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UK Developers Quit US App Store Over Patent Fears
iamflimflam1 writes "The Guardian is running a story on how app developers in the UK are withdrawing from the U.S. app store over patent fears. 'The growth of patent lawsuits over apps raises serious issues for all the emerging smartphone platforms, because none of the principal companies involved — Apple, Google or Microsoft — can guarantee to protect developers from them. Even when the mobile OS developer has signed a patent licence — as Apple has with at least one company currently pursuing patent lawsuits — it is not clear that it has any legal standing to defend developers.' This follows a blog post from the iconfactory about the death of independent developers. Have the big corporations really won? What is the future for small teams and one-man-band developers?"
The way things are, this is as good a start as any.
no kidding, the amount of clones is ridiculous, as much as I hate patents, you can't just blatantly rip off someone elses idea.
The irony that the US market is supposedly most free in the world yet patents are screwing it up.
Surely more jobs and growth are being stifled by them than saved by them?
It depends on the mechanism for converting a free trial version into a full version. That is what the patent is on.
Poor developers, putting effort, time and money in creating something original and functional, only to get sued by some bigcorp lawyer shmuck which informs you that they own the rights on the product you just made. They'll kindly ask you to cease and desist before they unleash lawyer hell on you and sue you right into the poorhouse.
If you want to make it in IT these days, you should become a lawyer, not a software developer.
Clone or not has nothing to do with it. These patents are on things like converting free game users to paying folks. In app payments stuff like that.
Greed for power and money is crippling the US. Hope we realize how to stop this before we become a 3rd rank nation. Software patents, corrupted politicians, shortsighted MBAs, unscrupulous lawyers ... all of them are contributing to a quick degrade of business ethical values and to the loss of opportunities of the common man for the benefit of few. Sad state of affairs.
Thats as silly as it gets. If you were right, it would be immoral to build a house for shelter, just because someone else already had the idea to build a house. It would be illegal to make a cheese&bacon-sandwich just because someone else already made one. It's completely ok to build the umpteenth clone of Crush the Castle or Galaga, even if someone else already made one. You just shouldn't claim to be a creative game designer. And so I will my enjoy cheese&bacon-sandwich and continue to live in my house, well aware to be not the first one to ever do so.
Free speech exists. You can say whatever you like without the government coming after you. Unless you are admitting to a crime or someone causing one with words. An example of the latter would be "Give me all your money" during a mugging.
I agree, give me half a penny for every dollar you make. For insurance of course. It would be a shame if something happened to all that nice stuff you have.
can't wait to see it default on its trillions.
fat ass american dipshits will get a rude shock.
software patents are just one small symptom of your sick and twisted society
I see you changed it, but now it looks like it includes a different idea I own... as well as another idea a friend of mine owns....this ain't your lucky day. BWAHAHAHAH!
is that it never ends. it's 1/2% now, it will soon become 1%, then 2%, then 5%... and so on.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
The patent trolls are holding all the cards right now. Hint - people holding all the cards isn't going to ask for a new hand. You think they're going to stop because you demanded so? I like to get some of that whatever the hell you've been smoking.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
We escaped the Software Patent madness by a hair in the EU, but we escaped. Do it before August 2nd tho, or at least change your dollars to euros before that, or you will have to live under a bridge ;-)
The patent system doesn't involve itself with seeing if you used someone else's idea, just with who came up with it first. The distinction is important: You can very well come up with something on your own, develop it into a product and then find out you have to pay someone else to be allowed to sell your own invention. Did you know that certain types of progress bars are patented? This bullshit needs to stop.
There are too many humans to allow the continued allocation of one idea to a person. We have too many eyes now for this system to provide benefit. Very few human ideas are both unique to that human and a benefit to mankind.
Good-bye
how about MSFT's $15 per android device fee? is that good?
Also in software patents don't cover implementations but concept. therefore there is no way around and still meet spec.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Markets dominated by a few big players are by definition not free.
Maybe you mean "unregulated markets"; that's something very different.
I am always amazed at people who believe that government is there to help them, well, maybe some feel that because they are getting government checks, or are hoping to get them one day.
But just look at the way government destroys free market and creates monopolies. You'd think that government wouldn't want monopolies for some reason (well, they say so) but in reality monopolies is governments' bread and butter. Government may be non-profit, but it's highly profitable to politicians, and others, who are near the trough. Monopolies have money to give to politicians and what would the competitive market participants give them and why?
This is in everything, not just software. Look at the pharmaceutical industry: FDA costs are probably higher than any other costs of releasing a new drug into the market. I hear it takes 600 million dollars for one single drug to pass all of the steps, FDA requires from manufacturers, which means that there cannot be an independent small firm, bringing an independent drug into the market. This maybe the biggest cost out of all other costs - to pass through government regulations. So anybody creating a drug needs to get a sponsor - a large pharma company to do what the FDA requires.
Now, if FDA only required to prove that the drug was safe for consumption, that's one thing. But they require the proof of efficacy - which means years of expensive studies, something that the market could have found much quicker and without this added cost, and something that actually causes real deaths, as people are not getting the drugs on time and the drugs are really expensive. Here is an interesting discussion on this matter, which explains how government is working on making your food ever more expensive and reducing your choices in the market, helping out the large monopolies and destroying the competition.
The patents are a huge problem, they are not there to help you. As with everything that governments do, the effect of their actions and regulations is the opposite one. So if they are talking about fighting monopolies, in reality they create them, and if they are talking about increasing the innovation in the market, in reality they are actively preventing and destroying it.
You can't handle the truth.
Patents are valid for twenty or twenty-five years, depending on where you live. And I don't see a problem with copying someone else's idea per se. That's called learning from others, and it's one of the most important aspects of culture. Every child starts learning by copying their parents. Every apes and even dogs and birds do. Copying others is a natural thing to do.
The waters get muddy when people start to get in each others way by copying ideas, when the profits (real or ideational ones) from using an idea start to get distributed in a way that feels unfair compared with the amount of creativity and effort each person had put into the idea. But that's a completely different kettle of fish.
Patents are valid for 20 years if, and only if, you pay the yearly extension fees. In most cases, they are not paid for the whole 20 years, hence the 7 year average. Besides, the patent system does not at all impede your learning from others. If you want to profit, though, you have to improve on what you learned.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Multiply it by a couple hundred lawyers waving threats of patent litigation and you'll start to see the problem.