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Software patents are stupid | 697 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Patenting OBVIOUS IDEAS, math and concepts are all stupid
Authored by: Ian Al on Tuesday, May 08 2012 @ 11:14 AM EDT
The problem is that all you need to do is say that your functional idea is in
software, somewhere, and all the patent law goes out the window.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Software patents are stupid
Authored by: Tyro on Tuesday, May 08 2012 @ 04:53 PM EDT
I am willing to accept the possibility that there are software patents that
aren't stupid. Even those are, however, illegitimate.

Not all math is obvious, but all (correct) math is a fact of nature, and thus
should not be patentable. And software is math. (Generally some kind of
approximate math, but that doesn't keep it from being math.)

That said, I believe that patent law is inconsistent with the facts of nature,
in that every material manifestation is isomorphic to some mathematical
construct, so if patents were scrupulously legal, no patents at all could be
issued.

OTOH, my bias is that software should not be patentable. Only copyrighted. And
that nothing should be able to be copyrighted if it is GUARANTEED (in some
effective manner) to become publicly available when the copyright has expired.
This means, in the case of software, that the source code and the complete
development toolkit needed to use it are publicly available in a form commonly
readable at the time the copyright expires. Guaranteeing this availability is a
bit problematical, unless the source code is made available at the time of sale,
but if it isn't done, then the constitutional justification for the grant of a
copyright hasn't been met.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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