Rather, the software patent debate pits the patent bar and large software companies like Microsoft and IBM, which have tens of thousands of patents, against rank-and-file programmers and up-and-coming entrepreneurs for whom the threat of frivolous litigation is a growing disincentive to innovation.
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The Supreme Court first upheld a software patent in 1981, involving software controlling a process for curing rubber, and since then patents have become a vital bulwark protecting the assets of big companies like IBM and Microsoft.
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On balance, the availability of a patent for software or business methods provides little incentive to developers.
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In practice what this means is that in order to patent a software idea, it has to be embedded in some sort of hardware.
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So any special rules for software patents will just push innovators and their patent lawyers to seek patent protection for hardware that achieves the same outcome, obtaining the synthetic equivalent of a software patent.
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The Supreme Court did uphold a patent on a software-controlled rubber-curing machine in 1981, but its ruling emphasized that this was because the patent covered a physical machine that happened to have a software component, rather than claiming a software technique by itself.
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When the Supreme Court first invalidated a software patent in 1972, it specifically invited Congress to clarify whether it intended software to be patentable.
Meanwhile, the USPTO has a huge backlog of 1, 000s of software patent applications to review.
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There are several reasons to believe that society overpays when it provides patent protection for software.
In 1965, a programmer at Applied Digital Research (ADR), named Marty Goetz, filed the first software patent.
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This would be an improvement, to be sure, but only because the optimal length for a software patent is 0 years.
Among other things, he notes that in fast-moving industries being first to market is a bigger benefit than software patent protections.
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Oracle testified at the Patent Office opposing software patents in 1994.
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Of course, a similar argument could be made about any software patent.
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Called "Motion DNA", the patent-pending software developed by Navisens detects a person's realistic location and position inside a building in 3D and in real time.
So Google should consider going further and endorse software patent abolition.
By the end of the 1990s, all practical limits to patents on software had been dismantled, sparking the software patent arms race that continues to this day.
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Microsoft and Facebook declined to discuss the patents, which represent the lion's share of the patent portfolio the software giant agreed to buy earlier this month from AOL Inc.
It may not be possible to define software patents precisely, it may be easy for patent applicants to game any software-specific rules, and we have to find a way to remain in compliance with our treaty obligations.
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The obvious answer is that most people in the software industry believed that the Supreme Court had excluded most software from patent protection.
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The team fed the algorithm as much data as they could from the Cisco patent and told the software to design around it.
Microsoft contends that a judge used the wrong standard and says the patent office did not consider that i4i had used its HTML editor in software before receiving a patent.
If software engineers hate patent laws, they sure do seem ok with making use of the system to their potential benefit.
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But that doesn't mean companies looking to license software or hardware that would allow for movie remixes couldn't do so elsewhere--especially since there's some question about who, exactly, holds the patent on DVD-filtering software.
The U.S. patent office, moreover, has minimal expertise in software, and is facing a growing backlog of applications, encouraging under-resourced patent examiners to err on the side of granting applications.
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For a long time, software was considered by patent law as a form of applied math.
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By the way, it is notable that you have no evidence to even back up your sensational assertion about software engineer opinion on patent law.
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First, you note that only software engineers complain about patent laws.
FORBES: People Should Listen to Computer Programmers about Software Patents
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