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Reforming Software Patents with 'Marking'
sakul writes "Came across an
article in the Stanford Law Journal that proposes
'marking' patented software to make the patents obvious to the public and to force large companies patenting software "to play by the same rules as holders of other kinds of patents." Interesting but technical read. Could this be a solution to some of the ever growing problems with software patents?" (Stephen Lindholm, the author of the paper, has provided a link to the paper itself, as well.) On the same topic, karvind writes "Gavin Hill, a film graduate, has produced and directed an interesting animated film on How Software Patents Actually Work. It's explaining the dangers of software patents and how they affect you and your business."
Why don't the inventors of early languages ,computer and IT technology just patent everything and sue everyone. Then the courts will take on the matter.
Kind of like 'burn everything down' idea from Vietnam.
If the system is bad and allows abuse then this one way to kickstart something new.
All the software I use is clearly marked (with the GNU GPL..) in the documentation, readme-files, about-boxes and so on. I would hate to have a truckload of popups telling me about software patents distracting me from using the software for productive things. I do not see how such marking would be anything but majorly annoying for commercial software also. I could accept more patent markings it it was limited to the source code, though, a comment in the source saying "here we use patent foo" would be acceptable.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
"Marking" software patents would be a start to solving the major issue of us not knowing what is patented or not, but it doesn't help those of us who aren't planning to buy the software to see those markings... Also it doesn't solve the issue of the incredible number of software patents covering nearly anything you can do in software - and considering the fact that technology changes so quickly, if a patent on software were to exist that didn't stifle innovation it would have to be of such short duration that the patent owner wouldn't benefit from it anyway -- developers would just wait out the expiration date. On the other hand, we could at least limit software patents to those things that really aren't all that obvious, but the patent office wouldn't know recognize what is innovative anyway, would they?
An analogy with the real world:
The result: the "aeroplane," a new patentable invention that the glider builders, bicyclists, automobile companies, ship builders and birds cannot charge you royalties for.
OK, so do the same with software:
Whatever procedure they use to "mark" the code can be used to unmark it, because it's all just modifiable information.
A sufficiently hybridized program will succeed in defeating any scheme for marking it, and if they attempt to do this through almost impenetrable obfuscation then no one will want to use their hopelessly unmaintainable code anyway.
Hmmm... maybe this explains something about the apparent insecurability of some M$ code?
Currently when the big guys cross-license their patent libraries, usually no money changes hands and they don't change how they do business - it's a CYA formality used to make life difficult for businesses without big libraries. If marking were required, licensees would either have to:
read the libraries and pick the patents that they actually used
mark every product with "May contain technology based on ... 10,000 patent numbers"
risk invalidating patents licensed to them, and getting sued into oblivion by the owners
Keeping a licensed patent in force would cost something if marking were required. Keeping a lot of patents in force would cost a lot. What's not to like?
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
No patent should be granted for any computer algorithm if the same or similar idea can "discovered" by an industry-selected board of programmers and architects.
Get the IEEE or ACM to appoint 50 computer engineers. One, two, or three engineers are assigned to each (non-obvious) software patent candidate that comes in. They receive only a desciption of the problem the invention addresses, but no details of the invention itself. They have 24 hours to propose as many solutions to the problem as they can. If one is identical or "reasonably" close to the patent candidate, the patent fails.
The problem with "marking" is that it does nothing to people that are faced with a problem and attempting to implement their own solution, but haven't actually used any existing solutions. They'll never see the markings!
The problem is much closer to a chemical plant and its products. Sure, there may be a single patent on a product like a drain cleaner, but there can be hundreds of patents on the machines used to produce this chemical product.
Most software patents that are really troublesome are not the products on the products themselves but patents on tools and techniques used to make the products. These are hidden away and no amount of "marking" is going have any benefit whatsoever on this sort of usage.
Yes, I am listed as the inventor on at least two software patents. I think they are all silly, but today that is the price one has to pay - cross-licensing. You violate someone's patent and the defense is they are violating your's. So you cross-license and everyone is happy again. It is closely tied in with both the VC and legal communities, and until they go away software patents aren't likely to either.
The paper mentionsthe IBM progress bar patent from 1990: Patent on progress bar
Here's a screen shot from the Apple2GS (Actually its running on a GUS emulator becauses it way too old). AppleIIgs screen shot
Notice the progress bar it displayed as it was starting up. Thats from 1983?
That's a European patent.
Also No,
because it does nothing to stop the patent play companies who never make a product to be marked.
It does nothing to help disclose prior art outside of patented products, since only patented things need to be marked.
It does nothing for tarball products. Imagine receiving a Windows XP with a readme listing 70000 patent numbers.
There is no real penalty for overspecifying, its just bytes in a file. So companies will simply claim their software utilises all their patents. Without the code who can prove it doesn't? Rendering the disclosure worthless.