Free?

[Sean Kelly]

I think software patents will be eliminated before too terribly long.  I've read some detailed articles on patents and copyright, and the conclusion was basically what you've said. Copyright has helped innovation while patents have hampered it. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 24, 2011, at 7:54 AM, "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:39:54 -0400, Kagamin <spam at here.lot> wrote:
> 
>> Chante Wrote:
>> 
>>> While I haven't thought it through (and maybe don't have the knowledge to
>>> do so), elimination of software patents was something I had in mind as a
>>> potential cure for the current state of affairs (not a cure for viral
>>> source code though). Of course, noting that first-to-file is now the
>>> thing, it appears (to me) that Big Software Corp and Big Government are
>>> on one side, humanity on the other.
>> 
>> Patents are seen to exist for humanity. Elimination of patents is equivalent to elimination of intellectual property. You're not going to succeed on that. But GPL3 at least protects you from patent claims from the author, so you'd better use it. You're afraid of others, but GPL can also protect *your* code.
> 
> Patents are to foster innovation.  Software innovation needs no patent system to foster it.  Nobody writes a piece of software because they were able to get a patent for it.
> 
> I feel software patents are a completely different entity than material patents.  For several reasons:
> 
> 1. Software is already well-covered by copyright.
> 2. With few exceptions, the lifetime of utility of a piece of software is well below the lifetime of a patent (currently 17 years).
> 3. It is a very slippery slope to go down.  Software is a purely *abstract* thing, it's not a machine.  It can be produced en mass with near-zero cost.  It can be expressed via source code, which is *not* a piece of software.  There is a very good reason things like music, art, and written works are not patentable.  Free speech is at odds with software patents.
> 4. Unlike a physical entity, it is very likely a simple individual, working on his own time with his own ideas, can create software that inadvertently violates a "patent" with low cost.  To restrain free-thought like this goes against the spirit of the patent system.  The patent system when it was designed, protected the little guys who have good ideas from the giants who were the only ones capable of stealing them.  Software patents are the other way around, and serve as a barrier to entry more than a system to foster new ideas.  By the time you are able to "build on" an expired patent's ideas, the technology is long obsolete.
> 5. The patent office does *NOT UNDERSTAND* software, so they are more apt to grant trivial patents (e.g. one-click).
> 
> My take:  Either software patents should be *elminiated* entirely, or reduced to a reasonable software lifetime (e.g. 2 years).
> 
> -Steve