🚀 go-pugleaf

My opinion on Software patents:

By making detailed claims, an inventor gets the right to profit from an
invention FOR A LIMITED TIME.  The patent will run out, and the detailed
description will become available to everyone.  This does not sound too bad.

There are some problems with the details.  Big companies have enormous
patent portfolios.  It is almost impossible to built ANYTHING having to do
with computers without infringing on say an IBM patent.  What actually
happens is that big companies swap patent rights with one-another.  They
operate without restrictions.  Most individuals cannot get IBM to swap
patent rights with them, so individuals get constrained.

The readers of this discussion would directly benefit if individuals could
write software with only modest patent constraints like big companies do
presently.

One way to level the field would be to reduce the term that software patents
run for.  Who knows, a write-in campaign might get the law changed to give
protection for a short term.

Can individuals mount a big enough effort to overcome big businesses desire
to have patents last a long time?

Also note that one way to get a patent destroyed is to show that an idea was
published before the patent was applied for.  One of many reasons that the
GNU bibliographies should name as many references as possible.  It might be
a good idea for people to post hare-brained ideas about software to this
forum so that the idea will become unpatentable.