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Ridiculous Software Patents: a Developer's Nemesis
StormDriver writes "Have you ever thought about patenting a pop up note, an online poll, a leaderboard in an online game, or a system where you open apps by clicking icons? I have some bad news for you – it's impossible. Not because the claim is stupid, it's just that all of those things are already patented. And it's all fun and factoids, until one day you find yourself in the role of a software start-up."
Ask a lawyer if you should pay a lawyer to do something for you, and what do you think the answer will be?
Be smart, just get on with it. Axiomatically, you'll only become a target for a lawsuit when you're already successful. You can pay a lawyer then, if you like.
Or alternatively, pay an accountant. Set the company up so all the liabilities are here and all the assets are there. Ignore patent trolls, ignore any court judgements, and if and when anyone with a badge does ever come to collect, point them at the Pile-O'-Debt and tell them to knock themselves out.
This isn't theoretical - I've already been though a few employers who were set up in exactly that way. One of them simply 'phoenixed' the liable part of the business overnight: rename it, put it into administration, start a new business with the old business' name, and "re-hire" all the employees. Only the company number changed. Apparently perfectly legal stuff, at least in the UK.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I date back to Z80 Assembly as the preferred programming method. I had developed some very interesting and unique things. I never thought of patenting them, and I shared them on bulletin boards and in print with joy.
Now, with my many years of experience, because big business has laid lawyer minefields with software patents, I don't even think of publishing my own programs. When I do work, it's as a contract consultant to a giant company (who also has me tied up in 2" of contracts that I can never work for anyone else)
I'm thinking my next venture will be a hot dog stand. A good hat dog is as illusive as it is tasty.
Software patents serve no one but giant companies, and only to stifle innovation. Exactly the opposite of their stated purpose.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
anyone can patent almost anything these days for a few thousand $$$. it's suing people who you think ripped off your patent is hard. takes lots of money and years of time
just ask i4i, kodak, apple, oracle, google, MS and others. you need to pay lawyers almost 24/7 and have employees always available for discovery motions and depositions
I agree the patent system is broken, and in the computer world it needs to have significantly shorter terms. But it's worth noting that many concepts (and the methods for implementing them), which seem "obvious" today due to their ubiquity, may not have been so 10 or 20 years ago.
Hell, many cultures never discovered the wheel, or would have developed much later if they hadn't been introduced to it by their neighbors.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
It's a hurdle for everyone who is interested in starting a personal business but guys like Larry Page at Google or even Richard Branson didn't get where they are by thinking inside the box, find out what's already been done and look for a gap in the market.
It's like the mind going AWOL, it's there somewhere
I honestly think that this will be one of the things that brought USA down. You keep transfering all your money to a couple of law firms instead of investing it in making stuff. Sad...
Not a european developer's nemesis. Because, software patents are not recognized there, due to higher level of common sense and less greedy control over society.
this picture painted in your summary and the articles, is the picture of what american capitalism did to software. a feodal minefield in which you either work for a bully stronger than you, or dont work at all.
Read radical news here
I've never understood how things became so abstracted with software patents. I suppose it's because in the real world mother nature does most of the foundational work for us, whereas in the software world everything has to be done from scratch.
Since we all seem to agree that you cant patent wood, or fire, or dirt wouldn't it be logical to extend this to the software realm? No more patenting drivers, utility libraries, or user interfaces since these can be seen as materials. You may only patent the unique functionality of the software you made by using those materials. And like all patents, it has an expiry date.
It surprises me no one looks at it this way.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
TFA has a really badly broken link!
Check the link for "any form of Linux kernel".. it points to "file:///C:/Users/kpiskorski/Documents/Notka%20o%20patentach/Pwn2Own%20finished:%20Mac%20hasked%20in%205%20seconds"
WTF?! Pwn2Own.. Mac Hacked??! WTF!?
Programming is like composing music: you learn from the examples of others and you build upon it to improve the industry.
Imagine if someone had patented the 4-chord progression used by most pop songs.
Maybe that's a bad example. How about the standard blues form?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Nuh uh! I just filed a patent on a method for stifling innovation by strategically filing patents with no intention to develop!
Some people are abusing software patents, and the PTO isn't doing anything to stop it? This is the first time I've heard about this and I'm shocked!
How many people know about this? This is an outrage!
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!
I recently ran across a startup called Monvee, they developed an application to "help people discover what is getting in the way of their spiritual growth and then craft a plan to address it". Whatever, not my cup of tea, until I saw the "Patent Pending" at the bottom of the website. Really, you're patenting a way to grow spiritually? A search of the USTPO database found their application, Method and system for virtual mentoring. From TFPA:
The present disclosure is directed generally to a method of and system for virtual mentoring including in one embodiment, an internet based software and computer implemented system to assess, analyze, and provide individualized recommendations to a user to identify a specific attribute or skill to improve and recommend particularized actions and resources that are designed to help the user improve the identified skill.
Not only are there a number of systems that do this, but any patent attorney in their right mind would have found all this simply by searching for "corporate mentoring software". Oh and maybe try a search for "cognitive behavioral therapy software", psychologists have been doing the same thing for years.
Just not under the name of God.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
As long as this debate's been around, Slashdot still hasn't figured out that people like StormDriver have no idea what they're talking about?
None of those patents likely cover the broad concepts StormDriver says they do. What does he base his conclusion on, their titles? A more accurate, but still woefully incomplete analysis would read: Ever thought about patenting (or implementing) the idea of:
1. A computer-implemented method for interpreting data received from a mouse to minimize the need for clicking the mouse when using a graphical user interface which includes a plurality of window types, the plurality of window types includes a subset of windows designed to be activated only by a double click, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a single click; determining if the single click occurred on the subset window type; sending a double click signal, if the window is the subset window type, to activate the window.
Well be careful, because depending on what all those words mean, you might not be able to. I'm sorry, but how does all that equate to "a system where you open apps by clicking icons"?
Look at patent claims, not titles.
Nuh uh! I filed a patent on methods of filing patents. You'll be hearing from my lawyers.
I hope I'm wrong but I find it entirely credible that in the not so near but also not too distant future writing programs -- be it for yourself, for OSS, or for small commerce -- will become an unlawful underground activity. All software and information will be controlled by a small group of huge stock enterprises, the sole survivors of the first international patent and copyright war. Unless they work for one of those giants, programmers will have to meet conspiratively in old cellars, private apartments, and unknown bars but often these meetings, which are only announced by mouth to mouth propaganda, will be interrupted and dispersed by violent police raids, often resulting in people getting killed, arrested, or being sued for statutory damages of 75 trillion dollar.
Hopefully, if this is going to happen it will be a bit like Half Life 2 (except, perhaps, for the aliens).
pfft, you'll be hearing from IBM's lawyers first. They're trying to get patent for that patent you filed (link)
>>> Hell, many cultures never discovered the wheel, or would have developed much later if they hadn't been introduced to it by their neighbors.>>>
Oh my, so the wheel was not discovered simultaneously everywhere? And people were learning from each other?
You are credited with an analytical breakthrough.
That's why most of us just ignore them.
You know, software patents get churned out everyday since years ago and will continue to be churned out years from now. Frankly I'm pretty sick of slashdotters saying so and so patents are obvious and trivial. They're only obviously because someone else has done it first! If they were actually obviously then why aren't you now patenting the stuff that you will have been declaring obvious 10 years from now? If all these patents were obvious then why are "obvious" patents still being issued everyday? They should've all been thought of by now right?
The only reason you think stuff is obvious is because someone else has thought of it first and they deserve to be paid for their ideas and inventions.
Come up with some original shit of your own and stop copying other people's crap.
so, most innovative software firms are based in the u.s. ? microsoft, oracle, ibm et al ?
are you aware of the innovations that are done in europe ? no. because they are not touted to greedy shareholders to play the share game. yet, most of the contributions to linux code that a lot of the names you name there use, come from especially scandinavian countries ?
its not that u.s. companies are more innovative - its that much more drum is being drummed over these stuff in that country, than any place else.
japanese have created fscking androids almost. how much has it been drummed ? yet, you see random american company doing press releases over some 'innovation' like dragging some item from your mobile device to your home theater device with a single click or something.
Read radical news here
That was invented by Johann Pachelbel in the 1600s. If he had patented it... EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MODERN POP SONGS COULD STILL EXIST.
Not if instead someone else more contemporary did and first-to-file passes, usurping first-to-invent thus making prior art irrelevant.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Patent Application to be submitted perhaps actually submit this and see if it goes through.. the actual patent to be (not the makeing of the patent) Step 1 think of something trivial to patent Step 2 get patent for trivial Idea Step 3 ??? Step 4 Profit!
I forgot my password can I have yours