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Time To Abolish Software Patents?
gnujoshua writes "Has the time come to abolish software patents? Fortune columnist Roger Parloff reports on a new campaign called End Software Patents, which he views as 'attempting to ride a wave of corporate and judicial disenchantment with aspects of the current patent system.' Ryan Paul of Ars Technica writes that the purpose of the campaign is to 'educate the public and encourage grass-roots patent reform activism in order to promote effective legislative solutions to the software patent problem.' The campaign site is informative and targets many types of readers, and it includes a scholarship contest with a top prize of $10,000.00. We've recently discussed the potential legal re-examination of software patents."
Finally.
In Soviet Russia, everything runs linux.
Abolition of Software Patents is just plainly nonsense. Not only because companies will madly lobby to destroy any attempt to do so, but because it's not fair for the rightful owners of software patents who developed software (NOT patent trolls).
We all know the answer, there should be some kind of legislation or law (IANAL) that should enforce patent owners to
a) keep developing software based on the patent, not just earn royalties
b) be rightful creators, or earn the patents on a company merge
c) be a real company, not just some patent troll
Where a, b & c should be all true.
My 2c,
W
ATH++
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
You didn't write a lot, but I have multiple issues with your post. (Please don't take it personal, a lot of ppl think along your post's lines, and I want to show the issue in it.) When I say "IP", I am talking about software patents.
...third party who requires it..., ...reasonable price for reasonable terms..., ...gross misconduct..., ...direct competitor..., ...materially damage...
... does not currently produce a product ...
... deciding ... decide ...
Terms - the following terms in the post are extremely vague and add only complications (read: dead weight cost, regulatory verbiage) to the overall system:
...easily and fairly licensed...,
How and who defines easily, fairly, reasonable, materially, misconduct, and requires. The real issue here is that IP is vague in itself. Its value is based on speculation, risks, and theoretical projections. Of course the base value of IP is the quantifiable research + costs involved in creating, obtaining, and maintaining it (for simplicity's sake, lets skip NPV). BUT, the base value alone only proves that the endeavor should have never taken place (why should I incur opportunity costs when there is no return?). You can't even being to talk about the above terms without defining the underlying value in question. Of course there will be easy cases of what isn't fair, easy, material, etc. but these are few and the current system already takes care of it.
Forget third parties, the only parties that can even come close to determining that underlying value are the actual parties involved in the transaction. And even these parties can never really come to a conclusion. If the buyer is too profitable, the IP in question is actually worth more than estimated, else the value is worth less. But by what quantity is still unknown (obviously not all of the profit/loss goes to the IP). What the heavy weights have found is that the more vague the value of their IP is, the better. Why? Because that could be used to trade with other vague IP. The more vague, the more the trading power. This is why they see IP as defensive weapons, rather than offensive ones.
Only those who are projecting a loss in the market place or loss of the IP will truly risk evaluating (lower trading power) their IP through lawsuits and sell offs. The current evaluation for patent trolls is: Base IP value = acquisition costs + lawsuit costs. So for them, the IP is worthless if they can't find a settlement or win resulting in net gain. If they win, their IP is worth more, but no one knows by how much. At some point, it just ends up being a judgment call by a judge or one of the parties and this judgment expires the minute it is made.
If you can lock down the value of IP, then what the parent posts says is true. BUT the current system would easily follow the above post if this could be done.
Other issues with the post, I will keep it short and add more if it raises a discussion:
...freely licensable
Well funded competition will bring a product to market, before the expense ridden, exhausted IP holder ramps up? Which would result in useless IP.
...direct competitor to whom providing the patent would materially damage the patent holder....
Anything could be defined/made as materially damaging, depends on who has the higher paid lawyers and accountants. Worse than not issuing IP to competition. Cause now the owner has free research into what is profitable in the market that he might want to expand into.
...An arbitration agency should be in charge
More regulation costs, raising the base cost of the IP. Moving it away from the many, to the few. And what are they going to do, impose fees, set licensing terms, or such. The later makes it worthless, the former and anything else increases base cost.
In theory, the above post is great and I would love it, but in practice, it won't work.
To be fair he wrote "a few lines of code", not a few libraries of congress of code.