Why We Need Software Patents

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
I like these kinds of articles. It's almost like smacking a hornets nest with a big stick. :D

In last week’s ZDNet Great Debate, I argued in defense of software patents. This is not a popular position among heavy internet users, even though it is the current state of the law and industry practice, and in the popular vote I lost 89% to 11.
Click to expand...
 
Who could've guessed a lawyer would defend something that just so happens to generate billions of dollars in legal fees per year?
 
Hamish Campbell said:
Who could've guessed a lawyer would defend something that just so happens to generate billions of dollars in legal fees per year?
Click to expand...

He does say that the system needs to be revamped, but not removed entirely. Software patents still need to exist in some form, but what they have now is crap.
 
We need software patents so companies can live off 10 year old obvious software concepts while the industry grinds to a halt trying to do the same thing.

I know it's unrelated, but the fashion industry has a total of 0 patents...and that survives.
 
I'd love to read the article and provide some counters, but I literately have zdnet blocked in my host file. The site has so much bias against all things I stand for that I banned the site from my devices. I'm not about to give them any ad revenue.
 
Software does not need Patents. Software needs Copyrights. That is all. Although Richard Stallman would say differently, I say my work needs protection so it is not copied. If some long haired socialist hippie tells me otherwise, I'll let them meet my right hand capitalist fist.
 
I really do enjoy hearing good arguments that counter my beliefs but this article is pretty sparse with regards to proof. For example, take this paragraph:

Without the profit motive, we’d have had to wait for Al Gore to invent the internet and user interfaces would all look very FORTRAN. True, there’s a minority made up of people who will innovate without the motivation provided by the intellectual property laws, like the open source folks who do it either out of altruism and curiosity, or more often in the hopes of getting paid to support the product on an ongoing basis. But, the majority of people who will not innovate without the economic incentive the intellectual property laws provide.

Whatever percentage of innovation that majority group represents — and I’d argue it’s an overwhelming majority — is how much innovation we’ll lose if the current intellectual property laws protecting software were scrapped.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you can make the assertion that without software patents, we'd be using Windows 3.1 interfaces. In fact, I very much doubt that.
 
ballistic90 said:
He does say that the system needs to be revamped, but not removed entirely. Software patents still need to exist in some form, but what they have now is crap.
Click to expand...
Agreed, what's the current patent length 20 years (not including any extensions). That's a fucking eternity in software/computer terms. At most patents for software should last 2 years, you have 2 years to figure how to have your software be considered useful enough for people to want to use it and pay you patent fees, after that, public domain
 
No, software patents need to be scrapped entirely. Copyright law is sufficient.
 
Software patents mean patenting mathematical algorithms. It breaks the system fundamentally.

I'd argue for the complete opposite: we do not need patents any more in any form or shape. The copyright system we have is robust enough to serve that function. The patent system should be abolished.
 
soulman901 said:
I say my work needs protection so it is not copied. If some long haired socialist hippie tells me otherwise, I'll let them meet my right hand capitalist fist.
Click to expand...

We all owe an insurmountably large debt of ideas to the whole of humanity. That's real intellectual capitalism. You owe the public your ideas in exchange for the public ideas - language, controlled fire, the wheel, agriculture - that you use without payment.
 
We would be in worse shape with copyrights - even though the US Constitution says they shall be of short durartion, do you know that pre WWI (yes World War One) recordings have been given copyrights until at least 2050 - and with the power of Disney - copyrights are being extended and extended, despite the constitutional decree that they should be short. That would include APIs - against what the judge in Oracle vs. Google decided. Just think, in a math API if you copyrighted it, something like y = sin( x ) or worse yet, i++, could not be used in code as you violated the terms and ALL software development would come to a halt.
 
Thankfully I got to read the article and it is a little chilling why anyone would purposefully put themselves on this side. The author actually claims he only prefers the contrarian viewpoint as if to make himself seem more elite in his empty argument. He simply rehashes the little he has said in each section.

Now for some counter-points:

He claims 1) people would never be motivated to produce software without (let us call it patent litigation as that is the real bread winner) making money. He also claims that 2) there is no distinction between hardware and software, and 3) the open source world is a bad model for governing.

Rebuttals:

1) I am a paid software developer. I write PHP code that is used to produce a variety of business work-flows and application processes. Why do I write the code that I write? I get paid a yearly salary to produce code that results in other people using the software and increased efficiency in their day to day work. Is the software I write protected under some mythical patent? No. What good does it do if I prevent others from creating the same work-flow? I am already paid to develop the applications and the demand to produce the software is there. we do not need to sell it in bulk as we have clients that pay for its use already without license. The operating system I use to develop this supposedly altruistic code that I am making patent free and using basic logic to produce is Linux. It also comes without restrictions and allows me tog et my work done. Why do people work on it for free? Because it provides the best tool-set for my day to day job and those developers need access to unrestricted tools as well. If I could not use a basic tool/program provided due to a software patent, development would halt and future progress die. A software patent works against innovation contrary to what it does with hardware patents. Hardware patents force creative thinking and different vehicles for the same ability so as not to violate original patent. Software is too broad and mathematical to be patented and would stifle innovation.

2) The difference between software and hardware is very real and provable. A mechanical apparatus must be constructed in such a way that it can be produced and perform a specific task. This is done through a manufacturing process and requires real resources to build and perform work. Software uses no resources to be constructed and is purely an instructional guide to complete a sequence of mathematical events. Yes even the highest level programming language is simply a step by step guide on how data is manipulated. Anyone can discover better ways of manipulation and production without actually costing themselves resources and the production of the idea into reality can be done digitally meaning no labor is involved in the deployment only the original construction. Hardware is afforded patents because someone has to not only breakthrough the construction but has to use labor to produce the item and is rewarded on both fronts. Software once it is initially discovered how to do something more effectively can be immediately harnessed in any number of other software. In a purely capitalistic system only direct labor would bear benefits, see Marx's "Das Capital" for a reference.

3) It is unbelievable that one would argue against an altruistic government system that solely existed, by, and for the people. Oh wait that is the original America dream our forefathers established. If they had intended that ideas, completely intangible, be patented then they would have included it along side the constitutional clause on "useful arts", which in common tongue of the day meant works that were produced physically. Something akin to a poem or novel is already protected under copyright and need not a patent apply to it. Completely ripping off someones work verbatim is against a copyright; however, performing a method that produces a similar output to something is neither an infringement on copyright nor a violation of existing patent.

In summary, software will and is written with profit in mind without patent protection, and the restriction that their introduction would produce would cripple the world. Software is non-tangible an does not afford the same protection as apparatuses, and freedom and liberty are pillars of our nation.
 
DeathPrincess said:
We need software patents so companies can live off 10 year old obvious software concepts while the industry grinds to a halt trying to do the same thing.

I know it's unrelated, but the fashion industry has a total of 0 patents...and that survives.
Click to expand...

No, they have trademarks and trade dress/trade secret protections; that can get just as nasty.
 
stevejg61 said:
That would include APIs - against what the judge in Oracle vs. Google decided. Just think, in a math API if you copyrighted it, something like y = sin( x ) or worse yet, i++, could not be used in code as you violated the terms and ALL software development would come to a halt.
Click to expand...

Thankfully I use ++i and I filed a copyright on that.
 
I've been programming professionally since the late 80s. I've always felt that software patents were a bad idea that should never have been allowed to happen. But then, I've got a problem with whole patent/copyright system in general. Ultimately they stifle creativity and innovation. While the lawyers will of course disagree all industries would be way better off without them.
 
"Intellectual property" is a weak concept to begin with. Software patents are the most egregious misapplication of that concept.
 
Patents are intended to cover an *implementation*. Software patents are covering an *idea*.

Software patents need to be eliminated because they are not patents at all, and not in the spirit of a patent either.

I think the biggest counterpoint possible is that the article is hosted on stuff built without patents, connected to a network built without patents, powered by servers without patents, programmed in languages without patents, etc... The entire internet and modern computer was built without needing software patents.
 
kllrnohj - That's a very succinct and to the point summary indeed :) That's the only explanation one'd ever need to realize why software patents should be abolished right away.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top