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New Zealand bans some software patents

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Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#161

Post by photojosh »

baddox wrote: post #135
betterunix wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it takes more than one man and one woman for humanity to avoid extinction with a reasonable degree of success: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population Of course, that number depends on things like the environment (a favorable environment will mean a smaller number) and the genetics of the "first" generation. I seriously doubt that the number could be as small as two for any species even under…

So there was never only a single human in existence?

Correct. There was a population of animals that at some stage started to approximate what we would call human.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#162

Post by TylerE »

skybrian wrote: post #156
TylerE wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this sort of extremism. What should not be patentable are basic "way of doing business" patents. On the other hand, if someone slaves away for years and develops a truly new and unique compression technique, I don't see why that shouldn't be patentable. How is that any different from, say, a steel foundry developing a new unique alloy?

What's the difference between that and a mathematician slaving away for years to solve a hard problem? And yet, we don't grant patents on math. One person's time isn't that big an investment (relatively speaking) and funding is available.

Because you're patenting a concrete implementation.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#163

Post by Zigurd »

dublinben wrote: post #142
humanrebar wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you about patent and copyrights, but I think it's important that people view essential rights like property rights and freedom of speech as being truly inalienable -- that individuals have them as long as right and wrong exist.

>property rights and freedom of speech as being truly inalienable That's a simply preposterous belief though, and we should treat it as such. Many people have their rights to property and speech infringed on a regular basis. There isn't even a consensus on what those rights entail, as is clear any time 'hate speech' is brought up.

"Inalienable" is quite an idealistic and American word in this context. Nevertheless, the US federal constitution is written with some assumptions, and a "sense," That is, it is addressed to the government, from the people and the states, which predate the existence federal government, and which can undo the federal government through a constitutional convention. The ninth and tenth Amendments spell out the assumption that rights are not granted by the government, but powers are delegated to the federal government. Rights are open-ended. Powers are enumerated. This is an elegant way of making the constitution future-proof (so beware of people who start a sentence with "The Framers never had...").

Copyright and patents are a notable exception to the above. They are an explicitly granted monopoly, through an explicitly enumerated power of the federal government. The "property" part appears nowhere in the constitution and is a tendentious word added later, like "pro-life."

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#164

Post by skybrian »

TylerE wrote: post #162
skybrian wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between that and a mathematician slaving away for years to solve a hard problem? And yet, we don't grant patents on math. One person's time isn't that big an investment (relatively speaking) and funding is available.

Because you're patenting a concrete implementation.

That's not as black and white as it seems. An implementation of a compression algorithm is typically a particular library written in a particular computer language. A specification of a compression algorithm is typically described in a specification document such as an RFC. We don't call an RFC an implementation.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#165

Post by thomaslangston »

euroclydon wrote: post #160
cromwellian wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"R&D company" that ships no produces seems a bizarre concept to me. If you're doing pure research and you don't want to manufacture anything, then outsource it, or partner with someone who can and sign them to an iron-clad contract protecting a trade secret. I'm be curious if anyone can even name any "pure R&D" software companies that don't ship products, yet created meaningful advancements. Even in the realm of hard…

ARM Holdings. From Wikipedia: Unlike other microprocessor corporations such as AMD, Intel, Freescale (formerly Motorola) and Renesas (formerly Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric),[28] ARM only licenses its technology as intellectual property (IP), rather than manufacturing its own CPUs.

Not a software company.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#166

Post by foobarbazqux »

kaonashi wrote: post #153
baddox wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer a more specific definition that would match more closely to people's intuition about what is and isn't a state, and also allows for discussion about what the state should and shouldn't do. If we define "state" as to include animals protecting their territory, I don't see how the term will be very useful in any discussion.

I think it's a specific rejection of the notion that there ever existed a time before governments. Governments existed, in some form, the moment particles started interacting.

I hadn't thought of it in those terms but I like that understanding of governments. A cell is a state, its laws are its DNA, and its borders are its membrane; and not just metaphorically speaking.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#167

Post by foobarbazqux »

baddox wrote: post #133
foobarbazqux wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, why not? Humans are animals, after all.

I would prefer a more specific definition that would match more closely to people's intuition about what is and isn't a state, and also allows for discussion about what the state should and shouldn't do. If we define "state" as to include animals protecting their territory, I don't see how the term will be very useful in any discussion.

One useful reason to define states as such is because it's a definition that draws on the natural world. If states are only natural, and inevitable, then we don't have to argue about whether they are fundamentally good or bad.

What is your definition of a state?

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#168

Post by rayiner »

cromwellian wrote: post #150
rayiner wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a game only lawyers, IP trolls, or paid industry shills love. I think it's a major problem when something like 60% of all IP litigation is over software patents, a relatively obscure area of the law until recently, but I disagree with this statement. I worked for two entrepreneurs who founded real R&D companies and considered patents to be a basic protection that allowed them to operate a small R&D company ind…

"R&D company" that ships no produces seems a bizarre concept to me. If you're doing pure research and you don't want to manufacture anything, then outsource it, or partner with someone who can and sign them to an iron-clad contract protecting a trade secret. I'm be curious if anyone can even name any "pure R&D" software companies that don't ship products, yet created meaningful advancements. Even in the realm of hard…

Trade secrets you share with other companies are fragile rights. Do you want to invest a ton of money into a company built on a property right that could evaporate at any moment? Re: meaningful advancements, I think MPEG is a decent example, as well as some wireless companies (it's really hard to draw a clean line when it comes to wireless, because a lot of techniques could easily be implemented on a general purpose computer or in an ASIC).

As for RAMBUS, the memory industry is an interesting example. They all work on developing memory technologies, then pool the patents. The patents function to prevent free-riding on the collective effort by any particular company. The wireless industry works similarly (LTE, etc).

I don't mean to argue that the law should protect particular business models. But I think in the abstract, it's useful to be able to bundle up the fruits of some R&D into something that can be the subject of market transactions. I think it's worked amazingly for the semiconductor industry in the model of ARM, for example. The law can provide a mechanism for doing that. I don't think trade secrets are quite it, and I think we're really seeing the limitations of patents for that in the software realm, but I think there needs to be something. Otherwise, it'll be a race to see who can outsource most effectively to China because that's what matters when ideas can't be protected.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#169

Post by TylerE »

skybrian wrote: post #164
TylerE wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're patenting a concrete implementation.

That's not as black and white as it seems. An implementation of a compression algorithm is typically a particular library written in a particular computer language. A specification of a compression algorithm is typically described in a specification document such as an RFC. We don't call an RFC an implementation.

Some reason, if someone comes up with a highly valuable proprietary algorithm, I don't seem them issuing an RFC on it.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#170

Post by axman6 »

skybrian wrote: post #164
TylerE wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're patenting a concrete implementation.

That's not as black and white as it seems. An implementation of a compression algorithm is typically a particular library written in a particular computer language. A specification of a compression algorithm is typically described in a specification document such as an RFC. We don't call an RFC an implementation.

What is patented is a method of compressing data using algorithm X. If you can thing of something else which wouldn't be considered compressing data using algorithm X, then you're free to use algorithm X for this new and inventive purpose.
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