One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind • Hacker News Board

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#31

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 10:32 PM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #13

grellas wrote: post #7

Open source proponents need to realize that, while it is possible for the Supreme Court to enter a ruling making software non-patentable, this likely is wishful thinking. The authority for patent laws ultimately comes from the Constitution and finds its implementation in statutes passed by Congress. There is nothing in either the Constitution or in the existing patent statutes that expressly allows courts to limit pr…

> I am not saying that software patents shouldn't be abolished - just that such a result is highly unlikely to come from any ruling in this case. You're probably right. The best way for a person to help get software patents abolished, IMO, would be to join their local Pirate Party -- http://www.pp-international.net/

Heh, no it's not. That'll just get you marked a radical and summarily ignored by anyone with power. Not that I agree with that, but that's how things are.

The _real_ way to get software patents taken care of is, as with any other matter of public policy, to convince large swaths of major, consistent contributors to the campaigns of your incumbent representatives to press the issue.

This will probably be difficult because people with money want to do evil with these patents and they will just counter your pressure, though there is some hope that the big players will decide that software patents are too dangerous altogether if a few more injunctions like the one against the sale of Microsoft Word come out (see i4i v. Microsoft). But right now, Microsoft is trying to use its patents to neuter its open-source competitors, so they may value that too highly. We'll have to see!

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#32

Post by loup-vaillant » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 10:49 PM UTC

fnid wrote: post #2

What is the difference between software as a tool and something mechanical as a tool? Mechanical devices, for which there are many patents, take a state of matter and change it to another state of matter. Why should you be able to patent a circuit board, but not a set of program code that does exactly the same transformation to a set of bits? Why are mechanical engineers able to patent their devices, but computer eng…

You are absolutely right by saying that all patents should be treated the same. Now depending of the field, their effect may differ. In the pharmaceutical sector, they rise the price of medicine. In the food sector, they allow Monsanto to patent crops, herds, and then sue farmers for their not-even-transgenic goods. In big industries (with big players), it just wastes time and money through cross-licensing, and prevent new, small players to enter the market. In the software sector, it sets an atmosphere of paranoia, and prevent certain kind of free software to exist in some countries (H264 video encoding, for instance).

You are absolutely right when you say that the purpose of patents is to reward the risk takers. Except they actually don't —in my opinion. They tend to favour the big, established players, which cross-licence anyway, nullifying the incentives of patents.

Paul Graham himself basically said the same thing: you can't reasonably reject some kind of patent, and accept the others, if only because you can't set clear legal limits.

Needles to say, I'm against patents. All of them. Rick Falkvinge convinced me.

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#33

Post by zaphar » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 11:31 PM UTC

chancho wrote: post #10

tsally wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if civil engineers could file a patent that looked like that following: A method and system for crossing a body of water via a constructed object. The customer starts on one side of the water and walks across the object to the other side. Your average software patent is roughly equivalent to a patent on the concept of a bridge. If there are useful software patents, they've been overshadowed by the large number o…

Were it not for prior art, I'm sure the design for a bridge could be patented. And then someone would invent a truss bridge, a covered bridge, an arch bridge, a cable stayed bridge, etc. each getting a patent because each improves on the state of the art. You can patent just about any physical implement. The reason "obvious" stuff (physical equivalents of OneClick) are not patentable is due to prior art dating back t…

What's interesting about what you just stated is that the only reason current patents don't stifle innovation is that there is enough unpatented prior art that someone can build a bridge. If someone did patent a simple bridge as stated above no one could build a truss bridge cause it would infringe. It would in effect stifle innovation.

Patents only work when in old industries?

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#34

Post by zaphar » Fri, Oct 02, 2009, 11:50 PM UTC

akeefer wrote: post #27

sp332 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other forms of intellectual property are not natural rights. They are artificial. Even Thomas Jefferson, who fought pretty darn hard for natural rights, knew that IP was different. http://www.tostepharmd.net/soapbox/ideas.html

Interestingly (to me, at least), the foundation for IP law is different in the US versus the UK. In the US, they're not considered natural rights. The relevant clause of the Constitution is: "The Congress shall have Power To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." In other words, intellec…

The UK's view might be considered saner since if you can prove you came up with the intellectual property on your own and didn't copy it could be argued that you have a joiont right with the other patent holder. Not sure if they interpret it that way but it would be a logical outgrowth of the view.

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#35

Post by stonemetal » Sat, Oct 03, 2009, 12:29 AM UTC

akeefer wrote: post #26

stonemetal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and copyright already protects mechanical drawings. If that were all we were trying to protect then no need for patents on anything. You have effectively killed any sort of technical conversation if everyone must protect trade secrets. You have literally killed any advancement in software if everyone must have a the secret dies with me sort of attitude about every innovative step taken by every software develope…

I'm just arguing against patents on software, not patents in general. Novels aren't protected by patents, yet people still manage to write books. Athletic training techniques aren't patentable, yet people still manage to innovate and share knowledge there. Recipes are only protected by trade secrets, yet people manage to innovate when it comes to food; people publish cookbooks, restaraunts come out with new dishes. F…

When the only way to protect knowledge is to make it secret then you literally get knowledge that die like Damascus steel did. It was so advantageous to protect how it was made that now a thousand years after it was first created we have no clue how it was made(or how we have lost nuclear missle secrets because the secret was to well kept.) Just think of how secretive Google is. If it weren't for the patent system how much would us lowly outsiders know about pagerank?

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#36

Post by codedivine » Sat, Oct 03, 2009, 1:09 AM UTC

fnid wrote: post #2

What is the difference between software as a tool and something mechanical as a tool? Mechanical devices, for which there are many patents, take a state of matter and change it to another state of matter. Why should you be able to patent a circuit board, but not a set of program code that does exactly the same transformation to a set of bits? Why are mechanical engineers able to patent their devices, but computer eng…

Any patent must satisfy three conditions:

* It must be novel.

* It must not be mathematics. Maths cannot be patented.

* It must be non-obvious.

Most software patents violate one or more of the above three conditions.

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#37

Post by gills » Sat, Oct 03, 2009, 2:23 AM UTC

tsally wrote: post #3

fnid wrote: post #2

What is the difference between software as a tool and something mechanical as a tool? Mechanical devices, for which there are many patents, take a state of matter and change it to another state of matter. Why should you be able to patent a circuit board, but not a set of program code that does exactly the same transformation to a set of bits? Why are mechanical engineers able to patent their devices, but computer eng…

What if civil engineers could file a patent that looked like that following: A method and system for crossing a body of water via a constructed object. The customer starts on one side of the water and walks across the object to the other side. Your average software patent is roughly equivalent to a patent on the concept of a bridge. If there are useful software patents, they've been overshadowed by the large number o…

So you throw out the ambiguous and obvious patents. It doesn't mean you throw out the entire IP framework.

This is akin to the folks who claim we should go back to physical gold as money because fiat money has been abused. Fiat money isn't evil, it's incredibly useful, but we've failed to stem the corruption in our government that allows it to be abused.

My point is that the abuse of a system does not make that system inherently evil, it just means we need to learn from the mistakes and mature as a society. Lean towards overturning the lame software patents for a couple decades and tighten up the standards for new ones.

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#38

Post by evgen » Sat, Oct 03, 2009, 4:52 AM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #32

fnid wrote: post #2

What is the difference between software as a tool and something mechanical as a tool? Mechanical devices, for which there are many patents, take a state of matter and change it to another state of matter. Why should you be able to patent a circuit board, but not a set of program code that does exactly the same transformation to a set of bits? Why are mechanical engineers able to patent their devices, but computer eng…

You are absolutely right by saying that all patents should be treated the same. Now depending of the field, their effect may differ. In the pharmaceutical sector, they rise the price of medicine. In the food sector, they allow Monsanto to patent crops, herds, and then sue farmers for their not-even-transgenic goods. In big industries (with big players), it just wastes time and money through cross-licensing, and preve…

> In the pharmaceutical sector, they rise the price of medicine.

In the pharmaceutical sector they make new drug discovery economically possible. Were it not for patents we would not have a tenth of the new drugs and treatments available to us today. Marketing costs (an unreasonable expenditure IMHO) and testing costs are completely outrageous and there are so many promising drugs that wash out in stage two or stage three trials that companies need the assured profits of a success to compensate for the risks and costs.

There are many fields that would probably be improved by limiting patents or shortening their lifespan, but in pharmaceuticals the lifespan of patents probably needs to be upped five or ten years...

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#39

Post by gnaritas » Sat, Oct 03, 2009, 5:13 AM UTC

fnid wrote: post #2

What is the difference between software as a tool and something mechanical as a tool? Mechanical devices, for which there are many patents, take a state of matter and change it to another state of matter. Why should you be able to patent a circuit board, but not a set of program code that does exactly the same transformation to a set of bits? Why are mechanical engineers able to patent their devices, but computer eng…

> That's what patents are for. They are to reward the risk takers.

That isn't what patents are for. The intent of patents is to get inventors to disclose their inventions to the public for the benefit of all. Rewarding the inventor is the incentive that make this happen, makes it work, not the goal.

Re: One Small Leap for Open Source, One Giant Leap for Mankind

#40

Post by evgen » Sat, Oct 03, 2009, 5:23 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #39

fnid wrote: post #2

What is the difference between software as a tool and something mechanical as a tool? Mechanical devices, for which there are many patents, take a state of matter and change it to another state of matter. Why should you be able to patent a circuit board, but not a set of program code that does exactly the same transformation to a set of bits? Why are mechanical engineers able to patent their devices, but computer eng…

> That's what patents are for. They are to reward the risk takers. That isn't what patents are for. The intent of patents is to get inventors to disclose their inventions to the public for the benefit of all. Rewarding the inventor is the incentive that make this happen, makes it work, not the goal.

According to my copy of the US Constitution the purpose is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." and whether this promotion is intended to reward inventors or to convince them to disclose (or both) is open to a great deal of interpretation. Of the two proposals made regarding IP during the drafting of this document one was strictly copyright and the one that covered patents was very clearly about inventors getting a payday...