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October 03, 2004
Software Patents
Kodak, through purchase of another company's "IP portfolio," has acquired some really bogus patents, and used them to sue Sun Microsystems over the very existence of the Java programming language. I don't understand how patents 5,206,951, 5,421,012, and 5,226,161 could have ever been issued. For example, the second of these three is titled "Multitasking computer system for integrating the operation of different application programs which manipulate data objects of different types"; it was filed in May of 1993, and cites earlier patents from IBM as related work; one of these, "Method and apparatus for dynamic invocation of utilities", seems to describe remote procedure calls.
Are RPCs patentable? Are they an invention? That begs whether the procedure call was an invention, which was modeled largely on the mathematical concept of a function.
Over at Groklaw, we have comments to the effect of
[Europe: ] Think about it carefully, because this is exactly what happens when you adopt a system that rewards the Kodaks of the world for such behavior and penalizes Sun for years and years of expense and sweat and toil and creativity by robbing them of their due reward, not to mention removing any motive to ever do such innovative things again as long as they live.
without mention of the fact that IBM could have, under the same ass-backwards logic as Kodak has applied in leveraging their patents, sued Sun out of existence before Sun Microsystems even left Stanford.
Not that this is a good reason for not going to court, but if IBM, Xerox, and a number of other companies were to really start leveraging their "portfolios," we'd have the legal equivalent of World War III. Apparently, these massive portfolios are no longer a deterrent.
Software patents: good, or bad? Is software patentable? Where should Europe go with this? As CS students, this seems like a rather pertinent issue... depending on whether you intend to stay in this field when you graduate, of course.
Posted by mjadud at October 3, 2004 09:50 PM
Comments
My current opinion is that patents are flat-out evil; an outmoded concept from the age of slavery and royal decree, and irrelevant and harmful in the modern world. Patents exist solely to increase personal profit at the expense of the public good, and I feel that's pretty indefensible.
I don't see software patents as significantly worse than any other part of the patent picture, except in that they're particularly easy to obtain. They're nothing like as bad as medical patents, for instance; I don't understand how anyone can be morally comfortable with killing innocent people for profit.
As such, I'm all in favour of making software patents illegal, or shortening their terms, but I'd much rather see the whole morally-bankrupt system done away with entirely.
Posted by: Adam Sampson at October 4, 2004 06:35 PM