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Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents
theodp writes "The NY Times looks at Microsoft's newly acquired passion for patents and wonders: What would Thomas Jefferson think if he were around to visit Microsoft's campus, seeing software patents stacked like pyramids of cannonballs? Jefferson might also be shocked by Microsoft's summer crop of patent apps, which includes Creating a note related to a phone call, Adding and removing white space from a document and Identifying when baseball is exciting. Gotta meet that quota of 60 fresh, nonobvious patentable ideas a week!"
With so many small boring companies sueing them, they need to get more patents for self-defense. By the way Microsoft has never sued anyone on patents till date.
Identifying when baseball is exciting is not a trivial task, even for human cognitition. Trying to explain to a non-baseball-fan what's important about a given moment in baseball, is like trying to explain to a non-deadhead what was so great about one particular concert.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Here we have Microsoft, which has led to an enormous creation of
wealth and jobs, and has been *good* for the US economy and some of
the billions generated are being channeled to some worthy charitable
causes as well. Clearly, 'more Microsofts' are needed and it would
have an immense impact on the US economy, among other things. If there
were software patents in the 60s and 70s, there would not have been a
Microsoft, and the associated billions and the PC revolution. Some
research intensive company would have held on to some critical patents
and could have just sat on them and produced no meaningful products.
However, the present Microsoft is doing almost everything it can to
prevent another Microsoft from ever occurring, thereby causing a
"future loss" of billions of dollars and harming the US economy. One
company cannot be allowed to dictate the future of America. Microsoft
is hurting America in a significant way since by being very aggressive
and seeking a huge patent arsenal, it wants to almost ensure that the
next tech revolution doesn't happen. It will happen, surely, but is
more likely to happen in countries with nascent patent laws, such as
in India and China.
After Microsoft was found to be an 'abusive monopolist', it should
have been barred from obtaining any patents. Infact, maybe that is
what is needed, to target a big software company like Microsoft which,
if barred from obtaining patents, would itself lobby very hard to ban
software patents for all ! And a strong case can be made aginst why
Microsoft in particular should not get the protection of patents.
All it will take is a determined senator to recognize that America
needs more Microsofts, and the current Microsoft should be reined in
appropriately. It can barred from obtaining any more patents and/or
it's current patent portfolio could be dissolved. Then let Microsoft
spend some of its billions and unleash it's army of lawyers and
publicists to try and convince the rest of America why software
patents are bad and no one should have them. That would be
interesting.
Someone needs to tell Microsoft: "Abusive monopolist. No patents for you !"
Yeah, but back then the patent examiners actually did their jobs, they didn't just approve everything with little regard for prior art, excessive breadth, or blinding obviousness.
~Philly
With not only the accelerated rate at which patents are being accumulated, but the changing nature of the things being patented, the barrier for entry for any inventor that cannot afford an entire legal team to check for possible infringement is getting far, far too high.
In the past, if you wanted to make a better faucet, all you had to do was make sure your idea was so unique that it was unlikely that anyone had put something of that nature together before. Now, with the new attitude of the Patent Office, you have to prepare yourself for the possibility that the very idea that water comes out of a pipe is possibly claimed by someone out there. The amount of squatting on basic concepts is going to doom innovation, as a great deal of truly innovative and world-changing inventions have come from a man or woman working in their basement or garage in their spare time.
Just thinking to yourself, "Has the underlying concept been demonstrated before and left in the public domain?" means nothing, absolutely nothing. Prior art has grown increasingly meaningless. Hell, millions of year of prior art in each and every person that reads this has been patented.
Company A discovers that gene X causes disease Y and patents this gene that has existed since the dawn of humankind
Company B develops a test to establish wether gene X is present using nothing but their own methods except for the basic presumption that gene X will cause disease Y.
Company A sues Company B for patent infringement because they violated their patent on the gene.
This scenario has occurred before and Company A is the winner.
While I respect the fact a market economy is a neccesity for the human race at the present time (I say that in the hope that replicators are invented at some point) I don't see the neccesity to blindly approve of the persuit of profit at all costs simply because people want to and "That's just the way things have been done". There is a cost associated with such activity, a cost for which we have no means to compensate. The free flow and generation of capital should never undermine or be put ahead of the greater free flow of ideas in society as a whole , or the freedom of individuals, or you inevitably end up with a "snake eating his own tail" situation.
Locking down entire realms of study because of a overreaching patent does far, far more harm for us as a people than the good it does for the patent holder. It forces innovators to be reluctant or unwilling to pursue their ideas. The long term effects of this kind of stagnation should be self-evident.
The desire to make a buck - which should be encouraged - does not validate the methods employed to do so. Right now, the laws are structured to permit and encourage the lack of any focus other than short-term gains for the investors. Short-term gains which will likely pan out to be massive losses financially and otherwise for many in the end.
And let's try comparing the number of patent lawsuits filed against Microsoft to the number of patent lawsuits filed by Microsoft. How does this translate to Microsoft abusing the system?
This is exactly why I want Microsoft to lose one of these patent suits and lose BIG. I mean to the tune of billions of dollars. My opinion is that the only thing that will make the government stop the maddness will be when one of the big companies gets taken out behind the woodshed for a frivilous patent.
I don't myself understand how anyone could even believe that software is really patentable. All modern computer languages are context free grammars, which is a subset of all grammars, and hence all language. Patenting the written software program for what is does it exactly like patenting the plot of a book, or a certain type of story. And while the written word is copyrightable of course, I've yet to see a patent on fantasy stories set in alternate versions of Earth, or stories involving wizards, or aliend.
Software patents are absolutely wrong and the customer and market hostile american company today absolutely loves them because they eliminate the requirement to offer a quality product (or any product at all!).