From srctran@world.std.com  Mon Oct 16 14:28:52 2000
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 10:28:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com
Subject: [Patents] Threats to developers

Hartmut writes:
>Software patents on the contrary are criticized from within the software
>developping circles because they stifle progress ....

There is no economic or bibliographics data to support the argument that
software progress is being stifle/nihdered because of software patents.
The amount of literature published concerning software continues to show
the exponential growth of any mature scientific endeavor, in particular,
the number of publications coming out of universities, where much of the
innovative software development occurs.

Additionally, other than the occasionally article about a silly software
patent being asserted, for the most part, the software industry magazines
and newspapers spend little to no time covering software patents.  Unless
you can quantify this stifling and suffering, how can you assert it?

Edward writes:
(after my comment chastising someone for claiming to feel to have a gun
at his head whenever he writes software, and I then wrote that unless he
becomes successful, no one will ever pay attention to him):
>On the subject of Lucent Technologies, whose aggressive "East Coast"
>style is becoming notorious in the Valley, he says, "They're incredibly
>aggressive in enforcing their Bell Labs patent portfolio as a profit
>center. They're regarded in the Valley as extortionist," he says.

Yes, companies do use their large portfolio of patents to harass other
COMPANIES.  But show me where such large companies have gone after
INDIVIDUALS like those who feel they have guns pointed to their heads
when they are programming.

An individual programmer has little to nothing to fear about software
patents.  It is only when a company has a software product profitable
enough to attract patent lawsuits do they have anything to worry about,
and even then, many have been able to successfully fight off the
patent lawsuit at a moderate cost.  Certainly, cleaning up the patent
examination process would see less stupid patents for companies to assert
that others have to waste their money successfully fighting off.  But
it still leave other software patents to issue that do satisfy novelty
and non-obviousness and enablement requirements.  For those patents that
do so issue, those we can argue about whether or not they deserve to
be patented and wether or not they are harming the industry.  But until
then, the data is wat to ambiguous.

Greg Aharonian




