New Zealand bans some software patents • Hacker News Board

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#221

Post by SEMW » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 12:28 AM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #216

SEMW wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of the people railing against the phrase "intellectual property" is that the phrase is misleading I venture you may have missed my point. The phrase isn't misleading, it's correct. Having the word "property" in its name isn't what makes it a property right. It's a property right because it behaves as a property right (ownable, transferable, binds the world). "Replacing [the word 'property' in IP] with som…

In this case, intellectual property "rights" are not natural rights because they are neither essential for a free society nor essential to the survival of an individual. My objection is exactly that intellectual property rights do not quack like natural rights and that legal terminology (and eventually laws themselves) should respect that. Referring back to the U.S. Constitution, a limited monopoly was granted "To pr…

To be clear, I wasn't making any comment on whether IP rights are 'natural rights' or not, only on whether they're property rights (which ISTM is a much more concrete question). Apologies if I wasn't clear about that. (On the main point, see my reply to your other post).

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#222

Post by foobarbazqux » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 12:51 AM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #218

foobarbazqux wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between legal rights and natural rights is that legal rights are guaranteed by force. As soon as you guarantee a natural right by force it becomes a legal right: you make the law.

You just reiterated your previous statement without addressing my point. According to you, it is morally OK for government to decide what is a right and what isn't. In that case, is there anything morally wrong with government deciding to nationalize all retirement savings?

It is always legally OK for a government to decide what is right and what isn't. It may or may not be morally OK with an individual member of the society, depending on the particular law. I like some laws, I don't like other laws. I believe a healthy government provides legal guarantees about rights to its citizens in accordance with their morals, on average, and so I am morally OK with such a government.

Governments are a natural extension of parents. Goodness or badness is not an all-or-nothing proposition; nobody has perfect parents, but most people accept that in general, having parents that make and enforce the rules is a good thing. It is quite possible to have terrible parents though, in which case escape might be a good idea.

I just don't understand why anarcho-capitalist libertarianism is so great. The international situation today is a capitalist anarchy among nations, and the US abuses its immense power to call most of the shots. How would it be any different at the level of individuals?

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#223

Post by jobu » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 4:11 AM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #72

Software patents are an abomination. I could stomach copyright on software, because at least one is still permitted independent implementation and expression. I can't copy your code, but I can rewrite it. Software patents on the other hand put a fence around ideas themselves. You can't draw a cursor using XOR by implementing it yourself, period, for 20 years. The patent system is deeply broken, and it doesn't even st…

My biggest gripe is that software gets double protection - copyright and patents. I would be ok with software patents if that meant you had provide the source code as part of the patent application, and if approved it would go into the public domain.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#224

Post by throwawaykf02 » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 4:25 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #183

FOSSpatents wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@btilly In district court, the jury identified copyright infringement, was hung on fair use (which means that this would have to be determined by a new jury if the relevant code is found copyrightable), and the judge overruled the jury to the effect that the court additionally ruled that certain test files I had published in January 2011 were indeed infringed. The key thing that was missing was copyrightability. You'…

You don't really need a list of your misrepresentations of reality, but http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120724125504129 may remind you of some of them. I should note that it was written at a time when you were still claiming to be independent. You know, before you faced the fact that your name was going to be on Oracle's list of paid lobbyists and so you admitted to it up front in the way that made it look…

He disclosed his relationship with Oracle four months before the judge asked both companies to "name their shills" [1,2]. It was a highly unusual and controversial order [3], so it's not like Mueller, or indeed anybody, could have predicted this and "come clean" in advance.

Also note that Oracle had that one name on its list. Google had a much longer list. Further, I think the judge erred by not requiring both sides to disclose relevant PR ties, because really, it's the PR companies that oversee the shilling [4, 5]

1. http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/oracle-v-google-trial-evi...

2. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/name-your-shills-...

3. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/with-anti-shill-o...

4. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

5. http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Facebook-busted-fo...

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#225

Post by fspeech » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 4:43 AM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #176

leeoniya wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Get a dozen sharp programmers together, give them all a hard problem to work on, and a bunch of them will come up with solutions that would probably be patentable, and be similar enough that the first programmer to file the patent could sue the others for patent infringement." -- John Carmack from http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/patents/carmack

This is obviously not true in many cases. There are countless algorithm problems where decades and thousands of pages of published literature on the problem go by before some researcher manages to make a material advance. Computer science is full of cases like this. If all of the interesting problems were so trivial to solve, they would not be "problems" by definition. The idea that smart programmers could solve thes…

The key here is that patents are supposed to be non obvious to those "skilled in the arts" and herein lies the rub: who are those skllled in the arts? In my previous career (wireless and IC) I saw most patents as trivial for someone skilled in the arts: they were mostly byproducts of routine engineering design work. They were novel only in the sense that you are probably the first to work on a specific form. Yet they could appear rather deep and profound to the untrained eyes as you need a lot of training to be skilled in the arts in the first place. Can patent examiners truly judge the novelty of these patent applications?

And the funny thing is: if you come up with some real algorithm for some real hard problem it is unlikely that your algorithm can be protected by a patent, certainly not in its general form. The true algorithmic nature of your solution is likely too abstract and mathematical for a patent as patents do not protect laws of nature (physics and math qualify as laws of nature).

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#226

Post by throwawaykf02 » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 5:01 AM UTC

jobu wrote: post #223

cromwellian wrote: post #72

Software patents are an abomination. I could stomach copyright on software, because at least one is still permitted independent implementation and expression. I can't copy your code, but I can rewrite it. Software patents on the other hand put a fence around ideas themselves. You can't draw a cursor using XOR by implementing it yourself, period, for 20 years. The patent system is deeply broken, and it doesn't even st…

My biggest gripe is that software gets double protection - copyright and patents. I would be ok with software patents if that meant you had provide the source code as part of the patent application, and if approved it would go into the public domain.

It's not really double protection, because patents and copyright cover different things. Copyright only protects the exact expression of what some software does. Patents cover the functionality of that software. In fact, since software per se is not claimed, the claimed functionality could be implemented entirely in hardware and still be covered by the patent.

No amount of copyright can protect the functionality, because 1) there are countless ways of implementing the same functionality and copyright only protects your specific way, and 2) copyright cannot legally cover functionality anyway.

As such, providing source code in a patent is of little value. (Although I have seen patents containing source code.) As long as you can reimplement the method being claimed by reading the patent with little undue experimentation, it has met its "enablement" requirement.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#227

Post by throwawaykf02 » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 5:14 AM UTC

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…

> I'm be curious if anyone can even name any "pure R&D" software companies that don't ship products, yet created meaningful advancements.

There are many examples (in addition to ARM) -- just think "research labs". Be they government-sponsored, private or academic, their primary function is R&D, not shipping products. One example of a private lab, off the top of my head, is SRI.

Also, though you may claim they don't count as "companies" -- universities.

Edit: Additionally, in the realm of hardware and semiconductors, most companies these days are actually fabless [1]. There is a study claiming that patents facilitated the entry of specialized design firms into the market, although incumbent industry executives didn't look on them too favorably [2].

BTW, Rambus is not the best example. They created a lot of controversy when they asserted their standards-essential patents, the same thing Motorola is doing these days. Whether they "really needed patents" depends on which side you're looking from. But for the industry in general (and I am horribly oversimplifying very nuanced conclusions), the answer seems to be yes for startups, and a mixed bag for big ones [2, 3].

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabless_manufacturing

2. http://www.techpolicy.com/Articles/P/Patent-Paradox-Revisite....

3. Various other papers by Rosemary Ziedonis at http://www.techpolicy.com/Academics/Ziedonis.aspx

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#228

Post by Steko » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 11:59 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #197

Steko wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So wait Matt Cutts being paid by Google makes him a puppet and we shouldn't take him to be a useful voice on anything related to search?

Matt Cutts is an employee of Google and clearly speaks on behalf of Google's search team. Not sure what your point is?

The point was that people who have financial interests can still provide useful information for the community. Of course you knew what the point was and decided to take us on a pedantic tangent.

Another point I could make is that analogies don't have to be perfect to be useful.

Another point might be that the people making ad hominem attacks on FM aren't actually adding anything constructive to the discussion while he did. In fact his contribution to the thread added more than everyone elses' combined.

And while I don't really care for FM himself, there are many people who spin and editorialize heavily that are still very much worth reading. If you're interested at all in tech patents, he's one of them along with whatever ends up replacing Groklaw.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#229

Post by mbesto » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 1:33 PM UTC

Steko wrote: post #228

mbesto wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Cutts is an employee of Google and clearly speaks on behalf of Google's search team. Not sure what your point is?

The point was that people who have financial interests can still provide useful information for the community. Of course you knew what the point was and decided to take us on a pedantic tangent. Another point I could make is that analogies don't have to be perfect to be useful. Another point might be that the people making ad hominem attacks on FM aren't actually adding anything constructive to the discussion while h…

The point was that people who have financial interests can still provide useful information for the community.

I wasn't questioning that. I have no doubt the information he is articulating is valuable, but who is benefiting more, us, himself or his client? Regardless of how pedantic I'm being, your point is slightly flawed and should be called out. I don't feel it's worth attributing merit to people's efforts without understanding their behavior first.

There financial interests are very different and thus the information they create can lean one way or another. One is a paid consultant and another is a full time salaried employee. The one makes more money directly by benefiting the client (Mueller) and the other one makes more by equity and control (Cutts).

When it comes to money, people are largely motivated by 3 things: control, equity, and cash (which all subsequently translate quite nicely into money/wealth) however, each one can manifest itself very differently. Someone who makes their living by advising clients has a very direct interest in cash, so it's more obvious that his/her behavior is in line with ensuring that cash goes into the bank first and foremost.

Re: New Zealand bans some software patents

#230

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Aug 30, 2013, 2:00 PM UTC

SEMW wrote: post #220

humanrebar wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the word "red" isn't a fair comparison. I'd use the word "love". If Pat told Alex, "I love you", Alex would rightly infer that Pat had just expressed romantic interest. If Pat then said, "...like I love my dog," Alex would then rightly be confused (and angry). In the same way, the term "intellectual property rights" overloads the phrase "property rights". It's a poor choice of words and since "intellectual pr…

AFAICS we just have different priorities in what we want the terminology to do. You're prioritising the impression that the term "intellectual property" creates in a layman, i.e. that it calls to mind an analogy (with tangible property) that is in many ways misleading. I'm prioritising the technical accuracy of it as a legal term per common law definitions of proprietary right. So I think we'll just have to agree to…

I can agree to disagree, though it's worth noting that intellectual property law is currently under review in courts and legislatures worldwide. It follows that the meaning of "intellectual property" is, among other things, a significant political problem right now.