3 ms·

> moat becomes a public good once the patent expires I have heard this argument a lot of times, but I don't see how it applies to software patents in particula

by theamk 7y ago

> moat becomes a public good once the patent expires I have heard this argument a lot of times, but I don't see how it applies to software patents in particular. At one of the previous jobs, I was doing some research, and there were lots of useful inputs: conference/journal papers, technical reports, thesises, and so on. The only exception are software patents -- I have never learned anything from them.

jacques_chester 7y ago
Since we're take anecdotes as the standad: I've done research and read patents too. I found clever ideas in all of them.
- theamk 7y ago
  In all of them? I doubt it. I can believe that some software patent somewhere have a clever idea that is not described elsewhere -- but I still have to find such patent. Let's take for exa/mple first google hit for "software patent", which for me is https://patents.google.com/patent/US6353926B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6353926B1/en "Software update notification". In my opinion, it is completely useless. - It has nothing particularly innovative. It describes a specific Windows update mechanism in needless details -- while it is a solid design, most engineers, given the same problem, would come up with similar design. I know I did, and I did not know anything about OSD, CDF or windows update subsystem at all. - It does not present information clearly. The text is hard to read and needlessly complicated. There are better sources of information about this topic -- I am sure there is a MSDN article and a dozen of blog posts which describe this much better. - It did not even motivate the inventor! I am almost sure that whatever motivation Microsoft had for promoting Open Software Description standard, it was not to get this patent. So what good is this patent? As far as I can see, there is no public benefit at all. The only value is for Microsoft, so they can threaten others and stifle competition.

by theamk 7y ago

jacques_chester 7y ago

Since we're take anecdotes as the standad: I've done research and read patents too. I found clever ideas in all of them.

theamk 7y ago
In all of them? I doubt it. I can believe that some software patent somewhere have a clever idea that is not described elsewhere -- but I still have to find such patent. Let's take for exa/mple first google hit for "software patent", which for me is https://patents.google.com/patent/US6353926B1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US6353926B1/en "Software update notification". In my opinion, it is completely useless. - It has nothing particularly innovative. It describes a specific Windows update mechanism in needless details -- while it is a solid design, most engineers, given the same problem, would come up with similar design. I know I did, and I did not know anything about OSD, CDF or windows update subsystem at all. - It does not present information clearly. The text is hard to read and needlessly complicated. There are better sources of information about this topic -- I am sure there is a MSDN article and a dozen of blog posts which describe this much better. - It did not even motivate the inventor! I am almost sure that whatever motivation Microsoft had for promoting Open Software Description standard, it was not to get this patent. So what good is this patent? As far as I can see, there is no public benefit at all. The only value is for Microsoft, so they can threaten others and stifle competition.