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Would You Quit Over Patents?
PatentThis asks: "Like a large part of the Slashdot community, I have a problem with software patents. However, I work at a company where they are the norm, and are a major indicator of our performance. So far (over the past 18 months), I've managed to avoid patent work, but that will probably have to change this year. It's an otherwise great job, and I don't look forward to going back on the job market. Do you feel strongly enough about the patent war to give up your job? Should I try to obtain Conscientious Objector status?"
I would refuse to work on the patents, and if that led to quittery/fireditude, then so be it.
/naive idealist
Frankly, though, I don't know if my job search would include companies that engage in such practices.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
First off. I really hate patents. See my Violent Protest Against Patents. But the reality is that even if you hate patents, and despize the thought of using them, you (or your company) may need to get them to hold back sue happy people and force your way into cross licencing agreements so that you can use other large companies patnets without getting sued. In fact, that's why I wrote it. I felt like I forced into the patent system in order to be part of the technology revolution. But I wasn't going to eat the bullshit along with it.
I got nothing from it. I left the job before the patents were filed, worked on the applications gratis, and was screwed out of the application, grant and production fees by a crappy contract. (They never even paid the $1, so I suppose that those patents belong to me due to violation of the "contract" - though it wouldn't be worth trying to invalidate it at this point.)
Software patents were brand-new at the time. I did the work before the EFF was founded; I thought it was neat, an opportunity to make some money (that I was screwed out of) and get some accomplishment to my name.
I wish I had known better.
First, it's great fun. Inventing is cathartic.
Second, patents look great on your resume.
Third, you can keep your job. No big anyway, because now your resume has patents on it.
Fourth, you get a lot of exposure to the intellectual property legal system.
It's time to get over the whole "software patents suck thing:" they already exist, they already affect you, and your failure to patent something doesn't mean someone else won't try to patent it.
In a war, you have to shoot people because they are shooting at you. If you don't kill them, they will kill you. This software patent thing is a war. You enlisted when you took a computer job. So what if you've been in the rear echelon since basic training. Every Marine a rifleman, every coder an inventor.
Hooah
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"Conscientious Objector is for military service. It doesn't sound like it applies." I really don't think he meant it literally. Brush up on the metaphor construction we English-speakers use. Maybe the reference should be explained: he wants to know if he should just tough it out, do the job regardless, but let his objection be known so they don't necessarily inundate him with that kind of work. Much like many people did in the vietnam war era when they were drafted. They had to go, and did, but did so with a noted objection to the war so they wouldn't necessarily be on the front lines. "And stop being lazy and a coward" His objection to patents appears to have nothing to do with the work needed to put into it, but more with the question of whether the patents should be requested or granted. I, conversely, think it's a very pertinent question for Slashdot because, as pointed out by another user, the fields that the people who read this website work in is quite in danger, most recently in danger of exportation to other countries where the words "minimum wage" is a punchline.
Nope that wouldn't work -- at least for me. If my employer finds out that I am reading up on current patents and their claims (patents in my company's field), I will get in trouble. We're not suppose to look up current patents on anything we do. In the event of the lawsuit if it can be proven we knew of the patent it would be a whole lot worse.
If you're working at the same company as me, my condolences. If not, and you're working for a (rare) company that tries to patent things that are truly original and worthwhile, why not write a patent? IMHO, a well-written patent on something that is novel can be in the same league as a peer-reviewed research paper in a scientific journal.
I can tell you what I did.
At one time I was in a similar situation as you. My boss told me that we were expected to generate a certain number of patents a year. Now, I am against software patents mainly because I see software as speech. A patent not only stops me from copying something that someone else has done, but it stops me from expressing the same thought. This makes my job considerably more difficult.
But, sotware patents exist today. Wishing they would go away won't solve the problem. I explained to my management that I was unable to positively contribute to the creation of patents. I explained my reasoning and told them that I didn't expect them to agree with me, but only to respect my wishes. In return I offered to do due dilligence for any patent application that the group produced. In other words I would look for problems in the application and look for prior art. I would do all the "boring" work that nobody else wanted to do.
I explained to them that I would be very motivated in my work and that I would save them money by helping them avoid patent applications that were sure to fail. Additionally, any patent applications that went through would be much stronger.
They were happy with this compromise, and I felt that I could live with this role. As it turned out, I found prior art for every single patent idea that the group turned out, so I did a very good job. In addition, because I didn't want to get caught having to sign on as a patent inventor myself, I took great pains to write code that was either non-novel (i.e. the technique was already proven to work), or obvious. This improved my programming ability greatly since I learned what others were doing rather than living in my own little world.
Hope that helps...
that will probably happen anyway, whether he intends it or not. You may as well go with the flow on this one. Until patent law changes, his company will be obligated to go through these motions anyway.
BTW - Does it bother you that by being for patent reform that you are on the same side as Microsoft?
Heh heh... Have fun sleeping. Damned if you do....
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
You're encouraged (by success) to exploit the system. There's no reason why you should lose potential income for having a conscience, while the government rewards everyone else for being greedy. You don't want to stop just yourself from patenting software. You want to stop EVERYONE from patenting software. The system will survive just fine without your participation. You're abstinence just rewards all the other greedy software patenters out there. Someone will just take your place, thus ensuring your personal loss will exceed the public gain. Someone's getting rich whether you like it or not. I'm sure you'd rather it be you than some creep who actually supports software patents and is going to lobby to keep them.
Some of us believe that COPYRIGHT and the profits reaped from copyrighting your software are enough and that wanting more is simple greed. Mathmatical formulas and algorithms should not be patentable. No matter how many layers of abstraction you throw on top of them.
Software is covered under copyright and has no legitimate place in the world of patents. Patents only serve the purpose of blocking the competition from developing competing products that function in a similar way. This hinders progress.
There is no particular reason a company should be able to sit back and collect residual income because the competition is artificially impeded from developing a unique implementation in the same market. The world of technology is at it's best when company b implements company a's idea as soon as it is able and both are forced to rush to innovate new and improved technology to maintain their lead. Competition is a the lifeblood of a free market.
In our case, the implementation of the software isn't that hard once you have the algorithm. Most of our R&D is making that algorithm. That's the hard work we need protected, not the implementaiton.
It's worth noting that this is exactly what patents (all patents, not just software patents) are *supposed* to do. They grant a limited monopoly to someone as a reward for the effort spent inventing something. In exchange, the details of the invention are published so that everyone gets to use it after the patent expires. This is very good in principle. It rewards invention, and benefits the public.
As a counterexample, if we didn't have patents, after spending a LOT of time and money researching something, there are several other companies out there that would outright copy what we are doing. We're doing all this R&D so we can do what we do way better than anyone has before us. Aside from altruistic intent, why would we do this if everyone was just going to copy us after we roll out the first prototypes? And in the long run, our patents benefit the public even more - when the patents expire, EVERYONE gets to implement what we do, instead of just a few companies that managed to reverse engineer what we're doing.
I contend that this isn't the black and white issue you make it out to be. Patents can do good. I can say that without them, we would not be doing the work we do. We're doing stuff that really never has been done before, and nobody would be doing it if there wasn't profit to be had.
We just need to fix the implementation of the patents. The time we get them for is crazy in this industry. The flippant way they're granted makes the world a patent minefield.
The vast majority of businesses have no patents and get along just fine.
Yeah, businesses like restaurants. Any company that develops anything usually has lots of patents. They are necessary to protect against being sued by your competitors for infringing _their_ patents. Not to mention, if you don't patent something, someone else will patent it and sue you for infringement. Unless you want to spend hundreds of millions of bucks proving prior art, you will have to pay licensing fees. This happens on a daily basis -- for example, Creative patented the iPod interface (that they stole from Apple in the first place) and now wants money from Apple. That's the simple reality of how it works.
If you want patent reform, get the laws changed. Trying to bury your head in the sand is stupid.
Unless you want to avoid giving even more money to lawyer-parasites.
Grow up. Sure, lawyers are parasites. Until you need one to protect your interests.