[Discuss] more on software patent

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

Hsuan-yeh,

On Mon, Oct 03, 2011 at 09:56:36PM -0400, Hsuanyeh Chang wrote:
> If I have the honor, what I can offer now is to write up, in the
> name of BLU, a "request for ex parte reexamination" and get it on
> file in the patent office in an attempt to invalidate the asserted
> patent(s).  But, I would need support from the BLU (e.g., knowledge
> and time to find prior art, official fees to be paid to the patent
> office, and other costs). Would anyone be willing to take action
> together?

My reading of the material posted on this patent was that it was
rejected, I thought.  But even if it's not, I think you're really
missing the point.  

I argued with a friend of mine about this several years ago...  You
may or may not appreciate the analogy I used with him (he didn't,
though I did eventually win him over to my opinion anyway).  A
computer is a machine, like a player piano.  It is made up of millions
of tiny switches, not unlike the keys of the piano, either off or on
(at rest or depressed), except much smaller, and lots more of them.
Software is like a document that describes the state of all the
switches of the computer, which gets fed through it, like the cards
that feed the player piano.  Do you think a particular card describing
some particular song should be patentable?  I'm sure that sounds
ridiculous, but it's not really that different with computers: When
you write software, you're only telling the computer to do something
it was already designed to do!!!  The only difference is that the
computer is a general purpose machine that was designed to be able to
input, process and display information in a generalized way.  The
magic was already invented... it's the computer itself.  Whatever else
you do with it is just the card that tells your player piano what to
play. By and large, with rare exception, there's nothing inventive
about it.  And even when there is, you're essentially trying to patent
a peice of math or logic, which we all know the patent system doesn't
allow.  Unless it's software, that is.  As with most analogies, my
player piano analogy is not without flaws, but I think it's fair
enough to illustrate the point.  

Your solution to this problem is for us all to patent our own
"inventions" -- and right there in quotes is the problem.  None of
this stuff is inventive at all, for the most part, so we don't know
what to patent.  Choosing what to patent is very important, given our
extremely limited budget.  And the megacorps already have hundreds of
thousands of patents, so chances are they already have one filed that
covers what we're imagining.  The expense is great, and the value of
our contribution is minimal, if anything.  There's strong
disincentive.  As you can see from the attitudes here, we already feel
that the cards are stacked strongly against us, so there's a sense of
futility.  Microsoft and others have already proved their willingness
to engage in (or at least support financially) long, drawn-out legal
battles against anything that benefits either open-source software or
any sort of little guy who won't play ball with them.  If some
organization did arise for the purpose of collecting a patent
portfolio to use for cross-licensing purposes, or even just to
file them for prior art, I fully expect that they would be litigated
into oblivion by those megacorps, who would, in all likelihood, become
the owners of whatever patent rights the organization managed to
accumulate, since that would be the only thing of value left once
the money ran out.  That's the worst possible outcome.

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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