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Difference between revisions of "Software patent quality worse than all other fields"
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==Possible reasons== | ==Possible reasons== | ||
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# Abstract algorithms can be described in so many ways | # Abstract algorithms can be described in so many ways | ||
# Jargon and lack of tangible components can make a mundane software idea sound technical | # Jargon and lack of tangible components can make a mundane software idea sound technical | ||
# Professionals working in the patents industry only see the ideas submitted for patenting, and therefore fail to realise that they are not qualitatively different from the ideas that good software engineers come up with every day of the week, most of which are considered too obvious to write up and publish | # Professionals working in the patents industry only see the ideas submitted for patenting, and therefore fail to realise that they are not qualitatively different from the ideas that good software engineers come up with every day of the week, most of which are considered too obvious to write up and publish | ||
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==Examples== | ==Examples== |
Revision as of 20:12, 21 August 2011
Quality problems can happen in any category of patents, but the quality of software patents is particularly bad. This is probably a fundamental problem that can't be avoided in a domain as abstract as software.
Contents
The ideas are too abstract
In chemistry, ideas are described concretely, such as Trans-6-[2-(3- or 4-carboxamido- substituted pyrrol-1-yl)alkyl]-4-hydroxypyran-2-ones.[1]
In software, ideas are described as "point of sale location", "material object", or "information manufacturing machine".
Possible reasons
- Abstract algorithms can be described in so many ways
- Jargon and lack of tangible components can make a mundane software idea sound technical
- Professionals working in the patents industry only see the ideas submitted for patenting, and therefore fail to realise that they are not qualitatively different from the ideas that good software engineers come up with every day of the week, most of which are considered too obvious to write up and publish
Examples
- Unbelievable software patents
- FFII's webshop which uses 20 ideas patented in the EU
- Microsoft developer's internal comments about his own patents indecipherable by anyone but a patent attorney
- Some Kodak patents
Related pages on ESP Wiki
- Raising standards is not our goal
- The disclosure is useless
- Silly patents
- Software patents are unreadable
- How to read patents
- Why software is different
External links
- Why are Software Patents so Trivial? other version (possibly identical), by FFII
- Is software too abstract to be patented?, 18 Nov 2010, Rob Tiller (Red Hat)
- Why Software is Abstract, by PolR, 7 Oct 2010, Groklaw
- An Open Response to the USPTO — Physical Aspects of Mathematics, 26 Sep 2010, Groklaw