Kagamin Wrote:
> Steven Schveighoffer Wrote:
>
> > You can profit from the fruits of your invention *without* patents.
>
> If a bigger corporation doesn't steal your invention.
>
> > >> Add that to the fact that software
> > >> patents are *rarely* beneficial to the community.
> > >
> > > Does the community want benefits at the expense of the inventor?
> >
> > The *point* of patents is to benefit the community. The price society
> > pays to the inventor is granting a monopoly. I'd argue that a 17-year
> > monopoly on software technology and algorithms is too high a price to pay
> > for knowing a "secret" you can't use until it's very obsolete.
>
> Patented technology can be used under terms of GPL right now as example of
> x264 shows. With GPL patent holder can be sure he still can make money on
> commercial patent users.
>
> > >> They are mostly used as
> > >> weapons to stifle innovation from others. In essence, software patents
> > >> have had an *opposite* effect on the industry compared to something like
> > >> building cars.
> > >
> > > Let's look at the H264 technology. Would it exist in the first place if
> > > its creators had no chance to patent it?
> >
> > What if is not a fair game. It's impossible for me to say because I did
> > not invent it. But I believe most people who come up with ideas for
> > software are not in it for the patents. Even in the company I worked for
> > which got several software patents, they were an afterthought -- Software
> > is invented to *solve a problem* which needs to be solved whether it can
> > be patented or not. Did the inventors of H.264 do it for the patents?
> > Maybe.
>
> If it's impossible to say, then your opinion has the risk to be unfounded. If
> we eliminate patents, it will be impossible to say, whether things became
> better or not - who knows what inventions were not invented because their
> authors had no resources for it.
>
> I'm not sure h264 solved a problem. Video encoding worked just fine before
> it. It's just a better algorithm. The experts may be not for patents, but
> they are paid by big companies which are for profit.
>
> > But I firmly believe if software wasn't patentable, we would have
> > equivalent video streams today (maybe even better than what we have),
> > because it *solves a problem*.
>
> Equivalent - yes, but not today. The story of h264 became at 1998, it took
> years to complete it. It also took quite a while to get Theora right.
> Innovation in XviD were incremental and backward compatible with stock MPEG4
> ASP decoder.
>
> > This is a strawman -- GPL is not required by patent law to be licensed at
> > no cost for software patents. The inventors of H.264 have chosen this
> > route, so good for them. But it is not a benefit of GPL or a strike
> > against boost, it's just what they chose.
>
> Can you make money with boost license?
>
> > You cannot copyright a design. You can copyright implementation. And if
> > you don't make the design public, people have to spend vast amounts of
> > time and effort to just *figure out* your design, then they have to write
> > their own implementation (which is not cheap). Meanwhile, you have
> > improved your design to something better and already sold thousands or
> > millions of copies, sucking up all the market share.
>
> So open source is out of game?
>
> > > The same is for software world. A program may require quite a large
> > > investment before it could be made usable. Let's consider D: who would
> > > get quality implementation first - Digital Mars or Microsoft? If DM
> > > doesn't patent D, it will sell *nothing*.
> >
> > I think if Microsoft decided to implement D, Walter would be the first one
> > jumping for joy :)
>
> That's only because he doesn't sell D.
>
> > > Even if DM manages to get some market share, it won't survive
> > > competition and eventually lose. IE lost its market share because there
> > > was more effort put into Firefox than IE.
> >
> > DMC is still being sold AFAIK. There is always a market for cheaper
> > software, or a more agile software company.
> >
> > One might pay for DMD if one gets specific support. For example, if I
> > wanted to buy a D compiler for ARM, would Microsoft be willing to
> > implement it for a fee? Would they even respond to my request?
>
> Windows 8 supports ARM for some reason.
>
> > > I suppose trivial patents are also a problem for physical industry as
> > > the wheel patent shows.
> >
> > The wheel patent is a test of a poorly designed patent system (as the
> > article indicates). It is not representative of most patent systems.
> >
> > See this quote from your linked article:
> >
> > ===========
> > Keogh, who is a freelance patent lawyer himself, says that he applied for
> > the patent in order to test this new class of new patents. He says that
> > innovation patents are not examined in detail by the Australian patent
> > office.
> >
> > "The patent office would be required to issue a patent for everything," he
> > told The Age newspaper. "All they're doing is putting a rubber stamp on
> > it."
> > ===========
> >
> > Note that this is not a trivial granted patent because of a flawed review
> > process -- THERE IS NO REVIEW PROCESS, ALL PATENTS ARE GRANTED! This is
> > not a fair comparison of well-established patent systems.
>
> Do you call patent systems granting trivial (software) patents
> well-established?
>
> > >> When was the last time you did anything with a patented software
> > >> technology except *avoid it like the plague*?
> > >
> > > I would like to avoid H264 but unfortunately I can't.
> >
> > Right, and if software patents did not exist, the web would have
> > standardized on some other video codec, which would be freely available by
> > now.
>
> I actually avoid h264 in the web :)
> Well, in fact I use firefox and avoid flash, which results in avoiding h264.
> Webm is enough for me in the web.
> I can't avoid H264 for "real" video.
