🚀 go-pugleaf

I believe the problem with software patents is not that they are granted, but
that they are granted for incredibly trivial ideas which a 12 year old would
probably invent in the normal course of playing with his computer and not even
think about having done anything special. A case in point is the patent (held
by IBM, I believe) for using the 'xor' operation for drawing a cursor on a
bitmap display. This particular technique has probably been independently
invented by everyone that has ever fooled with a graphics program, yet the
patent office issued a patent for it. This sort of thing is "patently" absurd
(groan :-). The root of the problem is not software patents, it is gross
incompetence in the patent office. As long as the patent office continues
to issue patents for trivial ideas, programmers will be required to have
literally every line of code they write pushed through a patent search
to make sure they didn't accidentally violate someone's patent. Then they
will probably have to patent all the lines of code they write themselves
to protect themselves from any future patent trouble. The whoe thing is
ridiculous.

It is possible for good patents to be issued. An example is something like the
patent Barnsely and company hold on fractal image compression. Here is an
example of someone with considerable mathematical talent spending a good
part of his life developing a technique that is based on such obscure
mathematical techniques, that is would probably take anyone the 17 years
it takes the patent to expire to duplicate it.

The problem comes in the gap between these examples. Just how unique does
something have to be to be patentable? Right now the patent office appears
willing to grant anyone a patent for anything. As long as they are doing that,
the best thing to do is oppose all patents because of the havok trivial
patents can potentially cause.
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