∞ Software and patent trolls

Written by

NPR:

Patents are a big deal in the software industry right now. Lawsuits are proliferating. Big technology companies are spending billions of dollars to buy up huge patent portfolios in order to defend themselves. Computer programmers say patents are hindering innovation.

Personally, I think companies and individuals should be able to protect their products and ideas. However, the balance seems to be off kilter these days.


  • http://www.thegraphicmac.com JimD

    Protect their work, blah, blah, blah. The problem is that few companies are using patents to “protect their work” anymore. They’re HOPING somebody infringes on their “idea” so they can earn an income.

    Personally, I don’t think any patent should be validated until a company can:
    A)Show it in a working product, not a prototype or drawing.

    B)Continue to show (YEARLY) that they are earning an income off selling/using it. 

    C) Only recover lost wages/earnings based on their own sales. So if the company is only making $50k per year off the patented product, then that’s the maximum amount they can recover from an infringing company. If they aren’t earning anything at all because they didn’t actually create a product/service from the patent, then they get nothing more than the satisfaction of having the infringing company having to stop.

    Notice I didn’t use the word “idea” anywhere. Get rid of that too. I have ideas all day long, if I don’t make them happen then it’s my own tough luck. No more of these patents granted based on drawings and theory describing “method in which…”

    The current patent system isn’t hindering innovation – It killed it years ago.

  • His Shadow

    My two cents.

    SoftWare is math. Math is particular arrangements of numbers and symbols. This is it’s language. You can’t patent a variation of English, but you can copyright a work *written* in English. And with the right protections, can copyright that work even when it’s translated to another language. You can copyright Harry Potter. You can’t copyright English. You can patent a process to make better paper, but you can’t

    • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

      One moment, while I retrieve my Trek technical manuals and a highlighter…

  • http://twitter.com/Questional Questional

    Jim has hit this on the head. Laws meant to protect products, procedures and properties have been turned into weapons. Unfortunately the deeper we get into this century the less likely it seems we’ll be able to hit upon effective legislation without erasing previous legislation. The computer age and the analog-days-gone-by are not compatible.