09.12.10
The Man Who Brought Software Patents to the US “Nicely Demonstrates Why We Shouldn’t Allow *Hardware* Patents Either”
Summary: Martin Goetz thinks that those who oppose software patents are “diehards” and that all software patents are about machines rather than about “mathematics, or a mathematical formula, or an algorithm, or an abstract idea”
LAST YEAR we saw the man who’s said to be responsible for software patents in the US (in the sense that he received the first one) getting ridiculed for defending the practice. This man, Martin Goetz, is having another go at it right now. He dismisses his critics, calling them “diehards” (even if they represent majority opinion among developers) and his post “nicely demonstrates why we shouldn’t allow *hardware* patents either,” says Dr. Glyn Moody, formerly a mathematician and now a journalist. Here is Goetz’s ending which says a mouthful:
In my previous article there were many comments from diehards that continued to believe that software companies are trying to patent a computer program. Whether those diehards still believe that a computer program is mathematics, or a mathematical formula, or an algorithm, or an abstract idea, so be it. Computer software programs are not what software companies are trying to patent. A software patent invention is on a unique machine process —- nothing more and nothing less. And the criteria should be 1. Innovation 2. A proper disclosure and 3. Usefulness — the same requirement that is the criteria for all patentable subject matter.
Well, actually, this is pure spin. Companies that patent an algorithm or a simple idea that’s implemented digitally rarely claim in their defence that it’s a “software patent invention [...] on a unique machine process” (they don’t even mention “machine”). That’s just Goetz looking to cover his own tracks. In the process he helps readers show why hardware patents too are unsound and unjust. A few days ago I had a face-to-face chat with an Intel engineer and he too acknowledged that patents are monopolies; they were “good” monopolies, however, because they belonged to the company which paid him a wage. The only defensible thing about these monopolies is that the process required to construct chips (including design) is far more expensive than the process of studying patents. An analysis of patents by a one-man (or women) software development team is simply impractical. It makes no economic sense and it simply impedes innovation. █
Jose_X said,
September 14, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Clearly the broken patent system does not promote the progress of science and useful arts if you can patent a “process” or method as easily and cheaply and generally as is being done for software by those with lots of money and an antisocial bent so as to prevent many independent implementations (some even existing) with much greater detail and creativity by many many people (and all for a long 20 years).
You can keep the patent system in place (not that this is the best move and it does require some fixes regardless) while getting rid of software patents because software is one of those areas (like business methods and genes) where the patent law text fails miserably to even approach promoting the progress (it stifles and abridges many inventors’ and consumers’ rights)… as the US Constitution requires be promoted, while not abridging free speech expression (as would happen in preventing the creation and sharing with others of “processes” on your computer) or hurting the “general welfare” (eg, by biasing against FOSS so as to raise costs for inventors, industry, and consumers significantly while lowering flexibility, etc).