Strawman, unfair, bigotry, whatever -- I would love to be proven wrong. I have yet to hear a pro-software patent argument that isn't littered with corporate partisan nonsense.
I'm actually neutral on patents in the sense of "what would be best in an ideal world". But the bottom line is this- my work is not free unless I choose to donate it. Thus in exchange for giving you my work, I'm going to require a license. If you steal it, you've stolen it, just as if you stole a car.
But wait-- if you steal my car I don't have it anymore, you say, but if you steal my technology, I still have it, you say.
And yes, that's true, but it is irrelevant. If you want my technology enough to steal it, then my technology has value, and it is property, just as anything else I might build with my own hands is property. It isn't that technology can be replicated-- after all, I don't hear you saying software shouldn't be copyrighted or sold-- it is whether you can get your copy without paying me for my work or not.
Just because software or a patent can be replicated, doesn't mean it isn't property and isn't valuable.
Am I knocking down a straw man? Well, you didn't actually make any argument-- you just disparaged people who have a different point of view. So, that forced me to guess what your argument was, and then respond.
I do this so you understand that I am capable of making an argument... I just find the anti-patent people rarely give actual arguments to rebut.
There are novel software implementations. That applies to vanishingly few software patents.
Go ask the guy who made fingerworks whether he is better off with Apple paying him or if Google had just ripped his shit off.
THAT is the Apple multitouch patent that the industry holds as fearsome. No one gives a shit about the Fingertouch patents.
P.s. we're talking about prior art for multitouch, the Fingerworks patents seem far more relevant than your hardon for Minority Report and Microsoft Surface.
I believe that software patents are overwhelmingly farce, whether they support Microsoft in attacking Apple, Apple against Samsung, Samsung against Apple, or any of various IP ventures against App Store developers. It is not a position that varies based upon the actors.
The pro-Apple lobby, however, has a position that essentially holds Apple's patents as legitimate and righteous to enforce, but everyone else's as illegitimate for various reasons. It is farce to criticize lodsys and others for entirely legal IP protections -- as the system supposedly encourages -- while supporting Apple and their like behaviors. Whether a company is open to counter-attacks is irrelevant to the legitimacy of patents.
Virtually everyone who interacts with HN relies upon Linux (for instance as the foundation of their startup). Linux infrgines on countless Microsoft patents. Thus far Microsoft has treaded lightly, but I don't think it's tough to imagine how sentiments would change if they started laying the hammer down, shutting down every cloud host, etc. The simple love of a gadget has many supporting an incredibly dangerous position.
But sentiments are changing. I argue for the exercise of it, but there is no doubt that dramatic software patent changes are coming due.
I don't see either of those as particularly compelling alternatives. Patents need some major reforms but not abolishing.
I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that weak IP protection leads to less innovation. I'd argue that it's equally as likely that the causation is reversed; that is, countries that do more innovating will eventually have stronger IP protection, whether the actual innovators want it or not.
Massive secrecy is the current state of things even with patents. Patent language rarely discloses any information that would be of use to a software developer. Software developers almost never read patents when implementing their own systems, with a few notable exceptions (such as the case where someone wants to implement a well-known patented algorithm).
Let's go back a few years and remove all IP protections for media. Does Avatar still get a half billion dollar budget to get made?
"Massive secrecy is the current state of things even with patents. "
This is just arguing degrees. Whatever it's at now, I think the alternative is far more massive secrecy then currently.
Patenting a specific very complex algorithm -specifically- might be ok, but general ideas are not.
You're absolutely uninformed about even the basic facts or timeline, yet you're happy to make broad assertions and engage in attacks to the person. Well, where I come from, that means you lost buddy, and I have no further need to rebut you.
Have a nice day!
Surface was unveiled in 2007, with the final hardware design being completed two years prior. The project itself started based upon, humorously, Minority Report.
"Well, where I come from, that means you lost buddy, and I have no further need to rebut you."
Yeah you've said that a couple of times now. Kind of funny, really.
Perhaps, but the market for this technology is completely inelastic. Regardless of the money/effort/time required to develop this technology, you get the exact same monopoly guarantee in the form of the patent. And you can charge whatever you want for a license, even if that price is entirely unreasonable. You can even be discriminatory, and charge different people different amounts. Or, worse, you can refuse to license to some people, or to everyone.
For a technology that took significant money/effort/time to develop, I can agree with patent protection. But most software patents are comparatively trivial.
An odd position, as it penalizes the thoughtfully elegant lateral thinking solution, which is arguably harder to do.
Patents are an economic tool, not an "I'm clever so I should get paid" tool. The point is to help people push aside concerns about time and money when developing a new idea. Because if a competitor of equal skill can duplicate your work in a fraction of the time, just because they have access to the results of your R&D, that's a strong incentive not to even bother in the first place. So it's about time and money, not about smart thinking or elegance.
(Regarding patents in general, even this argument falls apart a little bit for me. I think trade secret law is sufficient in many cases where patents are traditionally used.)
I don't know what "patents are wrong" ideology you refer to. The arguments I see against patents over and over are concrete examples of small companies coming into trouble because they did something obvious, and do not have the legal and financial muscle to handle it, to for example have the patent invalidated because it is on something obvious.
Patents are supposed to help small actors fight big ones, not the other way around. Software patents have come into a bad light because they frequently do the latter.