Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on July 01, 2005 12:13 PM
This paper is over 10 years old, but it is just as relevant today: <a href="http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/against-software-patents.html" title="mit.edu">http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/against-software-pa<nobr>t<wbr></nobr> ents.html</a mit.edu> .
This poster speaks of how patents are being used: to block competition, not to innovate. <a href="http://www.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=40668&cid=98829" title="newsforge.com">http://www.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=40668&ci<nobr>d<wbr></nobr> =98829</a newsforge.com>
"Thank you for your email on software patents.It is important to make it clear that this Directive is not intended, in any way, to open new patent opportunities for software."
My understanding is that current law allows no software patents whatsoever, but that this bill, if not ammended would allow many software patents. Software patents have not been necessary to allow investments into software or hardware. There was no shortage of software companies during the last two decades. Even in geographical areas with software patent protections, the numbers of software patents and challenges were much smaller than they are quickly becoming today.
How was it that so much innovation flourished with so few patents? The reason was that many, many programmer/inventors were able to focus on coming up with solutions, and every time they did, they were able to profit from their efforts. These inventors did not need to worry about being sued or taxed out of existance. They did not have to worry that the innovations they were coming up with were not being patented by someone else.
In the past, there was no need nor way to copy since, after all, most companies kept their code private. Today we have innovation at an even greater pace (too great a pace apparently) and a lot more code available for all to lean on, yet at this very time software patents are becoming a weapon of choice by companies that cannot innovate fast enough so as to quell the furious rate of open source innovations and fend off the smaller startups that are encroaching.
I find it difficult to imagine how a representative can explain to a constituency that somehow putting a heavy throttle on innovation is good for the consumer and good for the economy. On the other hand, I clearly understand that this is good for a minority of the citizenry, as it allows those that currently have much, to protect what they have because others will have to sit restless on the sidelines unable to contribute. Less competition means more for those at the top today.
All software is protected today because there is no law that forces software developers to reveal their code. Additionally, the developers can reveal code at their choosing under almost any imaginable licensing terms, and in fact many do so quite happily (usually, in return for kind).
Then come representatives introducing software patents so that a small group can lay claim to everyone else's thoughts. I would think I would be immune if my eyes did not stray and I came up with programs all by my self, but alas, this would not be so with software patents.
Supposedly patents existed to encourage investements, yet clearly they are not needed. It seems they are being introduced in order to save a weaker portion of our technology members from extinction or at least from having as much control as they have enjoyed in the past. These investors who cannot figure out how to invest wisely in today's changing world would resort to laws to chain the more fleet-footed foes via the very representatives of the people who are ultimately being so hurt. This does wonders for the future. How did the representatives figure out this was in their own best interests and in the best interests of their constituents?
Restrict people's freedom to work and earn based on their talents and daily problem-solving skills simply in order to save a dying monarchy. Beautiful.
If all of this is not clear enough, maybe it would help for me to be even a little more forward. Open source allows power to move closer to the individual. There are many more people that can get into the game without high capital startup costs. This is good for small businesses (consultants as well as their clients). The nature and low costs of collaboration and distribution over the Internet, and the large group of willing participants (including many PHD's), allow for this. Naturally, this puts larger players that can't adapt but which have remained in power by virtue of some of the powers their sheer size has afforded them in the past in danger (and likely today to be reduced in size somewhat). Modifying the law to allow software to be patentable, except under the most critically peer-reviewed ways to find the very small number that possibly merit worthy of some patent protection, is artificially damming back this natural flow of power to the people in order to preserve the status quo.
A last note.. as stated with the links above and shown by happenings, software patents have not been a necessary tool. It is almost impossible to get the "inventive step" analysis right. To get it right, at most tens of patents per year would be given anything but a trivial amount of government protection if any (something that clearly, to date, the patent offices have been incapable of doing and are logistically unable to do.. at least by themselves). Why so few merit-worthy patents? Because there is very little chance that if one tiny group of individuals can invent something, that the rest of the world cannot invent it and usually quicker (once the need arises or attention is diverted in that direction<nobr> <wbr></nobr>..if in fact some hadn't already come up with it but perhaps did not need to or have the time to publish). Even if thousands found the invention wonderful, there would still be many who would be able to do similar. So why put a chokehold on the community that is so capable together to give amazing protections to these very few?
[Other types of patents usually do not provoke as much uproar because there is a much smaller pool of inventors in those areas as the costs are usually non-trivial or involve a larger variety of skills (mechanical talents, or knowledge of (and acces to) a wide variety of materials and lab techniques, for example). In effect, each patent puts a "strangle-hold" on a much smaller number of inventors.. and ulitmately also affecting a much smaller number of consumers.]
I do hope if any software patents are allowed that the community finds ways around any that patent holders attempt to use to restrict this progress of science; however, it is entirely likely that these software patents will simultaneously be abused to put many small companies out of business, as these smaller entities cannot defend themselves well against the current onslaught of patents and large portfolios being amassed by a relatively few.
You can use any portion of this reply to send to your MEP or any other (if you don't want to go to the trouble to redo and assuming you agree), but please let me know: hozelda-at-yahoo.c.o.m. [the email only has letters and @ and . as appropriate/expected]
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What was the MEP thinking?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on July 01, 2005 12:13 PMThis poster speaks of how patents are being used: to block competition, not to innovate.
<a href="http://www.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=40668&cid=98829" title="newsforge.com">http://www.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=40668&ci<nobr>d<wbr></nobr> =98829</a newsforge.com>
"Thank you for your email on software patents.It is important to make it
clear that this Directive is not intended, in any way, to open new
patent opportunities for software."
My understanding is that current law allows no software patents whatsoever, but that this bill, if not ammended would allow many software patents. Software patents have not been necessary to allow investments into software or hardware. There was no shortage of software companies during the last two decades. Even in geographical areas with software patent protections, the numbers of software patents and challenges were much smaller than they are quickly becoming today.
How was it that so much innovation flourished with so few patents? The reason was that many, many programmer/inventors were able to focus on coming up with solutions, and every time they did, they were able to profit from their efforts. These inventors did not need to worry about being sued or taxed out of existance. They did not have to worry that the innovations they were coming up with were not being patented by someone else.
In the past, there was no need nor way to copy since, after all, most companies kept their code private. Today we have innovation at an even greater pace (too great a pace apparently) and a lot more code available for all to lean on, yet at this very time software patents are becoming a weapon of choice by companies that cannot innovate fast enough so as to quell the furious rate of open source innovations and fend off the smaller startups that are encroaching.
I find it difficult to imagine how a representative can explain to a constituency that somehow putting a heavy throttle on innovation is good for the consumer and good for the economy. On the other hand, I clearly understand that this is good for a minority of the citizenry, as it allows those that currently have much, to protect what they have because others will have to sit restless on the sidelines unable to contribute. Less competition means more for those at the top today.
All software is protected today because there is no law that forces software developers to reveal their code. Additionally, the developers can reveal code at their choosing under almost any imaginable licensing terms, and in fact many do so quite happily (usually, in return for kind).
Then come representatives introducing software patents so that a small group can lay claim to everyone else's thoughts. I would think I would be immune if my eyes did not stray and I came up with programs all by my self, but alas, this would not be so with software patents.
Supposedly patents existed to encourage investements, yet clearly they are not needed. It seems they are being introduced in order to save a weaker portion of our technology members from extinction or at least from having as much control as they have enjoyed in the past. These investors who cannot figure out how to invest wisely in today's changing world would resort to laws to chain the more fleet-footed foes via the very representatives of the people who are ultimately being so hurt. This does wonders for the future. How did the representatives figure out this was in their own best interests and in the best interests of their constituents?
Restrict people's freedom to work and earn based on their talents and daily problem-solving skills simply in order to save a dying monarchy. Beautiful.
If all of this is not clear enough, maybe it would help for me to be even a little more forward. Open source allows power to move closer to the individual. There are many more people that can get into the game without high capital startup costs. This is good for small businesses (consultants as well as their clients). The nature and low costs of collaboration and distribution over the Internet, and the large group of willing participants (including many PHD's), allow for this. Naturally, this puts larger players that can't adapt but which have remained in power by virtue of some of the powers their sheer size has afforded them in the past in danger (and likely today to be reduced in size somewhat). Modifying the law to allow software to be patentable, except under the most critically peer-reviewed ways to find the very small number that possibly merit worthy of some patent protection, is artificially damming back this natural flow of power to the people in order to preserve the status quo.
A last note.. as stated with the links above and shown by happenings, software patents have not been a necessary tool. It is almost impossible to get the "inventive step" analysis right. To get it right, at most tens of patents per year would be given anything but a trivial amount of government protection if any (something that clearly, to date, the patent offices have been incapable of doing and are logistically unable to do.. at least by themselves). Why so few merit-worthy patents? Because there is very little chance that if one tiny group of individuals can invent something, that the rest of the world cannot invent it and usually quicker (once the need arises or attention is diverted in that direction<nobr> <wbr></nobr>..if in fact some hadn't already come up with it but perhaps did not need to or have the time to publish). Even if thousands found the invention wonderful, there would still be many who would be able to do similar. So why put a chokehold on the community that is so capable together to give amazing protections to these very few?
[Other types of patents usually do not provoke as much uproar because there is a much smaller pool of inventors in those areas as the costs are usually non-trivial or involve a larger variety of skills (mechanical talents, or knowledge of (and acces to) a wide variety of materials and lab techniques, for example). In effect, each patent puts a "strangle-hold" on a much smaller number of inventors.. and ulitmately also affecting a much smaller number of consumers.]
I do hope if any software patents are allowed that the community finds ways around any that patent holders attempt to use to restrict this progress of science; however, it is entirely likely that these software patents will simultaneously be abused to put many small companies out of business, as these smaller entities cannot defend themselves well against the current onslaught of patents and large portfolios being amassed by a relatively few.
You can use any portion of this reply to send to your MEP or any other (if you don't want to go to the trouble to redo and assuming you agree), but please let me know: hozelda-at-yahoo.c.o.m. [the email only has letters and @ and . as appropriate/expected]
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