#patents

Critics have suggested plenty of reasonable reforms, from eliminating software patents to clamping down on "trolls" who buy up patent portfolios only so they can file lawsuits. But do we need a more radical solution? Would we be possibly be better off without any patents at all?

Critics have suggested plenty of reasonable reforms, from eliminating software patents to clamping down on "trolls" who buy up patent portfolios only so they can file lawsuits. But do we need a more radical solution? Would we be possibly be better off without any patents at all?

If you own a software patent, you should feel bad.

Patents are supposed to reward innovation, but in the software industry, they are having the opposite effect. The patent system has become a minefield that punishes innovators who accidentally infringe the patents of others. There are now so many software patents in force that it is practically impossible to avoid infringing them all.

According to a tweet from the developer, Bethesda’s lawyers are “skittish about the patent issue” surrounding the code for “Carmack’s Reverse,” which is a stencil shadowing technique patented by Creative Labs and jointly created by the id legend and other coders.

Damn - I had this idea for use on my own work, if I ever got around to self-publishing. "Amazon's newly-patented System and Method for Marking Content, which calls for 'programmatically substituting synonyms into distributed text content,' including 'books, short stories, product reviews, book or movie reviews, news articles, editorial articles, technical papers, scholastic papers, and so on' in an effort to uniquely identify customers who redistribute material. "

"In a recent office action, the USPTO has rejected the claims of the Amazon.com one-click patent following the re-examination request that I filed on 16 February 2006. "

"As more and more lawsuits rock the industry, we should ask if software patents are stifling innovation. Bill Gates certainly thought so in 1991, even if he won’t admit it today."

"It’s an institutionalized form of madness, outrageous, all-consuming, and incurable. I’m ashamed to have been a part of it."

"Litigate or shut up."

"They're clearly aware that contributing to the community is important but they have no problem stabbing us in the back at the same time."

"The Microsoft patent agreement has put [Novell developers] outside the community and there is no positive aspect to that fact, and no way to make it so"

"It looks like Apple has filed for patents on some uses of RSS."

"Techniques for detecting, managing, and presenting syndication XML (feeds) are disclosed." Also from Apple.

"Techniques for presenting and managing syndication XML (feeds) are disclosed." This is from Apple.

Bastards. Let's burn the patent office.

"The case had been raised by open source defenders who feared that Microsoft was preparing a legal offensive against Linux based on enforcement of intellectual property rights."

"Claiming patent rights not just on a specific piece of code, but on an algorithm is hardly different from claiming to hold a patent on the quadratic equation."

'Microsoft has applied for a software patent #20030189597 for a "Virtual desktop manager".'