Software Patent Absurdity Catching On

[zridling]

Glyn Moody lists the followers who have finally awoke to the bizarro reality of software patent law.

Andy Vandervell has more on how boring this is for consumers despite Google's stupidity and Apple/Microsoft/Oracle's greed:
http://conversation....sung/comment-page-1/

[Renegade]

Semi-related:



Replace copyright with patent there.

http://mimiandeunice.com

Great site. Love it.

I don't know how much sympathy I have for any of these companies. They've fostered the insanity along, so why should I care if they're complaining about it now?

That doesn't change anything though -- the patent system needs change.

[Deozaan]

Am I the only one who, upon reaching the end of an article, frequently thinks to himself, "What was the point of that article?"

Maybe my reading comprehension isn't so great, but it seems to me that a lot of articles lately don't seem to take a position and state their reasons for taking that position. They just seem to blather on somewhat randomly about a topic and then end. No conclusion. No summary. No point.

This is pretty basic high school Speech/English class type stuff that gets reiterated again in college. I would think someone whose career is in writing would know this stuff. Then again, I'm basing my expectations off of my own personal experience of the public education system in the USA. Maybe these things aren't covered in the UK where that article originated from.

[kyrathaba]

+1, Deozaan.

I think it's due to two primary reasons: (1) laziness, and (2) incompetence.  There's a third factor involved, too, though: we live in an age where cliches and sound bytes have become the "meat and potatoes" of our news, both on television and in the printed word.  A lot of authors seem to feel that if they can introduce a goodly supply of buzz words, and the tone of their article is sufficiently critical, it's "good enough".

[zridling]

Deozaan, that comes from people majoring in "journamalism" and "communications" rather than English. The former never get around to opening a dictionary or actually reading a book. Thus, they don't think you need a point.

The larger point is this: Current patent law not only scares off the little guy who might have a great idea, but wastes court time and costs consumers money -- for  both their defense and for their licensing. Got to pay for gestures and such, you know!

[zridling]

Mark Cuban says end all software patents, period. Don't bother making them shorter, just end the whole mess.
http://blogmaverick....stion-on-patent-law/

Among his suggestions:
End all process patents. They serve absolutely no purpose. None.
"If you create a new process, use it. The benefit is from creating the idea and using it in a business to your advantage.  Afraid that some big company might steal the idea ? That is life. When you run with the elephants there are the quick and the dead.  That is a challenge every small company faces. A process patent is not going to make your business successful. The successful execution of business processes will. If we had process patents or the culture of software litigation  in the 1980′s as we have today current technology would consist of  running terminals on DEC and Wang Computers at the local library for $10 per hour and there probably would not be a world-wide web.

"No doubt that by the mid 90′s someone would have sued Marc Andreessen and his friends at the University of Illinois long before Mosaic could ever turn into Netscape. My guess is that the patent attorneys at British Telecom would have been all over them contending that hyperlinking was protected, but for $10 per download they could use them in their new browser."

[zridling]

Colleen Chien writes an informative piece titled: Turn The Tables On Patent Trolls
http://blogs.forbes....es-on-patent-trolls/
__________________
Response: No Colleen, we shouldn't have to tolerate this bullsh*t. Make modern life simpler: delete the whole patent mess, period.