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Difference between revisions of "Software patent quality worse than all other fields"

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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.
 
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.
  
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==The ideas are too abstract==
 
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In chemistry, ideas are described concretely, such as ''Trans-6-[2-(3- or 4-carboxamido- substituted pyrrol-1-yl)alkyl]-4-hydroxypyran-2-ones''.<ref>http://www.researchoninnovation.org/swconf/bessenslides.pdf</ref>
 
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In software, ideas are described as "''point of sale location''", "''material object''", or "''information manufacturing machine''".
 
  
 
==Possible reasons==
 
==Possible reasons==
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# 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.
 
# It's impossible for a patent examiner to judge obviousness.  Software developers use so many ideas during their work, only a tiny percent ever get submitted to the patent office or otherwise published.
 
# It's impossible for a patent examiner to judge obviousness.  Software developers use so many ideas during their work, only a tiny percent ever get submitted to the patent office or otherwise published.
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==Expert evaluations==
 
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From NPR's article [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents-attack When Patents Attack]:
 
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<blockquote>
 
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[[David Martin]], who runs a company called M-Cam. It's hired by governments, banks and business to assess patent quality, which the company does with a fancy piece of software. We asked Martin to assess Chris Crawford's patent [US5771354].<br />
 
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At the same time Crawford's patent was being prosecuted, more than 5,000 other patents were issued for "the same thing," Martin says.<br />
 
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Crawford's patent was for "an online backup system." Another patent [US6003044] from the same time was for "efficiently backing up files using multiple computer systems." Yet another [US6587935] was for "mirroring data in a remote data storage system."<br />
 
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And then there were three different patents [US6049874, US6038665, and US6014676] with three different patent numbers but that all had the same title: "System and method for backing up computer files over a wide area computer network." [...]<br />
 
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We also asked Rick Mc Leod, a patent lawyer and former software engineer, to evaluate Chris Crawford's patent. "None of this was actually new," he told us.
 
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</blockquote>
 
  
 
==Examples==
 
==Examples==

Revision as of 00:23, 11 January 2013

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.


Possible reasons

  1. Abstract algorithms can be described in so many ways.
  2. Jargon and lack of tangible components can make a mundane software idea sound technical.
  3. It's impossible for a patent examiner to judge obviousness. Software developers use so many ideas during their work, only a tiny percent ever get submitted to the patent office or otherwise published.

Examples

Related pages on ESP Wiki

External links

References

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