The US natural level of software innovation is X. Due to patents, it is modified to Y. Is Y larger? Smaller? About the same?
You claim it appears high, and then conclude this means Y can't be significantly smaller. This makes no logical sense. The Google / Oracle lawsuits prove that either non-novel patents hold up in court, or, it takes a gigantic legal and insurance bill to defeat them, which is the point I was trying to get across. No logical fallacies I can see. Perhaps I wasn't clear. On Mar 5, 2011 7:24 AM, "Cédric Beust ♔" <ced...@beust.com> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 8:44 PM, Reinier Zwitserloot <reini...@gmail.com >wrote: > >> There are no basement inventors. Unless you're watching movies. However, >> anti-software-patent campaigners certainly aren't just looking at the >> googles and the IBMs of this world. That's the point! They're looking at >> smaller software companies who can basically just be destroyed overnight by >> a big company by suing them with their patent portfolio in hand. There's >> just nothing a small company can do in the face of such a claim other than >> fold and hope the company in question throws them a bone and buys them out >> for pennies on the dollar so they don't walk away with nothing except a big >> legal bill. >> >> There are also small companies that make no products at all and just buy up >> patents. These companies are called 'patent trolls' for a reason. There are >> also no basement inventors who got some money by selling their idea to such >> a troll - the portfolio of trolls either stems from a company that created >> the troll as a spinoff, or by buying out patents owned by bankrupt >> companies, or by patenting a bunch of obvious ideas themselves (they are >> staffed by lawyers, after all). >> >> So, the system of today doesn't just not work, its a major parasite on >> innovation >> > > Your message looks a lot like the previous one I commented on: you make good > arguments in your first two paragraphs and suddenly, out of nowhere, you > claim that the system is broken even though 1) this claim has no logical > connection to these two paragraphs and 2) this claim is widely contradicted > by the facts (a lot of software innovation is happening in the US on a daily > basis, probably more than any other country in the world). > > >> Case in point: At least 6 of the 8 patents that Oracle is suing Google with >> are clearly total hogwash >> > > There is no "case in point". This is still going through the judicial > system, so until a verdict is reached, what is going on neither invalidates > nor confirms the claim that the system is broken. Let's talk again after a > judge has made a decision. > > Look, I've been on both ends of the software patent war, I have some > first-hand experience on the impact that it can have on a business and a > technological stack. It's never fun when you need to find a different way of > doing something because of existing patents, but by now, I firmly believe > that it *does* force you to innovate more than if the software patent law > didn't exist in the first place to keep you honest. > > -- > Cédric -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
