14 ms·

This is a striking example of the need to shorten software patents; if we really must have them at all.

• digi_owl 9y ago
  Software patents are really an aberration crafted by decades of questionable court rulings. As best i recall they started out as production process patents that involved computers to monitor and time. Before that, specific instances of code were protected by copyright. And is what allowed Compaq to produce one of the first proper clean room IBM PC clones (because they could defend in court that they had not copied any of the IBM BIOS code), and thus leading to where we sit today.
• pitaj 9y ago
  I'd rather the patent system be abolished than have the current patent system. Same applies to Copyright. The entire state of IP with the DMCA is just abysmal.
  • jacquesm 9y ago
    Be careful, you just might get what you wish for. There definitely are major problems with the patent system and with copyright but without them there would be other problems taking the place of the ones that we have now. Reform is the way to go, and reform - good reform anyway - is hard to get right.
    • eikenberry 9y ago
      Reform would be best, but Abolishing them would be better than the status quo.
      • jacquesm 9y ago
        Reform is also achievable, abolishing not really.
      • ythn 9y ago
        Wouldn't abolishing them create an out of control copycat shovelware economy worse than the app stores? I mean, if you can blatantly rip off other people's IP
        • phkahler 9y ago
          The ripoffs would have to compete. Some would compete on price, which might benefit the public by making things more available. Others might compete on quality, which might benefit the public by having alternatives to the cheapest crap someone can produce. Neither of those things happen automatically with patents.
          • userbinator 9y ago
            The ripoffs would have to compete. ...which of course means that they have to do something more than just copy IP --- in other words, make some sort of improvement. I'd argue that this sort of unrestricted sharing and competition will benefit the public more than the restricted form of competition that IP laws bring, because now everyone is free to remix and improve. In fact, that sort of thing has been going on in China for a long time now: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284
            • phkahler 9y ago
              That was my point, without patents they compete on price or quality. With patents there is no incentive for the sole provider of a product to improve it in either way.
    • yarg 9y ago
      I don't think reform's actually that hard - with unbiased intentions (whose lobbyist is that?). To be honest, it would be hard to fuck things up any worse than they already are. Technically competent people (in the field of the patent) should be performing the reviews, they should be given the time that they need to do so. I believe there is a shared commercial justification for both patents and copyright: protection against your work being co-opted as soon as it's produced provides a period in which production costs can be recuperated and profits made. This is a significant motivating factor in the production of works. I do not believe that the law currently provides adequate coverage against the production of similar works. Look at the situation with Facebook or Blizzard (WOW), rapidly copying novel new features from smaller competitors to prevent them from ever getting any hold in the market. Or with Zynga, et al wholescale copying games with total impunity. (If a period of even 3 years protection was provided for simple yet novel mechanics, there would be a far greater potential for successful titles from non-major development houses.) I would put protection for all forms of work under a single unifying law. The period of coverage should given consideration to the quality and the novelty of the work in question, and provide the justification behind the decision (if this justification is proven to be unreasonable or incorrect the protection should be voided). Exemptions must be provided for breaches demonstrably in the public good.
      • cuchoi 9y ago
        But doing all this is hard. Saying "with unbiased intentions", "given the time that they need to do so", and others is like assuming a spherical cow.
    • Zigurd 9y ago
      Is there any evidence that claims of innovation and creativity shutting down without patent and copyright protection are, in fact, correct? It seems like the purpose of these supposed protections is bent so far out of share that the threat of "getting what you wish for" carries no weight. Some media might shrink, but other media would grow to take it's place. Neither patent now copyright "ownership" are natural rights like real property ownership. In both philosophical and practical terms, dialing them down to zero and then seeing how much we really need of them might be the best way to find the optimal level.
      • jacquesm 9y ago
        Realize that for instance the GPL is based in ... tadaa ... copyright. And there are a lot more examples like that. If you start throwing rocks that large you have to be very careful about unintended consequences and I'm not sure that I oversee the complexity of it all to the point that I think that a 'let's get rid of it all' solution won't create it's own particular kinds of problems and until we have feel for the kind and magnitude of those problems being careful sounds like a good idea to me. For copyright I would propose slowly rolling back the length bit by bit until we hit some kind of lower limit of practicality, for patents I would start with abolishing software patents and replacing them with copyright, then reduce the time limit on the remainder. And there would have to be something a bit more drastic with respect to patent trolls. It would be a reasonable start and it leaves the door open to eventual total abolishment if that turns out to be feasible and desirable.
        • Zigurd 9y ago
          "If you start throwing rocks that large" is a terrible argument. It is the same as arguments about keeping treatments for which there is no clinical evidence just because money, reputation, and public morality might at stake in varying degrees. If overreach in patent and copyright law is a drag on the economy, which it very likely is, it's costing not just freedom, but it amounts to the theft of wider prosperity for the benefit of the connected. Just how much worse than that do you think what are here completely vague and unspecified "unintended consequence" going to get? Be specific.
    • e12e 9y ago
      > other problems taking the place of the ones that we have now. Such as? I know I've benefited immensely from works out of copyright, and works in Copyleft etc. I've bought no books because of copyright - but some under open licenses (not many to chose from though...). I'm not clear on how hw patents have played out in my life - I'd love to see some numbers indicating a net benefit for the world population from copyright and patents. Especially considering systematic subversion seems as old as enforcement (from bootleg music to cloned hw).
  • Spooky23 9y ago
    -
    • pitaj 9y ago
      I'm having a hard time figuring out how that's relevant.
      • Dylan16807 9y ago
        Conflating the copyright parts of the DMCA with the non-copyright parts for some reason?
        • dragonwriter 9y ago
          No, the DMCA safe harbor is copyright-specific; the upthread comment is conflating the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (specifically, § 230) with the DMCA, not conflating copyright and non-copyright provisions of the DMCA.
      • Spooky23 9y ago
        For good reason - a made a factual error. Too late to delete. I will email a mod to do so when I get home
  • davidp 9y ago
    Copyright is the foundation of all FLOSS licenses, from GPL to MIT. You might know that already, but that's a sharp double-edged sword you're swinging.
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      Without copyright, you don't need a license for content to be Free. There may be another edge to the sword, but it ain't the one you are pointing at.
      • davidp 9y ago
        With the GPL at least, its major clauses are aimed at restricting software from being incorporated into closed systems. I don't know if eliminating that control was what the GP had in mind, but it would be one of the perhaps-unexpected effects. See also: Licenses that prohibit use for military purposes or other things the authors consider undesirable.
        • userbinator 9y ago
          Without copyright there wouldn't really be "closed systems" any more --- sure, you might not have the original source, but it also becomes legal to decompile and publish the results --- and as the cracker/hacker/security community has shown, source isn't mandatory for doing interesting things with software. If anything, the loss of copyright would cause a great advance in reverse-engineering technology --- and also attempts at defending from it. IMHO not such a bad thing after all.
      • hmm_really 9y ago
        Thats simply wrong, educate yourself young man!
    • dredmorbius 9y ago
      Flipside: copyright is a human construct. So is the GPL and concept of copyleft. It is possible to eliminate one thing (say, overbearing copyright) and protect another. Rather than creating a class of works under license which cannot be constrained, it might be possible to create a set of works under law which may be designated with equivalent protections. Or find other means to the same ends as the GPL: protecting the three freedoms laid out by RMS.
  • cornholio 9y ago
    There is a fundamental difference between copyright and patents: the field of content creators if infinite and no works will ever by identical, writing a great symphony or game does not prevent anybody in the future do write another; in stark contrast inventors deal with the limitations of the real world, with physics and technology, there are a limited number of good solutions to a given problem and a patent on an obvious and straightforward solution is a major hindrance to everybody else. Further more, copyright is self funded, it's an ideal public policy choice if we want to promote positive externalities: the creator takes all the risk and costs of production, and monetizes his work on the free market, where it's bought only if it's any good, or ignored otherwise with no ill effect on anybody else. Someone else can freely create a cheaper work fulfilling the same human need, ensuring perfect competition. Patents are not self funded, inventors are not required to put the invention to work and demonstrate it in the market, rather, the patent is issued by merely presenting a description of the invention to the government, without proving any investment or development effort. If such patents with zero creative investment are issued, they are a major negative externality to everybody working in the same field, who now have to work around or pay rent for a solution that would be obvious or result after basic R&D activities. In effect, the combined rent they extract from society is a tax that funds "inventors" to "disclose" more and more such ideas of limited value that block technological progress. I do agree copyright terms are absurdly long, way past the point where there is zero practical benefit for society: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16361159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16361159
    • pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      >and a patent on an obvious and straightforward solution is a major hindrance to everybody else.// Which is why every patent act has the requirements of novelty and non-obviousness.
      • cornholio 9y ago
        ...that's almost always irrelevant in practice, and courts have upheld an a very low inovation bar. The root problem is that development effort has little relation to the licensing price, the licensing fee is often a monopoly rent.