US Patents cover all sorts of things, and for the record, I’m for strong patent protections. But patents have a problem too. Actually, they have several. You may have seen them.
In theory, procedures aren’t patentable but inventions and devices are. One problem is that software, which is merely a set of instructions for how to do something blurs the boundary between a procedure and a device.
It’s like patenting the steps to make a cup of coffee, rather than patenting the coffee machine.
One moderately famous US patent basically tied up multiplying two prime-numbers together for the purposes of cryptography. It didn’t really matter if you were doing the same kind of cryptography, the patent more or less claimed ownership of the act of multiplying prime-numbers together in any cryptographic context. The patent itself survived to full-term, before it finally expired.
Today, few patents involve inventions, and most of them involve processes, for example this patent involving the reuse and recycling of garment hangers:
A method of reusing and recycling garment hangers; the steps of collecting a batch of garment hangers at a collecting location, transferring said collected batch of garment hangers to a hanger reuse and recycling facility, sorting said collected batch of garment hangers into a first portion potentially suitable for reuse and a second portion, renovating said first portion, transferring said renovated first portion to a reuse location, conditioning at least a first part of said second portion for recycling, and transferring said conditioned first part of said second portion to a recycling location.
Obviously, anyone performing these tasks without paying a license fee would be in breach of the patent.
Or perhaps this one, where the patent basically involves ten-pin bowling, but eliminates the knock-on scoring of strikes.
And of course, there’s worlds.com’s patent involving sending the positions of avatars to the client/viewer of a virtual environment or MMOG so that it can figure out where to draw them. Obvious, much? That’s essentially akin to restaurant staff remembering where diners are sitting so they can be served their meals. And there could well be a patent for that too. There’s certainly a patent on the check.
There are absolutely things which should be protected, and manifestly things which should not. Drawing the line between them is considerably harder, especially since patent litigation is a hugely profitable industry. Some businesses collect the patents of failed companies, paying a token fee, and periodically scour the growing portfolio for hidden moneymakers to use against established industries.
Right now, it’s quite likely to be impossible to write software, any software, without violating dozens or hundreds of patents. Most companies no longer even bother to check and do not allow their employees to do so (because if they do, damages are trebled if they should lose a lawsuit about it later on). If the rights of all current patent-holders were fully upheld right now, it is likely that nobody could afford to produce or sell software in the USA.
A little while ago, Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw came up with a method of hedging risks in commodities sales. The patent was rejected, and the decision was rejected, essentially putting tens of thousands of US patents at risk of annulment, as Bilski and Warsaw’s application appeared to be no less procedural than the majority of those already granted.
That’s now going to the Supreme Court, which is going to make a call on what really can and can’t be patented. It’s highly likely that many patents will be essentially devalued or obliterated, wherever the Supreme Court finally draws the line.
It’s a tough call, though. Clearly there have to be protections, but where should that line be? Leaving a grey area for courts to rule on individual cases has led to the situation that the system is in now.
Im going to have to go with you and Richard Stallman on this one.
Strong Patents on useful objects are good.
Patents of any kind on processes and ideas are not.
Patents on objects stimulate innovation requiring new ideas and improvements. Patented ideas and processes block innovation and create a economy of control rather than creativity.
Patenting software is no different than patenting recipies…
and what a tasteless world that would be.
Its like copyrighting the chord structures in a song rather than the finished work. Eventually, if that continues, all of the available chord combinations in the world will be copyrighted and you will have to pay some controling body arbitrary amounts of money just to publish a song.
Greed is ugly.
We havent thought through the long term ramifications of our current direction.
Hmmm. Maybe I should patent the process of creating vibrations in the air in the range of (lowest to highest frequencies people can hear), through the vibration of taut membranes.; as modified by an echo chamber and the manipulation of soft tissues.
…. and then hit everyone who talks with a patent infringement.
That’s my get-rich-quick scheme for the day.
btw, do you know what happened to the patent on double clicking?
Not sure about the double-clicking patent. Microsoft’s applied for (not sure if they’ve been granted) a patent on page-down, though.