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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 15 2012 @ 01:28 AM EDT |
>> Yes, many software engineers might be able to come up with the same
conceptual solution to a problem, but the execution of this will be harder. A
lot of what makes software useful is the accuracy, time complexity, and all the
'engineering' parts of software engineering. There is still as much engineering
that goes into software as any other engineering discipline; software might
actually be the most complicated machines we've ever made.
First, let's make it clear that the patent claims are extremely general. They
are not source code or even close. They are a description of what is to exist at
the highest/broadest level possible and do not include the complex source code
of the many layers of software necessary to achieve it atop a common general
computing device. So your argument does not apply, unless you were talking about
copyright protections or trade secrets, both of which do exist and are very
different than patents.
Additionally, all software is independent of the real world, not just because
the virtual results/effects on a screen are not limited by the real version of
what's on that screen (ie, not limited by mother nature), but in terms of
costs/limited resources needed to take the invention into a business and which
has served as the main excuse to have powerful patent protection in the first
place (to give time to the creator to manufacture and make a buck). There are no
costs to reproduce a program and its results 1 billion times (trivial costs are
mostly absorbed by those doing the copying).
Software is already protected by copyrights and trade secrets. These are extra
protections beyond what many people doing difficult businesses get. And software
businesses can be very profitable (look at industry numbers) without any appeal
to patents.
As for complexity, if we assume a future requirement by USPTO for reams and
reams of source code to form the patent claims, it would still be true that
mathematicians and many others have done very difficult and challenging work for
centuries without getting patent protection. Why are you crying about patent
protections for software engineers when mathematicians (and software engineers
of the past) have not had them and have done just fine being motivated?
Patents add costs to the industry and destroy a lot of novelty done by those who
would have infringed. Why are we looking to create more monopolies in the market
place? You would have to argue that these monopolies would create something that
makes significantly improvements to society/consumers as a whole.
>> I'd suggest an exception for software: 10 year maximum term, probably
even as low as 2. However, I'd also posit that 20 years is too long for most
industries considering the accelerating speed of innovation that we've seen
since patent laws were originally drafted.
I agree on the thrust of this, but disagree that most pure software inventions
require anything beyond 0 years.. at least with the current patent laws (eg, the
inventiveness bar that is very low and is why claims are so broad).
Now, if we change enough of patent law, we can make it palatable to have
software patents, but then we might just end up with something like copyright.
So the question is, why do we want to bother to shift patent law for software to
essentially make it copyright law? .. unless of course you mean to create weaker
protection than current copyright law. In that case, I would agree with
weakening copyright law and patent law and so do researchers: copyright and
patent laws go too far today in general.
--Jose_X[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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