Ok, the Patent Wars have been ongoing for a while now, so this is hardly a new discussion, but doing a search on patents in here didn’t seem to turn up a lot of relevant threads. it’s also not a new problem - I’ve been following the situation regarding one particular patent troll closely for a while, given that they’re right down my alleyway. Recently I (along with a large number of other developers), received the same welcome package that a lot of other app developers have also received.
Having finally read the specifics, I’m just left astounded that stuff like this can exist - and apparently thrive - in the US. NPR did a nice podcast on the overall problem.
I think the conclusion to that podcast is spot on: having created companies like Google and Facebook, US society (i.e., its patent laws) has now degenerated into a situation where the odds for new companies to be innovative and create the next big thing are essentially non-existent. Startups will either have to seek the protection of bigger companies (i.e., get taken over) or die.
In addition, the consequences will be born by the consumers. As with the Apple-Samsung spat in Germany, it means that some products will never reach the market (on the Android market, several app developers have already decided to stop distributing in the US), and those that do will ultimately be sold at a higher price as licensing and litigation costs need to be defrayed. How much has the on-going patent wars between Apple-Microsoft-Android already cost consumers?
What am I missing? I get that there are strong interests that benefit from this, but it just seems crazy that this can actually be allowed to continue; as far as I can see, this is the US software industry heading at top speed into a dead end, while the rest of the world speed by (although elements within the EU are doing their best to try and steer their car down the same dead end).
Without patents, what protects me, as a small software developer, from simply having a company like IBM or Microsoft from stealing my ideas and just implementing those ideas themselves?
With patents, what protects you? Odds are a small software developer can’t afford to pursue legal action against them in the current system.
And as far as I understand it, software patents are a huge mess in terms of what can and can’t be patented (algorithms vs. interfaces vs. processes). So there’s a fair chance that your ideas wouldn’t be protected anyways.
I doubt anybody wants to eliminate patents altogether, but the system needs reform badly.
It’s also that nobody at the patent office appears to understand what they’re looking at with software patents, which is why they award so many patents that cover the same ground.
And how does having patents protect you from that? Or rather - in which plane of reality do you believe that a small software developer has any chance of carrying out patent litigation against IBM or Microsoft and still being around by the time the case is settled?
Never mind that a large majority of software patents are bogus to begin with.
With patents what protects you, as a small software developer, from simply having a company like Unlimited Fusion Vestications Ltd or Tomorrow’s Changesmiths Now Inc claim that they own a patent you are infringing and they refuse to tell you what the patent is and how it is that you are infringing on it until you either agree to pay them $n-1 (where n = your total potential earnings) or you see them in a court of law in which their lawyers, and they have a lot of them because the company has no employees other than lawyers since it exists for no purpose other than to sue new technology companies, will eviscerate you and leave you penniless and destitute, reduced to offering handies in the bathroom at Carls Jr in exchange for venture capital investments toward your next big idea/lawsuit target.
Heh - reminds me of my six month stint at AT&T Research during my Ph.D. study. My university was doing the funding, but I had to sign a bunch of papers - one of which was that I’d be paid one dollar for my work there. Needless to say, I never saw that dollar (never asked for it either, though).
Feynman was awesome. For a guy who made such significant contributions to the way we think about quantum physics (see: Feynman Diagrams), he was remarkably folksy. Not at all who people picture when they think of a top-level physicist.
And how does having patents protect you from that? Or rather - in which plane of reality do you believe that a small software developer has any chance of carrying out patent litigation against IBM or Microsoft and still being around by the time the case is settled?
It’s been done multiple times. In some cases, small companies have won patent infringement lawsuits against the giants… Uniloc won a case in 2009 where Microsoft had to pay them $388 million. i4i received hundreds of millions for XML translation technology Microsoft stole from them.
In general though, patents tend to be valuable IP for small software companies, as they provide serious incentive for a larger company to purchase the smaller company.
Never mind that a large majority of software patents are bogus to begin with.
Baseless statement is baseless.
Do you have any actual experience with the software patent process? Have you ever dealt with patents in any way?
If their lawsuit is frivolous, in that you haven’t actually infringed on their patents, then there’s nothing that protects you… because don’t need protection.
If you are actually infringing on their patents, then you owe them money.
Actual patent complaint of i4i. Unsurprisingly it’s a bogus patent describing an utterly mundane procedure that Microsoft certainly didn’t need to “steal”. It’s a great example for why the American patent system is broken, and why software patents should not be allowed.
(Just to clarify, i4i is not a patent troll – it’s a real company that uses the patented technology in its own XML processing software. Good for them; the point is that they shouldn’t have been able to patent such simple and obvious stuff.)
Unsurprisingly it’s a bogus patent describing an utterly mundane procedure that Microsoft certainly didn’t need to “steal”. It’s a great example for why the American patent system is broken, and why software patents should not be allowed.
It’s always funny to hear people say such things.
If it were so mundane and obvious, then someone else would have done it first.
The idea of a blinking cursor on the screen seems obvious now. It wasn’t always.
And exactly how do you know that it wasn’t? This might come as a shock to you, but neither i4i nor the patent office have researched every single piece of software ever written. i4i were simply the first to file such a patent and nobody else ever paid any attention to it until Microsoft presented a profitable mark, that’s all.
The idea of a blinking cursor on the screen seems obvious now. It wasn’t always.
Actually it was blatantly obvious from the moment there were screens, since you have to mark the point of text entry somehow. So you think there should be a patent on blinking cursors, and whenever you use a blinking cursor you should pay fees to the guy who first thought to file a patent on blinking cursors? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.
Without patents, what protects me, as a small software developer, from simply having a company like IBM or Microsoft from stealing my ideas and just implementing those ideas themselves?
Seeing as you think XML data tagging and blinking cursors are astoundingly deep inventions, I have a hunch the world wouldn’t miss out on any great progress coming from you. Or maybe you’re just planning a career as a patent troll?
And exactly how do you know that it wasn’t? This might come as a shock to you, but neither i4i nor the patent office have researched every single piece of software ever written. i4i were simply the first to file such a patent and nobody else ever paid any attention to it until Microsoft presented a profitable mark, that’s all.
Up until very recently (as in, last week), if you had actually invented it prior to i4i’s patent, and could show evidence of such, then it would actually invalidate i4i’s patent… so you wouldn’t be stuck paying them anything.
Actually it was blatantly obvious from the moment there were screens, since you have to mark the point of text entry somehow.
Not really. You could not mark it at all, and just require entry to be done at the end of the line. The notion that you could arbitrarily insert text into any part of an entry was not always the case.
Additionally, the Cadtrak patent was on a specific implementation of a cursor, and their implementation essentially constituted invention of the idea of a frame buffer. You could actually design around their patent by implementing other mechanisms by which to enable cursor functionality.
Seeing as you think XML data tagging and blinking cursors are astoundingly deep inventions, I have a hunch the world wouldn’t miss out on any great progress coming from you. Or maybe you’re just planning a career as a patent troll?
Well, I actually already have my name on a few patents, covering software which we developed.
I’m sure that they are trivial compared to the contributions you’ve made to the computing world though. No doubt they would be considered obvious (despite being specifically ruled as not obvious by the patent office).
Brad Plumer has a good post about this subject. The short version: OECD research shows that the quality of patent filings has declined precipitously, even as the number of filings has increased. Our current patent system is doing the opposite of what it was intended to do.
This seems to indicate that you don’t realize that in many cases there are dozens if not hundreds of patents for the exact same concept, often using the exact same wording.
