6 ms·

Abolish software and "business-method" patents. Until that's done, patent "reform" is a sham.

• johnnyanmac 3y ago
  why shouldn't software be patentable?
  • themoonisachees 3y ago
    Because software is incredibly elastic, which heavily blurs the line on what is and isn't a new invention. It is also nebulous, which means that it's "easy" to obtain a patent for a system that seems reasonable at first, but then decide "actually I meant all of this other stuff too" and on paper the patent does apply to all the other stuff too, because short of submitting the exact code to be patented you pretty much always get to do this.
• adrian_b 3y ago
  What is the most egregious about software patents is that they work only because in the first few decades of software development no patents could be obtained for software. Anyone who patents now some kind of software algorithm is able to write any practical implementation of the patented algorithm only by incorporating many techniques that have been invented earlier, but they have never been patented, even if typically they would have had much better reasons to be granted a patent than the newly patented algorithm. If it would have been possible to patent software since the beginning, the software industry could never have existed, due to mutual destruction that would have blocked any development.
• Ekaros 3y ago
  On some level I think some things make sense to patent. And they are more algorithms. Let's say compression of file or image or stream. Sure go ahead and give those a patent. If they are superior someone will pay license fee. On other hand idea of compressing something should not be patentable. If someone can read few lines summary of patent and come up with solution that does same thing, but might not be interoperable no you should not get patent.