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Patent Stupidity

I'm interested in the negative impacts the patent system is having on the software industry so I was drawn to the book Math You Can't Use. Chapter 6 is available at the book website for download.

The primary thesis of the author is that patents are a very poor means for protecting personal or corporate investment and research in software. The patent system was set up with a centralized industrial mindset which is very unlike the software business, where only 32% of the market is composed of companies that produce shrinkwrapped software as their business. It was also set up at a time and for products that had different timeframes than software.

Now we're facing a crisis due to the ongoing devolution of a broken system. Which brings me to my personal favorite asinine patents (non-software): displaying boxes of cereal and pouring milk in cereal. I heard about these beauties at Free Culture, a worthy site for information on the patent and copyright wars, and things related.

Addendum: I forgot about this item on patents I had saved up from another time. Richard Stallman wrote an essay for the Guardian on software patents and compared them to ideas in writing. I like his comparison because the literary equivalents he draws are so obvious, just like the concepts covered by software patents:

"You might think these ideas are so simple that no patent office would have issued them. We programmers are often amazed by the simplicity of the ideas that real software patents cover - for instance, the European Patent Office has issued a patent on the progress bar, and one on accepting payment via credit cards. These would be laughable if they were not so dangerous."

Posted by Mark Friday, March 10, 2006 7:32:00 PM | permalink |

Comments:

Adding fuel to the fire, The Wharton School of Business argues that we should redo the patent system:
"Could RIM be shut down even as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is re-evaluating several of the disputed patents? Is the patent office bogged down with so many patent applications that it can no longer function effectively? Are companies abusing the original intent of patent law? And can a system that in 1977 permitted a patent for a "comb over" -- technically a "method of styling hair to cover partial baldness using only the hair on a person's head" -- keep up with technological innovation?"

# posted by  Mark : 12:10 PM

 

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