Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Fri, 2009-02-20 at 17:01 -0600, Lindsay Haisley wrote:
On Fri, 2009-02-20 at 16:54 -0500, Chris Hoogendyk wrote:
Perhaps just because someone has the Chutzpah to try to patent it and
the patent office hasn't a clue. Technology of all sorts has moved too
quickly for the patent office and/or the patent laws to keep up. Another
example is a U.S. company that uses recombinant DNA to put an unusual
color in a bean. Then they patent it and sue a Mexican company and block
imports of a bean that the Mexicans have been growing for generations.
That's just nucking futs.
Sounds like Monsanto at work.
Exactly.
Two words: prior art.
If the US patent office had the balls to enforce that clause then it
wouldn't be necessary to argue about software patents. Knuth would
invalidate most of them and Hopper would have put paid to most of the
rest.
IMHO software patents are a nonsense. Where is the *inventive* step that
any knowledgeable programmer wouldn't determine to be obvious?
Another point: IIRC[1] the patent is required to describe an invention
in enough detail to allow a 3rd party to make the patented item. If
*that* was enforced then a whole bunch of speculative patents would die
when the claimant would be unable to show a working model built from the
patent description.
[1] I know this applies to British patents but am uncertain whether it
still applies to US patents. If it doesn't, it ought to.
In my limited experience (I hold a few British patents - not software
related), it's actually more than that. One can file a Patent
Application for almost anything, and quite speculatively. However, for
the patent to be granted (normally a year after the Application) one
must also have exemplified one's claims or must withdraw them. If one
fails to exemplify claims made in the Application they then become
public domain and hence prior art and are not subsequently patentable.
My patents are in the field of cancer research. So for example, one
could file an Application for a "new" anticancer drug. At the time of
filing the Application it could just be an idea, but in order to get the
patent awarded one must have made the drug and be able to present some
evidence that it is effective against cancer as per the claims made in
the Application. Simple preliminary results would normally suffice, but
the more evidence one is able to present the stronger the case one has.
Unless it's an extremely competitive field one would normally wait until
you have some evidence before filing an Application given the costs
associated with the process (patent lawyers don't come cheap), unless
you're in the business of filing many speculative Applications. As
usual, the real winners are the lawyers.
