what do you think of this as prior art? the voice in the video says 1993.

“If an advisor’s research leads Article One to conclude the patents are invalid, he or she will receive up to $50,000. Active advisors can also receive 5% of Article One’s net annual profit.”

So applied to software, the system no longer functions as intended. As such, it either needs to be reformed or abolished; that’s what you do with a broken system. Fix it or replace it.

If it’s discouraging innovation, the system is broken. If the system is broken, it needs to be fixed. Period. End of discussion.

I really don’t think the situation is binary in that way. I also don’t think there is a “perfect” system that wouldn’t be broken in some way, discouraging invention in some subset of circumstances.

But, the debate’s gotten pretty sour, so I’d be surprised if it continued.

source code is protected by copyright

But decompilation of compiled code has been successfully defended in court under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law (though I’m sure that’s still a contentious issue).

I wonder… I know with music copyrights, you can record and sell a cover of a song without the consent of the writer by payment of “mechanical rights” — basically, a default royalty. Usually you can get a better rate by negotiating with the rights holder, but the default rate acts as a de-facto cap while still insuring access to the work.

Perhaps something similar would be useful for software patents. It might address some of the problems, without tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

You think that “IP hate” is about freedom because you believe that “first to invent” is meaningful. The truth is that “first to claim invention” is more often superior.

This is completely irrelevant. The question ultimately becomes does the system encourage innovation, or discourage it? Because that’s what it’s supposed to be doing, that was the goal in it’s creation; what’s meaningful in terms of the impact on the inventor is irrelevant until that question is answered.

If it’s discouraging innovation, the system is broken. If the system is broken, it needs to be fixed. Period. End of discussion.

This is a case in which having IP rights over algorithims results in the stifling of, rather than the encouragement of, innovation. This flies in the face of what patents were created to do. Patents existed to encourage new developments in technologies by making sure that inventors had a way to profit from their hard work; they were not created to allow patent trolls to patent relatively obvious things so that they can make money when someone ends up needing to use a similar solution as part of an actual product.

But even if you removed the patent trolls, this would still become a problem; software development is too iterative, and too rapid, so allowing patents of algorithms effectively hamstrings development rather than inspiring it. Carmack’s rightfully pointed out that if you were to look at all of the current software patents and enforce all of them, not a single piece of software that reached any level of complexity would be clear of infringement. There’s too much similarity across too many different types of application, and there are only so many ways to solve problems that crop up all over the place.

But the Patent system was also intended to be a repository of knowledge, where people could look back at previous inventions and see how they worked, and once the patent expired could make use of those advancements. This falls apart in software too, because if you actually go looking at the patents that’ve been filed, you’re almost certain to come into somthing that violates some part of your program because of the above. So you can’t even use it as a resource without increasing your liability. Being aware of the fact that there’s a patent you’re violating carries a higher penalty than not. So applied to software, the system no longer functions as intended. As such, it either needs to be reformed or abolished; that’s what you do with a broken system. Fix it or replace it.

And note: removing software patents does not hamper the ability for software creators to profit either; source code is protected by copyright, so any individual program is still protected, just not the concepts behind them. Which is pretty much how it should be; ideas without implementation are pretty much useless. Protecting the implementation and not the idea is more beneficial to a system of innovation.

If you wish to discuss those issues that are actually relevant to this discussion — such as the fact that NCSoft is being sued for something they most likely came up with independently of Worlds.com — I’m willing to talk. If, on the other hand, you’d rather focus on irrelevancies and pretend that you’ve raised legitimate objections to what I said, you can simply bugger off.

pu·ni·tive (pyōō’nĭ-tĭv) adj. Inflicting or aiming to inflict punishment; punishing.

That’s nice, but the law doesn’t care what Webster says. No, sir, these words in law have unmodern origins and now they are only labels. Sometimes they’re from vastly different cultures and other times they’re just plain Gre— Latin.

Punitive damages is awarded as a deterrent. Nuclear weapons also serve as a deterrent, but we don’t call their keeping “punishment.” Punitive damages is specific to the awarding jurisdiction because, as such damages is often reduced or eliminated entirely by the appellate court, punitive damages is meant as an outlet for the people of a jurisdiction to voice outrage with regard to specific conduct.

In civil cases, outrage is expressed with what amounts to huge fines. In criminal cases, outrage is expressed with severe suspensions or eradication of civil liberties. Civil litigation is all about money. Any lawyer will tell you the same.

But this is tangential to the original point, that “IP hate” is all about money. You think that “IP hate” is about freedom because you believe that “first to invent” is meaningful. The truth is that “first to claim invention” is more often superior. Thomas Edison proved that.

What is punitive damages? Oh, yes… money.

Yes, it’s money. Guess what else it is:

pu·ni·tive (pyōō’nĭ-tĭv) adj. Inflicting or aiming to inflict punishment; punishing.

I’m sure you’d love to leave out those definitions that clearly demonstrate the pettiness of your remarks, but you don’t get to do that.