A Defense of Process Patents

Oh, the jury strawman by tibit · 2012-02-12 03:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

What I do not understand is — had the jury determined Eolas's patents valid [...]

Let's be blunt: that makes the jury look stupid, not the patent somehow ethically OK. The patent was nothing new, there was plenty of prior art. They got lucky with a silly examiner, that's all.

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.

Re:Oh, the jury strawman by tqk · 2012-02-12 04:46 · Score: 2

The patent was nothing new, there was plenty of prior art. They got lucky with a silly examiner, that's all.
There's that, and then there's the bit that the whole patent system is a gov't granted monopoly hack intended to skew the workings of the free market. In programmer terms, it's as bad as a goto. There are lots of ways to do what that intends to do without doing it in such an ugly way.
Plenty of vibrant industries don't rely on the patent system at all (eg. the fashion industry). The patent system enriches lawyers, full stop. It doesn't "promote the sciences and useful arts" at all, and seeing how capricious and how easily gamed it is as presently implemented, it should be abandoned.
Eg., Apple's look and feel patent !@#$ just disgusts me. They've done great stuff in the past. They shouldn't feel the need for crap like this now.

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"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:Oh, the jury strawman by hawkinspeter · 2012-02-12 05:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

Patents don't "promote the sciences and useful arts" because Copyright does.

That said, I agree with your sentiment. Patents are supposed to provide a benefit by allowing companies to use inventions which would otherwise be secret. Nowadays, patents are granted for "obvious" things and provide a minefield whereby anyone trying to invent something inevitably infringes someone's patent and becomes liable even though they may not have seen the original patent.

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You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Re:Oh, the jury strawman by tibit · 2012-02-12 05:25 · Score: 4, Informative

Huh? Both the U.S. patent and the copyright systems are in existence due to the "promotion" clause in the U.S. Constitution. They have the same reason for existence (or lack thereof), they just cover different aspects of it.

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.

Its obvious by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 03:33 · Score: 2, Informative

Patents are not supposed to be "obivious to someone skilled in the art".

Re:Its obvious by Pinky's+Brain · 2012-02-12 03:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

Ah, but this means that obviousness is a judgement call by a skilled practitioner. Such a purely subjective metric is something lawyers will NEVER accept ... because it shows just how stupid patents really are when you need a jury of highly paid engineers to even be able to judge the validity of a patent. Every lawyer devised test for obviousness has boiled down to prior art, they will not stop trying to redefine the word obvious.
Re:Its obvious by marcello_dl · 2012-02-12 07:53 · Score: 2

Such as a subjective metric can be made rigorous in the process of patent examination. How many silly patents would be tossed off once a couple guys had the chance of doing a clean room implementation given three days?
That would reduce the number of patents, making the application a lil costlier. Bad for the applicant, good for the society. We don't need 2 million patents, we need 200 of them that are useful and that can be reimplemented once the terms expire. That does not happen now, because patents are just a way to make virtual markets similar to real market for the powers of real markets to rule over them too.

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Some process patents can be valid by mehrotra.akash · 2012-02-12 03:36 · Score: 2

Its difficult to draw a line
Say, someone discovers a way to convert scrap metal to gold
That person should be allowed to have a patent on it
But someone shouldnt be given a patent for facilitating video conferencing by piping images from a camera to the local PC and then over a network to the remote PC

Re:Some process patents can be valid by metacell · 2012-02-12 04:18 · Score: 3

Because combining those pre-existing technologies in that way is obvious, and if nobody had ever done it until x years ago, it's only because the need didn't arise until then.
Re:Some process patents can be valid by dotbot · 2012-02-12 04:47 · Score: 2

Say, someone discovers a way to convert scrap metal to gold That person should be allowed to have a patent on it
Unless they're converting scrap gold into gold... which is about the level of sillyness we're seeing with software-related patents.
Patents should be a good thing. The problem seems to be technical ignorance and lack of independence in the awarding process.
Re:Some process patents can be valid by tqk · 2012-02-12 04:58 · Score: 2

Say, someone discovers a way to convert scrap metal to gold.
That person should be allowed to have a patent on it.
i) Why?
ii) [Tangentially] If someone can convert scrap metal to gold, what the hell does he need a patent for? He's already in a better position than King Midas.

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"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit ..." -- Pink Floyd.
Re:Some process patents can be valid by geoskd · 2012-02-12 05:12 · Score: 3, Interesting

Its difficult to draw a line Say, someone discovers a way to convert scrap metal to gold That person should be allowed to have a patent on it
Why? If that person just simply used their machine to produce and sell the gold, they would have no need of ever letting on that they even have it.

Lets use something a little more practical. The person(s) who designed the class D amplifier for example. It was a borderline idea. It was novel enough that most engineers wouldn't have thought of it, but about a handful did. It only missed being patented because the first ones to market were from academia back before the patent furor started in the mid 20th century. They all made quite a tidy bit on money selling motor controllers based off their amplifiers. Even today, many people come up with good alternative amplifier designs. Many of those designs are patented, but the patents are not what keeps the companies like Bose in business. What keeps them selling product are the more evolutionary things, like adding multichannel support for surround sound, adding MP3 playback ability, adding multi-room support, and other features that come from a marketing perspective instead of an engineering one. If Bose stopped improving on sound quality today, and focused solely on producing better and better feature sets, they could probably survive a long long time without ever filing for another patent. The only trouble they might run into would be if some idiot granted an overly broad patent on something like using a network to do X...

Toilet paper manufacturers seem to have no trouble staying in business without needing to sue everyone in sight over patents. Makes you wonder...

-=Geoskd

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I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Re:Some process patents can be valid by theshowmecanuck · 2012-02-12 06:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

Say, someone discovers a way to convert scrap metal to gold That person should be allowed to have a patent on it But someone shouldnt be given a patent for facilitating video conferencing by piping images from a camera to the local PC and then over a network to the remote PC

Yes, that is correct. What's the issue? A number of different programmers can come up with as many solutions to your coding example as there are programmers. A patent should not cover every method of catching a mouse. It should only cover a specific method; otherwise nobody would be able to get rich building a better mousetrap (to use the old saw). So if the person wanted to get very specific on how to send your video signal that would be what is needed for a fair patent. And I'm talking down to the code level because that is where the differences are. But that is not needed because copyright already covers that. And besides code is just a form of algorithm which I don't believe is patentable. Process patents are too vague/non-specific to be a fair patent.
Imagine if the criteria for process patents made it into main stream industry: they would prevent a person from building the proverbial better mousetrap: I patent a mechanical technique for capturing and/or killing a mouse when it triggers a sensor which can be mechanical or electronic... now no-one can patent a better one because that is so vague it covers it all. In your example, a programmer might be able to figure out a faster way to send the video by some sort of new compression technology algorithm he or she develops, but wouldn't be able to implement it because the over all process is patented already. I don't believe this was the intent of patents when they were first implemented, nor do I think it is a fair or just way to implement them now.
Maybe this is what has happened since we allowed business school types to somehow convince so many that the process is more important than the work or output. Or maybe it is because we allowed the 'Big Thinkers' into the picture; those that like to spout shit but never do anything, and still feel like they are owed a bundle (you know, like Wall Street bankers, lawyers, patent trolls, most executives, the modern bonus eating CEO...). But that is another story.

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Patents should promote innovation by evanbd · 2012-02-12 03:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

Patents exist solely to promote innovation. Or, more specifically, "science and the useful arts". There is plenty of evidence that traditional industrial patents do exactly that. There is very little evidence that software patents do so, and plenty of evidence that they stifle innovation.

This isn't about morals. It's about asking what bargain society wants to make with innovators, in order to promote innovation. The software patent bargain is helping neither society at large nor innovators. Making sure that the lawyers like it is not one of the goals here.

Re:Patents should promote innovation by Qzukk · 2012-02-12 03:50 · Score: 2

Moreover, "process" patents are almost always about "using X (that someone else invented) do Y (which X was designed to do)". If you invent the screwdriver, should I really be allowed to patent of using your screwdriver to turn screws?

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If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Re:Patents should promote innovation by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-12 03:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

Process patents were supposed to be granted on manufacturing processes that are not truly mechanical -- for example, processes involving complicated chemistry. That is fine, it is certainly in the spirit of the patent system and not simply "using someone else' invention for what it was intended."

Somewhere along the line, though, we got industrial processes confused with mathem^H^H^H^H^H software.

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Palm trees and 8
Re:Patents should promote innovation by Trevin · 2012-02-12 04:08 · Score: 2

I've read evidence that industrial patents do not promote innovation, but hinder it instead. The most effective tools for profiting from either a product or a process are secrecy, complementary manufacturing, and market lead time. (Boldrin & Levine, [2008], "Against Intellectual Monopoly")
Re:Patents should promote innovation by cgenman · 2012-02-12 04:09 · Score: 2

The obviousness criteria should be a lot more broadly applied than it currently is. For one, while copyrights allow for similar or identical expressions developed in parallel, patents do not. If you realize that someone can file their taxes * on the internet *, and I realize that someone can file their taxes * on the internet *, it's a first-to-file-take-all situation. If we allowed for independent / clean room developments, the water might be a bit murkier but at least the indefensible patents wouldn't survive a week.
Second, patents should involve some degree of experimentation and possibility of being wrong. If you don't have to think about whether or not the simplified abstract of the patent is right, it's probably obvious. Utilizing a form of magnetics to sort oil from seawater would be a patentable invention under this standard, in that it may or may not work. Some degree of thought went into it. Attempting to patent using an arrow to point the player in the direction of travel would not. Obviously it's going to work, because obviously that's what they're for. If more effort went into the patent's paperwork, than into the idea of what is being patented, the patent shouldn't not be granted.

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The ______ Agenda
Re:Patents should promote innovation by jpapon · 2012-02-12 04:15 · Score: 2

processes that are not truly mechanical -- for example, processes involving complicated chemistry. That is fine, it is certainly in the spirit of the patent system

I'm not saying I like software patents, but I fail to see how a process that involves complicated chemistry is any less "math" than software.
It seems that they're both simply algorithms. One deals with how you control chemicals, the other with how you control electrons.
I guess all I'm really asking is how you can justify process patents, but not software patents? Are you saying that software is not a process?

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-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Re:Patents should promote innovation by drinkypoo · 2012-02-12 04:25 · Score: 2

Patents are intended to protect inventions. A device that implements a business method should be patentable, but a process using it shouldn't. Otherwise you'd end up with a patent on using RFID for inventory control, et cetera.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Patents should promote innovation by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-12 04:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

Except that a chemical process operates on real, physical matter, while software operates only on abstractions like numbers. Software is entirely abstract; the closest an algorithm comes to an industrial process is computing how some industrial process should be carried out (which, if memory serves me, was the subject of the first software patent). I draw the line at abstraction -- something which is completely abstract should be beyond the reach of the patent system, which is logic behind the existing rule that mathematics cannot be patented (except when we allow it to be patented e.g. DSP patents, crypto patents, etc. -- all forms of software patents).

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Palm trees and 8
Re:Patents should promote innovation by Staale+Nordlie · 2012-02-12 05:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

Patents exist solely to promote innovation. Or, more specifically, "science and the useful arts". There is plenty of evidence that traditional industrial patents do exactly that.
Cite?
Re:Patents should promote innovation by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-02-12 06:22 · Score: 2

I'm not saying I like software patents, but I fail to see how a process that involves complicated chemistry is any less "math" than software.

Chemistry is not math. Chemistry is described by math. There is no set of equations or software program that will actually cause crude oil to become gasoline.

It seems that they're both simply algorithms. One deals with how you control chemicals, the other with how you control electrons.
By this logic you can patent a work of fiction as a process of arranging letters on a printing press plate.
The problem is that software is purely abstract. Nothing stops you from having a power source that can supply five times as much energy as the sun, or a gear with a hundred million teeth, or a totally frictionless surface. There is nothing useful you can add as a claim limitation to reduce the scope of the patent from an idea to an implementation, without giving potential infringers a trivial way to avoid the patent.
Example: Suppose you want to patent RSA encryption. Limiting yourself to specific numbers of bits in the key or using a modulus from a finite list enumerated in the patent or anything of that nature would only be an arbitrary limitation that would allow anyone to easily avoid infringing the patent. But the alternative is the absurdity of issuing a patent on modular exponentiation.
Re:Patents should promote innovation by CurryCamel · 2012-02-12 06:59 · Score: 2

Why is patenting encryption by modular exponentiation absurd?
I had no idea modular exponentiation could be applied to encryption. If nobody else either had noticed this - then why should we not allow somebody to protect their invention?
What are the alternatives?
1) The idea is never put into use. Humanity doesn't get encryption by modular exponentiation.
2) The inventor builds an encryption product out of the invention. BigCorp Inc. reverses the code of the encryption program, and next version of their OS has encryption by modular exponentiation. The inventor gets a email saying "thanks for all the fish". Or a job offer, if lucky.
3) Inventor publishes the invention in a engineering journal. Same outcome as in case 2.
Now - I wonder if modular exponentiation can be useful for anything else than encryption?
Luckily the concept itself cannot be patented. But if I come up with a new use for modular exponentiation - don't you want me to share? Or do you just want me to share it for free. As in beer.
Re:Patents should promote innovation by jpapon · 2012-02-12 07:09 · Score: 2

I draw the line at abstraction -- something which is completely abstract should be beyond the reach of the patent system

Fine, but I would argue that software processes are no more abstract than chemical processes. Again, one deals with performing certain actions on chemicals in a certain way, while the other deals with performing certain actions on electrons in a certain way. If software is math, then so is a chemical process.
Software controls how matter should be controlled, just as a chemical process does. Just because that matter is much smaller doesn't change the fact that something physical is actually occurring.
Software is exactly like a chemical process, just with a general purpose computer instead of a general purpose chemistry set.

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-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Re:Patents should promote innovation by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-12 07:43 · Score: 2

Except that software does not need to be implemented with electricity. You could run software using a complicated mechanical computer. You could run software using pen and paper. For many patented algorithms, pen-and-paper work is not even infeasible, just slower than using a computer.

Additionally, what you are interested in with software is not the electrons; you do not save electrons somewhere to reuse them later. The results of a computation are just as useful if they are printed, output as punched tape, transmitted as radio waves, or stored as electrons in a capacitor. The electrons are just a part of the machine that is running the software; they are not part of the software itself. Software patents do not say, "A method of manipulating electrons" because that is not what software is or does. Electronic computers happen to be the most effective way to use software, but software is not defined what sort of computer is used.

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Palm trees and 8
Re:Patents should promote innovation by oxdas · 2012-02-12 09:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

If the software patent system worked that way, I don't think people would have a problem with it. As it is constructed now, though, software patents are so broad that they are purely conceptual. This is akin to patenting using chemistry to perform a specific task, instead of on specific chemical process. When I look at a software patent, I use 4 tests to determine if I believe it should have been granted.
1) Does it fulfill its purpose of contributing to the useful arts and sciences?
test: Can an expert in the field recreate their EXACT process or invention by using nothing more than the patent documents? Most software patents fail here because they do not actually cover a fixed number of implementations, but rather all possible implementations.
2) Is it a patent on a specific instance or on an idea or concept?
test: Using the idea or concept demonstrated by the patent, is it possible to create another non-infringing implementation? If not, then it is a patent on the concept itself and not an implementation. Note: if there is more than one idea or concept being demonstrated, use the narrowest one.
3) Is it obvious?
4) Does it have prior-art?
Let me give you two examples:
1) Apple's slide to unlock patent. 1) Would an expert programmer be able to implement Apple's patent with no other information than what is in the patent documents? The patent is very specific on what is going on and so I would say it is a good example of a patent that passes this test. 2) Is is possible to unlock a device using physical contact to a touchscreen without violating Apple's patent? This one is difficult. Apple's patent covers any user interaction with a widget and continuous movement from on place on the screen to another for the purposes of unlocking the device. That is pretty broad, although if the graphical widget did not move across the screen, but instead changed colors, prompting you to drag your finger to another spot on the screen to unlock, I think it would be safely clear of Apples patent. So, Apple's patent probably clears this test. 3) Is it obvious? This is where Apple's patent fails in my mind. Using the movement of widgets to change state is not new, Apple's patent is a logical and obvious extension of it. 4) Is there prior art? In striking down this patent in the Netherlands last year, the Dutch court offered the2004 Neonode N1m as prior art.
2) Microsoft "Virtual Entertainment" patent. 1) Microsoft fails right out of the gate on this one. There are no specs detailing how this would work. If I asked 100 experts to implement this patent, I would probably get 100 different implementations.
Re:Patents should promote innovation by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-02-12 09:23 · Score: 2

Why is patenting encryption by modular exponentiation absurd?
There is no such thing as "encryption by modular exponentiation" as distinct from "modular exponentiation." They are the same piece of code. You don't see why patenting "(x^y) (mod z)" is absurd? Start with "it's in the prior art."

I had no idea modular exponentiation could be applied to encryption. If nobody else either had noticed this - then why should we not allow somebody to protect their invention?
Well, we can start with "somebody else had noticed this." Clifford Cocks at GCHQ (UK intelligence) was the first to discover the relationship in 1973.
But never mind that. You're asking the wrong question. The question is, why should we set back the field of public key cryptography by 20 years because too many third parties are unwilling to adopt a patented algorithm in any kind of standard?

What are the alternatives?
1) The idea is never put into use. Humanity doesn't get encryption by modular exponentiation.
You have provided no suggestion as to why this would have happened. The developers of RSA worked for MIT. Their jobs were to publish papers to maintain the prestige of the school as a top research institute. MIT has close to a ten billion dollar endowment. The probability that they would do less research if it couldn't be patented is approximately zero.

2) The inventor builds an encryption product out of the invention. BigCorp Inc. reverses the code of the encryption program, and next version of their OS has encryption by modular exponentiation. The inventor gets a email saying "thanks for all the fish". Or a job offer, if lucky.
3) Inventor publishes the invention in a engineering journal. Same outcome as in case 2.
What you're describing could be better put as "the discovery is published and the world is better off because now everyone can use it." The reference to major corporations adopting it is a red herring to stir anti-corporate sentiment; the large majority of software patents are filed by major corporations.

Luckily the concept itself cannot be patented. But if I come up with a new use for modular exponentiation - don't you want me to share? Or do you just want me to share it for free. As in beer.
You'll share it because it's the only way for you to make use of it yourself, and you'll benefit because you'll have a first to market advantage, and because you can copyright the implementation which prevents anyone from copying the idea itself without developing and testing their own implementation. Since the implementation almost invariably costs more than the idea to develop, anyone who copies the idea is on the same footing with respect to fixed costs as the first mover and so is incapable of undercutting the first mover's prices.
Re:Patents should promote innovation by arose · 2012-02-12 09:26 · Score: 2

Software doesn't deal with electrical signals. Some particular hardware might be implemented using such, but it's not what software deals with. Software deals with abstracts.

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Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Re:Patents should promote innovation by Asic+Eng · 2012-02-12 12:25 · Score: 2

There is very little evidence that software patents do so
I work in a department which files about 50 patents/year. We get a lot of pressure to do so, I've filed some myself, too.
The curious thing is: we don't read patents unless we are checking for prior art. I have the distinct impression that we are not unusual in this respect - from an engineers point of view, patents are write-only. They can't promote innovation, because engineers don't hear about them.
Re:Patents should promote innovation by jackbird · 2012-02-12 14:46 · Score: 2

That's because 'willful' infringement of a patent carries a legal penalty of triple damages. This creates a perverse incentive for nobody to ever do a patent search with regard to software.

Re:Patent Trolls by SadButTrue · 2012-02-12 03:36 · Score: 5, Informative

There's a large misconception about Microsoft being a patent troll. In fact, they have never used their patents to bully other companies. Only time they've used their patents is when other companies have tried to bully them. .

So you are claiming that HTC and Samsung have been trying to bully MS? How about B&N?

I hope you are least getting paid for being this wrong.

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grape - the GNU free, open source rape

Crypto Patents by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-12 03:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

Patents on industrial processes are not the same thing as patents on mathematics, and that is what cryptography patents are. At one time it was RSA that was patented, and the RSA patent contributed to the stagnation of cryptography deployment in the early days of the Internet (we are still feeling the effects of that now). Today, it is elliptic curve crypto that is being mired down by patents, and cutting edge cryptographic technology is languishing in obscurity because of it. Patents have been granted on lattice crypto, which is even more obscure than ECC.

Mathematics is not supposed to be patentable, yet somehow these crypto patents -- which are really just patents on algebra -- have been granted, and our national security is threatened by it (the NSA has licensed some ECC patents for use in certain security sensitive contexts, but that is not even close to what we need). That anyone could defend that situation is mind boggling to me.

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Palm trees and 8

Re:Crypto Patents by TheSpoom · 2012-02-12 03:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Someone who profits from the situation, who can ignore all the societal implications of the actual patents, could defend it quite well. Like, say, a patent lawyer.

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It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Re:Crypto Patents by PPH · 2012-02-12 04:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

What is the difference between an algorithm and an industrial process? Aren't they both "recipes"? If so, should both be patentable? or neither?

Neither. You should be able to copyright the implementation of an algorithm. But anyone who goes back to the first principles and derives their own implementation should be free to do so.
With industrial processes, it would be similar. You can't just copy some companies process documentation and build your own production line. But its that misappropriation which should be the crime.

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Have gnu, will travel.
Re:Crypto Patents by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-12 05:23 · Score: 2
However, there are some benefits to close source operating systems, especially to business who require 24x7x365 support, enterprise management tools, and feature/UI stability
1. This has nothing to do with patents
2. http://www.redhat.com/
I agree that trivial software processes should not be patentable, but when you put a series of trivial processes together to create an OS, a game, or an application, these should be patentable as they are non-obvious, non-trivial, and rises to the level of creation.
So by putting lots and lots of abstract things together, you somehow wind up with something that is not abstract? I said that I draw the line at abstract: something which operates only on abstract concepts should not be patentable no matter how complicated it is.
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Palm trees and 8

Re:Hey DCTech by jordanjay29 · 2012-02-12 03:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

So far every company has agreed? Oh, well Barnes & Noble must have changed their stance and paid up, then.

Re:Patent Trolls by Moryath · 2012-02-12 03:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

In turn, take a look at Google who is outright buying companies to make their patent war-chest larger and larger. They're somewhat new company so they're only been preparing their chest now.

Meanwhile, how many companies have already filed patent lawsuits at Google already? I don't like it, and I definitely see it as a sign of how broken the patent system is, but Google's doing the same thing that most other big corporations do - they're trying to make sure they have a large enough patent war-chest that when the next group sues them, they can force it into a "well this guy says we're violating patent X, but they're violating our patent Y themselves" settlement scenario, the same sort of thing that happens all the time between big companies (look at the "patent-sharing access" agreements between, say, Intel and AMD).

It sucks, because it makes the patent system about fucking over the smaller companies and ensuring the big semi-monopolies are the only ones who can play on a level playing field. But that's how it works and WHY the patent system needs drastic reform.

Patents on math by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-12 03:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

We are not supposed to have patents on mathematics, yet that is exactly what software patents are -- especially patents on signal processing techniques, cryptography, etc., which are the patents that most severely threaten innovation.

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Palm trees and 8

Re:Patents on math by gstrickler · 2012-02-12 08:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

Software isn't just math. If you claim that software is just math, then all engineering is just math. So, all products that require engineering to produce are simply math. Next, all design and architecture is just math, because actually implementing it is strictly an engineering (e.g. math) problem. It's an absurd claim based upon a faulty premise.

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Re:Patents on math by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-12 08:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Software isn't just math
Oh yeah?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church-turing_thesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKI_calculus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_(programming_language)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolog

If you claim that software is just math, then all engineering is just math
No, claiming software is math is like claiming that engineering designs are math. The difference is that engineering designs are not useful until a physical system is built based on those designs, while software is useful regardless of how it is implemented. You cannot use the description of a bridge to drive your car over a body of water; you can use a description of a computer program to compute whatever the program computes. A computer program is purely abstract, like a number (in fact, computer programs can be represented as numbers, and can be used even when given in that representation), and computer programs operate on purely abstract things, and output purely abstract things. A computer program cannot build a car, it can only be used to compute how some specialized hardware can build a car.

If you are curious about the mathematical nature of software, I recommend reading any number of theory of computation texts; Sipser's book is widely used in CS curricula, but Kozen's book is also a good illustration. You might also want to read a book about lambda calculus / combinator logic if you are interested in formal ways of describing computer programs.

As I have said elsewhere, I draw the line at abstraction. Software is absolutely abstract; bridges, buildings, microchips, chemical processes, etc. all have to be physically realized in some way.

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Palm trees and 8

Re:Patent Trolls by andydread · 2012-02-12 03:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

It looks like the trolls are flooding slashdot lately. Microsoft PR department is a powerful beast and they pay these trolls to spread misinformation on blogs and the like.

LOL by sgt+scrub · 2012-02-12 03:53 · Score: 2

He said "actual creators".

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Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.

Explaining software patents to the patent lawyer by Teppy · 2012-02-12 03:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

I've noticed that most language in contracts is copied and sometimes tweaked language from other contracts. So, suppose as a lawyer you were required to negotiate a license for every sentence that wasn't your original text. Or more analogously, you were liable for even inadvertent use of phrasing that someone else had created first. For example:

Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you.

Have you ever used that phrase in a contract that you charged a client money for? It (or some minor variation) appears in license agreements from Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and Sony. And I'm pretty sure they don't all use the same lawyer. *I* would never have come up with that phrasing, but perhaps it's obvious to you, someone skilled in the art of contract law. Well, same thing for us software engineers - most of the software patents we see, and nearly all of them in the particular area of software that we specialize - are equally obvious.

Read the comments on TFA - hilarious by wisty · 2012-02-12 03:59 · Score: 3, Interesting

OK, since no-one read TFA, let alone TFA's comments:

TFAuthor clarifies his position:

>Traditionally, the "patent troll" (or "[whatever-kind-of-IP] troll") term has been reserved for companies that buy underenforced IP and then make money by litigating it. FWIW, I have little inherent problem with this "trolling" act either because it's simply investing in an asset (the particular IP) that is obviously well in demand. The original creator wins by being able to realize a purchase price for his creation without having to go through the trouble of managing the IP, and the investor wins through selling licenses and/or getting judgments and/or settlements on violations. In practice, of course, there have been legal system abuses, but that should not speak to the inherent practice.

In other words, there's no problem with leaving a bunch of cookies on a table, then selling the rights to cookies to a debt collector, who shakes down everyone who ate one for a fair price (determined through a process of valuing their kneecaps).

Re:Hey DCTech by errandum · 2012-02-12 03:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Google does have an R&D department, but you should also notice that most of that "research" that Andoroid has to pay for is based on overly broad patents that were granted before there was any kind of scrutiny.

The big problem is, it seems to be more expensive to take microsoft to court and go through a long legal battle than simply pay for them, and that's why almost no one does.

I'm all for patent licencing when you've actually done something good, but describing a general idea like this http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,778,372.PN.&OS=PN/5,778,372&RS=PN/5,778,372 or this http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,339,780.PN.&OS=PN/6,339,780&RS=PN/6,339,780

Did you invent a new protocol that speeds up mobile computing? Did you develop a new communication device that revolutionizes anything? Then you should be compensated. But don't say that "a device with a screen and that has a browser and when the browser loads we show an icon moving" is innovation and should be worth 500 million dollars.

Re:Hey DCTech by Barsteward · 2012-02-12 04:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

bollox, every other one that has paid up has a Microsoft license to protect.

--
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)

Re:Hey DCTech by Surt · 2012-02-12 04:09 · Score: 2

Yes, Google spends money on R&D at about the same pct rate as MS.
http://setandbma.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/1240/

--
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking

Software Patents Stifle Innovation by Software+Geek · 2012-02-12 04:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

it's a misconception that patents stifle innovation

The problem with software patents is that the legal standard of patent quality is too low. Something can be patented if it is novel and not obvious. I can write something that is novel and not obvious in an afternoon.

If I patent my afternoon's work, that doesn't enable me to sell it. So patents don't help me the innovate. On the other hand if tens of thousands of other people patent various things I could do in an afternoon, I am now legally obligated to respect all those patents, never doing any of those things unless I first negotiate a license with them. And I can get sued into bankruptcy if I make a mistake. And so the cost of avoiding infringing on low quality patents gets added to the cost of software development.

The patent system provides an incentive to be a software patent troll. It does not provide an incentive to develop software for people to use.

--
http://xkcd.com/756//

Patent problems by geoskd · 2012-02-12 04:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

it's a misconception that patents stifle innovation

No it isn't... They Do

The author is a lawyer, so its no wonder he is defending the legal system. It pays his bills. Take the whole thing with a gigantic grain of salt.

-=Geoskd

--
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted

Re:Patent problems by Epimer · 2012-02-12 07:08 · Score: 2

Drugs.
There's a lot of good information in process patents for the manufacture of pharmaceutical compounds which will ultimately see wider use in other products. Process chemists and engineers put an enormous amount of labour into devising the best way to carry out a particular chemical reaction, and those reaction conditions are described in the patent for the production of a given drug molecule. Such information is then incredibly useful for others working towards making similar molecules (or completely different molecules, but using the same transformation), be they other companies, academics, or students.
Re:Patent problems by Colonel+Korn · 2012-02-12 08:06 · Score: 2

Drugs.
There's a lot of good information in process patents for the manufacture of pharmaceutical compounds which will ultimately see wider use in other products. Process chemists and engineers put an enormous amount of labour into devising the best way to carry out a particular chemical reaction, and those reaction conditions are described in the patent for the production of a given drug molecule. Such information is then incredibly useful for others working towards making similar molecules (or completely different molecules, but using the same transformation), be they other companies, academics, or students.
1) It's not just the world of pharmaceuticals. Look around you. Pretty much every material you see is the product of a ton of chemical engineering of some form or another, from polymer science to metallurgy. It's all complicated, and the work that goes into coming up with a patentable way to make your lightbulb last longer dwarfs the work going into things in the software patent world. But...
2) Patents on these processes or combinations of chemical properties are unbelievably vague. Let's say you find that toothpaste cures cancer if it contains 2.3% chocolate and is centrifuged at 3254 RPM for 17 seconds. Your patent will include these conditions in claims such as:
"The mixture must contain between 0 and 16% chocolate, 0 to 14% milk, 0 to 9% Windex, 0 to 40% action figures, 0 to 10% water, 0 to 12% ball bearings, and 0 to 6% of oysters, preferably between 0% and 5% of each."
"The mixture must be agitated in order to produce a cancer curing effect. Suitable techniques include manual stirring, riding in the back of an old jeep, spinning, or vibration through a variety of sonicating techniques. Agitation must proceed for 2 to 90 seconds."
Seriously, go read some patent literature. Yes, if you really know the science behind it you can sometimes learn things, but most of the time the central ideas are heavily obfuscated.

--
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Re:Patent problems by Colonel+Korn · 2012-02-12 09:17 · Score: 2

1) The post to which I was referring asked to name "one product", and so I did just that.
2) I've read (and continue to read) a lot of patent literature. I appreciate that the reality is that a patent proprietor (or their attorney) will necessarily draft the description to contain the minimum possible amount of information required to meet the requirement of sufficiency of disclosure. However, the "central idea" must necessarily be elucidated in sufficient detail for the ordinary skilled person to work the invention (so "if you really know the science behind it" is exactly the point; they're not written to be understandable by the lay person). It only gets more obscure around the periphery, and as patents are legal documents there is a certain art to reading them to extract the information you require.
Anyway, this isn't a purely hypothetical argument. I referred to the patent literature more than once when working towards my doctorate in organic chemistry, and obtained very useful information from such sources more than once. Information which wasn't available elsewhere. A patent would never have been my first choice of reference material, because journal articles don't have that disclosure/trade secret tension which is inherent in a patent, but the patent literature was far from uselessly obfuscated.
Maybe I'm jaded by my current field. In the 5000 patents I read last quarter, something actually useful related to the central idea was decipherable in maybe 50-100, and that usually involved a team of 3 PhD experts in the topic working together for at least 10 minutes to sort the wheat from the chaff.

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"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)

Re:Sorry,but I'm with him. by JWW · 2012-02-12 04:26 · Score: 2

Patent trolls don't make a first copy. They sketch out a vague diagram and then say that anyone doom what they diagramed needs to pay.

I would love to see software patent suits require a demo of functioning software. But I have a suspicion that that woul make it too easy for juries to say "these aren't the same things."

Heck if I had my way anyone entering a courtroom for a software parent suit without being able to present a working software example of their parent should be shot.

All patents and copyrights harm progress, economy by roman_mir · 2012-02-12 04:29 · Score: 2

All patents and copyrights cause harm to the economy and to progress, it is absolutely wrong to have government protect anybody's business model, regardless of what it is, and this includes special subsidy of the enforcement, court and penal systems.

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You can't handle the truth.

Re:Hey DCTech by postbigbang · 2012-02-12 04:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

.....then you should be compensated....

Snarl, snort. Feed the troll, especially the attorney in the post.

The problem is much deeper than what you can cover in a slashdot reply, but I'll try to capture the salient points:

1) the US Patent Office process is broken, and despite attempts to the assuage the problem, it grants patents to unbelieveably looneytunes stuff.

2) ideas shouldn't be patented, but they are granted patents, see #1

3) there is no model for compensation, rather, it's what the "inventor" desires, or wants to do battle with, so the output of the process is unpredictable in almost every way; it's a compensation plan for attorneys, not a business model

4) standards and protocols should never be patented, for they are agreements and processes, not inventions. You can't patent math because math is prior art. Algorithms, presentation values are all math. Attempts to patent genes should be met with life without parole: life is prior art.

The life of patents is dubious, and getting worse now that the madmen of media have allowed retroactive protection for "works". It is out of control, and the attorney in the post is indeed snacking from the insanity.

--
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.

Re:Explaining software patents to the patent lawye by Nerdfest · 2012-02-12 04:34 · Score: 2

The added bonus is that in the case of software patents (and this analogy) it doesn't even matter if you some up with a better, more readable, more concise way to state this, you're still infringing. Innovation indeed.

No patents please. by AnotherBlackHat · 2012-02-12 04:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Imagine this story: University scientists, working diligently in their lab, invent something world-changing. Several big corporations steal the invention for themselves, making billions of dollars in profits. The scientists receive nothing.

You don't have to be a professional folklorist or ethicist to conclude that the scientists are the good guys and the corporations are the bad guys.

Imagine this;
Business has a problem.
They hire a software engineer to solve that problem.
The software engineer, working entirely on their own, writes a piece of software that solves that problem.
Business implements the software.
Patent holder sues business because software violates holder's patent.

It might take a professional folklorist or ethicist to determine who's the bad guy in that situation.

Now imagine a third scenario;
Business has a problem.
They hire a software engineer to solve that problem.
The software engineer, working entirely on their own, writes a piece of software that solves that problem.
Business asks if the software violates any patents.
No one has any idea.

Even a folklorist or ethicist won't help you resolve the patent issue in that third scenario.
And that's the real problem with software patents.
It's not business knowingly using an invention and not paying for it's development.
It's not business being forced to pay for something they didn't use.
No, the problem is not knowing.

Software engineers are notorious for reinventing the wheel.
We often don't look for existing solutions because it's easier to reinvent them than to find them.
I don't believe anyone in the current lawsuit read Eolas's patent and said "nice idea, it's mine now."
But they did have to go to court over it.

Only a lawyer would think that's a good thing.

There are no vague threats by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-12 04:56 · Score: 5, Insightful

Microsoft sells their patents to Intellectual Ventures, which creates companies that sue the competition. Intellectual Ventures was set up by Microsoft executives for just this purpose. Apple does no better. This is all made clear here:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

Many "features" of both operating systems appeared in open source code first. Fortunately for the corporations, first to file is law of the land now. So are ridiculously long patent lengths. I wonder who paid for those changes in the law over the years.

IANAL, but I have gone toe-to-toe with several and have never lost. What Joe Stangenelli writes is based on simple debate tactics. In order to buy this lawyer's arguement, one must accept that software is "invented". The bottom line is that all software written for a flexible platform is not "invented". The very nature of the computing platforms and languages such as B.A.S.I.C. (The "A" stands for ALL-PURPOSE) indicate that ALL software that is written was intentionally made possible by the hardware manufacturer. Add to this that all software is reducable to math, and there is no valid arguement left to patent software.

Joe Stangenelli compares software patents with process patents, but fails to find the difference. Does the making of potash, or the process of pasteurization require a computer? Can these processes be reduced to math. The answer is a definitive "No" and that is where the comparison ends.

Joe Stangenelli also compares obtaining software patents to Warner Brothers obtaining permission from J.K. Rowling to make Harry Potter movies. Clearly he has trouble distinguishing the difference between copyright and patents. This makes his other arguements even more suspect.

I hate to say it, but Joe Stangenelli appears incompetent in his logic. Perhaps it is an intentional effort to effect the weak minded. Perhaps it is a failure of his training. Either way, Joe Stangenelli has clearly demonstrated the difference between intellegence and wisdom.

Re:There are no vague threats by LordLucless · 2012-02-12 09:34 · Score: 2, Informative

I've never seen a post so misinformed rated "informative"

Fortunately for the corporations, first to file is law of the land now.
Which does not invalidate prior art.

So are ridiculously long patent lengths
US patents are 20 years, one year less than they were in 1836, and three years more than in 1994.

--
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Re:There are no vague threats by WolfWithoutAClause · 2012-02-13 03:50 · Score: 2

>ALL software that is written was intentionally made possible by the hardware manufacturer.
That's like saying that all books are made possible by the people that sold you the paper and pen; it's a false argument.
> Add to this that all software is reducable to math, and there is no valid arguement left to patent software.
Actually, in most cases it is possible to patent maths, provided it's a *part* of a design, not the whole thing. The whole point of patents is to commercially exploit an idea for money, and pure maths isn't exploitable, you have to build it into a system of some kind that has an interaction with the real world to do that.
The real argument against patenting software is to do with its effects on society when you do that kind of thing, and the general impossibility of people working out whether software does or does not violate any software patents or not.

--
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"

Re:Patent Trolls by MightyMartian · 2012-02-12 05:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

Microsoft has always done this. I've been on Slashdot now about nine years and Microsoft has frequently astroturfed this place. And then every year or so there will be the quisling that Microsoft hires from the open source community to be in charge of whatever-they're-calling-their-Linux-lab-now, who will inevitably come here with an olive branch... dipped in arsenic. And let us never forget the level pro-SCO astroturfing that went on here in the day, and you still get a few of those old trolls making rude noises about Pamela Jones. Some, if not all of those guys were ultimately being paid by Microsoft, one way or the other (well, except Daniel Lyons, a fucktard of such incredible stupidity that he actually did it for free).

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:Sorry,but I'm with him. by betterunixthanunix · 2012-02-12 05:41 · Score: 2

Imagine if this was patented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_formula

What differentiates a software patent from a math patent? Well, nothing, as it turns out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church-turing_thesis

Moreover, software patents have caused substantial harm to the state of computer security:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2000/09/38635

...and they continue to do so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_patents

We need to find a good way of protecting the folks who invest in that first copy. If that means patents, I think that's fine.

Let's try avoid reliance on this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity

--
Palm trees and 8

Did they really invent something? by Ice+Station+Zebra · 2012-02-12 05:50 · Score: 2

In the 1990s, three University of California scientists allegedly developed and patented features that have become integral parts of what we today know as the "Interactive Web" -- including online video, image rotation, and search bar autocomplete. Eolas Technologies (a company owned by one of the scientists) and the University of California are suing several major companies -- including Internet heavies like Adobe, Amazon, GoDaddy, Google, and Yahoo, and retailers like Staples and JC Penney -- that allegedly employ these patented features.

Please show me where these "scientists" actually invented something. Online video? Ever hear of something called TV. Image rotation? Really, isn't that just an application of a matrix transformation. Search bar autocomplete? Isn't that just navigating some kind of tree like data structure and displaying the results. I just can't see the non-trivial innovation in these examples, maybe if I had no clue about math or computers, sure, but there is nothing here remotely outside the norm.

Maybe we need to rethink who we are labeling "scientists" in this day and age. Seems our standards are pretty low.

It's not always about immediate profit, asshole by EdwinFreed · 2012-02-12 06:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'm a co-creator of MIME. I was recently interviewed about it, and one of the questions that came up was why we didn't patent it?

The obvious answer is it simply didn't occur to us, but even if it had, I very much doubly we would have done it. Our primary purpose was to change the capabilities of existing and future email systems in a fundamental way. (A secondary purpose for me at least was to drive a stake through the heart of X.400 - having just done an implementation of that mess, I was deeply worried that its very limited multimedia capabilities would drive its deployment in place of the much simpler Internet email protocols, and the entire world would have been much worse off had that happened.)

But neither of those goals could possibly have been met by patented technology. To be successful we needed as many implementers to adopt the technology as soon as possible, and a patent would have prevented that. (One of the reasons MIME is a bit ugly in places is because we believed that being able to implement and deploy it on top of existing infrastructure trumped design niceties.)

And while I can't speak for Nathaniel or Keith, it was certainly possible for me to profit from our work without a patent. But I did it the old fashioned way - by building a good implementation and selling it.

Of course there are situations where patents make sense, like to protect small inventors who come up manufacturing process or whatever. But there are lots of cases where they don't, and right now things are canted much too much towards patenting everything, even in cases where it actively stifles innovation and progress.

Re:Patent Trolls by ColdWetDog · 2012-02-12 06:10 · Score: 2

They really look like they want UID counter to overflow, lol.

I've got an idea. Any new account gets a 30 day blockout from using "Apple", "Microsoft" or "Google" in the comment. That would cut down on the trolling and improve the general quality of discussion as we have enough of those sort of experts here as it is.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!

Notice the techniques of propaganda in TFA. by hey! · 2012-02-12 06:28 · Score: 2

He posits a hypothetical example that in the terms described, no reasonable person would disagree with:

Imagine this story: University scientists, working diligently in their lab, invent something world-changing. Several big corporations steal the invention for themselves, making billions of dollars in profits. The scientists receive nothing.

You don't have to be a professional folklorist or ethicist to conclude that the scientists are the good guys and the corporations are the bad guys.

Sure, because he's just told us the big corporations *stole* something. If we start from that characterization of what happened we'd have to agree, because stealing *by definition* is wrong. We never call rightful and proper uses of things "stealing". He then goes on to make a completely unsubstantiated claim:

In the 1990s, three University of California scientists allegedly developed and patented features that have become integral parts of what we today know as the "Interactive Web" -- including online video, image rotation, and search bar autocomplete.

What evidence does he present that these scientists "invented" anything? None. His characterization of this event is buttressed only by an ad hominem attack on people who disagree with him:

Technology pundits come from Bizarro Technology Punditry World, where up is down, black is white, and Google+ is the best thing ever.

So we aren't supposed to agree with *those* people on patents because he happens to think they're weird? Because they don't like the same things as us? He goes on to say, without any apparent sense of irony that these "bizarro technology pundits" are:

...ever fond of villainizing anyone [who disagrees with them on Internet patents]...

Next he gives us a spectacular display of weasel wording:

To be clear, I am not commenting on the actual results of the case. Not having seen all of the evidence or been in the courtroom, I do not attempt to second-guess the jury; they may well have made the legally correct decision.

So if he's not arguing about the "actual results" in this case, just what the heck is he talking about? We're supposed to feel pity toward the plaintiff,outrage at the defendants, and contempt toward the defendants' supporters -- on what basis? On the basis of something that *might* have happened but didn't? Because he thinks the defendants are greedy and rich, and their supporters are "bizarro pundits" who like Google+?

He's calibrated his imprecision very precisely here. He says has "not seen all the evidence", but does *not* tell us what evidence he *has* seen, or whether he has seen any evidence at all. This makes him hard to argue with -- we don't know which of his claims apply to what actually happened, and which apply to a purely hypothetical world of his own imagining.

Apparently he feels he can stand in the safety of that hypothetical world and lob his opinions at people in the real world :

What I do not understand is -- had the jury determined Eolas's patents valid -- why it would be A-OK for dozens of already megarich corporations to get even richer adopting technology they did not invent or have legal permission to use, but somehow immoral for the actual creators of the technology to likewise profit.

Note how he *predicates* his indictment of the defendants (aka the "megarich corporations") *on something that did not happen* ("had the jury ..."). I started counting the logical fallacies in this statement and gave up when I hit six (straw man, begging the question, appeal to pity, appeal to spite, appeal to authority, and two different kinds of red herring).

Frankly, the reasoning in the article is so weak the only value I can see in discussing it is as an example of deceptive and faulty argumentation. I'd be interested in hearing a more robust argument, say from someone who wants to argue a natural property right to ideas.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.

Donald Knuth opposes software patents by symbolset · 2012-02-12 07:02 · Score: 2

I'm going to go with "argumentum ad verecundiam" here - I know... bad form.

Here's Professor Emeritus Knuth's Letter to the patent office.

Here are a collection of quotes with references.

If you don't know who Donald Knuth is, you should find out before trying to participate in this discussion. It seems unlikely to me there exists a software patent that isn't derivative of his work.

And since I'm a Groklaw fan, here's a Groklaw article about the good professor's views on the subject.

--
Help stamp out iliturcy.

Re:Patent implementations, not algorithms by Animats · 2012-02-12 07:46 · Score: 2

Algorithms are DISCOVERED, not invented.

Er, no.

Re:Patent Trolls by MightyMartian · 2012-02-12 08:01 · Score: 3, Informative

I neither have the capability nor the desire to go through Slashdot's archives. You can take my word for it or not, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers the frequent attacks on Pamela Jones on Slashdot. I won't withdraw it, so that's that.

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Re:Hey DCTech by Genda · 2012-02-12 09:02 · Score: 2

Brilliant, concise and to the point.

I would only add, that our law makers almost to a man, are lawyers or ex-lawyers and that it is good for lawyers to breed contention, disarray and conflict. A broken patent system, and system in fact which allows the most crass among us to patent, defend and firewall everything and anything including air, sunshine and the rain that falls on your face, makes their greedy little hearts happier than words can say.

Remember they aren't the least bit interested in society. They are interested in the depth and breadth of their bank accounts. To that end, most lawyers would be happy to build a legal framework for the production of Soylent Green, as long as they got some residual income from its production. Any thought that these people are your friends is at best a fantasy and much more likely a profound delusion.

Re:Hey DCTech by jedidiah · 2012-02-12 09:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

People tend to cave when it comes to bullies. The cost of trying to fight us usually considered too high. The struggle itself can be expensive regardless of whether you win or lose.

That is why any patent or copyright is "stifling". It gives obnoxious people the idea they have cause to bother others. It doesn't matter if it's Microsoft, Apple, or Harlan Ellison.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.

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