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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Software should be copyrighted, but not patented.

So physical stuff like valves can be patented, but not software? That seems arbitrary. After all, it's usually the design of the valve that contains the invention. What difference does it make if you print one out? If you mean "nothing should be patented," just say that. One could make a case for that argument. But there's nothing special about software.

How did we end up in this mess?

What evidence do you have that we're in a mess? Have you ever been prevented from doing something you wanted to because of patents?

The fact is, for all the noise people make about them, software patents just don't matter much. Large companies accumulate patent portfolios to protect themselves against patent suits. Startups file for them because investors and acquirers are impressed by them. But they don't decide which startups win.

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"Have you ever been prevented from doing something you wanted to because of patents?"

1. Every year at CMU's Human Computer Interaction Institute, it appears someone reinvents something patented though not deployed by Xerox PARC.

An example is a "looking glass" feature for something like photoshop, where you can preview the result of an action like a filter -- or something like that.

From the anecdotes I've heard, PARC just sits on it, doesn't deploy or license it, and acts to block others from using it.

2. SIFT is a new object recognition technique built upon years of research. A recent patent on the best implementation has restricted groups from using the techniques. They grant exclusive licenses on the level of "for all robots in America", but that's pretty useless for a startup, isn't it?

I'll say it: nothing should be patented. Trade secrets, in the literal and legal sense, make much more sense. If a system can be reverse engineered and copied, you don't have a secret, and it isn't in the best interest of society to block copy cats from beating the originator.

The idea that makers wouldn't create due to the fear of competition is just wrong -- though it is the most often used argument to defend patents.

[edit: And another thing: people respect and fear patents, so despite my opinions, I'm going to act in my best interest to acquire any patents possible on my work. My goal is notably against the best interest of society as a whole: create unfair advantages for my company.]

The case against patents is getting stronger as time goes on.

The rate of innovation constantly increases, and for patents to keep working as they should, the term should get shorter and shorter. Even if the system is made to be "fair" in this way, eventually the term will be made so short as to not be worth the effort of filing the patent. Maybe we are past that point already.

Have you ever been prevented from doing something you wanted to because of patents?

I've had to take software out of production and replace it with non-infringing software.

What evidence do you have that we're in a mess?

EOLAS v Microsoft, Amazon v Barnes&Noble, Sun v NetApp..

Notice in all three cases the guys on the receiving end of the patent suit were big companies. Big companies have lots of money, so they get sued over patents, and when people slip and fall in the parking lots, and when they fire people. Big companies getting sued over something doesn't mean it's an actual problem.

If you don't mind my asking, where were you working when you had to replace this software?

I see. It's ok as long as it's someone else getting screwed.

As far as my own situation, the details are here: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39194883,00.ht...

Ironically it was another "ARC" patent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Replacement_Cache

I didn't say it was ok. More like inevitable. Big cos get sued. It doesn't mean much.

From the article, it doesn't sound like you were required by an injunction to remove any code. Someone just read in the news about some newly issued patent and panicked. What's the plan for dealing with the 1000 other patents PostgreSQL is violating?

No, thankfully the issue was delt with quickly. There were also other good reasons to upgrade.

The PostgreSQL project tries to stick with things for which there is plenty of prior art and thankfully most of the best stuff in databases is old enough so that patents aren't a big issue.

Unfortunately some of the things people do with PostgreSQL's extensibility aren't as old. I'm sure there are some people out there using custom UDF/UDA functions that may infringe on patents.

Didn't mean to downvote this. I click randomly sometimes.

Seems that something that doesn't matter shouldn't be legislated. Do patents matter in other industries? If patents drive innovation in some industries, but have no effect on others besides putting money into lawyers' pockets (and out of taxpayers', entrepreneurs', and corporations' pockets), that would be a case against software patents but not all patents.

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