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| Authored by: indyandy on Thursday, August 02 2012 @ 05:27 PM EDT |
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| Authored by: Ian Al on Friday, August 03 2012 @ 06:00 AM EDT |
I think what you describe is a small set of worthless patents. The biggest
category is the incredibly broadly written patent that could be wrapped around
the solution to many categories of problem including abstract problems and is
then narrowed to on-a-computer and bent and twisted until it can be interpreted
in the light of how a piece of software is written.
Then the software publisher is sued for infringing an alleged invention which is
whatever the patent holder wants it to be.
The Oracle Java patents were refreshing in this respect because they were
specifically patents on how to write software. The resolution of text
symbolising virtual processor instructions to the code enacting the instructions
is a case in point. The patent is not about doing the resolution, because you
cannot run the instruction if you don't find the code to do it. The patent is
about when in the software process the software writer decides to find out where
the code is stored.
It's like a chair manufacturer making a decision on when to make reference to
the instructions for making a chair leg. Do it just before the chair leg is made
and you have infringed Oracle's patent, except, this is about writing software
rather than making chairs.
The Lodsys patents are about computers connected by the interweb doing things.
It is not about writing software at all. The things they have 'invented' are
just using standard software and the folk being accused of doing the things
don't even have the ownership of the computers, the internet and the software
concerned. If you did not know it was about computers communicating (and not
necessarily via the interweb) the text could refer to operating a nuclear power
station or the sales process in a department store chain.
It's these 'modelling clay' patents that can be moulded around anything the
patent holder wishes which are the broadest and most harmful category. The USPTO
are moving towards a better re-examination framework, but they have a very long
way to go. That the USPTO re-examined and approved the Oracle patent on a
non-language specific way of writing software code is a case in point.
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Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid![ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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