5 ms·

Honestly, how many actual software engineers do you know that are in favor of patents and that think it will help them protect their invention, rather than bein

by akeefer 17y ago

Honestly, how many actual software engineers do you know that are in favor of patents and that think it will help them protect their invention, rather than being terrified of accidentally running afoul of someone's patents? And how many cases of software patents have you actually seen used to protect the little inventor from the big bad corporation trying to steal his idea, rather than used by patent trolls to extract money from whoever has deep pockets, by big corporations as anti-competitive tactics against startups, or by big corporations against each other in a kind of mutually-assured destruction detente? I think that the historical record is pretty clear that software patents are a huge net negative for the industry and do much more to harm innovation than they do to protect it. How many startups wouldn't be started if people couldn't patent their software, and merely had to have it protected by copyright? Hardly any (probably just ones that deal with things like video encoding). How many startups will be sued out of existence by big corporations or patent trolls due to ludicrous patents, and how many startups won't be started at all because the landscape is already a patent minefield? A whole lot more. Patenting isn't an inherent right, it's a pragmatic right granted by the government in order to encourage innovation and openness by providing people with temporary monopoly rights in exchange for sharing their inventions. Software patents serve neither to foster innovation nor to foster information sharing, since software patents themselves are pretty much universally unreadable, unenlightening, obvious garbage.

fnid 17y ago
The problems you mention aren't unique to software. How many mechanical engineers look at a device and think it is obvious? Or they read a patent and think, "This is unreadable, unenlightening, obvious garbage?" Lots I'm sure. To answer your question. Mint.com patented their software. Yext.com has patents. Lots of startups patent their software and the algorithms that give their companies a competitive advantage. My argument is that software isn't a special case in the field of innovation. If someone can patent a solar panel that extracts 10x more energy from the same area, then why shouldn't a company be allowed to patent a software algorithm that can compress data stored on disk to 10% of its original size? Ultimately, math and science are behind both inventions. I also do not agree that it is pretty clear that software patents are a huge net negative. You'll have to provide evidence for that. If you do that, you'll also have to show that patents for software are more negative than patents for mechanical devices or designs in all the other fields if you think software patents should be disallowed, but not patents in other fields. The question is, why don't we disallow ALL patents? Think of all the lives that would be saved if pharmaceuticals could be sold at generic prices! There's something really wrong with the philosophy, religion perhaps that motivates a group of software engineers to think their work isn't valuable and shouldn't be protected and isn't worth paying for. The arguments just don't seem rational and my experience with the world tends to discount all the arguments in favor of degrading the field of software engineering to that of garage bands just hacking out code because they love it. Eventually those hackers run out of money and need to eat. Perhaps there is some idea that software engineers should just really really love what they do! They should love it so much they don't care if they get paid. It's as if getting paid for what you do makes it work. That's not true though. Athletes get paid to do what they love. Lots of doctors and lawyers love what they do. I think it's totally fine to get paid to do what you love.
- akeefer 17y ago
  I disagree . . . the fundamental differences are that 1) copyright already protects software, 2) any given software program could literally fall afoul of hundreds or thousands of patents, 3) the patents themselves do little to encourage innovation, and 4) that duplicating a software system is a far different process than copying someone's drug formula, such that patents are unnecessary. On balance, patents do more harm than good to companies and their engineers. The companies you mentioned don't patent for competitive advantage, they patent so that when they get sued by someone else they can countersue. That's what everyone does; if you don't have patents and someone sues you, you can't fight back. Patents on pharmaceuticals do encourage innovation, because the one essential element is the chemical formula (to a lesser extent, the process to produce that chemical), which would easily be copied without protection. A given software application consists of thousands of lines of code and thousands of algorithmic decision (often hundreds of thousands or millions); if you knew that someone was using an XOR in order to flip bits, it doesn't exactly let you copy their system. My argument is that patents on software don't encourage innovation because they don't increase the protection that's already there, and the threat of other people's patents is constantly looming and stifles innovation. Look, I'm a software engineer, and I know a lot of other engineers, so I'm not discounting my own or anyone's work or saying it's not valuable and that people shouldn't get paid for it. What I'm saying is that patenting isn't a useful or appropriate mechanism of protection, that copyright combined with the inherent difficult of duplicating the thousands of features in someone else's application is barrier enough, and that patents actually hurt entrepreneurs and software companies and make it harder for engineers to get paid for their work.
  - stonemetal 17y ago
    Yeah and copyright already protects mechanical drawings. If that were all we were trying to protect then no need for patents on anything. You have effectively killed any sort of technical conversation if everyone must protect trade secrets. You have literally killed any advancement in software if everyone must have a the secret dies with me sort of attitude about every innovative step taken by every software developer out there. The patent system needs to be reformed but if done away with will leave us with little more than Damascus steel.

by akeefer 17y ago

fnid 17y ago

The problems you mention aren't unique to software. How many mechanical engineers look at a device and think it is obvious? Or they read a patent and think, "This is unreadable, unenlightening, obvious garbage?" Lots I'm sure. To answer your question. Mint.com patented their software. Yext.com has patents. Lots of startups patent their software and the algorithms that give their companies a competitive advantage. My argument is that software isn't a special case in the field of innovation. If someone can patent a solar panel that extracts 10x more energy from the same area, then why shouldn't a company be allowed to patent a software algorithm that can compress data stored on disk to 10% of its original size? Ultimately, math and science are behind both inventions. I also do not agree that it is pretty clear that software patents are a huge net negative. You'll have to provide evidence for that. If you do that, you'll also have to show that patents for software are more negative than patents for mechanical devices or designs in all the other fields if you think software patents should be disallowed, but not patents in other fields. The question is, why don't we disallow ALL patents? Think of all the lives that would be saved if pharmaceuticals could be sold at generic prices! There's something really wrong with the philosophy, religion perhaps that motivates a group of software engineers to think their work isn't valuable and shouldn't be protected and isn't worth paying for. The arguments just don't seem rational and my experience with the world tends to discount all the arguments in favor of degrading the field of software engineering to that of garage bands just hacking out code because they love it. Eventually those hackers run out of money and need to eat. Perhaps there is some idea that software engineers should just really really love what they do! They should love it so much they don't care if they get paid. It's as if getting paid for what you do makes it work. That's not true though. Athletes get paid to do what they love. Lots of doctors and lawyers love what they do. I think it's totally fine to get paid to do what you love.

akeefer 17y ago
I disagree . . . the fundamental differences are that 1) copyright already protects software, 2) any given software program could literally fall afoul of hundreds or thousands of patents, 3) the patents themselves do little to encourage innovation, and 4) that duplicating a software system is a far different process than copying someone's drug formula, such that patents are unnecessary. On balance, patents do more harm than good to companies and their engineers. The companies you mentioned don't patent for competitive advantage, they patent so that when they get sued by someone else they can countersue. That's what everyone does; if you don't have patents and someone sues you, you can't fight back. Patents on pharmaceuticals do encourage innovation, because the one essential element is the chemical formula (to a lesser extent, the process to produce that chemical), which would easily be copied without protection. A given software application consists of thousands of lines of code and thousands of algorithmic decision (often hundreds of thousands or millions); if you knew that someone was using an XOR in order to flip bits, it doesn't exactly let you copy their system. My argument is that patents on software don't encourage innovation because they don't increase the protection that's already there, and the threat of other people's patents is constantly looming and stifles innovation. Look, I'm a software engineer, and I know a lot of other engineers, so I'm not discounting my own or anyone's work or saying it's not valuable and that people shouldn't get paid for it. What I'm saying is that patenting isn't a useful or appropriate mechanism of protection, that copyright combined with the inherent difficult of duplicating the thousands of features in someone else's application is barrier enough, and that patents actually hurt entrepreneurs and software companies and make it harder for engineers to get paid for their work.
- stonemetal 17y ago
  Yeah and copyright already protects mechanical drawings. If that were all we were trying to protect then no need for patents on anything. You have effectively killed any sort of technical conversation if everyone must protect trade secrets. You have literally killed any advancement in software if everyone must have a the secret dies with me sort of attitude about every innovative step taken by every software developer out there. The patent system needs to be reformed but if done away with will leave us with little more than Damascus steel.