191–197 of 197 posts
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I’m really scratching my head over this one not gonna lie. Are you being serious or being somewhat provocative with an example designed to take the logic to an illogical extreme?
> Patents on software just shouldn't exist. At all. > We already have established laws where you can't patent maths. > An algorithm is just a function. OP seems to suggest that software is "just math". Everything is "just math".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m really scratching my head over this one not gonna lie. Are you being serious or being somewhat provocative with an example designed to take the logic to an illogical extreme?
> Patents on software just shouldn't exist. At all. > We already have established laws where you can't patent maths. > An algorithm is just a function. OP seems to suggest that software is "just math". Everything is "just math".
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I wish you were wrong. I just looked this up out of curiousity, and Gnome themselves had their charity status denied by the IRS for this reason- > You have a substantial nonexempt purpose because you develop software published under open source compatible licenses that authorize use by any person for any purpose, including nonexempt purposes such as commercial, recreational, or personal purposes, including campaign i…
I don't think it's that messed up. If you really want to make something that qualifies as a charity (or a for-profit business) then you can just do that separately. The existence of this foundation doesn't get in the way, they're a home for the trademarks and a few other things but otherwise they don't have much bearing on what you would do. But there are some people at the foundation who would make it their goal to…
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Well, not the entire problem, but yeah, a major chunk of it. The problem of how to evaluate examiners' productivity is pretty similar to evaluating software developers'. Unfortunately, the measure that is being used is akin to counting PRs merged. It isn't hard to see how the PTO arrived at this method of evaluation: patent examiner time is their most constrained resource and they aren't provided the funds to hire mo…
Yeah I debated using that word. Probably not entirely accurate. Something like “if you change that all the other problems are insignificant” might be better. I think your explanation of how this can happen is plausible. But it’s also the problem with treating government services like businesses. USPTO incentives should be aligned with the public good, not the bottom line. This differs from a service like the USPS or…
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I don't think it's that messed up. If you really want to make something that qualifies as a charity (or a for-profit business) then you can just do that separately. The existence of this foundation doesn't get in the way, they're a home for the trademarks and a few other things but otherwise they don't have much bearing on what you would do. But there are some people at the foundation who would make it their goal to…
That reasoning is like denying charity status to a church thrift store because they don't do income verification at the door, to ensure that only poor customers are allowed to shop there.
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Well, not the entire problem, but yeah, a major chunk of it. The problem of how to evaluate examiners' productivity is pretty similar to evaluating software developers'. Unfortunately, the measure that is being used is akin to counting PRs merged. It isn't hard to see how the PTO arrived at this method of evaluation: patent examiner time is their most constrained resource and they aren't provided the funds to hire mo…
Yeah I debated using that word. Probably not entirely accurate. Something like “if you change that all the other problems are insignificant” might be better. I think your explanation of how this can happen is plausible. But it’s also the problem with treating government services like businesses. USPTO incentives should be aligned with the public good, not the bottom line. This differs from a service like the USPS or…
I think you may not understand the underlying economic forces.
Patents are explicitly addressing an existing market failure (that of suboptimal funding of innovation due to free rider disincentives). The mechanism is a grant by government fiat of an exclusive right for a limited time, enforced by the courts, and these grants (and the products covered by them) then become subject to ordinary market forces.
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Well you are in luck because neither of the types of patents you cited can be patented at all.
Come on. This is not helpful. I am well aware of how these patents are phrased (apparatus, etc, etc) to work around the fact that just software cannot be patented, having been involved with quite a few of them.