I got a patent for some of the stuff that went into Word Lens (augmented reality translator). I think software patents are awful, but I feel like I need to play the game that's currently in place. A significant part of our company's startup costs and time went into getting that patent. If I could, I'd pay all that and more to eliminate software patents completely - including my own. Software patents kill innovation.
Poll: Do you support software patents?
261–270 of 319 posts
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#262This is one of those issues that I feel is more a member of tribal affiliation than anything substantive. It's like flag burning for us Republicans: if I were to rank order my political objectives, "prevent flag burning" would be somewhere in the x0,000s, but the tribe cares about this a lot for philosophical reasons (which I'm broadly speaking on board with) and as a result uses it as a signaling mechanism. Software…
The economic harm of the uncertainty created by the patent system is way greater than the harm done by the cases that make it into the news.
And this harm is ignored by almost everyone (at least somebody else in this thread pointed it out) including "geeks" the focus is on specific examples of patents being abused).
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#263Why aren't more software patterns patented? For example, the Observer pattern, Model View Controller, Active Record, etc.? These are patterns that pop up naturally while coding that seem on par with the 'in app purchase' pattern (if I can call it that). Why haven't the trolls patented more of our building blocks?
They are all patented, you just have not seen the relevant patents (or if you had seen them you would not be able to understand them).
There was a story not long ago about how somebody had patented doubly linked lists (or maybe how to traverse a double linked list, I can't remember the details, but it was just as obvious).
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#264I utterly detest software patents and the inaccurate view of innovation they embody. In theory, software patents should encourage innovation. In practice, it looks like they hinder it, and instead enable a legalized form of extortion and parasitism.
I'm glad that software is unpatentable here in Costa Rica (as far as I know). I hope we never get infected by this detestable legal concept. As someone who develops software for international markets, though, I'm afraid I'm not immune to this issue, even if software patents are locally unenforceable in my case. I hope developers in other countries (the U.S. in particular) will care enough about this issue to organize and seek reform. Please, do what it takes to convince or hire legislators to remove or drastically reform this misguided legal concept!
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to understand, though, that legalese isn't English. It may look like English, and even work like English in ways, but its not English. Saying that legalese and English ought to be equivalent because they share words and syntax is like saying C++ and Java ought to be equivalent because they share keywords and syntax.
For patents in particular, though, a big part of the justification is that they constitute a disclosure of the invention to other practitioners in the field. It's a quid pro quo: we grant you a limited term of protection, in return for you divulging the details. As part of that arrangement, it seems like we ought to require that the disclosure be in English , not merely in a tongue that shares some English words and…
English? Hah. I'm against the whole patent charade but if we're going to grant them, the inventors should be forced to disclose the entire goddamn source code, development infrastructure, and version control repository which proves that they've actually invented something and not just handwaved in the direction of an idea.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
The argument against trade secrets is that they hurt innovation by impeding the flow of information. Patents allow a company to publish their innovations without fear of someone coming along and simply stealing it. By allowing inventors to publish their information with little competitive disadvantage, we enable other inventors to build on their predecessors efforts.
The current state of patent disclosure is such that your arguement makes little sense. Virtually nothing in software patent disclosures informs people about "how to do it". Almost all of the disclosures are vague and unspecific. If you, as a programmer, hear the title of a patent, you basically know how to do it.
Yeah, with Google search patents, they have been published years after the system was developed and is probably much evolved by now. Looking at the text in them, they only provide very vague guidelines to say SEO's try to learn more how how ranking works.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#267Why is there no: "No software, or other patents, point" button - I'd click that for sure. With thousands of votes - I'd love to see the make-up of the vast majority of this question.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#268This is one of those issues that I feel is more a member of tribal affiliation than anything substantive. It's like flag burning for us Republicans: if I were to rank order my political objectives, "prevent flag burning" would be somewhere in the x0,000s, but the tribe cares about this a lot for philosophical reasons (which I'm broadly speaking on board with) and as a result uses it as a signaling mechanism. Software…
This is not a "signaling" issue, it is hugely important. One of the few industries that has been generating tons of innovation and jobs over the last 20 years is under constant attack from stupid patents, but you think that is less important than banning flag burning?
Agreed; I think that bit was more about tribal counter-signaling signaling than anything substantive.
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#269I wonder, if results with copyright poll will be completely different? The poll: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2555088
Re: Poll: Do you support software patents?
#270I believe that we could easily be years ahead of where we are now if everything was open source, or maybe not. I think it's dumb how we have to reinvent the wheel for something that currently exists, or maybe it's a good thing.