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An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski caseAn opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski casePosted Apr 9, 2008 14:41 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544)In reply to: An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski case by elanthis Parent article: An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in Bilski case rehearing
When we we're proposing anti-swpat legislation in the EU in 2005, we defined patentability so that the innovation had to occur in the use of applied natural science. Thus, bundling an innovative software idea with a non-innovative computer wouldn't make the whole patentable. I guess the ESP campaign have a similar end goal. Here's an analysis I wrote of the amendments we proposed in the EU:
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An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski case Posted Apr 9, 2008 17:39 UTC (Wed) by jgjf (guest, #26728) [Link]
I find that statement evocative. In fact, that is probably the most useful point of view I have come upon for distinguishing this idea of "patentable", a kind of looking at "patenetable" from the "other direction", by asking "What is the consequence of not patenting this idea?" So, if we examine the answer to the question "What if society does not make the exchange, and this/some idea remains a trade secret, has society lost anything, is society any more limited?" It is easy to see, then, that for many, or most, "patented" ideas, including "patented software" ideas, the answer is "No." Most often, there are many other clever people in society who can find a method to achieve the same desired result, otherwise disclosed in some effectively unnecessary patent, without having to rely upon someone else's secrets. This is most obvious in situations in which serveral people come up with the same idea at the same time, which might otherwise effectively define the phrase "obvious to someone skilled in the art". Now, where there exists an idea which:
Of course, there is also the issue of synergy. People in a group seem to be much more productive building upon each other's work. This is the idea behind the disclosure of trade secrets. For a lot of people, though, the real issue is not synergy or productivity, but instead, protectionism, control, and domination. Phrase for the week: Disclosure of Trade Secrets.
An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski case Posted Apr 9, 2008 21:12 UTC (Wed) by droundy (subscriber, #4559) [Link] I find that statement evocative. In fact, that is probably the most useful point of view I have come upon for distinguishing this idea of "patentable", a kind of looking at "patenetable" from the "other direction", by asking "What is the consequence of not patenting this idea?"You make some good points, but leave out the situation in which patents are truly beneficial, which is not situations where the patent lures out into the open what would otherwise be a trade secret, but rather techniques which would never be developed if it weren't for the profit provided by patent protection. For instance, the development of new medicines is incredibly expensive, but once a drug is developed, it's impossible to keep its formula as a secret. If it weren't easy to analyze it to determine what it's made of, we'd require that the drug manufacture publicize it anyways, so that we can reasonably test its safety. I doubt that there are very many areas of technology in which a research effort is only justified by the possibility of patent protection. But on the other hand, as far as I know there is only one company left in the US that arguably does "pure" research (IBM), which suggests that perhaps the rules aren't overly biased in the inventor's favor. In any case, as far as I can tell, the appropriate question when considering the utility of patents is not "What is the consequence of not patenting this idea?" but rather "Would this idea be developed if it couldn't be patented."
An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski case Posted Apr 9, 2008 23:11 UTC (Wed) by aegl (subscriber, #37581) [Link] For several decades compamies seemed happy to spend money on developing software without the potential benefits of patenting that software. Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, SAP, etc. all were founded and grew in a legal environment that did not allow software to be patented. So the question of whether anyone would bother to develop software without the benefits of a patent system to protect their work has already been answered.A better question would be: "Did the decision to allow patents on software result in increased innovation?"
medical patent benefits questionable as well Posted Apr 10, 2008 4:01 UTC (Thu) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] Actually, patents in the medical arena are rather questionable as well.From (copied from http://www.tomhull.com/blog/archives/540-Patent-Myths.html): The extraordinary profits attainable via patents steers privately funded research toward patentable products, away from any refinement of proven generic treatments. The research is mostly done in secret, where other researchers cannot critique or contribute. The results, and their marketing, are colored by business interests. ... Needless to say, the recent high profile drug recalls (Vioxx, depression drugs, etc), and issues with "new" drugs (patent protected of course) being less effective than old generic ones (but that fact hidden by bad, misleading or incomplete pharma-funded studies) highlight this perfectly.
An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski case Posted Apr 10, 2008 13:02 UTC (Thu) by rwmj (guest, #5474) [Link] The assumption is that if there are no patents, people will keep their ideas as trade secrets, and if there are patents, the public will be restricted for 20 years, but at least then they get access to the idea. (In addition to your arguments ..) This idea really belongs to the age of alchemy. For many years now it has been possible, in fact easy, to reverse engineer any product. Be it using a mass spectrometer to accurately determine the content of a new drug, or using a disassembler to find out how software really works, or using X-ray techniques to look inside supposedly "secure" processors. There is no need to use patents to protect us from trade secrets any more. If you want a more legal argument, then consider this: our governments grant incorporation rights to companies, and if we want we can stop a company from hiding secrets by removing those incorporation rights (which, amongst other things, would mean you could imprison the directors). Rich.
An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski case Posted Apr 12, 2008 16:03 UTC (Sat) by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093) [Link] I think the analog of "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" is that "in a widely educated society, all patents fail the 'obviousness' test". Because practically every new development is "obvious to one skilled in the art", patents should only be awarded for ideas so novel that only one person in a billion could come up with them!
An opportunity to End Software Patents: ESP briefs Court in its historic rehearing of the Bilski case Posted Apr 14, 2008 4:21 UTC (Mon) by nlucas (subscriber, #33793) [Link] Saw an interesting idea recently, which seems obvious, but have never seen anyone using it earlier: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8SsGjjMEEDw Uses technology that could be done 1000 years ago, but no one did it before (from my knowledge). Now, could this be patentable? I can imagine a full range of devices (maybe using optic fibers) that would allow a lot of people to don't waste money on day lights (specially on warm climates).
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