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My current analysis led me to the following current (!) conclusion. A lot of "software" patents are invalid, because they are no real invention in it. They are
by chmike 16y ago
My current analysis led me to the following current (!) conclusion.
A lot of "software" patents are invalid, because they are no real invention in it. They are nothing more than an idea ownership claim. They are never put in application in any business. Their purpose is to be land mines, hoping for a big $ company to accidentally step on it.
On the other side there are patents describing really innovative procedures and software technology requiring a significant investment to be applied in an industrial process. The investors would logically want to secure their investment until break even.
If you feel yourself in the second group, patenting is still questionable. By blocking competition, one is cutting out the possibility to benefit from it. A good example is Groupon. A german company copied the unpatented idea and developped it Germany. They had the skill, they got the market by leveraging the cultural advantage they had regarding german marketing. 9 month later Groupon bought them 50M€. Groupon bought a proven team and market without initial investment and risk. It is a win win transaction. If Goupon had pattented their idea, they wouldn't get this.
- cletus 16y agoFirstly, by the time Groupon got the patent it would've been irrelevant. It takes years. Secondly, being in Germany (ie the EU) software patents are largely unenforceable [1] anyway. Software patents are almost uniquely a US problem, despite lobbying efforts to introduce them in Europe, Australia and other places. But my point is that whether or not Groupon applied for a patent in this case is basically irrelevant. The story about software patents is they may end up driving Internet businesses, which are highly portable, to jurisdictions more friendly to their activities. The only beneficiaries of software patents are lawyers and patent trolls (who have nothing to lose by definition because they don't produce anything). What would be ironic would be if a Troll patented the business model of filing and buying patents by the truckload and then suing possible infringers right before suing every other patent troll. Oh and regarding Google's PageRank (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), the patent is basically defensive. It doesn't really disclose the details of it such that it could be easily reproduced. Plus, even if it did, there's an awful lot more you'd need to do to mimic Google. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Euro...