Jimmy Digital :: Technology Blog

Stop Software Patents

I just signed a petition on whitehouse.gov to direct the Patent Office to stop issuing software patents.  I think it is fairly obvious by now that software patents cause more harm than good.  The purpose of a patent is to protect an innovator, but not to serve as a barrier to innovation.  They should protect the little guy from large corporations stealing and profiting from his/her intellectual property, but most software patents now are owned by large corporations and are used to force other large corporations into cross-licensing agreements or to prevent competition altogether. The corporations patent anything they can get their hands on; buttons, colors, placement of objects on screen, application behavior.  I am surprised they don’t patent the machine code to go with it.  

So why do it? Some do it for defensive reasons to make sure they don’t get sued by patent trolls, which are entities that look for opportunities to sue for patent infringements.  But others clearly do it with the intent to profit on their patent portfolio and that I think is clearly wrong.  Oracle is suing Google over using a few lines of Java in Android.  Don’t tell me that Oracle is not looking to make a quick buck on this and don’t tell me that this is good for innovation.  Then there is Nokia vs Apple, Apple vs Amazon, Microsoft vs i4i, SAP vs Oracle, Microsoft vs Linux, etc, etc, etc.  The patent infringement cases are skyrocketing and the costs associated with them do as well.

So how does that impact you or me?  Well, the costs of doing business in a patent environment will radically restructure the industry. Many small companies will fold under the costs of licensing, avoiding patent infringement, and pursuing patents defensively. The individual software entrepreneur and inventor may all but disappear. There will be fewer publishers and fewer products, and the price of software will rise to reflect the costs.  So clearly the software patents are not serving the purpose they were intended to serve.

What should be done?  Now that is a difficult question.  The opponents of software patents will quickly tell you they should be abolished, but they don’t frequently propose an alternative for them.  And there should be an alternative because one still has to have the means to protect one’s intellectual property.  I think part of the answer is to patent the algorithm, but not the implementation of this algorithm.  Another part is to broaden the definition of what is obvious and what is not so something like sending a job to a printer cannot be patented.  There may be more, but whatever the case is the system as it functions today is broken and I think anyone involved in the software industry should sign the petition.