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Groklaw Rants On Software Patents
LMCBoy writes "Groklaw has the story of Kodak v. Sun (mentioned on Slashdot already), which PJ calls 'Exhibit A' in the case against software patents. Her analysis of Kodak v. Sun, and the larger issue of software patents, is excellent. Bottom line: the software patent 'cold war' provides no benefits to anyone, and will inevitably make the game of software development impossible for anyone to play."
Maybe Sun wanted to lose.
Or perhaps someone who gave them over a billion dollars wanted asked them politely to lose a case like this.
Cold war? Seems pretty proactive to me="hot" war. To me, the scary picture of WHO CAN OWN THE MOST PATENTS are who will control (COMPLETELY!) ALL software (how it's used) if this continues. Don't think for a minute MS doesn't see this...That's what they (not just MS) are counting on. The losers are as usual... us. Even IF this trend turns around or stops, the damage will be done. If trend continues much longer, I don't know that even the "tin foil hat" crowd can envision the implications to us all. We HAVE to figure out how to stop this current insanity!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
You are using the same old story about the little inventor and the big bad company....
A little spin on that one:
An inventor with his new shiny invention and a few tens of thousands of dollars to spare goes to the patent office and gets a patent. (Ignoring the fact that a few thousand others might come up with the same solution when presented with his problem)
Now the inventor goes to the manufacturer and waives around his patent. Manufacturer says: 'great, but by the way we have a few patents of our own that cover part of your invention'
Inventor has no way to sell it to anyone but that one manufacturer and gets screwed anyway.
If you are a inventor and want protection use an NDA.
The current system punishes unrelated third parties that just happend to have the same idea (possibly even years earlier).
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
I would imagine that media outfits are in good spirits over the Sun/Kodak decision. I mean, these people have never endorsed technology, and have moved heaven and Earth to squelch any new invention that they perceive as threatening to their interests. The reason they failed as often as they did was because our legal system operated, for the most part, in the citizen's interests. That appears to be changing, with the advent of extended copyright, the DMCA, software patents ... I mean, if development of new commercial technologies grinds to a halt in the U.S., why, all they'd have to do is get Congress to block imports of tech from Canada and overseas and ... we can all go back to listening to Victrolas and piano rolls, as God intended.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
We should encourage companies to enforce their software patents. Drop an anonymous e-mail here and there, so they are notified of the infringements of other commercial companies.
/. story is one example but we need lots more and worse ones.
Once the patent wars start, there'll be no stopping them (because of bad blood between companies) and there will be more money to be made from sueing non-open-source companies than open-source projects with volunteers.
Once companies are in multi-million dollar lawsuits. Then maybe the lobbyists working for the corporations will change their tune and push for abolishment of software patents.
My suggestion, get some good patents into the hands of EFF or similar organisations and start the conflict until it bleeds everyone dry in the US and Japan.
We know that software patents are bad because we're smarter than average, we're also knowledgeable of the industry. Others are not so forward-looking and they have to be SHOWN examples of why it's bad. This
- -- Truth addict for life.
"Kodak praised the verdict and said it was part of an aggressive push to convert innovations ? both homegrown and purchased ? into real money. The company over the past several years has been issuing licenses, filing lawsuits, forming spinoff companies and finding other uses for its technologies."
It seems that today, companies don't produce products, they produce lawsuits, and that's how they get their money. How long can this continue?
Furthermore, since 1.06B is about 1/3 of Sun's cash on hand (here [yahoo.com]), what will that mean for Sun? It's 7% of their total value, so this can't be good for them.
In the end, it's only the lawyers who win.
--
First the Eolas lawsuit, now this. What is going to take for Bill Gates to wake up and say that suing OpenOffice developers isn't worth being able to lose $1.06B to a company that actually has the legal resources to wage a protracted war with Microsoft? If Sun loses this, the Microsoft had better be willing to settle in a very generous was or Kodak will go after them. $1.06B for Sun, since Microsoft has much, much more money it could just as easily be $5B from Microsoft.
This is all starting to become like nuclear weapons in and after the cold war. First it seemed like no big deal, hell it was even a requirement to be a big player to have nukes. Now all these little players are getting them, and Eolas and Kodak IMO are no different or better than the rogue states getting their own arsenals of nukes. Now the big boys are getting attacked so, what do they do? Disarm by pushing for the elimination of all software and business method patents, to keep these guys from having legal nukes to use against them, or do they just pray that not enough ankle biters will get enough patents to bankrupt them in independent and coordinated lawsuits?
--
Although I know its offical /. policy that everyone should run around in circles yelling its the end of the world everytime a software patent is infringed, this particular dispute is far from over and probably faces 5+ years of appeals before any money changes hands or any technology is changed or restricted.
First, after damages are decided, Sun will move with JNOV (asking the judge to set aside the verdict because there was insufficent evidence to support to verdict). There is probably a 10% probability of this happening in any given case, even more when there is alot of money at risk.
Second, Sun will appeal to the Federal Circuit, which usually overturnes 60% of district court decisions because district courts usually dont know anything about technology and know even less about patent law.
So, IMHO, its too early to start running around in circles over this decision, at least until the Federal Circuit affirms.
Please check the other identical story onWhile the software itself does not wear out, the usefulness does. eg. Anybody still using TurboPascal V1 for MSDOS?
PJ's point is that you still could. The reason nobody does anymore is that MS, Borland etc now offer better products. She says that these companies innovate so people won't want to keep using TurboPascal V1, even though they could.
The tech and software sector innovate because it's in their nature. They don't need patents as a stimulus.
:wq
It sounds to me like what the Government needs is a large, influential group that can force them into understanding just what it is we DO. I think that's the big problem: they just don't understand what goes into Software development, and as Groklaw's article mentions, the mathematical nature of it. There is a lot we could do if we were to mobilize.
So if there is a PAC, point me in the direction and I'll join it. If there's not... perhaps we should make something happen.
-Vendal Thornheart
When I talk about my work at conferences, it occasionally happens (especially when "business people" are in the audience) that someone eagerly asks, whether I have already patented those ideas.
My answer is no. First, patenting is expensive. I don't have the money. Second, I want my ideas to benefit the world (that's what science is about, I think). I do not want to hoard them for myself. Third, if I want to patent my ideas, I have to spend a lot of time on legal stuff. I am a computer scientist, not a lawyer. I rather not do that.
But now there is a problem. If I do not patent my ideas, what withholds someone else from patenting them? It is not a requirement that you are the originator of an idea to patent it!
Prior art? Sure, I can bring that forward. In court. Which is not what I would like to do, because, (1) as I said, I am not a lawyer, and I hate spending time on legal matters, and (2) if I attempt to sue company X which has patented my ideas, for which prior art exists, no doubt that during the case, the expensive lawyers of X (which I can't afford) will have turned the case around and start sueing me for something, anything. Prior art is no defense. Basically, there is no defense if you are not rich enough to be able to afford expensive lawyers.
What I would really like to have, is a possibility to say, without all kinds of legal hassles, "Here are my ideas, they are for the world, anyone can use them, for free, forever." This should protect my ideas from being misused in patent form.
Guess what, that is impossible. I have a choice to either claim sole ownership of my ideas, and become a 50% of a lawyer, or to throw my ideas out to the world, close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and hope that the vultures leave something of my ideas for the world, and for me, to use.
If you look at it objectively, that is ridiculous. Patently ridiculous.
Software is fundamentally a mathematical process.
Quite true. Software itself is unpatentable - you must claim it interacting with something tangible. It controls a processor, it takes input from a user, it causes a display to operate, etc. In this way, it legally becomes a component of a larger process, like, "I'm flying an airplance and a computer is helping," even if the claims are 99% about software and 1% about airplanes.
To make that any more restrictive would cause thousands of corporate lawyers to descend upon the USPTO with innumerable appeals until a federal judge substantiated the USPTO's (new) position. Since the case law supports that a method, process, or invention that makes use of software is just as legitimate as any other method, process, or invention, you have the current practice of the USPTO.
Don't for a moment think that some nutcase on Slashdot was the first to point out that software is a mathematical process - or that Knuth was being insightful by supporting that opinion. Examiners know that "a computer" is prior art for any purely software invention, and there are mountains of case law supporting that stance. If an prior art can perform the function of another invention, even if it is not disclosed, the difference is a "naming convention". If prior art has all the functions of an invention, even if the claimed limitations are not disclosed, the prior art teaches all the limitations. Any tangible implementation of a Turing machine is prior art (if old enough) for all software. You know that, Knuth knows that, many examiners know that, and some lawyers probably know that, but the problem is that if the USPTO took that stance, there is no legal justification. The USPTO would have to fight that issue all the way to the Federal Courts and argue at least a 4 year degree in computer science to a judge who probably isn't interested and have as plaintiffs billions upon billions of dollars in corporate interest. And what for? To eliminate software patents before their issued rather than when the assignee attempts to enforce them? There is nothing for the USPTO to win and it's extremely unlikely that they could, in the first place. They are land mines waiting to explode on anyone writing serious software without the resources to pay an army of lawyers to protect them.
Lawyers are at the heart of the problem, aren't they? You know what's really going to change the situation? When two teams of corporate lawyers go after each other, appeal the case to the Federal level, and get the judge to recognize that a Turing Machine teaches all software. Want to guess how likely that is to happen? 0. The legal team that "wins" would lose anyway.
And finally, in case this gets moderated positively, take a moment to realize that police officers don't write the law and don't prosecute the law. They just do their best to uphold the law and execute the law on a day to day basis. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, and politicians make the laws. Such is the case of the patent examiner who is quite analogous to a police officer. They aren't nearly as clueless as many people think, but they're blamed for problems other people create. Take a look at the attorneys and case law if you want to know why the examiners issue "crazy" patents.
> Bottom line: the software patent 'cold war'
> provides no benefits to anyone, and will
> inevitably make the game of software >
> development mpossible for anyone to play.
Software is no different than any other type of
intellectual property. Software patents are no
different than any other type patent. They are
viewed the same, they will be treated the same.
People need to quit being silly about this as
though the world is going to come to an end. Some
people will put their code into the public domain
and/or GPL it. Others will seek to patent and
profit from their hard work. To each his own.
Freedom is the ability to choose which path you
decide.
I checked for articles on "patents" at Scientific American...they have published over 140 in the last 6 or so years counting columns, articles and letters and virtually every one of them levels scathing criticism at what stupid things we allow to be patented or how patents have retarded progress in some very important technologies [their 2001 article on how many drug companies are suing and counter suing is scary, I wish they'd just spend the money on finding the cures!] The alarm Groklaw sounds about the software industry has already come to pass in parts of the biotech industry and the solution that some of us espouse for permiting the unfettered advance of software, open source, has been embraced by Worldchanging.org and by BIOS an organization that wants, in their words, to "develop and validate a new means for the cooperative invention, improvement and delivery of biological technologies, drawing inspiration from the open source software movement to forge a 'protected commons' of knowledge and technology."
I think the thing that has kept software innovation from stalling out completely in a patent litigation tarpit has been the combination of open source and the fact that you can often bring a software idea to market for vastly less venture money than a new drug takes. Those VC's and big pharma's do all they can to see that such big gambles pay off. But trying to own and "idea" when everybody and his sister are working get an idea that solves the same problem is bound to make for friction, duplication and loose-loose litigation. If you get out there first with something people really need and you don't gouge your customers, just staying one innovation ahead of the competion can keep you in business and maybe even make you some money. One machine vision startup I worked for NEVER patented a really significant advanced technique, preferring to keep it a trade secret because they took out a patent, competitors would find a way around it more easily than they could reverse engineer it. 20 years later, they are still in business. Its much harder to spend nearly a billion dollars on a new drug and still keep it a secret until you are making sales.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
It seems any shell script would rely on external help, just as Java would. And this has been around since 1969 or so... wouldn't that be prior art?
I found this referenced from Groklaw and just thought it would be good for people who didnt read that far down the comments (or don't read at all) to listen. It's a very informative talk about software patents. Ogg format URL: http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-cambri dgeuni-england2002.ogg
..one engineer said 'I can't recognize my own inventions in patentese.' "
My favorite quote: "