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Things like this make it hard to ever really abolish patents, either a lot of companies would be out a lot of money or the government would have to reimburse th
by robryan 15y ago
Things like this make it hard to ever really abolish patents, either a lot of companies would be out a lot of money or the government would have to reimburse they a lot of money.
- adammichaelc 15y agoI don't see it that way. Abolishing software patents would only apply to new patents. Currently-in-force patents would just be allowed to expire at the normal timeline, which I think is around 20 years.
- pyre 15y agoThat's what makes sense, but it's not like the laws passed ever make sense. See retro-active copyright extensions for a good example.
- fleitz 15y agoThey are a granted monopoly, you pay the filing fee whether it is accepted or not hence the gov't has no liability. Look at making gold illegal for examples of how the gov't can drastically devalue your assets with no recourse.
- natnat 15y agoThe government can indeed devalue or even confiscate your assets if it wants to. The problem is that legislators have no interest in pissing off well-heeled companies that can contribute billions to their opponents when the only people opposed to software patents are a few programmers and policy wonks with a whole lot less money than the companies that own the patents.
- natnat 15y agoThe government can indeed devalue or even confiscate your assets if it wants to. The problem is that legislators have no interest in pissing off well-heeled companies that can contribute billions to their opponents when the only people opposed to software patents are a few programmers and policy wonks with a whole lot less money than the companies that own the patents. Also, keep in mind that lawyers tend to be much more politically connected than programmers.
- Duff 15y agoThe government is immune to lawsuit, hence it never has liability.