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| Authored by: mrisch on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 07:31 PM EDT |
I hear you, but is this an issue with software patents or
patents in general? Someone else would have invented the
cotton gin, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, the
television, the transistor, etc. given enough time and
requirements (and in some cases, someone else did!). And all
the people who were second or third to do so had this same
complaint. I'm not saying that it's not a valid complaint -
I'm just saying that I'm not sure software is the issue.
The purpose of the patent system (in part) is to encourage
people to identify needs, develop requirements and
solutions, and implement them faster than we ordinarily
would. And if someone does, yes, we let them parcel out who
gets to make a living implementing that solution in the
future (maybe too long in the future - there is an argument
that patent terms are too long).
But we want those solutions to be novel and nonobvious - and
if they are we protect them. As I note, a problem with
software is that the patents are often not novel or
nonobvious (or they are too broad). It is a real problem if
we have too many patents that don't meet the criteria (and
we definitely do).[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: jesse on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 07:45 PM EDT |
All computers are based on boolean algebra for the purpose of performing
mathematical operations. The processor can do nothing else.
All software is nothing but applied mathematics.
All software is abstract symbolic manipulation.
So how can software be patented?
As far as engineering goes - mathematics is used to model physical reality, that
does not make the mathematics real (which is why there are errors).
Engineering is the application of mathematical models to design physical things.
When the model is wrong, so are the physical things. In addition, reality bites
- Not that the math need be wrong, but that the physical substances used are not
ideal substances that are facets of the math model. This induces failures - to
"identical" physical items are not identical - each has different
(though slight) compositions, different micro/nano structures, and different
failure situations. This is why all engineering operations include error terms
that attempt to define the "proper" operating range for the physical
items, and this allows for modeling "ideal" items in mathematics.
Just because engineering uses mathematics, is no reason to confuse the abstract
"ideal" items with reality.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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