I am not completely against patents per se.
As far I understand things, at least in US Patent Law is
that there is no formal peer review process.
For the most part, the only time you see an application is
after a patent is granted. At that point its largely too late.
If you have a patent, a large entity could challenge it, and
you can't afford to defend it if you are small. If you are
small, you probably can't challenge afford to challenge a
patent.
If there is a requirement for peer review, then many
frivolous patents (or at least some of the claims) could be
dispensed with quickly.
Software patents are probably the best case. I expect that
many products have already used some of the techniques that
others have reinvented. I have at least one algorithm that I
"invented" and I have never seen it published. I protect it
strictly by copyright and trade secret. Maybe others have
also "invented" it as well.
Tukey & Cooley thought they invented the FFT which I think
we would all agree is a pretty cool algorithm. It turns out
that Gauss beat them to it by about 150 years.
I think the other problem with patents is that too much
emphasis is placed on who files first. In many cases, an
idea occurs at nearly the same time. We all know who
Alexander Bell was. Who remembers Elisha Gray?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray_and_Alexander_Bell_telephone_controversy
Anyway - just a continuation of our rant.......
Al Clark
Danville Signal
On 1/31/2011 11:11 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
On Jan 31, 2011, at 12:02 PM, Andy Farnell wrote:
Hi Ross,
Are you suggesting by stating the above axiom that
algorithms are _simply_
ideas and that for this reason alone they shouldn't be
patentable?
Yes I am, you've got it.
An algorithm is unsufficiently concrete to deserve a
patent, it is an
abstraction, a generalisation.
Andy, what kind of "thing" (if any) would you say *is*
patentable?
must such a thing be a physical object?
--
r b-j r...@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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