OSNews

Bullshit.

Software patents were not granted before 1998. Are you seriously going to argue - with a straight face - that no innovation in softeare took place before 1998? You do realise the bulk of software technologies we use today are far older than 1998, right?

And your inability to have a conversation without resorting to foul language. You have serious temper problems Thom. Honestly you do. Encouraging illegal activity, foul mouthed, etc.



Now it's my turn to call BS Thom. The first known example of a software patent was granted on August 17th, 1966 on a British patent application for "efficient memory management for the simplex algorithm, that could be implemented by purely software means"

The United States has granted software patents since at least 1972.

This is an easy argument to kill.

Typically big companies are big companies because they are successful in the current market. It is not in their interest for the market to change because they can continue to make money without investing R&D and marketing.

New ideas threaten the big companies because they change the market dynamic. Big companies have choices. Either try to freeze the market, or themselves innovate to meet the threat. The current US patent system has made it extremely easy to go for option 1 (freeze the market).

I don't know about you, but a lot of very smart people I know hate working for big companies and prefer working for smaller innovative ones. In the case where a large company has decided to freeze the market mostly the employees that could enable the innovation have left for greener pastures. That opens up a pretty huge window where the big freeze company is vulnerable.

There are always be idealist dreamers, who will try to build a better rocket.

The software industry already does this. MS is notorious for waiting for a market to emerge and jumping in forcing out the originating companies. Apple repackages loads of software and spins it as new.

The companies who spend money on R&D are the ones that survive. What you're forgetting is the expertise gained by R&D puts them miles ahead of the clones. There are nuances to everything that are only gained by disciplined study, and skipping those nuances results in sub-par products. Take Chinese cars for instance. They basically cloned some western cars, and the cars ended up with the safety of an aluminum can. They thought there wasn't much to building a car, but they were wrong.

People will pay for the expertise, especially when there is millions of dollars at stake.



There are tons of cheap knock offs because people want to look like they have money, and a design can't be patented.

Once again, the knockoffs miss the nuances. They use cheaper fabric, or they change the cut. For instance, Coach leather is really nice, but knockoff leather is not, if it's leather at all.

The fashion industry releases new designs two or three times a year to keep ahead of the cloners.



Android does a good job in a traced, paint-by-numbers way.

I'm talking fit and finish. Basically Google took an iPhone, created a check list, and built Android from that check list. You can tell. The stability isn't there, but the bling is, and there are somethings which don't make sense.



I thought it was pretty clear what I was implying. Some people will try to be artists, but they will fail to expand beyond their influences creating anonymous artwork with fills empty space on walls. Some people will copy other artists stroke for stroke, and other people will create velvet Elvises.

Not everyone is a Picasso, Dali, Bosch, or Da Vinci. That doesn't mean they shouldn't try to be; it just means they may not get there.

I don't see anyone at Google building a Fallingwater; I see them out building Quonset huts.

(Fallingwater is a home by Frank Lloyd Wright. http://www.fallingwater.org/)