Questions and answers on software patents

[sonoran]

For sure. I do agree with Magickman that software patents make no sense, but that Judge no doubt knows much more about the law than he does about computer science.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by Magickman

For my own self, I believe all software should be FREE, license or not.

Little robbers are everywhere in this immoral world. So what do you do for a living ? Are your work products free to steal too ? I'm a SW dev.. There is absolutely nothing wrong with SW copyright. You apparently don't understand that GPL & FOSS & OSS are entirely dependent on copyrights to enforce it's LICENSE provisions.

The problem is SW PATENTS not COPYRIGHTs. If you can't make the distinction you need a little timeout to read up on this topic..

This right here is what drive people to go with Linux, to get away from all of that license bull crap.
I'll tell you what a license truly is, it is when The Powers That Be, (TPTB) take away an inherent RIGHT, and turn it into a Privilege, then make you pay for it.

So in your imagination you're quite the hero when you steal work from others ? "stickin' it to the man" ? 'TPTB' is kookie-talk for a paranoic anti-social attitudes - that others work is free for the taking. It's part of the want=right ethics of envy.

I've got some bad news for you sunshine - ALL Fedora code is copyrighted - and it is illegal to duplicate it without following the LICENSE. Happily the LICENSEs (various GPL, MIT, BSD ...) are very liberal wrt simple duplication, BUT there are real license conditions.

Originally Posted by sonoran

Suppose I believe I have an inherent right to your property? That's what we have laws for. And in the U.S. the RIGHTS of copyright, patent, and trademark are enumerated in the Constitution. You may not agree, but you'd better be prepared to explain yourself to The Judge.

Yeah, but I think most folks simply don't understand BSD or GPL or ... licenses - and blithely ignore that they are using copyrighted code under license all day long.
--------

This has NOTHING to do with patents like codec patents. Copyright prevents you from copying source or binaries and from creating derived works EXCEPT under license (like the GPL license). Patents prevent use of the ideas behind the invention without license.

If someone PATENTs an MP3 coding and codec - then the idea of the implementation is proprietary and protected - no implementation of MP3 can be legal without a license (depends on the details of the patent claims and assertions but ...) .

As Rahul indicates - their are huge issues as to whether software patents should be allowed at all. Patents were meant to encourage invention by giving the inventor of something practical, innovative and non-obvious a temporary monopoly. I and others find it hard to understand how a 'yet another codec' is innovative or non-obvious. I wonder if an 18yr renewable patent is really reasonable for software with a ~3-5yr life cycle. Then we have the problem with other nations incompatible, and often ridiculous, patent systems defraying the value.

what a world, what a world,

[Magickman]

I've got some bad news for you sunshine - ALL Fedora code is copyrighted - and it is illegal to duplicate it without following the LICENSE. Happily the LICENSEs (various GPL, MIT, BSD ...) are very liberal wrt simple duplication, BUT there are real license conditions.

Friend, I was not talking about Fedora, Fedora does not ship with M$ codecs. So you have a problem with stealing codecs from corporate giant Microsoft do you? Work for them or something?

As for talking a Right and changing it into a Privilege, I was not exactly talking about software. Do a little research on the Freeman movement, and becoming a Sovereign, and you will understand what I am talking about.

[RahulSundaram]

Hi

Folks, if you want to discuss this, do it on a new thread and perhaps try and use better language. This is off topic here.

[dragonbite]

Originally Posted by Magickman

So you have a problem with stealing codecs from corporate giant Microsoft do you? Work for them or something?

Following the law = working for Microsoft? Ouch! I wonder where my paychecks have been going!

[stevea]

Originally Posted by Magickman

... So you have a problem with stealing codecs from corporate giant Microsoft do you? ...

“A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.” - Socrates

“Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.” - Thomas Jefferson

"**************************" - SteveA

[FunkyRes]

I do pay for the fluendo codecs and I find they integrate very well with everything gstreamer, e.g. if someone uses html5 video but only has a h.264 version, Midori can play it if I have the fluendo codecs installed.

As far as Fedora is concerned, I want Fedora to remain without infringing software because when I set someone up to do something commercial, I want to be able to tell them that by using CentOS (now essentially descendant of Fedora) they greatly reduce the risk of accidentally violating a software patent.

For example, say they want to run a social media network that lets people upload audio content.
With CentOS they can decode the wav and re-encode in Ogg Vorbis and probably not have to worry about patents. But if CentOS shipped with lame, even if CentOS paid the patent royalty, they may have to pay a patent royalty themselves. By not having lame, encoding to mp3 is not something that will happen because some programmer on their team didn't understand the implications.

So if they need to install software not from the distro software repository (e.g. lame) to do what they want to do, they know they have to look at what patent implications there may be to what they want to do.

That is why Fedora should remain patent free even if the money was there to pay royalties.

Now me as an end user, yeah - I download the source to ffmpeg and lame and etc. and build all this stuff for my personal use, and that is perfectly legal. What is not legal is for me to use it in commercial capacity or distribute the binaries I compile from the source.

[jenaniston]

Originally Posted by sonoran

For sure. I do agree with Magickman that software patents make no sense, but that Judge no doubt knows much more about the law than he does about computer science.

History of software patents as I understand it . . .
20 years ago software patents had no place . . . here´s an example.

Patents are about “claims“ filed in the application and federal circuit court judges (US) handle disputes when the USPTO or
- if in another country in this global trade age for example patenting in Denmark when the DPTO -
denies an application for patent protection.

In general 35 U.S.C.§ 101 represents Congress' intent not to place any restrictions on the subject matter for which a patent may be obtained -
that said excluded from patent protection are laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas.

Supreme Court cases from the 70's (Gottschalk v. Benson 409 U.S. 63 , 93 S.Ct. 1048 (1972) and Parker v. Flook 437 U.S. 584 98 S.Ct. 2522 (1978)
both computer-related, stand for no more than those long established principles.

in re Warmerdam et al. 33 F.3d 1354 (Fed. Ciir. (1994) the claimed invention included methods for generating a "data structure" -
where inventors Tom Warmerdam and Bernard Verwer desired to file patent claims (6 in total) for their idea -
a process of a machine having memory which contains any data representing “bubble heirachy“
for controlling motion of objects to avoid collision with other objects.

Basically, a data bubble was put around the position of an object . . . entirely around its bounds and the course detail would improve
to the lowest level of heirachy with smaller bubbles for successive refining of the object avoidance algorithm.
This is about the anticipated path of a robot (or for example in California a self-driving / driverless robot car.)

Now if it sounds to you and me like this idea - albeit abstract and a mathematical algorithm (generally not patentable) - is a worthwhile invention,
the Dutch guys Warmerdam and Verwer only got one of the six claims patentable in the above case law.


http://www.jcil.org/journal/articles/351.htmlhttp://www.jcil.org/journal/articles/351.html

Unlike many foreign countries, the United States does not have an explicit rule that defines software as unpatentable subject matter.
Despite the United States’ leadership position in patent protection, U.S. case law defining patentatble subject matter has evolved slowly and painfully.

"The Patent and Trademark Office remains uncomfortable in granting patents for inventions ideally embodied as software.
Inventors’ attorneys continue to test these boundaries and the PTO continues to reject patent applications for software inventions
based on the grounds that they constitute non-statutory subject matter.
The PTO is denying patents because the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has not articulated clear guidelines"

Yes I do have a patent in the works (not software) with maybe more interest in Europe than in the USA.
And as far as I can tell now in 2013 there exists software patents . . .
even though I am not sure the law has changed -with the following as one example :
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...0130042191&OS=

[sonoran]

As interesting as software patents may be, I think we should honor RahulSundaram's request to
confine his thread to Fedora-specific questions. You can always start an argument in the Social Groups if you wish.

[Dan]

Hmmmm.

Ok. That sounds like a good plan. but just as a point of reference ... although you seem to be quite good at it, knuckle-cracking is a privilege reserved to and for the staff. <....>


Interesting stuff, BTW jenaniston. Indeed as good a basis for a nice hair-pull in the Social Groups as our Sonoroan denizen has suspected it might be. So his advice is really quite sound. (But don't you dare ever let him know I said that!)

[sonoran]

Originally Posted by Dan

Hmmmm.

Ok. That sounds like a good plan. but just as a point of reference ... although you seem to be quite good at it, knuckle-cracking is a privilege reserved to and for the staff. <....>

Since jenaniston's post began with a quote from me, I felt it was simply good manners
to reply and explain why I did not think it appropriate to continue the discussion in
Rahul's sticky thread, a thread that he specifically requested be kept on-topic.

I won't speculate about the universe in which that amounts to "knuckle-cracking" and a
usurpation of Staff privileges.

[Dan]

Then I see you have never much studied the likes of non-utopian banana republics. <....>


<....>


And that being said -- and in true petty dictatorial fashion -- and whereas we're only likely to get one post a year here (and much of the subject has already been succinctly covered already) ... thread closed.