Infographic: The Problem With Patents

The Frugal Dad blog posted this infographic on software patents it discusses some facts of the patent industry and how it’s changed as software, technology, and the internet have developed.

That patents comment, The Gameshelf

Andrew Plotkin's "The Gameshelf" blog has a posting about the difference between having an idea and having a fully expressed idea as well as a number of other musings.

"The basis of our patent system is ensuring that innovators get paid." I came back with "That's the goal, not the basis", which was probably overcondensed. I was trying to point out that goals are not results. If the existing system isn't doing its job, the system is broken. In theory, you can't patent a naked idea; you have to put it in some kind of physical form. In practice, the boundaries between "idea" and "invention" have gotten very fuzzy; the physical form of software (or process, or a procedure) is irrelevant. Okay, that makes my quote fuzzy as well. The question, as several tweeters have pointed out, is obviousness -- or, the difference between the easy part and the hard part.

Full posting

Software Patent “Rant” Misses The Point

"Another day, another uniformed rant about the evils of “software patents.” The author quickly demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the nature of NPE patent litigation[...] Examining this sentence by sentence, it’s easy to demonstrate what’s wrong here"

Patrick Anderson, the author of this blog takes a paragraph by a software patent opponent and deconstructs it sentence by sentence rebutting each point as he goes.

Full Article

Christchurch Earthquake Community Response

Completely off-topic for this blog, but I'm a New Zealander and am trying to publicise this as widely as I can. A dedicated volunteer team of Internet people, programmers, web masters, and other computer savvy helpers have built the Christchurch Earthquake Community Response site to coordinate help efforts. If you need help or can offer help, please go there.

Glyn Moody Submission to UK Independent Review

In his Open Enterprise blog Glyn Moody has provided a late draft of his submission to the UK Independent Review of "IP" and Growth. Hecovers both software patents and digital copyright in his submission. The following is purely related to his points on Software patents. His submission includes:

"There are two central problems with software patents. First, software is essentially a series of algorithms - sets of computer operations; algorithms are purely mathematical techniques; which means that software patents are patents on mathematics - that is, pure knowledge. Attempts to frame software patents are being “applications” of this knowledge “in the real world” have failed dismally to draw any convincing dividing line between knowledge and its application, or between the “real world” and the digital one that exists inside computers. "The other problem is that software patents are often granted on key ideas that cannot be coded around. This creates a kind of choke hold on knowledge. The situation has got so bad that programmers no longer investigate whether their code infringes on software patents, since it is almost inevitable that it does - so many broad and trivial patents have now been granted around the world. Moreover, in the US penalties for infringement are trebled if there is “knowing” infringement, which leads to the ridiculous situation that it is better not to try to find out whether you are infringing."

His submission continues in a similar vein and concludes "to promote the UK computer industry, and encourage innovation here, software patents of all kinds should be eliminated"

Florian Mueller on Android Round 2

A few days ago I reported that Florian Müller had found some proprietary code in the Android code base and various bloggers from ZD Net and Ars Technica had disputed his claims.

Müller has now published a rebuttal of the ZD Net rebuttals. His claims broadly are

• He did find proprietary Oracle code with licences altered in the Android code,
• He did find this Oracle code in more than one Android device,
• He did not claim it was in every Android device,
• The counter arguments against his discovery are largely straw men.

 Müller has given links to where he found the code he considers infringing, so anyone wanting to verify his claims is able to do so.

The Oracle Android suit is about both patents and copyright. Müller is known as a software patent commentator, but Müller is only addressing the copyright issues in his post.  (That's not a criticism, just an observation).

Florian Mueller on Android Patent Case

The blogs are all abuzz this morning on this blog posting by renown software patent expert and campaigner Florian Müller. The standard statement seems to be that his findings seriously weaken Google's defence against Oracle's patent claims over Android's Dalvik not-really-a-jvm jvm.

Müller himself doesn't seem to go that far. My reading of his blog posting is that what he has done is compare a number of source files and shown that Google's source files appear to be direct copies of Sun Java source files that were not  released by Sun / Oracle under an open source license that permits Google's use or relicensing. He also reports that it looks like someone has attempted to disguise this copying.

Oracle are suing Google over both patent and copyright for Android.  The facts  Müller reported would certainly have a bearing on the copyright claims. I can't see where Müller makes claims that his analysis could be directly relevant to the patent claim.

Update (23 Jan 2011 16:34 NZT)

Müller's analysis isn't uncontested. ZD Net blogger Ed Burnette has posted disputing the importance of the file copying Müller reported.  While fellow ZD Net blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has updated his earlier posting to include a rebuttal from Android Central.

Meanwhile Müller through his twitter page @FOSSpatents has said that he he intends to post a follow-up article addressing points made by these articles. I'm not sure which of the articles he was referring to when he said "That article attacks strawmen put up by its author, and contains factual errors"

This looks like there is more to be said by both sides of the argument.

Software Patents Roundup: Ambush, Reform, and Lobby

By Roy Schestowitz A summary of news about patents with particular focus on software patents and FOSS.

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How do professional developers deal with software patents?

Summary: What is the impact of software patents on a developer's plans to ... I have a set of my own PHP scripts ... his clients on that level. ...

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Bill Gates Ridicules the GPL While Novell Mops Up with Software ...

Novell role in helping Microsoft made more apparent as Microsoft's portfolio gets discussed, Gates reveals anti-GPL sentiments.

More at Mobile Ratty ...

oyun on Questioning Steve Ballmer: What, you mean he didn't say "a ...

oyun on Questioning Steve Ballmer:. What, you mean he didn't say "a software patent is a cancer, that attaches itself, in an intellectual property sense, to anything it touches"????

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Industry Committee study on Science and Technology is underway

In other words, the only way I could access the audio from this parliamentary committee is to potentially infringe software patents. ...

More at IT World Canada Blogs ...

Virtualization - Patent Reform Bill Stuck in Committee

The patent reform legislation that companies like Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and Cisco were hoping would reduce litigation and improve patent quality hit a ...

More at SYS-CON Media ...

Legal injunction bars Dish Network from selling 4 models of DVRs

A little over a week ago, an appeals court determined that Dish Network (formerly Echostar Communications) had indeed violated a software patent held by ...

More at CNET Blogs ...

Software Patents and Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS ...

Software patent issues specific to FLOSS : While it is important to differentiate software from other subject matter, we also need to ask just how different FLOSS is from non-FLOSS when it comes to patents. ...

More at IT World Canada Blogs ...

Software Patents: Follow The Leader

By Rowan Wilson

Red Hat argues that its stock-in-trade contributes greatly to the American economy but has achieved its current level of success despite a background of uncertainty over potential software patent ...

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Aristocrat case raises requirements

Aristocrat case raises requirements for means-plus-function ...

The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Aristocrat Technologies will require software patent drafters to take more care to describe algorithms covered by their software - or risk patent invalidity.

More at CNET News.com ...

CLUE's involvement in Internet issues: ICANN, Net Neutrality and ...

While I spoke at IT360 last week on the issue of Software Patents and Free/Libre and Open Source Software, recent interviews and blogging have been focused on the related issues of "Net Neutrality" and competitive access to ...

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Red Hat stands up against software patents

By mailroomuk@zdnet.com (P) It's refreshing to see a big player in the software game make a stand for improving the rules, instead of just playing by them. We've been watching the controversy over software patents for a long while. They've caused endless trouble ...

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Free Software Foundation's First European Licensing & Legal Workshop

By Alex ... open source (FOSS) is a movement with a degree of politics to it, with factions taking different positions on issues such as what materials should be caught by FOSS licences and if/how software patents should be dealt with . ...

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Red Hat and Software Patents (Video)

By Roy Schestowitz Two seniors from Red Hat and their views on Red Hat's patents.

Gadgets Giz...

Should software patents have shorter life spans than other patents?

Should software patents have shorter life spans than other patents?

CNET Blogs - Cupertino,CA,USA One major argument against software patents is, that in order to maintain the lightning pace of software innovation, developers must to be free to use ...

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The patent system is broken: reader comment from The_Decider

The patent system is broken: reader comment from The_Decider

CNET Blogs - Cupertino,CA,USA So many software patents are prior art, obvious and trivial. All it does is stifle innovation. How much more do they want the system tilted to favor them ...

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Dish Plans US Supreme Court Appeal In TiVo Patent Case

Multichannel News - New York,NY,USA The federal appeals court in January upheld a lower court's ruling that Dish violated TiVo's "Time Warp" software patent and affirmed the judgment against ...

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How To Copyright And Patent Your Software

How To Copyright And Patent Your Software

By seijalblog4644 A "software patent" has no universal understanding. In general, owning a patent allows a company certain rights (or exclusivity) for a prescribed amount of time. Individuals or corporations seeking a patent must apply for a patent in ...

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Protect and serve

Protect and serve

By Computing blogs I am disappointed that your story reports that the High Court decision over Symbian's patent application "may benefit UK software makers" (High Court rewrites UK software patent rules). For each software maker that gets a monopoly over ...

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Spring 2008 - a UKUUG Conference Review

By nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) Software patents and open standards - This was one hour of very interesting, worrying and intelligent discussion. It was good to see so much Catalyst usage too. The rest of the day was spent chatting with Matt and Mike, meeting lots of ...

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Open Source Patent Donations?

Open Source Patent Donations?

Should I patent the ideas and donate them to some sort of open source foundation? Or just blog about the ideas so that the 'prior art' exists in the public domain? What's your strategy for fighting against restrictive software patents?" ...

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Slashdot - USA What's your strategy for fighting against restrictive software patents?" The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. ...

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