🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <66842@sgi.sgi.com>, karsh@trifolium (Bruce Karsh) writes:
>
>One inventor, armed with a good patent, can now take on a giant corporation.

I think that Bruce Karsh grossly underestimates just how complicated
patent law is.  Consider just the burden of doing a search---that is,
proving that there is no previous patent for your claim.  Since
patents are written as exansively as possible, this is enormously
difficult.

My understanding is that patent law is notorious for its
manipulability.  Is this surprising?  The laws are complicated and
ambiguous, and the court cases expand into monstrosities that dwarf
Jarndyce and Jarndyce.  Why would anybody doubt that victory often
goes to the side with the better lawyer?

And even victory isn't always the point.  I read a recent case where a
man won legal recognition of his role in inventing the laser.  He now
has a great deal of money---after 30 years in court.  How many people
have the stamina to spend half a lifetime in legal proceedings?  I
know that I don't.  In First Amendment cases, this is known as a
"chilling effect," and the same point is true here: faced with the
prospect of a legal battle against a giant, most of us will avoid it
at any cost, regardless of the rightness of the claim.

Even this, though, isn't really the reason to be sceptical of
patenting algorithms.  Patent law didn't spring from the forehead of
Zeus; it was written by legislators who believed that for certain
kinds of innovation it was, on balance, more beneficial than harmful.
Now patent law is being applied in areas far different than the ones
that those legislators had previously intended.  We, as a society,
need to decide what kind of legal protection for software is
appropriate, instead of letting software law get developed at random.
applied by accident.
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| Matthew Austern | austern@lbl.bitnet  | I don't use pens.  I write with |
| (415) 644-2618  | austern@ux5.lbl.gov | a goose quill dipped in venom.  |
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