8 ms·

The Death of Many (If Not Most) Software Patents?

42 points by chrisv 18y ago

thomasfl 18y ago
If most software patents suddenly stops being valid, then this could open up lots of new business opportunities?
- eugenejen 18y ago
  You can patent anything that is innovative but it is still not what a product that people spend money to buy, time to use. The good part is now everyone has to compete for users with what users wants. So a feature on product A can be quickly copied to product B by its competent competitors. At the same time, product A's creators has to keep on moving on or face replacement. While workers in company for product A may have tougher time in life.
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
  Well, it would remove a lot of the minefields which are currently worrisome to startups. Software is rather unique in that it has been granted all of patent, copyright, and trade secret status. I firmly believe that software patents are counterproductive to advancing the industry and should not be held as valid. The legal developments detailed in the article look like great progress in encouraging innovation in the software industry.
- joshwa 18y ago
  Well, now there can be legitimate competition in the e-learning market, at least (c.f. Blackboard patents)
mojuba 18y ago
If software patents stop being valid, companies will keep many of their inventions secret and will protect them as "trade secret" from now on. With patents they were at least forced to publish them. Not good either way, although certainly this will put an end to portfolio-only kind of businesses that did only harm and nothing but harm to everybody.
- dmm 18y ago
  Absolutely, the original justification of the patent system was to get inventers to make their inventions public. However, the inventions which have been patented recently are often obvious and trivial. Amazon's one-click patent is not some amazing secret that we have been let in on by the patent system.
- eugenejen 18y ago
  I never thought about that company may put software under trade secret. Then the consequence may be different from what patent reformers expected. And you are right that in that case, the patent filing may decrease. And I am wonder what this mean to innovators that is not affiliate with companies.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  If software patents stop being valid, companies will keep many of their inventions secret... As compared to the situation today, where Google's patents allow them to be completely open about how their systems work, and we all get to read the source code to Microsoft's software because it's protected by patent? Companies already keep their nontrivial inventions as secret as they can, because they know that the patent system is useless for its (supposed) intended purpose. [1] The system moves at a glacial pace relative to the industry, it costs too much to use, its results are unpredictable to the point of randomness, it's filled with reams and reams of invalid chaff, and frankly software itself is too abstract, mutable, and easily copied to be reliably protected by patent. There's a good reason why the inventors of patents didn't let people patent written works. Those folks weren't dummies. No, software patents are a tool for trolls, nothing more. Every invalidated software patent is a victory for mankind. [1] If, OTOH, you believe that the intended purpose of software patents was to allow deep-pocketed corporations to patent-troll their smaller competitors to death... the system is working precisely as designed.
  - wmf 18y ago
    Hey now, don't be so cynical. Software patents also allow startups (composed entirely of lawyers) to patent-troll large corporations.
vaksel 18y ago
i think the biggest problem with software patents is how long it takes. You may invent something amazing, but it'll be 5 years before you actually see the patent and by that time your amazing technology will be widely used
- wmf 18y ago
  As they say, that's a feature. After everyone is using the idea there are more potential royalties to collect. You do have to stay in business until the patent issues, though.
akeefer 18y ago
It's basically impossible to write any non-trivial piece of software without violating half a dozen completely absurd patents, and I don't think I've seen a legitimate software patent lawsuit in the last 10 years. There may be a few in there that I don't hear about, but upwards of 95% are either 1) a big company trying to kill a small competitor before they get too big by tying them up with useless litigation and legal fees, 2) an IP holding company trying to extract money from a big company with deep pockets, or 3) two big companies using patents as leverage to try to extract concessions out of each other. I can't think of any company or engineer I know of that would stop writing software if they couldn't patent it, or of anyone that's learned anything useful from reading a patent filing. The most important parts of software are already protected by copyright and trade secret laws, and patents have absolutely no place there.
- chaostheory 18y ago
  yeah there's little difference between software patent litigation and extortion... I can say the same of business process patents; they might as well allow patents of cooking recipes at this rate finally a good change of direction for the USPTO
boredguy8 18y ago
"In sum, an innovative process is not patentable when operating on a single computer processor but is when operating on two processors, even though the Board recognizes that the process in the unpatentable claim 'is essentially the method' set forth in the patentable claim." So you just move your data repository to one machine and your data processing to the other, and you have your patents back. I really just don't understand how something like this happens. I guess "The Law" is a massively backwards-compatible system that makes computer architecture anachronisms look mild.
ssanders82 18y ago
This article comes at a particularly opportune time for me. A site I'd built for a client was sued by Channel Intelligence in their mass filing last week (TechCrunch covered it) for their revolutionary and genius idea of "configuring a database system to store information regarding a plurality of items," focusing on wishlists. The client (#12 in the suit if you're curious) called me in a panic telling me to pull down the site, so all its users are screwed. I've also run a free wishlist site at GreedyMe.com for several years which wasn't named in the suit, but if it had been, I couldn't financially justify trying to fight it. PageRank was pretty revolutionary. I'm on the fence as to whether that should be patented. Amazon's 1-Click and Channel Intelligence's "list storage" are obvious methods, and I can't fathom how any lawyer or businessman can submit a patent for such nonsense with a straight face.

42 points by chrisv 18y ago

thomasfl 18y ago

If most software patents suddenly stops being valid, then this could open up lots of new business opportunities?

eugenejen 18y ago
You can patent anything that is innovative but it is still not what a product that people spend money to buy, time to use. The good part is now everyone has to compete for users with what users wants. So a feature on product A can be quickly copied to product B by its competent competitors. At the same time, product A's creators has to keep on moving on or face replacement. While workers in company for product A may have tougher time in life.
LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
Well, it would remove a lot of the minefields which are currently worrisome to startups. Software is rather unique in that it has been granted all of patent, copyright, and trade secret status. I firmly believe that software patents are counterproductive to advancing the industry and should not be held as valid. The legal developments detailed in the article look like great progress in encouraging innovation in the software industry.
joshwa 18y ago
Well, now there can be legitimate competition in the e-learning market, at least (c.f. Blackboard patents)

mojuba 18y ago

If software patents stop being valid, companies will keep many of their inventions secret and will protect them as "trade secret" from now on. With patents they were at least forced to publish them. Not good either way, although certainly this will put an end to portfolio-only kind of businesses that did only harm and nothing but harm to everybody.

dmm 18y ago
Absolutely, the original justification of the patent system was to get inventers to make their inventions public. However, the inventions which have been patented recently are often obvious and trivial. Amazon's one-click patent is not some amazing secret that we have been let in on by the patent system.
eugenejen 18y ago
I never thought about that company may put software under trade secret. Then the consequence may be different from what patent reformers expected. And you are right that in that case, the patent filing may decrease. And I am wonder what this mean to innovators that is not affiliate with companies.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
If software patents stop being valid, companies will keep many of their inventions secret... As compared to the situation today, where Google's patents allow them to be completely open about how their systems work, and we all get to read the source code to Microsoft's software because it's protected by patent? Companies already keep their nontrivial inventions as secret as they can, because they know that the patent system is useless for its (supposed) intended purpose. [1] The system moves at a glacial pace relative to the industry, it costs too much to use, its results are unpredictable to the point of randomness, it's filled with reams and reams of invalid chaff, and frankly software itself is too abstract, mutable, and easily copied to be reliably protected by patent. There's a good reason why the inventors of patents didn't let people patent written works. Those folks weren't dummies. No, software patents are a tool for trolls, nothing more. Every invalidated software patent is a victory for mankind. [1] If, OTOH, you believe that the intended purpose of software patents was to allow deep-pocketed corporations to patent-troll their smaller competitors to death... the system is working precisely as designed.
- wmf 18y ago
  Hey now, don't be so cynical. Software patents also allow startups (composed entirely of lawyers) to patent-troll large corporations.

vaksel 18y ago

i think the biggest problem with software patents is how long it takes. You may invent something amazing, but it'll be 5 years before you actually see the patent and by that time your amazing technology will be widely used

wmf 18y ago
As they say, that's a feature. After everyone is using the idea there are more potential royalties to collect. You do have to stay in business until the patent issues, though.

akeefer 18y ago

It's basically impossible to write any non-trivial piece of software without violating half a dozen completely absurd patents, and I don't think I've seen a legitimate software patent lawsuit in the last 10 years. There may be a few in there that I don't hear about, but upwards of 95% are either 1) a big company trying to kill a small competitor before they get too big by tying them up with useless litigation and legal fees, 2) an IP holding company trying to extract money from a big company with deep pockets, or 3) two big companies using patents as leverage to try to extract concessions out of each other. I can't think of any company or engineer I know of that would stop writing software if they couldn't patent it, or of anyone that's learned anything useful from reading a patent filing. The most important parts of software are already protected by copyright and trade secret laws, and patents have absolutely no place there.

chaostheory 18y ago
yeah there's little difference between software patent litigation and extortion... I can say the same of business process patents; they might as well allow patents of cooking recipes at this rate finally a good change of direction for the USPTO

boredguy8 18y ago

"In sum, an innovative process is not patentable when operating on a single computer processor but is when operating on two processors, even though the Board recognizes that the process in the unpatentable claim 'is essentially the method' set forth in the patentable claim." So you just move your data repository to one machine and your data processing to the other, and you have your patents back. I really just don't understand how something like this happens. I guess "The Law" is a massively backwards-compatible system that makes computer architecture anachronisms look mild.

ssanders82 18y ago

This article comes at a particularly opportune time for me. A site I'd built for a client was sued by Channel Intelligence in their mass filing last week (TechCrunch covered it) for their revolutionary and genius idea of "configuring a database system to store information regarding a plurality of items," focusing on wishlists. The client (#12 in the suit if you're curious) called me in a panic telling me to pull down the site, so all its users are screwed. I've also run a free wishlist site at GreedyMe.com for several years which wasn't named in the suit, but if it had been, I couldn't financially justify trying to fight it. PageRank was pretty revolutionary. I'm on the fence as to whether that should be patented. Amazon's 1-Click and Channel Intelligence's "list storage" are obvious methods, and I can't fathom how any lawyer or businessman can submit a patent for such nonsense with a straight face.