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Blocking innovation and research

Revision as of 16:54, 1 July 2009 by Ciaran (talk | contribs) (Software innovation happens without patents: Lots of widely used innovative software was and is developed without patents. Microsoft DOS and Windows are two examples. After Microsoft attained a)

Software patents stiffle innovation.

Software innovation happens without patents

Lots of widely used innovative software was and is developed without patents. Microsoft DOS and Windows are two examples. After Microsoft attained a dominant market position, they started saying patents were necessary for software development, but they actually wrote their software before they started getting patents.

A clearer example is free software such as the GNU/Linux and FreeBSD operating systems which were developed without patents.

The World Wide Web is another example, and email is another.

Software innovation and research clearly do not need patents. Further, there is a lot of evidence (below) to show that patents are actually blocking innovation and research in the field of software.

Studies

Examples

When explaining why Google were not supporting the patent-free Ogg Theora codec, Chris DiBona repled "here's the challenge: Can theora move forward without infringing on the other video compression patents?".[1]

External links

References