Software Patents

[Mystic]

aarghh, i just been reading and this really annoys me:

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html

the only people that want this to pass is microsoft, they are probably paying off the politicians, i wish someone would murder bill gates damnit

for those of you who dont know, i think this may help,

Say i made a piece of software that done a certain thing, it would stop a kind open source developer creating something that does the same, i think this is microsofts attack at linux, i knew microsoft hated linux


I think this quote apllies to microsoft and linux:

"In those segments, the incumbent market leaders are large corporations from outside the EU. They own huge numbers of patents and could use them against open-source software in order to defend their monopolies and oligopolies. ("Oligopoly" means the market belongs to a very few.) "

microsoft as the as the large corporation and the open source software linux, damn, this cant happen

 

[LeeRyder]

lol, i dont get people man. i love free stuff as much as the next guy... but "free" enforced is communism.

if you want to know where free technology would lead us.. compaire the US automotive market with the russian one.

Do you really want that quality in our technology that will..very soon, be controlling our lives?

 

[Mystic]

if microsoft have, and probably will have there way, that will stop linux, as microsoft made the 1st OS, it would stop image editors such as GIMP etc, what if i couldnt afford dreamweaver, i couldnt get an open source program that does the same as nobody will have made one, oops, the idea was patented, i think paid software should still stay around, but not legalizing patents, the paid microsoft software could then be still available, but linux also available

 

[LeeRyder]

uhh..if i create something, be damned sure I dont want others copying it. a patent without teeth is not a patent, its a love letter.

 

[Mystic]

hmm, that shows greediness, if i create something, i dont mind other people using the idea


it would cause uproar, there is microsoft office and there is openoffice and a lot more, should we all be stuck with MS office as applications such as openoffice arent allowed

 

[LeeRyder]

no mystic, it creates capitalism.

take it from the greatest nations on the planet... the ONLY reasons why the world is as advanced to where it is.. it works.

in places where it isnt used or being abused:
china
russia
mid east
far east

tell me, what have they contributed to the growth of technology aside from being third world outhouse shops for the west? not alot sadly.

if you are paid by performance, you perform to a much higher quality.

there's a book that asserts this to the nth degree: Protestanism and the rise of the Western economy.

 

[primacomputer]

lol, i dont get people man. i love free stuff as much as the next guy... but "free" enforced is communism.

if you want to know where free technology would lead us.. compaire the US automotive market with the russian one.

Do you really want that quality in our technology that will..very soon, be controlling our lives?

Oh my God! I have GOT to have some of what you're smoking.

Free, in inverted commas, enforced, or otherwise is not communism. In a relevant context there is a massive amount of software that is free (unpatented or expired). It has not lead to the fall of capitalism. The current US rules for software patents were only defined in 1996, and it was only after that that companies started patenting software in significant volume. Are you proposing that we were all commies up until '96 without knowing it? I also note that air is free. Perhaps we are all air commies as well?

As far as the automotive market analogy I can't even think of how to respond to such silliness. What I can say is that I have been writing software professionally for over 20 years, I am not an open source zealot. I have a solid understanding of the commercial aspects of software development. I employ a number of people who develop software which we sell. And I oppose software patents.

Software patents are a bad thing. They do not protect or promote innovation, but rather provide a legal mechanism for companies to enforce proprietary standards and restrict interoperability. The filing fees and paperwork place an undue burden on small businesses while catering to large corporations with packs of lawyers. This is compounded by the way they are haphazardly issued by the PTO without any semblance of review. The vast majority should never have been issued had they been processed properly.

 

[Mystic]

:D someone who agrees, patents suck, and lee dont seem to understand, im not against paid software, im all for it, but im also up for people using my ideas etc, and im fully against software patents

 

[LeeRyder]

Free, in inverted commas, enforced, or otherwise is not communism

making a comparison to something is not saying its the same.

In a relevant context there is a massive amount of software that is free (unpatented or expired). It has not lead to the fall of capitalism.

nor did i say it would. dont add in from fantasy. free software is great, i use it all the time (please, do yourself a favor and visit the link in my sig). however, enforcing others to give away what they have spent time, money and talent to emply is a retarded idea and will give those business' little or nothing in terms of motivation to expand.

The current US rules for software patents were only defined in 1996, and it was only after that that companies started patenting software in significant volume. Are you proposing that we were all commies up until '96 without knowing it? I also note that air is free. Perhaps we are all air commies as well?

again, in your little fantasy, your adding things here that were not implied by me.

As far as the automotive market analogy I can't even think of how to respond to such silliness.

really? silliness?
OK, how is todays comp/web industry UNLIKE the Auto industry circa 1920? a little more thought in your replies please.

Software patents are a bad thing.

wrong. patents protect the patent holder of his intellectual copyrights and patents. without them, we would have30 different types of systems with maybe 20% working together.

I can only imagine the world today if Bill Gates hadn't taken the ropes and made it all proprietary

They do not protect or promote innovation, but rather provide a legal mechanism for companies to enforce proprietary standards and restrict interoperability.

your lack of understanding here is pretty immense.
see, without a defining force to drive the focus (read: getting everyone going in the same direction, on the same road) then again.. we would have redundancy not progress..add to that the lack of interoperability.. and your stagnant and only hurting progress as a whole.

The filing fees and paperwork place an undue burden on small businesses while catering to large corporations with packs of lawyers.

sniff sniff

This is compounded by the way they are haphazardly issued by the PTO without any semblance of review.

partly true, but at least there is some reality in this sentence.
however.. your neglectingthe fact that tm and copyright issues have always been self policing.
imagine the nightmares if we had to st up a beauracracy just to make sure everything was 100% unique.

trust me, the threat of legal action whiping out a decade worth of work and investment keeps most business' on their toes to not steal properties.

 

[Zeeble]

here we go again, Lee insulting someone.

ok Lee, first off, China is not a western out house. You need to really study economics to get a grasp of this. It has a lot to do with exchange rates.....

patents are both good and bad.
The problem is that it can lead to monopolies. E.g if eBay could have patented online auction systems....

 

[True_Snake]

I don't know .

A move to reduce competition, don't know how effective it'll be.


True_Snake

 

[Zeeble]

Patents are a bad idea, unless you are the software dev'er. In any case a software patent would probably be about as effective as a copyright on your source code becuase a patent ONLY protects the way in which you have made the software, and NOT the idea itself.

 

[theparrot]

here we go again, Lee insulting someone.

ok Lee, first off, China is not a western out house. You need to really study economics to get a grasp of this. It has a lot to do with exchange rates.....

Sure you don't mean comparitive advantage as the principal here. Exchange rates in the long term are the result of this, not the cause of.

Patents are a bad idea, unless you are the software dev'er. In any case a software patent would probably be about as effective as a copyright on your source code becuase a patent ONLY protects the way in which you have made the software, and NOT the idea itself.

a patent gives broader coverage then a copyright.

 

[Zeeble]

China has a massive advantage in the fact that it is far more competitetive than any EU countries, as well as the US.
It is only recently that China has started seriously trading with US and EU. China has become so competetive that Bush even recently blamed the recent US ecenomic downturn on China.

Yes, patents do give broader coverage, normally. But in the case of software, it is very limited. Remember that a patent cannot protect an idea.

 

[LeeRyder]

lol..its funny zeeble still tries to talk to me. interesting to read her quotes in others posts lol.

kinda funny ignoring her :P

 

[theparrot]

China has a massive advantage in the fact that it is far more competitetive than any EU countries, as well as the US.
It is only recently that China has started seriously trading with US and EU. China has become so competetive that Bush even recently blamed the recent US ecenomic downturn on China.

Yes, patents do give broader coverage, normally. But in the case of software, it is very limited. Remember that a patent cannot protect an idea.

Ummm... no, do not have a massive advantage across the board. They have some severe issues to deal with soon.

And Bush is wrong if he actually really even belives what he says about China being the cause of an economic downturn.

Have you studyed software? Have you read some court rulings on patents or had to code around some of them? I get the real feeling you have not from the way you talk.

 

[Zeeble]

I personally have not, but I have researched patents extensivelly. I am more familiar with online related patents...
But the fact still remains (this is what I have been told when I spoke to the UK patent office) that if software could be patented, then there would always be a way of making similar software but with different methods which are significantly different so that they cannot be identified with the original software. This is because ideas CANNOT be patented, but methods can e.g the vacuum cleaner is not patented but Dyson clyclone action vacuum cleaners are.

China does have a big advtange because they are so much more competetive in terms of labour prices, and labour is of course the biggest cost of most industrys which gives China a distinct advantage in manufacturing.
I agree, Bush was wrong, be he was right in the fact that China is affecting the US manufacturing profits and competetivness.

 

[theparrot]

I personally have not, but I have researched patents extensivelly. I am more familiar with online related patents...
But the fact still remains (this is what I have been told when I spoke to the UK patent office) that if software could be patented, then there would always be a way of making similar software but with different methods which are significantly different so that they cannot be identified with the original software. This is because ideas CANNOT be patented, but methods can e.g the vacuum cleaner is not patented but Dyson clyclone action vacuum cleaners are.

That is the theory. The practice is not always so clean. Firstly, it is not if software can be patented in the USA. This has now been the case. So we have caselaw and have had to deal with this issue for awhile now. Worse to deal with are submarine patents. Then there are some patents that seem so obvious you can not imagine who granted them (xor cursor comes to mind here). Yet they are. Ok, simple enough find prior art right? Probable is patents are presumed valid, so you have to file to fight them, and this costs a small fortune to a small company. They also have proven to extented pretty broadly, they describe the method in a general enough way that almost any way of doing it with zeros and ones is covered. Or the workaround uses much more time and/or memory. Not to mention the lack of interoperatbilty they may cause.

China does have a big advtange because they are so much more competetive in terms of labour prices, and labour is of course the biggest cost of most industrys which gives China a distinct advantage in manufacturing.
I agree, Bush was wrong, be he was right in the fact that China is affecting the US manufacturing profits and competetivness.

And they have large disadvantages in other areas, including creating a rule of law to support enterprise. Or in pooling capital, they are still a low trust society. This makes doing deals with people outside the circle of known people very slow. They have a large population that grew up thinking the state would take care of them, and they have a general view that does not support win win trading. Quality control is suspect in many cases, and add a lot to the costs. They win on large scale manufacturing, but not in medium and small scale. There are many other issues they have as well, but I imagine going through them all properly would make up a book.

 

[.X.]

I like free stuff as much as anybody,But software warrants patent,And so do alot of other things,If we could just everything for free,Well..we would have no stockmarket,Economy,Basically we would be totally ripping ourselves off from being able to have a better a life by working for it.But there are alot of people who don't want to work for anything,Have no goals,And have no problem living in a dump without airconditioning ect.They want it all handed to them for nothing.They wont make it far in life with that attitude IMO

 

[primacomputer]

making a comparison to something is not saying its the same.

You did not make a comparison. You said "but "free" enforced is communism."

nor did i say it would. dont add in from fantasy. free software is great, i use it all the time (please, do yourself a favor and visit the link in my sig). however, enforcing others to give away what they have spent time, money and talent to emply is a retarded idea and will give those business' little or nothing in terms of motivation to expand.

No one is forced to give away anything. Any software written is automatically protected by copyright law, and may not be used without permission—usually for a fee. Your statements bear little relation to relaity.

again, in your little fantasy, your adding things here that were not implied by me.

really? silliness?
OK, how is todays comp/web industry UNLIKE the Auto industry circa 1920? a little more thought in your replies please.

Fantasy? Please re-read your message to see what you actually said. I can't make head not tails of what you are saying here, and clearly neither can you

wrong. patents protect the patent holder of his intellectual copyrights and patents. without them, we would have30 different types of systems with maybe 20% working together.

A nice textbook response. Had you continued reading past the second paragraph you would have also learned that the patent law that patent law that served us perfectly fine from 1790 until just a few years ago specifically denied the right to patent certain things (such as software), for good reason.

I can only imagine the world today if Bill Gates hadn't taken the ropes and made it all proprietary

Great one Lee. You almost had me going there. For a minute I though you were serious, this is clearly a wind up.

your lack of understanding here is pretty immense.
see, without a defining force to drive the focus (read: getting everyone going in the same direction, on the same road) then again.. we would have redundancy not progress..add to that the lack of interoperability.. and your stagnant and only hurting progress as a whole.

My lack of understanding comes from over 20 years in the software industry. During that time I have worked with the SPA, patent attorneys, IPR companies, and run several sucesful software development companies. I'm sorry if this did not instil the great understanding that you achieved by putting some free software on a site to earn adsense revenue. I'm sure this qualifies you as an expert on the topic.

partly true, but at least there is some reality in this sentence.
however.. your neglectingthe fact that tm and copyright issues have always been self policing.
imagine the nightmares if we had to st up a beauracracy just to make sure everything was 100% unique.

Um, actually this is what patent reviewers are supposed to do, Make sure something is 100% unique. Like you say, it's difficult, and they regularly fail. And when they do silly patents are issued which are much harder to attack than defend.

trust me, the threat of legal action whiping out a decade worth of work and investment keeps most business' on their toes to not steal properties.

Like the threat of legal action from a failing company who is desperation tries to blackmail every Linux user in the world? But oh, SCO did that with copyright, not patents. So remind me why we need software patents again?