Patent Pools and Pledges - Panacea or Placebo?

Commentary by Florian Mueller - Last year, a lot of noise was made by OSRM, the city of Munich, and Steve Ballmer about the risk posed to open source by software patents. This year, we've seen a variety of initiatives by companies that "donated" patents to "protect" open source, and organizations like the OSDL and the Open Invention Network now try to pool such patent pledges.

I've been wary of those patent pledges and pools from the beginning. There's an awful lot of dishonesty in these all-too-obvious attempts to curry favor with the community and reassure customers. While the jury is still out on some of those projects, none of them has so far delivered a single compelling reason for me to believe that they're really going to be more than a placebo. Some make it sound like these pools are a bulletproof vest for open source, but it's more like you have a coin in your pocket and hope that a bullet will be deflected by it. Too bad the coin isn't even in a place where someone would usually shoot you.

While I do agree that open source should protect itself as best as possible within the legal framework that exists, cheap PR plays are not a substitute for a real solution. The pledges that I've seen so far had all sorts of shortcomings:

- Some pledged patents are of little or no value. Among IBM's 500 patents "contributed" in January, there were some that had nothing to do withsoftware, and many were up for renewal soon, with no guarantee that they'd actually be renewed.

- The pledges typically just relate to particular open source licenses (sometimes rarely-used ones) or projects, such as the Linux kernel (which is only a small part of a standard Linux configuration).

- Some pledges are revocable or haveloopholes such as vague conditions under which the patent holder can sue you anyhow.

- So far the quantities of patents involved have been negligible compared to the total number of issued software patents, and even to the number held by the "generous donors." Even in the long run, there'll be hundreds of thousands of software patents in the world that aren't subject to any pledge. In his speeches, Richard Stallman likens software patents to mines in a park: If there are 90,000 mines in the park instead of 100,000, it's still far from being a safe place to walk.

Even if you don't look the gift-horse in the mouth, there are fundamental problems that even the best pledges can't solve:

- You can't practically go about your programming job by always looking up a patent pledge database whether it contains just the algorithms you need. I don't think any programmer would seriously do that! And even if algorithms A and B are covered by patents in a pool, there may be a patent C that covers your particular combination of A and B, and that patent C may not be in the pool.

- Pledges which exclusively relate to open source aren't too valuable. Software under the BSD license is used in closed-source projects all the time. A project like PostgreSQL, which already felt forced to replace a caching algorithm due to an IBM patent, couldn't just base its development decisions on open source considerations alone. Then there are dual-licensing models for GPL software (MySQL is a well-known example) and companies that sell closed source software to finance their open source development efforts.

- These pledges are only made by organizations that don't intend to sue open source projects anyway. Patent holders who are potentially hostile, be it for strategic or purely financial motivations, won't pledge anything. It's nice to firm up the commitment of your allies not to act against you, but it doesn't reduce the number of enemies.

- If a company promises not to sue open source projects over a certain set of patents, it still doesn't mean that those patents can be used by open source projects for retaliatory purposes. However, the patent game is one of mutually assured destruction, like in the Cold War. If NATO hadn't had a single nuclear weapon, and the Soviet Union had promised not to use something like 5% of its nuclear arsenal, then we probably wouldn't live in freedom now.

- Companies usually can't even make their patents available for the purpose of building a counterthreat because those patents are already subject to existing cross-licensing agreements. If a new entity (such as the Open Invention Network) started acquiring unencumbered patents, then one day they might be able to grant a license to a company like Microsoft in exchange for a covenant not to sue Linux with its own patents. That could indeed make a major difference (even if only for Linux), yet it wouldn't help against trolls that have no products of their own. And a strategic aggressor could secretly arrange for such a troll to do the job.

No matter how you look at it, the only way to reliably solve the problem is at the political level: through legislation that excludes pure program logic from the scope of patentable subject matter. Sure, there's no shortage of people out there who say this can't be done, but they're all wrong. We've been toldmany times that the European software patent directive would come one way or the other -- until we got the European Parliament to reject it by a landslide of 648-32. The German Bundestag and Spanish Senado unanimously backed our central demands. The new German government has just vowed to counter, at the international level, "the trend to seal off markets, among other things by means of patent law." The time is ripe for legislative action.

Some members of the legal profession claim that software patents are an unalterable fate because theyhave a vested interest in sustaining the system. It's a tall order, but definitely possible, to change the legislative framework in our favor. In every parliamentary democracy.

Especially in the field of software, the patent regime no longer serves the public interest. In a perfect democracy, software patents would already be history. In the suboptimal democracies in which we live, there are special interests that oppose changes. Those have influence and deep pockets, but at the end of the day the most valuable currency in politics is voter popularity.

If all the companies who have pledged patents to open source, or who have contributed to those pools, decided to seriously campaign for legislation that abolishes software patents, then the problem could be solved for good. As long as they don't do that, they're not for real. Some may even have a hidden agenda of creating patent pools to gain effective control over the open source universe. We've got to watch out.

Florian founded the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign. For his political efforts against software patents, he has been named as one of the "top 50 most influential people in intellectual property" according to Managing Intellectual Property magazine and is a candidate for the title of European of the Year.

Comments

Won't touch it - too much "P" in the headline

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Won't touch it - too much "P" in the headline

Accurate Aliteration, Absolutely

[saskboy]

"However, the patent game is one of mutually assured destruction, like in the Cold War. If NATO hadn't had a single nuclear weapon, and the Soviet Union had promised not to use something like 5% of its nuclear arsenal, then we probably wouldn't live in freedom now."

The topic title taught us terminology.

Patent MAD seems like the only way to get to be a big company these days. With the dot com boom over, what else could possibly take a small company and make it competitive with a giant like ebay.com? Skype got bought out by who else? Ebay.com

A giant like eBay with their mountains of patented software stands to make a fortune every time someone else tries to write some of their own software to sell something on the Internet.

Re:Accurate Aliteration, Absolutely

[sterno]

"However, the patent game is one of mutually assured destruction, like in the Cold War. If NATO hadn't had a single nuclear weapon, and the Soviet Union had promised not to use something like 5% of its nuclear arsenal, then we probably wouldn't live in freedom now."

Interestingly, the patent world is evoling in a manner similar to the geopolitical one. Patents, historically, have been about detente and mutually assured destruction. Big companies would use the patents to wield power in the market, negotiating cross-licensing with eachother, and keeping their grip on the market place. The super powers in stalemate.

But today you've got the patent equivalent of Al Qaedas. People with single patents or small patent portfolios who contribute no product and base their entire business plan on lawsuits and licensing. Having a mass arsenal of patents does you no good against these companies because they don't make anything that you could sue them for. Small companies that legitimately want to make products are stomped by the big guns and the big guns are held ransom by law firms in IT clothing. This leads to an overall decline in innovation.

The patent system is in need of a drastic overhaul. My thoughts:

1) Require that patents only be able to extract license fees equivalent to a simple formula:

    R&D Cost + Legal Fees * 20%

Perhaps add some interest equation in there, but my point is this. If you want to research something, you'll be guaranteed licensing to cover your costs. If you have to sue to get compensation, that will be covered. Then you'll be guaranteed a profit margin of 20%. Once you've recouped the money, the patented item becomes publicly available.

2) Vastly increase the hurdles to getting and maintaining a patent. This would include exponentially increasing fees per year to maintain a patent (proceeds from this being directed back into the patent office to afford better review of the patent applications).

I Think It's the PR Value

[Mateo_LeFou]

Not to say it's a PR "stunt" or "trick", but it makes certain vendors conspicuous by their absence from these groups. If you've got a town where there's a big organization pledging to protect the environment, but the biggest company in the town isn't signing on, it leaves an impression.

Competition and Collaboration

[under_score]

The problems with intellectual property of all sorts (copyrights, patents, trade marks, service marks) stem from a fundamental belief that competition is the most efficient mechanism for progress. This belief means that government's role is to protect players from excessive competition by granting intellectual property monopolies. Unfortunately, this has the side effect of strengthening the cultural forces against collaboration. Open source software development, which is fundamentally a collaborative model (collaborate to build code, collaborate to share code, etc.), is showing that such a model can be successful. However, given the competitive intellectual property culture, open source models are extremely vulnerable. My thought: over the course of the next few decades, the software world will become a proving ground to demonstrate that collaborative economic models are superior to competitive economic models. However, the vested interests in the competitive model will only very slowly come around to embracing the collaborative model.

Re:about that...

[arkanes]

1) Wouldn't prior art mean that C isn't legal unless the person/company holds patents A and B (in other words, couldn't patent holders A (inclusive) or B go after patent holder C for infringment?)

No, you can patent innovations that derive from other patents, including combinations.

2) In closed source, how can it be determined (legally) that someone is infringing on another's patented algorithm?

(Software) patents cover behaviors, not just implementations. If your patent covers a method of embedding data in documents, you can generally tell from the applications behavior if it infringes - at least enought to start a lawsuit and begin discovery.

That being said, I don't know a thing about patents, and they kinda scare me (I picture a patent-boogeyman when I think about it) or is that what they are supposed to do?

Pretty much, yeah.

My quick & dirty solution to our patent troubles:

1. Shorten the terms. You get 5 years for free, and you pay logarithmically increasing fees after that. By holding a patent, you're withholding knowldge from the public good, and that should be taxable.
2. Mandatory licensing. A patent is there to encourage you to profit off your invention, to make it more likely that you will produce things based on it and thus benefit the public good. If you can't make a usefull product based off your license, then someone else can. This has the side effect of removing patent MAD.
3. Require implementation. You don't have to do it when you file - it can be in the "patent pending" phase - but when that time is up you either need a practical implementation or you lose your patent. Speculative patents are stupid.
4. Reduce burden of proof to legally challenge a patent - the patent office is clearly not capable of fully validation patents, so the legal presumption that it is needs to be removed.
5. Independent invention should be de-facto evidence of obviousness and the burden should be on the patent holder to demonstrate it's non-obviousness. If the patent is still ruled non-obvious, the independent inventor gets a reduce rate on the mandatory license fee.
6. Increase the number of challenges to patent validity based on form. A person "skilled in the art" should be able to accurately re-create a patent soley from the patent application. Expert testimony to the contrary should be a major blow against the validity of a patent.
7. Patent protection cannot be claimed on something that would be wholy protected by other IP law. No storyline patents, because any implementation of your storyline would be protected by copyright. Most software patents go away for the same reason. Patented hardware that required software to run is still okay, because the copyright covers the software and hardware covers the innovation in hardware. This would still allow some business and process patents.