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How about countersuing?How about countersuing?Posted Apr 21, 2006 2:19 UTC (Fri) by Arker (guest, #14205)In reply to: How about countersuing? by JoeBuck Parent article: Write Free Software, Pay $203,000 to Patent Holder (Right to Create)
It doesn't appear he did it first - his first release is before the patent application, but well after the official 'date of discovery.'
Regardless, it's an excellent example of how patents stifle innovation. Even if this guy WAS the very first person in the world to conceive of using java to control a model railroad... so what? Why does that give him the right to prohibit anyone else from writing code for that purpose in that language? And how does giving him that monopoly in any way encourage progress in the sciences? Plainly the effect is the opposite.
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How about countersuing? Posted Apr 21, 2006 14:51 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link] Well, the *theory* is that patents encourage the inventor to disclose how the invention works, so that others can improve or build on it. Whn that happens, those people can similarly patent their improvements; if those improvements use the original invention, the result would still require a license of the original patent, as well as any license required by the inventor of the improvement.
The alternative would be that inventors go to excessive lengths to keep their inventions secret, by such means as hiding them inside opaque mechanisms, by licensing them instead of selling them, or by selling their use as a service instead of selling products tham embody the invention.
If medicines, for instance, could not be patented, you might need to go to a licensed clinic to get a shot of some secret substance when you were sick, rather than being able to buy a pill at your local pharmacy. And other companies would not be able to explore improvements on the drug or better ways of making it, because they wouldn't be able to find out what the chemical basis of the drug was or how to make it.
So, yes, patents probably do promote progress in many areas, when compared to the alternative of trade secrets. Whether software is such an area, whether the patent duration is fair, whether the duration should be the same for all kinds of patent, and whether the patent office grants many patents that really should have been rejected as obvious, trivial, or non-innovative are separate issues...
How about countersuing? Posted Apr 21, 2006 16:32 UTC (Fri) by jayorke (guest, #10685) [Link] Patent law is flawed in that it seems to presume that in this increasingly well educated world with a population of 5 or more billion people that a person could invent something that nobody else could invent without stealing the idea. I think someone who actually believes they have invented the otherwise uninventable to be a little arrogant. I fully support copyright law and believe that people that do the work of inventing should be rewarded but I find it ridiculous to think that every thought that comes out of someones mind should need to be run against the patent database to ensure its originality. The flaw in a test of obviousness is that it doesn't properly deal with the question "obvious to who?" What may be obvious to a group of physicists who have performed similar research and have similar skills is quite different from what is obvious to other members of the population. I don't see how it could ever be justified that an inventor who never saw the works of another could owe someone for the idea they thought out in their own head.
How about countersuing? Posted Apr 21, 2006 17:05 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] That's covered: obvious to one skilled in the art.
Alas the lawyers have mangled this definition to the point of uselessness in some countries (to such an extent that patent lawyers and not programmers are taken to be the ones skilled in the art with respect to computing patents), and the patent examiners aren't sufficiently skilled.
(IANAL.)
How about countersuing? Posted Apr 22, 2006 14:00 UTC (Sat) by Kmaurer (guest, #12642) [Link] The key to this whole scenario is self interest. Humanity has to evolve past self interest in order to progress as a species. Only when we can view inovation and progress in light of the greater good will we stand a chance of avoiding extinction. Competition relies on the expertise of one indiviual over another. Cooperation blends the best everyone has to offer. Awareness raising and understanding are the long term organic antidotes to suing eachother. Let's hope we have enough time for them to take hold.
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