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McAfee Granted Firewall Patent
BadUspto writes "BetaNews reports that 'The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted software maker McAfee a patent for tracking network events on a computer using a firewall. The patent filing involves tracing the location of an incoming connection and displaying a map showing where the remote system geographically resides.' Doomsday for VisualRoute and others?"
Don't forget that software patents are very new- they've only been allowed since about 1996 or so. They don't promote innovation at all - they stifle it. They allow the one thing that's bad for consumers- limited choice and a greater potential for vendor lock-in. They make it difficult for competition, since "licensing fees" could easily result in a net loss for anyone attempting to offer products or services in the same market. Since this provides patent holders with a larger captive market (not by consumer choice, mind you), there is less incentive to invest in things that matter- like providing good customer service and a good quality product.
but unless we can come up with a better system that will help promote the advancement of arts and sciences without trampling on the rights of inventors and creators, this is the only system we've got.
There is no evidence that the current system promotes the advancement of arts and sciences, or engineering for that matter.
In fact, quite to the contrary, in software, we have pretty clear indiciations that patents are not required for advancement in software, and that they may actually be harmful.
The best thing to do would be to take a hard look at the patent system and figure out how it can be rid of the badly-working parts and how to improve the parts that work well. Then perhaps we can have a fair and equitable system of patents.
We don't have unlimited time. Software patents have been around for only about a decade now and they are already causing lots of damage. The burden is on people like you to come up with a system that demonstrably works, or we really should scrap the entire system.
Granting people and companies 20 year monopolies is something extraordinary. The burden of proof that this is something we should do is on people like you who want to keep some form of the system. If you can't come up with clear and convincing evidence, we should scrap it.
Works for monsanto.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...