[Patents] Re: Pro Software Patents = Illegal

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> <<Even those software patents that are novel are crappy.>>

> <<Even those few that are inventive (because represent significant
> advances in the art of mathematics), have proven to be very harmful to
> that art.>>

> So you are now acknowledging that there are real software inventions
> which you have seen being covered by patents.

There are some good ideas with real work and ingenuity behind them.
Very few, and mostly in the mathematical field.
I wouldn't call them "inventions", because that is a technical term
in patent law, and art 52 EPC excludes mathematical methods.

> <<There is no good reason for honest patent professionals to tolerate the
> parasitic acitvity of some asocials who are invading the field of pure
> abstraction and degrading the software industry, sucking away its
> lifeblood by turning it into a field for their litigation business.>>

> Such a telling disclosure.  You are admitting that you think that others
> inventions should be socialized for your and your colleagues benefit.

No, I am saying that they should not be privatised.
Even Karmarkar's groundbreaking method for linear optimisation would have
been better served if it had stayed within the positive cycle of
researcher network + (copyrighted) software development, and both
the inventor and the innovation in that area would have thrived better
without the patent.

> <<All this wrongdoing will turn back on those patent professionals who are
> pursuing an honest business.  Please come forward to help us to lead the
> patent system back onto an honorable and sustainable path.  Please show to
> us that your trade is not a morally bankrupt outcast of history but
> capable of relaunch and rejuvenation. Show us before it is too late and
> all rests of moral credit have been destroyed.>>

> The whole point of the patent system is to encourage disclosure of an
> invention. Your comments have demonstrated that you are looking at
> those inventions which have been disclosed, and that you love the
> content so much that you wish to use it.  But you simply are balking
> at having to pay the inventor.

In fact I do not like it when Karmarkar's linear optimisation idea is
made available only in a $ 10 million USD software package, as done by
AT&T at the time.  But that is not the only problem.

What is more important is that the patent promoted secrecy instead of
disclosure, and it isolated its holder from the network of researchers.

It is not so much the individual who has good ideas, and there is not a
real problem of a lack of reward.

Moreover, monopolies on ideas that could be flowing free are particularly
disruptive.  Objectivised information is even more ubiquitous,
fast-transmitting and public in its nature than are subjective ideas such
as those that flow in the researchers' network.

> You Have several options.

... according to the system which you are clinging to and which may be
appropriate for drugs and other inventions in the realm of natural
science, with material embodiments.

> 1) Wait until the patent expires, and then use the invention for free.
>
> 2) Purchase a license.
>
> 3) Infringe the patent and run the risk that someone will sue you.  If you 
> do
> so, do not be surprised if it costs you much more (three to ten times) than 
> it
> would have if you had simply licensed the invention.
>
> 4) Invent, if you can, an equally good alternative way of doing the same 
> job,
> and dedicate that invention to society, thereby demonstrating both your 
> skills
> and principles.
>
> I suspect that if you were inventive that you would quickly become greedy 
> and
> asocial, file your own patents, and spend the rest of your life adjusting
> attitudes of those who try to steal your work.

I am in fact conceiving new ideas all the time, and some of them have been
successful and were taken up by others.  I can see that when you see
others making a lot of money with the ideas that you were the first to
conceive, you may feel angry and jealous.  Also it is normal to detest
copycats.  I share those feelings to a certain extent.  I also can see
that not all creative people have the necessary network connections in
order to duly profit from their creative ideas, be it in the form of fame
or money.  Thus for some of these people patents are very attractive, and
as framers of public policy we should consider installing some kinds of
reward systems for these people.

However:  there is no natural right to excluding others.  Whether
and to what degree exclusion is socially acceptable must be studied very
carefully.  For the area of mathematical/software ideas I would prefer
a system of non-exclusive rewarding.  Many models are possible, and some
have even been tried out in similar contexts.

Currently we have a very strange situation where the envy and
gold-digger's dream of small networkless outsiders is used as the moral
basis for a patent system which, when you look at reality as a whole,
serves mainly to protect large enterprises, foster concentration and deter
innovative newcomers from entering all kinds of activity.

This perverse effect is quite old, read Machlup.  And the easier it
becomes to obtain patents, the more perverse the effect becomes.  With
software patents we are in a situation where everyone can easily get a a
few (largely useless, occasionally awesome) patents, while at the same
time the whole software market is blocked and reserved to the very few who
can truly make use of patents in the context of a huge portfolio.

This could lead people to suspect that the "inventors' associations" are
really doing the propagandistic work for patent offices and large
corporations who prefer to stay more behind the scenes.  But I don't want
to build even more conspiracy theories here, and I do acknowledge some
facts described above, which I may summarize as:

- non-trivial mathematical innovations do exist
- some networkless individuals do have a morally justifiable desire
  to get more reward than the normal market+network mechanisms can offer

I wonder if we could get constructive on that basis.

--
Hartmut Pilch
Federation for a Free Information Infrastructure        http://www.ffii.org/
For a software patent free Europe PLEASE SIGN http://petition.eurolinux.org/