MESSAGE
| DATE | 2005-05-27 |
| FROM | From: "Steve Milo"
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Nokia's tablet
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http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=1C9E2303-DD57-4CE3-BB38-D1717C87C41D
The silly thing that is illustrated in this article are how companies are 'pledging their patents to Linux'.
What exactly are they patenting? The source code? When that is compiled very often it is optimized for the machine so whatever 'innovation' companies with software patents think they claim is marginalized technologically. The idea behind a patent is to lay claim to something that does not change or morph under operating circumstances.
Henry Ford patended the carburator when he 'invented' the internal combustion engine. He licensed his patent to the other automakers, and although the carburator had evolved over the years until it was finally deprecated by fuel injection, under operating circumstances Fords design stayed functionally the same.
The intent of a patent is designed to protect 'consumers', but even that is not entirely true. The patent office was created long before the term 'consumer' was established. This may sound like hair-splitting, but it is this kind of accuracy in the language that is missing and is necessary to straighten out the patent abuse taking place. In fact there are lawyers out of Stanford and Columbia who give speech's with the intent of encouraging twisting the language.
This is the heart of pure evil, not silence and secrecy which are necessary sometimes to protect society.
Anyhow, if a product is created with a fairly complex assembly process with consequences of personal injury to the user of the product, and if the process is not carefully adhered to, then a patent serves a purpose. Once the process becomes commonplace that patent no longer serves a purpose. But the patent should be filed on the product itself, not the assembly process. Holding a patent on an assembly process automatically precludes innovation. The idea of a process is something that is dynamic and changes to fit the circumstances to improve on what it is acting upon. In short, evolution.
Software companies have come to expect patents to be seen as something inhereted from one generation to the next. This fatalistic view on the future is detrimental to the advancement of civilization.
But currently this patent silliness has lead to company's with less than monopolistic intent to file patents as well in order to protect a free and open society.
Steve M
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