An Insider's View of Software Patents

An anonymous reader writes "Ross Gittins at the Sydney Morning Herald has published an interesting insider view of software patents. This kind of thing is starting to be a hot issue down here with the US-Australia Free Trade deal about to be ratified and bring our intellectual property laws in line with Micros^D^D^D^D^D^D^D America's."

Comments

Poster has the wrong idea

[Anonymous Coward]

...and bring our intellectual property laws in line with Micros^D^D^D^D^D^D^D America's

No. NO. Don't you EVEN fucking blame Microsoft for this mess. Blame the WIPO for having the idea, and Bill Clinton for whoring the United States into compliance.

Moral dilemma

[r.jimenezz]

From the article:

Since we receive a bonus of $8000 per patent, if all goes well we'll share well over $150,000. And there seems no reason we can't keep this game up indefinitely. We should be able to manage around 50 a year, and this nice little earner will see the mortgage paid off in no time.

Now I think that's interesting... This comes from a software engineer, not from the lawyer. Most developers (and presumably the one from the article too) despise this whole mess, yet this guy is being "gently persuaded" by his employer to play the game.

I'd rather not find myself in such a situation, for it's easy to say what I am going to say without having to actually face it. But I'd like to believe that I can be part of the solution and not of the problem; that I can be brave enough to stand by my beliefs and refuse to be part of something like this and still manage to pay my bills.

You're all blaming the wrong person

[microbox]

Don't blame M$, Bill Clinton or anybody else... the real problem is deeply routed in the definition of a corporation.

You see, some coporate lawyers in the late 19thC realized that they could make a lot more money if a corporation had the rights of a person, and the supreme court agreed they were, with all the rights and privileges there-of.

Now a coporation is a 'legal' person whose sole purpose is to make money for the shareholders. The CEO and board are legally bound to do so. Unfortunately, since corporations aren't real people, they don't have real morals... other than what will make $$$ for shareholders. Because shareholders aren't liable for the actions of corportions, they don't CARE how the corporation makes money on their investment.

That's the root of the problem.

Every corporation is in a free-fall race to the bottom to out-compete it's rivals and make 7% growth in profits. While that level of competition has many obvious good points, it has also created some terrible problems.

Once one corporation 'buys' a law (such as software patents), then everyone in the industry has to start using them or die. You don't even have to buy a law... if breaking the law and paying the fine (and paying a nice PR firm to make you look shiny) is cost effective, then that's what you HAVE to do if you're going to raise your stock higher than your rivals.

CEOs and lawyers are not all trolls, they are just cogs in a machine. Corporations have bought off politions all over the world, PR firms, marketers... all so that they can bend and create rules to make more $$$. As soon as one nasty little troll does it... they all have to. If they don't, well, only the fittest survive.

The solution?

We have to unravel the legal framework that has come to define what corporations are. Exactly how to do this???? Well, you tell me =)