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Ubuntu Founder Says Microsoft Not A Big Threat
Golygydd Max writes "Who says that Microsoft and open source developers are enemies? It's not Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. He says that Microsoft is not the patent threat Linux and open source developers should be worried about, and that the software giant will itself be fighting against the software patents system within a few years. 'He said the most dangerous litigants are companies not themselves in the software business, small ventures or holding companies that get their principal revenue from patent licensing. He singled out former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold and his company Intellectual Ventures, which is stockpiling patents at a rate that alarms large companies such as IBM and HP, as an example of such a potentially dangerous company.'"
Because your governemnt would prioritize the interests of corporations over those of regular blokes.
Res publica non dominetur
I still think patents should apply only to tangible inventions or objects (i.e. say a new motherboard system bus design) and copyright should apply to software.
One onerous requirement might be for a patent holder to maintain a credible product in commercial production in order to sue others for royalties.
Really Bad Idea. This breaks the basic premise that a non-obvious improvement to an existing design may itself be patentable, even if the existing design is patented by someone else. You may be able to patent it, sure, but you would never profit from it.
Take the old example of the automobile. It's a good idea, and was at one point patentable. Then, someone else invests the automatic transmission. It's a non-obvious improvement to the design, and is separately patentable. But the guy who invented the automatic transmission cannot build cars, because that would violate the patent held by the car inventor. The guy could try to sell the automatic transmission alone, but he would probably go out of business unless the car inventor chose to buy those transmissions. Why would the car inventor do that? If he just waits a few years, the automatic transmission inventor will go out of business, and, using your proposal, the car inventor could exploit the patent without fear of repercussion.
The basic premise for patents is not just to grant a monopoly in exchange for publishing your data eventually. The data is published up front in part to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.
Your proposal breaks that incentive, because, until your patent expires, no one else can build on your design without forfeiting their improvements to you.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
We (the FFII) are organising a series of conferences to discuss the European patent system, and Mark Shuttleworth was our keynote speaker last week. (The conference had over thirty speakers and panelists, including Bill Kovacic, the US Federal Trade Commissioner...)
Mark spoke for 30 minutes, and his keynote is available here. He provided this very elegant argument against patents on business methods and most software: patents are society's gift to inventors in exchange for disclosure. When an invention is self-disclosing, i.e. you understand it when you use it, society has no interest in granting a patent for it, indeed is penalised by doing so, and therefore should not grant it.
More on the conference here.
My blog
p>What is the #2 result? A patent on how to find and protect intellectual property (aka patents).
So, this company already has a patent on patenting patents. So all you slashdotters with the Step 1, Step2, .... Profit jokes owe them money.