Are you all idiots here or what ?

What kind of weed do you smoke every day ?

Just read this FAQ about so-called “software patents” to clear your brains:

http://www.ipjur.com/01.php3

And if you don’t like patents and patent holders in general (I know Mike hates them all) just say it loud and clear.

As far as when patents are pertinent, in the invention v innovation stage, I’ll hold off from commenting here. The relation between invention and innovation is a bit more complex than where this discussion may lead. Prof. Bronwyn Hall has done some excellent work in the area, which I’ll review and write something on (Masnick, I’ll even send you a copy).

There is no evidence that going back would offer an improvement.

Actually, that’s untrue. Look through the history and you can find plenty of evidence of how intellectual protectionism harms innovation.

The evidence that software patents are harming innovation is weak or nonexistent.

Again, that’s not supported by the research.

Mostly, at the innovation stage, patents are ignored. Trolls are unlikely to target tiny players. It is later on, when the innovation is being put to use in implementing an ambitious business model, that problems show up.

You are confusing innovation with invention. At the invention stage patents are mostly ignored. It’s only at the point of innovation that patent troubles come up.

As for Greg’s point, I’d argue that innovation is occurring in spite of the patent system, not because of it.

Brian, I actually proposed this for FOSS firms in case the KSR decision went the other way around.

“His [Greg] main example is Vonage’s loss to Verizon, which a) won’t lead to any technology stifling, and b) is more an example of hiring incompetent litigators (the Verizon patents are pure crap if you hire a good searcher who hands his results off to good litigators).””

But long cases, expensive (even if incompetent) lawyers and the judicial firepower to decide them are all exactly the kind of negatives that Tim’s talking about. That’s money that neither Vonage or Verizon (or the government) won’t be able to use to do actually useful things, such as innovation. There’s nothing that stifles innovation more than not having money because you spent lots of it fighting stupid patent cases that Greg himself claims are stupid.

^^^ That’s exactly how I feel. I think it’s possible to make both Tim (whom I did have lunch with today!) and Greg happy(er) if we could identify the truly terrible, obviously obvious software patents and get them revoked.

It seems like an “open source lawyering” arrangement could be set up. Lots of free software type people donate a bunch of money and hire a few lawyers to just go ahead and unilaterally challenge the worst of the worst software patents (examples of which have been covered on this blog).

I tend to suspect that a great deal of the problem with software patents is the unfamiliarity of the patent office with the software industry. That’s an education that needs to happen. Now, the slippery slope is that what is obvious today may not have been at the time it was granted, but from what I’ve seen of some of these patents, they were a) pretty obvious then and b) often software replicas of real world applications — i.e. you shouldn’t grant a patent for “software program with a play/rewind/pause for watching videos” because that scheme already exists physically with say, VCR’s.