6 ms·

Software patents might not be so bad if 1) Patents didn't cost much nor required renewals and expedited service fees, and all that crap; 2) were first to invent

Software patents might not be so bad if 1) Patents didn't cost much nor required renewals and expedited service fees, and all that crap; 2) were first to invent, not first to file; and 3) officers at the USPTO actually had a clue and didn't hand out patents for trivial things like wildcard matching with a `*` character (yes, that happened just a few years ago).

tbrownaw 13y ago
2) were first to invent, not first to file; The bar for not being obvious should be high enough for this to not make a difference. If two people (or teams, companies, whatever) independently invent the same thing within... say, a year of eachother, that should be taken as proof that it's too obvious to be patentable.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  The logic here is fairly appalling; look at Newton vs Leibniz.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    What do you feel about the idea that math had developed to the point that such a calculus was now incremental and immediately inevitable? Though patents are rather specific and coming at a problem from two different directions can easily lead to two valid patents. Wait, what am I talking about, you can't patent math period.
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      I think my most basic problem with that idea is this: I think that, if some process is patentable, then no matter how you divide it into components, at least one of those components should be patentable too. > you can't patent math period Of course, but I'm just responding to the idea that if two people independently develop something at the same time, it was obvious by definition. That isn't true.
      - Dylan16807 13y ago
        If two people develop something at the same time then a patent on that thing probably wasn't needed to promote progress. There will be individual cases where it's not true but an overall rule of 'no' is probably going to work better than a rule of 'yes', especially since a 'yes' can only go to one of those inventors.
        thaumasiotes 13y ago
        I'm not here to defend the system. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the concept of patents generally and particularly as applied to drug development, but all I'm really going for here is > There will be individual cases where it's not true I feel like we agree. Side note as to drug development: if we assume patents are a way to subsidize research into an area felt to be socially beneficial, it shouldn't be too surprising when multiple people go for (relatively) low-hanging, or particularly desirable, fruit, and sometimes get there simultaneously. But in that model we still needed the subsidy to get out of the system state where zero people were doing such research. It doesn't necessarily make sense to turn around and say that we're going to take away patents when too many people discover the same thing at once -- if the patent system was necessary to get the research done at all, scrapping it will scrap the research too. Refusing to grant patents out of obviousness isn't the same concept as refusing to grant them in an effort to avoid wasteful research effort collisions.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    Newton? Seriously? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_gi...
  - coldpie 13y ago
    You're right, the world would be a far better place if Calculus required a licensing fee. I know that wasn't your point, but seriously the idea of "intellectual property" is so galling I can't believe anyone accepts it.
    - atom-morgan 13y ago
      If anyone disagress with coldpie, I'd recommend reading "Against Intellectual Property" by Stephan Kinsella. I used to be in favor of IP laws until I read that book.
    - lotsofmangos 13y ago
      I tend to think of it as imaginary property.
- rayiner 13y ago
  This isn't a perfect rule, see below about Newton and Liebniz, but I think this is the closest it comes to a good rule of thumb for patent. Independent invention should create a strong presumption of obviousness.
yarrel 13y ago
or 4)They weren't patents on math.
derf_ 13y ago
First to invent vs. first to file is largely a red herring. It sounds unfair until you figure out how the system actually works, rather than how the three-word phrase suggests it might work. First to file comes with a restriction that anything described in a publicly-available "publication" is not eligible for patent protection by anyone other than the author (who has the standard one year grace period, etc., to file). At the same time it eliminates a cause of controversy that only affects a small number of cases, but which can be exceedingly expensive to resolve. It replaces it with a very simple test: was there a "publication" describing your invention that was dated before your priority date? Go home. Reducing litigation costs is a good thing. This is also the way most of the rest of the world works. Life may be a little harder for the guy who invents something and doesn't tell anyone about it, but in theory the goal of the patent system is to encourage the publication of ideas.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
TheMagicHorsey 13y ago
You have no idea how the USPTO works. They will never have the ability to spend more time with software patents. Especially if you ask that filing fees go down and the volume of filings goes up. On top of that, there is a conceptual problem with software patents. There is no clear line between the trivial and the non-trivial. The question you should ask is, what fucking benefits do we get from this shit? Look at the fucking costs levied on our society by this system. 26 year old patent attorneys make 200,000 dollars a year, after three years of practice STANDARD! Half of them don't know Javascript from Java (I'm not fucking kidding you). How the fuck are they gonna know what is trivial and what is not. The USPTO is staffed with people from foreign countries who can barely speak English ... much less understand a patent document. And they are only given like two hours to search and understand a patent document. And Patent Attorneys do their best to fill a patent document with utter rubbish legalese. The only people in support of this system are people that have never read a patent document, who have never been involved in a patent suit, and who have never talked to a USPTO examiner. Everyone else ... EVERYONE ELSE ... knows this system is garbage. These fucking patent kangaroo courts, and these fucking lawyers are parasitic upon Silicon Valley and the world software technology industries. That's the only way to look at it. And we might never get rid of them, because of this rhetoric and the power of the lobby. Its no more just than the fucking car dealerships and their stranglehold on car distribution. Or the sugar lobby and their subsidies. Just another garbage, rent-seeking group of assholes.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  Good post. I particularly liked your well thought out and clearly communicated arguments.
  - TheMagicHorsey 13y ago
    You ever wonder why patent law proponents never ask the pragmatic question: Do all these legal/regulatory costs for the patent system result in increased innovation? After all, if we were starting from scratch today, wouldn't we ask for overwhelming evidence that such a regulatory scheme would produce more innovation, before implementing such terrible laws? Not only are there no studies that show conclusively that patent rights encourage more innovation in the economy, there aren't even studies to show it has a marginally better effect than no patents at all. So the legal costs are a dead loss for the economy. All we have is the blind faith regurgitations of the patent fans ... OMG IT MUST ENCOURAGE INNOVATION MORE THAN NOT HAVING PATENTS BECAUSE MONOPOLY!!!! In software particularly this is an idiotic argument. Microsoft and other current front-runners in patent filings hardly filed patents at all when they were growing rapidly in the 80s and early 90s. Its only after being hit by patent suits from the old-timers in the industry ... horseshit patents BTW ... that they understood that they had to play this corrupt game. Bill Gates' early writing about software patents tells you everything you need to know from a businessman's perspective. Patents are a way for encumbents to raise barriers to entry in a mature business. They aren't a way to encourage the development of new businesses by players will little power/capital. This system (and many of its supporters) make me sick to my stomach.

tbrownaw 13y ago

2) were first to invent, not first to file; The bar for not being obvious should be high enough for this to not make a difference. If two people (or teams, companies, whatever) independently invent the same thing within... say, a year of eachother, that should be taken as proof that it's too obvious to be patentable.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
The logic here is fairly appalling; look at Newton vs Leibniz.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  What do you feel about the idea that math had developed to the point that such a calculus was now incremental and immediately inevitable? Though patents are rather specific and coming at a problem from two different directions can easily lead to two valid patents. Wait, what am I talking about, you can't patent math period.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    I think my most basic problem with that idea is this: I think that, if some process is patentable, then no matter how you divide it into components, at least one of those components should be patentable too. > you can't patent math period Of course, but I'm just responding to the idea that if two people independently develop something at the same time, it was obvious by definition. That isn't true.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      If two people develop something at the same time then a patent on that thing probably wasn't needed to promote progress. There will be individual cases where it's not true but an overall rule of 'no' is probably going to work better than a rule of 'yes', especially since a 'yes' can only go to one of those inventors.
      - thaumasiotes 13y ago
        I'm not here to defend the system. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the concept of patents generally and particularly as applied to drug development, but all I'm really going for here is > There will be individual cases where it's not true I feel like we agree. Side note as to drug development: if we assume patents are a way to subsidize research into an area felt to be socially beneficial, it shouldn't be too surprising when multiple people go for (relatively) low-hanging, or particularly desirable, fruit, and sometimes get there simultaneously. But in that model we still needed the subsidy to get out of the system state where zero people were doing such research. It doesn't necessarily make sense to turn around and say that we're going to take away patents when too many people discover the same thing at once -- if the patent system was necessary to get the research done at all, scrapping it will scrap the research too. Refusing to grant patents out of obviousness isn't the same concept as refusing to grant them in an effort to avoid wasteful research effort collisions.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Newton? Seriously? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_gi...
- coldpie 13y ago
  You're right, the world would be a far better place if Calculus required a licensing fee. I know that wasn't your point, but seriously the idea of "intellectual property" is so galling I can't believe anyone accepts it.
  - atom-morgan 13y ago
    If anyone disagress with coldpie, I'd recommend reading "Against Intellectual Property" by Stephan Kinsella. I used to be in favor of IP laws until I read that book.
  - lotsofmangos 13y ago
    I tend to think of it as imaginary property.
rayiner 13y ago
This isn't a perfect rule, see below about Newton and Liebniz, but I think this is the closest it comes to a good rule of thumb for patent. Independent invention should create a strong presumption of obviousness.

yarrel 13y ago

or 4)They weren't patents on math.

derf_ 13y ago

First to invent vs. first to file is largely a red herring. It sounds unfair until you figure out how the system actually works, rather than how the three-word phrase suggests it might work. First to file comes with a restriction that anything described in a publicly-available "publication" is not eligible for patent protection by anyone other than the author (who has the standard one year grace period, etc., to file). At the same time it eliminates a cause of controversy that only affects a small number of cases, but which can be exceedingly expensive to resolve. It replaces it with a very simple test: was there a "publication" describing your invention that was dated before your priority date? Go home. Reducing litigation costs is a good thing. This is also the way most of the rest of the world works. Life may be a little harder for the guy who invents something and doesn't tell anyone about it, but in theory the goal of the patent system is to encourage the publication of ideas.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

TheMagicHorsey 13y ago

You have no idea how the USPTO works. They will never have the ability to spend more time with software patents. Especially if you ask that filing fees go down and the volume of filings goes up. On top of that, there is a conceptual problem with software patents. There is no clear line between the trivial and the non-trivial. The question you should ask is, what fucking benefits do we get from this shit? Look at the fucking costs levied on our society by this system. 26 year old patent attorneys make 200,000 dollars a year, after three years of practice STANDARD! Half of them don't know Javascript from Java (I'm not fucking kidding you). How the fuck are they gonna know what is trivial and what is not. The USPTO is staffed with people from foreign countries who can barely speak English ... much less understand a patent document. And they are only given like two hours to search and understand a patent document. And Patent Attorneys do their best to fill a patent document with utter rubbish legalese. The only people in support of this system are people that have never read a patent document, who have never been involved in a patent suit, and who have never talked to a USPTO examiner. Everyone else ... EVERYONE ELSE ... knows this system is garbage. These fucking patent kangaroo courts, and these fucking lawyers are parasitic upon Silicon Valley and the world software technology industries. That's the only way to look at it. And we might never get rid of them, because of this rhetoric and the power of the lobby. Its no more just than the fucking car dealerships and their stranglehold on car distribution. Or the sugar lobby and their subsidies. Just another garbage, rent-seeking group of assholes.

hackinthebochs 13y ago
Good post. I particularly liked your well thought out and clearly communicated arguments.
- TheMagicHorsey 13y ago
  You ever wonder why patent law proponents never ask the pragmatic question: Do all these legal/regulatory costs for the patent system result in increased innovation? After all, if we were starting from scratch today, wouldn't we ask for overwhelming evidence that such a regulatory scheme would produce more innovation, before implementing such terrible laws? Not only are there no studies that show conclusively that patent rights encourage more innovation in the economy, there aren't even studies to show it has a marginally better effect than no patents at all. So the legal costs are a dead loss for the economy. All we have is the blind faith regurgitations of the patent fans ... OMG IT MUST ENCOURAGE INNOVATION MORE THAN NOT HAVING PATENTS BECAUSE MONOPOLY!!!! In software particularly this is an idiotic argument. Microsoft and other current front-runners in patent filings hardly filed patents at all when they were growing rapidly in the 80s and early 90s. Its only after being hit by patent suits from the old-timers in the industry ... horseshit patents BTW ... that they understood that they had to play this corrupt game. Bill Gates' early writing about software patents tells you everything you need to know from a businessman's perspective. Patents are a way for encumbents to raise barriers to entry in a mature business. They aren't a way to encourage the development of new businesses by players will little power/capital. This system (and many of its supporters) make me sick to my stomach.