Slashdot Mirror
The Dangers of a Patent War Chest
Timothy B. Lee writes "I've got an article in the New York Times in which I make the case against software patents. Expanding on a point I first made on my blog, I point out that Microsoft has had a change of heart on the patent issue. In 1991, Bill Gates worried that 'some large company will patent some obvious thing' and use it to blackmail smaller companies. Now that Microsoft is a large company with a patent war-chest of their own, they don't seem so concerned about abuse of the patent system. I then describe how Verizon's efforts to shut down Vonage are a perfect illustration of Gates' fears."
"Two of its patents cover the concept of translating phone numbers into Internet addresses."
Patents should not be able to cover concepts only very specific processes. If Gene Roddenberry's heirs patent the "concept" of a teleporter, should that give them rights over someone who actually figures out the physics and machinery to make one? Even if the inventor got the idea from watching Star Trek?
We are all just people.
The Constitution doesn't spell out the way IP has to work. Congress actually has the power to grant patents for only certain industries if it chooses to do so. Personally, that's the way I lean these days because so little seems to be new and innovative outside a select few industries. It would be perfectly fair--and legal!!--for Congress to issue 10 year patents for nanotechnology, 20 year patents for drugs and 2 year patents for software algorithms.
I recently went to a presentation on Verizon v Vonage, and one of the presenters said, "instead of patenting new inventions, companies are inventing new patents." That seems about right.
You need to up your brain intake slightly. Software patent violations don't typically occur because someone cribs off another's source code, or off an existing patent disclosure. They occur because the second guy to be faced with a particular problem picks an obvious solution to that problem, which the first guy happens to have patented.
Infringement is inevitable when people are allowed to patent vague concepts and intangible ideas. This practice has to be stopped.
I think you misread the GP's point. He wants Microsoft to open their code base so other patent holders can pour through Microsoft's code to see if Microsoft is violating anybody else's patent. As in what's good for the goose is good for the gander Not that I agree with him, it is an extreme response, and he's kind of missing the point of the article which is that the current patent system actively punishes those who try to "remain pure" and not stockpile patents. But it does also seem a little unfair that it's easier to get away with violating a software patents by keeping your code hidden. After all, if you're going to own software patents, what's the point of keeping your code secret? You can sue for patent violation if anyone tries to steal what you've done. If you're going to do that anyway, maybe it's only fair that everyone else in the world who thinks you might be violating their patent can check it out before they decide to sue you.
"If the open source community were really that concerned, they'd hire a lawyer to dig through the patents that Microsoft controls. They are, after all, a matter of public record."
I also respectfully disagree with this point. You make it sound so simple. One of the basic complaints people have with the patent system in general and software patents in particular is based on the incredible amount of work involved with "digging through patents" owned by everyone in the world (cuz really, what's the use in just digging through Microsofts patents?) and making sure you're not infringing any. It's just horribly inefficient and bad for innovation if the man-hours involved in avoiding patent infringement are comparable to the amount spent just writing software in the first place.
Since Bill Gates seems to still be pushing for patent reform I'm not sure what their is to fault him on about this.
Hahahaha.
Yes, Gates *is* pushing for "patent reform". As in pushing *for* global software patents, in particular pushing really really hard to impose software patents in the EU. Microsoft is *the* 800 pound gorilla driving the entire international pro-software patent lobby. Microsoft has been caught literally authoring supposedly independent government patent legislation and other government documents (ironically leaked by the internal revision history data in Microsoft document formats). Microsoft has been extorting European governments into playing puppet waging Microsoft's political software patent battles in the EU governmental process, threatening to screw with their economy if they don't follow Microsoft's demands to fight for software patents. Things have been pretty quite the last few months, but when all the EU software patent battle stories were popping up here on Slashdot, Microsoft was constantly cropping up and always on the pro-software-patent side.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.