US patent laws derive directly from Clause 8 of the US Constitution, where it says that Congress is empowered.. "..To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"

Note the words "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..."

I would say that any necesary condition on a patent would be that it indeed "promotes the progress of Science and the useful Arts". In other words, the purpose of even sanctioning patents is so that people would have incentives to go out and invent things. The assumption is, that absent a patent, folks will sit on their bums and not invent anything. With a patent, the inventor can profit, but so does society. If there is no benefit to society, why allow the patent?

Until relatively recently (the 1980's?), software patents were virtually nonexistant. Did that stop "inventions" in the world of software? That's laughable, since that was the time of immense creativity, new companies, products, inventions. To me that is PROOF that patents in software are hardly needed to "promote the progress of Science and the useful Arts". Think of all the software companies that came of age in the 1980's and 90's. WITHOUT patent protection (for the most part). WHY allow software patents? For what purpose? The only reason I can see is to benefit the legal profession. And large companies.

In addition, software patents have a number of flaws, mostly due to practicalities deriving from the ease with which software designers can conjure up new techniques, visual elements, user-interface designs, wire protocols, languages,database designs, and the like. Software is a "soft" science - it doesn't require expensive laboratories or extensive field trials. It is playing in a virtual world. You can sit in your room and without spending millions of dollars, come up with amazing things. But so can the person across the street or around the globe! And they do! So MUCH of what is "patented" are just "obvious" takes or re-takes of what already abounds, or would abound, should someone else in a room have to solve that same problem. Many patents are not novel, complicated, unusual. Clever, maybe. But someone else in the same circumstance might come up with the same exact thing. Why should the first person be granted 20 years of "protection"?

IF we were to allow software patents at all, say, for truly novel, complex things (yet to be determined how you would define this), we should limit the term - to say, 3 years. So yeah, go patent your "One Click" or your "Bouncy Screen" - if approved (dubious for these), you would have only 3 years to profit from your exclusive deal. Far fewer patents would be applied for. Far less litigation.

And software designers and companies could create great things and compete on what they are offering, and not who they are suing. And, believe me, tech would flourish. Software patents are a TAX on everyone.

user:	expaand
created:	February 4, 2012
karma:	8