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Software patents have never contributed anything to society. Software is materially antithetical to patents. You can only ever clearly observe the output of sof

• chii 3y ago
  > Software patents have never contributed anything to society. this is very noticeable because the truly useful software algorithms don't get patented, they get protection via trade secrets instead (and enforce it via courts and various internal processes). I say abolish software patents. Software copyright is good enough.
  • marginalia_nu 3y ago
    > Software copyright is good enough. To play the devil's advocate: Is it though? Especially recently we've seen the widespread acceptance of copyright and license laundering through large machine learning systems such as copilot and chatgpt, backed by enough microsoft laywers to prevent meaningful push back from the copyright owners. They'll output verbatim copies of what was previously copyrighted code. If it is true that software copyright can be cleaned away in such a fashion, maybe patenting the algorithm itself actually is necessary to avoid big tech companies like microsoft from forcibly strip mining the ideas of independent creators.
    • sam_lowry_ 3y ago
      "Copyright and license laundering". That's a catchy phrase that explains a lot of what is going on in AI world. Thanks!
      • chefandy 3y ago
        Unsurprisingly, the "creators getting ripped off is a small price to pay for progress" stance is less popular here than when HN discusses AI-generated art.
    • chii 3y ago
      > forcibly strip mining the ideas of independent creators. this is the same argument that patent proponents had, because patents protects the little guy. And yet, most copyright enforcement occurs via large corporations who have an interest in doing so to further some other goal as part of a strategy to gain monopoly. Patents as well as copyright is but a tool, and any tool can be more powerfully wielded if the wielder is more powerful! The little guy is better off without copyright imho (but that horse has already bolted).
      • marginalia_nu 3y ago
        Until very recently the little guy could effectively use a poisonous license like GPL to dissuade exactly this sort of thing. The system of copyright worked very well to protect smaller entities in this regard.
        • chii 3y ago
          How well has copyright really worked for the little guy? Even when there are wins in the GPL violation suits, the payout barely covers the cost of litigation (i'm imputing the cost even if it is pro bono). Not to mention tivoization which trivially bypasses GPLv2.
        • philderbeast 3y ago
          except it didn't in practice because the little guy has no ability to enforce even these poisonous licences. in reality your licence is only as strong as your ability to enforce it.
  • ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > I say abolish software patents. Software copyright is good enough. But what if we do the opposite - abolish copyright abd keep patents?
  • wongarsu 3y ago
    Only for things that can reasonably kept secret. For example lots of good video or audio codecs are patented instead of being kept secret.
  • duped 3y ago
    These are not necessarily good examples, but most multimedia encoding is patented and widely used. Companies like Fraunhofer only exist to create these algorithms and make money licensing their patents.
• varispeed 3y ago
  Regular patents also have really low bar. I think this is because you have experience with software, so you see pretty much all software patents should have never been granted, but same goes for things like hardware. I would partially blame the VC culture for this, when they state as a requirement for funding that product needs to be patented. So engineers try to patent whatever they can and as it seems these patents don't go through any scrutiny and are approved as they go.
• smallstepforman 3y ago
  The binary executable is easily transformed into a 1:1 ratio assembly code. Assembly code is readable by humans, and the algorithm deducable. So the method is researchable to anyone wanting to investigate. Having said that, I despise all patents, including software patents. The head start a company has should be enough to capitalise on RnD.
  • nazgulsenpai 3y ago
    Except when the binary executable lives on a server somewhere inaccessible, a locked-down device, behind protection mechanisms like VMProtect which actively thwart debugging/dumping, etc. Software patents apply to much more than "vanilla" fat binaries.
  • detuur 3y ago
    I can turn a simple A* implementation into a behemoth of self-modifying, virtualised, encrypted code that will suddenly turn into Dijkstra as soon as you try to trace its behaviour. The time that assembly code was readable by humans is long past, and I can't afford to pay NSA-level crackers who can reverse-engineer the 60MB of executable code in the Facebook app because I have a hunch that they're violating the image processing patent I have.
• mughinn 3y ago
  >Patents have never contributed anything to society. I think I fixed that for you. Patents have only caused Corporations to battle each other and bully normal people into compliance
  • goodoldneon 3y ago
    If I'm a pharmaceutical company, why would I spend a billion dollars researching a drug if someone can copy it?
    • fooker 3y ago
      Necessity is the mother of invention. Your company maybe won't spend a billion dollars on this research. Maybe some govt funded research will work out, maybe a dozen other people will run into the discovery at some point. A large majority of inventions by humans haven't been motivated by profit.
      • hatefulmoron 3y ago
        > A large majority of inventions by humans haven't been motivated by profit. Were the large majority of drugs we use today (the topic discussed) invented outside the profit motive? I don't know the answer to that.
        • AlbertCory 3y ago
          this paper is not about drugs. Those patents already do have to disclose their formulas.
          • hatefulmoron 3y ago
            I think you're pasting this here without regard for context.
            • AlbertCory 3y ago
• beached_whale 3y ago
  I think RSA was a good software patent, or even lzw. Both had significant impacts and where novel
  • Jolter 3y ago
    Sure but was society better off because those were patented as opposed to open (or secret)?
    • pclmulqdq 3y ago
      Yes, because there's a reasonable chance they would not have been invented (or they would have taken much longer to appear) without the economic upside of a patent. Also, a patent trades forced disclosure for a limited monopoly. The disclosure in both of these cases has been very good.
      • beached_whale 3y ago
        Also, people immediately licensed the patents and it further research in the field that was owned by entities like the NSA prior
      • edflsafoiewq 3y ago
        Very dubious, given that both have since been superseded by better patent-free alternatives.
        • pclmulqdq 3y ago
          Which are all built on top of the public disclosure of these algorithms, which was required by... the patents! Prior to RSA being patented, a lot of encryption was proprietary (and probably mostly broken), and nobody could build on top of it. Post-patent, the RSA inventors could publish details and publicize their invention, which led to the alternatives.
    • beached_whale 3y ago
      Yes, and look at the history leading up to this(secret algorithms with a trust me it works non-guarantee). The cat was out of the bag on pki and there was no putting it back. People built on that knowledge and developed new techniques
• tzs 3y ago
  > If Meta rips off your method to apply an image filter, you better have 10 years of experience in reverse-engineering obfuscated code. Actually, don't even bother. The code runs on their servers and you will never have the opportunity to even investigate it. That's not quite correct. You won't get to look at Meta's source code, but you will be able to have people you designate look at it for you. Here's what happens. 1. From what you can readily see of their product and from what they've said publicly about it (documentation, press releases, presentations at trade shows, etc) you suspect that they are using your patented thing. 2. You do some reverse engineering and/or experiments to get more evidence to support or refute that. 3. If you get enough evidence to convince a patent litigation firm that they could file an infringement lawsuit for you without running afoul of Rule 11(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure [1] have your patent litigation firm file such a lawsuit. 4. Your attorneys ask Meta's attorneys to provide a copy of Meta's source code. Meta does so. Typically they do so by turning it over to their attorneys and their attorneys set up a place in their offices where it can be viewed. 5. Your attorneys can go to that place and view the code. You can also hire outside experts to go look at the code and write reports to be presented as evidence at the trial. 6. Your attorneys can ask Meta to provide someone knowledgeable about the code to be deposed, where they can ask your attorneys and/or outside experts have about it. This will work both ways. Meta's attorneys and outside experts will get to see your source code too if it is relevant to their defense or counterclaims. For example they might ask for your source to your image filter using products that were released before you filed for your patent, in order to try to show that they also used your patented methods and you failed to file the patent early enough. BTW, patent trials are usually open to the public. It can be quite interesting because a lot of internal details from both plaintiff's and defendant's products can come out. I once spectated at a patent suit where Microsoft was a defendant, concerning some technology they used in Windows. Plaintiff was using information from Mark Russinovich's books and articles about Windows internals. Russinovich's books were basically the Bible for third parties that needed to know Windows internals. Microsoft had engineers who actually worked on those parts of Windows testify and they specifically described several errors in Russinovich's books. This was long after I'd worked on anything that needed to use undocumented Windows internals, but back when I'd worked for a company that made Windows system utilities and was spending half my time dealing with undocumented Windows internals the kind of information at that trial would have been a goldmine. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11 https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11
• SamReidHughes 3y ago
  Sure they contributed. They incited the development of better media compression formats.
• SergeAx 3y ago
  Software patents are working exactly right: if I think that my patent is infringed, I am going to the court, court checks for visual similarities and then subpoenas infringer's source code.