Given the amount of recent (and ongoing) controversy about software patents it is interesting to see how the hacker news community, those who are generally doers, feel about them.
I can't stand the idea that I might be at my computer, working with code, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all software patents.
This John Carmack quote is relevant and shares your sentiments:
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying."
> I can't stand the idea that I might be at my computer, working with code, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all patents.
I can't stand the idea that I might be in my shop/lab, working with metal/wood/plastic/chemicals, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all patents.
Sorry to all, I specifically meant software patents. Hardware patents are different as they often rely on physical creation of objects and a non-trivial investment in materials/development.
Conversely a software idea can be thought up in a few minutes and implemented in the same. In app purchases isn't exactly a clever idea or something that was revelatory. It was simple software evolution.
I voted for the "abolish all" option despite the fact I'm actually in favor of patents in general and don't think software should be distinct from hardware, but the situation has gotten ridiculous (as has the situation with patents in general).
I think that software should only be protected by copyright if the source code is placed in escrow and made available when the company goes belly-up or when the (strictly limited) copyright period expires.
I think that the patent system needs to be thoroughly reformed so as to do a better job of covering software, hardware, and a blend of the two. John Carmack's example is compelling but if patents were handled properly the odds of such a thing occurring would be as remote as the odds of doing the same thing in your backyard workshop with a lathe.
Me neither. But what about the opposite case - you work on something for a long time, and then make a breakthrough. Genius! You apply your breakthrough to do something awesome and release it out into the world. Someone else notes, it, reverse engineers it, and has a better marketing operation than you so they make $$$ and you get nothing. without patents, how do you protect your genuinely original work?
I'm not a fan of software patents. To be honest, I wish we didn't need a patent system at all. But since we don't live in the Star Trek universe and world communism turns out not to be the economic panacea that its creators hoped, we need something to protect the rights of inventors. Same thing with copyright - before it came into being, artists and writers had to rely either on fickle patronage or else hope to make some money on their first sales run because after that it was a free-for-all. Although I hate the way IP law and institutions have swung towards the opposite extreme and are now damaging to consumers and the general cause of innovation, those rules exist to solve a genuine economic problem.
It would be easier to overturn software patents if there were some alternative proposal to reliably secure the fruits of innovation to the inventor. If that task is left to the market, then a) there's abundant evidence that profit will win over ethics, and consumers won't know or care and b) people whose time is best spent innovating will have to spend more effort on marketing and monetizing their IP and fending off competitors, which is inefficient for solo inventors or small firms. So is spending a lot of time on patent work, admittedly, but a patent is a more reliable shield against having one's invention ripped off.
Fixing your problem would only need the current system to be modified such that independent invention is not infringing. One way, for example, is to make it permissible for independent invention to be considered evidence that the patent is obvious to those skilled in the art and thus not patentable. A patent already granted would be repealed under these circumstances.
Would you still be in favour of abolishment, and if so why?
There's a money incentive at work for each patent submission.
Every time I stare at that patent submission form I can't help but to imagine somebody doing a cool thing which does something similar, getting squashed by a lawyer.
I've a couple of those forms which I filled, but never submitted.
There are many ideas that I can't stand. Fortunately I weigh them against their likelihood and find that reassuring. I suggest you do likewise. The probability that in your noodling you will develop something non-obvious and worthy of intellectual protection and will nonetheless continue obliviously developing it, without the slightest idea there may be protected prior art is vanishingly small. Consequently your paranoid intuition that we should abolish all software patents may be laid to rest. There may well be good reasons to investigate the patent system. IMHO this is not one of them. Hope this helps.
In principle, they could give a lone programmer or small company that invents something awesome the edge needed to break in to a market dominated by large companies. I consider this to be desirable.
In practice, they're used by large companies to prevent lone programmers or small companies from breaking in to the markets they dominate. I do not consider this to be desirable.
The biggest problem here is the transaction costs. If the costs to get and enforce patents were much much lower (time, money, opportunity cost), then patents would be really good. Only the large corporations have enough cash to enforce patents successfully.
While I agree that the second case is often the norm, I do have one counter-example -- I used to work for Riverbed Technology, a 9 year old company which does WAN optimization and competes against Cisco and Bluecoat, among others. Riverbed is (or was?) generally regarded as the tech leader in the market and its head start is based on a patented compression scheme. There's no question that the patent is a big part of what allowed the company to survive the entrance of 800-lb gorillas into the market and I'm fairly certain that if software patents were abolished today, that algorithm would be in Cisco's WAN solution tomorrow.
I still think the software patent system as it stands now needs serious reform but you know, that saying about a broken clock and all.
I think the worst practical thing about software patents is that they create uncertainty. If there is one thing that is universally abhorred in the business world, it is uncertainty.
There needs to be a fast, cheap, reliable method by which small businesses can determine whether they are affected by anyone else's patent rights, and if so, by whose and to what extent. This way they can enter useful negotiations and adjust or abandon their plans as appropriate if patents are involved, or they can build their business free of unknown liability otherwise.
Given that I can see no viable means of ever constructing such a system, I don't see how patents or any similar legal tools will ever be anything but a tool for those with vast resources to crush competitors with few resources through means other than fair competition in the market.
My vote would be "Yes, if the Patent office approved only real innovative things". For example if I come up with some revolutionary face recognition technology, that seems novel enough to be patented. But if I just make a form with a submit button (Google's Patented home page), or Amazon's one click purchasing those are just ridiculous as a patents.
Given how poorly the USPTO has performed thus far, it seems impossible that this could be correctly implemented. Better to err on the side of openness, and abolish them altogether.
If google really has a patent on that home page, I'd suspect it is a design patent, which is an entirely different kind of beast. It's more like trademark rights.
Its a slippery slope. Who gets to define what is ridiculous? You can say 'the courts', but one judge may differ from another and therein lies a deeper issue.
Please everybody, don't go reddit with the comment voting.
It is clear what the majority opinion here is, but I see well formulated comments supporting the minority opinion being voted down. If you think their arguments are wrong, don't vote them down. Instead, vote up the comments that explains why they are wrong.
With this type of support for abolishing software patents from the people who write the software; it seems we must be able to organize some sort of strike to just put an end to it immediately.
You can't because programmers aren't in control of themselves. The ones who have enough cash and power are more than willing to continue with the present system or they cash out and leave someone else to do the work of opposing it.
I see no reason why an invention should be unpatentable simply because it involves software.
That said, it's obvious that the current system is broken; there are many patents which do not seem to do anything new, and simultaneously the cost of applying for patents deters the group for whom they are most important -- small innovators who are unable to commercialize their inventions.
This intrigues me, because fundamentally I see software as a form of mathematics. Given that mathematical equations aren't patentable, I don't believe that software should be either. Moreover, it seems that we already have many things in software preventing people from copying code wholesale (SaaS, the fundamental difficulty in reverse engineering compiled binaries). As a professional cryptographer/mathematician, how do you feel about the relation between mathematics and software?
I said abolish, but really I think we could have a workable solution by either giving the PTO the funding it needs to do a good job, or eliminating the presumption of validity. The big problem we have now is that the law assumes that all patents are properly examined when the PTO doesn't have the resources to do a proper examination.
Since this is specific to software patents, my vote was to abolish them all.
Patents on Software make not sense (other protections like Copyright, are essential, though).
I have yet to see one "invention" that would not have seen the light of day without software patents.
Patents are a method to protect significant costs cost of an invention (to incentivize research).
Having an idea for an algorithm is does not represent a great cost and it is not in the interest of society to grant a monopoly).
I have a hard time with this topic. Of course the only thing that ever gets covered in main-stream tech media is the abuse by patent trolls suing Company X because they are using their "electronic key-input device" patent to type on their computers.
We all roll our eyes and go "Damn these patents! DAMN THEM!"
But then I think of the purpose of the patent system in general: to protect and encourage innovation. I think of the research scientists coming up with approaches to genuinely unique and interesting problems and yes, I want them protected from getting rail-roaded by larger software firms.
I've discussed this with a patent attorney before and his feeling is that software patents are generally a good thing, but there has to be ONE change that would do away with most of the bullshit patents: proof of implementation.
Right now, apparently, I can patent the 40-click checkout process and sue Amazon when they implement it... but I never need to implement it, release it or use it in production. I just need to think of the idea and I can patent it.
I imagine a lot of these IP-only firms wouldn't have such a strong grip on stupid garbage patents if it required them to show working implementations.
I believe this is the same way with patents in manufacturing. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you need to produce the mechanical process you are patenting and at least show it is viable before patenting it?
Whether that is true or not, requiring that of patenters would go a long way of making the work more worthwhile and not just a bunch of lawyers sitting in a room with a few engineers, waving their hands around all day until they invent and patent the use of desk chairs.
Where do you draw the line between a "software patent" and a hardware one? Doesn't make sense to make a distinction based on the method of implementation (especially given that lots of HW is micro-programmable).
Yes - many silly patents are being filed for unreasonable reasons (fight patent wars, get a bonus, etc.) But making a distinction based on only on way of implementation is just as silly.
We who invent things, we who solve problems in new ways, don't do so because we can get a patent. We solve the problem because when you put a problem in front of us, we can't stop ourselves from solving it. It haunts us. We dream about it. And the only way to make it go away is to solve it. That's the nature of Engineers, the nature of Inventors. Engineers don't think about patents when presented with a problem, they think about solutions. Lawyers think about patents and they don't invent anything.
You might have a better idea than the last guy, but chances are your idea overlaps with his a little. If your new idea has some similarities with an exiting patented idea, implementing it could be risky. If engineers did a patent search for every idea they had, they would find some overlap with existing patents every single time. Nothing would ever get created. The true evil of patents is that they actually stifle, rather than promote, innovation. The effect of patents is opposite their intent.
Just because someone beat me to the patent office legally means I'm not permitted think up the same idea and use my computer to do the same. It's not even about copying, I'm legally limited in what I'm permitted to think up and do.
I owned and managed a small software development company for nearly 25 years. We produced many creative educational and consumer products for large publishers. We had neither time nor money to research every innovative routine we developed for possible infringement. Nor did we have money to apply for patents or defend them if they were granted.
As we've seen, software patents stifle creativity and innovation; reward those with money rather than creative energy and ideas.
This is one of those issues that I feel is more a member of tribal affiliation than anything substantive. It's like flag burning for us Republicans: if I were to rank order my political objectives, "prevent flag burning" would be somewhere in the x0,000s, but the tribe cares about this a lot for philosophical reasons (which I'm broadly speaking on board with) and as a result uses it as a signaling mechanism.
Software patents strikes me as signaling for geeks, or the techno-libertarian-esque streak that is pretty common in the community at any rate. Is it an important issue? Well, yeah, I'd love to see it addressed. Someday. Maybe after flag burning.
There are many, many issues used for signaling that I feel about similarly.
Couldn't disagree more. Sure, as a society of wanna-be/successful code entrepreneurs, we are more likely to be affected by this issue. But that doesn't mean the issue isn't substantive. It is more accurate to say that the majority of people outside of our "tribe" are simply unaware of patents and the type of burden it places on innovative thinking. Your argument essentially points to software patents being a non-issue. If that were true, we wouldn't be seeing well written websites taken down or extorted through the patent system.
I'm not just flag burning here. Privacy might be a better issue to put into the "tribal affiliation" buckets as I have heard of few real instances where privacy actually harmed a real person (I'm talking about stuff like google tracking your searches). As a developer, there is a real chance you will get sued over patents, and if you do there will be real damage done.
Your discussion of "Tribe Signalling" is interesting. It reminds me of all the stuff that Desmond Morris was talking about in "the Human Animal" (and more recently http://www.exactitudes.com/). By wearing certain clothes you're sending a signal to others about political POV, likes dislikes, interests etc... It helps you find other like minded individuals.
Maybe you're right that being against software patents is generally a tribal signal that says "I'm a hacker" or "computer-type".
When I logged into the comment thread, I was thinking the exact same sort of thing. "Well Duh"
The Hacker News audience is somewhere near 100% the exact demographic that you'd expect to be generally against software patents.
It's like logging on to a Twilight fan-board and asking "Are vampires Awesome?"
I can think of at least two pragmatic, immediate reasons the patent system needs to be addressed:
-The HTML5 video codec wars and the rise of patent pool companies like the MPEG-LA (which, besides licensing H.264, is reportedly forming a patent license pool for VP8 entirely independently from Google)
-Relatedly, the patent pools forming around next-gen communication protocols like LTE, a 3G successor
The communications pools in particular are worrisome -- the licensors in the pools used to be manufacturers who happened to hold patents and used these pools to encourage widespread adoption but the increasing involvement of holding companies and pool packagers is turning licensing into a primary business, which is overall bad news.
Is that because you think the problem crops up so rarely, or because you think the problem is very minor in general? Do you think you would feel differently if you were sued for gazillions of dollars for violating a patent on, say, using computers to create games for use in schools?
This is not a "signaling" issue, it is hugely important. One of the few industries that has been generating tons of innovation and jobs over the last 20 years is under constant attack from stupid patents, but you think that is less important than banning flag burning?
The economic harm of the uncertainty created by the patent system is way greater than the harm done by the cases that make it into the news.
And this harm is ignored by almost everyone (at least somebody else in this thread pointed it out) including "geeks" the focus is on specific examples of patents being abused).
I support complete abolishment of the entire patent system, not just software patents. I believe that - in practice - patents do more to inhibit innovation than to encourage it, and I also find the idea that the government will use force to prevent you from using an idea - that you may have developed independently - to be immoral.
Imagine a Book of Code, like Knuth's Art of Programming, but easier to search and understand.
If you come up with something new, and write it up clearly enough, it can go into The Book. You get royalties for X number of years (maybe 5? idk). Everyone uses this as a resource. Perhaps there's ARIA-like licensing (where a cafe pays a standard rate to play any music they like), for usages based on how many people use it (so a small software shop pays a small annual fee, and google pays huge fees) - or more likely the owner sets the price. Like an app-store for algorithms. After X years, it becomes free.
The patent system is nothing like this. I'm not sure it's even technically possible, though certainly textbooks get written and some of them are excellent (perhaps with financial motivation, you could employ people like David Flanagan writing up algorithms).
Having such a Book would being programming much closer to an engineering discipline. It would also make contributing to the Book a badge of professional honour, and not disparaged as patents are today. Really, anyone who invents a new and useful approach should be lauded - but the patent system has strayed far from this.
Traditional patents are like creating new tools for a carpenter to use.
Software patents are when someone picks up a screwdriver and says "I'm going to use this to pry the lid off the paint can. No one else can do that now, ever again."
I'm surprised things like business process patents aren't more widely supported. Especially in the software industry, it's pretty obvious that most applications are the result of somebody developing (or at least, think their developing) a better method for accomplishing an existing task. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't business process patents enable similar ideas organized differently to equally receive patents? It's truly difficult to lean either way (however, I did vote for the abolishment of all patents). If you're a successful business who is challenged for your innovation, the only protection you really have is a patent. If anything, I feel like those in the software industry should form some sort of agreement and petition the government to enact new rules specifically for this industry. As technology evolves, I shudder at the thought of how the archaic system we have now will all but crumble. There should be a lot more future-proofing taking place.
My take on this is: Abolish all patents (not only software).
Patent system simply does not serve it's purpose (which ws to motivate inventors to publish they ideas, so they could be later reused) as patents are intentionally written as to be unreadable and uninformative. And this happens not only in "software" or "business method" ones.
[+] [-] mrcharles|15 years ago|reply
edited to add "software".
[+] [-] albedoa|15 years ago|reply
"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying."
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_D._Carmack
[+] [-] anamax|15 years ago|reply
I can't stand the idea that I might be in my shop/lab, working with metal/wood/plastic/chemicals, and develop something independently which later causes me to get sued. Abolish all patents.
[+] [-] nimrody|15 years ago|reply
- Keep it as a trade secret. You get one source for a product, and less innovation.
- Publish it and suffer the consequences of the big companies copying it and making profit on your work.
[+] [-] mrcharles|15 years ago|reply
Conversely a software idea can be thought up in a few minutes and implemented in the same. In app purchases isn't exactly a clever idea or something that was revelatory. It was simple software evolution.
[+] [-] podperson|15 years ago|reply
I think that software should only be protected by copyright if the source code is placed in escrow and made available when the company goes belly-up or when the (strictly limited) copyright period expires.
I think that the patent system needs to be thoroughly reformed so as to do a better job of covering software, hardware, and a blend of the two. John Carmack's example is compelling but if patents were handled properly the odds of such a thing occurring would be as remote as the odds of doing the same thing in your backyard workshop with a lathe.
[+] [-] anigbrowl|15 years ago|reply
I'm not a fan of software patents. To be honest, I wish we didn't need a patent system at all. But since we don't live in the Star Trek universe and world communism turns out not to be the economic panacea that its creators hoped, we need something to protect the rights of inventors. Same thing with copyright - before it came into being, artists and writers had to rely either on fickle patronage or else hope to make some money on their first sales run because after that it was a free-for-all. Although I hate the way IP law and institutions have swung towards the opposite extreme and are now damaging to consumers and the general cause of innovation, those rules exist to solve a genuine economic problem.
It would be easier to overturn software patents if there were some alternative proposal to reliably secure the fruits of innovation to the inventor. If that task is left to the market, then a) there's abundant evidence that profit will win over ethics, and consumers won't know or care and b) people whose time is best spent innovating will have to spend more effort on marketing and monetizing their IP and fending off competitors, which is inefficient for solo inventors or small firms. So is spending a lot of time on patent work, admittedly, but a patent is a more reliable shield against having one's invention ripped off.
[+] [-] rlpb|15 years ago|reply
Would you still be in favour of abolishment, and if so why?
[+] [-] checoivan|15 years ago|reply
Every time I stare at that patent submission form I can't help but to imagine somebody doing a cool thing which does something similar, getting squashed by a lawyer.
I've a couple of those forms which I filled, but never submitted.
[+] [-] petegrif|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blantonl|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zak|15 years ago|reply
In practice, they're used by large companies to prevent lone programmers or small companies from breaking in to the markets they dominate. I do not consider this to be desirable.
They're more trouble than they're worth.
[+] [-] PakG1|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sunahsuh|15 years ago|reply
I still think the software patent system as it stands now needs serious reform but you know, that saying about a broken clock and all.
[+] [-] smokeyj|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Silhouette|15 years ago|reply
There needs to be a fast, cheap, reliable method by which small businesses can determine whether they are affected by anyone else's patent rights, and if so, by whose and to what extent. This way they can enter useful negotiations and adjust or abandon their plans as appropriate if patents are involved, or they can build their business free of unknown liability otherwise.
Given that I can see no viable means of ever constructing such a system, I don't see how patents or any similar legal tools will ever be anything but a tool for those with vast resources to crush competitors with few resources through means other than fair competition in the market.
[+] [-] thwarted|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ry0ohki|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omellet|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinpet|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] binarymax|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abrahamsen|15 years ago|reply
It is clear what the majority opinion here is, but I see well formulated comments supporting the minority opinion being voted down. If you think their arguments are wrong, don't vote them down. Instead, vote up the comments that explains why they are wrong.
[+] [-] eof|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] urbanturbanguy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omouse|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cperciva|15 years ago|reply
That said, it's obvious that the current system is broken; there are many patents which do not seem to do anything new, and simultaneously the cost of applying for patents deters the group for whom they are most important -- small innovators who are unable to commercialize their inventions.
The system needs to be fixed, not thrown out.
[+] [-] Locke1689|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linuxhansl|15 years ago|reply
Patents are a method to protect significant costs cost of an invention (to incentivize research). Having an idea for an algorithm is does not represent a great cost and it is not in the interest of society to grant a monopoly).
[+] [-] nsantos|15 years ago|reply
I'm working at the moment, so can't refer to the book; if anyone else has it handy, please supply said quote. :D
[+] [-] rkalla|15 years ago|reply
We all roll our eyes and go "Damn these patents! DAMN THEM!"
But then I think of the purpose of the patent system in general: to protect and encourage innovation. I think of the research scientists coming up with approaches to genuinely unique and interesting problems and yes, I want them protected from getting rail-roaded by larger software firms.
I've discussed this with a patent attorney before and his feeling is that software patents are generally a good thing, but there has to be ONE change that would do away with most of the bullshit patents: proof of implementation.
Right now, apparently, I can patent the 40-click checkout process and sue Amazon when they implement it... but I never need to implement it, release it or use it in production. I just need to think of the idea and I can patent it.
I imagine a lot of these IP-only firms wouldn't have such a strong grip on stupid garbage patents if it required them to show working implementations.
I believe this is the same way with patents in manufacturing. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you need to produce the mechanical process you are patenting and at least show it is viable before patenting it?
Whether that is true or not, requiring that of patenters would go a long way of making the work more worthwhile and not just a bunch of lawyers sitting in a room with a few engineers, waving their hands around all day until they invent and patent the use of desk chairs.
[+] [-] nimrody|15 years ago|reply
Yes - many silly patents are being filed for unreasonable reasons (fight patent wars, get a bonus, etc.) But making a distinction based on only on way of implementation is just as silly.
[+] [-] dustbyrn|15 years ago|reply
You might have a better idea than the last guy, but chances are your idea overlaps with his a little. If your new idea has some similarities with an exiting patented idea, implementing it could be risky. If engineers did a patent search for every idea they had, they would find some overlap with existing patents every single time. Nothing would ever get created. The true evil of patents is that they actually stifle, rather than promote, innovation. The effect of patents is opposite their intent.
[+] [-] ndefinite|15 years ago|reply
Just because someone beat me to the patent office legally means I'm not permitted think up the same idea and use my computer to do the same. It's not even about copying, I'm legally limited in what I'm permitted to think up and do.
[+] [-] Writersglen|15 years ago|reply
As we've seen, software patents stifle creativity and innovation; reward those with money rather than creative energy and ideas.
[+] [-] patio11|15 years ago|reply
Software patents strikes me as signaling for geeks, or the techno-libertarian-esque streak that is pretty common in the community at any rate. Is it an important issue? Well, yeah, I'd love to see it addressed. Someday. Maybe after flag burning.
There are many, many issues used for signaling that I feel about similarly.
[+] [-] jxcole|15 years ago|reply
I'm not just flag burning here. Privacy might be a better issue to put into the "tribal affiliation" buckets as I have heard of few real instances where privacy actually harmed a real person (I'm talking about stuff like google tracking your searches). As a developer, there is a real chance you will get sued over patents, and if you do there will be real damage done.
[+] [-] AlexC04|15 years ago|reply
Maybe you're right that being against software patents is generally a tribal signal that says "I'm a hacker" or "computer-type".
When I logged into the comment thread, I was thinking the exact same sort of thing. "Well Duh"
The Hacker News audience is somewhere near 100% the exact demographic that you'd expect to be generally against software patents.
It's like logging on to a Twilight fan-board and asking "Are vampires Awesome?"
[+] [-] sunahsuh|15 years ago|reply
The communications pools in particular are worrisome -- the licensors in the pools used to be manufacturers who happened to hold patents and used these pools to encourage widespread adoption but the increasing involvement of holding companies and pool packagers is turning licensing into a primary business, which is overall bad news.
[+] [-] chc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guelo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3pt14159|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uriel|15 years ago|reply
And this harm is ignored by almost everyone (at least somebody else in this thread pointed it out) including "geeks" the focus is on specific examples of patents being abused).
[+] [-] mindcrime|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6ren|15 years ago|reply
If you come up with something new, and write it up clearly enough, it can go into The Book. You get royalties for X number of years (maybe 5? idk). Everyone uses this as a resource. Perhaps there's ARIA-like licensing (where a cafe pays a standard rate to play any music they like), for usages based on how many people use it (so a small software shop pays a small annual fee, and google pays huge fees) - or more likely the owner sets the price. Like an app-store for algorithms. After X years, it becomes free.
The patent system is nothing like this. I'm not sure it's even technically possible, though certainly textbooks get written and some of them are excellent (perhaps with financial motivation, you could employ people like David Flanagan writing up algorithms).
Having such a Book would being programming much closer to an engineering discipline. It would also make contributing to the Book a badge of professional honour, and not disparaged as patents are today. Really, anyone who invents a new and useful approach should be lauded - but the patent system has strayed far from this.
[+] [-] jeffool|15 years ago|reply
Software patents are when someone picks up a screwdriver and says "I'm going to use this to pry the lid off the paint can. No one else can do that now, ever again."
[+] [-] rglover|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfox|15 years ago|reply
Patent system simply does not serve it's purpose (which ws to motivate inventors to publish they ideas, so they could be later reused) as patents are intentionally written as to be unreadable and uninformative. And this happens not only in "software" or "business method" ones.