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Poll: Do you support software patents?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#201

Post by sunahsuh »

patio11 wrote: post #63

This is one of those issues that I feel is more a member of tribal affiliation than anything substantive. It's like flag burning for us Republicans: if I were to rank order my political objectives, "prevent flag burning" would be somewhere in the x0,000s, but the tribe cares about this a lot for philosophical reasons (which I'm broadly speaking on board with) and as a result uses it as a signaling mechanism. Software…

I can think of at least two pragmatic, immediate reasons the patent system needs to be addressed: -The HTML5 video codec wars and the rise of patent pool companies like the MPEG-LA (which, besides licensing H.264, is reportedly forming a patent license pool for VP8 entirely independently from Google) -Relatedly, the patent pools forming around next-gen communication protocols like LTE, a 3G successor

The communications pools in particular are worrisome -- the licensors in the pools used to be manufacturers who happened to hold patents and used these pools to encourage widespread adoption but the increasing involvement of holding companies and pool packagers is turning licensing into a primary business, which is overall bad news.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#202

Post by waqf »

I think it's just a question of the bar being too low (though being so much so as to make patents that are found acceptable qualitatively unlike patents that I consider acceptable).

For example, I think the LZW patent was deservedly admissible (though it rightfully did not prevent equally-good and patent-unencumbered algorithms from being developed).

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#204

Post by ahlatimer »

dspillett wrote: post #88
jcromartie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's even worse than that: usually patent trolls haven't even written the code to solve the problem. Working code is not required to be granted a patent.

And they could file for the patent after you have done the work. You then have the hassle and expense of proving that your work came first and even then such cases often don't go the way they should.

You could still lose that fight, even if your work came first, if you never published it or filed a patent for it. First to invent only holds if you reduced it to practice (either by actually inventing the thing, or boiling it down so someone reasonably skilled in the art could then invent it) within that year. You lose rights to it after that if someone else wants to patent it. There's also first to conceive stipulations. The intellectual property class I took last semester would have been a lot easier if the U.S. just went first to file (like basically everywhere else).

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#205

Post by drblast »

notJim wrote: post #68
omellet wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how poorly the USPTO has performed thus far, it seems impossible that this could be correctly implemented. Better to err on the side of openness, and abolish them altogether.

I hate this approach to governance. How can we ever hope to run a competent democracy when the citizens of that democracy assume that government can't be improved?

On what do you base the assumption that it is possible for us, or anyone, to run a competent democracy? There's no historical precedent for it; in fact quite the opposite.

Theoretically, it's possible, but in theory communism would work if everyone just did their best to make it work. Reality is different.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#206

Post by seanp2k »

sunahsuh wrote: post #187
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…

....and I would say that if Riverbed didn't provide the equivalent support (lol) as Cisco or didn't have the complete integration solutions that Cisco offers, then Cisco SHOULD win out. If you innovate and you're actually better, then you should win. If not, you should go out of business.

Isn't this what "free market" is all about? You can't have both.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#207

Post by seanp2k »

cperciva wrote: post #7

I 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 t…

>"I see no reason why an invention should be unpatentable simply because it involves software."

Are you a software developer? Do you understand that often times, there is only a few logical ways of doing something?

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#208

Post by ahlatimer »

dodo53 wrote: post #81
monochromatic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, true... up to a point. But the motivations behind patent law are so different from those behind trademark law that I'm not sure it's a relevant comparison.

And one of the tests in trademark law is if a reasonable person would be confused between the original and the imposter. So you only have to have 'reasonable' knowledge of other brands in your industry.

I think the actual test is if the intended audience would get confused between the original and the imposter (see the H. R. Pufnstuf v. McDonald's case, although that's copyright, not trademark).

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#209

Post by petegrif »

olalonde wrote: post #175
petegrif wrote: post #170

I think the problem here stems from the fact that people talk as if "software" were one homogenous entity. But as we all know - it isn't. Some software is trivial and some isn't. Some represents a trifling investment and some a huge investment of time and dollars. Some is very easy to copy and some much harder. It is only when we start thinking about such categories that we can make real progress thinking about where…

> If you don't get patent protection you are left with (a) trade secret (b) copyright. You forgot "(c) First-mover advantage"[1], which is historically very effective at rewarding innovators. Without our current patent system, I'm fairly confident innovators would come up with clever ways of capitalizing on their ideas despite those ideas being easy to duplicate. Of course, it wouldn't be a perfect system either, but…

Thanks for the vote - it was indeed an attempt to make a serious point.

I didn't actually forget 'first mover advantage' I simply didn't list it there because it isn't considered a form of IP protection. The problem I think with your position is that there is a historical record of innovative software companies being seriously or fatally damaged by unfair competition form big companies, some of whom are quite happy to copy your work despite the patent then challenge you to sue them with their vast legal resources. I think it is very hard to justify a general statement to justify your confidence that 'innovators would come up with clever ways of capitalizing...' And when you say it wouldn't be a perfect system but it would be a better one, the question arises - better for who? Not better for the small innovators who would be left with nothing, surely?

I am not suggesting this is easy, but I don't think a one sided abolition frenzy is the answer. IMHO this position is often motivated by (a) an ideology of freedom on the internet which whilst generally a good thing runs into problems in some cases in this context (b) a real ignorance about how the patent system actually works as opposed to caricatures and edge cases.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#210

Post by seanp2k »

podperson wrote: post #137
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".

I voted for the "abolish all" option despite the fact I'm actually in favor of patents in general and don't think software should be distinct from hardware, but the situation has gotten ridiculous (as has the situation with patents in general). I think that software should only be protected by copyright if the source code is placed in escrow and made available when the company goes belly-up or when the (strictly limi…

>"the odds of such a thing occurring would be as remote as the odds of doing the same thing in your backyard workshop with a lathe."

No. The difference is that PHYSICAL TANGIBLE things exist in the "analog" realm have infinite possibilities. Things that exist in the digital realm have a finite number of possibilities, and if you limit yourself to a particular subset of things you can even possibly do (such as those things which are implemented in computer programming languages), the odds go up greatly. If I tell someone to build a table leg on a lathe, there would probably be many variations between skilled builders. If I tell someone to make an efficient file store (or in patent speak "digital storage"), lots of people would probably come up with something similar...but that's patented: http://www.google.com/patents?q=digital+storage&btnG=Sea...

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