Software patents petition pushed

All software development depends on fundamental ideas and concepts, some of them very original/novel, created by thousands of people. It is easy to think that software patents are good for developers with unique ideas until you realize that even such a developer would have to pay thousands of other developers to ever be able to implement their unique idea (had they all been granted software patents) and also anyone who wished to use that developer's unique idea would have to pay thousands of other developers just to use it (for example a fully patent-paid OS and compiler would cost so much no individual programmer could afford them). Software patents are a barrier to decentralized/pervasive/custom software and, if taken to the logical conclusion, would make the custom software business (and anything depending on it) too expensive to survive. Software patents only have the illusion of working because virtually all of the most truly core and innovative pieces underlying software were released without patents (so far). If they had been patented, and enforced, there would be no widespread software industry (or WWW) because even the most simple program would cost millions to produce. Only huge software companies could afford to create custom software (including simple web pages which included any kind of behavior). It is clear that the appropriate mechanism for protecting software is copyright which protects your implementation and anything significantly similar to your implementation (ex. you can't replace a single chapter in a novel and claim it as your own) rather than the idea.

Thanks Tom and Ocular Sinister for clearing that up.

So correct me (again) if i'm wrong, but this would be good for software developers, but bad for those developers who are working on a new project annd have legitimate patent claims.

Good for most devs.
Bad for devs with unique ideas.
Good for vultures who like unique ideas.
Bad for vultures who like screwing with originality.

Just have a clause that invalidates the patent granted if its holder does not actually produce anything within 5 years.
That'll kill ALL of the patent vultures who buy/obtain a patent on something and then wait for someone else to do the job in order to sue them for millions.
Bloodsuckers.

haxxorz: "Can someone invent something and then everyone copies their idea without patents? or is it that they just cant copy their code, or what?"

You have copyright which protects the code. One problem with patents on software is that they typically seek to put an ownership claim on a "method" or a "process" which then leads into maths territory and a very slippery slope - ethical and long-standing academic considerations aside, algorithms don't just appear from nowhere, and many are just combinations of other established ones - and many patents also try and put a claim on a whole area of business, ultimately leading to the valid observation that most patents are just a land grab: a cynical attempt to elbow everyone else off "our turf".

The really nasty thing about patents is that once the claim is in, anyone who happened to be actually delivering real work in the same area and who doesn't waste their time reading patent filings will get screwed when the patent holder decides that such actual working stuff "infringes their intellectual property rights", despite the patent holder not having contributed anything other than a semi-secret note about their sense of entitlement to a money-printing bureaucracy.

Software patents also don't actually do anything - they rarely deliver on what a patent is supposed to do, which is to enable the reproduction of an actual working thing - whereas code does. The code should be protected; people's ideas about how to do stuff should, on the other hand, either become realised or just not get in the way of other people delivering the goods instead.

The whole point of patents was to stimulate research and protect innovation - otherwise why would anyone bother to research when your competitor could steal it for free?

Instead, these days patents generate most money for the legal profession and patent trolls.

Ultimately, the patent system is doomed. The problem is this: When searching for prior art etc, the database is growing constantly at an exponential rate. Added to this, the inventions themselves are constantly more and more complex which means there are more and more possible infringements. So that's an increasing complexity multiplied by an exponential increase in searchable items.

The advent of computerisation masked this problem to some extent, but in the end we have a search function that is growing more than exponentially, whereas moore's law is pretty much tapped out.

In the end, the simple result is the complexity of the searches required is going to outgrow even the power of computers. This is already becoming evident to some extent, as the patent office keeps trying to shorten the process in various fashions on one end, and on the other end the searches are increasingly not thorough enough and patents are granted that are later found to not be valid.

It's time to give it up now, but as governments are inherently conservative as well as myopic it will be decades yet before they finally realise the inevitable.

My guess is probably within 50 years the patent system will be dismantled, guranteed within a 100. It's an outdated relic of a simpler age.

If you apply for a non-software patent you have to show your working so anyone could make it.
With software patents you don't need to show that -pity as that would be the software and then anyone could run it at home!

You are mixing up copyright and patents. This would not allow someone to take and use someone else's code, but it would prevent a company suing another for implementing a button on a website that automatically does some on-line processing. A lot, if not all, software patents are ridiculous and trivial, for example 'System and method for creating multiple files from a single source file.' (winzip anyone?) or (and this is classic), Google's patent on... showing patents!

No someone cannot come along and take it. You still have copyright on that.

However if you patent, as so many do, the idea of a good security program and then expect whoever writes it to pay you, then you are merely stopping development.
As an experienced programmer I almost - almost - fall about laughing at some of the software patents people apply for.

IANAL but does this mean we get free stuff?

Can any dev organisation now grab the source code and make a GOOD (MP wise) version of MW2 and get away with it?

Can we now rip off software now for free?

Quite awesome for the end user.

As Dorman said, patents slow development, but then you have the counter-argument, will this also stop innovation since there will be no incentive to write software?

So ifIi have a great idea for a security program, is it worth my while writing and publishing it if someone can just come and take it?

So there's your question. I guess im not in favour either way. Good or Bad?

I think its software patients. Anywho, Patents should be oblished, it slows development. I'm all for moving into the future, getting rid of them is a step forward. They should also get rid of money and copyright laws, to a extent. Sueing someone for downloading a song is stupid, you need to focus on people who sell copyrighted things. Money needs to be replaced with trade and service, again to an extent. We all need to move foward.

Religon should also go!

Will this make Europe the software counterfeit version of buying eastern knock off models of Rolex in the 80's,

Im a hardware tech so I dont understand s/w patents and 'protect our intellectual property '
Can someone invent something and then everyone copies their idea without patents? or is it that they just cant copy their code, or what?

I suppose it gets a lot more complicated than buying watches and showing em off to your mates when you came back from holiday