Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents Roundup: Software Patents Seen as Harmful to Innovation, Tuxera Discussion Continues

Bright idea with clipping path
Lit when software patents are annulled.



Summary: Miscellaneous news and views about software patents

SOME interesting new articles have appeared which can be used as 'ammunition' against the false argument that patents promote innovation. The first one is this:

Yet Another Study Shows That Patents Lead To Sub-Optimal Innovation



[...]

A few months back, two professors, Andrew W. Torrance and Bill Tomlinson, published a paper on a simulation game they ran to test out some of these hypotheses. A bunch of folks submitted this back when it first came out, but I wanted to spend some time looking over the details before writing about it. Basically, Torrance and Tomlinson create a nice simulation system that really does a good job simulating the various models for innovation with patents or in a more collaborative world. And, what they found in the simulation they ran supports what has actually happened in the real world, according to the research we've discussed in the past:
These results indicate that current patent systems (that is, systems combining patent and open source protection for inventions) may generate significantly lower rates of innovation (p<0.05), productivity (p<0.001), and social utility (p<0.002) than does a commons system. This suggests that current patent systems may significantly deter, rather than spur, technological innovation compared to a commons system.
Specifically, the results compared three separate models: one where everything gets patented, one where it's a hybrid model with both patents and a common, and one that was pure commons. The results are pretty striking. In the pure commons (no patents) world, they ended up with more innovation, significantly greater productivity and massively more social utility.


Timothy B. Lee, a longtime critic of the patent system, also wrote the following essay:

The Case against Literary (and Software) Patents



[...]

Imagine the outcry if the courts were to legalize patents on English prose. Suddenly, you could get a "literary patent" on novels employing a particular kind of plot twist, on news stories using a particular interview technique, or on legal briefs using a particular style of argumentation. Publishing books, papers, or articles would expose authors to potential liability for patent infringement. To protect themselves, writers would be forced to send their work to a patent lawyer before publication and to re-write passages found to be infringing a literary patent.

[...]

The patent at issue in Bilski is not a software patent; it is a "business method" patent that claims a strategy for hedging against financial risk. But the case is being closely watched for its effects on the software patent issue. Patented business methods are often implemented in software; for example, a key decision on the patentability of software, State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group, involved a software-implemented business method. And the standard articulated by the Federal Circuit in Bilski, known as the "machine-or-transformation test" has been used by the Patent Office in recent months to invalidate several software patents. The Supreme Court could ratify the Federal Circuit's mildly restrictive standard, or it could articulate its own standard that is either more or less restrictive of patents on software.

Reiterating that software cannot be patented would be a dramatic step, but it would be the right one. Supporters of software patents insist that barring software patents would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But it's not clear there was a baby in there to begin with. Empirical research suggests that software patents are dramatically less effective at promoting innovation than other categories of patents, producing more litigation and smaller revenues for innovators.


The Inquirer covered this too.

Most software companies infringe patents



[...]

In a report, Cato denizen Timothy Lee compared patents on software and business processes to patents on English prose.

[...]

Since patent protection was first extended to software in the 1980s, it is difficult or impossible to create any significant software without infringing one or more patents. With tens of thousands of new software patents granted every year, and no effective indexing method for software patents, there is no cost-effective way to determine which patents cover any piece of software.


Relating this to Free software and Linux, the latest major issue is to do with Tuxera [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. One person raises the point that "There are numerous open source file systems available, why do they persist with FAT? it's a horrid file system to begin with."

Another person argues that "It will be interesting to see how MS will be stabbing these guys in the back, as they are wont to do."

Rainer Weikusat writes:

It has the technical advantage of being really simple-minded and that's something many people from the embedded swamp will be happy about, because this means they have some chances of understanding it. At the base of FAT sits a so-called 'ressource-map allocator' which is one of the oldest and most primitive memory management schemes in existence, And who would want to throw all this DOS-code away for as long as there is still somebody willing to buy it again? . After all, products are sold by devising innovative marketing strategies, especially since 'the customer' isn't going to understand anything about them anyway, not the least be- cause technical information is usually shot down by pointing out that anything requiring more thought than 'the cavemen interface' ("point&grunt", term coined by E. Moglen) is just to complicated for the average cavemen (who still spends a sizable amount of his time with roasting raw meat on open fires and trying to make sexually useful contacts while doing so).


In response to this, claims another commenter:

Yes, it appears most technology marketers take Scott Adams' advice and aim their products at the "Stupid Poor" market segment, with a view to eventually following Microsoft's lead and breaking into the "Stupid Rich." What I don't understand is why they get so annoyed when people from the other two market segments try to buy/use their products. Does the 'smart money' have a different exchange rate?


In a more reasonable market, the chosen file system would be something like ext3, which nobody claims (or enforces) patent rights over.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Sirius Open Source in Court
I personally was a witness and an alibi
Microsoft Has Hundred of Layoffs Again, Same Week as the Company's Fake Results
those people were in effect Microsoft employees, just classified as contractors
Gemini Turns 6 Soon, Still Growing
Will we see 3,050 before Gemini turns 6 in summer?
Richard Stallman Re-Confirmed by the Free Software Foundation
as expected
Links 30/04/2025: Pakistan-India Tensions Grow, Facebook Banning Publishers Before Elections
Links for the day
Techrights Statement: The Solution is Not More Censorship or Moving to Another Mastodon Instance, the Core Problem is Social Control Media Including Mastodon
Censorship typically leads to additional (new) issues
Links 30/04/2025: Censorship in the Guise/Clothing of "Combatting Deepfakes", Mass Surveillance Increasingly Framed as Catchphrase "AI"
Links for the day
Why Techrights Attracts SLAPPs From American Microsofters Who Literally Strangle Women and Rely on the Most Unscrupulous Law Firms
"the SLAPPs targeted at TR [Techrights] shows that Orwell was right: Journalism is about exposure, everything else are PubRels."
The Problem at the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Is Vastly Bigger Than Its Rigged Elections
Elections and election-rigging at the OSI are a symptom
IBM Allegedly to Sell More Parts of the Company While Outsourcing to India, Microsoft Now Goes After Unions
They both have cash and debt problems
Slopwatch: Google Noise ("News"), Linux Security (Slopfarm), and BetaNoise (Serial Slopper)
Today there's no lack of LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 29, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Links 30/04/2025: "Brian Lumley’s Necroscope Series" and "Death In The Afternoon"
Links for the day
Links 29/04/2025: Microsoft Infosys Layoffs, 'Popcorn Lung' With Vapers, Hong Kong Banning Possession of e-cigarettes in Public
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/04/2025: Hey-Hi (AI) Isn't Your Friend/Lover, Mastodon is a Mess, and Mandelbrot Programming
Links for the day
Disinformation and Marketing Spam From and For OIN (GAFAM's and IBM's Weapon Against Free Software Activists and Reformists Against Software Patents)
All in all, this anniversary is just a PR stunt with revisionism
Just Sending More and More Threats Does Not Change the Fact We Got Abused for Many Years and Women Got Strangled
Wanting a "gag order" - or sometimes injunctions - by sending many threats
Links 29/04/2025: Water Scarcity, LLM Slop Backfiring Again in Legal Documents
Links for the day
Google Spreading Misinformation and Lies
Google is in the propaganda business
statCounter: GNU/Linux Adoption Surging in Switzerland, Windows at All-time Low
What happened?
New Video Report About Microsoft Cancelling Multi-Billion Dollar Projects
direct link to the video
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Free Speech and Perfectionism in Design
Links for the day
What Fake News Looks Like (IBM)
IBM told a lie. The media then just blindly repeated this lie.
Microsoft is Already Laying Off Lots of Contractors
cost-cutting at Microsoft takes a new "edge"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 28, 2025
China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
there will be more mass layoffs
Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
School breaks are when classrooms are shut
No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
violations against the EPO's very staff
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025