[Discuss] more on software patent

[richb at pioneer.ci.net (Rich Braun)]

Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> observed:
> one of the biggest issues is not patents per se, but the fact that
> litigation can take many years ... it does
> not matter if the allegation stands or not, it is sometimes the fact
> that a company will settle even though it knows it can win.

One of the famous cases is Lotus (123) vs. Borland (Quattro Pro), fighting
over a technology that wasn't even invented by either of them (to wit,
VisiCalc).  As I understand it, a Boston-based judge intervened by stalling
the case to benefit the local company (Lotus) long enough to bleed the faraway
company (Borland) into bankruptcy.  The decision itself (supposedly in
Borland's "favor") was anticlimactic.  Neither company really won:  20 years
later, most people are users of Excel which swooped in and scooped up the
pieces.

That issue turned on a question which I haven't yet seen discussed on this
thread:  can a company protect (via copyright or patent) a software interface
(protocol)?  (Example, TCP or SCSI or XML or, more specifically, CLI
scripting/macro languages like those of Cisco or Oracle.)  I remember the US
patent office soliciting public comments on that question, and in fact sending
in my own submission, sometime in 1991.

If a company can force royalty payments or large out-of-court settlements from
protocol/command-compatible product makers, the legal system can be used to
retard innovation rather than encourage it.  To my knowledge, that's pretty
much what has happened over the years, with everything from web browsers to
TV-remote controls to database systems to online address books to the current
crop of online-video distributors from YouTube on down.

-rich