Poll: Do you support software patents? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#151

Post by axylone » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:10 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #122

bane wrote: post #58

At risk of taking an unpopular devils-advocate position: I think that the principle of patents is okay. Invest time and money developing an idea, with a guarantee of exclusivity on executing on that idea in the marketplace for a period of time. It encourages a level of risk taking for "getting there first". Software patents aren't any different in many respects because somebody has to go through the time and effort t…

I think that the principle of patents is okay. Invest time and money developing an idea, with a guarantee of exclusivity on executing on that idea in the marketplace for a period of time. It encourages a level of risk taking for "getting there first". Patents are an artificial system forced upon us with the hope that they accelerate innovation. Just as you said, the hope there is that it encourages someone to take th…

What if a startup spends ~2 years coming up with an idea, launches it, and gets noticed by a Big Company before the site gets big. What's to stop the Big Company from just implementing the idea themselves in a slightly different form? Would the Big Company still buy the startup/how will the startup be compensated for its work?

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#152

Post by algoshift » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:13 PM UTC

The patent office should charge some amount with every software patent application to be used for the determination of obviousness or prior art. Then it should post the problems on sites such as this one or StackOverflow as a request for comments. In addition to that, it should post the problem on a rent-a-coder type site. If any of these produced a result reasonably close to what is being claimed the application is rejected.

Simple and cost-effective. This would be far more efficient than having the uninformed at the patent office make decision from position of ignorance.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#153

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:15 PM UTC

bostonpete wrote: post #142

Locke1689 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is a mathematical equation. Math isn't patentable. Edit: Since people aren't convinced of my postulate that all algorithms are mathematical equations, here's a proof sketch: All programs can be rewritten to be expressed in Haskell. All Haskell functions can be expressed as equations in the typed lambda calculus. The lambda calculus and its variants are all subsets of mathematical equations. Therefore, all pr…

Software is an application of mathematical equations perhaps, but then hardware is an application of material properties and other laws of physics. Since material properties and laws of physics can't be patented, you're presumably against hardware patents as well?

Hardware is about particular values, not the equations. Software tends to be more about a transformational equation, but not in all aspects.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#154

Post by stewbrew » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:15 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #143

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".

Me neither. But what about the opposite case - you work on something for a long time, and then make a breakthrough. Genius! You apply your breakthrough to do something awesome and release it out into the world. Someone else notes, it, reverse engineers it, and has a better marketing operation than you so they make $$$ and you get nothing. without patents, how do you protect your genuinely original work? I'm not a fan…

Are you able to tell/estimate what's the proportion of software patent cases that will bring profit to the people who actually did the work? And how many cases were initiated by those people because they felt at risk.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#155

Post by Sudarshan » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:30 PM UTC

I would prefer a world without software patents. If that is not possible, * At least the courts should charge exponentially high prices for each extra claim you want to make beyond a limit. * All publicly listed companies will have a cap on total number of patents they can apply for (probably proportional to R&D spending) after which the price increases exponentially. * Any person or institution found patent trolling should find further litigation exponentially expensive. All these and more measures won't solve the problem... but at least increases the threshold for trolling behaviour...

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#156

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:33 PM UTC

stewbrew wrote: post #154

anigbrowl wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me neither. But what about the opposite case - you work on something for a long time, and then make a breakthrough. Genius! You apply your breakthrough to do something awesome and release it out into the world. Someone else notes, it, reverse engineers it, and has a better marketing operation than you so they make $$$ and you get nothing. without patents, how do you protect your genuinely original work? I'm not a fan…

Are you able to tell/estimate what's the proportion of software patent cases that will bring profit to the people who actually did the work? And how many cases were initiated by those people because they felt at risk.

That's more research than I want to do for free on a Monday morning, and one might ask the same question about patents in general. The current system is broken, but simply abolishing it is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's a reason the patent and copyright systems exist in the first place, and simple abolition would just exchange new problems for old.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#157

Post by Sakes » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:35 PM UTC

Maybe we just need to change the patent system itself.

I believe people game the patent system by trying to be as general as possible when creating patents.

I believe this stifles progress, I believe stifling progress is wrong, I believe stifling progress hurts us as a country in a time when we can not afford it.

What if a patent's definition changed over it's life time based upon what the company is actually using it for?

I think this would solve a couple problems.

1) It would force the company to actively invest in "idea's" that they own if they are actually makers and not scammers. (Yeah!!, progress continues)

2) It would open up the patent system to redefining the shelf life of patents.

We could call this new system "Shit or get off the pot!" patents.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#158

Post by notJim » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:38 PM UTC

mrcharles wrote: post #98

notJim wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying all software ideas can be thought of and implemented in a few minutes? That is both absurd, and an insult to the innovation that happens in software. You have 10 minutes, give me an implementation of something that improves upon H.264 by 30%.

Your reductio ad absurdum does not accurately represent what I'm saying. I'm saying that you could possibly make software in a few minutes that could violate a patent. This is extremely unlikely with hardware of significant complexity to earn a patent.

I don't think I understand your argument. You said this:

> a software idea can be thought up in a few minutes and implemented in the same.

This is only true for trivial pieces of software. I agree with you that trivial pieces of software should not be patentable. But you're saying that no piece of software should be patentable, regardless of how complex or innovative it is, and there I strongly disagree.

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#159

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:42 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #143

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".

Me neither. But what about the opposite case - you work on something for a long time, and then make a breakthrough. Genius! You apply your breakthrough to do something awesome and release it out into the world. Someone else notes, it, reverse engineers it, and has a better marketing operation than you so they make $$$ and you get nothing. without patents, how do you protect your genuinely original work? I'm not a fan…

[deleted]

Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?

#160

Post by Locke1689 » Mon, May 16, 2011, 6:46 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #130

Locke1689 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is a mathematical equation. Math isn't patentable. Edit: Since people aren't convinced of my postulate that all algorithms are mathematical equations, here's a proof sketch: All programs can be rewritten to be expressed in Haskell. All Haskell functions can be expressed as equations in the typed lambda calculus. The lambda calculus and its variants are all subsets of mathematical equations. Therefore, all pr…

I don't agree. And algorithm is not the same thing as an equation, and I don't think your argument would stand up in court. If it were that simple to overturn software patents it would have happened years ago.

How about this:

All programs can be rewritten to be expressed in Haskell. All Haskell functions can be expressed as equations in the typed lambda calculus. The lambda calculus and its variants are all subsets of mathematical equations. Therefore, all programs can be expressed as mathematical equations.