Salon Magazine on Hi-Tech Patents

James Green writes "Salon Magazine have published this article on the subject of patents. It discusses the legal issues fairly extensively, talking of what "obvious" can mean, and interviews the owner of the patent for pay-per-view over telecommunications lines. An interesting read, if not earth-shattering stuff. "

Comments

Comparing medical patents with software patents ..

[morven2]

Medical & biotech fields don't have so much patent nonsense for three reasons.

One, that you have to be a big player in order to discover anything new anyway; the barrier to entry is high.

Two, that being SCIENTIFIC fields, *everything* is published. After the patent application has been filed, of course.

Three, patent examiners know how to research medical claims.


Contrast this with software. All you need to come up with 'new' inventions is a brain. Therefore there are LOTS of players, and not necessarily tied to large corporations.

Secondly, very little computing innovation is published. Sure, CS professors publish all the time, but commercial developers, or open source developers? Rarely. People only tend to publish in academic journals etc. if they're in academia or a *major* research lab and the discovery is on the main line of their research interests -- stuff created on the side doesn't get published. So it's very hard to research prior art.

Thirdly, patent examiners seem to be woefully under-skilled at evaluating software claims. They are, in effect, passing off the evaluation requirement onto the courts.

It's getting out of hand

[Master Switch]

Patent law was designed for a different time in our history. I agree that it is important to protect legitimate Intelectual property, but I feel that our patent office's are woefully undereducated, and are making bad choices in awarding patents. Any, that's my 2 cents worth