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UK: Software And Business Methods Not Patentable
horza writes: "The conclusion of the UK government consultation on whether software and business methods should be patentable, as they are in the US, are that software and business methods are not patentable. Britain will be pushing for the EU directive to match UK law."
Why is this moderated troll? This isn't someone trolling, this is a VALID point.
Because moderators are not employees of Slashdot. Moderators are selected pseudo-randomly, to moderate a few items, from registered users with some history and some positive "karma".
They're SUPPOSED to moderate on the basis of the quality of the post but NOT on the basis of whether it agrees with their opinions. But some yeild to the temtation to moderate down postings with which they have an ideological disagreement.
There's some feedback: Any registered user is encouraged to "meta-moderate". Click the link at the top of your page and you will be presented with ten moderations, which you can grade as agree/disagree/neutral. Do it daily for a couple weeks and you might get to meta-moderate the guy whose moderation you didn't like.
Karma is essentailly (mods up) - (mods down + metamods disagree). If enough people ding a turkey moderator his karma will drop until he doesn't get to moderate any more.
It's not perfect. For starters it doesn't undo the bogus moderation. But at least it's something. (And it can be very satisfying. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The reward for coming up with a successful business practice is ... drum roll... success. If you are RELYING on the fact that you have an artificial monopoly in your particular business niche, it simply means you can't compete.
From the report:
19. The Government's conclusion is thus to reaffirm the principle that patents are for technological innovations. Software should not be patentable where there is no technological innovation, and technological innovations should not cease to be patentable merely because the innovation lies in software.
The idea that software is not patentable at all is really a step backward. As much as we may bitch and moan about how stupid the One-Click patent may be, is it so much different than an invention that allows one-button starting of a car? Whether or not either patent would be valid is another story, but the fact remains that few would have qualms issuing the second patent. The difference is merely the distance between tangible space and electronic space.
Now should patents be applied to software products? That is a different question. The One-Click patent should clearly explain the process involved in creating a working system (whether through actual source code or through a series of diagrams). In this way, the idea of a one-click system is still open for innovation by other developers who wish to seek new ways of improving on the idea. To prematurely close off a whole area of software by issuing a broad patent would be a bad thing.
Dancin Santa
If the UK won't grant it, then they'll just take their business elsewhere.
You don't understand the concept. If these practices aren't patentable in the UK, then patents made elseware aren't enforcable to UK buisnesses either. So UK buisnesses (and any others that decide to re-locate to the UK) are free to use "one click shopping" or "floatable toolbars" in whatever they want, with no fear of repercussions. I would think this will be a big boon to buisness in the UK.
In today's cut-throat economy, businesses need every competitive advantage they can muster.
If their business method is so bad-assed that they want a patent, they shouldn't NEED a patent to help them out: They will dominate the market because customers like what they do. Business methods don't usually involve a lot of money to think up, just to implement. I could think up Amazon's business method (let people easily buy books online) while sitting on my couch, but it takes a hellava lot of money and effort to actually do it.
What I can't do is to patent that (intangible) idea. Thus another company could come along and create a program that did the same as mine, AS LONG AS THEY DON'T USE MY CODE DIRECTLY, i.e. it is a 'clean room' implementation, and it would be perfectly legal.
IMO this is a good thing since it means that a) I have the advantage since I created the program first, and b) I and the other company must compete on the merits of our code.
As another poster pointed out, this is precisely the opposite of what companies like Microsoft do.
In once sense, what you're saying is right, since it strikes to the heart of what patents are for: the hard part is the research and development effort required to turn an idea into a working product, and it is this effort that is protected by the patent.
But on the other hand, the problem with software patents is precisely the difficulty in drawing this distinction. It's not at all clear if an implementation is not just a detailed expression of an idea. Basically, if a patent contains a detailed explanation of something (say, my new-fangled B-crap-tree database file structure) through the use of diagrams, UML, or whatever, and no source code, than I've merely expressed the idea in detail and have not given the details of how I implemented it. But if it goes all the way to the level of source code, it's really too particular to be useful as a patent, because anyone can change the structure of their program and implement basically the same thing without stressing their R&D effort too much.
I guess all this does is suggest that answering the question of what constitutes patentable software is an in principle hard question. The same is true of anything, but I think it's a particularly hard balance to strike with software, and hence the difficulty of writing regulations and standards that a government agency will have to abide by.
--- I've been in school *way* too long....
Software patents are abhorrent to me insofar as all patentable software is pure math (algorithms - data like text and graphics are copyrightable expressions, but not patentable). To patent software is to grant a government-enforced monopoly on a set of mathematical operations to a person or group.
Yes, that means if you perform or cause to be performed a set of mathematical operations that someone else has patented, and are discovered, men with guns will come and stop you. Only the patent holders (and licensees, if applicable) are allowed to do this math; because it's a patent, it doesn't matter if you derived these mathematical operations independently or not.
It's hard for me to articulate the degree to which I feel this represents an unconsionable hindrance in the advancement of human understanding. What does society gain by having the government say who may perform what mathematical operations by beaurocratic fiat?
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.