http://lwn.net/Articles/23860/ This is a special feed containing comments posted to the individual LWN article titled "Continuing fun with software patents". hourly 2 http://lwn.net/Articles/24345/rss 2003-03-04T21:52:03+00:00 southey I believe that you will find an old comment on the web (and I think was covered by this site) from the very proud patent director regarding how much money they rake in each year for the government. Patents are are major revenue source.<br> http://lwn.net/Articles/24033/rss 2003-02-28T14:45:13+00:00 eru If the &quot;Interwoven patent&quot; can be interpreted to cover all revision<br>control systems, it meants that the UPSTO cannot even look at earlier<br>granted patents for prior art! There are software patents on version control,<br>such as the multiversion file system patents by the ClearCase implementers.<p>A ClearCase manual I have at hand lists U.S. Patents 5,574,898, 5,649,200<br>and 5,675,802, then ominously adds &quot;Additional patents pending&quot;.<br>I read on some web forum or other that these patents effectively prevent<br>making a legal ClearCase clone for Linux. (Which is probably a good thing,<br>because IMHO the whole concept is ill-conceived. ClearCase is confusing for<br>users, and architecturally, file systems should just store bits, not implement<br>such complex functionality as revision control with branches, tags and all that).<br> http://lwn.net/Articles/24004/rss 2003-02-28T04:13:21+00:00 torsten Patents are not monopolies on ideas. They are monopolies on specific implementations of an idea.<p><br>Oh wait, things _have_ changed.<p>Torsten http://lwn.net/Articles/23975/rss 2003-02-27T19:26:07+00:00 giraffedata &gt;And I think the idea that Amazon wouldn't have come up with such a system &gt;had they not thought they would be able to prevent other people from &gt;copying them 4 years later is ridiculous...<p>Those are very good points. And the other half of the reason that Amazon would have invented this with or without patent protection is that it was cheap to invent. Patents do the job only where 1) it costs money to invent, which money cannot be recovered if others are free to copy the results; or 2) the inventor could profit from the invention without disclosing it to anyone.<p>I'd like to point out that even (1) is not an original intent of patents. A patent is fundamentally a deal between the public and an inventor, where the inventor tells the public what he invented and the public gives him some exclusive rights to the invention in return. &quot;Patent&quot; is Latin for &quot;laying open.&quot;<br> http://lwn.net/Articles/23957/rss 2003-02-27T18:00:49+00:00 iabervon The Amazon patent here isn't really a software patent so much as a web site design patent. Since it all follows from claim 1, which specifies that the topic is an item for sale, the patent is actually on providing a per-item comment system for an online retail site, not on having a comment system or having an online retail site; it just looks like it could cover comment systems in general because of the style that patents are written in. As far as I know, Amazon was the first to add a comment system to their catalog, and, while it seems obvious today, that's just because Amazon's been doing it for years. In fact, online retail and comment systems both existed for long enough before Amazon started doing this that it must not really be obvious.<p>Amazon's patent, therefore, is as good as any patent. Of course, the whole patent system may well be a bad idea, since empirical evidence suggests that patents do not promote innovation (at least when the patented item could not remain secret). And I think the idea that Amazon wouldn't have come up with such a system had they not thought they would be able to prevent other people from copying them 4 years later is ridiculous; they invented the design so that they could use it, and thereby make their customers more likely to buy things. http://lwn.net/Articles/23913/rss 2003-02-27T13:13:36+00:00 Zelatrix It's hard to believe that a scenario such as you describe could <a href=http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html>actually happen</a>. http://lwn.net/Articles/23896/rss 2003-02-27T10:29:14+00:00 mmutz <blockquote>The patent offices might as well just award all those silly patents. The more these get awarded, the earlier it will be obvious that they are silly and that software patents should have no value or meaning.</blockquote> <p>Sorry, but that isn't going to work out: The more trivial patents are granted, the greater the patent portfolio of companies like Amazon and IBM and just about any bigger company.</p> <p>It simply doesn't matter how easily they can be proved wrongly assigned by pointing to prior art. Consider a small software company that is about to release a new innovative product with a threat (perceived or real) to e.g. IBM. What will IBM do?</p> <blockquote> <p><i>IBM:</i> Hey, you're infringing on these five patent of ours. Pay $1,000,000.</p> <p>(Company contacts his lawyer)</p> <p><i>Lawyer:</i> No, you don't infringe on these patents/they're invalid.</p> <p>(Company pays lawyer $50,000 and goes back at IBM)</p> <p><i>Company:</i> No, we don't infringe on your patents, bugger off.</p> <p><i>IBM:</i> Well, you're right. --- Here's another five.</p> <p>(Company gives them to Lawyer, pays Lawyer $50,000, Lawyer says they don't infringe...)</p> <p><i>Company:</i> No, those don't cut it either.</p> <p><i>IBM:</i> Right again. Here's yet another five.</p> <p><i>Company:</i> OK, I see. What do you want?</p> <p><i>IBM:</i> Sell us licenses for your patents for $50,000.</p> <p><i>Comany:</i> $50,000? They're worth $10,000,000.</p> <p><i>IBM:</i> We know. Would you like another five...?</p> </blockquote> http://lwn.net/Articles/23890/rss 2003-02-27T09:38:47+00:00 scglwn The patent offices might as well just award all those silly patents. The more these get awarded, the earlier it will be obvious that they <em>are</em> silly and that software patents should have no value or meaning.