Bonum Certa Men Certa

Assorted New Articles About Software Patents Suffocating Progress

Striving to avoid the use of the word "innovation", which is somewhat of a propaganda term used to justify ownership and deviation from standards, let's talk about "progress". Progress is typically increased when multiple parties compete with one another and develop better products. Better products sell better not owing to exclusion merits. They deliver more value in the form of function that complies with standards, not 'extends' them unilaterally.

The first article worth highlighting in this context is from Mercury News. Its headline is "Tech leader assesses state of innovation in valley". Is this innovation? See for yourself:

The presumption is that, OK, we've got patent trolls, and we need to go and stop these guys from asserting weak patents against companies (to) gum up the works. In any ecosystem, there's always going to be parasites, and I consider patent trolls to be parasites.


Those so-called "parasites" are the small guys, but these are not the same small guys that the patent system was intended to protect. If large companies more rarely assert their rights, then who is truly being served? Where is the 'innovation' being protected and how? Techdirt published a short item which calls for people to reject what it calls "The Myth That More Patents Means More Innovation".

Patents don't help with that. In fact, patents quite often can often do a lot more damage by slowing the pace of innovation -- limiting the ability for companies to improve upon a technology or even a business model concept.


In line with the same logic, Ars Technica bemoans the existence of game (software) patents.

At first blush, patents on gameplay mechanics are a good idea; they allow the creators of these ideas to profit from them. The issue is that the patents are so becoming so broad, and so prohibitive to fight in court, that very basic ideas are being locked down by a few companies.


Lastly, consider this reminder [via Glyn Moody] that every company is at risk provided it uses software in-house. This means that software patents have a chilling effect on progress not just in the software industry. Not only software companies can find themselves sued and distracted by the need for lawyers. We saw that in the SCO case, for instance.

An enormous number of programmers are employed in organizations we don't think of as software firms, developing custom applications for the internal use of their employers. In a sense, every company of non-trivial size is a software company.


Not only software developers should be concerned about software patents. Protests against such patents ought to attract a wider audience and thus greater resistance.

More Patents = Slower Progress

Recent Techrights' Posts

“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
 
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead