European rejection of software patents is a victory for open source [LWN.net]

European rejection of software patents is a victory for open source

Posted Jul 14, 2005 17:52 UTC (Thu) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047)
In reply to: European rejection of software patents is a victory for open source by rjw
Parent article: European rejection of software patents is a victory for open source

I can think of ONE software patent that was actually novel, non-obvious, and a true advancement of the state of the art. That would be RSA.

Obviously, that's expired. And that's one out of...how many hundreds of thousands granted? Not a very good "hit" rate there, USPTO.

RSA patent good?

Posted Jul 15, 2005 16:33 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

I'll buy that RSA is novel, non-obvious, and a true advancement of the state of the art, and therefore refreshingly within the letter of patent law, but: Would you say RSA was expensive to invent? Did it take so much work to think of that its inventor wouldn't have bothered if he didn't get a piece of the action every time it's used?

If not, then it still falls outside of what ought to be patentable, in many people's value system, since the patent only serves to transfer wealth to people who have great ideas from people who don't.

European rejection of software patents is a victory for open source

Posted Jul 21, 2005 7:12 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Actually, I *WOULDN'T* buy that ... :-)

It was discovered seven years before it was patented, and it was in (government) use as a trade secret pretty rapidly, again certainly long before it was patented.

Cheers,
Wol