Stallman on Software Patents

An Anonymous Coward writes "On Monday Richard Stallman gave a speech at the Cambridge University (UK) Computer Lab. Over at ZDNet UK they have a transcription of the speech - the most eloquent discussion of the subject I have yet seen. Software patents victimise developers, he says, but there are ways to get around them. The best part is his comparison of writing software to writing symphonies: 'Oh Beethoven,' they would have said in 1800 if there had been patents on music, 'you're just bitching because you've got no ideas of your own.'"

Comments

Other Talk: Copyright vs Community

[thick_sliced]

Stallman also recently gave a talk at Queen Mary, University of London.
An audio version of the talk can be found at:

http://www.odl.qmul.ac.uk/stallman/

Music

[Iamthefallen]

Can Music be patentable? I mean software is just a bunch of zeroes and ones being processed and when they're in a certain order something cool happens. Music is just tones at different pitches and when in a certain order it sounds cool.

If one-click shopping is patentable, shouldn't one-hit rimshot be aswell? Why is copyright enough to protect music but not enough to protect software?

Allow an "independant discovery" defense

[redelm]

There is a solution to this morass. Simply allow the fact that an inventor discovered/invented a thing independantly of the patent as a defense against patent violation. Of course, there are evidentiary problems. But there always are.

The issue is that if something was independantly discovered, the patent should hardly be granted since it doesn't induce anything that wouldn't otherwise happen.

Re:Maybe something new?

[nagora]

Patents promote a developing market. It encourages you to get your ideas out in the open.

It seems to me that what they do is strike fear into the heart of all but the richest inventors, the legal fight to prove that you are not infringing a patent is more than most people can afford even when they are right. Patents encourage the small inventors to scrap the whole thing and just keep their day job, then everybody loses.

This is not an effect we need in the software industry where so much progress is made by individuals.

From what I gather the biggest flaw with patents are the clerks not the laws.

Software moves so fast that no prior-art system is ever going to be able to keep up. The only way to fix the clerk problem is to slow down the entire field to the point where they can cope. Sacking the idiot in charge of the USPO would help, too; paying clerks on the number of patents they approve is hardly professional or responsible.

TWW

I think he's on to something.

[AltGrendel]

What I like is at the end of the article, he implies that part (or most, or all) of the problem is that the US patent system is based on patenting a Physical Process, and here we have people patenting Idealized Processes. Copyrights are more apropriate for the Idealized Process, or at least it's a closer fit.I'm sure he's not the first to notice this, and he won't be the last, but it needs to be repeated over and over until we get it though the US Goverment's Thick Skull(tm).

Public key cryptography patents, not "PGP patent"

[Xilman]

I was present at this event. Despite what ZDNet claims, RMS did not use the term "PGP patent" but, correctly, described it as the public key cryptography patent.

The "transcript" is abbreviated which is acceptable, maybe even laudable, but it is also an inaccurate record of what RMS actually said --- which is not.

IMO, Stallman gave an extremely good talk aimed at those who were not experts on how the patent system works in practice. Far more eloquent than I'd anticipated from his previous writings on this and related subjects.

Paul

Having written a patent application

[f00zbll]

For a previous job, I had to research patents and write up a patent application. The instruction from the lawyer was "make it more general than it needs to be." His reasoning is the patent application shouldn't go through the first try. It should take atleast 2 or 3 tries, to make sure the patent is as broad as possible.

Now of course the lawyer gets paid each time you file, so it's just fine by him. The management tends to side with lawyers, but honestly, patenting ideas, especially in software is stupid. People confuse patent with copyright. Software should use copyright only, because you're protecting the actual work that went into building the application. It's both impossible and idiotic to patent ideas. Unfortunately lawyers run the country and now we have things like patented business process. Like the company that patented the use of Prozac for treating PMS for women. Ideas should not be patented, since it's not possible to police thought. Well that doesn't stop corporations and the government from trying.

Just because RMS can be a raving nut at times, that doesn't automatically discredit every word out of his mouth. Now if only there were more clear thinking people in government, we can fix this damn problem.

Music comparison is an interesting one

[jvmatthe]

Although I didn't see him mention this specifically, I think it's worth pointing out, given his discussion of music and the borrowing of material from other sources. In particular, how borrowing is important culturally.

One moment I recall quite clearly from my college years is the day in class when the teacher of the survey course in music asked the question "What makes American music American?" This was something I hadn't considered before, and the answer wasn't clear to me until he asked more precisely "Why is the 1812 Overture so distinctly Russian? Why is Appalachian Spring American?" The answer is that both borrow themes from the folk music of each country. The Russians knew that Tchaikovsky was writing Russian music because it had recognizable themes that reminded them that they were Russian. The Shaker melody in Appalachian Spring is something many Americans had heard many times before, when that piece was written. (And even moreso now, as "Spring" is itself a common piece of music to hear performed.)

So without the ability to borrow ideas and themes and work them into new compositions, music would be a barren landscape.

One could argue, similarly, that if we impose stronger and stronger restrictions on what we can build into software, then we are resisting the natural cultural synergy that results from algorithms and features being shared among the community members.

But four notes is enough to get sued

[yerricde]

Sure there are a small set of notes, and only so many ways you can arange any two notes in any tempo. After two notes, it is all in the arrangement, and composition.

The Yes! We have no bananas! case set the precedent that four notes is enough to get a songwriter sued in the United States. Given that there are only about 30,000 ways to combine four notes in the Western music theory (reply if you want a more detailed explanation of the math), it appears that the only reason songwriters haven't exhausted the melody space is that the big "all your right are belong to us" publishers have entered into cross-licensing agreements with one another. This is part of why you should write your legislators and request a repeal of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

Patents on Symphonies

[jea6]

I think this analogy is a bit of a stretch. One of the problems with a software patent is that it can broadly cover A BUSINESS PROCESS. Let's say that a composer had been granted a patent for creating symphonies as "A method to glorify God through the use of music." That patent would preclude anybody else (for a set period of time) from glorifying God through the use of music (unless the method could be improved upon). This patent does not necessarily stop Beethoven from glorifying God and it does not prevent him from finding a better way to glorify God (even through music). While ultimately restrictive, even such a broad based example doesn't fully apply to the situation of the 18th century composer.

You can make an argument that says that protecting a composer who pioneered the glory of God through music is important, maybe patentable. But the REAL issue (in every patent argument I've seen) is that patents are being issued for processes where there is prior art and where the method does not qualify as "not-obvious".

The real issue for Beethoven (and all other composers) was copyright and royalties. Scores might only be distributed hours before a performance. Otherwise, they would be swindled and the composer could not get paid for his/her music. The strong (but not too strong) protection of copyright is a pillar in the Capitalist develompent of Intellectual Property.

Too broad

[yerricde]

If you want to make nice, solid, constantly evolving software, go with Open-Source. Otherwise, if you're like the rest of the worl, you'll want to make money along with nice software (hopefully). Then, you'll go wtih Closed-Source proprietary, patented software.

The problem with patented software is that the patents that the USPTO has issued in the last 20 years are so d*ng broad that instead of "promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts," they have precisely the opposite effect. For instance: data compression by dynamically building a character-to-string dictionary? Patent 4,558,302. Falling blocks puzzle game whose goal is to remove a specified initial set of colored or shaded blocks from the playfield (in other words, B-type Columns)? Patent 5,265,888. Image analysis by blocks against a smaller version of the same image? Patent 5,065,447. Heck, even topological sorting and XOR drawing were once patented in the U.S.

And don't count on waiting for the patents to expire. Just as Hollywood managed to get a Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act passed with tons of soft money and (possibly mandatory) individual contributions, watch the pharmaceutical industry propose a Cherilyn LaPierre Patent Term Extension Act.

The Future of Ideas

[ftobin]

If you want to read a great book on the topic of copyrights and patents, you must read "The Future of Ideas" by Lawrence Lessig. In it he explains how the current battles are not a Left vs. Right issue, but a New vs. Old issue.

The book is filled with good arguments and strong references. He argues that patents are only one tool in the aresenal of the old that are being used to protect the dinosaurs and destroy the freedom of the end-to-end Internet.

It is key to remember that when deciding whether or not we should have patents, the question we need to ask is "do we as a society benefit from patents." I argue that patents for software, especially as they currently are, have no practical benefit for society. Society is supposed to benefit from patents by studying the disclosure of the design, but noone does this because they are not written legibly. Furthermore, the lifetime of patents greatly exceeds the lifetime of software, so by the time the patent clears, society gains little from it. Also, software patents that are also protected by copyright is ridiculous.

Society gains most in a fast-growing sector by having a large commons of ideas to pull from. It is from this commons that innovators are able to flourish.

The Internet is the greatest proof that patents are not the solution. Only because there was a lot of freedom to innovate, unencumbered by patents, were researchers able to develop one of the most freedom-promoting tools for society.