John D. Hays wrote: > I personally disagree with the current state of software patents, but as a > community we should play by the rules.
You should re-phrase that: Software patents in the U.S. The U.S. is currently at a serious competitive disadvantage for raw engineering talent and especially collaboration/idea generation, as compared to a number of countries that have more sane patent law. Many highly talented engineers won't even set foot within the U.S. (even to come to conferences) for worry that they'll be arrested for U.S. patent violations from reverse-engineering efforts they have done overseas. This hurts both them and us. The patent system here is in need of serious overhaul. One patent attorney recently helped his kids get a patent on how to jump off a swing-set a certain way, just to teach them how broken the system is. Here's an article about a guy who makes a multi-billion dollar living suing people over patent violations, and since settlements are often far less costly than court and cease-and-decist order damages to businesses, companies pay: <http://www.ipfrontline.com/depts/article.asp?id=17031&deptid=3> His tactic is to sue the people USING the products that infringe on a pile of badly worded and vague patents he's purchased in bulk over the years, and never going after the creators of the product themselves -- therefore he never gets tangled up in actually having to prove the patent was actually violated. In my personal opinion, he's a sleaze-bag who's hurting American business. But obviously the root-cause problem isn't him. It's the broken USPTO patent-approval system and the legal ramifications later of bad patents being granted. Since this is headed far off-topic for the D-STAR list, I'll close with: "I don't like that D-STAR and most digital voice technologies are single-sourced for their low-bitrate voice CODEC implementations, but at least D-STAR is properly licensed. Next generation systems MUST find a way to use CODECs that aren't encumbered with hideous patent and licensing restrictions." It's something we as "technology leaders" MUST keep in mind when we choose the technology we use. Nate WY0X [Disclaimer: I have customers who were targeted by Katz. My opinions are my own.]
