British Government Comes Out Against 'Pure' Software Patents

uglyduckling writes "The British Government has issued a response to a recent petition calling for 'the Prime Minister to make software patents clearly unenforcible'. The answer is reassuring but perhaps doesn't go far enough, and gives no specific promises to bring into line a patent office that grants software patents (according to the petition) 'against the letter and the spirit of the law'. The Gowers Review that it references gives detailed insight into the current British position on this debate, most interestingly recommending a policy of 'not extending patent rights beyond their present limits within the areas of software, business methods and genes.'"

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Masters of Understatement

[hey!]

You and a friend are driving along a scenic dirt road, when all of a sudden the shoulder gives way, and you are tumbling over and over, until you are on the edge of a precipice, roaring white water gapes below.

Your friend is shaking with terror. "We're going to die!" he says.

"Well, then," you say, putting on the parking brake,"I don't think we should go any farther in that direction."

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Almost every practicioner I know thinks that software practices are a nuisance and a hindrance. Certainly they are useful in startups when you are considering your exit strategy options, but I have personally never seen a technology that was developed because it would be sold as IP, that would not have been developed otherwise.

Overall, the best word I can think of to describe software and business method patents is "fiasco".

The government response made me think, with affection, of ironic humor of the late, great Douglas Adams. He loved characters to say sensible sounding, politic things that were nonetheless patently insane. Adams humor was not surrealistic, it was hyperrealistic. One thing he comes back to again and again: if anything is really large, really important, and really obvious, people will find a way to ignore it completely.