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Ex-Microsoft CTO Checks In On Patent Reform
theodp writes "Defending his controversial Intellectual Ventures in a less-than-hard-hitting CNET interview, ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold finds it peculiar that some people get really wound up over patents. 'People generally don't have any problem with the patent system,' quipped Myhrvold, the inventor of Microsoft's patented Television scheduling system for displaying a grid representing scheduled layout and selecting a programming parameter for display or recording, which allows you to more efficiently select shows like Elimidate for viewing."
Not all patents are a problem i don't think, certainly nobody seems to object, it's just when very vauge ideas are patented and stockpiled by big companies that everyone starts questioning if the system needs sorting. Gotta love the idea of having to have a working implementation of the idea, that would at least weed out a fair amount of dodgy patents.
What you mean is that YOU do not have a problem with the patent system. However you do not speak for all "people", and in fact you are markedly different from most people.
To wit: When you get slapped with a multimillion frivolous patent lawsuit from a tiny scumbag parasite company like Eolas which threatens your very livelihood and business that you have worked so hard to build, you can afford to have uncle bill toss gobs of money at litigating it, then gobs more money at settling or buying off the company if it starts to look like their chances of exploiting a legal loophole to win are nonzero. And in the end you don't feel a thing. Most people can't do this. As a result "people"-- i.e. not you, real people who live outside the ivory tower where half-decade lawsuits are a negligable cost-- do tend to have problems with the patent system.
What do they say when you call to tell them that you've patented their DNA?
A perspective I see commonly expressed around here is that patents are by and large not a bad thing but that software patents are in fact a very bad thing. Or sometimes, that patents are a good thing or at least a necessary evil but that software, "process", and "business strategy" patents are a very, very bad thing.
In the case of "process" and "business plan" patents, this is somewhat similar to what you are saying, because such patents are, by their very nature, vague.
In the case of software patents though the reason this perspective (i.e. software patents are bad in a way patents in general are not) is that with most "real" patents, the patent is a specification and in order to be subject to the patent you must actually implement that specification, must actually craft something real. In the case of the computer program though, the thing crafted is a specification-- that is exactly what a computer program is. The patent is not sufficient to implement the specification (since it isn't a real specification like a program would be, just the idea of one), and there is nothing tangible about the implementation; worse, the implementation may be in some cases human-readable text, something some people may by its very nature consider to be speech. The idea you can violate a patent simply by writing something seems absurd.
Just when corporations try, and succeede in patenting things like clicking a mouse inside a window, patents are meant to protect creative intellectual property, not to divvy the basic workings of the world up to corporations.
It's not so much that patents are bad, but what people are being allowed to patent.
With software patents, people are patenting the most simple of ideas, and they're doing it in a frenzy.
Microsoft's 'IsNot' patent is just one of the pathetic reasons why so many people have become anti-patent.
Software patents seem to be used mainly as an anti-competitive action, rather than used for protection of clever and innovative ideas.
Anybody who can't understand what the fuss is about is either completely ignorant of this situation, a moron, or plans to use his own patents in an anti-competitive way.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
I find the patent system to have strange parallels with mass religion, or more specifically, evangelical Christian beliefs.
One loose theory of why religion is originally formed is that it is a mutation of the set of rules the tribal elders set down in order to protect ones tribe. The banning of pork products made sense in the dessert as pork very hard to keep in such harsh conditions. Rules on sexual interaction were originally intended to prevent the spread of STD's in ancient times. These very rules were later warped by the church (which had turned the "rules" into its own organization) in order to force a population increase in their followers. By promoting a warped version of this rule the church now contributes to the spread of STD's, one of the very things its founders most likely hoped to prevent.
How dose this relate to software patents you ask?
Well patents were not intended to strangle progress of smaller companies, they were intended to prevent big companies with huge R&D budgets from stealing smaller companies ideas, and either beat them to market with their own idea, or buy off the researchers from the smaller companies with huge bribes.
But in order to prevent the smaller companies from becoming the very entities that threatened innovation by hoarding their ideas, patents had a time limit on them that was reasonable.
5-10 years was the norm for most countries I think, but I'd have to look it up.
Then a funny thing happened. As the means of production became more efficient, i.e. companies needed LESS protection from the competition, patents started to get Longer and Longer. So companies started to buy up patents, or lobby for longer patent lengths.
The very system that was meant to help innovation is now the main reason that innovation is suffering.
People generally don't have any problem with the patent system.
That's not a very convincing argument when you consider that most people don't have a problem with the patent system because they don't know there's a problem in the first place. Once in a while some patent will go through that will garner some attention (patent on the swing, Smucker PB&J patent, etc) but in general the patent issue flies under the radar. No doubt that's the way they like it though.
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today"
So let's make sure the industry grinds to a complete stanstill and patent everything under the sun
yeah, thanks billy boy!
Software (and concept) patents have created quite a bit of controversy lately. Companies war with one another over infringements, and Open Source developers are barred from developing new code because they cannot license the technologies. I think these patents are a monumentally bad idea, and this opinion has nothing to do with barring them entirely, but rather, in restricting cases where they're granted.
The original reason for the patent system was to give an innovator time to market and profit from his or her work. The idea was to prevent competitors from creating generic look-alikes, sticking the inventor with the development costs, and undercutting the price. Note that development costs are the key issue here. Patents prevent the inventor from having its competition, which had no development costs, undercut its prices. Patents thus encourage innovation by protection innovators.
What happens when an "innovation" is nothing more than a concept, something that could have been created in a few minutes, with no development costs? Some examples include clicking document links to be taken elsewhere, double-clicking a mouse, and embedding "plugins" within documents. Patents on these concepts stifle innovation. The patent holders incurred little to no development costs, and have used the patents only to sue infringers, making their profits entirely in court.
I believe patent law should be rewritten. Patent holders should be forced to show some claim of development costs that would be protected by the patent, as well as a reasonable expectation that the patent holder will find some way to market the concept. Innovators who can't figure out how to market their concept can be protected if they can show that the concept represents a significant contribution to society, such as a scientific advancement.
Protecting "false" innovators (those who do little or no work to create a concept, or patent an existing concept) makes a mockery of the patent system. All it does is further continue a litigious approach to business - quickly patent things everybody is already using (or is about to use), then sue them. There are many companies today whose sole business model is based on this concept, and it stifles innovation - exactly the opposite of what the patent system was created to do.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.