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Do you make stuff? How is it fair that I make something in my garage, and some assmonkey drags my ass to the Eastern District of Texas to claim he deserves 15%

Do you make stuff? How is it fair that I make something in my garage, and some assmonkey drags my ass to the Eastern District of Texas to claim he deserves 15% of my revenue because my app sends a message from a smartphone client, containing contact information, to a server, where it is stored in a database. Sounds like a really complicated process ... if you are a non-technical person ... but any engineer is like that is fucking trivial. And yet we have to settle lawsuits like this shit all the time. If we are lucky -- $50,000 a pop. If not, more. You think this highway robbery is justice/fairness? You know what would be fair? If people didn't die under cars when they are riding their bikes. Lets build a completely different highway system for bikes, parallel to the existing highway system, so cars can't touch them. Don't we factor in costs when considering such utopian schemes to solve problems? Shouldn't we factor in the costs to innocent bystanders when creating an incentive system for creators? Look at how many creators are DISINCENTIVIZED by the current system. We don't make software to file patents. We never have. If you go to Meetups in SF, you'll never meet engineers that want to file patents either. What entrepreneur wants to file patents? I've never met one. Maybe such entrepreneurs exist outside my circles. For the most part, we are all fucking sick of these lawyers and this horseshit.

hackinthebochs 13y ago
>Do you make stuff? How is it fair that I make something in my garage, and some assmonkey drags my ass to the Eastern District of Texas to claim he deserves 15% of my revenue... I am a software developer myself. Yes, there are an endless number of examples of clearly frivolous patents. This is not an argument against software patents in general. If you can only cite the obviously broken cases to make your argument, your argument isn't that strong. Of course entrepreneurs are generally going to be against patents, they operate on the "market" side of society by definition. Ask that same question to inventors and you'll get different answers. Some people do not have the inclination to be entrepreneurs. Does that mean their contributions to society are worthless simply because they lack the particular skill of entrepreneurship? Would society be better off if inventors were likely to not reap the benefit of their efforts, or would otherwise have to keep the details of their invention secret? Is society better off with Watson's inner workings a trade secret? >We don't make software to file patents. We never have. If you go to Meetups in SF, you'll never meet engineers that want to file patents either. There is a subset of software development that would qualify as inventing. I see no reason why these cases should not be patentable. Just because the vast majority of developers are not inventors and thus see no benefit to patents is not a strong argument.

hackinthebochs 13y ago

>Do you make stuff? How is it fair that I make something in my garage, and some assmonkey drags my ass to the Eastern District of Texas to claim he deserves 15% of my revenue... I am a software developer myself. Yes, there are an endless number of examples of clearly frivolous patents. This is not an argument against software patents in general. If you can only cite the obviously broken cases to make your argument, your argument isn't that strong. Of course entrepreneurs are generally going to be against patents, they operate on the "market" side of society by definition. Ask that same question to inventors and you'll get different answers. Some people do not have the inclination to be entrepreneurs. Does that mean their contributions to society are worthless simply because they lack the particular skill of entrepreneurship? Would society be better off if inventors were likely to not reap the benefit of their efforts, or would otherwise have to keep the details of their invention secret? Is society better off with Watson's inner workings a trade secret? >We don't make software to file patents. We never have. If you go to Meetups in SF, you'll never meet engineers that want to file patents either. There is a subset of software development that would qualify as inventing. I see no reason why these cases should not be patentable. Just because the vast majority of developers are not inventors and thus see no benefit to patents is not a strong argument.