EFF Proposes a Working Code Requirement For Software Patents

Juha Saarinen sends news that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has proposed a fix for software patents in general and patent trolls in particular: requiring applicants to provide specifics about their solution. They say the applications should include working code, or at least "detailed, line-by-line notations explaining how their code works." "And if they do get a patent, they should be limited to the invention they claimed. We think software patents are bad news, and incredibly harmful to our society and economy. We wish we didn’t have to deal with them at all. But by fixing the functional claiming problem, and limiting patentees to a narrow invention that they actually came up with, we would also limit the amount of harm those patents could cause. The Patent Office does not (yet) have the power to get rid of software patents entirely, but it can fix the functional claiming problem."

Comments

Incidentally

[Anonymous Coward]

This would also allow people who did license the patent to use the code rather than having to re-invent it themselves from scratch, or for that matter people coming along when it had expired...

Hang on isn't that half the point of the patent system? To grant a monopoly on an invention for a limited time in return for providing sufficient information in sufficient detail such that said invention can be replicated when the patent expires?

Re:Incidentally

[DickBreath]

In the case of software 're-invent it themselves' is equivalent to 're-implement it themselves'.

If I can re-implement it without any reference to the patent, and possibly without even knowing that the patent ever existed in the first place, then we're talking about something so obvious that it should not be eligible for patent protection.

Once you have working code . . .

[DickBreath]

The question could be asked, why isn't Copyright protection sufficient for your code?

If someone else independently can implement code that does the same thing, then it is obvious it should not be eligible for a patent.

Solutions, not problems

[Qzukk]

The majority of the software patents I've seen are simply a statement of a problem, not a solution. They do nothing to promote the progress of science, and as such should not be considered valid patents, and the laws should be changed to make them not valid patents.

Following the EFF's proposition would be a good way to make sure that your patent states a solution and promotes the progress of science.