IP and Industry

[ewdi]

Lately, in tech industry, companies rather go into Intelectual Properties war in court to gain revenue than to innovate like the late 90's

SCO vs IBM, Kodak vs Sun, and even a small website against mambo open source to get into press often in a way to promote itself (no press is a bad press).

What do you guys think about tech industry and tech companies turning into IP warlords in court rooms instead of innovators?

[Dr Caleb]

Hulk Smash.

[jcstille]

Lately, in tech industry, companies rather go into Intelectual Properties war in court to gain revenue than to innovate like the late 90's

SCO vs IBM, Kodak vs Sun, and even a small website against mambo open source to get into press often in a way to promote itself (no press is a bad press).

What do you guys think about tech industry and tech companies turning into IP warlords in court rooms instead of innovators?


For me, I believe it is the product of a downturned economy. They realize that if no other companies are going to innovate, then they should own the propoerty that is out there. As soon as a ruling comes out on these things companies will be forced to innovate. Think about it, out of necessity, the companies will be required to innovate news ways to do things, otherwise they will not be able to produce their products. I see it as a necessary step, getting us back towards innovation.

[Ned]

I spent the last 10 years working close to the pharmaceutical industry so this is nothing new to me.

Intellectual property is a brilliant thing in theory, but is awful in practice.

Just my experience, and I hold 5 patents to show for it.

Ned

[ewdi]

how about software patent? it's really going to kill open source, that is why many open source project rejects EU's software patent

[Dog-One]

To me software is too loose a term. Having a patent on an algorithm or some specialized procedure I can understand. Having a patent on a "click here for help" or "Buy Now!" seems insane. The whole "look-n-feel" concept that makes your software package unique and worthy of a patent really gets in the way of innovation.

I have heard the comments that Open Source just tries to copy the proprietary software and to some degree that's true. Where do you draw the line?

The latest ticker in the news is Reverse Engineering. I've done some cleanroom development before and it is extremely hard work. The only thing I was able to take into the lab was the thoughts and ideas in my head, no reference guides, no source code, no machine code, no pictures, drawings, zip. After months of this and finally getting a product ready, I don't want to hear that the legal team has some concerns. To me it's no different than a homework assignment in school where everyone strives for the same goal, but does the work individually and in different ways. It appears that in this capitalist economy, whoever gets the assignment submitted to the patent office first, wins. And the rest have to suck wind and/or pay royalties.

I don't have a workable solution to this and I suspect many don't; that's why things stay the same. I do know that big business has a lot of say and a lot more clout than the little people of which Open Source is made.

[Ned]

I don't really know too much about software patents. Are there differing rules for software patents from other types of patent. What are software patents granted for - novel usage or novel design? Where's the inventive step?

For example, it's easy to see the invemtive step of the first windowing gui, or the first compression software. Likewise, it's easy to see for applying known compression techniques to a new area such as audio or video. But in general, for the vast majority of software, where's the truely inventive step - something that's not just a logical next step progression of prior art?

Also, patenting can kill development in a sector like open source. It can easily take a minimum of 18 months to adequately cover something by patenting at which point shared development goes out the window. 18 months is a long time in computing.

Ned