Minister locks horns with IT sector

stoke said:
Copyright on software is impossible to enforce.
But, a technique of doing something using software is enforceable as the evidence is on the outside.

i.e. A patent can be identified without running through lines of code.
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So give us an example of some piece of software you deem to be patentable.
 
IMHO

generally with software, the guys who come up with a great idea and market it well tend to corner said market to a large extent. think google , mixit, paypal... so patenting the product is in effect not relevant or worth the time and effort
 
Hoof-Hearted said:
IMHO

generally with software, the guys who come up with a great idea and market it well tend to corner said market to a large extent. think google , mixit, paypal... so patenting the product is in effect not relevant or worth the time and effort
Click to expand...

Just for your information: Google patented their "PageRank" technology...
 
Not that i'm thinking straight, still half asleep.

I agree patents are not necessary, but there should be some system in place to protect new technologies at least for a short period of time so that the "inventor" can garner some kind of benefit from it before his competitors start to use it.

Its one of those hugely complicated issues in my mind, and would require a lot of effort to sort out properly.
 
At last someone in parliament that talks sense! Expect micro$oft to oppose her statements. Microsoft is arrogant enough to think they are the only company in the world that can / may write software.
 
I have personally seen some US software patents. A lot of the patents are issued based on a description of an idea and not any working piece of code. People come up with an idea, and then patent it without a working product.

When a hardworking company/individual independently develops a working product based on the same idea without any knowledge of the patent, the patent holder threatens to sue them. They then licence this 'technology' to the offending company on threat of litigation, and make a very nice living doing sweet fsck-all.

That is really counter productive and damaging to software innovation generally. What ever you develop is sure to violate some patent and when you start making money, the patent trolls will come after you to extract some licencing fee.

A lot of companies have 'defensive' software portfolios, and currently there exists a sort of stalemate - if you don't sue us, we won't sue you.

Read what Mark Shuttleworth has to say about software patents - he's 100% correct imnsho
 
AK65 said:
I have personally seen some US software patents. A lot of the patents are issued based on a description of an idea and not any working piece of code. People come up with an idea, and then patent it without a working product.

When a hardworking company/individual independently develops a working product based on the same idea without any knowledge of the patent, the patent holder threatens to sue them. They then licence this 'technology' to the offending company on threat of litigation, and make a very nice living doing sweet fsck-all.

That is really counter productive and damaging to software innovation generally. What ever you develop is sure to violate some patent and when you start making money, the patent trolls will come after you to extract some licencing fee.

A lot of companies have 'defensive' software portfolios, and currently there exists a sort of stalemate - if you don't sue us, we won't sue you.

Read what Mark Shuttleworth has to say about software patents - he's 100% correct imnsho
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure a working space elevator would have made the news; yet the patent for one exists. A lot of US patents seem to work that way. Patent something that doesn't exist, wait for someone else to do the grunt-work, then sue them.

Patents like that shouldn't be allowed. For software or anything.

But if you write software that is truly revolutionary, I can't see anything wrong with patenting it - but for a reasonable amount of time. Not something ridiculous like 50 years or whatever you're allowed.
 
The idea of a patent is for engineers to pick an existing patent and develop it, and then provide for renumeration to the inventor.
The problem comes in when 2 people invent the same thing.
This results in a stalemate.

Is it really better to scrap the patent idea? Perhaps a different approach is needed.
But, I had better go and read what M. ShuttleWorth has to say about it.
 
AFAIK Europe does not recognize software patents. To all those people who think Geraldine is a bit of an idiot - your generally correct - but not this time.

Software patents are harmful to the software industry as a whole. People who come up with a fuzzy idea can patent it and stop competitors using a real working implementation of that idea. Examples of a patents, when British Airways tried to patent the hyperlink and when SCO tried to sue Linux, IBM & Novell for infringing their patents - SCO is now bankrupt and has yet to show any evidence.

Geraldine is basically echoing what the free software foundation is saying. Now the fact that MS is complaining is a good thing. What MS failed to mentions is that most of South America, Europe, Africa and Asia is moving away from proprietary software encumbered by patents toward open software which is free of patents.
 
stoke said:
The idea of a patent is for engineers to pick an existing patent and develop it, and then provide for renumeration to the inventor.
The problem comes in when 2 people invent the same thing.
This results in a stalemate.
Click to expand...

Why on earth would anyone choose to work on an existing patent? Why the hell would you choose to do all the hard work while someone who did *nothing* gets most of the earnings? Like sab just said, why should someone patent a fuzzy idea and then be allowed to cash in when someone else is willing to do the proper research and put in all the time and then delivers something concrete?
 
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Anyways. Back on topic. I'd like to patent this idea I had for software that will give girls bigger boobs. I'm not too clear on how it will do this but will one of you programmer types *please* do all the developing so I can sue you and get rich?

Thnx
 
I like the minister on this one, Ill accept copyright when software writers accept responsibility for their products. No more EULAS! Patents suck.
 
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AK65 said:
I have personally seen some US software patents. A lot of the patents are issued based on a description of an idea and not any working piece of code. People come up with an idea, and then patent it without a working product.
Click to expand...
Many of them are also extremely broad and vague, like method to send stuff over wires.
 
ToxicBunny said:
I agree patents are not necessary, but there should be some system in place to protect new technologies at least for a short period of time so that the "inventor" can garner some kind of benefit from it before his competitors start to use it.
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For a start it would have to be restricted to real inventions, not the vague, broad rubbish that currently fills the software patent lists. It would also have to be suitably short to allow others to build on it - six months is probably excessive, but we could be generous.
 
Heh , her speech was written on OpenOffice and she is totally aware of Software Patents :)
she Rocks!
 
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