document invention, and no innovation. The argument doesn't stack up.
- mamon 11y ago
  Open Source accomplish exactly the opposite of what patents are for: instead of encouraging innovation by providing financial incentive (from temporary monopoly on selling said innovation) it discourages it because it basically ensures that you'll never make any money on your invention. Maybe I'm missing something but there aren't many examples of truly innovative open source software - most of OSS projects even describe themselves as "Open Source alternative to [insert innovative commercial product here]"
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Email isn't patented, not it the web, nor is TCP/IP, nor is any one of dozens of non-patented inventions you use on a daily basis. If TCP/IP was patented, do you think you'd see the Internet as we know it today? Would NetFlix, or Wikipedia or even Google would exist in the form it is now? I don't think so. edit: removed the "that's ridiculous" comment. I'm sorry, you aren't ridiculous, nor is your comment. That showed you a great deal of disrespect, and I was out of line. I hope you can accept this apology. My disagreement with your argument should never have led to disrespectful comments. (I just hit the up vote arrow) I think some of my other comments have this language in them. That's unfortunate, it's just this is just the first one I noticed.