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Open-source Overhauls Patent System
K-boy writes "The US Patent Office has announced new plans to reform the patent system - and right up there at the front is open-source software. Techworld argues that it is in fact open-source software that has been the driving force behind the reform." From the New York Times article: "At a meeting last month with companies and organizations that support open-source software (software that can be distributed and modified freely), including I.B.M., Red Hat, Novell and some universities, officials of the patent office discussed how to give patent examiners access to better information and other ways to issue higher-quality patents. Two of the initiatives would rely on recently developed Internet technologies. An open patent review program would set up a system on the patent office Web site where visitors could submit search criteria and subscribe to electronic alerts about patent applications in specific areas."
Major issue with software patents cannot be solved by better searches for prior art - the only way to fix software patents is to do away with them in their entirety.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
"One frequent critic of the patent system, Gregory Aharonian, publisher of The Internet Patent News Service, said it was unlikely that the new initiatives would have a significant impact, because the patent office was not able to deal efficiently with the information it already had."
Let's see, give someone organized data and better search tools, and it won't help them search faster and more accurately?
Hey! My bike chain broke because my gears are not set properly. Let's not fix the gears, it's the chain that broke!
I'm not saying that information access is the only problem the patent system has. And I also understand that the three steps proposed are not a panacaea. But not taking steps to fix part of the problem. just because the problem exists? Ridiculous.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If there were an official website where patent applications were scrutinized and commented on by the public, I'd bet a lot more patent applications would be thrown out due to prior art. Here on slashdot, every time some patent is mentioned at all, there's some cranky old technology guy who remembers doing the same thing back in '78 on some project at Fubartronics Inc. Further, competing companies would have the incentive to do the research to find solid prior art and comment on it.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
The argument against the validity of software patents lies in the fact that they are really mathematics patents. Except for the past 2 decades, math had always been placed deliberately out of bounds for the purpose of granting patents. My understanding on why is that math is simply too foundational for all other inventions across all science and engineering disciplines. For an extreme (okay, silly (I hope) :-) example, imagine the chilling effect patents would have on, say, algebraic identities.
Of course, with the invention and refinement of mechanical computers in last 50 years, the number, size, and specifity of mathematic expressions (i.e., programs) has grown at a even faster rate than, say, Moore's Law (IMO). Given the new world of software, it is possible that the historic reasons against patenting math have become obsolete. I don't think so but that's just me and, apparently, the patent office disagrees with me.