I'm beyond convinced that the entire software patent systems needs to be abolished.
And the fact that MS and Oracle actually make products.
You, as a citizen, can demand results and proof. That's how any human institution evolves. Grumping on the internet about how stupid everyone is because things aren't done the way you want will not produce measurable results.
So, I bet they actually do measure. Just not the way any sane person would expect. But this is what always happens if a happens if you try to run something, that is hard or impossible to measure, "economically". You revert to one of the things you can trivially count and claim that more (or less) is better. If you are one of the smart ones you dabble with relative and not absolute numbers. This is especially true for political or public institutions without any goal above "accounting of men and things" because it just doesn't matter any more to them.
I don’t know if anyone has ever calculated the average density of patentable ideas in code, but if you consider, for example, that performing an online transaction with the last entered customer data (the infamous 1-Click patent) is patentable, I would very roughly estimate that there is a patentable idea every 20 to 50 lines of code. As an example, the Linux kernel (just the very core of Linux) contains more that 10 millions lines of code. If you consider a complete Linux distribution (by adding the graphical user interface and a bunch of utilities) you get at least ten times that amount, that is more than 100 millions lines of code. Using the rough estimate above, we can calculate that there are more than 2 millions patentable ideas in a consumer operating system. That is an incredible amount of complexity. In fact, it is a testament to human ingenuity that we can (sometimes) get all this code to work together.
Now code is not used side by side like an infantry of little computer processes working in parallel to make computers or phones go. It is rather organised and packaged in a huge network of building blocks, a pyramid of hundreds of thousands of libraries, APIs or functions heavily inter-dependent on each other. What’s more, the building blocks are usually not all written by the same people or organisations and their consistent and stable behavior is critical for enabling compatibility (remember, often between millions of parts made by thousands of developers).
This hierarchical and networked architecture is inevitable and the best way to organise complex information, however the stability it requires at the bottom of the pyramid means that some building blocks cannot be changed once the pyramid is built. Someone claiming ownership of the shape of a bottom block after the pyramid is built, someone having the power to force a bottom block to be removed and replaced with a different shaped one, no matter how simple and obvious this bloc is, does not have power over just this block but over the whole structure above it and all the components that depend on it. This means patent holders have a disproportionately large amount of power when they target such a bloc. They know that changing it would require tearing down, redesigning and replacing often thousands of dependent projects and probably break compatibility for millions of users of these projects. It is usually simply not an option.
Bring back Lulzsec for a day, get them to hack their systems and delete all their patents.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had a patent for people communicating over the internet and we are all about to be sued.
They'd have to actually attack the patent office, wouldn't they? Not to mention, I imagine that both the PO and Lodsys probably keep multiple redundant backups, digital and dead-tree.
Well, we just need to abolish patents in general. They just create reason for these patent trolls to do what they do (scam us developers) and they are extremely flawed in nature.
I remember a company filing a law suit against twitter once because they had patented the method of posting short status updates in the case of emergency (or something like that) and they tried to sue Twitter??!!?! I understand the patent and how it is applied to Twitter in general but seriously, who allowed that patent to pass??
I find Amazons "One Click" purchase patent stupid.
If examiners can't figure out whether something is patentable, they err on the side of good faith on the part of the applicant, and leave the question to the courts.
That's the only explanation? Doubtful.
I know someone at the patent office, an examiner who handles tech patents. When I asked about certain patents she explained that you need to look at the complete patent application and the specific behavior or items in the claim. Titles are often very broad for convenience. Also, patent applications tend to start broad and go narrow, with the overly broad requests (usually) denied.
If examiners can't figure out whether something is patentable, they err on the side of good faith on the part of the applicant, and leave the question to the courts.
Where did you get this information from?
As it was explained to me if a patent is not clear or what is being claimed not readily understood by the examiner then it gets sent back for revision. There does not appear to be any "good faith" involved.
Some patent holders like to claim that one of their narrowly defined patents applies to much broader behavior, and then threaten people with legal action. In this case it is quite possible for a non-tech judge to decide that a patent applies to things it really shouldn't.
I don't doubt there are bullshit patents or that some patent examiners aren't as educated as they should be, but I also don't see any reason to think the examiners are just so harried and untrained that they just shrug their shoulders and assume everything is legit.
There are two problems with the current patent system. One is that patents are granted where they shouldn't be. The other is that legitimate patents on specific, narrow, precise items or behavior are later used to extort money from people because untrained lawyers and judges will decide that a very narrow patent should, incorrectly, apply to more broader cases.
I wonder what Lincoln would think of Lodsys.
Eventually, it will be obvious even to our representatives in Washington that something is broken and they will be forced to fix it.
As they say, our representatives will try doing the right thing but only after they try all the wrong things first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuestar_Technologies
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/05/patent-troll...
So how does that qualify as a "survey" in Lodsys's eyes?
It's a pity the app store servers reside in the US. Otherwise i wouldn't have to worry about these things!
