[Patents] patent pools enforcing per-copy-licensing mode of software development

[Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com]

>If we use the criterion, "new, useful and non-obvious", trivial patents
>meet this criterion and will be granted.  For example, a problem that
>takes two hours to be solved is "non-obvious" but it is probably
>trivial.

Again, this complaint applies to all areas of technology, not just
software.  Second, what does it mean to take "two hours" to solve
a problem?  I can solve such problems in a few hours only because
I have a few decades worth of experience.  The amount of time is a
lousy way to measure the difficulty of problem - read about the
mathematician Paul Erdos, who could take one look at a mathematical
problem on a blackboard that other mathematicians had been trying
to solve for years, and solve it in seconds.  His solution process
was neither trivial or obvious.

And for those patents, software or not, that seem trivial and
obvious, there is often enough prior art to invalidate the patent,
if given to the patent examiner.  The problems with the patent
system are not its nature, but its implementation.  And implementation
is much easier to deal with than its nature, which is why I have been
arguing for seven years to improve the implementation.  It is doable
and would eliminate a lot of the crap issuing.

Greg Aharonian