Ask Slashdot: Reducing Software Patent Life-Spans? 274
seattle_coder writes "Many have advocated for the elimination of software patents. The arguments generally are that software patents are handed out too easily, and that they're too difficult and expensive to fight. Some say that patents just plain don't make sense for software, which is such a dynamic technology. Given that the standard patent lifetime is 20 years, and software changes so rapidly, is the life-span the problem for software patents? Would reducing the software patent lifetime to 5 years or even less be the thing to do?"
Not a great solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, the lifespan of patents is a big problem.
But in software, things change so rapidly that patent protection for even five years is an eternity: by then, it is game over.
The fundamental problem with software patents is that companies patent simple ideas. The Amazon one-click purchase patent is a prime example. These kinds of ideas should be considered "obvious" by the USPTO, but unfortunately these kinds of things are routinely patented. The result is that there is a minefield of patents around every simple idea, every basic thing that one can do in software. Anyone who wants to create a startup company around a software product is at great risk, and instead of investing their time and energy into product development they now have to invest it in legal research. That is not a very good state of affairs for an industry that thrives on innovation.
If patents are to be allowed to exist for software, the bar for what is not obvious should be much, much, much higher than it currently seems to be.
The problems (Score:5, Interesting)
Making them 3 years would solve many many problems.
But, the TRIPS agreement says patents have to last 20 years.
However, the TRIPS agreement doesn't say that software has to be patentable. So countries could declare that software isn't patentable, and then create some new legal thingy called "petents", and say that petents last 3 years and that software innovations can be petented.
This would be hard work because some countries (USA for example) push the idea that TRIPS requires software patents.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/TRIPS [swpat.org]
Really, shortening the duration would be as much work, and there's always the risk that the monopolists will find some other nasty clause to stick in to make 3-year petents really harmful.
Let's just go for abolition. It will take time, but it's the only practical solution.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Why_abolish_software_patents [swpat.org]
No, the problem is: software patents are stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who has ever programmed just a little knows that programmers invent algorithms every day and reuse somebody else's algorithm every minute. It is just a greed-fuelled idiocy to patent random bits of what programmers invent as part of their work. It is like patenting a mathematical proof or a law of physics.
Then there is another matter: when are two algorithms identical? When the code is exactly the same, including the naming of variables? No matter the variable naming? When they generate the same machine code on some machine? When they compute the same results (but this is undecidable formally)?
Software patents are a stupidity to make lawyers richer and to make the life of developers more miserable.
Re:Forget Patents, what about copyrights?! (Score:5, Interesting)
There should be some distinction between a work that has potential monetary worth 75 years after its creation, and something that has no worth 5 years after creation.
I have a different opinion. Any work that still has relevance 20 years after it's release has become an important piece of cultural property that _desperately_ needs to be in the public domain, and the property of all.