m$ as Big Brother

[Bryan O'Neal]

Ok, again sorry for being so far behind, and because of this I shall
keep my comments short. 
In my humble opinion:
I believe in patents, but not the crap that gets passed as a patent.
For example, no one should be able to patent the concept of barbed wire
but they should be able to patent their particular method of making
barbed wire.  Now this panting should not be so inclusive as to
eliminate a competitor from using wire without licensing it.  And as I
understand it you must implement all portions of a patent to be in
violation.  Along the same lines the makers of said barbed wire should
also be able to copyright the name they use to sell their brand of
barbed wire, but not the method to make it.  There is nothing wrong with
this and every common man (person) should be able to easily submit their
idea for review with the patent office.
This is just my opinion... 
As for software, well... there are some odd fair competition regulations
that need to be addressed but that discussion I will leave up to the
smarter people in the audience, like Joseph.


-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
[mailto:plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Josh
Coffman
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 11:16 PM
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: m$ as Big Brother

I am a co-inventor on one patent (another one still pending last I
heard).
It was an interesting experience. I architected and wrote the whole
thing except the db code.
I even wrote a large part of the application paper describing the
systems. I feel like i did my job 
and part of the managers and lawyer's jobs.

It was pretty ridiculous to patent it, but not as ridiculous as the
amount of money the lawyers make.
As long as lawyers and that kind of money is involved, software will
continue to be patented.

I understand that business want to protect themselves. ..and the
bragging rights are nice though superficial.
I don't know what boundaries can be defined to help business protect
their trade secrets, but the the current 
state of software patents is truly ridiculous. 

I have a friend who is an IP lawyer; I hope I offended no one.

-j

----- Original Message ----
From: Joseph Sinclair <plug-discussion at stcaz.net>
To: Main PLUG discussion list <plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 10:46:32 PM
Subject: Re: m$ as Big Brother

Jeff Garland wrote:
> Joshua Zeidner wrote:
> 
>>   Software patents were explicitly prohibited until relatively
>> recently.  Shows you how quickly lobbying efforts can erode the
>> concepts on which justice relies.
> 
> Hmm, guess I'll have to read more b/c I didn't think that was true.  I
thought 
> it was algorithms and certain processes that weren't patentable.  But
anyway...
> 

Actually, Software patents are enabled under a 1975 ruling that
permitted the patenting
of a "Business Method" (something that was previously barred, and should
still be barred,
for much the same reasons software patents should be barred).  Software
Engineers,
"Practitioners of the Art" in patent language, know that a software
program is actually
the concrete actualization of one or more mathematical algorithms, but
the US Supreme Court
was convinced that software is actually the implementation of a business
plan.  The result is
that we have patents on two things that are of extremely limited value
if kept completely
secret (per trade-secret), and are generally of immense value when
naturally shared with
society (as Jeff explains quite well later in his post).  Given the
purpose of US patent
and copyright law to encourage the migration of ideas from the closed
realm of trade-secret
to the open realm of public-domain, granting patent protection to ideas
which have a
natural in-built propensity for publication is innately contradictory to
the clear purpose
of the law, and should rightly be struck.  Of course, the hard part is
getting a case
to the Supreme Court where this could be done and, more importantly,
getting the justices
to agree.
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