Microsoft's Android Shakedown (Forbes)
Microsoft's Android Shakedown (Forbes)
This
Forbes article on software patents and Android probably has little that
is new for LWN readers, but it is a clear explanation of the situation and
the problems with software patents. "Getting software patents takes
a lot of work, but it's not primarily engineering effort. The complexity of
software and low standards for patent eligibility mean that software
engineers produce potentially patentable ideas all the time. But most
engineers don't think of these relatively trivial ideas as 'inventions'
worthy of a patent. What's needed to get tens of thousands of patents is a
re-education campaign to train engineers to write down every trivial idea
that pops into their heads, and a large and disciplined legal bureaucracy
to turn all those ideas into patent applications.
"