Here’s a comment made a few months ago that explains the problem with software patents:
Once upon a time, the U.S. patent system served a useful purpose. It was meant to encourage inventors and innovation. Ha! Boy, was that a long time ago. Now patents, especially software patents, serve only as bludgeons for patent trolls — companies that do nothing but own patents and then threaten to sue companies that actually do something with ideas — or they’re used by big companies to beat up on smaller ones. I had hoped that the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) would do the right thing in the Bilski case and slap both business process and software patents down once and for all. SCOTUS didn’t. While SCOTUS ruled against Bilski, the Court left the door open for IP (intellectual property) patents (PDF Link) to be granted. […It] seems pretty darn clear to me that SCOTUS punted on IP patents.
Open Source software developers are having issues from companies like Oracle. Even Microsoft, no stranger to the courts on software patents, has been having it’s own software patent issues.
And then there’s the latest where Paul Allen is suing practically everyone except, oddly enough, Microsoft:
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed far-reaching patent lawsuits against Google, Apple, Yahoo, Netflix, Facebook, AOL and eBay, among others, alleging the companies violated patents owned by his now-defunct idea lab Interval Research.
The four patents at issue allegedly cover basics of online commerce, including recommending products to a user based on what they are currently looking at, and allowing readers of a news story to see other stories based on the current one. Two other patents relate to showing other information on a web page, such as news updates or stock quotes.
[…]
Interval Licensing owns most of the 300 patents from Allen’s Interval Research, and the suit comes just a week after Oracle decided to sue Google for patent violations over the open source Java programming language in relation to Google’s mobile phone operating system Android.
It seems the Patent Office’s attitude is “Just Patent it and let the Courts sort it out”
and the Court’s attitude is “Well if they issue Patent then it must be Patentable”
In the end only lawyers win
“Windows 7 was my idea.”
-Paul Allen
# 18 Skeptic read my mind,
“This is a good time to enforce my patent on the method of registering patents.” =]
I would also like to add my patent on the ‘creative thought process’. I will make this patent open source so that greedy old men can take a hike. Take that patent trolls! Yes it’s ridiculous, but then again so is our 18th century patent system.
Over enforcing software (and technology) patents leads to monopolies, stifled creativity, and happy lawyers like many of you have pointed out.
I agree that software should be copyrighted, instead of patented. Mainly because there’s no physical substance to point to. Software is just code that exists on some media. And it doesn’t do anything, on its own, without something to run it. like a PC. So its more like music. Or a movie. And some movie productions cost over a $100 million to make, yet the end results in only copyrightable. Show me one piece of software that cost that much to make from beginning to end. Besides all that, software relies on a vocabulary of words, to describe how it functions, or what it does. And often that’s very vague, and subject to broad interpretation. Whereas some solid gizmo demonstrates it function or use, and ISN’T subject to broad interpretation. A cam opener opens cans. You can see it do that, without something needed to help it perform (like a can opening environment). And it’s not remotely to be confused with a steam iron or rolling pin. But simple, straight forward, engineering descriptions aren’t so adaptable to computer software. It’s something that manipulates certain kinds of information, a certain way. But what’s being manipulated, and how, is pretty much up the the authors’ definitions. And anything that requires so much new terminology to make sense of it, ought to be considered as ART. Not a tool.
Software is more like some person’s skill, turned into a set of instructions for a machine to follow. A skill isn’t patentable.
Usually, software is the implementation of a design, which in turn is often the implementation of some bad analysis, which in turn is often the result of poor thoughts (if any at all) on what really needs to get done. Patents on software are really not related to the any quality synthetic thought and very seldom original. The patent office as it stands now is ineffective, and society would likely benefit greatly if it were reinvented without outside influence from big money grubbing corps or their limp dick lawyers/owners.
I am also agree about that software should be copyrighted, instead of patented, you will keep in mind the point s which all are shared in this blog. Please take care about that.