3 ms·
We don't even need to look to that subjective standard. We grant people exclusive rights or patents for sharing novel techniques with other people skilled in th
by revelation 12y ago
We don't even need to look to that subjective standard. We grant people exclusive rights or patents for sharing novel techniques with other people skilled in the art, yet I have never seen a professional software programmer look to patents for information or algorithms. It just doesn't happen.
So the tradeoff here is exclusive rights for zero public benefits. That is not the way it was intended.
- ScottBurson 12y agoYou wouldn't necessarily read the actual patent, but it could happen that you read a conference paper, or attend the presentation, and then learn that the technique described in it is the subject of a patent application. The paper will still be a better source of information than the patent. I don't know how often this happens, but I have seen it.
- sanxiyn 12y agoI work on compilers, and while I don't read patents, I read papers which explain patented ideas. I think it is reasonable to assume that some of compiler-related papers from, say, IBM, wouldn't have been published and kept secret if IBM couldn't file patents before publishing papers. So "programmers don't read patents" does not prove "zero public benefits", because I think it is more like "programmers do read materials which wouldn't have been published if they couldn't be patented".
- nitrogen 12y agoAre some of those papers also defensive publications to prevent others from patenting the ideas?
- reitanqild 12y agoI used to work with software that used SIFT. And I am sometimes a programmer.