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Poll: Do you support software patents?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#251

Post by petegrif »

GregBuchholz wrote: post #70
notJim wrote: post #52

I'm somewhat surprised that the vast majority of people here are against all software patents. I agree that many software patents are absurd, but I think of things like H.264 and MPEG where true innovation was required on the part of the people who developed it, and it seems clear to me that those people have a right to patent that work. I'm curious though: what do people see as being the alternative?

Since no one seems to have mentioned it yet: Against Intellectual Monopoly ( http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/anew.all.pdf )

I have read the piece in question. I don't understand how it answers Notjim's question. What is the alternative?

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#252

Post by petegrif »

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".

There are many ideas that I can't stand. Fortunately I weigh them against their likelihood and find that reassuring. I suggest you do likewise. The probability that in your noodling you will develop something non-obvious and worthy of intellectual protection and will nonetheless continue obliviously developing it, without the slightest idea there may be protected prior art is vanishingly small. Consequently your paranoid intuition that we should abolish all software patents may be laid to rest. There may well be good reasons to investigate the patent system. IMHO this is not one of them. Hope this helps.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#254

Post by checoivan »

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".

There's a money incentive at work for each patent submission.

Every time I stare at that patent submission form I can't help but to imagine somebody doing a cool thing which does something similar, getting squashed by a lawyer.

I've a couple of those forms which I filled, but never submitted.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#255

Post by blantonl »

Locke1689 wrote: post #125
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…

This intrigues me, because fundamentally I see software as a form of mathematics. Given that mathematical equations aren't patentable, I don't believe that software should be either. Moreover, it seems that we already have many things in software preventing people from copying code wholesale (SaaS, the fundamental difficulty in reverse engineering compiled binaries). As a professional cryptographer/mathematician, how…

Devil's advocate here: business logic is often significantly incorporated into software. Much of this logic could be implemented on other platforms such as manual labor etc. But can't all of it be boiled down in the end as mathematics? Should we extend that assertion that far with regards to this argument?

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#256

Post by blantonl »

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 apologize in advance for being short with this question, but what do you consider a "software patent?"

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#257

Post by petegrif »

anamax wrote: post #226
jerf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. "should" is the problem with that argument. Just as "all bugs are shallow to the right eyes", all machines are obvious to a fair number of people…

" In fact, the very fact that we have patent trolls that can run around and sue business after business after business for the same patent, while the businesses have no evidence that shows they have communicated with each other about the patented subject, ought to be proof positive that the patent is obvious and shouldn't be patentable."

Whether the person suing is or isn't a patent troll is irrelevant to your argument. You are basically arguing that if lots of people have done something without colluding it must be obvious. Not so.

I recommend this piece on hindsight bias. It is an extremely well documented fact that things rapidly become obvious after the fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#258

Post by petegrif »

postfuturist wrote: post #47
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.

Yes, patents infringe on people's rights, to foster innovation. Getting to patent something isn't a right, it's a privilege. As you've illustrated, all patents are inherently undesirable--at least for certain parties. And I agree. They should be abolished.

That is precisely what they don't do. All they do is stop someone else from claiming it as an innovation with the associated IP rights. There is nothing to stop someone innovating like a fiend. But surely it is blindingly obvious that copying something someone has already patented is not innovating. Everything else however is fair game. Knock yourself out and innovate.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#259

Post by petegrif »

simpleTruth wrote: post #115
jcromartie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you prove an "independent" invention was really developed independently of the patent? You can't prove that someone didn't read something.

IMO a reasonable test is: If a patent can be used to sue one company it may be patentable. If it can be used to sue 100 companies working on separate products it's probably obvious. Basically, you can't prove 1 person did not read it. But, you can be positive 100 people did not read it. Now clearly this depends on the number of people working on the problem. So, while 100 is excessive in most fields, somewhere around…

That is clearly not a reasonable test. In fact it is almost certainly a great test for someone having innovated in a valuable way. If you file a worthless patent then no-one will be interested in your innovation and there will be no-one to sue. If however you file something valuable you would expect to potentially have lots of people to sue. In your example the question arises, why have so many people trespassed on this patent? We know they have an incentive - it is valuable. But why in this hypothetical case did they trespass? Did they think the patent was breakable? the patent holder weak? the market opportunity so great that they would build now pay later? Perhaps they didn't find the patent? So many questions. But as a cursory study of hindsight bias will make plain it is extremely common for something that is not at all obvious at the time of its invention of appear so later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

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