Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poll: Do you support software patents?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 319 posts

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#71

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

mrcharles wrote: post #57
mrcharles wrote: post #16

I can't stand the idea that I might be at my computer, working with code, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all software patents. edited to add "software".

Sorry to all, I specifically meant software patents. Hardware patents are different as they often rely on physical creation of objects and a non-trivial investment in materials/development. Conversely a software idea can be thought up in a few minutes and implemented in the same. In app purchases isn't exactly a clever idea or something that was revelatory. It was simple software evolution.

No, there is no difference. If you're going to claim that they're different because one may require a "non-trivial investment (1)" then you have to specify that hardware patents that only require a trivial investment are similarly invalid.

The bottom line is that patents are patents. It's inconsistent to be against one type and not another. I understand why patents exist, but I also agree with the Carmack statement above.

(1) This is clearly not true. I know someone who patented an idea relating to battery management hardware that occurred to him as he was describing a problem to me. It was novel and "not apparent to a similarly skilled person.. etc." But it didn't take any more investment than pen and paper to think through the concept.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#72

Post by efnx »

Why aren't more software patterns patented? For example, the Observer pattern, Model View Controller, Active Record, etc.? These are patterns that pop up naturally while coding that seem on par with the 'in app purchase' pattern (if I can call it that). Why haven't the trolls patented more of our building blocks?

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#73

Post by jeffool »

Traditional patents are like creating new tools for a carpenter to use.

Software patents are when someone picks up a screwdriver and says "I'm going to use this to pry the lid off the paint can. No one else can do that now, ever again."

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#74

Post by abrahamsen »

nimrody wrote: post #21
mrcharles wrote: post #16

I can't stand the idea that I might be at my computer, working with code, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all software patents. edited to add "software".

If you abolish all patents you leave two options for inventors [some patents truly are ingenious]: - Keep it as a trade secret. You get one source for a product, and less innovation. - Publish it and suffer the consequences of the big companies copying it and making profit on your work.

I very much favor the trade secret option, at least for software.

Patents are (theoretically) a pragmatic compromise between 1) the benefits to society of having people publish their ideas, and 2) the drawbacks to society of giving someone a time limited monopoly on the exploitation of the idea.

For software I believe the drawbacks in general far outweigh the benefits. There might be examples of "nobody else would have thought of this within the patent period" inventions, but they are rare enough that it does not make sense to have special laws for those cases.

In the physical "better mousetrap" world the issue is different. The situation is similar to the Hacker News startup world in that ideas are plenty. However, the cost of productizing the ideas is high, and there is less of a first mover advantage, access to distribution channels is more important. So patents in the "better mousetrap" world protects not the idea, but the investment of turning the idea into a product. The drawbacks of patents here are also smaller, as you rarely build unrelated products upon the "better mousetrap", so the cost of a monopoly often stays limited to the specific market. Patents here might be a good compromise.

In medicine there is a similar situation in that many ideas are "free" from public funded research, but useless without the very expensive clinical trials. The patents basically protects the investment in clinical trials, and no so much original research. However the cost of patents is huge. People die because they can't afford patented medicine (which include initial cost for the clinical tests, marginal cost, distributed cost of failed products, and profit), even though they could easily afford the marginal cost alone. It would be good to get rid of patents here, but they must be replaced with another system to cover the cost of the clinical tests.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#75

Post by bediger »

The current system, and all of the rather draconian suggestions for change, ignore the issue of independent invention. The only study done on this so far (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1270160) suggests that almost all infringement is due to independent invention.

Independent invention should negate infringement issues. In fact, in some cases (invention from an even less extensive background) should cause patent re-assignment.

The current system (and all changes proposed so far) also fail to address the US constitutional mandate of causing progress. The current system doesn't.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#76

Post by Steve0 »

nh wrote: post #51
monochromatic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a patent question.

No, but it is a intellectual property question. My point was that if you violate a trademark even though you independently came up with it, the same would apply for patents.

In that case, it's easy to change a name, then continue selling your product. Not if (some part) of your product is patented.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#77

Post by bborud »

nimrody wrote: post #21
mrcharles wrote: post #16

I can't stand the idea that I might be at my computer, working with code, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all software patents. edited to add "software".

If you abolish all patents you leave two options for inventors [some patents truly are ingenious]: - Keep it as a trade secret. You get one source for a product, and less innovation. - Publish it and suffer the consequences of the big companies copying it and making profit on your work.

your first point wrongfully assumes that the patent system is the dominant mechanism for spreading inventions. it may have been intended to work this way, but this is not how it works in real life.

if you have ever worked for a software company that has a competent legal department, you know that you must stay away from patents. under no circumstances are you allowed to communicate that you have looked at any given patent or even acknowledge the existence of a patent.

patents are treated with more fear than toxic waste in IPR sensitive businesses.

besides, if you don't publish and you do something clever, how long do you think it would take for the competition to figure out what you were doing? or for people in academia to publish something on it? or for some independent blogger with too much time on his or her hands?

I wish people would consider reality rather than some make-believe world that does not exist when thinking about patents. so much time, money and intellectual energy is wasted on this nonsense. not to mention that it is clogging up the courts with absolutely pointless legal battles.

we, as a society, have better things to do.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#78

Post by bediger »

notJim wrote: post #62
robryan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trade secret actually isn't a bad option, if you patent truly had legs then your secret is probably going to be safe for a fair amount of time. If your patent is getting people on a technicality and really isn't very innovative then your secret won't be much of a secret.

The argument against trade secrets is that they hurt innovation by impeding the flow of information. Patents allow a company to publish their innovations without fear of someone coming along and simply stealing it. By allowing inventors to publish their information with little competitive disadvantage, we enable other inventors to build on their predecessors efforts.

The current state of patent disclosure is such that your arguement makes little sense. Virtually nothing in software patent disclosures informs people about "how to do it". Almost all of the disclosures are vague and unspecific. If you, as a programmer, hear the title of a patent, you basically know how to do it.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#79

Post by sp332 »

notJim wrote: post #69
mrcharles wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to all, I specifically meant software patents. Hardware patents are different as they often rely on physical creation of objects and a non-trivial investment in materials/development. Conversely a software idea can be thought up in a few minutes and implemented in the same. In app purchases isn't exactly a clever idea or something that was revelatory. It was simple software evolution.

You're saying all software ideas can be thought of and implemented in a few minutes? That is both absurd, and an insult to the innovation that happens in software. You have 10 minutes, give me an implementation of something that improves upon H.264 by 30%.

You have 10 years. Write me a patent for something that improves upon H.264 by 30%.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#80

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

jerf wrote: post #59
anamax wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't stand the idea that I might be at my computer, working with code, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all patents. I can't stand the idea that I might be in my shop/lab, working with metal/wood/plastic/chemicals, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all patents.

You're missing a critical difference. Patents are supposed to be "unobvious". A normal person just working in their shop should not just accidentally stumble across a patented thing, because by definition the patented thing should not be obvious to one skilled in the art. Programmers on the other hand can indeed pop open an editor, spend a few minutes with Ruby on Rails implementing "a standard business procedure, bu…

the patented thing should not be obvious to one skilled in the art

It's a big world and there are a lot of smart people in it. History is full of examples of multiple people independently inventing/discovering the same thing.

Post reply on HN