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Patent Reform Bill Unable To Clean Up Patent Mess
First to submit writes "Ars Technica analyzes the Patent Reform Act that has passed the House and is being debated in the Senate. Unfortunately for those longing for real, meaningful patent reform, the bill comes up short in some significant ways. 'Despite the heated rhetoric on both sides, it is unclear if the legislation will do much to fix the most serious flaws in the patent system. A series of appeals court rulings in the 1990s greatly expanded patentable subject matter, making patents on software, business methods, and other abstract concepts unambiguously legal for the first time.'"
... it is kind of hard to legislate common sense.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
I'm sure it's a debate between those in bed with the defensive patent holders and those spooning the offensive patent holders. They dare not make the bill too radical and wake any sleeping giants.
Watered down legislation such as this is clearly the result of the massive influx of dollars into the pockets of our politicians via the industries who thrive on ridiculous structures like the US Patent Office. Until we force our representatives to get off that teet we are foolish to expect anything less.
Nothing says goodbye like a tax.
It is not true that the map of freedom will be complete
with the erasure of the last invidious border
when it remains for us to chart the attractors of thunder
and delineate the arrhythmias of drought
to reveal the molecular dialects of forest and savanna
as rich as a thousand human tongues
and to comprehend the deepest history of our passions
ancient beyond mythology's reach
So I declare that no corporation holds a monopoly on numbers
no patent can encompass zero and one
no nation has sovereignty over adenine and guanine
no empire rules the quantum waves
And there must be room for all at the celebration of understanding
for there is a truth which cannot be bought or sold
imposed by force, resisted
or escaped.
Greg Egan as Muteba Kazadi
Huh? The solution to patent and copyright problems is infinitely broad and permanent patents and copyright?
I don't see why they can't just write a law establishing that you own your ideas
How on earth can someone "own" an idea? Better yet, why would you think it's a good idea to try to pretend that someone owns an idea?
Patents and copyrights are intended to prevent people from free-loading off of the work of others
That fundamental misunderstanding is part of many of the problems we are seeing with the patent system today: patents exist to give you the first stab at exploiting your ideas. The notion that once someone has an idea it's theirs and no one can ever use it again is just plain ridiculous.
sic transit gloria mundi
Some real consideration should be given to getting rid of patents altogether. Really, do they serve any real usefulness other than the stuff of Big Corporate Sticks? It's way too expensive for the little guy to get a patent; still even more expensive for the little guy to defend his patent against VBCs that have deep pockets.
But, seriously, what would happen to the marketplace if patents were to be thrown out tomorrow? Would innovation cease? I don't think so. It would change for sure, but it may actually change for the better, giving the Little Guy an edge, a leg up, since he would not fear being crushed out of financial existence by VBCs.
Really, I don't know how the patent examiners could possibly be knowledgeable about all the various areas of mathematics, science, and technology that has grown exponentially since patents were created.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
the real problem with patents in IT is the fact that they grant such long protection for products with such short shelf lives.
True, and here is the problem.
You can't tell from the claims whether something is a "software" patent or not. Any software patent claim I can engineer to be a piece of hardware. The problem is that there really aren't clear claims that scream software (as from Beugrard claims, which are secondary claims anyhow [never could spell that]) . You can't ban all method claim as that would ban claims on how to manufacture things, etc.
So, the answer is to judge whether or not something is software based when enforcement time comes. Now you have a clearly defined product. Now you can clearly say "This is >50% software. We don't enforce patents against software."
So, we need to fix software patents not at the granting stage, but at the enforcement stage.
As for your schematics patents, we have those. They are called design patents. The problem with them is that you move something small (where a bolt is) and you have just designed around their patents.
reverse engineering is the basis of the computer industry. if compaq had not reverse engineered the original IBM pc bios there would never have been a commodity PC industry. which would have greatly slowed the pace of computer uptake. so basically one software patent could have stopped the entire PC market from happening.
My keyboads not woking popely.
It sounds to me like you're saying you'd like the people in charge to know what they're doing. Which, in the case of a representative democracy, means you'd like the people who vote to know what they're doing.
People who know what they're doing seems to be the prerequisite to doing anything right. I'm not so sure even a tyranny would work, because if the tyrant knew what he was doing, he'd know that absolute power corrupts absolutely and would divest himself of it immediately.
Good, honest people can make a bad system work pretty well, but bad and corrupt people will make short work of even the best system.
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