What is the Right Patent Policy?

Jeremy asks: "I am drafting a policy for my employer's patents and software. My employer is unwilling to do away with software patents altogether, but I believe that there are benefits in restricting our patents' enforcement. Comments on our draft of a policy and opinions on what the business advantages of both sides are greatly appreciated."

Comments

Patent Policies

[Bouncings]

It seems to me that the biggest problem with these patent policies is that like privacy policies, that can easily become empty promises. If they were serious about not stepping on the toes of other hard working programmers, they would not have a policy on inforcement, but have a license. Grant the community a license with a list of terms in the license. I'm not a lawyer, but I would see it working similar to a license agreement for software. You can take it or leave it.

Patent policies are like proprietary software companies just promising that they won't sue you if you copy the program. Back it up with a real license, so there's no unisys/GIF-patent like back stabbing of a community. The fact that this company would want a software patent in the first place shows their low ethical standards.