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why software is differentwhy software is differentPosted Nov 15, 2012 23:46 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)In reply to: why software is different by pboddie Parent article: Phipps: Stop patent mischief by curbing patent enforcement
please point out ANYWHERE that I have said that patents are a good idea for software?
The conversation above was about drug research, where patents tend to be fairly narrow ('use of this compound', frequently further limited with 'for this purpose')
I think that the 'public pays, private patents earn rewards' is fundamental abuse of the system, and all public grants should include a clause stating that the results of the research should be publicly available at no cost (I would say cost of replication, but in today's world that's so close to zero that it's better to just say 'no cost' rather than leaving the door open for abuse)
People are not advocating the end of private research, but they are advocating the end to the way that private research pays off. Unless other reward mechanisms are created, that's effectively the same thing.
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why software is different Posted Nov 16, 2012 0:54 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>I think that the 'public pays, private patents earn rewards' is fundamental abuse of the system, and all public grants should include a clause stating that the results of the research should be publicly available at no cost
That's actually exactly the case with the NIH grants.
The problem is, the distance from a promising drug candidate (a typical academical result) to a working drug is a couple of billions of dollars and 10 years of work.
why software is different Posted Nov 16, 2012 1:10 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
In that case, the drug company should reimburse the government for the research costs when they decide to take on the rest of the process.
But the typical case of 'public funding, private patents' is not in the drug field, it's in other fields where the researchers doing the research get the patent in their name and then sell it.
whoever funds the research should get the patent, they can then sell or license it to industry for implementation.
why software is different Posted Nov 16, 2012 1:14 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Why? That's the task of academia - producing new results. You can download NIH result papers and go on creating your own drug in a garage. It's not uncommon that several companies might try to use a lead from the same paper.
And the final drugs rarely look anything like the first version of drug.
why software is different Posted Nov 16, 2012 11:29 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] On the topic of different incentive structures, I came across this explanation of the division of financial responsibilities for oil exploration in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. Again, it's not exactly analogous to either software or drug development, but there are parallels (and a lot of money involved).
why software is different Posted Nov 16, 2012 11:08 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] please point out ANYWHERE that I have said that patents are a good idea for software? I didn't think I claimed that you did. People are not advocating the end of private research, but they are advocating the end to the way that private research pays off. Unless other reward mechanisms are created, that's effectively the same thing. I was just saying that there might be something other than patents that also rewards people and even works better than patents. This is worth exploring because even if we eliminate patents on software right now, we'll end up having a discussion in a few years about why software isn't subject to patents, and then we're back where we started. By widening the discussion to the general topic of rewards for discovering things, we can acknowledge that patents do not themselves have a monopoly in this field, either.
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