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The "disclosure" argument would hold more water if people actually read software patents, or went out of their way to license patents from other companies. But

by jcl 17y ago

The "disclosure" argument would hold more water if people actually read software patents, or went out of their way to license patents from other companies. But it seems to me that the vast majority of software patent cases are ones where the infringing company has either come up with the invention independently or imitated the external behavior of something else. In which case, the disclosure aspect of software patents is practically worthless. The article argues that we wouldn't know how Google works without patents, but the truth is that those Google patents alone don't get you Google performance -- most of their system is protected not by patents but trade secrets. And this has not stopped Yahoo, Bing, or others from coming up with viable search engines.

justinsb 17y ago
But people do read the papers, and I'd argue that the papers are only published because the patent has been filed. I'm willing to bet that 80% of the hackers here have read the MapReduce paper (and for anyone that hasn't, you should!), but I agree I'd be surprised if people have read the patent. Independent invention is a problem, and that's why there's a non-obviousness test for patentability. Of course, that's a very tricky thing to implement in the real world. So what you're really arguing is a higher standard of non-obviousness; I hope you'll be submitting that proposal to the USPTO. I'd actually argue that Google's performance _does_ come from MapReduce. The trade secrets (that we know of) are around their customized hardware and the weighting factors in their algorithm, but I'd argue that makes a relatively small difference compared to Google's big idea, which was figuring out how to harness together lots of cheap computers, rather than investing in making each computer more efficient (e.g. Altavista, whose original raison-d'etre was to demonstrate how the DEC Alpha computer was powerful enough to support searching the whole Internet of the day)
- kiba 17y ago
  It would seem to me that I cannot use the described algorithm and put it to work without landing in possible legal troubles. These patents may actually slow down technological development rather than increase the pace. We get the fringe benefit of knowing something for real but we are unable to put it to work. In the world where open source hardware companies like Makerbot Industries are coming into existence and that the phrase "the atoms becoming the new bit" is becoming more true everyday, this is a worrying obstacle in technological progress. People cannot voluntary share and benefit from each other without a fear of patent holder infringing on their ability to do so, no matter how innovative he might be. The patent system is incompatible with certain business models that relies on the openness of their product, and a whole path of technological development. This is the price we pay for assuming that people won't share information about algorithms and other useful knowledge. The only question is, will the positive black swans of the patent world will truly outweigh all the lost potential of the open source paradigm? Just remember, positive black swan in the open source world can happen too!(Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and more)

by jcl 17y ago

justinsb 17y ago

But people do read the papers, and I'd argue that the papers are only published because the patent has been filed. I'm willing to bet that 80% of the hackers here have read the MapReduce paper (and for anyone that hasn't, you should!), but I agree I'd be surprised if people have read the patent. Independent invention is a problem, and that's why there's a non-obviousness test for patentability. Of course, that's a very tricky thing to implement in the real world. So what you're really arguing is a higher standard of non-obviousness; I hope you'll be submitting that proposal to the USPTO. I'd actually argue that Google's performance _does_ come from MapReduce. The trade secrets (that we know of) are around their customized hardware and the weighting factors in their algorithm, but I'd argue that makes a relatively small difference compared to Google's big idea, which was figuring out how to harness together lots of cheap computers, rather than investing in making each computer more efficient (e.g. Altavista, whose original raison-d'etre was to demonstrate how the DEC Alpha computer was powerful enough to support searching the whole Internet of the day)

kiba 17y ago
It would seem to me that I cannot use the described algorithm and put it to work without landing in possible legal troubles. These patents may actually slow down technological development rather than increase the pace. We get the fringe benefit of knowing something for real but we are unable to put it to work. In the world where open source hardware companies like Makerbot Industries are coming into existence and that the phrase "the atoms becoming the new bit" is becoming more true everyday, this is a worrying obstacle in technological progress. People cannot voluntary share and benefit from each other without a fear of patent holder infringing on their ability to do so, no matter how innovative he might be. The patent system is incompatible with certain business models that relies on the openness of their product, and a whole path of technological development. This is the price we pay for assuming that people won't share information about algorithms and other useful knowledge. The only question is, will the positive black swans of the patent world will truly outweigh all the lost potential of the open source paradigm? Just remember, positive black swan in the open source world can happen too!(Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and more)