War against software patents

Open Source allies target software patents

http://news.com.com/Open-source+allies+go+on+patent+offensive/2100-7344_3-5827844.html?tag=nefd.lede
from JoeUser Forums

Software patents are the devil. Let me get that out of the way.  My day job is writing commercial software so it's not just open-source people who don't like software patents.  Software patents are incredibly prone to abuse and are really only of use to companies with deep pockets to enforce their patent.

In 1995, Stardock considered getting a software patent.  It had come up with a way to embed web-based content into the desktop.  So users would be able to have pieces of their desktop wallpaper be displaying information and data from the Internet via web portals in the desktop itself.  This was 3 years before Active Desktop made its debut.  But as we started to go through the patent process, we realized that it would be incredibly expensive to enforce because the patent office itself was incredibly backward technologically. They didn't understand what we were trying to patent so enforcing the patent against violators would have been tricky.

Software patents can also have a chilling effect on innovation.  For example, imagine if Stardock had patented the technology behind WindowBlinds.  Windows XP would have had to license it from Stardock or fight Stardock's patent (ironically, Microsoft went ahead and patented their uxtheme implementation despite the fact that it's the same as what WindowBlinds does but we don't care as long as they don't try to enforce their patent). 

Not having software patents doesn't hurt intellectual property rights.  Patents are just one form of protection.  There is still copyright and there's trade secrets.  Admittedly, trade secrets are tougher in software because some companies will run people's software through a decompiler to see how it works and can make a copy of it that way. 

No system is perfect and in a world with "one-click purchase" patents and other such nonsense, I think we have to pick with lesser of two evils.

6,078 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Patents might have been a good idea, but I think it's been exploited. Not just within software, but everything. Even lifesaving medicine.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I completely agree.

Software patents only benefit global corporations who
want to be able to stop small companies from coming up
with new, better solutions.

Here's some recommended reading:

GLOBAL PATENT COSTS MUST BE REDUCED
http://www.idea.piercelaw.edu/articles/36/36_2/10.Berrier.pdf

"For example, with a total patent cost of $472,414, filing ten global applications each year and maintaining the resultant patents would eventually result in an annual cost of about $5 million and fifty global applications per year would lead to an annual cost of about $24 million. Most companies cannot afford an annual patent portfolio budget of $24 million. Yet there are many companies that issue more than one hundred U.S. patents a year, and there are some companies that issue around one thousand patents annually.
Global protection at this level, for the full twenty- year patent term, can lead to costs of $500 million a year!"
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Having been on the receiving end of intellectual property theft, I have to say there are two sides to every story. We have learned (through experience) that a patent is sometimes the only way to prevent unscrupulous parties from taking your intellectual property, claiming it as their own, and then trying to sue you to prevent you from using your own invention. In my job we're normally in an ivory tower (research), so this isn't a case uf just of us being in the wrong field or "swimming with the sharks". So I guess my two cents would be to focus on the tighter problem of what exactly we're giving patents for and for more thorough review of the subject matter before accepting the either the application or granting an application. That would help prevent unscrupulous users abusing public domain ideas and trying to lock up a technology for themselves. The concept of a patent in and of itself is still a good one; I think the focus should be on how to prevent abuse.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I have seen the benefits of patents in protecting a company that I work for from a devious company with deep pockets who claimed that some of our designs were stolen from their products.

The patent records helped win the case for us by supplying legal recourse on the design we use.

I do know that the process is slow, and creates a lot of extra work for a benefit that may or may not be needed - depending on the particular market a company is in, and what the overall value is in protecting a product or design.

You just don't want to be in a situation where you are thinking "I wish we had done that".
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/12/149231&tid=109&tid=155

Give that one a shot.

"A method and apparatus are provided for visually emphasizing all of the numerical data contained in an electronic document. A determination is made as to whether a request to emphasize all of the numerical data in the electronic document has been received. If such a request is received, all of the numerical data within the electronic document is located and emphasized. Emphasizing may include adding a highlighting attribute to the located numerical data or adding other formatting to visually distinguish the numerical data from the remainder of the electronic document. A request may also be received to deemphasize the located numerical data. In response to receiving such a request, the emphasis is removed from the located numerical data."

Maybe I am oversimplifying, but that appears to me to be a patent on highlighting the numbers in a document.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
No that's what it is about BakerStreet.

It's like when you use the Google cache when searching for different criteria.
The returned links have your specified words highlighted in the pages.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That's not what it says, though, it says:

"A method and apparatus are provided for visually emphasizing all of the numerical data contained in an electronic document. A determination is made as to whether a request to emphasize all of the numerical data in the electronic document has been received. If such a request is received, all of the numerical data within the electronic document is located and emphasized."


They don't specify "all" over and over by accident, that appears to me to be what sets their claim apart from something like Google's highlighting.

AH, and they also specify that you can DE-highlight it. GENIOUS!

Granted, I could do the same thing with a simple regex expression, but hey, not all of us are silly enough to believe we can get something like that patented.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
BakerStreet: you must have missed the word "like" in my comment.
It was an example of the visual feedback.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The US patent office is totally out of control. They are issuing patents based on the flimsiest of reasons.
The whole legislation needs a total overhaul and some sense brought into it.
be nice to see laws forcing a maximum time limit allowed for a patent to be applied for after a work is finished.
Also a time limit to see a patent end if the work is not marketed in a given time.
Ideas and theories should not be allowed patents or copywrite protection.
At least this would force innovation into the market faster and stop tinpot entities tying up courts over ridiculous lawsuits.
Patents. Another moneymaking idea created by lawyers.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Here's another good read on how absurd things can get:

Hey. This First-to-File Thing Is Scary
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050814182026814