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Well, if you have years of effort put into something which can be copied easily, as is the case with mechanical inventions, drugs, or cryptography/compression a
by jbooth 16y ago
Well, if you have years of effort put into something which can be copied easily, as is the case with mechanical inventions, drugs, or cryptography/compression algos (yes I think those actually make sense as patentable), that's one thing. Most software is the opposite -- copying it and applying to your business would often be more effort than inventing your own. So the patent system is exactly backwards for us.
- DennisP 16y agoBruce Schneier has written that patents are useless for cryptography. You can't trust an algorithm until a lot of cryptographers have beaten on it, and they don't bother with patented algorithms. Patenting your algorithm just dooms it to obscurity.