1 karma · joined July 5, 2010
That's the problem with software patents. The patent must be published - that the whole point. But in software writing down the algorithm is also making an implementation. It's like the pornography laws that defined looking at an image on a computer screen = producing an image and therefore equivalent to being present when the act took place.
What this means is that patents only work for cartels of large companies forming a patent pool to keep a technology (eg. H264) to themselves and patent trolls who have no other business so can't be violating any other patents.
For anyone else - even if you have a patent on a real invention, and can afford to defend it in court, you are likely to be violating dozens of the large company's patents (how could you know) and so are going to lose.
No code, no description of how to render it - just the idea of taking an everyday action (turning over a page) and using it to do the same thing on a computer
You can have a business method patent, eg look at the prices charged by various retailers and buy the lowest one, or even a patent on the plot of a novel. Both of these have been patented in the US.
Your 'invention' no longer has to be workable for it to be patented nor do you have to demonstrate a working implementation.
That's the issue with a lot of software patents on things like H264 - the patent can simply be on the concept of compressing video, you don't have to invent a particular encoding scheme.
Or a flying antennae that can provide GSM/Wifi/etc over a festival or disaster site at a few hours notice?
No they have a patent the idea of music-matching, not the implementation.
I could have a patent on the idea of a car that defies gravity - and you pay up when you actually invent a flying car.