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Enough Is Enough
- rbanffy 15y agoUnfortunately, by choosing to license instead of crushing them early, companies like Google, Apple, IBM, Cisco and Accenture and government bodies like the IRS provided funding for the troll to grow and thrive. It's relatively easy to say "enough is enough". Actually fighting back is harder and, at this point, almost impossible.
- dstein 15y agoPaying patent license fees is a lot like paying off terrorists in hopes they'll go away.
- sliverstorm 15y agoFor the big companies, it's probably a lot more like paying off terrorists with hundreds of nuclear silos in hopes that they won't nuke you. The settlement they want is miniscule compared to the damage they can do to you.
- arethuza 15y agoSounds more like organized crime than terrorism, with the legal system as the enforcers.
- masklinn 15y ago> Unfortunately, by choosing to license instead of crushing them early, companies like Google, Apple, IBM, Cisco and Accenture and government bodies like the IRS provided funding for the troll to grow and thrive. Reality is a bit more complex: none of those licensed from Lodsys, instead they have blanket licenses to all IP of Intellectual Ventures (the biggest patent troll in the world) as part of their initial investment in the company (a number of large, patent-warring company invested in IV, probably in the hope of weaponizing it down the road). And Abelow '078 was assigned to a (patent sub-troll) front company of IV (Ferrata Ethereal), therefore being accounted to as part of IV licensing. Which is why Apple, Google and Microsoft have licenses to Abelow '078.
- rbanffy 15y agoThanks for the clarification. In any case, Lodsys' site claims IBM, Cisco and Accenture to be clients. I assume those licensed directly from the troll.
- masklinn 15y agoI can not say for sure. According to a list of investors[0], Cisco is a licensing investor (same as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Intel and a bunch of others) but IBM and Accenture are not. [0] http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/05/intellectual-ventures-revealing-investors.html http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2011/05/intellectual-venture...
- JoshTriplett 15y agoUnfortunately, patent trolls don't really have anything to crush. They don't have products to countersue over, so at best you might manage to invalidate some of their patents, which won't stop them.
- lmarinho 15y agoIf you are at the end of a hard day's work, struggling with a tough problem and making no progress at all, even regressing at some points, take solace in this: you still did a lot more for the world than the guys at Lodsys
- sliverstorm 15y agoI wonder what kind of job satisfaction being a valueless leech off society brings?
- pyrhho 15y agoApparently it doesn't bring enough guilt to offset the "driving my new Ferrari" satisfaction it brings... Edit: A bit unfair and stereo-typing.. I'm sure there are good people working at Lodsys that got sucked in...
- jcromartie 15y agoI really wonder, though. Doesn't this operation usually consist of a sleezeball and his secretary? I mean, Lodsys doesn't do anything after all...
- Stwerner 15y agoYou would be surprised. I met someone this weekend at a wedding who works at a law firm that specialises in software patent suits, and he really didn't understand or even care. Outside of this and similar communities, no one has any idea that software shouldn't be patentable, or even that there are issues with it in the first place.
- lmarinho 15y agoNot to mention that the shady practices are obfuscated by properly sterilized language, as in many other organizations. One does not "threaten small developers with expensive lawsuits", one merely "extracts value from investments".
- 15y ago
- mrkva 15y agoWhat does VC mean? Vinylchlorid?
- drcube 15y agoI'm sorry, but I've got a patent for "outrage on the internet", so I'm going to need to see some royalties.
- DrJokepu 15y agoI really don't think the problem is software patents, it seems to me the real problem is that most software patents seem to be ridiculously trivial. Here's an example: my employer, a rather small company has invested an enormous amount of resources in developing a specific algorithm. It took years of research and development, lots of money and brainpower, it's very far from being trivial (in fact it's so complicated I have to admit I don't understand some parts of it) and it's light years ahead (in terms of usefulness and speed) of any other algorithm with similar applications. Obviously the last thing we want now is simply handing it over to our competitors, after all this work. If the patent system didn't guarantee us monopoly on using the fruits of our own R&D, this algorithm probably would not have been developed for a very long time, if ever, by anyone. It would have been innovation that never happened. My point is that the threshold of what can patentable should by way higher, but I think we need a (software) patent system none the less.
- ssp 15y agoHave you filed patents on it, then? I'd be interested in seeing the applications.
- reitzensteinm 15y agoIt would be a pretty messed up system if there were never any cases where patents were justified. Yours sounds like an edge case. The real question is what's best for the industry as a whole?
- scott_s 15y agoRather than being an edge case, I think that what DrJokepu described is the intended case. But the system has been gamed.
- reitzensteinm 15y agoYou're right, that was a poor choice of words.
- wslh 15y ago
- tomelders 15y agoSadly, Software® patents are here to stay, so long® as the patent trolls® and lobbyists®© can find enough people in the "corridors of power"® who'll shamelessly accept their cheques to maintain the status quo. The problem is inherent in the fact that people®© are flawed. And by "flawed", I mean "cunts"® Unless I'm wrong. In which case we can expect software patents to disappear next week.
- dhimes 15y agoUmm, I have a patent on using software to write the word "cun--." Please redact, or send me $5 ;)
- tomelders 15y agoCan we trick a patent troll into patenting the Triforce and just let 4Chan deal with this?
- retroafroman 15y agoOr we should all learn a trick or two from Anon about being the digital equivalent of a pitchfork wielding, angry mob.
- iamben 15y agoWhy not diminish the value of a patent once it's sold? That way you prevent companies like Lodsys buying and trolling, and if you put the money / time / resources into the development of something, you can reap the reward. Just a thought, not the answer. But the system is totally ridiculous as it stands.
- fredwilson 15y agoi like that idea
- statictype 15y agoMostly agree, except: Second, Lodsys didn't even "invent" the idea. They purchased the patent and are now using it like a cluster bomb on the entire mobile app developer community. The fact that Lodsys bought the patent and didn't invent the idea themselves seems entirely irrelevant to this dilemma. Unless you also think that if you acquire someone else's software, you don't have the right to sell it.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- atakan_gurkan 15y agoI think it is very relevant. The letter of the law may support Lodsys, but the spirit (protecting and hence encouraging the development and dissemination of new methods) does not. Laws are made for the well-being of the society, at least theoretically. If the circumstances are so much different that this benefit became a burden, I think the law should be overturned or ignored. I don't know if it can be legally ignored though, e.g. by a judge.
- kluikens 15y agoI see your point, but there's a significance that shouldn't be entirely overlooked. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but is Lodsys not just a collector of intellectual property? There's something to say about the difference between a corporation buying intellectual property rights related to its business and a corporation seeking only to sponge off others labor, profits and wit, contributing neither economic activity nor social involvement.
- statictype 15y agoAgain, playing devil's advocate, Lodsys is contributing to the economy by rewarding the original patent owners for their innovation.
- scott_s 15y agoI think it does matter, because it means certain behavior is more likely. Companies that create patents are more likely to invest their time, money and effort into actually making things that will eventually be sold (in whatever fashion). This activity adds value to the economy. While it is possible for such companies to aggressively pursue their patents in the way that Lodsys has, they don't need to do it to survive, and I hope that the people who work there would rather spend time on more productive things. That's not a guarantee, of course. Companies that merely collect patents, and exist solely to collect and profit off of the patents themselves, do not add value to the economy. They are parasites. Because they have no other way of generating revenue, we can expect them to behave in the way that Lodsys has. If it was possible to design the IP laws so that patent trolling was not profitable, then I think that would be a good thing. I'm not sure if it's possible - but I think it's worthwhile to recognize that there is a relevant difference.
- jasonkester 15y agoMaybe somebody needs to move this issue to someplace more visible. I'd like to introduce the concept of Movie Patents. I'd register a patent for the plot device of having the bad guy be the main character's best friend, with additional clauses for being his boss, advisor, or partner. I wouldn't ever make any movies. I'd just sit back and collect royalties from everybody who used my idea. The reason behind this is that maybe then people who matter would actually notice how silly this concept is. It's so plainly obvious that it's a bad idea that regular people can finally understand what's going on. Eventually, people with the ability to make changes might actually find themselves forced to make changes. Software, as big as it is, is just not that big. This issue can piss every single one of us off, and it won't make the NBC Nightly News. It can't piss off the people it needs to piss off in order to get it fixed, so chances are it will stay unfixed indefinitely.
- Joakal 15y agoThat's called a copyright. People have disputed the originality of movie ideas including Matrix [0] and Harry Potter [1]. [0] http://blogcritics.org/video/article/author-sues-matrix-writers-over-copyright/ http://blogcritics.org/video/article/author-sues-matrix-writ... [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/entertainment/main6219192.shtml http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/entertainment/main...
- masklinn 15y agoBut copyright is not about mere similarity: if two people reach the same plot device completely independently (or from a common source) there is no copyright infringement case. Whereas the same thing in the world of patents is a patent infringement case.
- mluiten 15y agoAdditionally, to own copyright, you would actually have to _create_ a product/movie/etc. How any patent holder can sue without actually creating or using their own patent is beyond me.
- pkteison 15y agoI spent a week vacation with 2 friends who work at the patent office, so w e had time to discuss over beers. They don't believe there is a problem. They rely so heavily on prior art, and have trouble with the very concept that something was too obvious for the first 20 programmers to want to patent it, so prior art is very incomplete. I show them 1 click, they tell me that if it was that obvious someone would have patented it before. They refuse to consider the "skilled in the art" obviousness test because they say it's too easy to believe something is obvious after it's been explained to me.
- abeppu 15y agoI can believe it's too easy to believe that something non-obvious is obvious once you've understood it. But that doesn't mean that some things aren't legitimately obvious. It seems like we ought to take an empirical approach to distinguishing which are which -- take skilled engineers either in groups or singly who haven't heard of a given solution, pose them the problem that the solution is meant to solve, let them brainstorm or think for some fixed amount of time, and see if anything they come up with largely reproduces the solution in mind. If fewer than k engineers are needed before someone thinks of it, then it's obvious. If more than l > k engineers are needed before someone thinks of it, then it's not obvious. If somewhere between k and l engineers are needed, then maybe you still get to argue about it. On a related note, I think I have a new strategy for generating interview questions.
- brlewis 15y agoThey refuse to consider the "skilled in the art" obviousness test The law includes an obviousness test for a reason. If Congress intended prior patent applications to be the sole test, they would have said so. The patent office is ignoring the law to the detriment of all of us.
- nahlyee 15y agoFred's argument is filled with hypocrisy. It's akin to saying VCs kill innovation because they make it harder for bootstrapping companies to survive. If Lodsys is a patent troll, then Fred is an equity troll. When Lodsys purchased the patent, the inventor got PAID. When investors purchase stock in a company, the founders (and in the case of an IPO or acquisition, the VC's) get PAID. This is virtually the same principle. Besides, Lodsys "is seeking 0.575% of US revenue over for the period of the notice letter to the expiration of the patent, plus applicable past usage." That's hardly enough to kill innovation.
- iqster 15y agoI'm just fed up with the stupidity of the status quo. As a number of posts have pointed out, the lawyers, Patent Office, etc. generally don't see this as a problem. People like us who actually want to create new things ... we're the ones who are the losers. This is another instance where it would have been beneficial if all software professionals belonged to a Guild or union. If we were organized, at least there is some sliver of a chance that we'd be able to have an influence on the legislative process. If that fails, we would just not work to create software patents.
- jerf 15y agoWithin ten years of such a guild's creation, it would be in support of patent law and probably lobbying for it to be strengthened. By creating such a guild, you create guild leadership, and leadership of guilds(/unions) tend to prefer stability and larger organizations over a rich array of smaller companies that make it much harder to exert control.
- iqster 15y agoHeh ... I'm just reading Hackers and Painters ... I think it said some of the greatest programmers subscribe to Libertarianism, and gives good reasons why. Touche!
- imtyler 15y agoI think America's patent & copyright laws are in need of a serious rethinking in the digital age, but what are we the people doing about it? I would love to get involved (or donate) but I'm not aware of any credible groups or projects making strides to help bring about such a change. Any noteworthy efforts out there that I should know about?
- unfasten 15y agoThe Electronic Frontier Foundation ( http://www.eff.org/issues/patents http://www.eff.org/issues/patents ) is working at it. They're starting off with getting the most ridiculous patents reexamined by the patent office in their Patent Busting project http://w2.eff.org/patent/ http://w2.eff.org/patent/ . They've succeeded in having a number of patents reexamined and some narrowed or invalidated. They also lobby for patent reform. They're exactly the credible group you're looking for, in my opinion. Here's part of their statement on the patent page: There are many ways to promote better patent quality and a vibrant knowledge commons. One approach is to advocate for good legislation in Congress and proper interpretation of that legislation by the courts. Another is to promote enforcement efforts, such as the reexamination of bogus patents. EFF employs both approaches to protect the public interest while supporting innovation.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- imtyler 15y agoThank you! I'll be looking into these organizations, I just signed up for the EFF newsletter. I appreciate the response.
- jtap 15y agoSo all of technology including manufacturing has gotten quicker, faster, overall better, but the patent system hasn't changed. Also the entire cycle of a company is speeding up. An easy example the time companies that are listed on the s&p 500 are getting shorter. Instead of getting rid of patents can we just shorten the time that they are valid. Say 5 years.
- brudgers 15y ago>"They [software patents] are a tax on innovation." While I tend to agree in general, the Lodsys situation is not a particularly good example in support of the position from an intellectual standpoint, though it may be good for rallying the troops. This is because Apple's actions in regard to in app purchases (IAP's) have been explicitly anti-innovation, i.e. Apple has required a specific monetizable IAP protocol in lieu of allowing developers to innovate (one does not need to even get into questions regarding the innovation raised by Apple's patent portfolio regarding UX elements). Let us remember that developers are only vulnerable because they are complying with a technical mandate of their agreement with Apple and that this mandate is solely intended to produce uniformity within the IOS ecosystem. Given Apple's patent portfolio, they may have far more to gain in terms of IP protection by upholding Lodsys's position than by fighting it.
- stcredzero 15y agoThe whole thing is nuts. I can't understand why our goverment [sic] allows this shit to go on Because software and technology are like magic to a large part of the population, including a large segment of those involved in government and the judiciary. Patents are just another specialized form of legalese. It's obvious we need better ways of challenging patents and filtering them in the first place.
- radu_floricica 15y agoPosting in this kind of threads is always bringing karma points and leaving me vaguely unsatisfied. Lots of people speak about the "stupidity" of it all. I see no stupidity here. Just the normal, to-be-expected lean of a big government toward protecting the incumbents. Also I think people should speak more often about drastically shortening copyright and patent terms. They are both very useful, even in controversial domains like software or biotech (patenting genes). The problem is that the situation is waay skewed one way. If you want to bring it closer to normal, start asking for 1 year patent terms and 3 year copyright.
- atirip 15y agoWhy not incorporate in Europe? Ireland, like Google? Software patent problem solved.
- praptak 15y agoOnly if you won't do any business in US, ever.
- atirip 15y agoFirst, you can easily leave old company behind and establish a new, clean one, transfering all assets. Second you can have a separate company (like an agent) for doing business in US. Third, why do you need, as a software company, to do any business IN US anyway? WITH US residents you can without any worries.
- laujen 15y agoAn idea I will throw out there: I always wondered why anyone should be able to hold onto an idea (patent it) if they don't use it. I can't help but wonder if the best way to fix the patent system isn't to overhaul it -- which would be nearly impossible to do due to entrenched interests -- but instead invalidate all patents if they aren't used within a certain time period by the rights holder. In other words, use it or lose it.
- bhousel 15y agoWouldn't suing someone count as 'using it'?
- WiseWeasel 15y agoNo. 'Using it' would mean distributing a product that directly makes use of the patented technology. In practice, however, this will simply force patent trolls to jump through a few more hoops and find the least expensive way to distribute the product in some form in order to defeat the intent of the law while following its letter.
- stusmith1977 15y agoI'm not a fan of sotware patents, but perhaps there's a halfway house towards getting rid of them: Make software patents only holdable by a real person (i.e. not a corporation), and not transferable. Any money received from a patent infringement lawsuit would be paid to that named person. That way, they can be used for their original purpose (to protect small inventors and allow them to build a larger business), but can't be collected by the trolls. (It would also give companies an incentive to keep 'their' patent owners happy). Just an idea... I'm sure there's a glaring hole in it somewhere.
- handrake 15y agoWell then, trolls would start 'hiring' these inventors (maybe as a contractor for just a period of legal battles) and keep pursuing their lucrative business.
- grimen 15y agoSomethng like this scares the hell out of me: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/05/17/facebook-patent-photo-tagging/ http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/05/17/facebook-patent-pho... Now I'm in Europe where this don't apply, but we actually had plans making our platform available in U.S. later on with something that has to do with tagging images - which itself is hardly any innovation (?!!)!. I mean, c'mon. We will now probably avoid that and look east instead. I'm still fascinated that they managed to get thorugh with this, almost like the 1-click-purchase that Amazon trying to paten. It's almost like a fairy tale - with no happy ending.
- Vivtek 15y agoAmazon didn't just try to patent one-click purchasing. They actually hold said patent. They don't enforce it, largely because O'Reilly found prior art that could destroy it if Amazon ever oversteps, but they do hold the patent. That's the central travesty here. Possibly if you're a patent attorney, you really do think purchasing with one click is a detailed and arcane technology the development of which is expensive enough to require a 20-year monopoly, but all that tells me is that patent attorneys are somewhat dim people who wouldn't understand productive work if it bit them in the face. Not that I have strong feelings or anything.
- tedjdziuba 15y agoAlright, Fred. We all agree with you here, the people you need to convince are the ones writing the laws. You're a wealthy and powerful person, who is good friends with other wealthy and powerful people, so why not leverage that? Hire a lobbying firm, get actively involved in the cause. Whatever you do, don't count on Reddit and Hacker News to do it for you, that's just slacktivism.
- dpcan 15y agoExactly. We all sit around here and preach to the choir. I don't know that anyone really knows how or what to do here. How does a non-mainstream issue like this get into the public eye in such a way that anyone but our niche gives a crap? Lastly, we have to ask why they REALLY exist. What is REALLY going on. Where is the money in all this, who's making the most? If Big Software Corp A wants patents to stick around, and the legislator wants Big Software Corp A's money for the next election, do they have any interest in representing the people, or just the corporation? In this situation, the number of PEOPLE who don't want these patents has to surpass the influence of the large corporations who do want software patents to stay as they are. I just don't see this happening.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoJust out of curiosity, when is the last time you talked with your representative in Congress? (I know, I'm assuming you are based in the USA) I ask because I find a high correlation between this particular point of view : "entity 'x' whom is unassailable, is corrupting the politician I voted in to represent me." And people who have neither voted, nor talked with any representative who was either elected or was trying to be elected. Here is my idea on 'what to do' here, let me know if it sounds reasonable or not. My idea is that a group of technologists work with Congress and the Patent and Trademark office to take a look at the existing processes and goals and then put together a program for moving the existing patent law into something that makes sense and serves the needs of inventors without creating opportunities for commercial extortion. Worth a shot?
- bjelkeman-again 15y ago
- meow 15y agoThe cave man who invented 'wheel' was knocking on my door today.. apparently he was granted a 4k year patent for cart wheels by Unbelievably Sloppy Patent Troll Office (USPTO)...
- vilya 15y agoThe point of a patent is to ensure that ideas are made public, so that all can benefit from them. In exchange, the inventor gets their time-limited monopoly on the idea. Unfortunately software patents are useless for this purpose: they don't fulfil the function of making ideas public. Who, in this day and age, refers to a patent for the details of an algorithm? I would argue that open-source software, in many ways, succeeds where software patents fail.
- jcarreiro 15y agoI don't understand why someone who invents a better combustion engine should deserve a patent while someone who invents a better computer algorithm should not. That doesn't imply that I think that every bit of programming deserves the protection of a patent. But if someone invents a new algorithm, then why doesn't that deserve a patent?
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoI like the idea of losing patents if you don't have a product in the market within a year or so.
- huherto 15y agoBut it seems easy to fake. Can you just put a product, or do you need a number of users or income?
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoYeah, you're probably right. Ideally it would make it more expensive for a troll to do their work, but they could just throw up a web page for their "product" and not attempt to sell it.
- 9999 15y agoExactly, it would cost a company like Lodsys only a few thousand dollars to hire a couple of devs and build an iPhone application that makes use of the patent currently under consideration. That would not be a considerable additional burden when you consider that legal fees for acquiring a patent already stretch into the tens of thousands of dollars.
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoI think there are 2 main problems here. 1) Patenting obvious stuff / stuff with prior art. "X, but on the internet" 2) Patenting stuff with no intention of releasing a product. I see a lot of talk about the former and not enough about the latter. My question is this, could we put a time limit on releasing a product once a patent is awarded? Is it normal in other industries to patent something as soon as possible or do they wait until a product is ready to be released? What would be an acceptable time limit? In this case, the patent was issued in May 2007, 4 years ago. Is it reasonable for the inventor to not have a product using this on the market yet?
- ChuckMcM 15y ago"I believe that software patents should not exist. They are a tax on innovation. And software is closer to media than it is to hardware. Patenting software is like patenting music." This is what I fear. I worry this idea will take hold and we'll get copyright protection for software 'design' instead of patent protection, and then that happens, the Lodsys crap will have a lifetime of 85 years not 20. We need to be able to protect someone's innovation so that they aren't screwed over by some larger competitor taking their idea and running with it. That need is real and continues to exist, we need patents. Let's argue for the real problem here, we also need a better system for dumping things that should not have been patented in the first place because they fail the 'novel' test. We need jurists that understand the technology they are being asked to evaluate, and we need to require at least three people 'skilled in the art' to sit in on juries in patent hearings. I might even go so far as to create special patent juries for these cases. We need a better way of reviewing a patent and validating it against the state of the art. What we don't need is to convince policy makers that software is like 'music.' And we don't need people believing that we don't need any protection for people's work should they choose to take advantage of those protections.
- russell 15y agoThere has never been copyright for design. Copyright for source code and for binaries works quite well for protecting software from wholesale copying, piracy notwithstanding. Software ideas are a dime a dozen. The real protection comes from the difficulty of the implementation, the pace of change, and the first mover advantage.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoCopyright is provided for the expression of a work. So if I tell the story of a girl who wears a red cloak and visits her ailing grandmother who lives in a remote estate, only to find her grandmother has been eaten by an anthromorphized wolf. I run the risk of violating the copyright on the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Except that it was a folk tale before 1900 and yet even though its 'out of copyright' there is a pall over whether or not Google can show you their scanned copy from 1909 of the story illustrated by artists at the time. My thesis is quite simple; 1) There must be a doctrine for protecting the origination and implementation of complex systems, whether their components are manufactured from solid materials or are simply algorithmic components. You'll recall that software patents came to be when it was shown that implementation via software was indistinguishable from implementation in hardware for some classes of problem. Your "first mover' advantage is worthless if someone else controls all the distribution. Further, not all software efforts are 'trivial' and while we see those stories all the time I don't believe you could make a similar argument for the implementation of assymetric cryptography as a 'trivial' software patent. 2) The current system is clearly flawed in many ways, but the concept is not. 3) Pushing otherwise technologically illiterate but 'wanting to help' policy makers toward the concept that all software is more like creating 'art' than it like creating 'machines.' Would have the un-intended side effect of having those policy makers moving the necessary protection doctrine to the only other set of laws we have which are copyright. Copyright, being even more easily argued than software, has been completely corrupted by media 'barons' and their efforts around the world. Which is why the question of whether or not I could legally copy a book printed in 1900 about a story that was 'old' even then, is currently 'questionable' whereas building a steam engine and selling it for profit is not.
- tlrobinson 15y agoIn a previous discussion someone suggested forming a reverse patent troll organization that accepted donations of patents from open source developers and whoever, and used them to counter sue patents trolls. The obvious problems are it's expensive to file for patents and lawsuits, and it doesn't protect against "pure" trolls. Another idea: a simple community that accepts and publishes every random software idea anyone ever comes up with in order to establish prior art. Perhaps include mechanisms to discover patent applications linked to relevant keywords, etc. What would it take to prove the date of submissibon to the system? Is there some type of digital notary that we could send a daily batch of documents?
- GrandMasterBirt 15y agoSimpler: Mathematical formulas can't be patented. Haskel is a lambda calculus implementation. Therefore implementing ANYTHING in haskel will mean that it is just a mathematical formula (have a program to transform it so we can put it to court) and therefore as long as anything is implemented in haskel at least once it proves that that something is just a unpatentable mathematical formula. If the laws won't change to accommodate us, we should pull out the guns (metaphorical).
- carussell 15y agohttps://wiki.mozilla.org/Legal:Prior_Art https://wiki.mozilla.org/Legal:Prior_Art
- drostan 15y agoDoes it really promote innovation to advantage 2nd movers? Sure it is possible to add to the software and improve it, but often, the innovation is simply execution, buzz, sales and other non-trivial business things. How can there be a reward for the equally important talents of having the vision for new solutions and ability to create them if there is no patent or licensing protection? Also, it scares me a bit when someone as influential as Fred takes this to his blog - read by so many startups. VCs make money from execution and have an (or another) incentive to suggest that patents are not an acceptable tool for startups. I agree with the need for patent reform, actually, but a) I'm not sure eliminating software patents is the answer and b) would encourage each startup to make their own decision on how to use the current laws to give them every advantage they can get.
- LiveTheDream 15y agoWould there be any value in a large collection of prior art software, designs, "look and feels", etc? The idea being that since we feel that many software patents are trivial, why not actually implement the ideas and thus provide a line of defense against silly, trivial patents. Very novel, complex software that might be worth a patent would be very unlikely to turn up in such a collection because of the effort required. Ideally, this would help create an ecosystem where patent-worthy software is awarded a patent, and trivial software is not (because of prior art). This is an idea I've thought about for a long time. One could argue that much of this idea might already be implemented by websites like sourceforge, github, etc. A focus on explicitly being prior art would probably help, however, justifying the need for a separate archive of ideas.
- kleiba 15y agoPatenting software is like patenting music. Oh god, please don't give them ideas...
- orijing 15y ago> I can't understand why our goverment allows this shit to go on. It's because Congress has been embroiled in a bitter fight of brinkmanship over who can stall longer over raising the debt limit over the past year. Not much actual progress has come out since they decided that they will keep up the debt limit talks, knowing completely that the partisanship will yield no progress. While they have debated raising the debt limit, the debt has risen by over half a trillion dollars. They need to fix that and move onto other things. The point of Congress isn't to debate solely over how to balance the budget. They have other responsibilities too, and they need to get to it.
- generators 15y agopatent should include AMOUNT OF INNOVATIVENESS. AND RESTRICT THE REWARD INVENTOR CAN ASK FOR IT. ( IN TERMS OF TIME, FOR SOFTWARE PATENTS, TIME OF PATENTS SHOULD BE REDUCE HEAVILY, IN TERMS OF MONEY, IN TERMS OF NUMBER OF REPLICATION ETC, IN TERMS OF NEGOTIABLE AND UN NEGOTIABLE REWRADS ) . think about this. <-- THIS WILL REQUIRED MORE EFFORTS. but overall , it will ease the pain on both side later. ( in terms of cost of lawsuits and discovery of patent infringement cost )
- huherto 15y agoOther than patent trolls. Who is supporting software patents? I understand that big software companies. (IBM, Oracle, Apple, etc) own a large portfolios of patents that they can use to defend themselves. But, do they really support software patents or they just use them to play the games they have to play?
- tttp 15y agoI hope that avc, ycombinator, Andreessen Horowitz and a lot of known VC and business angels introduce a new simple rule on their agreement: To get funded, a company must not try to obtain software patent, and if they do have software patent(s), they will publicly say they will not try to license them and will not sue for infringement of one of their patent. Beside clearing up the landscape, it will send a clear message, hopefully that is going to be heard by politicians and media: software patent doesn't help innovation, quite the opposite, the guys that fund innovation refuse to give money to companies (ab)using software patent. Moreover, as VCs seem to be able to work on templates for the paperwork to lower the cost of the creation and founding of a start-up, couldn't they work on standard responses to lower the cost of defending against a patent troll as well ?
- MatthewPhillips 15y agoIf I'm a patent troll, I see this as a golden opportunity to patent the work of companies they invest in.
- tttp 15y agoHI, You can't patent something that has prior art (and if the patent office doesn't see it, it will invalidate the patent it has wrongly granted). Not sure I understood your point.
- levifig 15y agoAnd then there's iA Writer and their egotistic attempt to patent "Focus Mode"… Seriously: https://twitter.com/#!/iA/status/74588465953640448 https://twitter.com/#!/iA/status/74588465953640448 Same problem: other apps used it because it's such a generic concept. They (always) say that it's for protection… Riiiight! :|
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- mfn 15y agoJust wondering, would these still apply if the app developer was in a country other than the US, but the apps were being downloaded from an app store by US citizens?
- seats 15y agoI appreciate this thread and I think that the movie plot patent is a fantastic analogy so great topic starter submission. I have to say though that I am disappointed by the blog post. Based on the title and the topic I kind of expected something, anything as a suggestion, instead of just a rant and a loose plan to spam every elected official you meet.
- SoftwareMaven 15y agoAs much as a wonder if there is a point, it can't hurt to write your elected officials and tell them, in reasonable, cogent terms, why software patents cause problems and how they should be fixed. You can find and write them here: http://capwiz.com/c-span/dbq/officials/ http://capwiz.com/c-span/dbq/officials/
- timedoctor 15y agoThe only real solution for these companies is to incorporate offshore (or to have no money). This could be a significant long term issue for US companies, and makes me more hesitant about incorporating in the US where I am vulnerable to patent trolls.
- joeburke 15y agoThis article is much more about the evilness of patent trolls than about software patents. My thoughts: - Prevent the existence of trolls (for example by mandating that only patents that are central to your own business can be enforced). - Raise the bar for the acceptability of software patents. - Reduce the lifetime of software patents to something more in line with the software industry (a few years maybe). But by all means, preserve software patents, they do have some value if used as they were designed for (protect companies that invest into R&D).
- zhyder 15y agoWe need a generic fix for the patent system, not something specific to software. I think the only way to do this is to change the process of suing for patent infringement. The patent holder must determine how much investment was made to develop the specific patent [1], and this number should be the upper bound on how much the patent holder can sue for [2]. This would effectively cover the pharmaceutical case where hundreds of millions are invested, as well as the worst software case where only a few thousand are invested. [1] - This number would need to pass simple smell tests: the sum of these investment amounts across a patent portfolio can't exceed the total expenses in the company's books for R&D, etc. [2] - If a patent holder sues multiple companies at once, each infringing company would owe only a fraction of the total.
- billswift 15y agoThere have been a lot of discussion about problems with patents (especially "patent thickets") in drug development also, see Derek Lowe's posts http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/patents_and_ip/ http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/patents_and_ip/ and especially http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/20/freedom_to_operate.php http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/20/freedom_to_o...
- hnsmurf 15y agoWhat we need is a trade association to address this issue. One specifically focused on software startups would be nice. It'd probably have to be funded more by investors and recently successful startups. Maybe Fred should give it a shot.
- zarify 15y agoWhy not simply remove the ability to sell the patent to someone else? Sunset the validity of the patent like the original scope of copyright, and limit the transferral to being able to license it for use so that the only financial benefit goes to the original R&D crowd. That way it still promotes research but limits the possibility of patent trolls since they'd have to actually do the research themselves.
- jaekwon 15y agoI think a major potential for disruption is right here under our nose. Instead of approaching it from a political point of view (blame those politicians!) why don't someone with money create an alternative community-supported system of work attribution? You can imagine each company keeping a private/internal log of innovation in Merkle trees (with timed signatures by some central authority). All innovation and production is assumed to be original works of art until proven otherwise. In the current patent system, all innovation is public, but there is only 1 winner. In the new system, everybody can win if we all arrive at innovations independently. Problem solved, + you enforce good documentation practices. This is an engineering problem. Why don't you fund a startup that builds this system? If we all start using it, that's when we have the power to change the status quo. If we don't know what alternatives are out there, we have no chance of disabling the current system. I doubt that keeping the government out of software IP disputes altogether is a good idea, because realistically that won't work out -- it'll encourage stealing and the playing field will change for the worse.