🚀 go-pugleaf

Craig Burley:
   >I've never heard of anyone discovering a new approach to something
   >(inventing one) by first reading a software patent and saying
   >"aha, then if I add <x> to it...Eureka!" and I doubt I ever will.

Terry Ritter:
   In one sentence you assume that:
      a) we know what a "software patent" is,

Geez, if you don't know what a software patent is, why are you posting
a 550 line article on the subject?  

      b) never having heard of an experience means that it never
	 occurred and never will,

"doubt" != "never"

      c) that the relatively small patent literature on anything you
	 might call a "software" patent can be compared to the massive
	 conventional literature.

That, my boy, is the point.

   Do you find these debating tricks useful to confuse and defeat?
   Alas, I had presumed that you would seriously address THE ISSUE.

Ahem.  Is that all you have on your mind?  "confuse and defeat"?
What's wrong with, (a) assuming you know what he's talking about, (b)
stating an opinion, and (c) alluding to a point of the discussion?

   First of all, very few patents are strictly "software patents."
   Many of what are commonly called "software" patents cover BOTH
   hardware AND software implementations.

Only inasmuch as the software patents demand hardware sufficiently
powerful to implement the algorithm.  (You can't very easily have a
patent on how to use a graphics machine that works without a graphics
machine, now can you?)  And "very few" is a misstatement.  There are
too many patents which restrict the design of software -- that means,
by the way, that there is NO PRACTICAL WAY to determine if a piece of
software will infringe on existing software.  [Maybe you can hear me
better if I yell?]

   Next, with very few "software patents" issued, it is hardly
   surprising that you have not heard of the utility of building upon
   them.

s/very few/too many/g

   And if software designers rarely use the patent literature (as
   seems likely), it is also no surprise that few developments have
   been based on that literature.

   If, however, your point is that there need be no patent literature
   because you think you already have access to everything in other
   journals, despite the fact that you are not acquainted with the
   patent literature, well . . . WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Since you asked so nicely, if we stop the development of software for
a few hundred years, and use the patent system to distribute
information, then we learn how to write better software by reading
patent abstracts.  Assuming that at that time the patent office is
going to somehow stop issuing frivolous and trivial patents....  Maybe
I should have said a few thousand years?

   >the huge cost involved in turning software creation into 1%
   >development, 40% search for what is patentable in the development,
   >and 59% search of existing patents to avoid them far outway (sic)
   >any occasional positive result from patenting software

   What is your source?  Where do you GET these figures?  If you just
   make up things as you go, we will have very little to discuss.

Why not post the whole sentence?  That looks very much like an
estimate to me.  You have maybe some reason to get upset at an
estimate?

Or, is this a claim that the estimate is unreasonable?  Yeah, I think
it is too -- there is no consideration in the above of a legal defense
fund to protect in court your right to distribute the software you've
developed.

Or, is this a claim that the patent system would not impinge that
heavily on the design cycle?  Perhaps, but it is already nearly
impossible to determine the extent and scope of patents which apply to
software.  Or, perhaps you know of some system which deals with the
fact that you can map one problem domain into another?  [For example,
how about the fact that on a typical distributed computer system there
is no way to distinguish between distributing software and using
software?]

Anyways, here's where I duck out.  I've not read the entire 550 line
article, but what I've skimmed over looks pretty lame.  I did see Lots
of ALL CAPITOL LETTERS stuff, which I'm sure is quite important...

Hasta la vista.

-- 
Raul <rockwell@socrates.umd.edu>