Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Spawn of the Devil?

Author:Dennis Peterson
Posted:7/25/2000; 9:17:17 AM
Topic:Spawn of the Devil?
Msg #:19023 (In response to 19015)
Prev/Next:19022 / 19024

Patents exist for one reason: to promote invention. The question to ask is, in the software industry, do the promote or restrict invention? It seems fairly evident that the latter is the case. There was plenty of innovation before patents came into wide use. What we're seeing now is a lot of rather uninventive people getting patents for ideas that are only impressive to people as uninventive as themselves.

Patents are good when they protect inventions that took a lot of effort and money to create. But when they protect the kind of ideas I come up with while sitting on the john, it kinda ticks me off.

And it's turning into a real problem. The software industry is not like other industries, and the patent office doesn't understand that. Every decent programmer comes up with creative new inventions every day. If my standards were as low, and my pockets as deep, as Amazon's, I could file a patent application every week. I shouldn't have to run all my code past a patent lawyer, just to make sure I didn't inadvertantly duplicate a simple idea that someone else had the gall to buy a monopoly on. Nor should I have to bother submitting everything I do to a prior art database, keeping on top of new patent submissions to protest the stupid ones, or paying lawyers to overturn them. In the software industry, all patents are bathwater.

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