7 ms·

Why abolish software patents but not all patents?

by qq66 13y ago

sushirain 13y ago
Just because I don't have enough understanding in other fields outside of software. It is possible, for example, that medicine today requires patents to advance faster.
- alok-g 13y ago
  This is exactly why your opinion on abolishing patents does not hold water. You do not yet know. I am not necessarily in the favor patents, but do not agree that a resolution should be reached without thinking it through in its entirety. Edit (to answer biehl's comment): I meant abolish "software" patents.
  - biehl 13y ago
    He did not ask for "abolishing patents" he asked for the more narrow "abolish software patents". There is no need to broaden the subject to all patents. (Edit: Then your statement still makes no sense. If you understand that he spoke only about software patents - why do you then needlessly broaden the subject?) Edit2: It is worse-than-useless to demand no action for softwarepatents until all patent types have been analyzed. Do you also support stabbing people being legal until all uses of knives (in kitchens etc.) have been analyzed? Or do you see that we can reasonably outlaw some form of knife-use?
    - alok-g 13y ago
      Right. I edited my comment to clarify. What I am saying is that the narrow "abolish software patents" should not be applied without thinking about all other fields where the same course of action would be helpful. You cannot just make Pluto not a planet without defining what's the new criteria that separates a planet from a non-planet that is better than saying anything named "Pluto" is not a planet, unless there is a specific justifiable reason that isolates just software and nothing else. (Obviously, not understanding beyond software is not an answer.)
    - alok-g 13y ago
      Response to Edit2: You are right here too. Just that not thinking through brings a risk of making wrong decisions, which I think could be the case in this case. I am not 100% convinced that software patents should be abolished without understanding the criteria on the basis of which they should be (which may then apply to other fields also, but may not).
    - hackinthebochs 13y ago
      Advocating for abolishing software patents is saying that software is a special case. This is not obviously so (the 'software is math' argument is weak), and so any argument one puts forward for abolishing software patents likely applies to many other areas. It is obvious there is a problem with the quality of software patents being issued. It is not obvious that software patents in general should be abolished. After all, is it not possible to have an invention that is largely or completely software?
      - EGreg 13y ago
        In some areas, the R&D required to come out with a prototype is substantial -- in medicine you have costly clinical trials for instance. Free riders would benefit a lot more from that than software innovations.
throwawaymsft 13y ago
Software is more similar to math algorithms and shouldn't be patentable. Fundamental physical inventions (not algorithms) should be. If you invent a teleporter, you should have patent protection. Developing a video game that implements player.teleport() (however cleverly) shouldn't be.
- alok-g 13y ago
  To the best of my knowledge, algorithms are not patentable already, though there are workarounds that often get exploited. Software is rarely similar to math algorithms in practice. Just for example, majority of the software developers I have come across have little understanding of mathematics, fundamental computer science, and often also algorithms. They just know how to invoke the latter already built in various libraries to get the problem at hand solved. Finally, "software" by itself is not a subject of a patent, it is a subject of copyright. What is patentable is an "invention" that may be implemented in software or as a process instead of something physical. Example, regarding "player.teleport()", it is already that way.
hibikir 13y ago
Different fields are affected by patents differently. If I had to choose the current system and no patents, I'd choose no patents, but I see how there is space for other things. In Software, patents are silly because everything is derivative, and it's very difficult to separate the obvious from the non-obvious. It's not as if most patents are coming from many years of research: Enough eyeballs often would have arrived at the same conclusion. We'd also still build software without patents: It's just too useful not to keep working at it. Copyrights are more than enough. So now let's look at a very controversial one where patents make all the difference: Soybean seeds. If I spend 15 years developing a seed that yields better, copyright will not help me. But the minute I sell a seed, you can make as many copies of it as you want. You don't even have to buy the first seed from me, since the seeds themselves are what the farmer sells. Therefore, investing in seed quality becomes something that is extremely hard to do in a for-profit organization, because you have to recoup your entire investment in the first year, as in the second one, anyone that has a field can be your competitor. Patents in the field are also rarely dependent on each other: Different genes can be stacked on a plant, but unless you developed the entire suite of them all at once, it's not as if it's likely someone is going to find a little refinement that they'd love to sell, but depends on a different party's patent to also be on the plant. So in that field, no IP protection completely changes the game. Investment in soybean seed research becomes a purely government task, as it's impossible to get any ROI out of it. Now, one can still be against life sciences patents, but it's easy to see how removal of said patents would lower the effort spent on research, while on software, if anything, it'd make it go up, as we'd stop being afraid of doing something that we find obvious, and that someone else found patentable. So on each field, patents have different dynamics, and should be evaluated independently. I don't think you'll find many pro-software patent people that aren't just pro-patenting everything. And those really don't make any sense.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  In Software, patents are silly because everything is derivative, and it's very difficult to separate the obvious from the non-obvious. It's not as if most patents are coming from many years of research: Enough eyeballs often would have arrived at the same conclusion. To play Devil's advocate for a moment... Not long ago I was involved with the application process for a patent that was the result of a lot of original research by a small organisation, which was competing head-on with much larger and better funded organisations that hadn't come up with the same invention despite several years of competing in the same industry. One could certainly make a reasonable argument that the "enough eyeballs" theory does not apply in this case. Do you think the patent in question should be allowed? Does it matter whether the patent in question involved software in any way? If so, does it matter in what way or to what extent? Do the nature of the overall invention or of any part of it that involves software matter in any other way?
baddox 13y ago
I say abolish both. But it's easier to argue specifically against software patents, because even people who are generally fans of intellectual property protection can be shown how ludicrous software patents are.
georgemcbay 13y ago
Software patents tend to be the most superficial of them all when it comes to the litmus test of "Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it". (Or, even worse, in many cases it boils down to "could I reproduce this patented system totally by accident without ever even knowing someone else patented this simple system"). A good canonical example of this is Apple's much maligned "bounce scroll" or slide-to-unlock patents (though Apple is hardly alone when it comes to this nonsense). Any decent software developer could see either of those in action, having never read Apple's patent and never seen Apple's source code and whip up his or her own implementation in less than an hour. That alone should invalidate these patents. Some will argue that Apple's original idea was unique at the time, so they should have a patent on those grounds, but that's not what patents are supposed to protect (though massive amounts of money being funneled into lobbying and the legal system have served to obscure this in the past couple of decades). Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas. There's really not a true legal IP mechanism for the protection of ideas (even copyright is protection of expression, which is closer to ideas, but not quite the same).
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  >Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it This reasoning is deeply flawed. There is a tendency for something to seem "easy" or "obvious" after the fact, but this is ignoring all the insight, effort, and risk it took to find that initial successful path to the solution to begin with. Take a look at the Occulus Rift for example. Two years ago no one cared about VR. Today there are a handful of companies that claim to have a headset on par or better than the Rift. What changed? The Rift proved that it was viable, and now its relatively easy to follow their path to a successful product. Just because a solution is obvious after the fact, does not mean its creation was equally as obvious. >Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas. An apple lawyer could easily say that the "idea" here was unlocking of the phone, while the implementation/invention was the "slide to unlock" functionality. Neither is more right than the other. Edit: would be an interesting experiment to have public downvotes

Why abolish software patents but not all patents?

by qq66 13y ago

Why abolish software patents but not all patents?

Just because I don't have enough understanding in other fields outside of software. It is possible, for example, that medicine today requires patents to advance faster.

alok-g 13y ago
This is exactly why your opinion on abolishing patents does not hold water. You do not yet know. I am not necessarily in the favor patents, but do not agree that a resolution should be reached without thinking it through in its entirety. Edit (to answer biehl's comment): I meant abolish "software" patents.
- biehl 13y ago
  He did not ask for "abolishing patents" he asked for the more narrow "abolish software patents". There is no need to broaden the subject to all patents. (Edit: Then your statement still makes no sense. If you understand that he spoke only about software patents - why do you then needlessly broaden the subject?) Edit2: It is worse-than-useless to demand no action for softwarepatents until all patent types have been analyzed. Do you also support stabbing people being legal until all uses of knives (in kitchens etc.) have been analyzed? Or do you see that we can reasonably outlaw some form of knife-use?
  - alok-g 13y ago
    Right. I edited my comment to clarify. What I am saying is that the narrow "abolish software patents" should not be applied without thinking about all other fields where the same course of action would be helpful. You cannot just make Pluto not a planet without defining what's the new criteria that separates a planet from a non-planet that is better than saying anything named "Pluto" is not a planet, unless there is a specific justifiable reason that isolates just software and nothing else. (Obviously, not understanding beyond software is not an answer.)
  - alok-g 13y ago
    Response to Edit2: You are right here too. Just that not thinking through brings a risk of making wrong decisions, which I think could be the case in this case. I am not 100% convinced that software patents should be abolished without understanding the criteria on the basis of which they should be (which may then apply to other fields also, but may not).
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    Advocating for abolishing software patents is saying that software is a special case. This is not obviously so (the 'software is math' argument is weak), and so any argument one puts forward for abolishing software patents likely applies to many other areas. It is obvious there is a problem with the quality of software patents being issued. It is not obvious that software patents in general should be abolished. After all, is it not possible to have an invention that is largely or completely software?
    - EGreg 13y ago
      In some areas, the R&D required to come out with a prototype is substantial -- in medicine you have costly clinical trials for instance. Free riders would benefit a lot more from that than software innovations.

throwawaymsft 13y ago

Software is more similar to math algorithms and shouldn't be patentable. Fundamental physical inventions (not algorithms) should be. If you invent a teleporter, you should have patent protection. Developing a video game that implements player.teleport() (however cleverly) shouldn't be.

alok-g 13y ago
To the best of my knowledge, algorithms are not patentable already, though there are workarounds that often get exploited. Software is rarely similar to math algorithms in practice. Just for example, majority of the software developers I have come across have little understanding of mathematics, fundamental computer science, and often also algorithms. They just know how to invoke the latter already built in various libraries to get the problem at hand solved. Finally, "software" by itself is not a subject of a patent, it is a subject of copyright. What is patentable is an "invention" that may be implemented in software or as a process instead of something physical. Example, regarding "player.teleport()", it is already that way.

hibikir 13y ago

Different fields are affected by patents differently. If I had to choose the current system and no patents, I'd choose no patents, but I see how there is space for other things. In Software, patents are silly because everything is derivative, and it's very difficult to separate the obvious from the non-obvious. It's not as if most patents are coming from many years of research: Enough eyeballs often would have arrived at the same conclusion. We'd also still build software without patents: It's just too useful not to keep working at it. Copyrights are more than enough. So now let's look at a very controversial one where patents make all the difference: Soybean seeds. If I spend 15 years developing a seed that yields better, copyright will not help me. But the minute I sell a seed, you can make as many copies of it as you want. You don't even have to buy the first seed from me, since the seeds themselves are what the farmer sells. Therefore, investing in seed quality becomes something that is extremely hard to do in a for-profit organization, because you have to recoup your entire investment in the first year, as in the second one, anyone that has a field can be your competitor. Patents in the field are also rarely dependent on each other: Different genes can be stacked on a plant, but unless you developed the entire suite of them all at once, it's not as if it's likely someone is going to find a little refinement that they'd love to sell, but depends on a different party's patent to also be on the plant. So in that field, no IP protection completely changes the game. Investment in soybean seed research becomes a purely government task, as it's impossible to get any ROI out of it. Now, one can still be against life sciences patents, but it's easy to see how removal of said patents would lower the effort spent on research, while on software, if anything, it'd make it go up, as we'd stop being afraid of doing something that we find obvious, and that someone else found patentable. So on each field, patents have different dynamics, and should be evaluated independently. I don't think you'll find many pro-software patent people that aren't just pro-patenting everything. And those really don't make any sense.

Silhouette 13y ago
In Software, patents are silly because everything is derivative, and it's very difficult to separate the obvious from the non-obvious. It's not as if most patents are coming from many years of research: Enough eyeballs often would have arrived at the same conclusion. To play Devil's advocate for a moment... Not long ago I was involved with the application process for a patent that was the result of a lot of original research by a small organisation, which was competing head-on with much larger and better funded organisations that hadn't come up with the same invention despite several years of competing in the same industry. One could certainly make a reasonable argument that the "enough eyeballs" theory does not apply in this case. Do you think the patent in question should be allowed? Does it matter whether the patent in question involved software in any way? If so, does it matter in what way or to what extent? Do the nature of the overall invention or of any part of it that involves software matter in any other way?

baddox 13y ago

I say abolish both. But it's easier to argue specifically against software patents, because even people who are generally fans of intellectual property protection can be shown how ludicrous software patents are.

georgemcbay 13y ago

Software patents tend to be the most superficial of them all when it comes to the litmus test of "Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it". (Or, even worse, in many cases it boils down to "could I reproduce this patented system totally by accident without ever even knowing someone else patented this simple system"). A good canonical example of this is Apple's much maligned "bounce scroll" or slide-to-unlock patents (though Apple is hardly alone when it comes to this nonsense). Any decent software developer could see either of those in action, having never read Apple's patent and never seen Apple's source code and whip up his or her own implementation in less than an hour. That alone should invalidate these patents. Some will argue that Apple's original idea was unique at the time, so they should have a patent on those grounds, but that's not what patents are supposed to protect (though massive amounts of money being funneled into lobbying and the legal system have served to obscure this in the past couple of decades). Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas. There's really not a true legal IP mechanism for the protection of ideas (even copyright is protection of expression, which is closer to ideas, but not quite the same).

hackinthebochs 13y ago
>Could I reproduce this patented system without ever reading the patent just by looking at the results of it This reasoning is deeply flawed. There is a tendency for something to seem "easy" or "obvious" after the fact, but this is ignoring all the insight, effort, and risk it took to find that initial successful path to the solution to begin with. Take a look at the Occulus Rift for example. Two years ago no one cared about VR. Today there are a handful of companies that claim to have a headset on par or better than the Rift. What changed? The Rift proved that it was viable, and now its relatively easy to follow their path to a successful product. Just because a solution is obvious after the fact, does not mean its creation was equally as obvious. >Patents don't exist to protect ideas, they are supposed to protect unique and novel implementations of inventions, not ideas. An apple lawyer could easily say that the "idea" here was unlocking of the phone, while the implementation/invention was the "slide to unlock" functionality. Neither is more right than the other. Edit: would be an interesting experiment to have public downvotes