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Comment by gohbgl | Hacker News Reader

Everything they listed is also true for non-software patents. End all patents.

This is the only intellectually honest case for ending software patents.

Methods have been patentable for as long as we've had a patent system--why should they become unpatentable because they're machine-implemented?

Perhaps methods should become unpatentable when implemented by machine because the cost-benefit of the patent bargain in current context no longer advances the public policy behind patent law.

As far as I know there is no evidence that the patent system as a whole is a net benefit to society. The negative effects are clearly visible like the formation of oligopolies, litigation costs, licensing costs and so on. So unless one can present data that the positives outweigh the negatives the whole system should be abolished. As a practical matter it might be much easier to end software patents than it is to end all patents.

I mean adoption by nearly every legal system in the world is a pretty good indicator. You’d think developing economies would be trying to unchain their competitiveness by getting rid of patents, but as China outgrows its phase of stealing technology and starts the phase of developing original technology, it’s developing its patent law and providing for enforcement.

Developing economies get pressured to implement western style IPR regimes as part of trade negotiations, to the point of getting draft legislation written by foreign powers.

See: https://www.grain.org/article/entries/399-information-feudal...

(whole book: https://www.anu.edu.au/fellows/pdrahos/books/Information%20F...)

>why should they become unpatentable because they're machine-implemented?

The machines, computers, are so widespread and accessible that a huge number of people are making such new methods constantly. The patent system hinges on a patent office that can reasonably assess novelty and obviousness. With software that's impossible.

I'm not saying that non-software patents are necessarily great, just that there's a clear distinction between a patent system that handles 19th century steam engines and a patent system that purports to handle software in an age of ubiquitous computers.

This is one of several intellectually honest cases for ending software patents that don't necessarily end all patents.

the list is incomplete. they list the active downsides, but they don't list the benefits of patents that don't apply to software, such as: patents protect your investment into the development of the patent. if you need to spend 5 years of research before you got a patentable result, then patents are an incentive to make that research. i can't imagine any software patent that took that much effort to develop.

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