US Patent Office seeks public input on software patents' future The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has asked the software community to help advise it on how to properly handle software-related patents – a move that could represent the first steps toward software patent reform. The agency published its request for comments in the Federal Register on Thursday, explaining that it …
Bollocks. Just up the amount they charge to examine a patent so that it actually reflects the fucking cost of PROPERLY EXAMINING the patent.
Goddamn morons.
As for Software Patents specifically, either:
a) get rid of them, or for patents more generally
b) implement some kind of proportionality arrangement where the length and maximum monetary benefit you get from a patent claim is directly proportional to the effort required to develop the claim.
For example, pharmaceutical patents that require real R&D get protected as they still do today.
Patenting rounded corners on a phone gets protection for about 1 month, with a maximum benefit of $0.01 per unit (in other words, you'd spend more on patent attorneys than you would gain from the patent claim).
"Bollocks. Just up the amount they charge to examine a patent so that it actually reflects the fucking cost of PROPERLY EXAMINING the patent."
But that runs the risk of raising the price out of reach of garage inventors (who unlike the trolls are honest inventors most of the time). Part of the mission of the USPTO is to offer their services to all inventors and trades to encourage their proliferation, so they can't raise the rate too high or it'll go against their mission. And the USPTO is important because without some sort of protection, people will be less inclined to invent for fear of copycats.
For the moment, I’ll play devil’s advocate. The current intersection of software and US patents was formed through three US Supreme Court cases: Gottschalk v. Benson (1972), Parker v. Flook (1978), and Diamond v. Diehr (1981). To those of you who would prefer to see all US patent protection removed from software-related inventions, which (if any) of these cases would you say that these Courts judged wrongly? And more importantly, what is the reasoning behind your decision that they were judged wrongly?
I would say that none of those were judged wrongly, however going by those cases only, software would only be patentable on the same hardware - i.e. slide to unlock would have to be tied to the hardware; you couldn't have any software patents that were not tied to a particular hardware system. Equally you wouldn't be able to have more than 1 software patent on any hardware platform as they judged that you have to consider the software component to be part of the prior art, and if there is nothing novel left then it's invalid.
DragonLord, one cannot go solely by these cases, since there have been decisions since Diamond v. Diehr that have used these three cases as precedents. But since you’ve stated that you consider that none of these three were judged wrongly, that would mean that you accept that there are instances in which software-related inventions (such as Diehr’s) are worthy of patent protection. May I ask if you’d previously thought that no software-related invention would be worthy of patent protection?
John Smith 19, at Stanford or NYU? In the inimitable words of Yogi Berra, include me out. To quote from the linked Federal Register notice, While public attendees will have the opportunity to provide their individual input, group consensus advice will not be sought. Individual input can be provided well enough via e-mail.
Call me crazy, but I always thought software (complete or finished application/programs) should be Copyright, not Patent.
IMO, that was the first, and biggest mistake.
I also think "business processes" should NEVER have been given Patent status for any damn reason.
(now where did I put my Nomex suit?)
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