3 ms·

I disagree . . . the fundamental differences are that 1) copyright already protects software, 2) any given software program could literally fall afoul of hundre

by 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.
- akeefer 17y ago
  I'm just arguing against patents on software, not patents in general. Novels aren't protected by patents, yet people still manage to write books. Athletic training techniques aren't patentable, yet people still manage to innovate and share knowledge there. Recipes are only protected by trade secrets, yet people manage to innovate when it comes to food; people publish cookbooks, restaraunts come out with new dishes. Fashion designs are only protected by copyright, and yet fashion moves at a lightning pace. Mathematical and logical proofs aren't patentable, yet people still do mathematical research, and talk about it. And keep in mind that software patents weren't even recognized until the 1980's, and weren't widely granted until the mid-90's. The majority of the history of computing has advanced without patent protection. I'm not sure why you'd think that software advancement would be hindered without patents, or that conversation would somehow die out. Patents for software are notoriously useless to read, and only an infinitesimal part of any system is patented anyway, and then generally only as a landmine against future competitors or to enforce mutually-assured destruction. The vast majority of an application's "secret sauce" is protected by trade secrets, not by patents, and copyright guards against the actual theft of resources. I don't think that patents in the software world really do much to open up what would otherwise be a trade secret, with the possible exception of things like compression algorithms. I think that's fundamentally different from how patents function in, say, the pharmaceutical industry, where patent protection does encourage sharing of information.
  - stonemetal 17y ago
    When the only way to protect knowledge is to make it secret then you literally get knowledge that die like Damascus steel did. It was so advantageous to protect how it was made that now a thousand years after it was first created we have no clue how it was made(or how we have lost nuclear missle secrets because the secret was to well kept.) Just think of how secretive Google is. If it weren't for the patent system how much would us lowly outsiders know about pagerank?
    - derefr 17y ago
      The difference is that source code is the recipe, not the steel. When a company "dies", their trade secrets aren't destroyed, but rather left laying out in the open for anyone to find.

by akeefer 17y ago

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.

akeefer 17y ago
I'm just arguing against patents on software, not patents in general. Novels aren't protected by patents, yet people still manage to write books. Athletic training techniques aren't patentable, yet people still manage to innovate and share knowledge there. Recipes are only protected by trade secrets, yet people manage to innovate when it comes to food; people publish cookbooks, restaraunts come out with new dishes. Fashion designs are only protected by copyright, and yet fashion moves at a lightning pace. Mathematical and logical proofs aren't patentable, yet people still do mathematical research, and talk about it. And keep in mind that software patents weren't even recognized until the 1980's, and weren't widely granted until the mid-90's. The majority of the history of computing has advanced without patent protection. I'm not sure why you'd think that software advancement would be hindered without patents, or that conversation would somehow die out. Patents for software are notoriously useless to read, and only an infinitesimal part of any system is patented anyway, and then generally only as a landmine against future competitors or to enforce mutually-assured destruction. The vast majority of an application's "secret sauce" is protected by trade secrets, not by patents, and copyright guards against the actual theft of resources. I don't think that patents in the software world really do much to open up what would otherwise be a trade secret, with the possible exception of things like compression algorithms. I think that's fundamentally different from how patents function in, say, the pharmaceutical industry, where patent protection does encourage sharing of information.
- stonemetal 17y ago
  When the only way to protect knowledge is to make it secret then you literally get knowledge that die like Damascus steel did. It was so advantageous to protect how it was made that now a thousand years after it was first created we have no clue how it was made(or how we have lost nuclear missle secrets because the secret was to well kept.) Just think of how secretive Google is. If it weren't for the patent system how much would us lowly outsiders know about pagerank?
  - derefr 17y ago
    The difference is that source code is the recipe, not the steel. When a company "dies", their trade secrets aren't destroyed, but rather left laying out in the open for anyone to find.