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I don't disagree with these points, but my personal take is that the primary difference between software patents and other patents is that most things that end

I don't disagree with these points, but my personal take is that the primary difference between software patents and other patents is that most things that end up getting patented in software are things that pretty much any programmer may implement in the course of trying to solve some problem. The patented algorithms often aren't novel or unique, but someone just stood up first and said "Look here what I did. I want a right to exclusivity on this." Even though someone trying to get to the same end goal at some point in the future probably would have easily developed the same method. In drugs, the end result gets patented. Some chemical formula that's just right, which (in most cases) was not simply stumbled upon in the pursuit of something else. And even if it was stumbled upon, it's still novel and was not likely to be created as a product or byproduct by another party very easily. The insight required to develop the drug was most likely unique. The equivalent to most software patents today in the drug field would be patenting methods of, say, mixing chemicals. Imagine if there was a patent on mixing two solutions by pouring one from a beaker into the other in a flask, twirling around twice and then shaking gently four times. What if someone had a license to that mixing method and everyone else had to pay to do it? It'd be ridiculous. It seems like that's basically what software patents are. The equivalent to drug patents in the software world would be, I guess, patenting an entire OS, or an app, or some fully integrated, significant piece of software. For example, no one should be able to make a counterfeit copy of iOS as a whole and sell it as their own. That I would support legally. I (think?) this is already covered by copyright law.

nickpinkston 14y ago
I'm betting that in many worlds your "pretty much any programmer may implement" goes for nearly all MechE patents too, civil maybe as well, and plenty of EE patents I'm sure. In reality, nearly all patents are just ::at best:: a year or two of an engineering team crunching on a problem using existing methods - usually far less. It's difficult to say which are which though - so maybe patents are really what we want at all for nearly all things?
- Vivtek 14y ago
  Yeah, but I don't mind monopoly protection for something somebody worked a year on. Software patents are granted for many times the effective lifetime of a technology, for something you or I could do in a week based on ideas we've all had because they're natural solutions to their problems. Like patenting the use of a hinge for a door instead of patenting how to make a hinge, and the patent being granted for the entire time humanity uses doors at all.
  - coopdog 14y ago
    Exactly, you can't patent 'the cure for cancer' without describing the cure, but somehow you can patent 'swipe to unlock'. If it didn't take serious research and give the reader a decent insight that they wouldn't have had just by reading the title of the patent then it shouldn't be patentable. The equivalent of describing the molecule for a drug patent is providing the source code, which is already covered under copyright protection. Sounds like a good case to make software patents redundant
  - adavies42 14y ago
    note that both "car" and "computer" were patented at the concept level (both causing huge messes, incidentally). of course, those patents expired long before the relevance of the concepts....
  - nickpinkston 14y ago
    I think we really need to consider what patents are for - because "somebody worked a year on" is waaaay to broad. This is about helping society right? Working a year isn't a big investment for a company - so if it's such a great invention they'd easily be able to recoupe their costs. This goes the other way too - Edison's Lab developed the first phonograph supposedly in months - yet that's far more on the "deserving" side of patents. Time isn't the best measure, but we have to consider what an actual good one would be. Giving at patents with relatively little oversight leads to a ton of prevented inventions, but how could we possibly inspect patents to a degree that we'd be able to. I haven't seen a plausible explanation that this search problem is even tractable.
- 14y ago
FrojoS 14y ago
"Look here what I did." Sounds like a flawless abstract of most engineering papers in academia.
- vga256 14y ago
  LOL. True.

nickpinkston 14y ago

I'm betting that in many worlds your "pretty much any programmer may implement" goes for nearly all MechE patents too, civil maybe as well, and plenty of EE patents I'm sure. In reality, nearly all patents are just ::at best:: a year or two of an engineering team crunching on a problem using existing methods - usually far less. It's difficult to say which are which though - so maybe patents are really what we want at all for nearly all things?

Vivtek 14y ago
Yeah, but I don't mind monopoly protection for something somebody worked a year on. Software patents are granted for many times the effective lifetime of a technology, for something you or I could do in a week based on ideas we've all had because they're natural solutions to their problems. Like patenting the use of a hinge for a door instead of patenting how to make a hinge, and the patent being granted for the entire time humanity uses doors at all.
- coopdog 14y ago
  Exactly, you can't patent 'the cure for cancer' without describing the cure, but somehow you can patent 'swipe to unlock'. If it didn't take serious research and give the reader a decent insight that they wouldn't have had just by reading the title of the patent then it shouldn't be patentable. The equivalent of describing the molecule for a drug patent is providing the source code, which is already covered under copyright protection. Sounds like a good case to make software patents redundant
- adavies42 14y ago
  note that both "car" and "computer" were patented at the concept level (both causing huge messes, incidentally). of course, those patents expired long before the relevance of the concepts....
- nickpinkston 14y ago
  I think we really need to consider what patents are for - because "somebody worked a year on" is waaaay to broad. This is about helping society right? Working a year isn't a big investment for a company - so if it's such a great invention they'd easily be able to recoupe their costs. This goes the other way too - Edison's Lab developed the first phonograph supposedly in months - yet that's far more on the "deserving" side of patents. Time isn't the best measure, but we have to consider what an actual good one would be. Giving at patents with relatively little oversight leads to a ton of prevented inventions, but how could we possibly inspect patents to a degree that we'd be able to. I haven't seen a plausible explanation that this search problem is even tractable.
14y ago

FrojoS 14y ago

"Look here what I did." Sounds like a flawless abstract of most engineering papers in academia.

vga256 14y ago
LOL. True.