[Patents] Report on software patents.

[Daniel Probst daniel.probst@gmx.ch]

>
> In the end, the software patents still issued, though at a greater
> cost to patent applicants.  And much like in Europe, while everyone
> was arguing these philosophical issues, no attention was made to
> improving the examination process (in particular searching) so that
> all of the idiotic types of software patents we all hate wouldn't
> issue.
>
> Greg Aharonian
>
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>

Dear Greg,

although we all agree that in the US loads of software patents have been
granted which do not meet an reasonable novelty standard, would you explain
at a conceptual level how you believe an efficient examination process
should look (if I take you correctly, given institutional/political
constraints, you seem to prefer changes in the examination precedure to
fudging the subjet matter which can be patented).

If we could actually solve this problem and gauge reasonably precisely how
novel something is we certainly wouldn't give the inventor a monopoly but
instead renumerate him proportionaly to novelty (taken as a variable
proportional to the unobservable effort exerted by the inventor).

Obviously this is a problem for all types of patents, i.e., software,
pharma, bio etc.
However, thinking at a casual level there seems to be a difference between

i) This never before seen chemical compound cures a disease

and

ii) this compression algorithm is more efficient than all other previously
known ones

in ii) I'd expect half the "specialists in the field" to say "Whow, I'd have
never thought of that" while the second half retorts "Utterly trivial, just
a few a hours work"

-dan

---------
daniel.probst@vwl.uni-mannheim.de
Dr. Daniel Probst
Economic Theory
Mannheim University
Germany