Perens on Patents 366
lewiz writes "An interesting interview with Bruce Perens over at the BBC. He's up discussing the role of HP, IBM, et al and the move towards Linux. However, his main point is about software patents and how they are much more of a problem than SCO: 'We're looking at a future where only the very largest companies will be able to implement software, and it will technically be illegal for other people to do so.'"
Prior Art (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe it is up to other inventors to bring up their prior art when disputing a patent.
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, that is the big catch-22. Most of the stuff is (seemingly) so common or simple that nobody bothers to patent it. Thus, once somebody does come along with a patent that is butt simple, there is nothing in the existing patent records for it.
The second problem is the newly allowed "business processes". These also have no patent record because they are new. Congress should get off its ass and disallow biz process patents. The patent office says that the courts have allowed them and there are no laws disallowing them. Thus, they will continue to accept them until a law says otherwise.
Re:Prior Art (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Interesting)
Most original ideas that corporations stumble onto are never published. They are essentially trade secrets as far as the company is concerned. Besides if they publish them, others may sue them for patent or copyright infringement. Thus, they often keep quiet. However, now they are starting to patent everything in the book to at least protect themselves. It is snowballing.
I did some work for a large telecommunications company that successfully patented some automatic auditing algorithms, something that I thought was not that special, just some IF statements over statistical measurements to detect suspicious trends. It is the sort of thing that would remain internal before all this patent and counter-patent mess.
biz processes == bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Some crazy friend I know says that patents are good because they provide a reason to disclose new ideas. Then other people can learn from the new idea and create bigger/better ideas.
Here's an example: a construction company that patents building residential houses that have a "business area" within the home. The invention is the incorporation of another type of room within the structure to serve business uses (whatever that means).
So this one small construction company gets the business-model patent. Until the patent expires, this one business has a monopoly on building houses with a certain room. It doesn't matter that they can only construct one home at a time and are geographically isolated - no one else can build a house with a similar feature.
The USPTO is giving out market monopolies by awarding business patents. That crazy friend I mentioned earlier also told me that the US government doesn't like monopolies. Like I said, that friend is crazy.
Re:Prior Art (Score:3, Interesting)
A patent effectively grants the holder a monopoly on exploiting an idea, or anything based on that idea, for a considerable period of time. Here in the UK it's 20 years, which is pretty long time by the standar
Re:Prior Art (Score:3, Insightful)
Part of the problem with making patents expensive is that it then makes it more difficult for the garage inventor to get a patent, who is whom patents are supposed to help. I think, originally, patents were to protect the "small" guys from the "big" guys - think about it, why does a big huge company (and I w
Re:Prior Art (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting rid of this bullshit about process patents and only allowing patents on things that you've actually created and work would be a really good start.
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Interesting)
bigcompany patents something obvious
smallcompany says "hey this is my patent!"
bigcompany goes "prove it"
bigcompany and smallcompany go into a legal battle over it and bigcompany drains smallcompany through endless legal wranglings.
I once advised a friend who jokingly said to me one of his IM "inventions" was patentable, and that he should go get a patent on it. I told him it shouldn't be a joke, and he should indeed patent it.
2 years later a large company came up with that exact feature, patented to themselves.
The only way to win in this patent system is to use it, currently. If you have an idea you're using, a unique one, patent it. now. then release it under license to anyone in return that they do the same with one of their patents, or patents in products that use your patent, or something.
Gnu Patent License, anyone?
Re:Prior Art (Score:4, Interesting)
Set up an anti-patent database, findable on the web through obvious domains (unpatentable.org, anti-patent.org, etc). Accept all submissions of ideas, completely keyworded and timestamped, just as searchable as the USPTO's patent database. [uspto.gov] It doesn't matter too much if the same idea is submitted twice; advise people to search and avoid that, if you want to save disk space. When you find out an idea in the database is patented, leave it in the database but add references to the patents. Maintain security of the database and accuracy of timestamps, because without credibility the database is worthless.
A centralized site like this makes it easy for anybody who wants to use these ideas to say, "Look - you can't sue me for using your patent; this idea was published to the world two months before you filed for patent." (IANAL)
As a side effect, patent examiners could use the database to find prior art, but they don't have to use this system for it to help.
Don't expect the USPTO to do the job you want them to do. You know they're broken, and they'll drag us through thousands more bad patents before they change, if they ever do. Here: the new Director of the USPTO as of 2004-01-12 touts his help getting the DMCA passed: Jon Dudas [uspto.gov]. What more do you need to know?
Fixing the broken USPTO will take time, organization, money, and expertise. Publishing anti-patents outside of any government might be the simplest way. Maybe the EFF could organize the effort.
People outside the US have different laws and jurisdictions to worry about. But this database might help in those jurisdictions too (e.g. Microsoft patenting obvious XML usage in Europe).
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Informative)
You can find the exact section here on their website [uspto.gov]
The main page of their Manual of Patent Examining Procedure [uspto.gov] is at this link.
To quote the sections that apply here:
1.104 Nature of examination.
(a) Examiner's action.
(1) On taking up an application for examination or a patent in a reexamination proceeding, the examiner shall make a thorough study thereof and shall make a thorough investigation of the available prior art relating to the subject matter of the claimed invention. The examination shall be complete with respect both to compliance of the application or patent under reexamination with the applicable statutes and rules and to the patentability of the invention as claimed, as well as with respect to matters of form, unless otherwise indicated.
Re:Prior Art (Score:3, Interesting)
And do you have any idea of the risks and costs involved in challenging a patent? Some of the numbers I've seen would daunt a profitable company, much less an
CS is math (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the biggest problem with some of the patents we're seeing these days is that the issue of prior art isn't being taken into account.
No, the biggest problem is that software (or any mathematics for that matter) should not be patentable. Society's first big loss was when the fast talking SOBs slipped the false notion that if you could describe a mathematical algorithm in words that made it sound like an invention then it magically was an invention into the cultural norms and started patenting software in the first place.
(Our second big loss has been the "IP" fudge, which is blurring the distinctions between patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, competative advantages, wishful thinking, bullshit, and marketing babble into one vague pile of lawyer poo).
Affording patent protection to discoveries in mathematics, biology, etc. or copyright protection to numbers, animals, etc. is against the interest of a free society as surely as allowing thought control, albeit the death of freedom comes somewhat more slowly.
-- MarkusQ
Re:CS is math (Score:3, Funny)
Excellent. I think I need to come up with a shorter version of that to turn into my new sig!
Re:CS is math (Score:4, Funny)
Excellent. I think I need to come up with a shorter version of that to turn into my new sig!
*smile* Fine, so long as you realize that it's my intellectual property.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. For a while (1999?) my sig was "Intellectual Property is neither."
Re:CS is math (Score:5, Insightful)
On one side if the coin there are the "platonists" who consider math as the uncovering of ideal, eternally existing, abstract objects. On the other there are the "formalists" who consider mathematics as more of a game where theorems are developed logically from axioms chosen arbitrarily.
Then there is Rueben Hersh's connotation that mathematics is what mathematicians do. In lay-man's terms, without mathematicians there would be no math. He further implies that the math we know is decided by the mathematicians. Consider fluxions versus calculus, two different solutions to the same problem and one was superior. They came about in two different ways because the principle mathematicians were different people.
If we follow the platonists approach then math should not be patentable because it just is. A platonist would consider patenting math like patenting a mountain.
Hersh would contend that math is the creation of the mathematician and hence, as a product of personal endeavor, should be patentable.
In terms of the courts view on software, we are stuck in a Hershian situation, so what is the solution? If we had known that this would be the case, the EFF (electronic frontier foundation) or the GNU project could have started patenting software twenty or thirty years ago, thereby capturing the axioms on which software was founded. THIS is what should piss people off. It pisses me off in computer science and biology. Companies are standing on the shoulders of giants who didn't have the opportunities available to them, especially when most of the underlying infrastructure was built with public funds.
Patents are expensive, but there goal is to offer short-term incentives for development in order to release knowledge into the public domain. Sometimes we forget that patents are designed to release knowledge. However, I would favor a progressive patent law where software patents last only five years and drugs targeted at monogenic diseases that don't affect many patients (like huntington's disease and spinal muscular atrophy) last for forty.
That's just me though.
Re:CS is math (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't a matter of discovery vs. invention; it's the fact that patents are a restriction on the freedom of the people given in exchange for certain disclosure. The exchange is offered by the people when it is to their advantage to do so, or at least that is the constitutional intent. The present system has been usrped by the patentors and is being run to their advantage, contrary to the public good and unsuported by the legal basis on which it stands.
Patents were never intended to cover mathematics, be it discovered, invented, e-mailed by the gods or handed down by little green men on 3x5 cards. Math is not patentable.
-- MarkusQ
Re:CS is math (Score:4, Informative)
I think it's time to spend some karma here, as I'm most assuredly going to lose some for saying this, but...
The idea of a patent is to benefit those that invent things, on the notion that inventing things in general is a good idea.
A patent is never completely new. All ideas come from other ideas. Taking an existing idea and improving on it can easily result in a patentable item.
Patents are issued quite legitimately for all kinds of incremental ideas. For example, I have a patented Snap-on ratchet screwdriver. I looked up the patent one time, just for kicks. The actual latch mechanism inside the screwdriver is what's patented. If you are interested, you can look it up yourself. [uspto.gov]
Notice that it references some 20 other patents, one dating back to 1883! Ratchet screwdrivers are nothing new - but there's still plenty of patentable ideas around ratchet screwdrivers.
Now, with a patent, you have an idea that results in a machine that does something. How is software really any different?
You can't get a patent on software itself. You can only get a patent on the resulting combination of a computer and the software, which, as a unified piece, is an operating machine that is capable of performing a real activity or service.
You are not be able to patent a specific instance of software - that's protected by copyright law. (which IMHO is easily more messed up than patents are with their 100+ year extensions)
You can't patent an algorithm, unless that algorithm is part of a demonstrable machine that produces an identifiable result.
Granted, software can be represented as a set of numbers, but then, too, so can a design for the tractor hitch!
Where is the problem?
Re:CS is math (Score:3, Informative)
Can you give a single example?
One? (provide me a link) Sure. Without even leaving Slashdot [slashdot.org]
Let's see what that gets us. Hmm. Microsoft patenting XML for storing text, sombody sueing the DNS registrars for their (patented) use of URLs, Eolas sueing MS for using pluggins (which they claim to have patented), Intertrusts DRM patents, ...gosh I'm sorry, I forgot. You only asked for one. I won't bother citing the rest of the page.
-- MarkusQ
Re:CS is math (Score:3, Informative)
You can't get a patent on software itself. You can only get a patent on the resulting combination of a computer and the software, which, as a unified piece, is an operating machine that is capable of performing a real activity or service.
Instead, we either have a few lame, secondhand press articles, or worse, thirdhand slashdot posti
Re:CS is math (Score:3, Funny)
I have just applied for a patent on the first 10 million digit prime number. Much like SCO, I'm not going to tell you the number (but I can tell you the process by which I discovered it).
When the Gimps Project [mersenne.org] finds it, I am going to sue them for the $100,000 prize they will collect.
At that time, I will announce the 10 million digit number as 'exhibit A' in my lawsuit.
I like the idea of patenting math.
Re:Prior Art (Score:2, Informative)
As an example I file a patent for using computers to send notes to people (very much like say E-mail (and yes I know there is prior art)). But then I have some appraser say that the patent is
Re:Prior Art (Score:4, Insightful)
The argument for patents was, essentially, "Well, nobody's using that spot right now anyway, so I'll just wall it off and develop it". This works fine when you have an unlimited space, but we DON'T. And there are currently a lot more people developing than there used to be. So now it's destructive to the social welfare.
Now this isn't an exact analogy. The reality behind this isn't physical property, it's information, and thus several different people can successfully develop it at the same time as long as nobody is allowed to keep everyone else out.
This isn't property. Calling is so is a gross misuse of the language. I might go so far as to say that claiming that information was property is a vile form of black magic. As in deals with the devil. (Again, don't take this literally. I just mean that this is another way of saying the same thing in metaphor...and that it's always been a metaphor, whether people knew it or not.)
Re:Prior Art (Score:3, Insightful)
Nowadays, if you're the tiniest bit inventive, you have a great chance of being sued for it. Patents worked well for manufacturing techniques and physical products where development costs can be huge, but in the area of computer science, you come up with an idea and can have a working prototype the same day. Patenting your day's work can cost a few weeks of wages. And people rarely get their work notarized. Computers are a great equalizer. Sudden
Re:Prior Art (Score:5, Interesting)
Software patents would preferably be monitored (I can't imagine a user-based organization large enough to monitor all the different patents), but I guess other topical patents would be acceptable too.
If OSDN is interested in making that a job, they can email me.
Keep in mind that "prior art" does not include stuff written as soon as the patent is seen. It has to be prior to when the patent was filed. (IANAL, but that's what seems likely to me.)
Re:Prior Art (Score:3)
Think Rambus and SDRAM. They were on a standards body which was supposed to come up with a baggage-free RAM standard. They did a patent search and found that the technology which Rambus was pushing was not patented and so they went with it. Then a year later Rambus is issued a patent for it - they ha
Re:Prior Art (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many more problems too. A good article on the problems with patents, the unworkable solutions and possible solutions can be found in Jeffrey D. Ullman's article Ordinary Skill in the Art [stanford.edu]
Not Quite (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, patents are evil, but mostly only when they are enforced, otherwise it's more of a "Hey, look what we thought of".
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Interesting)
ESPECIALLY given the incredibly broad patents that are being approved/issued.
I agree with the interviewee that this is one of the biggest problems needing to be addressed, or software development and innovation will suffer more and more.
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Interesting)
Until the USPTO stops issuing frivolous patents for techniques that any third-year comp sci major could have derived independently, we're in for a bad time.
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Interesting)
God, tell IBM to get a damn blog instead, and they can toot their own horn there. Patents are supposed to be about the enforcement of patent protections, followed by release to the public for everybody's gain. If you're registering patents just to show off, you're abusing the system.
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, you're firmly establishing prior art and ensuring that you have sufficient leverage to use someone else's patents.
Indirect or nonfiscal profit is hardly abuse of the system.
Re:Not Quite (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that I own property does not require me to throw razor wire around its perimeter.
Property, real or intellectual, is supposed to be about the rights of the owner to do with it as he wishes.
KFG
Defensive patents (Score:5, Interesting)
It's because of this setup that we normally only see big IP cases come from companies that don't actually produce anything (and thus have little to fear from a counter-attack) - like SCO.
Re:Defensive patents (Score:5, Insightful)
That's true for the big boys, but it still leaves the problem, that a smaller/newer company which doesn't have the patent portfolio will get sued out of existence if they try to do something using some frivolous patent one of the big boys have.
Say for instance using XML as the basis for your word processor?
Re:Defensive patents (Score:2)
You could also get a big IP case against someone without any patent portfolio, which is cause for concern within the OS (specifically Linux, but also Apache, Samba, etc.) arena.
People are currently relaxed because IBM has too much to lose if it rocked the boat for Linux - IBM's service-based business model would suf
Re:Defensive patents (Score:2)
Re:Defensive patents (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's exactly why Perens says "We're looking at a future where only the very largest companies will be able to implement software", and not "we're looking at a future where noone will be able to implement software."
If only compa
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still contemplating a patent on a key aspect of software I might release under GPL. It'd be expensive though.
Re:Not Quite (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps IBM or another large player could get some key software patents and only allow their use in GPLed software.
Perhaps IBM will amass millions of submarine patents, simultaneously contribute infringing code into Linux, and then save up for the day when Linux is deployed on the desktop. Then they can sue *everybody* (and have more of a case than SCO).
Just the conspiracy nut in me...
-a
Re:Not Quite (Score:3, Informative)
IBM's way of using patents.
Re:Not Quite (Score:5, Informative)
In my experience, IBM does attack medium-sized developers with frivolous patent threats. Fortunately, the company I worked for when I encountered this refused to back down. In one case, we spent two years explaining that our code was not infringing on their patent (scaling fonts for print-preview). When they finally accepted that, they hit us with a different one. It was arguably obvious and unoriginal (showing print-preview and the source document at the same time). Rather than fight it, though, we tweaked our product so that you couldn't see the other windows while doing a preview.
I suspect IBM tried this on lots of other companies as well, because I started seeing more and more programs doing the same thing we did, including ones that came from smaller labels. (I guess we should have patented our technique for avoiding IBM's patent.)
Re:Not Quite (Score:2)
I read this article about IBM going after Sun when Sun was small [forbes.com]. According to the article, they ended up saying, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 US patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk and find seven patents you do infringe? Or
IBM makes $1.5 Billion/year on patent licensing (Score:5, Interesting)
We need to be asking our friends like IBM what they will do to help us. Our customers and users need to ask, as well. Many of them are IBM (and HP, etc.) customers too.
Bruce
ugh (Score:4, Funny)
Well, that will work out good when in the future we all work at The Company.
Re:ugh (Score:2)
Re:ugh (Score:2)
Its nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
Several people have filed patent claims on work I did, in one case 5 years after the idea had made its way into Apache.
And do't get me started on shopping carts...
Re:Its nuts (Score:3, Interesting)
No, instead I told the MIT prof concerned that if he did not withdraw the patent claim I would make a formal complaint to the MIT proctors of plagarism. He complied.
Although the USPTO does not publish patent applications the Europeans do.
Sources for Software Patent research? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sources for Software Patent research? (Score:3, Informative)
Here [cam.ac.uk]
Re:Sources for Software Patent research? (Score:2)
Niche software still safe? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Perens' statement may need to be modified to say "... to implement consumer software." I and my team write software that's never seen outside the headquarters of large national banks -- it's a niche market that we're very good at, and nobody else is likely to want to jump into.
So we're safe... "under the radar", perhaps.
On the other hand, we're tightly bound to Microsoft-based systems... so do we even count when Perens talks about "other people"?
By the way, did anyone else read "Perens on Patents" and visualize: ( Patents )
This won't spell the end to software development (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This won't spell the end to software developmen (Score:3, Interesting)
It'll be like a certain Joss Whedon Show [fireflyfans.net]
Re:This won't spell the end to software developmen (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a bad idea to have laws that nobody can/will respect. This may encourage other easily-impressioned people to break the law in other areas. The laws are meant to be there to guide us into being good citizens, but when the legal way of doing things becomes ridiculous (prices of CDs, for instance), people don't seem too hesitant to look at and utilise illegal options.
Software patents should be abolished because of their dire consequences
Perens interview? (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod Parent Up Please (Score:2)
Please mod the parent up so there's more visibility on the issue.
- Serge
treat code like a book (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:treat code like a book (Score:3, Interesting)
You can pick up a book and smell it and feel it but it smells and feels the same is the book that was sitting next to it on the shelf and the book that sat next to that book. The story contained within the book, of course is different than the one in the book next
Re:treat code like a book (Score:3, Insightful)
sigh (Score:4, Interesting)
A decade ago (when it would have been easier for me than now), I was hesitant to go into music. The reason? I felt like there were only so many notes, so many rythms...and that every song of merit that could be written already had been.
Fortunately, I was wrong.
There will still be new ways of doing things. New languages, new platforms, new audiences, new ways at solving the same old problems.
Had Linux not come along, we'd be in MS world right now - UNIX owes it's life to Linux at this point (Linux kept it relevant). Point being is that it did. Everything that is "obvious" as a solution nowadays was radical, or even considered impossible, not that long ago. So what will be the solutions of the future? If I knew, and then told you, you'd probably either laugh, or think me insane.
The circle of life - the world is funny that way - Why? No one knows. Its magic. Yummy.
Re:sigh (Score:4, Informative)
It doesn't matter if you come up with a new way to do something. Very likely, your new way to do something is already covered by someone else's overbroad patent just by nature of what it does. Even more likely, someone else will independently come up with the same great new idea a year after you do, and patent it. And unless you are a very large company with the capacity to initiate and fight a protracted patent ownership battle in court, they will get to keep the patent, not you.
In the meanwhile, *maybe* you will be able to dance carefully around the huge holes created by the patents on what programming techniques techniques you can use. However this will mean careful knowledge of the patents out there, detailed lawyerlike scrutiny of every single line of code you write, and the preparedness to spend lots of money defending yourself against frivolous patent lawsuits whether you violate a patent or no. If you have to sanitize *everything* you do against umpteen million patents, that is a huge undertaking for a program of any size *ON TOP* of writing the program itself and it creates a major barrier to entry.
And all it would take to reach a point like that would be for the patents the patent office has *already granted* to be enforced.
Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
If you make a processing device coupled to a memory, input device and screen guess the word you want to type, you violate that patent. The more specific claims simply add different kinds of keyboards you can use, that you can also use the frequency of chosen words to guide suggestions, allowing people to turn on/off this guiding algorithm, showing a list of possible words if there's ambiguity and let the user choose from those etc... Not really things that narrow the scope of the claims very much.
Idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we let writers patent plot contrivances and literary structure? Do we let poets patent new rhyming schemes?
Copyright should suffice to protect proprietary code.
On a side note, this is the kind of crap we get in this country when companies can buy whatever legislation they want from corrupt politicians.
"technically illegal" (Score:5, Interesting)
Many people seem to fall into this conceptual trap. Infringing on a patent (knowingly or unknowingly) is not illegal, but infringing on a patent without the consent of the patent-holder makes you liable. A patent isn't a law, but it provides the owner certain legal standing. There's a difference. If the patent holder doesn't tell you to stop using their method, then you're perfectly free to do so, and have no liability in doing so.
If using methods patented by others were illegal, then every company would have to stop, or be punished by the government. Microsoft couldn't develop something with a method published by IBM, and IBM likewise couldn't develop something "pioneered" by Microsoft. The interlocking illegality would seize up the development in big companies just as much as anyone else.
Many big companies hold huge patent portfolios for defensive purposes. They never complain about others using the methods they've patented, but they have a bargaining chip (or weapon) to use if someone else tries to collect on another method.
Many other companies like to hold patents without developing them, and to submit as many patent applications as possible, so they can try to collect when some rich but not threatening company stumbles across the same obvious methods. It's this phenomenon which creates the danger against which Bruce Perens is warning.
It's possible to keep patents, and to use them as the early founders of Patent Law intended: to promote the sciences by protecting their discoveries for a limited time.
Re:"technically illegal" (Score:2)
you forget the Army of Lawyers factor. whoever has the most wins
Patents (Score:2)
The value to the inventor is their monopoly control of that technology.
Imagine that with a simple request to a competitor you could shut them down, and become a monopoly in that field. That is the power a patent.
The defensive strategy is just blackmail, if you shut us down, we'll shut you down too. Because they know they're probaly sitting one something of someone else, but they know you won't do anything because of their counterattack.
Note in
Re:"technically illegal" (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with patents is that instead of the govenment defining the "law" and hence what's legal or not, that power is transfered to the patent holder. The patent holder now has the complete authority to define who and under what circumstanc
What we are doing wrong.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite what many people here think, patenting software does not make it closed source, in fact since a patent requires the disclosure of the best known means of implementation it can actually facilitate open code. Just because something is patented does not mean that it cannot be used in open source... it depends on who holds the patent and what licensing terms are.
If the Open Source community truly is innovating why not just patent the concepts and then place the patents in a licensing escrow: if you use the patent with a GPL license (or maybe LGPL/BSD/whatever open license you like) then the
patent is royalty free.... if you want to use it in a closed source program you could then charge royalties. After all, if closed source is about enforcing IP then they should put their money where their mouths are and pay, and this could even go to fund open source development!
I'm tired of seeing whining and helplessness on Slashdot when all you need to do is get up and proactively use the system in your favor. To all of you who will respond 'Only big evil companies can get patents' that is a bunch of nonsense, everyday people get them all the time and if enough interest was generated the FSF or another body could act as a clearinghouse to make it even easier to get patents put into the open domain by
software developers. It's about time we did something constructive about patents instead of just wailing about them.
Re:What we are doing wrong.... (Score:3, Insightful)
> is get up and proactively use the system in your favor.
I'll make you a deal.
Find 10 open source things worth patenting. PAY FOR THE PATENT.
Once you have arrange for 10 patent grants, I'll chip in one of my own.
I sure hope you make about $100,000/yr, you're gonna need most of it.
Re:What we are doing wrong.... (Score:2)
I think a much better solution for keeping open code open would just be to publish the stuff. Certainly cheaper for those that are writing the code in the first place. Moreover, you might ask why, if there's a "best known means of implementation" better than existing published code, you would
Depressing (Score:4, Insightful)
The European patent office has been dishing out software patents like there's no tomorrow simply because it thinks the US model will eventually win out. The "harmonisation" directive raconteur (I think that's her title) was pissed off because people took the time to contact her and give her their view (!) - which was contrary to what she wanted.
Politicians are bemoaning the lack of political interest in the populace. Here's a clue: we get disillusioned really quickly when you simply pay court every N years, then do whatever you want in-between election years. Perhaps if (as originally planned) you were the voice of the people, it might be a bit different.
Sorry. A bit rambling. It's because I'm simultaneously angry and depressed at "the system"
Simon.
Re:Depressing (Score:3, Interesting)
PS: it's rapporteur :)
Patents can destroy innovation (Score:2, Insightful)
This problem will diminish over time (Score:5, Insightful)
We're looking at a future where only the very largest companies will be able to implement software, and it will technically be illegal for other people to do so.
He's probably right on this point, but there's one big qualifier to introduce: The future he's talking about is only the near-future. Unlike copyrights, where post-1930 work is gradually being extended to last forever, patents have a limited length. Right now they last twenty years.
And despite the BS that Amazon has been part of, with their one-click patent nonsense, it looks like people in the industry are growing increasingly uncomfortable with lenghty patents. Even Jeff Bezos, the prime beneficiary of one-click, is pushing to have software patents reduced to five years. [inventus.org]
The emergence of the World Wide Web has led to the creation of a whole lot of super obvious ideas that should never have been patented, but were. Right now, software patents are extremely relevant to anyone developing sites or software for the internet. But in a comparatively short time, these patents will expire. And in a few decades, regardless of patent reform, prior art will smother just about any software patent claim that is not truly novel.
So yeah, Perens is right that patents are an enormous threat to developers right now. But the threat is certain to diminish greatly with time.
Re:This problem will diminish over time (Score:2)
If the FSF had a few patents that could only be used in GPLd software, that would make things more interesting.
Make sure your voice is heard (Score:5, Informative)
US:l
http://www.petitiononline.com/pasp01/petition.htm
Europe:
http://petition.eurolinux.org/
(This link is down right now, hope it gets back up fast).
Hopefully, if either the US or the EU see the light, the other and the rest of the world will follow suit.
Eternal vigilance the cost of freedom... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know its a cliche, but its true.
Yes, patents create a chilling atmosphere for developers in a way much worse than copyright. But the SCO case has shown that the real problem is not patents per se, but greed.
It is an unfortunate reality that we live in a world where someone with sufficient financial means (read: big corporation) can kill an OS project simply by claiming patent or copyright infringement and tying the matter up in the courts for a few years. Even should the defendant be cleared, the intervening years provide Big Corporation(tm) time to either market their own version, or destroy the market completely, as in what Microsoft did with Netscape.
When it comes down to it, most OS developers don't have the financial means to fight a patent or copyright fight with a large corporation. Even should they have the resolve to do so, the Big Corporation can effectively deny the distribution of said software with an injunction until the case is resolved, by which time the software has become obsolete.
Which leads to the problem we face today. Yes, we would like all software to be OS, but the realities of the legal climate and need to feed ourselves means that proprietary software is often the only effective model. Even if we were completely altruistic, any developer capable of developing something new and revolutionary would have to charge for the software, simply to build a war chest for the inevitable IP lawsuits which would follow. The reason why Linux has been so successful is because it hasn't taken revenue away from Microsoft. If Microsoft lost 50% of their desktop market to Linux, you can bet Microsoft would claim copyright or patent infringement. The actual substance of the claim doesn't matter; an injunction against distributing Linux which held for even a year could destroy its adoption by vendors and end users.
Injunction (Score:3, Informative)
In the jurisdiction where the injunction is valid.
If an injuction was granted in the US, it would definately hurt US companies, the rest of the would could pretty much continue.
The second issue is that if granting an injunction would do more harm then not, the court should either not grant the injunction, or take steps to minimize the e
Re:Eternal vigilance the cost of freedom... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's quite sad how a nation that was built on laws is being exploited by the very means that give it legitimacy.
Perens too good for Slashdot? (Score:3, Interesting)
more dangerous than people think (Score:3, Insightful)
the patent office needs a specialized branch for comp.sci-related patents
patent patents (Score:3, Funny)
Loophole never tried? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Loophole never tried? (Score:3, Insightful)
Software patents however, give you patent protection for an algorithm, which is
If you keep the penny, (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what companies have to realise about software patents.
Check an EULA or a shrink-wrap license and the gist of it is that you have no recourse to anyone if the software fails or deletes all your data. You buy the software "as is". But if you want people to pay for software, there has to be some sort of recourse - you can't just expect people to pay money and get shoddy software and just move along quietly (and not derive their own solution to the problem), while the company gets to ringfence it's IP (which was probably derived from a cross-patent anyway). It's just not on.
And yet that's exactly what we've been getting. By just building a GUI widget on many platforms you are already liable to historic patents. And more importantly - you are not allowed to claim it "unfit for purpose" or even fix it!!!
I really think the message should be clear to software companies that want to enforce patents on software (sorry for the caps) -
IF YOU WANT TO PATENT YOUR STUFF, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT FIRST!
Grrr. I think I need a nice cuppa tea to calm me down.
Not ready for prime time (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice words, but they can't wash . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Damned good rhetoric, Bruce, but it is too sweeping a generalization, and cannot support a call for change. Experience through 200 years of industry demonstrates that patents aren't a problem to innovation merely because they create exclusive rights in some types of software development, except when they are improvidently granted.
The problem, to me, isn't that patents are granted in software, and it isn't even problematic that bad patents are granted in software. To me, the problem -- and I believe it is a serious problem -- is that the legal system does not provide adequate quality assurance to neutralize the bad effects of that software.
It is not that the Congress hasn't tried. Relatively low-cost procedures for taking bad patents out of circulation, such as inter partes reexamination were created, but alas, with modifications that made them too expensive or too toothless to have the broad-sweeping effect that was desired. Ironically, it was large entities, such as IBM who were promoting these low-cost Q/A procedures, while the small "independent inventor" lobby fiercely opposed them.
I believe this is the area where the most change is still possible, and the biggest bang for the buck to cure the problem exists. It would be better for luminaries like Bruce to push for repairs of post-issue Q/A than to promote what is, essentially, anti-patent FUD.
We can make a difference, but we are not going to see huge changes.
Re:Nice words, but they can't wash . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Experience through 200 years of industry demonstrates that patents aren't a problem to innovation merely because they create exclusive rights in some types of software development
What an absurd statment. For 205 years such patents were illegal in the US. There was an explicit rule stating that laws of nature, calculations, algorithms, etc. were not patentable. It was only in 1981 that the US changed the rules to permit software patents at all. The Supreme C
Bzzt. Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong, thanks for playing. No matter how many times it gets said, few people seem to understand -- even people who should understand, like our Mr. Perens.
Patent infringement, like copyright infringement, is actionable NOT illegal. The police will NOT come and arrest you because you inadvertently developed a homebrew memory allocation routine that is patented by ACME. What MAY happen is that ACME uses its patent portfolio to keep you from effectively bringing your software to market, provided ACME sees any benefit in doing so. So while in the future (now) there may be (are) high barriers to entry in the software marketplace, writing your own well-meaning code will not be (is not) illegal.
Re:Who cares about Linux (Score:3, Informative)
However, for those who might not know:
This s
Re:That game shouldn't work... (Score:2)
Re:Who cares about Linux (Score:2)
Maybe you should read between the lines, instead of focusing on the headlines. When Microsoft gives $1 billion of computer aid to the United Nations, in both cash AND software, don't you think this is a good investment, both for commercial and public image purposes ?
The main reason to give such a large amount of money is that the United Nations will not change their OS, because it will have been provided, and because the very proper ways of using it will have been
Eh?? (Score:2)
Re: Number 1 reason against software patents (Score:2)
Copyright does not protect inventions, merely expressions of inventions.
My brother is co-inventor on several patents for signal processing algorithms. These are true inventions. They make it possible to give an anethesiolgist very accurate data in real time. It also makes the device safe to use on premature babies. It took years (and therefore lots of money) to develop these algorithms.
Copyright does not protect the algorithms. Only pate
Re:Patents Are Not a Problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Patents Are Not a Problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because software is different. Software is just a bunch of logical/mathematical constructs in a language a computer can understand. It's maths. As an example of how this is different from traditional technological fields, let's take a very simple physical universe: that of Lego bricks.
If you place one Lego brick on the ground, it will just sit there. Put one or two on top, and you'll still have no proble
Re:Patents Are Not a Problem... (Score:3, Insightful)
You must not be a programmer.
Multiplication, division, geometry, and calculus are technical areas. Do you think we should permit patents on math? Because that really is what you are advocating. A program REALLY IS math, nothing but math.
A computer is a patentable machine. A program is copyrightable peice of writing. You can print any peice of software as a book. Are you suggesting the words in a book should be patentable?
A musical instument is a patentable object