I don't think that software patents are actually encouraging invention or bringing-to-market, dissemination or preservation of knowledge about them, and they are certainly interfering with making the inventions free to all. As far as I can tell, this argument applies with equal force to all areas of technology. I have no problem with the argument that patents don't encourage invention, I just don't see software as a special case. Almost every area of technology will have someone who feels patents are a burden on them and someone else who thinks they help.
"The objection people have to software patents is due to the fact that they cover concepts, not specific mechanisms that embody those concepts. Your example of thousands of different and possibly overlapping compressor designs illustrates this nicely, because applying software patent principles to the hardware world would mean that somebody could hold a patent on processes that reduce the volume of compressable fluids which would (in summary) read something like this:
1) The fluid is drawn or pumped in from a higher volume source.
2) One or more mechanical processes reduces its volume by compression..... more simple obvious steps relating to compressors"
I agree with the original poster who says the discussion should be about patents, not software patents, per se. There are two common attacks on software patents. The first is that software patents are "concepts, not specific mechanisms that embody those concepts." That is what is being argued in the first sentence above. But that argument has little merit. All patents are in a sense on the "concepts" behind the invention. The compressor designer can sit down, design his new and unobvious compressor to push air molecules into a tank and file a patent - without ever building it. It's fundamentally the same as the chemical engineer who designs a new reaction for building a new molecule or a software designer who designs a new and unobvious image enhancement, data processing and cancer recognition program for automatically analyzing CAT scan data to find cancer that can't be identified by a human.
The second common argument against software patents is that the quality of software patents is poor - that obvious things are allowed to be patented by stupid examiners. That's the real argument being made in the compressor "example" above - where a list of obvious steps is recited. This "poor quality" argument has nothing to do with the "software is a mental concept and shouldn't be patented" argument. To put this in a different light - the steps listed above for the compressor would be fine in a patent on a compressor if they weren't obvious.
The second argument - that too many obvious software patents are granted has great merit - I'm no fan of the "one-click" Amazon patent, but I think it's a mistake to confuse the two arguments. The claim that software is somehow special and different from all the other fields of technology simply isn't very convincing to anyone who has the power to change patent law.
Please - argue that patents should be abolished or argue that software patent quality should be improved, but don't try to argue that software design has a unique mental aspect not found in other areas of technology.
The GPL is designed to avoid this scenario:
1 - Community writes one million lines of code and release them publicly: everyone benefits.
2 - Corporate developer writes 100 lines of code, adds them to the community work and releases a closed product, actually taking credit and money, for a work consisting of mostly open source.
That's not what the GPL is all about. You're missing the main point of the GPL. It's not about taking credit and money for someone else's work. It's about letting others use your work. The GPL basically says: "I'll let you stand on my shoulders, but you have to agree to let others stand on yours."
The GPL cares nothing about "making money" and not much about credit. You are free to sell others work without adding anything of your own if you want to, and you don't have to tell anyone if you are just using someone else's work in your back office, even if that use makes you a fortune. If you are only adding 100 lines of code to a million line app (.01%) you probably won't add much functionality. If you add 0% (end user) the GPL doesn't even affect you. It's the guy adding 20,000 lines of code that the GPL really cares about. He's added just 2% and has probably made something of value that he's obligated to share under the GPL.
The GPL acts like a progress ratchet. Each step forward becomes irreversible because anyone can use that step as a new starting point.
How long before whistling a tune as you walk down the street will get you arrested? Whistling a tune as you walk down the street is already copyright infringement on two counts. It's a prohibited "public performance" and it's a prohibited "derivative work" unless you are following the original tune perfectly. Just because you haven't been sued yet doesn't mean it's right - think of the royalties being lost from all those unlicensed whistlers.
"...due to the fun way the patent system works, introducing that kind of prior art to the USPTO for it to review the validity of Verizon's VoIP patents will take quite a bit of time and effort -- much longer than Vonage has to fight Verizon in court." Vonage doesn't need to bring its prior art to the US Patent Office and wait for a decision. They will just bring it directly to the judge/jury who have the power to determine that the VoIP patents are all invalid. Claiming that patents are invalid is a standard defense in any litigation. If Verizon's patents are found to be invalid in this case, then Verizon can never sue on them again. If Verizon's patents are found to be valid, anyone who is ever sued later can still claim they are invalid and bring up more prior art. Anyone who is not sued can also try to have the patents declared invalid by having them reexamined at the Patent Office.
"If I purchase a CD and it is subsequently stolen (along with my 5 disc changer *@$#!!) do I retain any rights to listen to that music?"
The typical IP attorney answer to this goes something like this: At the time you made the copy (.mp3) you either did or did not have the right to make the copy. You may have had a fair use right to make it. If you had the right to make the copy, then it was not copyright infringement to make the copy and it just becomes another legal copy. You can do anything with the legally made copy that you could have done with the original - sell it, give it away, keep it, listen to it. It's not legally tied to the original in any way and your right to listen to it does not depend on owning or possessing the original in any way. He'll then go on to say that none of this has been legally tested and give some disclaimers about how unsettled the law is.
In the end, I'm afraid this is just another government office or agency that's going to balloon out of control and consume tax payer dollars.
That's not likely. The U.S. Patent Office charges fees for all of the work it does. It's required to charge enough to meet all of its expected expenses, including the cost of additional examiners and improvements it thinks it needs. However, Congress also limits what it's allowed to spend and keeps the difference, so the Patent Office can't make the improvements they are required to plan and charge for. It's one of the few government agencies that actually makes money for the government.
If they made a statement that these patents are in the PD and are being held as defensive patents.
If they just want to put this into the PD and make sure no one else gets a patent, they should file a SIR (Statutory Invention Registration.) That's what a SIR is for.
thanks to the openness of their hardware platform, someone (maybe me) will figure out how to write a script to pull show data off of Yahoo! TV or something.
It's been done several times. The Canadians have the most sophisticated system with at least three programs that will pull data with XMLTV from zap2it.com. They all work fine in the U.S. (with the exception of Simplicity that needs to defeat the Canada-IP check).
The Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and a few others have active Tivo groups that use similar or identical software.
The USPTO did not "issue" a storyline patent. They published a copy of the patent application filed by some idiot who wants a patent on a storyline. He gets no rights unless the PTO actually grants the patent. So far no one has ever been granted such a patent. You can file an application asking them to give you a patent on anything - it doesn't mean you're going to get it. Don't shoot the PTO until they actually grant this one. They are legally obligated to publish it - so that means nothing. The application was published, not "issued."
There's also a lot of confusion here over the word "provisional" as used with patents. There is something called a "provisional patent application" and there is something called "provisional patent rights." They are totally different things and are unrelated. The "provisional patent application" is a way of starting the patent process. You get no rights with it unless you later file a patent and that patent is approved. Provisional patent applications are never examined and are never published.
"Provisional rights" refers to rights you get after your non-provisional patent application is published. Patent applications used to be secret. When the decision was made to publish them, it seemed only fair that if somebody learned about the invention because of the publishing and began to copy the invention, the inventor should get a "reasonable royalty" for that copying. Provisional rights apply only if the patent is ultimately granted, and only if the infringer is actually notified of the provisional rights. The inventor only gets a "reasonable royalty."
Movie makers fought the VCR all the way to the Supreme Court. Jack Valenti, then head of the MPAA, said the VCR would be the Boston Strangler to the movie industry. Video sales became more profitable than the movie theater.
Before that was the music industry - not the RIAA and record industry, I'm going way back to London in the 1600 - 1700's when the music industry was publishing sheet music. They fought against that new thing called "copyright." Yes, against copyright. They were busy copying every composer out there and didn't want composers to limit their profits by claiming copyright. Now copyright is their bread and butter. (Of course tehy found new ways to screw the composers).
You watch. The publishers will fight Google's indexing as hard as they can. The courts will ultimately realize that indexing the real world books and improving access to the contents of libraries is so beneficial to the public that we have to allow it as fair use. Then it will turn out that the publishers will make more money than ever by selling on-line books that people discover via the Google search.
Enntrenched industries hate change and will fight against it even when it will ultimately make them more money.
Slashdot Mirror
"The objection people have to software patents is due to the fact that they cover concepts, not specific mechanisms that embody those concepts. Your example of thousands of different and possibly overlapping compressor designs illustrates this nicely, because applying software patent principles to the hardware world would mean that somebody could hold a patent on processes that reduce the volume of compressable fluids which would (in summary) read something like this: 1) The fluid is drawn or pumped in from a higher volume source. 2) One or more mechanical processes reduces its volume by compression. .... more simple obvious steps relating to compressors"
I agree with the original poster who says the discussion should be about patents, not software patents, per se. There are two common attacks on software patents. The first is that software patents are "concepts, not specific mechanisms that embody those concepts." That is what is being argued in the first sentence above. But that argument has little merit. All patents are in a sense on the "concepts" behind the invention. The compressor designer can sit down, design his new and unobvious compressor to push air molecules into a tank and file a patent - without ever building it. It's fundamentally the same as the chemical engineer who designs a new reaction for building a new molecule or a software designer who designs a new and unobvious image enhancement, data processing and cancer recognition program for automatically analyzing CAT scan data to find cancer that can't be identified by a human.
The second common argument against software patents is that the quality of software patents is poor - that obvious things are allowed to be patented by stupid examiners. That's the real argument being made in the compressor "example" above - where a list of obvious steps is recited. This "poor quality" argument has nothing to do with the "software is a mental concept and shouldn't be patented" argument. To put this in a different light - the steps listed above for the compressor would be fine in a patent on a compressor if they weren't obvious.
The second argument - that too many obvious software patents are granted has great merit - I'm no fan of the "one-click" Amazon patent, but I think it's a mistake to confuse the two arguments. The claim that software is somehow special and different from all the other fields of technology simply isn't very convincing to anyone who has the power to change patent law.
Please - argue that patents should be abolished or argue that software patent quality should be improved, but don't try to argue that software design has a unique mental aspect not found in other areas of technology.
"If I purchase a CD and it is subsequently stolen (along with my 5 disc changer *@$#!!) do I retain any rights to listen to that music?" The typical IP attorney answer to this goes something like this: At the time you made the copy (.mp3) you either did or did not have the right to make the copy. You may have had a fair use right to make it. If you had the right to make the copy, then it was not copyright infringement to make the copy and it just becomes another legal copy. You can do anything with the legally made copy that you could have done with the original - sell it, give it away, keep it, listen to it. It's not legally tied to the original in any way and your right to listen to it does not depend on owning or possessing the original in any way. He'll then go on to say that none of this has been legally tested and give some disclaimers about how unsettled the law is.
The USPTO did not "issue" a storyline patent. They published a copy of the patent application filed by some idiot who wants a patent on a storyline. He gets no rights unless the PTO actually grants the patent. So far no one has ever been granted such a patent. You can file an application asking them to give you a patent on anything - it doesn't mean you're going to get it. Don't shoot the PTO until they actually grant this one. They are legally obligated to publish it - so that means nothing. The application was published, not "issued." There's also a lot of confusion here over the word "provisional" as used with patents. There is something called a "provisional patent application" and there is something called "provisional patent rights." They are totally different things and are unrelated. The "provisional patent application" is a way of starting the patent process. You get no rights with it unless you later file a patent and that patent is approved. Provisional patent applications are never examined and are never published. "Provisional rights" refers to rights you get after your non-provisional patent application is published. Patent applications used to be secret. When the decision was made to publish them, it seemed only fair that if somebody learned about the invention because of the publishing and began to copy the invention, the inventor should get a "reasonable royalty" for that copying. Provisional rights apply only if the patent is ultimately granted, and only if the infringer is actually notified of the provisional rights. The inventor only gets a "reasonable royalty."
Movie makers fought the VCR all the way to the Supreme Court. Jack Valenti, then head of the MPAA, said the VCR would be the Boston Strangler to the movie industry. Video sales became more profitable than the movie theater. Before that was the music industry - not the RIAA and record industry, I'm going way back to London in the 1600 - 1700's when the music industry was publishing sheet music. They fought against that new thing called "copyright." Yes, against copyright. They were busy copying every composer out there and didn't want composers to limit their profits by claiming copyright. Now copyright is their bread and butter. (Of course tehy found new ways to screw the composers). You watch. The publishers will fight Google's indexing as hard as they can. The courts will ultimately realize that indexing the real world books and improving access to the contents of libraries is so beneficial to the public that we have to allow it as fair use. Then it will turn out that the publishers will make more money than ever by selling on-line books that people discover via the Google search. Enntrenched industries hate change and will fight against it even when it will ultimately make them more money.