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.'"

Comments

Reform the System

[teknopurge]

Why not just (common sense)reform the patent system, thus crushing this holding companies?

Re:Reform the System

[lixee]

Because your governemnt would prioritize the interests of corporations over those of regular blokes.

Re:Reform the System

[superpulpsicle]

If they took all software and computer related patents out into a "separate" system, they will be fine. The existing system is clearly not flexible enough to deal with todays technology.

Re:Reform the System

[Kadin2048]

I'm not convinced that any sort of software algorithm should be patentable, but if we are going to allow patents on some narrowly-defined "implementations," which might involve software at some point in them (but not being wholly comprised of software), I think it's pretty clear that the term of the patents needs to be substantially reduced.

The term of our patents was set in an era when sending a message from one city to another took days, or if it was separated by an ocean, weeks (potentially months). The flow of information moved at a completely different pace. Ten years then would have been a very brief time in which to bring a product to market. In today's world, I think it would be about 12-18 months: just enough to give the patentee a slight advantage over the rest of the marketplace, but not enough for them to amass an arsenal of patents with which to destroy all competition.

Now, perhaps there's something to be said for somewhat longer patents on pharmaceuticals, because of the long government-mandated review process that they have to go through, before they can become profitable (and which mandate disclosure of the ingredients, meaning that keeping it a trade secret isn't an option). However, I think this should clearly be the exception rather than the rule.

A patent length of a year -- five or at most ten for pharmaceuticals -- non-renewable, would do wonders towards improving competition and the production of new ideas in the technology sector. (While we're at it, lets have a 20-year copyright span, too.) Unfortunately I think by the time the major players come around to realizing that the system is hurting more than it's helping, the U.S. will be increasingly irrelevant.

Re:Reform the System

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Why not just (common sense)reform the patent system, thus crushing this holding companies?

I've explained this before. I used to work for the US government many years ago. Look at it from Uncle Sam's perspective.

1) The patent office makes money. A lot of it. Unlike other government agencies who consume tax dollars, the patent office makes a profit. Profit = good. Why would you "reform" an agency who is making you a ton of money and thus make less money?
2) Businesses have yet to scream en masse that patent reform = a good thing. Until Microsoft and IBM and Cisco and Intel and lots of Fortune 500 companies say "The system is hurting us and costing us more money than you are making under the current system. A reform would actually bring you more money." then it will never happen.
3) Government bureaucrats are outstandingly good at protecting their own turf. Expect patent office mangement to fight tooth and nail against reforms.
4) The government is convinced that this is win-win for everyone because it's like Mutual Assured Destruction. Everyone has patents, so nobody will use them unfairly. Unfortunately, the reality is that Shuttlesworth is right. The company everyone should fear is the company that has nothing but patents, like the guys who went after BlackBerry.
5) Most people in Congress are lawyers. Most lawyers like patents. It provides easy work for other lawyers on both the "infringing" companies and the IP holders doing the suing. If everybody is being sued, lawyers have lots of work and earn lots of money. Win-win!

Re:Reform the System

[Znork]

"The existing system is clearly not flexible enough to deal with todays technology."

More like it's not flexible enough to deal with todays rate of communications, and the development of mankinds knowledge turning into a million small, trivial, and disclosed steps.

What makes the software sector special is the extremely low barrier of entry into the market, the massively componentized approach to development and the prevalence of use of modern communications and collaboration methods. This, however, does not mean that the same change isn't happening/can't happen in other sectors, nor that patents wont be as damaging and hinder progress as much there.

In fact, a realistic economic analysis of the investment patterns in the protected sectors strongly suggest a suboptimal use of capital, where much more is geared towards capitalizing on the monopoly of patents than in researching to gain more patents.

So while disqualifying software from patenting might be a useful start, restructuring the innovation incentive systems to actually reward useful research without causing the economic damage inherent in monopolies, extending across all sectors, would be much better in the long term. Because while I'd like to enjoy a future with software being continually improved, I might enjoy a future where we'd be getting five times the medical research for the same money we already spend today even more.

Re:Reform the System

[TemporalBeing]

I'm not convinced that any sort of software algorithm should be patentable, but if we are going to allow patents on some narrowly-defined "implementations," which might involve software at some point in them (but not being wholly comprised of software), I think it's pretty clear that the term of the patents needs to be substantially reduced.

Yes - we do need to have terms that match the industries the patents are for. And perhaps we need to even break patents down to be more like Trademarks, i.e. you can get a patent for use in one industry (e.g. Telephone Switch Networks) that does not affect another industry (e.g. Internet Routers).

The best way I can think to do this is to require a business plan to be filed with the patent, and the two go hand in hand. The business plan then determines the basic term granted for that specific patent, and is limited by allowing the patentee to recoup costs and some percentage of profit above and beyond that (e.g. you spend $100K to develop the patent, and then you get to make $150K guaranteed by the granting of the patent). Additionally, by putting a review board in (comprised of members from SEC and IRS) to review the business plans on a periodic basis (e.g. annually, ever other year, etc.) the term can then be lengthened or shortened to meet the industry based on the performance of the patent.

This would allow high cost patents (e.g. drugs) to be around for a long time, while low cost patents (e.g. software patents) would go away quickly. Additionally, if the cost was low enough the patent would not be granted as it would be recouped before the patent was granted.

Patent trolls would also go out of business as they would not be able to submit business plans that would qualify, and be exposed for what they are.

So this is a real win-win if adopted. (BTW, I would get rid of the USPTO and replace it with a new organization that had arms in the IRS and SEC to do the job. A lot of the information required is already filed with the IRS and SEC, and if anything would only require a little more documentation in the files as some stuff might have to be further broken down. Point is, it's already there.)

Re:Reform the System

[mcrbids]

I'm not convinced that any sort of software algorithm should be patentable, but if we are going to allow patents on some narrowly-defined "implementations," which might involve software at some point in them (but not being wholly comprised of software), I think it's pretty clear that the term of the patents needs to be substantially reduced.

What's perhaps funny about this (very long run-on) sentence is that, at its heart, EVERYTHING IS SOFTWARE. Listen to particle physicists nowadays - they all talk about "information entropy". Heck, the big deal about Hawking radiation is that it allows for (gasp!) information leaks at the event horizon of a black hole, and thus the eventual collapse of the black hole back into "normal" space!

The entire universe can now be narrowly (and apparently, quite accurately) defined as a massive information machine. Perhaps Douglas Adams, for all his absurd literature, was actually pretty close to the mark?

Anyhow, if the entire universe is definable in the same terms as software is, fundamentally nothing more than bits of information, what is really the line between software and other "physical" processes?

In reality, they are the same thing!

Re:Reform the System

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in biotech in the Seattle area, and I know a local biotech business guy who visited Myhrvold's company. Basically its a bunch of PhD's sitting around and filling patents on whatever they can think of with no intention of implementing any of them, just waiting for someone to sue down the road. He said he would never go near them again and he thinks that Myhrvold is the biggest threat in the city to our relatively small biotech community.

As for patent length in pharmaceuticals, it takes 10 years and 80 million dollars to get a drug from inception through the FDA approval process, so a 5 or 10 year patent length is simply too short. The clock starts ticking when the patent is filed, not when the drug is approved. There has to be some ability for the companies to get a return on their investment otherwise there will be no new drugs.

Re:Reform the System

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently go out of a career in patent law. The biggest driver for expanding patent rights from my experience is patent attorneys. Before KSR vs Teleflex, several major bar associations drafted responses to the decision, every one of them shouting out vehemently against any reversal of the obviousness standard. Why? Less work for them. That's all that matters, not innovation or any of that BS.

On the other hand, the PTO was pushing hard for some sort of change, as the obviousness standard is a major swamp of litigation for them. Patent examiners also are frustrated at the lack of options available for patent application rejections. Besides, currently the office can't expand fast enough to put a dent in the backlog and it's starting to make them look bad. A reduction in the recent explosion of patent filings would only be good for them. It's not like any examiners are going to be laid off patent filings rapidly decrease. Just put on a hiring freeze and let their atrocious retention rate do all the work.

Unfortunately, you have a lot of people who have gone to school, taken bar exams, and made a very profitable career over prosecuting patents, and they've got some powerful friends in congress.

Re:Reform the System

[Kadin2048]

As for patent length in pharmaceuticals, it takes 10 years and 80 million dollars to get a drug from inception through the FDA approval process, so a 5 or 10 year patent length is simply too short. The clock starts ticking when the patent is filed, not when the drug is approved. There has to be some ability for the companies to get a return on their investment otherwise there will be no new drugs.

Since the major source of delays in the pharmaceutical industry seem directly tied to the FDA approval process, maybe the solution is to somehow tie the patent process and the FDA approval together; e.g., if you file a patent application and then file for FDA approval, the patent clock can "stop ticking" until the FDA makes a decision one way or the other. Basically, make the time that the drug spends in the approval process not count towards the patent's span, or only have the clock start ticking once approval goes through (just issue them on a provisional basis to drugs not-yet-approved).

Or maybe more directly -- you could just say that no company can use research done by another company in order to get its own drug approved, for ten years. That way, a generic drug maker can't just wait for some company to spend the billions pushing a drug to market, and then ride the coattails of the approval and start making generics; they'd have to get it approved based on completely independent research, as if it was a new and totally different drug, or wait a few years in order to be able to use the first company's research and approvals.

Re:Reform the System

[nschubach]

Why not have Software patents "time out" after a preset time span if nothing was developed by the patent holder using that technology. If the patent holder doesn't take the patent to production in that time span, they forfeit the patent. It's kind of along your lines, but if the patent holder can't prove they used the technology in that time span, then they dissolve all rights to it.

Re:Reform the System

[TemporalBeing]

A reform would actually bring you more money." then it will never happen.

My reform mentioned in this post would make the gov't more money than they are making now. It would also (a) make lawyers a lot more money, and create a whole new class of gov't workers that deal with business plans, so people with MBA's will make more money too. How about we propose it up? That should take then, no?

Reality is that it is business and patent trolls that are fighting against patent reform. Even the USPTO has recognized a problem and been trying to reform some, and even Congress has been doing work towards that too. That's how we got the public peer reviews of patents going. So, yes, it is all about money, but it is more about whose money. Patents make a lot of money for a lot of people, gov't and business included; and until businsses get in line and say we need reform (which is starting to happen), then only have the stakeholders involved are for it, and the other half are against it and pay for the elections of the other half.

Re:Reform the System

[amber_of_luxor]

>Less Work for them.

Then the following will give them even less work:
Prior to qualifying for the Bar, one has to demonstrate that one has memorized the following texts, in their _original_ language, by reciting them to an audience:
* The Q'ran;
* The Mahabharata;
* The Tanakh;
* The YiJing;
* The Dao De Jing;

Then the audience gets to select a text for the person to translate into the original language of another text that the audience also gets to select. That translation is to be done in front of the audience. [No reference books allowed.]

After that hurdle, then the individual can apply for the bar exam.

Amber

Re:Reform the System

[jas_public]

The business plan then determines the basic term granted for that specific patent, and is limited by allowing the patentee to recoup costs and some percentage of profit above and beyond that (e.g. you spend $100K to develop the patent, and then you get to make $150K guaranteed by the granting of the patent).

Then if my company is a patent troll, then I'll pay myself $100M in deferred compensation and company stock options, to be recovered later.

Re:Reform the System

[!eopard]

Why not just (common sense)reform the patent system, thus crushing this holding companies?

The US appears to be dependant on Intellectual Property superseeding actual goods in it's balance of payments with other countries. Have a look at how standardisation of laws between the US and other countries regarding IP is a high priority now. Reforming the patent system would lessen the ability to do this - why do you think there is so much action around DRM and IP for music/movies right now? ;)

Lobbyists

[iamacat]

Nah, once big software companies feel threatened rather than empowered by patents, lobbyists will make sure that laws gets passed to protect them. One onerous requirement might be for a patent holder to maintain a credible product in commercial production in order to sue others for royalties. This will be phrased to stop patent-only law firms that skim companies without innovation themselves, but will take care of open source authors quite nicely.

Re:Lobbyists

[ronadams]

One onerous requirement might be for a patent holder to maintain a credible product in commercial production in order to sue others for royalties. Add "or be able to substantially prove ready plans in development to do so" to that, and you've got my vote. This idea of patents being some repository to hold ideas hostage is really detrimental to the technology market. Kudos to Shuttlesworth for pointing out our common enemy.

Re:Lobbyists

[Rahga]

I agreed with you up to the end of your first sentence... "... lobbyists will make sure that laws gets passed to protect them."

Those new laws or whatever legistlation won't be protecting us. Rather, I suspect that the government will keep Microsoft out of court in exchange for agreements not to leverage their own patent portfolio against other American companies, leading to an eventual federalization of the patent system. American companies will be able to use american technologies however they wish, and instead of defending it against against foreign interests (a futile proposition in reality), the new PIAA (Patent Industry Association of America) will trade American tech for stuf like common credits and world bank debt. Mark my words, 10 years, max.

Re:Lobbyists

[SydShamino]

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.

Re:Lobbyists

[vtcodger]

It's not entirely relevant, but it seems not to be as well known as it ought to be. There actually was was a patent on the automobile -- the Selden Patent -- US Patent 549,160. It was issued in 1895 and was used to extort substantial royalty payments from early automobile makers. Henry Ford refused to go along and Selden -- a patent attorney -- not only sued Ford but threatened to sue Ford's customers. The case, of course dragged on forever with a lot of the antics that we are only too familiar with today. eventually, the courts narrowed the scope of Seldon's patent so much that it no longer applied to any vehicle made in the US.

This is only one of the numerous examples of how the patent system has impeded innovation and has mostly made a mess of things. Another shining example was the airplane. Most of the basic patents in the US were held by either the Wright Brothers or Glen Curtiss. The Wrights and Curtiss despised one another and engaged in a decade of pointless and expensive legal wrangling. Aircraft makers were unsure what to license from whom and often couldn't negotiate terms. The result was that when World War I came along, the US was far behind Europe in aircraft technology even though the airplane was invented in the US. In order to get the US back into the aircraft business before the huns or turks or whoever started bombing New York, a patent pool was established and litigation was put on hold. Thankfully it was not reinstated after the war.

Y'know what. We got along just fine without software patents for 20 years. I think we could do so again. I'd go further than that, and (carefully) dismantle the entire damn Patent system. It's pointless, doesn't -- so far as I can see -- encourage innovation, and doesn't even work very well. We've got enough problems with global warming, overpopulation, incompetent and mendacious leaders, corporations run amock, etc, etc, etc. Why go out of our way to create more?

Chances of Microsoft using other's patents

[zukinux]

Chances of Microsoft using other's patents are much bigger then linux infringements Microsoft's patents.
In-fact, if Microsoft really had a points in-which Linux kernel infringements Microsoft's patents, they would have show the exact spots in which the code were using Microsoft's patents.
but, Microsoft's code is closed, and more then probably they are using IBM's or any other standard OS thinking patents and that will be disclosured in the near - future in which Microsoft will have to pay explanations to Linux community and everybody else in the computing area.

Who had lost from all this story? Novell which declared the coward and the Linux community ashamed of doing business with.

Re:Chances of Microsoft using other's patents

[dedazo]

What you say?

Re:Uh oh.

[Cristofori42]

You're reading WAY too much into that.

Re:Microsoft to Ubuntu

[h2_plus_O]

what the fuck does Ubuntu mean?

it's actually a pretty cool concept, tho (as with any good idea) it's been variously interpreted and applied.
from Wikipedia:

"... the concept of ubuntu defines the individual in terms of their several relationships with others [...] while the Zulu maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu ("a person is a person through (other) persons") may have no apparent religious connotations in the context of Western society, in an African context it suggests that the person one is to become by behaving with humanity is an ancestor worthy of respect or veneration."

In other words, it's a contextual view of humanity as being constituted of relationships. We are the relationships we have.

Patent Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Will patents finally be a two edged sword

[grapeape]

nothing will be done with patent reform until they represent a direct threat to those that can afford to buy lobbyists and grease palms. Once that happens rest assured there will be provisions provided to protect the interests of big business.

Re:Uh oh.

[dmbasso]

He chose exactly the appropriate words: it is a threat, not a big one. It threatens in the sense of hindering GNU/Linux adoption, but it's far from breaking its development.

come up with ideas, do initial work-patent pool

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe OSDL has a patent pool. Can we expand it?

There are lots and lots of creative folks that work with GNU, Linux, *BSD, and who read Slashdot. It would be great if there was an open invention process whereby one could take an idea, do the basic stuff, then submit it to the OSDL (or another reputable group) who would get the patent in your name, but assigned to them.

Such a process would reduce the barrier to entry for getting patents on truly new ideas. (I would have a dozen or more if my employers had filed for patents on some of my ideas.) It would also allow you to have your name on a patent which looks great on a resume (finally something that is actually worth something to the inventor). But, most importantly it would expand the pool of patents available for open source and remove additional ideas, concepts, and inventions further out of the reaches of the patent-only law firms.

This should be a call to action!

Not

[zr-rifle]

> "Microsoft is not the patent threat Linux and open source developers should be worried about"

Of course! SCO is the REAL threat!

Those godless, marauding mancubi will feel no remorse prying your $699 from your cold, dead, chips/pretzel/pizza/popcorn/nacho/cheetos/Neal mix stained hands...

Re:Not

[StringBlade]

Those godless, marauding mancubi will feel no remorse prying your $699 from your cold, dead, chips/pretzel/pizza/popcorn/nacho/cheetos/Neal mix stained hands...

"Neal mix"?

*shudder*

I don't think I what to know what goes into that, but I'm sure a very large blender must be involved.

Lulled into a false sense of security

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark has simply fallen for all the "Microsoft is dead" press that seems to be all over the place lately. Microsoft is far from dead, and they are a powerful foe. The latest round of posturing we have seen from them conclusively proves that they are gearing up for a huge fight, and what a fight it will be: those on the side of freedom vs those who choose to oppress the creativity of others. Mark my words, by this time next year Mark will either have had to retract his naive words or he will have been pushed out of business by the very patents that make Ubuntu such a newbie-friendly distro (patents he seems to think are harmless).

Re:No conspiracy here?

[morgan_greywolf]

There's no chance that Microsoft helped Myhrvold to start his business is there?

That's a little bit like asking "Is there any chance that Microsoft helped Bill Gates start the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?" The answer is mu.

While Microsoft probably has no direct involvement in Myhrvold's company, the stock options Myhrvold collected as part of his compensation from MSFT probably at least helped pay for the startup costs for his new company, and Myhrvold has probably solicited and gotten the help of many of his colleagues at Microsoft, both in the form of advice and other indirect support and in the form of monetary investment.

Patent Trolls

[Kiaser Zohsay]

More than once the analogy has been made between the "Mutual Assured Destruction" scenario of the Cold War days and the strategy of building "defensive" patents portfolios under the current system. Then along come these so-called investment firms that buy up "offensive" patents for no other purpose than to sue other companies and collect licensing revenue. In the Cold War analogy, these guy have their own nukes (patents) and they can threaten you with them, but they have no country of their own (original R&D work) so you can't threaten to bomb them back.

These guys are the Osama Bin Laden of the patent system.

Shuttleworth is right. Companies with this business model are a far more serious patent threat than Microsoft.

Intellectual Property should not be transferable

[erroneus]

Each form of intellectual property is claimed and purported to be created in order to benefit the creator, designer or author of whatever intellectual property item may exist. (Trademarks may be a mild exception when a trademarked word, phrase or icon when it is sold to an entity by a creator, designer or author though it can only be sold once.) So if reform were to occur with focus on the fact that the concept of IP was created to benefit the author, designer or creator, then it makes no sense that anyone or any entity should be allowed to sell or re-sell said IP as that is removed from the [original] intent of IP's concept. (I don't think it should be necessary that I recite the intent of patents and copyrights... that they are created to allow the creator benefit of said works and to inspire them to create more, etc...)

This means, that IP should be useless to those who do not create or otherwise use their inventions. IP should be useless to those who do not benefit from the arts created. If this sort of reform were to happen, we'd see an end to patent trolls because they would have to actually MAKE something that uses the patents in question, not simply license or sell the patents to other parties. (Licensing is okay, but the ownership of a patent should never be salable.) Song writers and musicians should never be allowed to sell their copyrights, but instead force the recording and media companies to bargain with them for each item they wish to distribute. This would force fair prices and values to be paid to the artists out there and prevent them from essentially being enslaved by the labels out there.

IP should have its value, but it should never be salable. And because it's salable, we have this ridiculous, abusive and litigious condition we have today. All of humanity would be the better if we could get rid of the salability of IP. The benefits of everything from life-saving drugs to works of art would eventually fall upon humanity and would give direct and arguably more bountiful benefit to the ACTUAL creators of IP.

Oh yeah... and reduce the limits on IP back to their original terms or less... This lifetime+70 years and 100 years for a corporation is simply ridiculous.

I say, don't let patents be transferrable

[Anonymous Coward]

What if patents weren't transferable? They protect the original inventor and perhaps they company they work for. If you get bought out, the patent goes in the public domain.

That solves the original problem of "protect the little guy" while simultaneously preventing these patent-hoarding entities from causing any damage. If they want to buy a patent they have to hire the owner. That'll make patent-hoarding pretty expensive.

Re:Microsoft to Ubuntu

[Zonk (troll)]

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts
sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun
sudo -b gedit /etc/jvm
(add "/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun" before the other entries, no quotes)


Then you get a Java that isn't unusably slow. It'd sure be nice if Ubuntu did this by default, or at least provided a n00b-friendly (ie, no command line) way of doing it.

If you're using Eclipse and would like for it to not take 30 seconds to display code completion, do this:


sudo -b gedit /etc/eclipse/java_home
(add "/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun" before the other entries, no quotes)

Phil Salin about patents

[a1mint]

An absolute *MUST* read by anyone talking about patents and freedom of speech in software.

Too bad the guy is dead now, he could have helped us all out a great deal !

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

Re:Uh oh.

[ptrace]

This is just a typical businessman's reaction... don't piss off the giant until you have a foolproof way to survive or win.

Re:Uh oh.

[Delkster]

Just because he isn't a foam-mouthed zealot doesn't mean he's an idiot (or an MS fan for that matter). Some people need to and wisely choose to be diplomatic rather than overly sharp-tongued.

It's quite common in the real world to soften things a little.

Mark spoke at our conference last week...

[pieterh]

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.

Re:Mark spoke at our conference last week...

[pieterh]

Strange. So how did society invent and produce before there were patents? What about the internet, produced when software was not patentable...?

Your argument that people invent to secure patents is completely bogus. People invent because it's the only way to create market advantage, and that's the only way to make money. There are a few exceptions, cases where patents have stopped the small inventor from being crushed by big competitors. These exceptions are so rare, and so proportionally unimportant that they are really insufficient to justify the whole patent system.

Promoting disclosure, yes the patent system should in theory do this. Promoting invention, that's complete and utter bollocks.

Agriculture, where no patents have applied, has managed to eliminate famine since the 1950's. Not one single famine due to failure of the agricultural system. (Only due to war, natural disaster, politics.)

Pharmaceutics, heavily protected by patents, has failed to stop mass death and sickness from preventable diseases, has failed to promote invention in the areas where it's most needed - malaria, dengue fever, etc. etc. - and has failed to create a competitive market. It's succeeded in creating cartels and monopolies of the worst kind.

Not A Big Threat?

[phalse phace]

Not a big threat? Billg responds, "That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft."

Not something to be complacent about, but...

[itsdapead]

the most dangerous litigants are companies not themselves in the software business

The difference is that certain large traditional software companies have a motive to burn some of their spare cash - or risk or having a few patents invalidated - in order to cripple the pesky open source industry. Patent trolls - sock-puppet shenanigans aside - are only in it for the direct profit.

At worst, trolls are an equal threat to the whole software industry, not just open source. At best, the open source industry should be less attractive to them - attack an open source company with a plausible patent case and there is a risk that they'll go titsup.com before you get your damages. You certainly won't see any continuing royalties. Worse, lots of big players who would just sit back and eat peanuts while you went after a commercial competitor, have a vested interest in the same bits of FOSS and might gang up on you while every geek on the internet searches for prior art. Best stick to closed-soruce companies who have a budget for patent extortion.

The real glass-half-full aspect is that these clowns are helping discredit the patent system, and upsetting the Mutually Assured Destruction status quo that keeps the big players on the pro-patent side.

The Prime Example

[brunes69]

So.. I was curious as to what this company "Intellectual Ventures" had patented thus far, so I did a search on a href="http://www.google.com/patents>"Google Patents.

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.

Re:Microsoft to Ubuntu

[dcam]

I thought it means "I can't configure debian".