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Software patents are abstract and ambiguous

Being so abstract, descriptions of software ideas are difficult to examine for patent offices, and difficult to write clear rules and procedures for the examination. This is probably the main cause for software patent quality being so low.

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".

Expert evaluations

From NPR's article When Patents Attack:

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].

At the same time Crawford's patent was being prosecuted, more than 5,000 other patents were issued for "the same thing," Martin says.

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."

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." [...]

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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References


Why abolish software patents
Why abolish software patents Why focus only on software · Why software is different · Software patent quality worse than all other fields · Harm caused by all types of patents
Legal arguments Software is math · Software is too abstract · Software does not make a computer a new machine · Harming freedom of expression · Blocking useful freedoms
High costs Costly legal costs · Cost of the patent system to governments · Cost barrier to market entry · Cost of defending yourself against patent litigation
Impact on society Restricting freedom Harm without litigation or direct threats · Free software projects harmed by software patents · More than patent trolls · More than innovation · Slow process creates uncertainty
Preventing progress Software relies on incremental development · Software progress happens without patents · Reducing innovation and research · Software development is low risk · Reducing job security · Harming education · Harming standards and compatibility
Disrupting the economy Used for sabotage · Controlling entire markets · Breaking common software distribution models · Blocking competing software · Harming smaller businesses · Harming all types of businesses · A bubble waiting to burst
Problems of the legal system Problems in law Clogging up the legal system · Disclosure is useless · Software patents are unreadable · Publishing information is made dangerous · Twenty year protection is too long
Problems in litigation Patent trolls · Patent ambush · Invalid patents remain unchallenged · Infringement is unavoidable · Inequality between small and large patent holders