On May 31, 2007, at 5:21 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote:
Actually patents are commonly filed to be as broad as possible. So a very specific way of doing X will be filed as a patent on X. Also some things are so obvious that they are very likely to be invented over and over again. The 1-Click patent held by Amazon is a good case in point. Why should everyone have to license or not use something so obvious?
These are frivolous patents, and there are as many for hardware as for software. This is a separate problem from software algorithm patents in theory. Incompetent management on many levels does not equate to the underlying idea being poor in principle.
There is also the small matter of prior art. I did a LOT of work in distributed objects and object persistence in the mid 80s. But at the time software patents were just not done, at least not by my company. About eight years ago I looked up patents in this area to see that Sun and IBM had a number in these areas that my work in the 80s certainly was relevant to and much earlier. But since the company and I did not keep sufficient records and since I cannot afford to challenge them myself the current practice would restrict me in some cases from using what I myself invented long ago. That is not healthy.
Sure, this happens and it has happened to me. The software industry does not have mature mechanisms for dealing with patent issues (other industries handle the mess better), aggravated by the poor job the patent office does. This is a completely separate issue from software patents in theory. If we made it a practice to dissolve things merely on the basis that they are currently being run incompetently then you can start with the government at large.
I agree that there is a lot of incompetence in the management of patents (it extends much further than software patents) but I find it interesting that a lot of people want to fix it by eliminating patents rather than dealing with the underlying problem and without consideration for whether or not patents are a good idea. As I stated previously I am not averse to eliminating patents, but it would be short-sighted idiocy to only apply it to software algorithm patents as though they are special or to do so because dealing with the incompetence is too hard without regard for whether or not there is value in principle.
I do not agree that all patentable things are equal. I believe that software algorithms are much more fine grained and inter- related and independently discoverable than say newly machine inventions.
You believe that, but where is the evidence to support that assertion? How familiar are you with some of the numerous other heavily patented fields? Thousands of fine-grained and inter-related patents is not a feature unique to software algorithms, and people in those other fields will often whine about the same issues.
This does not address the issue of non-frivolous algorithm patents. If an algorithm is developed that enables capabilities not previously described in computer science literature, how is anyone being hindered by it being patented? Obviously they were getting along just fine before it was invented never mind patented. Do you think public access to new algorithms would naturally follow from disallowing them from being patented? History suggests not. Fortunately, many new algorithms are not patented, so that is not even a real concern in some cases.
Again, this gets back to my point about the arguments against non- frivolous software patents being deeply disingenuous. The claim is that people "lose" by not having unfettered access to something that did not previously exist and which someone expended non-trivial effort in developing. It is a bait-and-switch many times, where a frivolous patent is used as an excuse why everyone should be allowed to use algorithm patents that are non-frivolous.
The whole public discussion of software patents is surrounded by anecdote, shoddy reasoning, and transparently greedy motivations, but no one seems interested in dealing with the individual fundamental questions that define the situation. The unwillingness and/or inability of anyone to establish the facts and definitions surrounding software patents in any kind of rigorous manner does not lend credibility to the arguments made, whether for or against.
Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415&user_secret=e9e40a7e
