Paul Graham on Patents

volts writes "The always interesting Paul Graham has a new essay, 'Are Software Patents Evil?'. "A few weeks ago I found to my surprise that I'd been granted four patents. This was all the more surprising because I'd only applied for three...""

Comments

Re:The US Patent Office is very generous . . .

[servoled]

35 USC 101:

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title [35 USC 1 et seq.].

What most likely happened is one of his applications was claiming multiple inventions, so it got split into two different applications through a restriction/divisional.

Re:Good but idealistic article

[magetoo]

I will only address one point of the optimistic idealism I saw in several parts of the article, there are others:

"A company that sues competitors for patent infringement is like a a defender who has been beaten so thoroughly that he turns to plead with the referee."

This point is made in the context of other statements that indicate this is the main reason that a company starts suing for patent infringement. The reality is there are companies that have no developers at all, just lawyers, whose sole purpose is to seek out and buy patents and pressure other companies for licensing fees.

Yes, and he mentions them a page further down. You did read the article before posting, didn't you? Of course you did.

Re:bzzzzzzzzt - wrong!

[Halo1]

All the arguments for hardware patents can be made for software patents. All the arguments against hardware patents can be made against software patents.
To object to one but not the other is inconsistent

Yes, it's really annoying, this inconsistent Federal Trade Commission, saying that patents do not have the same effects in all industries. In a sense, you're somewhat right, because they note that patents have little effects as driver of innovation in the semiconductor industry too.

Or maybe the National Research Council, claiming that the software industry is quite different from traditional industry sectors for various reasons.

Or maybe the Max Planck and Fraunhofer Institutes? (the latter even own some patents on mp3 compression)

Re:Patents are not what they are supposed to be.

[nadamsieee]

From the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8:

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power...
Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;