The patent to invalidate software patents
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The patent to invalidate software patents
1–10 of 17 posts
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#2Before anybody gets too excited, know that this case doesn't actually open the door to invalidating software patents in general. It clarifies things a little bit is all.
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#3The points he made about how to improve the patent system are really good ones. I have always though a short lifespan on patents would be better for inovation.
I think patents are good for certain things but over all it slows inovation. I think we could be another 25 years farther down the road with technology if there where not so many bad patents out there.
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#4> That said, it's the world we live in. So, like every other Silicon Valley entrepreneur, I file patents.
This is patents-as-positional-good, a zero sum game that consumes resources and produces effectively no net value.
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#5> That said, it's the world we live in. So, like every other Silicon Valley entrepreneur, I file patents. This is patents-as-positional-good, a zero sum game that consumes resources and produces effectively no net value.
Worse, its almost a pure text-book case of the tragedy of the commons.
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#6> That said, it's the world we live in. So, like every other Silicon Valley entrepreneur, I file patents. This is patents-as-positional-good, a zero sum game that consumes resources and produces effectively no net value.
Worse, its almost a pure text-book case of the tragedy of the commons.
Excuse me? Could you please explain, as I fail to see how a tragedy of the commons arises.
(Of course patents are problematic, but the reasons that I know of are not related to the tragedy of the commons in a way that I'm aware of.)
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#7The points he made about how to improve the patent system are really good ones. I have always though a short lifespan on patents would be better for inovation. I think patents are good for certain things but over all it slows inovation. I think we could be another 25 years farther down the road with technology if there where not so many bad patents out there.
The problem with merely shortening the lifespan of patents is hinted at by the logic in the argument for doing it. When we grant a monopoly to a party in return for a patent, what we are in essence saying is "If you hadn't filed here then we would not know of this invention until later."
This argument made sense when the system was first conceived because the norm for that time was to keep inventions as family secrets and innovators themselves were rare. But these days the norm is for some openness and there are so many innovators that there can be very little margin between first to invent and second to invent. Software patents in particular are problematic because it is far more open by its very nature -- the existence of a solution highlights the search space. The problem with merely shortening patents in this light is that it just adjusts the cost/benefit calculation on the basis of this being a sudden jump when this development is the result of a trend that has no signs of stopping.
Fortunately, the revision seems straightforward: revamp patents to make the calculation explicit. By the time software patents are completely useless, they will have a 0 year life (and be dead). Meanwhile if other fields end up as amendable to optimization as software is, we can gracefully scale down the patents there without having the same conversation all over again.
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worse, its almost a pure text-book case of the tragedy of the commons.
Excuse me? Could you please explain, as I fail to see how a tragedy of the commons arises. (Of course patents are problematic, but the reasons that I know of are not related to the tragedy of the commons in a way that I'm aware of.)
The best thing for everyone at this point is for individuals (and especially for small start-ups) not to file for patents at all.
This is not the best thing to do for the individual, especially if he wants to be acquired. The best thing to do in that case is to file as many broad and unspecific patents as possible to boost your perceived value. Good for you if you get acquired (or go bust and fire-sale everything), bad for everyone else who now has to live with even more bogus patents that are likely on their way to troll-land.
Its a case of "see, this is why we can't have nice things". It is conceivable for the patent system to work if there weren't so many bad actors maximizing their own gain at the multiplied expense of everyone else. Even those with good intentions feel that they have to do this a little just to get by.
"That said, it's the world we live in. So, like every other Silicon Valley entrepreneur, I file patents." Everyone feels that they have to graze their sheep to survive, but its making the common grounds into desert.
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Excuse me? Could you please explain, as I fail to see how a tragedy of the commons arises. (Of course patents are problematic, but the reasons that I know of are not related to the tragedy of the commons in a way that I'm aware of.)
The best thing for everyone at this point is for individuals (and especially for small start-ups) not to file for patents at all. This is not the best thing to do for the individual, especially if he wants to be acquired. The best thing to do in that case is to file as many broad and unspecific patents as possible to boost your perceived value. Good for you if you get acquired (or go bust and fire-sale everything), b…
Oh, so it's an externality, not necessarily a tragedy of the commons (which is a very specific type of externality).
Re: The patent to invalidate software patents
#10I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but I've not seen it in any of the previous debate about software patents.
Quoting from the article:
Patents are meant to foster innovation by protecting the inventor and then upon expiry providing a library of information for others to build on. To this end, going forward, if a patent doesn’t actually tell you enough information to understand and build the invention, it shouldn’t be valid.
Given that a software patent is...well, software, why not require that actual working code be submitted as part of the patent application/grant? The code is held in escrow/confidence by the patent office for the term of the patent, and is released to the public domain when it expires.
There's probably some issue there with copyright of the code that might complicate the public domain part, but at the very least you could clean-room reimplement it. An alternative might be that you are required to renounce/void copyright on the code in order to obtain a patent - the short term monopoly of the basic idea comes at the cost of no long/indefinite-term copyright on the specific implementation.
That opens up all sorts of new possibilities, like requiring/permitting the patent claims to be machine-readable, in the sense of a conformance test-suite. That both ensures that the provided implementation is a true instance of the patented invention, and gives the holder/patent office/court an easy way to check for violation.