Math You Can’t Use

by on November 1, 2006 · 14 comments

Via Software Patent Watch, Slashdot has a review of Ben Klemens’s 2005 book, Math You Can’t Use: Patents, Copyright and Software:

Most of the rest of the book shows how software patents in the real world create problems. He cites interviews with venture capitalists by a University of Texas researcher in which they say that they just expect to be violating patents left and right in the normal course of business. He cites another set of researchers who surveyed technologists in a variety of fields, and found that companies in most fields mostly patent in order to protect their inventions, while computing companies are most likely to patent so they can game the system. Klemens seems to be downplaying the role of open source in all of this. In Chapter 6, he points out that the U.S. software market is evenly split between software companies (32.6%), consultants (36.4%), and in-house software (31.0%). That is, most software isn’t written by software companies, and some of that not-software-company software is OSS. It’s the decentralization, not the openness, that matters. Patents have never been applied to a decentralized industry before, and they don’t work there because independent invention is not a valid defense against claims of patent infringement, and independent invention is inevitable in such a decentralized industry.

Sounds like a great book. I’ve put it on my Amazon list, and I’ll blog more about it once I get a chance to read it. You can get your copy here.

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About Tim Lee

Timothy B. Lee (Contributor, 2004-2009) is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is currently a PhD student and a member of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He contributes regularly to a variety of online publications, including Ars Technica, Techdirt, Cato @ Liberty, and The Angry Blog. He has been a Mac bigot since 1984, a Unix, vi, and Perl bigot since 1998, and a sworn enemy of HTML-formatted email for as long as certain companies have thought that was a good idea. You can reach him by email at leex1008@umn.edu.

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  • http://weblog.ipcentral.info/ Noel Le

    I’m surprised the book is released through Brookings Press. Perhaps Brookings didn’t check with its exmployees at the AEI-Brookings Center, who actually specialize in IP policy.

  • http://weblog.ipcentral.info/ Noel Le

    I’m surprised the book is released through Brookings Press. Perhaps Brookings didn’t check with its exmployees at the AEI-Brookings Center, who actually specialize in IP policy.

  • http://www@pff.org Noel Le

    That the book should not be taken to represent Brooking`s IPR positions.

  • Noel Le

    That the book should not be taken to represent Brooking`s IPR positions.

  • Charles Kiyanda

    I read the entire review and I liked this passage:

    “He also talks about how one could write up a symbol table to translate any given program into lambda calculus expressions, which are pure math by any definition of the term. If pure math isn’t patentable, and a program can be translated into a pure mathematical expression, then where does the program get off being patentable?”

    It sort of struck me that (as pointed out at the end of the review) copyright should be much more suited to code than patents. I’m obviously not the first one to think about this and was wondering if many people agree with that position?

  • Charles Kiyanda

    I read the entire review and I liked this passage:

    “He also talks about how one could write up a symbol table to translate any given program into lambda calculus expressions, which are pure math by any definition of the term. If pure math isn’t patentable, and a program can be translated into a pure mathematical expression, then where does the program get off being patentable?”

    It sort of struck me that (as pointed out at the end of the review) copyright should be much more suited to code than patents. I’m obviously not the first one to think about this and was wondering if many people agree with that position?

  • http://shianux.jiyuuu.org Han

    Noel:

    I gather that you’re not a programmer, nor have you written any code before.

  • http://shianux.jiyuuu.org Han

    Noel:

    I gather that you’re not a programmer, nor have you written any code before.

  • http://weblog.ipcentral.info/ Noel Le

    Oh, Charles, look up Professor Jacqueline Lipton, who recently did an article on why patents are more suitable for software than coprights. I don’t remember the title of the article offhand…

  • http://weblog.ipcentral.info/ Noel Le

    Oh, Charles, look up Professor Jacqueline Lipton, who recently did an article on why patents are more suitable for software than coprights. I don’t remember the title of the article offhand…

  • http://ben.klemens.org BK

    Just to clarify, Brookings, as an institution, has no position on anything. It’s just an amalgamation of people who all have their own thoughts. I’m delighted to say that nobody has ever even hinted that I should modify my own position to be in line with Brookings, AEI, or their donors.

    Also, the book is not just published by the BI Press: I’ve been a Guest Scholar at the BI for about three years now, and am writing this from here on the eight floor of Brooking’s main building. So I am very much in touch with the guys at the AEI, and have had many a conversation with some of them.

    Nor do I feel that I’m crazily out of line with them. It would be false to say that I’m anti-IP or anti-patent. The book takes pains to point out that patents, applied correctly, can be a good thing and can foster innovation. It also argues that patents are very inappropriate for informational inventions like software, business methods, or storylines. If you asked anybody else here or at the AEI, I expect that they would all offer a similar pragmatic optimism about IP law: it is a basically good idea, but the implementation is never obvious.

  • http://ben.klemens.org BK

    Just to clarify, Brookings, as an institution, has no position on anything. It’s just an amalgamation of people who all have their own thoughts. I’m delighted to say that nobody has ever even hinted that I should modify my own position to be in line with Brookings, AEI, or their donors.



    Also, the book is not just published by the BI Press: I’ve been a Guest Scholar at the BI for about three years now, and am writing this from here on the eight floor of Brooking’s main building. So I am very much in touch with the guys at the AEI, and have had many a conversation with some of them.



    Nor do I feel that I’m crazily out of line with them. It would be false to say that I’m anti-IP or anti-patent. The book takes pains to point out that patents, applied correctly, can be a good thing and can foster innovation. It also argues that patents are very inappropriate for informational inventions like software, business methods, or storylines. If you asked anybody else here or at the AEI, I expect that they would all offer a similar pragmatic optimism about IP law: it is a basically good idea, but the implementation is never obvious.

  • http://weblog.ipcentral.info/ Noel Le

    BK, your position is consistent with Brookings fellow Ken Dam’s position on patents- that poor administration of patents can offset the economic justificatons for them. Dam had a special concern for software patents, although he agreed with the statutory subject matter holding of State Street.

    We’re probably not that far apart on patents. Unqualified support for them on the part of fanatics gives the rest of us who like quality patents a bad name.

    Hmmm. So you don’t like patents for pure algorithms. Do you distniquish between software and business patents at all then.

  • http://weblog.ipcentral.info/ Noel Le

    BK, your position is consistent with Brookings fellow Ken Dam’s position on patents- that poor administration of patents can offset the economic justificatons for them. Dam had a special concern for software patents, although he agreed with the statutory subject matter holding of State Street.

    We’re probably not that far apart on patents. Unqualified support for them on the part of fanatics gives the rest of us who like quality patents a bad name.

    Hmmm. So you don’t like patents for pure algorithms. Do you distniquish between software and business patents at all then.

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