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Poll: Do you support software patents?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#181

Post by dhume »

bane wrote: post #58

At risk of taking an unpopular devils-advocate position: I think that the principle of patents is okay. Invest time and money developing an idea, with a guarantee of exclusivity on executing on that idea in the marketplace for a period of time. It encourages a level of risk taking for "getting there first". Software patents aren't any different in many respects because somebody has to go through the time and effort t…

if they were so obvious beforehand, somebody would have:

a) implemented it into a working system (prior art)

b) patented it themselves first

It seems to be fairly common that somebody already did (a) but chose to forgo (b).

spent $130 million dollars just in the R&D phase for what amounts to…. Obvious? Perhaps. But nobody had gone through the trouble to actually do it, and spending that kind of overhead was a significant risk.

How much of that was it actually necessary to spend just to come up with the concept? Evaluation of the available COTS components, writing the perl scripts and cron jobs, management overhead, etc. are costs a competitor would have to incur as well, which makes them not part of the cost a patent is meant to compensate for. The fact that nobody had done it before does not necessarily mean nobody was clever enough -- just that nobody who was clever enough had had the problem this product was meant to solve, and being a solution to a novel problem does not make it patentably non-obvious.

In other words, if the ideas are obvious, a piece of software that does this should be buildable.

I don't think a computer program is likely to cover everything that would count as obvious.

"A person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." - SCOTUS opinion on KSR v. Teleflex

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#182

Post by Locke1689 »

bostonpete wrote: post #176
burgerbrain wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The capability of modelling a physical system with math does not mean that physical systems are math. On the other hand, the numerous proofs that software is math are fairly trivial for anyone with a modest background in mathematics.

> The capability of modelling a physical system with math does not mean that physical systems are math. It's the modeling of physical systems that its patented, not the physical object itself. Those patents usually protect the inventor from people creating any number of variations on their exact design because it's the approach to solving a particular problem that is being patented. I think there are a lot of people…

Physical devices (even models thereof) are applications of physics equations, not physics equations themselves. These have been ruled time and again as being patentable.

Algorithms are mathematical equations. They cannot be patented.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#184

Post by lukifer »

Intellectual property is a curious intersection of capitalism and socialism: a free market which would barely exist without the creation of artificial legal constructs.

Bottom line: patents exist to foster innovation both for creators and users of ideas. Software patents do not accomplish this goal, and they are beyond redemption.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#185

Post by dhume »

bane wrote: post #133
maratd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the principle of patents is okay. Invest time and money developing an idea, with a guarantee of exclusivity on executing on that idea in the marketplace for a period of time. It encourages a level of risk taking for "getting there first". Patents are an artificial system forced upon us with the hope that they accelerate innovation. Just as you said, the hope there is that it encourages someone to take th…

The problem with that hope is that it ignores how innovation happens. There is no reclusive mad scientist working in some dank basement on the next-best-great-thing. That's childish. Innovation happens through collaboration. You take someone else's work and you build upon it. Bit by bit, people build the next-best-thing. That's a very interesting point(s). Again, arguing from a devil's advocate POV. People who are ge…

1) Patents shouldn't be transferable -- this eliminates patent trolls

6) If you don't use the patent in a business use-case, you lose it. A bit like Trademark.

Suppose somebody invents a device but lacks the facilities to mass-produce them (building by hand is probably too expensive to make for a viable product). Rule (1) bars the inventor from selling the patent to somebody who has these facilities, so it appears necessary to arrange a licensing deal with a manufacturer (I expect selling a license to manufacture is still allowed and would count as a business use of the patent). How long does the inventor have to make such a deal before those who do have the right production facilities can simply ignore the patent and produce/sell the invention without compensating the inventor?

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#186

Post by eevilspock »

kenjackson wrote: post #168
joshes wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether or not it is feasible to have 6,000 patent examiners perform this process, it still seems remarkably subjective: a given patent examiner, with all of his/her individual strengths, weaknesses, imperfections and idiosyncrasies, determines if s/he alone can solve the proposed problem and, if not, essentially says, "Aw shucks, this is patentable!" And to me that is one of the many problems with (sof…

If subjectiveness in judging is your concern, I think there are bigger fish to fry than patents. And also recall with patents you are guaranteed another appeal to a different body if ever sued, the courts, where you can invalidate a patent. And if MS wins the i4i case the burden of proof will be even lower. And note, there is legislation going through congress right now to make it harder to win a suit, and also expan…

You guys are funny.

The conclusion that you should be reaching is software patents are simply not a viable mechanism, period. In other words, even if you like the idea of patents in theory, in practice they do not work because we will never have enough patent examiners with the necessary expertise much less time to make valid decisions on patent applications.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#187

Post by sunahsuh »

Zak wrote: post #2

In 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.

While I agree that the second case is often the norm, I do have one counter-example -- I used to work for Riverbed Technology, a 9 year old company which does WAN optimization and competes against Cisco and Bluecoat, among others. Riverbed is (or was?) generally regarded as the tech leader in the market and its head start is based on a patented compression scheme. There's no question that the patent is a big part of what allowed the company to survive the entrance of 800-lb gorillas into the market and I'm fairly certain that if software patents were abolished today, that algorithm would be in Cisco's WAN solution tomorrow.

I still think the software patent system as it stands now needs serious reform but you know, that saying about a broken clock and all.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#188

Post by bane »

axylone wrote: post #151
maratd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the principle of patents is okay. Invest time and money developing an idea, with a guarantee of exclusivity on executing on that idea in the marketplace for a period of time. It encourages a level of risk taking for "getting there first". Patents are an artificial system forced upon us with the hope that they accelerate innovation. Just as you said, the hope there is that it encourages someone to take th…

What if a startup spends ~2 years coming up with an idea, launches it, and gets noticed by a Big Company before the site gets big. What's to stop the Big Company from just implementing the idea themselves in a slightly different form? Would the Big Company still buy the startup/how will the startup be compensated for its work?

I'm not sure that's much different than the state of things today. The status quo version of your scenario is that startup has an idea, patents it, spends 2 years implementing it then launches. Today, even before startup launches, Big Company can see the patent, build a similar system that's just different enough to not violate the patent.

Today, Startup can sue, alleging patent violation, but most startups don't have the cash on hand for an extended patent battle anyways.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#189

Post by tungwaiyip »

chris_j wrote: post #146
coffeeaddicted wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not only you might accidentally break patents - you might not even be able to figure out if you break patents at all without paying a lawyer to translate the patent specifications. Maybe it's just because I'm no native english speaker, but I often don't get patent texts. Coding around patents is like walking blindfolded through a minefield.

I'm a native English speaker and I don't generally understand patent texts. In fact, I've filed quite a few patents and have always been amazed that I give something readable to a lawyer to write up and they turn it into something that I can't understand any more. The idea that a patent is the medium through which an author shares their invention with the world is rather perverse. So I agree; coding around patents is…

I'm guilty too. I have some patents granted and I don't even know what it is about base on the description written by lawyers.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#190

Post by bane »

dhume wrote: post #185
bane wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that hope is that it ignores how innovation happens. There is no reclusive mad scientist working in some dank basement on the next-best-great-thing. That's childish. Innovation happens through collaboration. You take someone else's work and you build upon it. Bit by bit, people build the next-best-thing. That's a very interesting point(s). Again, arguing from a devil's advocate POV. People who are ge…

1) Patents shouldn't be transferable -- this eliminates patent trolls 6) If you don't use the patent in a business use-case, you lose it. A bit like Trademark. Suppose somebody invents a device but lacks the facilities to mass-produce them (building by hand is probably too expensive to make for a viable product). Rule (1) bars the inventor from selling the patent to somebody who has these facilities, so it appears ne…

Excellent questions. I have no idea, just positing some ideas for reform that differ from the impracticable (and not going to happen) abolition.

Licensing of a patent by the original assignee for specific use of for immediate manufacture makes sense to me.

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