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Does no one see the implications for patents?Does no one see the implications for patents?Posted May 9, 2012 18:39 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333)In reply to: Does no one see the implications for patents? by dgm Parent article: SAS v. WPL decision addresses boundaries of copyrights on software (opensource.com)
> The point of patents is limited monopolization of ideas in exchange of publication.
That doesn't conflict with anything I said.
> It's my belief that they were invented to discourage secret recipes that would die with their inventor.
I think that forcing people to document their inventions in the public domain was one of the justifications for having monopolies over processes, but I don't think it's a primary purpose at all.
> This does not apply to software as a product (when you get a copy that you can study, even in binary form) but could apply to software as a service (when you only get the results).
Well you can study a mouse trap and understand how it works. Yet a mouse trap is still patentable. Most functional devices are like that. You can reverse engineer most of them and understand how a patented invention works without having to review the patent.
So there really isn't any logical line you can draw between something that you can 'study' versus something you cannot as criteria of patent-ability. That is to say that there is nothing unique here as far as software is concerned.
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Does no one see the implications for patents? Posted May 9, 2012 20:44 UTC (Wed) by jthill (guest, #56558) [Link] I think that forcing people to document their inventions in the public domain was one of the justifications for having monopolies over processesI'm pretty sure
Does no one see the implications for patents? Posted May 12, 2012 21:03 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I think that forcing people to document their inventions in the public domain was one of the justifications for having monopolies over processes, but I don't think it's a primary purpose at all. I wouldn't say forcing, any more than I'd say the tax credit for oil exploration forces people to explore for oil. I also don't think that the eventual passing of the invention into the public domain was the essential goal. The essential goal was the immediate disclosure of the invention. There's lots society can do with knowledege of an invention even without the ability to make, use, or sell it. Beside that, with the monopoly in place, inventors are better able to sell the ability to make, use, and sell to others for a reasonable price. But that's just historical. Today, many people recognize an equally important reason for the monopoly: to encourage people to invent in the first place. Sometimes that's expensive and a monopoly means the inventor can get paid back.
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