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Why Patent Reform Won't Happen Anytime Soon
jfruhlinger writes "'If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.' So said Bill Gates in the 1980s. Now, of course, Microsoft is one of the biggest software patent holders around. And that's the key to the problem of software patent reform: the companies that had the most incentive to face the problem found it cheaper and easier to buy up patent war chests instead. And Congress won't act unless big stakeholders (read: big companies) make a stink."
Did they miss the Bilski case?
Instead of a "clear and convincing" standard, Microsoft proposed instead using a "preponderance of the evidence" standard. This would have, in effect, weakened or reduced the value of all issued U.S. patents.
Interesting to see the biggest company, Apple suing to keep competitors products off the the market, not being mentioned at all either in the article or summary.
This space for rent.
What does "dynamically viewing images elements stored in a RAM array" have to do with encryption?
I mentinoned in a comment in an earlier story about an initiative from a non-profit to fight against the flaws of the current patent system which I think might be a good idea, although it clearly lacks support: http://www.ondatechnology.org/protection-fund.html their idea is to gather a fund to help individuals register patents for free usage. then patent trolls can't do it. I've been following with particular attention this project because of my native disgust towards the way patents and especially software patents block us from development.
How could DES have been a way to work around it when the publication of DES predates the filing of that patent by 3 years? RSA was also publicly published the same year as the filing date but clearly would have had to have been worked on for years before then. RC4 you could make a case for since it was published during the term of the patent but you'd make a hard case for AES since the patent expired before it was published.
Holy shit, people already tore your post to shreds the last time you posted it on account of you being wrong on numerous points. And you're repeating most of those wrong points in this thread, too. Why are you still here?
You can take a cynical outlook to any situation needing reform and say it will never happen because people don't want it to happen. Missing in TFA is any concrete reason why it can never happen. "Companies find it cheaper to abuse the system themselves, and, you know, lobbyists" is about it.
During the Bush/Kerry election, there were plenty of people willing to glumly tell you that preexisting conditions would never ever ever ever be covered in the US because the health insurance industry wouldn't allow it, and a million other reasons. They were wrong. The health care reform that we got wasn't anyone's dream come true, one could argue that the health industry got a better deal out of it than they should, but pre-existing conditions are going to be covered. With patent reform, we should, like with healthcare reform, not expect to get a perfect solution out of it, as those don't actually exist when talking about something as complicated as that. Compromise is an inevitable part of politics.
Even earlier, there were people who said that the soviet union would never fall. Before that, people swore we'd never walk on the moon. Before that, everyone was just positive that man would never fly because there was gravity. And a while before that, there were posts on ITworld.com about how slavery was far too important to the economy of the south and it would never be abolished ever.
I don't see much point in predicting something is not going to happen for a very long time just because businesses may not want it to. Now if he had a crystal ball prediction, that would lend slightly more credibility to it...
Now, those inventors must file that patent because they can no longer count on showing documentation to prove that they invented it first. Therefore, if they invented it, they have to file a patent to avoid getting screwed, where otherwise, they might well have decided that it wasn't worth patenting. The result is that the number of patent filings will almost inevitably explode.
I can't help but think this is somewhat exaggerated. If an inventor were to abandon a project I would expect them to do so before they got something working, not afterwards. I think those who take something from idea to working invention are *highly* likely to follow through with filing a patent. Especially provisional patents which don't have the administrative overhead, both for the inventor and the patent office, nor the costs of a regular patent.
More and more, I keep remembering Spider Robinson's Melancholy Elephants.
http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html
Yes, I know that deals mainly with copyright, but the points about the damaging effects of intellectual property protectionism is still relevant. Besides, these days, the main differences between patents and copyright are mainly that one costs more money and effort to file for while the other is implicit.
It's a sign of the times, the percentage of the population capable of coming up with a new idea is shrinking, and the model employee(technical) is now too specialised to see the big picture dew to technical requirements, etc... Not to mention the fact that most things have already been done.
Innovation is now something that is attained through acquisition of other companies. Recognise.
For a small company to "make a splash", hold on to their "idea" and be the one to profit, a patent is the only option.
At the end of the day, most starts-ups want to be bought-out, so a patent is essentially the dominant currency of today.
The age of "Inverse outsourcing of innovation", is upon us.