On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]>wrote:
> There is absolutely no proof that the current US patent system (which > lets you patent software, and which is based around granting every > patent and putting the burden of overturning them on the court system > and any future defenders of patent lawsuits) is good for innovation. > I'm going to play the devil's advocate a bit here but it's pretty obvious that a lot of innovations are happening in the US software market despite the current patent laws, so claiming that there is no proof that it's good for innovation is certainly questionable. Hardware and software innovation *is* happening on a daily basis, from the likes of Apple, IBM, Google, etc... The question is more: "Would there be *more* innovations if it weren't possible to patent software ideas", and this is a much more open problem. It's pretty clear to me that in the absence of any software patents, we would have seen iPhone and iPod Touch clones coming form the major US manufacturers barely a few months after Apple released these devices. Similarly, a lot of software features (such as Tivo's UI) would have been copied to death pretty much right after they came out. This might sound like an obvious plus, but you need to realize that in the absence of software patents, maybe these companies would simply never have come up with these ideas in the first place because they wouldn't see the point in investing millions of dollars in researching and developing innovative ideas that will be copied at no costs by competitors as soon as they become public. I'm not taking any side here and I have very often been on the receiving end of stifling software patents, but I think the two sides of this debate are often glossed over by eager software developers who don't bother thinking this problem through. -- Cédric -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
