211–220 of 291 posts
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What about 4: research institute that invents an audio compression method? The work that goes into mp3 isn't just coding the method.
Debating software patents with silicon valley types is a losing battle. They're the types who would stand to profit from someones non-obvious software invention not being patentable, and so most such people are unsurprisingly against software patents. There's little nuance involved beyond that.
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Here's a reform to the copyright law that just occurred to me. If you buy a copy of a published work, then you're allowed to copy and distribute it as you see fit, provided that you pay the creator the same royalty that they were paid for the copy you bought. Other restrictions such as moral rights would still be in force. That seems to get a lot of incentives right. Publishers have to pay artists decent royalties, a…
I think you are confusing the issues. TFA is about the license fees paid to Fraunhofer for the MP3 codec, for which they owned the underlying and now-expired patents. MP3 is not an encrypted codec, the format itself is quite open and doesn't place any real restrictions on redistributing music -- in fact, most of the original music sharing sites like Napster traded exclusively in MP3. The use of MP3 has no bearing on…
There's real a higher-order issue, too. Why did anyone want GNU to incorporate an MP3 player in the first place? There is no law of physics that requires songs to be encoded as MP3.
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Software patents aren't particularly useful for making money with software. Hackers produce code, which is protected by copyright, and that's how the law protects them from having their work stolen. Patents are a bad match for software, and are mainly used for two things: 1. Trolls use them to seek rent from independent creations. 2. Companies that are not purely trolls but need a vector to attack another company som…
The difference is that person now has to sell their idea packaged in a finished product to see any return on their idea. If you could patent it and license it, you could make money on the idea while leaving the work of developing a polished product to the experts at delivering products to end users.
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With your ideas about patents someone should do it out of the kindness of their heart I guess. Is that what has driven most technological advancements of the human race? In your software-patentless world, why would a genius choose to work in software as opposed to another field inventing patentable tangible objects where he or she will be monetarily rewarded for it and able to make a living? Don't say you are already…
Right, it was only after the patent office was invented that people started inventing things. Before that, nothing of consequence was created by humanity.
I'm curious about what advantages and benefits, if any, the patents brought to Fraunhofer. Other than making mp3 slightly more difficult to work with especially on Linux, did it benefit them in any way? Did them benefit society? Coming at this from an "this is a real-life example of software patents being {good|bad}".
There's no real-life example of software patents being good.
Recognizing this adds legitimacy to software patents. Don't. There have been free and open source MP3 decoders for many years now.
So you don't believe in software patents?
There are two fundamental discussion schemes about software patents: (1) can we patent something that can be described as a mathematical concept and stuff. and (2) why would you want to patent software in the first place.
The first discussion is tricky. Comparing algorithms to mathematics, having patents that can be expressed through mechanical OR software, etc.
The second discussion is IMHO getting back to basics: Why do you want patent in the first place ? Why, in our free market universe, do you want to give to a restricted number of actors a monopoly ? Why not competition ? After all, if your neighbor decide to put a lemonade stand in front of your garden, and even if you didn't thought about this idea before, you are free to imitate/copy/replicate its business. Patents are inherently anti-free market.
To answer to this, you need to get back in time, and understand the reasons that led our ancestors to create patents: some technological inventions were extremely expensive, hard to copy, and companies were spending an unreasonable amount of money in them, say, to re-invent steam engine. This led to this bizarre exception, at the very condition that it would be limited in time, and really have a positive impact on the market (ie. NOT for the companies filling patents as sole incentive)
In software, there is no reason to allow patents. Don't get me wrong - a very very tiny fraction of software could be seen as needing patents (mpeg algorithms are often cited, probably engine injection algorithms too). But most of algorithms can be replicated by a bunch of engineers in an office. This is neither expensive, nor requiring specific provisions.
TL;DR: Software industry does not absolutely need patents, and because patents are very strong anti-competitive provisions, it should not be allowed in this industry unless there is a clear reason.
Recognizing this adds legitimacy to software patents. Don't. There have been free and open source MP3 decoders for many years now.
Recognizing this adds legitimacy to software patents. Don't. There have been free and open source MP3 decoders for many years now.
Why can my friends who studied medicine, physics, and mechanical engineering make money with their inventions, while I, software engineer, cannot?
Recognizing this adds legitimacy to software patents. Don't. There have been free and open source MP3 decoders for many years now.
Why can my friends who studied medicine, physics, and mechanical engineering make money with their inventions, while I, software engineer, cannot?
Recognizing this adds legitimacy to software patents. Don't. There have been free and open source MP3 decoders for many years now.
Why can my friends who studied medicine, physics, and mechanical engineering make money with their inventions, while I, software engineer, cannot?