Re: Enough, already
Can we just have an end to software patents?
That's easy to say when your livelihood isn't dependent on you monetising your software innovation.
A lot of big companies will always try it on. Apple got caught trying to patent software that some independent iOS developer had submitted for review prior to release on the iTunes store. The patent application even had a diagram of the user interface that was an exact copy of the UI in the guy's app. This story was covered by The Register some years ago.
Patents are there to, in theory, allow the small guys to protect their livelihood against the big guys just ripping them off and out-marketing them. Without a working patent system there is no more innovation, there are just more ways in which big corporates rip off customers. Whether or not software patents should be part of a working patent system I don't know. What I do know is that a lot of patent systems around the world are pretty damned broken.
A good example of a big company making things worse is Google, with their Travel offering. Worldmate, in the guise of BlackBerry Travel, had the concept of a decent manage-your-travel application pretty much perfect. Calendar/email integration, flight times data, group travel, hotel / hire car booking, the lot. It was really, properly good.
They've withdrawn because Google are now trying (and not really succeeding) in doing the same sort of thing as part of Android. Worldmate have seen the way the wind is blowing and decided to bail out rather than fight. Google can give prominence to their product, everyone else will struggle to get a look-in. If that isn't an abuse of a monopoly position, I don't know what is.
So we're now left with a solution from Google that is worse than the one we've had over the past 10, 15 years ago on BlackBerry. We're worse off, simply because a big Corporate is pushing a false message of innovation to its users and has got enough clout to make that stick.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
