Then and Now
Microsoft on patents back when they were small:
In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want.”
Microsoft now:
Last month, the technology world was abuzz over an interview in Fortune magazine in which Bradford Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, accused users and developers of various free software products of patent infringement and demanded royalties. Indeed, in recent years, Mr. Smith has argued that patents are essential to technological breakthroughs in software.
Consider: What if ParcPlace had patented the idea of a language runtime/VM back in the 80s, and then acted like Verizon has against Vonage? Would the software industry be a better place now? As much of a Smalltalk advocate as I am, I'm going to say no. Software patents should be eliminated - they help no one.
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Comments
VM? That would be BCPL circa 1967
[Isaac Gouy] June 10, 2007 0:01:47.316
"What if ParcPlace had patented the idea of a language runtime/VM back in the 80s."
Someone would have pointed to prior art - such as BCPL from 1967 - but you were probably trying to make some other point.
Re: Then and Now
[ James Robertson] June 10, 2007 0:34:50.205
Comment by James Robertson
True enough Isaac - and such a patent would have been every bit as valid as the other software patents out there.
Which was my point.
[Gary Short] June 10, 2007 6:16:51.333
Or all software developers could just move to the UK where we laugh at such rediculous patents :-)
Cheers,
Gary
http://www.garyshort.org/
Are you sure they didn't?
[Steve Wart] June 10, 2007 9:50:00.331
Xerox patented a lot of stuff - was the stuff that came out of Parc labs not patented?
It may well be that it wasn't. Part of the reason Parc was created was due to an anti-trust ruling against Xerox.
But that was back when anti-trust laws were enforced. I guess the prisons are just too crowded now :-)
every bit as valid
[Isaac Gouy] June 10, 2007 10:57:02.382
afaict your point is that there should not be software patents, in principle - whether or not a court would find a particular patent valid doesn't have much to do with your point.
who is in favor of them?
[Lex Spoon] June 12, 2007 9:28:43.639
It is interesting that so many people in the industry think software patents should go, and yet they persist. Who is actually arguing in favor of them, as opposed to using them just because that is the current system we have?
Microsoft is in favor, though I am not entirely sure why. Is it really in Microsoft's advantage overall? They can get sued by stupid patents just as easily as anyone, and they do not really need patent protection it seems to be -- they need copyright protection, so that the only way to compete with them head o head is no reimplement ginormous amounts of code.
Who else but Microsoft is chiming in in favor of software patents?