software patents

Muktware: Linus Torvalds details why software patents are wrong (though he doesn't have a problem with hardware ones)

Linux User & Developer: "Litigation has become a highly profitable way of doing business."

As Bessen and Meurer's book "Patent Failure" points out, one of the biggest problems with software patents is their lack of well-defined boundaries.

This makes it very hard to tell whether newly-written code is infringing on existing patents or not. The threat of treble damages for wilful infringement removes any incentive to try to find out.

After the Supreme Court totally punted on the question of business model and software patents in the Bilski ruling, the courts have been a mixed bag.

Without a brightline rule, they're sort of fumbling around.

Yesterday, I went to the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley for a lunchtime debate on software patents.

It was one of those things where an official "motion" was put forth, and then people voted before and after to see if the debate changed anyone's mind.

In this case, the motion was simple: "software patents encourage innovation." Arguing for the motion was Bob Zeidman, a consultant/writer who sells software for... analyzing intellectual property.

We recently wrote about a surprising Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruling that might open the door to invalidating a lot of software patents.

We've been noticing that the mainstream press has really been speaking up about the broken patent system lately.

It was mostly kicked off by the excellent This American Life story about just how broken our patent system is, and that seems to have thrown open the floodgates.

So, suddenly an issue that was generally discussed mainly by entrepreneurs and geeks was suddenly showing up all over the place.

More and more people are adding their voices to the growing consensus around the massive harm that the patent system is doing to innovation within the tech industry.

PC World's Katherine Noyes has a great article that lays out a clear argument for why the patent system is making things worse for consumers.

Here's just a snippet, though the whole thing is worth reading:

5. Innovation Is Being Squelched

While I'm not as much in agreement with the crew of folks who likes to separate out "software patents" from the rest of the patent system (the whole system is broken), I can see serious problems with the way that "software" is patented these days.

I tend to think that the fix isn't to carve out software patents, but to fix the whole system itself.