Remember when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, and proclaimed, to much applause, that they patented the hell out of it? Well, apparently Apple likes to boast about its own patents, but when it comes to dealing with other's they're not so willing. That is, if you believe Nokia: the largest phone manufacturer in the world has sued Apple for patent infringement.
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Member since:2006-10-15
Fair enough. I will say this: I would readily vote for no patent system if the other choice were what we have now. I'm not sure where I would fall in between, except that I think patents should be much more difficult to attain.
Another thing: I agree that software patents shouldn't exist, but that contradicts what we've both agreed to: That patents may be a good thing and may actually encourage innovation. Why wouldn't we want software innovation?
Would you vote for the current patent system, no patent system, or do you think it would be possible/worthwhile to come up with something in between?
Member since:2007-01-18
1. Software is already protected by copyright, so unlike most other types of patents, it's already protected.
2. We always hear about software patents for stupid stuff. We rarely hear about software patents for stuff that it actually makes any sense to patent.
So, maybe there's some software that it would make sense to patent (like whatever Google's search algorithm is), but most software patents are definitely stupid, obvious, and totally ridiculous. And the few that aren't are already covered by copyright, so can't just copy what they've done anyway.
It seems to me that the two best things that could be done to the patent system are to make it so that stuff has to be really non-obvious and innovative in order to be patented and to make it so that patents last a much shorter period of time. I don't care about what someone patented back in 1995. They've had plenty of time to recoup their costs by now. It's ludicrous for them to sue over it now - especially when it's some stupid, obvious idea that they came up with and didn't even implement.
Member since:2007-09-06
I see a few reasons for software.
First, it's easy to create and duplicate. Hardware is going to take much more expense, time and a fabrication setup of some sort. Creating a second chunk of hardware is going to take less research but will still take supplies and that expensive fabrication step.
Second, it's already protected by copyright. The addition of patent law and intentionally confusion of patents and copyright law known as IP seems more detrimental.
Software is also simply a math formula. Math can't be patented why can software?
Software is also business process in an applicable format. Business processes can't be patented yet software can.
Software is also based on the programming language or, if you want to go deep enough, the command set in the processor. Prior art should negate software patents since software is based on the processor command set or programming language layers.
I can understand the value in a patent granted to a hardware process truly innovative and expensive to develop. A patent governing the display of program start commands as "icons".. utter crap only of value to stifle competition.
Member since:2006-01-03
I know a fool who lived in a cave for 40 years and invented a fusion engine. I've bought the rights to his invention, pattented it, and for the next X years my family will collect taxes for this pattent from every human being on earth.
What do you think of pattents now, because this is how it really works?
Member since:2009-02-19
There where noises made a few years ago about clarifying and aggressively enforcing obviousness tests. Even now, in theory, a patent can be rejected for being "obvious to someone with mean skill in the art" (if I have the wording right). Problem is, for whatever reason, patent examiners basically haven't actually been applying that standard. Whatever happened to fixing that, I don't know.
Edit:
A patent can also be rejected if it merely combines two already-well-known elements with no novel outcomes, or if the patent covers something that is necessary to entering into a market -- like if the internal combustion engine where patented, no-one could make cars. Again, examiners don't enforce these standards, and I don't know what happened to the effort to, well, start actually using them.
Edited 2009-10-22 21:36 UTC
Member since:
2005-07-06
Actually, patents do have an intended purpose in a capitalistic society. If you spend 10,000 hours in your garage, and spend $10,000,000, and marvelously discover the magic "energy for cheap" device, the patent system affords you a time-limited monopoly to recoup your investment. The intention is to foster innovation, since if there were no patent system, your invention could be quickly copied and you would be out of luck (and probably money).
So what's the problem? Put simply, patents aren't meant to cover "stupid" stuff - i.e., the obvious stuff, such as dragging a mouse down to select items in a list (an IBM patent). Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly difficult to define. Is a network protocol patentable? How about a file format?
Most people agree that software patents are foolish, but common sense does not always prevail. Even when software patents are eliminated (which I predict will happen), that may not help in the case of phones. There is a lot of hardware, electricity, brodcasting, etc. going on. Patent landmines are everywhere.
So what is the real solution to the patent problem? There problably isn't one. Instead, hopefully there will be more common sense allowed, and things like software patents, business process patents, and many obvious hardware patents will go away. But as long as a society is based on captialism, this problem will remain in some form. The current balance highly favors squashing innovation, which defeats the original intent. Only a strong injection of common sense can swing the balance back to fostering innovation. Unfortunately, common sense is not common, and it is often not lawful.