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UK Judge: Who needs software patents?
Glyn Moody writes "C|Net has a surprising story about a seminar given by a top judge at the U.K.'s Court of Appeal who specializes in intellectual-property law. According to the article, he has "questioned whether software patents should be granted, and has criticized the U.S. for allowing "anything under the sun" to be patented." Is the tide turning?"
While this judge's message may seem absurd, remember to pay royalties when you code a progress bar in your application.
... I should e-mail Mr. Andreas and Mr. Foster--the Catholic Church has got deep pockets!
That's right, a whole lot of people owe William S. Andreas and Jeffery P. Foster of IBM a whole lot of money.
Oh, and this was filed in the U.S. but approved by a European patent office so I don't think it's fair for this judge to bash only us Yanks.
My church had a fundraiser once and I believe they used a progress bar on a website to track their earnings
Say, have any of you Java swing programmers ever typed
JProgressBar myJPB = new JProgressBar();
? Because I was thinking of starting a patent lawyer career, I just need you to reply with your name, contact information and the application you used it on and distributed.
My work here is dung.
Is the tide turning?
No. Judges aren't The Borg. One judge's opinion (and that's little-o opinion, not an opinion handed down) is hardly a watershed event.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
When the patent process actually changes, THEN you can say the tide is turning. Until then, the tide is just growing, like it has been for a long time ...
Though the whole topic of software patents has usually only one solution of abolishing them completely, there were a few good works as well which deserved to be patented for e.g. RSA encryption etc, But these are really very few in number compared to the number of stupid/ridiculous/outrageous patents that are granted.
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
just so you can see how retarded the US patent system is, see this santa hat patent
it seems to me that the purpose of the USPTO is not to grant patents but to make money from applications etc
i could probably patent my ass if i tried to
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
/ You look like you are trying to turn \
| the tide. Turning the tide is patented |
| by Microsoft and is not implemented |
| yet. Shall I call the police? Feds? |
\ BSA? /
\ ____
\ / __ \
\ O| |O|
|| | |
|| | |
|| |
|___/
cpu0: Microsoft Clippium ("GenuineClippy" ChromedMetal-Class). Paperbinding, lockpicking, fish-hook-hack support.
"Is the Tide Turning?"
No.
This subversive will be dealt with quickly and harshly. Already the muck rakers are fervently searching for mud to fling at this commu-terrorist.
We are the IP companies. Fire your lawyers and prepare to be sued. We shall add your intellectualy distictive property portfolio to our own. Justice is futile.
This message brought to you in association with: "The USPTO. For a more prosperous, litigious future."
May the Maths Be with you!
The EU Commission are trying to push through software patents again. There's a write-up on Groklaw. I think their idea is to keep trying again and again until we get sick and tired of protesting it.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
I concur 100%. If I see Bill Gates or Sam Palmisano (or even Darl McBride hhahaahahahaha) make these types of statements I might change my mind. However, until the powers that be (i.e. the ones w/money buying up and enforcing all these patents) take the necessary measures to fix the problem they have created, I don't foresee any improvement regarding software patents.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
I agree you should be able to patent a process. However the US system defines no logical limits on such a definition. The RIM Blackberry versus NTP is only one good example. NTP patended the process of sending communication to a device from a server, this is basically the concept of all TCP/IP traffic, however since NTP was successfull in making certain claims they OWN this process, and others must pay royalties to use it, regardless of how obivous it is.
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www.kybe.com
^its an adult text and image search engine i'm working on.
"Is the tide turning?"
Hardly. This judge is in the UK, and is clearly in violation of U.S. Patent #15648663245877954-5468, "Method for Citizens of Foreign Countries to Criticize the United States on Matters of Intellectual Property," filed by my company, Litigious Bastards, Inc., on November 3, 2002. He will be hearing from our lawyers shortly.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
The tide is never going to turn in countries that let themselves be ruled by lobbyists.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It doesn't seem to me that the patent process is inherently ill-suited to software. In fact, it's a far better fit than copyright because of the nature of the resultant work. The patent system requires full disclosure of the invetion (the copyright laws do not) and the term is definite (20 years v at least 70 years for copyright). With the copyright system (the only system left for protection if patents are withdrawn), there is no disclosure, so you end up with DRM to protect access to copyrighted elements even though not all the elements are copyrightable. However, circumventing the DRM to discover non-copyrightable elements is either a violation of the law or it is a violation of the EULA that you agreed to. If the software could only be patented, the applicant would be required to disclose the entirety of the invention and thereby promoting science. It would, by definition, only allow those elements that are protectable to be protected and the patent would clearly disclose what those are. Copyright laws only act to obfuscate the promotion of science.
The problem with software patents is not that patenting is ill-suited but rather that discovery of prior art and laziness by the PTO have resulted in questionable patents being issued. Even this isn't a problem, because when challenged and scrutinized those patents that are bad are discarded and those that are good are upheld. The problem lies in the cost to litigate this - essentially ensuring that the "little guy" must bow to the pressures of the multi-national corporation.
Instead, maybe the PTO should adopt a cheap ex-parte reconsideration procedure (to my knowledge only the applicant can request reconsideration for a patent that is denied) that lasts for the lifetime of a patent where the challenger only needs to present some evidence of a patent-destroying issue. This would eliminate the huge costs of trying the patent in a court of law and make the process a little more fair. If there is evidence of non-obviousness or prior use for a "progress bar" the patent will destroyed, otherwise, why shouldn't the patentee be rewarded for his new and novel invention (it should be to his benefit that such an invention is widely used!)
God has a patent on the "Hello World" program. We are still waiting for Him to finish His "Goodbye Cruel World" program.
Patents are not the problem. It is ill-equipped patent reviewers and weak reviewing guidelines that are.
Innovative work expressed in software (a virtual machine) should have the same protection as any innovative work expressed in mechanical form (a physical machine). It is the non-obvious innovative work part that the patent office seems to not understand when it comes to software as well as they do when it comes to physical machines.
IMHO, what is needed are stricter rules, guidelines and use of software experts to review software patents.
Thats funny, I was always under the impression that the US got into world war 2 after they were attacked, a few years after it started... My history has always been shakey though.
In every discussion like this there is always somebody who don't know the difference between patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.
Addressing your actual point, up till now the development of computer algorithms has progressed very nicely without much patent protection. It's a bit like saying, "without patent protection, where's the incentive to develop new physics?"
HEre is what Microsoft is pushing for
Sure it does account for no patents at all on software. It does call for better patent quality, a faster and more open system.
You can't patent code -- you can patent (for exmaple) an article of manufacture that embodies the code, a method of operating a computer that happens to depend on code, etc.
That, however, is more or less beside the real point. The point of the patent system isn't primarily to encourage research, inventions, etc. Its point is to encourage people to publish their inventions, and to place them into the public domain in return for exclusive rights to them for a short time.
For those who've pointed out that software technology progressed before patents were allowed on software, I'd point out that while this is at least partly true, there are other things to keep in mind. At that time (up through about the seventies or so) software mostly wasn't an industry in itself. Most software was developed by hardware companies like IBM as what they had to do to sell their hardware. Since they saw the hardware as the real product, and the software as having no real value in itself, it was pretty easy for coders to publish what they did.
If there weren't patents today, I'm reasonably certain the situation would be a whole lot different. IBM (to reuse the previous example) has a software business that makes billions of dollars in itself. If they couldn't patent their inventions in this area, my guess is that they would not just publish them and given them away to everybody. Instead, they'd keep them secret.
The patent system is basically an investment on the part of the public. We don't have to put in money (directly) up-front, but we give the inventor some value, and in return we get full rights to their invention (eventually).
As far as bogus patents go: it's true that there are quite a few patents that are basically nonsense. Many aren't really original, and some don't even work at all (e.g. there are currently some in faster-than-light communication). That's more or less par for the course in investments though -- people diversify investments largely because they know at least some things they invest in are going to be complete losers. In addition, keep in mind that what we've given up is the value of the patent for a period of time -- if the patent has no value in the first place, we've given up exactly nothing. In fact, we get even a slightly better deal than that -- the patent office is profitable, so every time a completely bogus patent gets issued, our tax burden (and gov't debt) is reduced by some tiny fraction of a percent.
Admittedly, if you're in the position of the EU (for one example) you're pretty much getting the best of both worlds -- since most real inventions will be patented in the US anyway, you get the benefit of it being published, but without having to give the inventor anything in return.
Given that what we're investing is a limited period of exclusive rights, the real question (IMO) is mostly whether we're investing the right amount of time. This is basically a balance -- if the period of a patent is too short, the inventor is more likely to maintain something as a trade secret instead of patenting it. If the period is too long, we're increasing the cost, and decreasing the payoff. The question is how soon the invention is likely to become obsolete -- if most are obsolete before their patents expire, we're getting a lousy deal.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.