Petition to us gov to "Direct the Patent Office to Cease Issuing Software Patents"
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Hmm, how do I say this nicely? Not gonna happen!
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson My comedy.
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While I sympathize, this is written as such an all or nothing proposition that I would NOT sign it as is. "Under the patent office's current activity, patents have been come a way to stifle innovation and prevent competition rather than supporting innovation and competitive markets. They've become a tool of antitrust employed by large companies against small ones." Amen brother, I'm with you. "To return sanity to the software industry - one of the few industries still going strong in America - direct the patent office to cease issuing software patents and to void all previously issued software patents." Uhmmm, no. That's entirely too extreme. I have no doubt that there are some decent patents that deserve protection. Do those guys get screwed? Why can't we just void the extreme cases? Or maybe there's no way to differentiate?
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While I sympathize, this is written as such an all or nothing proposition that I would NOT sign it as is. "Under the patent office's current activity, patents have been come a way to stifle innovation and prevent competition rather than supporting innovation and competitive markets. They've become a tool of antitrust employed by large companies against small ones." Amen brother, I'm with you. "To return sanity to the software industry - one of the few industries still going strong in America - direct the patent office to cease issuing software patents and to void all previously issued software patents." Uhmmm, no. That's entirely too extreme. I have no doubt that there are some decent patents that deserve protection. Do those guys get screwed? Why can't we just void the extreme cases? Or maybe there's no way to differentiate?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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Online petitions are not even worth the paper they're printed on.
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In principle, I agree. However, the devil is in the details. One of the problems with Software patents, and the most glaring problem with this petition, is the fact that there is no good, bright-line definition of "Software Patent". Even if some legislation was passed that says "No Software Patents", you can bet all the patent trolls out there would still write them and sue people for them, they would just write them in such a way as to have them classified as something else like a "Design Patent" or similar.
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While I sympathize, this is written as such an all or nothing proposition that I would NOT sign it as is. "Under the patent office's current activity, patents have been come a way to stifle innovation and prevent competition rather than supporting innovation and competitive markets. They've become a tool of antitrust employed by large companies against small ones." Amen brother, I'm with you. "To return sanity to the software industry - one of the few industries still going strong in America - direct the patent office to cease issuing software patents and to void all previously issued software patents." Uhmmm, no. That's entirely too extreme. I have no doubt that there are some decent patents that deserve protection. Do those guys get screwed? Why can't we just void the extreme cases? Or maybe there's no way to differentiate?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
Jim Crafton wrote:
I have no doubt that there are some decent patents that deserve protection.
There are very few "software only" patents that I've seen that I could agree with. However, I have written software that is part of a patent, but there is hardware that goes along with it. I worry the patent office would have trouble differentiating.
Jim Crafton wrote:
Why can't we just void the extreme cases? Or maybe there's no way to differentiate?
That's just it, the patent office got so overrun with patents that they threw up their hands and said, "fine, just pass it and let it be fought out in court if it shouldn't be patentable." They are understaffed, especially with experts in the field. Unfortunately now, the very threat of patent lawsuits is enough to shut companies down, mostly startups. Add to that, is the fact that patents should not be about what the end result is, i.e. paying for something online. But the patent trolls threaten everyone if they think some software does what their software does; they don't know (or care) if it uses the same mechanism defined in the patent, and I doubt very much many judges could tell anyway. There are some esoteric software patents that may be valid, but it has gotten so out of control that I wouldn't actually mind dumping all pure software patents and not allowing any more. We already have copyright law to protect us from the real threat, IMHO.