7 ms·

A tricky bit, often overlooked, is that the line between hardware and software is fuzzy and moves constantly. What's hardware today is virtualized or emulated

by roc 13y ago

A tricky bit, often overlooked, is that the line between hardware and software is fuzzy and moves constantly. What's hardware today is virtualized or emulated or decomposed into a general instruction set tomorrow. Is infringement contingent upon hardware implementation? Partial hardware implementation? Substantial hardware implementation? If you have an awesome DSP and I virtualize it and then use hardware acceleration to speed up that virtualization, is that a hardware implementation, or software? Saying "no software patents" as a practical matter is hard to nail down objectively, without just generalizing it to "no patents on digital anything". Which becomes a larger upheaval than people tend to consider.

studentrob 13y ago
That bridge could be crossed when we come to it. I don't see this discussion happening among any legislators. The majority of them don't care to recognize software patents as a problem, much less debate over how to define what is software vs hardware.
- btilly 13y ago
  That bridge has already been crossed - that exact argument helped establish software patents in the first place. (See http://www.mttlr.org/voleleven/campbell-kelly.pdf http://www.mttlr.org/voleleven/campbell-kelly.pdf for the history.)
marssaxman 13y ago
Software patents are so clearly harmful that "no patents on digital anything" might well be a price worth paying to get rid of them.
- walid 13y ago
  Software patents are not "so clearly harmful" just because you say so. The reason many patents, not all and not necessarily the majority, are harmful is because there is no clear definition of what a patent is allowed to be. The definition of hardware patents that was intuitively accepted by patent clerics did not evolve properly to accommodate software. This is by no means a limitation on patents but by the bodies that grant them. It also isn't a matter of the bar being low for patents applicants. The weakness in the system is that until a clearly worded definition of what a software patent constitutes, we can't pass a judgement on whether patents are useful or harmful.
  - marssaxman 13y ago
    I can and will pass judgement, because I've been watching this mess develop for the last 20 years, the consequences are clear, and it's only getting worse. When I say "clearly harmful" I mean that it is as clearly harmful as anything ever gets in the software industry. Software patents are good for lawyers. Software patents are good for monopolists who want to control a market without having to compete for it. Software patents are not good for software developers, who are frequently prohibited from reading patents by their employers, rarely read patents even when allowed to, in any case don't speak the legal language in which they are written. Software patents are not good for startups, who have no way of discovering whether they are in violation of patents short of going to market and seeing whether they are sued; a lawsuit can easily bankrupt a startup regardless of the merits. Software patents are not good for large companies, who have to waste enormous amounts of their employees' time making up bullshit patents just so they can have an arsenal of defensive patents with which to ward off other large companies. Software patents are not good for open source, which neither needs nor wants the temporary monopoly that is the point of getting a patent in the first place. Software patents are not good for software users, who suffer from reduced marketplace competition, increased vendor lock-in, and a more sluggish pace of progress overall due to the opportunity cost of the time wasted on patenting things and dealing with bullshit patent lawsuits. Software patents are clearly harmful.
    - walid 13y ago
      Well then since you do have an opinion about software patents, define software patents. The problem is not the list that you mentioned above. In fact I can refute every one of them. The problem is that there hasn't been a concerted effort to define a software patent. Hardware patents are easier to define. They are that thing you build according to a patent claim. Software is neither a material thing nor a concept. It actually runs in a computer and more or less controls it. It is an invention. But the boundaries of the claim are difficult to discern. Most of that is because software patents are a few decades old whereas hardware patents are more than a hundred years old. Hardware patents have run through their paces and "debugged" so to speak of glitches in the system. Hell, all software is new. So software patents are even newer. But you still have to define software patents.
Joeri 13y ago
Or, no patents at all on anything, and let's collect some of the money that saves enterprise and fund those few industries that need patents to be profitable. But, who are we kidding anyway. Software patents cannot e gotten rid off because of the entrenched patent holders. If you let them keep those patents they have an unfair market advantage over new entrants, and if you retroactively cancel all software patents (if you can define such a category) then they'll sue the government's pants off and through the court system have software patents declared legal. The onything i could imagine is gradually shortening the lifetime of software patents to decrease their harm and attractiveness.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
>Saying "no software patents" as a practical matter is hard to nail down objectively, without just generalizing it to "no patents on digital anything". Which becomes a larger upheaval than people tend to consider. How is it so large just because it applies to some would-be hardware patents that are really nothing but hard-coded software patents? If you have a patent on using gallium arsenide in semiconductor manufacturing, that isn't a software patent. If you have a patent on a fancy piece of glass to separate wavelengths of light from a fiber optic cable, that isn't a software patent. Because it's physics and chemistry rather than math. You shouldn't be able to patent math.

by roc 13y ago

studentrob 13y ago

That bridge could be crossed when we come to it. I don't see this discussion happening among any legislators. The majority of them don't care to recognize software patents as a problem, much less debate over how to define what is software vs hardware.

btilly 13y ago
That bridge has already been crossed - that exact argument helped establish software patents in the first place. (See http://www.mttlr.org/voleleven/campbell-kelly.pdf http://www.mttlr.org/voleleven/campbell-kelly.pdf for the history.)

marssaxman 13y ago

Software patents are so clearly harmful that "no patents on digital anything" might well be a price worth paying to get rid of them.

walid 13y ago
Software patents are not "so clearly harmful" just because you say so. The reason many patents, not all and not necessarily the majority, are harmful is because there is no clear definition of what a patent is allowed to be. The definition of hardware patents that was intuitively accepted by patent clerics did not evolve properly to accommodate software. This is by no means a limitation on patents but by the bodies that grant them. It also isn't a matter of the bar being low for patents applicants. The weakness in the system is that until a clearly worded definition of what a software patent constitutes, we can't pass a judgement on whether patents are useful or harmful.
- marssaxman 13y ago
  I can and will pass judgement, because I've been watching this mess develop for the last 20 years, the consequences are clear, and it's only getting worse. When I say "clearly harmful" I mean that it is as clearly harmful as anything ever gets in the software industry. Software patents are good for lawyers. Software patents are good for monopolists who want to control a market without having to compete for it. Software patents are not good for software developers, who are frequently prohibited from reading patents by their employers, rarely read patents even when allowed to, in any case don't speak the legal language in which they are written. Software patents are not good for startups, who have no way of discovering whether they are in violation of patents short of going to market and seeing whether they are sued; a lawsuit can easily bankrupt a startup regardless of the merits. Software patents are not good for large companies, who have to waste enormous amounts of their employees' time making up bullshit patents just so they can have an arsenal of defensive patents with which to ward off other large companies. Software patents are not good for open source, which neither needs nor wants the temporary monopoly that is the point of getting a patent in the first place. Software patents are not good for software users, who suffer from reduced marketplace competition, increased vendor lock-in, and a more sluggish pace of progress overall due to the opportunity cost of the time wasted on patenting things and dealing with bullshit patent lawsuits. Software patents are clearly harmful.
  - walid 13y ago
    Well then since you do have an opinion about software patents, define software patents. The problem is not the list that you mentioned above. In fact I can refute every one of them. The problem is that there hasn't been a concerted effort to define a software patent. Hardware patents are easier to define. They are that thing you build according to a patent claim. Software is neither a material thing nor a concept. It actually runs in a computer and more or less controls it. It is an invention. But the boundaries of the claim are difficult to discern. Most of that is because software patents are a few decades old whereas hardware patents are more than a hundred years old. Hardware patents have run through their paces and "debugged" so to speak of glitches in the system. Hell, all software is new. So software patents are even newer. But you still have to define software patents.

Joeri 13y ago

Or, no patents at all on anything, and let's collect some of the money that saves enterprise and fund those few industries that need patents to be profitable. But, who are we kidding anyway. Software patents cannot e gotten rid off because of the entrenched patent holders. If you let them keep those patents they have an unfair market advantage over new entrants, and if you retroactively cancel all software patents (if you can define such a category) then they'll sue the government's pants off and through the court system have software patents declared legal. The onything i could imagine is gradually shortening the lifetime of software patents to decrease their harm and attractiveness.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago

>Saying "no software patents" as a practical matter is hard to nail down objectively, without just generalizing it to "no patents on digital anything". Which becomes a larger upheaval than people tend to consider. How is it so large just because it applies to some would-be hardware patents that are really nothing but hard-coded software patents? If you have a patent on using gallium arsenide in semiconductor manufacturing, that isn't a software patent. If you have a patent on a fancy piece of glass to separate wavelengths of light from a fiber optic cable, that isn't a software patent. Because it's physics and chemistry rather than math. You shouldn't be able to patent math.