[Patents] American Inventor Coalition / was Re: Software and

[srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

John,
        Here is the hardware version of what you are concerned about,
and it is equally true:
>However, the reality of hardware patents imposes a risk that even
>bug-free hardware may harm its developers unpredictably, by inviting
>costly lawsuits, reparations, licensing, or the need to redesign ot
>abandon projects at the whim of present and future patent holders.
>To live under such threats is like giving up control of your life's
>accomplishments and everything you own to to a regime that may take
>it all away at any moment with no just cause.

Again, another way in which hardware and software are alike.  In fact,
the concerns John expresses happen more frequently for hardware
designers than software designers (if the word "Rambus" doesn't pop
into your head as you read this, you are too clueless to be discussing
patent policy issues).

Too many lousy, threatening software patents?  Well, just as many
lousy and threatening hardware patents (if you take the time to review
issued hardware patents).  Trivial software applications being 
patented?  No surprise, trivial hardware applications have been patented
even longer (just do a search on FFT patents).

So I can live with treating hardware and software patentability in a
variety of forms, but whatever form, little if anything I have read
on this list convinces me that they should be treated differently in
the eyes of the law.

And if you have complaints about software along the lines of above,
and if the hardware people have even stronger complaints (and they
do), boo hoo says the biotech people, whose complaints and threats
are even greater.  To the biotech people, the software people are a
bunch of crybabies when it comes to patent problems.

Greg Aharonian