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Software patents are a joke that the tech industry has relied upon to give it relevance. Why should “using commonly known syntax patterns to enable mechanized

Software patents are a joke that the tech industry has relied upon to give it relevance. Why should “using commonly known syntax patterns to enable mechanized organization and display of text and images in any number arbitrary configurations”, which is a reasonable enough description of what we’re doing from a user perspective, be protected? That’s ALL software work is. “Feeling” ephemeral things are real is not a good enough justification for shackling us all with such laws. That’s ripe for abuse. No less than being told we have to make laws this way because people “felt” God was telling them that’s ok. But money makes laws change so they can collect on our innate agency and curiosity for these things. They own the land and the ideas. Sorry, mate, read a bit more than contemporary politics & economics books. A philosophy that undoes all this captured emotional energy to prop up correctness of winning favor with stern old people who don’t literally contribute except via condescending approval is right there. Society will instead kowtow to daddy despite all the now dead philosophers writing that we should avoid just that, lest they reign over us with their feelings of what is appropriate and emotional wanky tales of grandiose pipe dreams they want to achieve for themselves via our effort. More real gains for them, inequality gains for those of us that prop up their emotional castles. Adam Smith was right: the extreme division of labor has created a society of ignorant humans whose agency has been boxed in by the state apparatus. I’m not talking about anti-science and well argued positions. Politically the people are not existing in one. They’re existing as scared children too afraid of the ruler their fifth grade teacher who died years ago, keeps in her drawer. Childish paranoias literally etched in these brains forever. Thanks neuroscience for showing us the long life of our childhood anxieties and paranoias.

freejazz 7y ago
I'm not sure why you are resorting to ad-hominem attacks and I'm not sure where you get your facts from as software patents have routinely and generally been knocked out for ineligibility since the Supreme Court's Alice decision years ago. It's clear you have no idea what is involved in getting a patent, it's also clear that you have no idea what a patent gets you. Without litigation, generally nothing. Software companies are well aware of how flimsy most software patents that have passed actually are, and routinely knock them out in IPR proceedings or §101 claims. And your quote is silly as it describes something that should not be patented. In fact, patent law specifically prohibits the patenting of anything "commonly known" or simply a computer-operated process that is something a human otherwise previously did. This is a very difficult area of the law, to prescribe what-yet-unthought-of-things are patentable and which aren't. That's why having a patent doesn't mean that a court will find it valid once you attempt to litigate over it. You seem to not understand this! The patent system isn't perfect, and it doesn't purport itself to be. We struggle to get criminal law right and that involves people's actual lives. So I'm not sure where you get the gall to call other people emotional when it's clearly just a projection of your own situation.

freejazz 7y ago

I'm not sure why you are resorting to ad-hominem attacks and I'm not sure where you get your facts from as software patents have routinely and generally been knocked out for ineligibility since the Supreme Court's Alice decision years ago. It's clear you have no idea what is involved in getting a patent, it's also clear that you have no idea what a patent gets you. Without litigation, generally nothing. Software companies are well aware of how flimsy most software patents that have passed actually are, and routinely knock them out in IPR proceedings or §101 claims. And your quote is silly as it describes something that should not be patented. In fact, patent law specifically prohibits the patenting of anything "commonly known" or simply a computer-operated process that is something a human otherwise previously did. This is a very difficult area of the law, to prescribe what-yet-unthought-of-things are patentable and which aren't. That's why having a patent doesn't mean that a court will find it valid once you attempt to litigate over it. You seem to not understand this! The patent system isn't perfect, and it doesn't purport itself to be. We struggle to get criminal law right and that involves people's actual lives. So I'm not sure where you get the gall to call other people emotional when it's clearly just a projection of your own situation.