[Discuss] more on software patent

[mbr at arlsoft.com (MBR)]

On 10/2/2011 9:10 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
> The NPR piece cited above makes the point that current patents fail at
> the objective of disclosure because they are intentionally worded to
> obscure the invention as much as possible while also being as broad as
> possible. (This is the difference between a "professionally" written
> patent and an inventor's self-written patent.)
>
> Anyone here tried building or coding something based on the description
> in a patent?
>
> Occasionally you'll see one that is straight forward, but clearly if the
> objective was disclosure, the norms for patent language wouldn't be what
> they are.
If you've seen Stallman's talk or watched the video, he makes this point 
in an unforgettable fashion!  He makes a joke about being heckled by 
"Heckle".  His talk is transcribed into print at 
http://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs-ii-2.pdf.  The following is from p. 146:

    Well, you can't find all the patents by searching, but you can find
    a lot of them. And then you've got to figure out what they mean,
    which is hard, because patents are written in tortuous legal
    language which is very hard to understand the real meaning of. So
    you're going to have to spend a lot of time talking with an
    expensive lawyer explaining what you want to do in order to find out
    from the lawyer whether you're allowed to do it.

    Even the patent holders often can't recognize just what their
    patents mean.  For instance, there's somebody named Paul Heckel who
    released a program for displaying a lot of data on a small screen,
    and based on a couple of the ideas in that program he got a couple
    of patents.

    I once tried to find a simple way to describe what claim 1 of one of
    those patents covered. I found that I couldn't find any simpler way
    of saying it than what was in the patent itself; and that sentence,
    I couldn't manage to keep it all in my mind at once, no matter how
    hard I tried.

    And Heckel couldn't follow it either, because when he saw HyperCard,
    all he noticed was it was nothing like his program. It didn't occur
    to him that the way his patent was written it might prohibit
    HyperCard; but his lawyer had that idea, so he threatened Apple. And
    then he threatened Apple's customers, and eventually Apple made a
    settlement with him which is secret, so we don't know who really
    won. And this is just an illustration of how hard it is for anybody
    to understand what a patent does or doesn't prohibit.

    In fact, I once gave this speech and Heckel was in the audience. And
    at this point he jumped up and said, "That's not true, I just didn't
    know the scope of my protection." And I said, "Yeah, that's what I
    said," at which point he sat down and that was the end of my
    experience being heckled by Heckel. If I had said no, he probably
    would have found a way to argue with me.

                Mark Rosenthal
                mbr at arlsoft.com <mailto:mbr at arlsoft.com>