Given the amount of recent (and ongoing) controversy about software patents it is interesting to see how the hacker news community, those who are generally doers, feel about them.
Poll: Do you support software patents?
1–10 of 319 posts
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#2In principle, they could give a lone programmer or small company that invents something awesome the edge needed to break in to a market dominated by large companies. I consider this to be desirable.
In practice, they're used by large companies to prevent lone programmers or small companies from breaking in to the markets they dominate. I do not consider this to be desirable.
They're more trouble than they're worth.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#3This latest patent that caused an uproar was filed in 1992, when the idea was definitely innovative.
It just further goes to show that the 17 year span, at least, is too long for software.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#4With this type of support for abolishing software patents from the people who write the software; it seems we must be able to organize some sort of strike to just put an end to it immediately.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#5With this type of support for abolishing software patents from the people who write the software ; it seems we must be able to organize some sort of strike to just put an end to it immediately.
Let the Programing Proletariat unite :).
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#6I said abolish, but really I think we could have a workable solution by either giving the PTO the funding it needs to do a good job, or eliminating the presumption of validity. The big problem we have now is that the law assumes that all patents are properly examined when the PTO doesn't have the resources to do a proper examination.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#7I see no reason why an invention should be unpatentable simply because it involves software.
That said, it's obvious that the current system is broken; there are many patents which do not seem to do anything new, and simultaneously the cost of applying for patents deters the group for whom they are most important -- small innovators who are unable to commercialize their inventions.
The system needs to be fixed, not thrown out.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#8I've spent the last few years working on a new approach to developing software. I've spent a lot of my own money (at least $40,000 USD) on research to perfect it. Currently, from the research I've done, I've found no prior art.
Should I be able to patent this technology? Should I just release it? If I just release it, wouldn't a large company patent aspects of it and sue me for infringement (it costs $ to prove prior art).
At the very least, wouldn't a patent give me the option to open source the technology without the risk of aforementioned large company coming after me? And if said company does come after me, would it not give me a chance to buddy up with another "large" company?
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#9I wrote a article about software patents a few years ago: http://paulbiggar.com/research/article.txt.
The issue seems to pop up every couple of years. Each time, abolition of software patents seems closer and closer, but never quite gets there.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#10So I want to either abolish them or make software patents legal for only 2 year maximum.
My reason for this is because unlike hardware patents, it does not take a factory and malicious intent to get a clone for a software patent. A 2 year lead on the competitor is extreme in the tech world. Look what happened with the iPhone, it dominated the market in 2 years, and then Android same story. The speed of information and technology today we MUST have a shorter timeframe for patents.
The problem with software patents is that since they are non-physical, they are really just mathematical solutions. And the problem with those is that 10 programmers will come up with 10 completely ways to solve the same problem, but due to patents the first to paten a solution can use the other 9 (-John Carmack) and this problem is very much true.