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I'm about ready to agree with you | 381 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Patents save lives ...
Authored by: Wol on Friday, May 24 2013 @ 08:01 AM EDT
Yes it's true. Look at Patent Number 1. Granted by King someone-or-other.

It was a patent on birthing paddles, and was used to persuade the inventor to
drop his cloak of secrecy. Because he was repeatedly saving women who would have
died in childbirth.

So patents, done properly, are a good thing. Snag is, probably most patents
since then aren't done properly. The 0.01% of decent patents are used to justify
the rest of them. Over history they've probably killed many more than they've
saved.

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Limiting to software is easier
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 24 2013 @ 04:44 PM EDT

And it hasn't been easy to convince Judges (and impossible to convince some Patent Lawyers) that software is nothing but abstract concepts applied to a device created to handle those concepts.

You know.... like using your calculator to calculate the measurements of a particular triangle.

As hard a battle as that is, trying to take on all patents - including those applied against specific physical devices - is probably pretty near impossible.

And by that I mean: the Law can be reasonably read today to make* software non-patentable subject matter.

But the Law is not reasonably read to make all subject matter not patent-eligible.

Very different wars!

* I say "make" because earlier on when we (the people actually coding) where busy creating things, certain Patent Lawyers managed to convince the Patent System that software is patent eligible subject matter..... convinced without our input into the matter.

    Thomas Jefferson: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
We were not very vigilant - we the experts of the software field. And many other experts of their associating fields likely weren't any more vigilant and so lost things they previously had available - like genetic examination.

It takes all of us focused on battling our unique areas of expertise to stem the tide of what certain Patent Lawyers would like done.

And you're suggesting instead of just fighting to stem the tide that we don't just push it back, but stop it completely.

When the War is being so fiercely fought, the only thing one can do is aim for the smaller - yet significant - wins with a hope that everything will work out in the end.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

I'm about ready to agree with you
Authored by: OpenSourceFTW on Saturday, May 25 2013 @ 01:51 AM EDT
I think we may have achieved a level of progress that obviates the need for
patents at all.

The common argument is that the Pharma companies need them to recoup their dev
costs. However, I hear it is quite a mess there too, with the strange deals and
stuff. Generics keep getting pushed back more and more, and get more expensive.

At least go back to requiring a working model.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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