5 ms·

Software patents should be abolished

30 points by dwynings 17y ago

ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Someone asks in the comments why patents work better in pharmaceuticals. A book I read recently claimed it all came down how precisely and clearly the patent is defined and delineated. Imagine you moved into a lush valley with a new town in it to do business. If you found all the best spots had been taken and fenced in then that would kind of suck. Imagine now that people had secretly claimed land, and done so in a way that even they didn't know what the boundary was. "That land over there" or "the thickest part of the forest" and yet these secret, vague claims could be legally enforced. Imagine investing money to build on that land, trying your best to avoid accidentally stepping on anyone's property. The first case is chemical compounds, it's either got those atoms in that arrangement or it doesn't. The latter is "selling shoes over the internet" and other alleged software patents. Though having said that I think patents are still broken and lead to the promotion of some very strange behaviour in the medical field. But in software they are appallingly bad.
- cabalamat 17y ago
  > Imagine now that people had secretly claimed land, and done so in a way that even they didn't know what the boundary was. "That land over there" or "the thickest part of the forest" and yet these secret, vague claims could be legally enforced. Imagine investing money to build on that land, trying your best to avoid accidentally stepping on anyone's property. That's a nice analogy. I'm writing a book about intellectual property and the Pirate party movement; mind if I use your analogy?
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    Feel free.
    - juhbiu 17y ago
      I already patented it - 1, a system of using a simple picture to represent a complex idea 2 a specific inplementation of 1 where the picture involves green grass.
btn 17y ago
And I am absolutely sure that if we got rid of patents tomorrow innovation wouldn’t be reduced at all I don't think this is true at all. While most of the bad press about software patents comes from frivolous patents and companies that troll with their portfolios, that doesn't mean there are no legitimate software patents. Consider the patents held by MPEG LA (MPEG codecs, Firewire, H.264, etc.) These patents represent years of R&D work by their member companies and describe inventions that are non-frivolous. Surely these companies deserve some kind of protection for their work to encourage them to continue to invest in such research and publish it. One of the difficulties in the software patents issue is where to draw the line---how to define what is a "software patent" and what defines the patentability of inventions in that class. The debate on software patents is shifting more towards this issue, and articles that make sweeping statements like "software/internet/hardware patents have no benefit to society and should be abolished" add nothing to it.
- kiba 17y ago
  Sweeping statement do have merits. It might be helpful for you to read the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly". http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht... It talked about many historical cases where the patent and copyright system failed and as well historical evidence of free market providing immense innovative pressure. Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Sometime, it have lot of merits. For example, James Watt use the patent system to force his competitor away from the market, instead of using his time to invent. When his patent expired, Watt got rich anyway! The early American book publishing industry benefited immensely from book piracy of British authors. British authors got paid anyway, sometime even better than the royalty rate they receive at home! The movie industry moved to California to escape Thomas Edison' movie patent.
  - btn 17y ago
    Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Perhaps, but my specific problems with this article is that I don't think it advances the argument in any meaningful way, and it doesn't provide evidence for its conclusion---other than a single example of a patent troll, and the claim that an NYT story about another company promotes an "urban myth". The general problem with sweeping statements is that they very susceptible to attack because they lack the precision you need to build a proper argument.
vijayr 17y ago
Just a thought. Why not set a time limit on patents, like copyright? You have a patent, its valid only for say 30 or 50 years, then its public domain. or something like this already exists?
- actionjackson 17y ago
  Time limit already exists. The thing with software is that its associated technology will most likely expire long before its patent does.
  - vaksel 17y ago
    could always make software patents last only 2-3 years. That should be enough for the original company to get noticed
    - omouse 17y ago
      Do you think IBM, Microsoft, Apple and that whole bunch will let that happen?
jeromec 17y ago
For those who haven't read Paul Graham's essay on software patents I highly recommend it. It's wonderfully insightful, and gave me perspectives I never considered. http://paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html http://paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html
xiaoma 17y ago
I agree that the system is a mess, but defining exactly what "software" patents are is difficult. In machine inventions, the actual invention is increasingly happening in the software. Patenting an organic molecule or a gene is a different, and also flawed case. But most machines, business plans and other inventions could be reduced to software. As 3d printing becomes more common, this will get more and more common. Algorithms currently aren't patentable, but due to semantic manipulation of the meaning of "algorithm", people are patenting algorithms by calling them a "system that does x". If software patents were abolished, what would prevent applicants from using the exact same sort of strategy to get around them? Rather than patenting a piece of code, people would file a patent for a machine that does everything the code in question does.
chrischen 17y ago
Innovation happens spontaneously and you'll get the irresistible urge to implement it. If the promise of a patent is your only incentive then you probably won't do a good job at it. However there are people who may not be so ingenious, and pour nothing but a lot of time and effort into something. These may be the ones most interested in patents. However in a patentless world they still have the advantage of understanding their work the best, and that gives them an edge. That being said, I believe anyone capable of understanding another person's complicated work has the right to duplicate it. In the end whoever can innovate faster, whoever is better at making it better, and whoever understands the concepts best will come out on top.
kgermino 17y ago
It seems to me that with software what the sftware does is usually just solve a problem. Patents are to protect the method of solving a problem, in RIM's case mobile email wasn't a method of solving a problem, the lack of mobile email was the problem. In software the method of solving the problem is the source code, and that should be protected, which it is, by copyright law.
jfarmer 17y ago
Is this a reasonable middle ground? All software covered by a patent must have the source publicly available.
- scotty79 17y ago
  All software that someone wants to be protected by copyright should have source code publicly available. That would be exact equivalent of standard patents. If you publish all the details of your invention you get temporary monopoly on manufacturing it's copies. If not then you get no protection.
mr_luc 17y ago
I'd just like to see the period of time drastically reduced for "inventions" in domains that move faster. Any software patent should last no longer than a year, period. And as long as I'm writing the law, anything patented by Intellectual Ventures becomes public domain in six days.

30 points by dwynings 17y ago

Someone asks in the comments why patents work better in pharmaceuticals. A book I read recently claimed it all came down how precisely and clearly the patent is defined and delineated. Imagine you moved into a lush valley with a new town in it to do business. If you found all the best spots had been taken and fenced in then that would kind of suck. Imagine now that people had secretly claimed land, and done so in a way that even they didn't know what the boundary was. "That land over there" or "the thickest part of the forest" and yet these secret, vague claims could be legally enforced. Imagine investing money to build on that land, trying your best to avoid accidentally stepping on anyone's property. The first case is chemical compounds, it's either got those atoms in that arrangement or it doesn't. The latter is "selling shoes over the internet" and other alleged software patents. Though having said that I think patents are still broken and lead to the promotion of some very strange behaviour in the medical field. But in software they are appallingly bad.

cabalamat 17y ago
> Imagine now that people had secretly claimed land, and done so in a way that even they didn't know what the boundary was. "That land over there" or "the thickest part of the forest" and yet these secret, vague claims could be legally enforced. Imagine investing money to build on that land, trying your best to avoid accidentally stepping on anyone's property. That's a nice analogy. I'm writing a book about intellectual property and the Pirate party movement; mind if I use your analogy?
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  Feel free.
  - juhbiu 17y ago
    I already patented it - 1, a system of using a simple picture to represent a complex idea 2 a specific inplementation of 1 where the picture involves green grass.

btn 17y ago

And I am absolutely sure that if we got rid of patents tomorrow innovation wouldn’t be reduced at all I don't think this is true at all. While most of the bad press about software patents comes from frivolous patents and companies that troll with their portfolios, that doesn't mean there are no legitimate software patents. Consider the patents held by MPEG LA (MPEG codecs, Firewire, H.264, etc.) These patents represent years of R&D work by their member companies and describe inventions that are non-frivolous. Surely these companies deserve some kind of protection for their work to encourage them to continue to invest in such research and publish it. One of the difficulties in the software patents issue is where to draw the line---how to define what is a "software patent" and what defines the patentability of inventions in that class. The debate on software patents is shifting more towards this issue, and articles that make sweeping statements like "software/internet/hardware patents have no benefit to society and should be abolished" add nothing to it.

kiba 17y ago
Sweeping statement do have merits. It might be helpful for you to read the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly". http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht... It talked about many historical cases where the patent and copyright system failed and as well historical evidence of free market providing immense innovative pressure. Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Sometime, it have lot of merits. For example, James Watt use the patent system to force his competitor away from the market, instead of using his time to invent. When his patent expired, Watt got rich anyway! The early American book publishing industry benefited immensely from book piracy of British authors. British authors got paid anyway, sometime even better than the royalty rate they receive at home! The movie industry moved to California to escape Thomas Edison' movie patent.
- btn 17y ago
  Just because an argument is in the extreme doesn't mean it have any merits whatsoever. Perhaps, but my specific problems with this article is that I don't think it advances the argument in any meaningful way, and it doesn't provide evidence for its conclusion---other than a single example of a patent troll, and the claim that an NYT story about another company promotes an "urban myth". The general problem with sweeping statements is that they very susceptible to attack because they lack the precision you need to build a proper argument.

vijayr 17y ago

Just a thought. Why not set a time limit on patents, like copyright? You have a patent, its valid only for say 30 or 50 years, then its public domain. or something like this already exists?

actionjackson 17y ago
Time limit already exists. The thing with software is that its associated technology will most likely expire long before its patent does.
- vaksel 17y ago
  could always make software patents last only 2-3 years. That should be enough for the original company to get noticed
  - omouse 17y ago
    Do you think IBM, Microsoft, Apple and that whole bunch will let that happen?

jeromec 17y ago

For those who haven't read Paul Graham's essay on software patents I highly recommend it. It's wonderfully insightful, and gave me perspectives I never considered. http://paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html http://paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html

xiaoma 17y ago

I agree that the system is a mess, but defining exactly what "software" patents are is difficult. In machine inventions, the actual invention is increasingly happening in the software. Patenting an organic molecule or a gene is a different, and also flawed case. But most machines, business plans and other inventions could be reduced to software. As 3d printing becomes more common, this will get more and more common. Algorithms currently aren't patentable, but due to semantic manipulation of the meaning of "algorithm", people are patenting algorithms by calling them a "system that does x". If software patents were abolished, what would prevent applicants from using the exact same sort of strategy to get around them? Rather than patenting a piece of code, people would file a patent for a machine that does everything the code in question does.

chrischen 17y ago

Innovation happens spontaneously and you'll get the irresistible urge to implement it. If the promise of a patent is your only incentive then you probably won't do a good job at it. However there are people who may not be so ingenious, and pour nothing but a lot of time and effort into something. These may be the ones most interested in patents. However in a patentless world they still have the advantage of understanding their work the best, and that gives them an edge. That being said, I believe anyone capable of understanding another person's complicated work has the right to duplicate it. In the end whoever can innovate faster, whoever is better at making it better, and whoever understands the concepts best will come out on top.

kgermino 17y ago

It seems to me that with software what the sftware does is usually just solve a problem. Patents are to protect the method of solving a problem, in RIM's case mobile email wasn't a method of solving a problem, the lack of mobile email was the problem. In software the method of solving the problem is the source code, and that should be protected, which it is, by copyright law.

jfarmer 17y ago

Is this a reasonable middle ground? All software covered by a patent must have the source publicly available.

scotty79 17y ago
All software that someone wants to be protected by copyright should have source code publicly available. That would be exact equivalent of standard patents. If you publish all the details of your invention you get temporary monopoly on manufacturing it's copies. If not then you get no protection.

mr_luc 17y ago

I'd just like to see the period of time drastically reduced for "inventions" in domains that move faster. Any software patent should last no longer than a year, period. And as long as I'm writing the law, anything patented by Intellectual Ventures becomes public domain in six days.