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EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend InnovationEFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend InnovationPosted Jun 20, 2012 7:13 UTC (Wed) by job (guest, #670)In reply to: EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend Innovation by slashdot Parent article: EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend Innovation
Most probably. Software is a wide field. My first guess would be around audio/video codecs, seeing there are companies started just to develop one algorithm which has some clear incremental improvement on established ones with the clear goal of licensing it out. But is the presence of these businesses enough evidence to support software patents? Most certainly not.
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EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend Innovation Posted Jun 20, 2012 16:03 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (subscriber, #74652) [Link] In designing codecs (and places where advanced math techniques are required to solve a practical problem with limited resources) at least a certain degree of real innovation is required. It is similar to hardware techniques really, only that with current technology, hardware and software can sometimes be mixed and matched. For example a certain Viterbi algorithm can be written all in software, or have a chip to do the same thing faster (or with less power consumption), or one may write an FPGA software to do that on programmed hardware. The problem with such true innovations is that standards start using them, and at some point we all have to pay taxes. IMO, the real problem however is with clear to software community, not so clear to patent officers, pseudo-innovative ideas, specially through hired pseudo-innovators, people with advanced degrees that sit in a cubicle and come up problematic software patents. Then lawyers obfuscate the wording to an extent the original author will not understand a word. Unfortunately, sometimes companies with general policy against software patents need those professionals just to come up with defensive patents. I do not know a small company could have afforded to defend against some of those obviously stupid patents (such as pop-up), let alone something like recent Oracle vs Google over Java API.
EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend Innovation Posted Jun 20, 2012 17:58 UTC (Wed) by tterribe (✭ supporter ✭, #66972) [Link]
> In designing codecs (and places where advanced math techniques are
> required to solve a practical problem with limited resources) at least a > certain degree of real innovation is required.
Speaking as someone who designs codecs for a living, I'm going to have to call BS here. I'll just quote http://wiki.xiph.org/A_Digital_Media_Primer_For_Geeks_%28...
"Digital media, compression especially, is perceived to be super-elite, somehow incredibly more difficult than anything else in computer science. ... This is bunk. Digital audio and video and streaming and compression offer endless deep and stimulating mental challenges... just like any other discipline."
Personally, I don't claim to have ever done anything innovative in my entire career. _Everything_ I've done has been small, "obvious", incremental steps built on top of someone else's work, just like in every other software field. And most actual patents in this space are for exceptionally narrow "innovations" that have very little value themselves (it's usually trivial to accomplish the same things in a slightly different manner), but gain their value solely because they happen to cover the exact thing done in some standard.
The concept is called "patent hold-up". We discuss it extensively here: http://xiph.org/press/2011/ftc/
For an excellent summary of how standards production itself is harmed, not helped, by patents, see http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2010-April/003769....
EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend Innovation Posted Jun 21, 2012 10:29 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>Speaking as someone who designs codecs for a living, I'm going to have to call BS here. I'll just quote http://wiki.xiph.org/A_Digital_Media_Primer_For_Geeks_%28...
BTW I heartily recommend this to anyone who hasn't seen it yet; it's a really good introduction.
Still waiting for the promised episode 2 :P.
EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend Innovation Posted Jun 20, 2012 16:21 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> But is the presence of these businesses enough evidence to support software patents?
The software codecs are used to create consumer products that are cheaper and more effective. People would of paid to have those, or equivalent, codecs created in order to sell more devices and media folks would of still standardized them in order to sell more media. All of this would of happened regardless of patents.
In fact, in all likelihood we would be much better off with better codecs and more innovation because it would of removed the financial incentive for companies like Apple (and the rest of the MPEG-LA folks) to squash open standards in favor of trying to force people to use expensive codecs they controlled through patents.
Corporations have learned how to leverage their large legal budgets to stifle innovative competitors. It is not who produces the best product that wins the market, it is how has the ability to exploit the legal system the best.
This can't help but cause things to be worse off for most everybody. (unless they are a patent attorney, member of the big corp, or the government bureaucrats they have to sway to their side)
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