Unless of course it's litigated in a jurisdiction like the Rocket Docket AKA the Eastern District of Texas, in which case the plaintiff generally wins. And it's very expensive to litigate this, to defend yourself you'd have to retain one or more very expensive expert witnesses. While I like the idea of putting money in the pockets of MIT professors, this is not the best way ^_^.
Anyway, we're still talking about adding so much friction to the writing of software that it would utterly change the field and curtail most development, especially in small firms ... well, I suppose a healthy underground would develop. But there wouldn't be much for YC to do.
Okay, I agree for sure that the system is messed up. But my real question is, "Is the solution deleting software patents?"
Maybe the solution is holding software patents to the same rigors as mechanical patents. Why the distinction? That's what I don't understand. And still don't.
Why are they treated differently? By everyone. Even outside the courts.
1. Originally, the biggest issue was "you can't patent math", i.e. where do you draw the line between discovering a rule of the universe vs. an "invention". Square roots are not an invention per se. A method for finding them...???
2. Scale: just how many are used in any one system makes "deleting software patents" a good and probably the best outcome. Especially since there was no lack of health in the software industry before they were allowed, and there's no evidence I'm aware of that they now help it and plenty that they don't.
It also seems to break down, mostly due to scale, when you insert patent trolls into the game. In the physical world there's a lot of cross licencing, where one patent, revealed to the world by the very act of patenting it, often results in an improvement, whereby the two companies cross license.
Let's take a step back: the idea of patents is that for their absolute monopoly of limited duration you reveal your secret sauce instead of keeping it indefinitely hidden behind trade secret law. I fail to see how the publication of software patents helps the field in this way. Even if they weren't obscurely written, there are again just too many of them (too many ideas).
1. It's all math. You can't patent english either, but patents are english -- at least in the united states.
2. There are so many because it is easier to write code than it is to cut iron. That doesn't mean the value of the invention isn't worth just as much to the world and the inventor. Maybe more. We should see an exponentially increasing quality of life due to the exponentially increasing ease with which it is getting to innovate.
People can build a CNC in their garage with parts from the lumber store and a couple websites. That was unheard of 20 years ago. We have lasers in our junk that can start fires. Think of the leap fire gave us!
