
Direct the Patent Office to Cease Issuing Software Patents - acrum
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/direct-patent-office-cease-issuing-software-patents/vvNslSTq?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
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dbingham
Yes, this is a dupe from earlier today. I posted the damned thing by accident
while learning the system in a half awake stupor. And, because I was in an
half awake stupor, decided it was a good idea to share it with the world after
accidentally posting it. I've been trying to get them to take it down to no
avail. Failing that I've suggested better language and asked other people to
suggest better language. On Monday I plan to call the White House switch board
and see if I can beg/bully my way to someone with the power to update the
text. The previous thread had my suggestion for better language, but I'll just
go ahead and repost it here:

\----

The US Patent system is badly broken with respect to software patents. Patents
are being issued to companies for “inventions” that are, in fact, common
knowledge included in any introductory software textbook. The result is that
the large software corporations are buying up reams of patents and using them
to bully small, innovative companies out of business or into paying ridiculous
licensing fees.

Quite apart from encouraging innovation, patents are now stifling it. The
software industry is one of the few industries still strong in America. Even
in a time of recession, there are not enough computer programmers to fill all
the available positions. Startup companies are forming and growing readily.
But if every line of code written brings with it a potential violation of
someone else's intellectual property, this will cease to be the case.

To solve this problem, we petition the Obama Administration to direct the
Patent office to cease issuing software patents and to instruct the judicial
system to take a long hard look at existing patents for validity. With these
two steps, those of us in the software industry can stop worrying about
mutually assured patent destruction and get back to doing what we do best.

\----

If anyone else comes up with language the community prefers, I'm game to use
it when I call the switchboard on Monday.

~~~
rbanffy
You shouldn't update the text of a petition people already signed.

~~~
dbingham
It basically says the same thing. Just with out the grammatical mess. Most of
the signatures of come from either here or reddit and I've posted the
suggested update text in both places to similar reactions.

~~~
rbanffy
I understand, but, still, the language in the first paragraph is
contradictory. "The patent office's original interpretation of software as
language and therefor patentable" states the original interpretation of the
USPTO is that language is patentable. A petition like this should not allow
the slightest amount of confusion.

~~~
dbingham
This would be one of the reasons why the language needs to be fixed. I don't
think there was any doubt in the minds of those who signed what it was asking.
And the new language just removes my messy "let's-just-throw-text-in-this-
textbox" crap.

~~~
rbanffy
Indeed, but people already signed the petition. I understand most probably
nobody who signed it understood your intentions, but, still, it's now a signed
document.

BTW, congratulations on the idea.

------
hugh3
Is this "petitions" feature on whitehouse.gov brand new? I've heard of a
couple of petitions today, and never before.

I see right now that there are only 32 petitions there, and every one of them
is either a neutral or leftish cause. The only _completely_ nutty one is the
UFO one, and there are no troll ones either (I thought "Stop Animal
Homelessness At Its Roots" was a clever troll, but apparently it's talking
about abandoned pets rather than wild animals).

Have conservative activists not yet got wind of this? Has 4chan not yet got
wind of this? Or is the White House carefully curating what petitions it
allows to appear on its site?

~~~
philfreo
_In addition, a petition must get 150 signatures in order to be publicly
searchable on WhiteHouse.gov._

~~~
hugh3
One hundred and fifty names (err, anons) should be easy enough to rustle up on
4chan for a petition to... well, whatever the meme of the week on 4chan is.

I googled "white house petitions free republic" to see whether the freepers
were planning anything, but so far they haven't got past the "They'll harvest
my IP address" paranoia stage.

I'm sure that conservative activists will get wind of this eventually. If
there isn't a serious competition for the most-signed petition between
"Legalize pot, man" and "Make Ron Paul President" by this time next week then
I'll be suspicious that they're deleting things they don't like.

------
alttag
Dupe from earlier today: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3028999>

Same complaints on that thread. We as a community seem embarrassed to sign
something which has such awful grammar.

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elehack
IANAL, but I don't think the executive branch has the authority to do what the
petition is asking. The patent office merely interprets what Congress and the
courts tell it - while there is some interpretational discretion, I don't
think it extends to the point of rejecting all software patents and certainly
not to the point of retroactively invalidating all of them.

~~~
zhemao
The US Patent Office is part of the Executive Branch, so the President
certainly does have the authority to issue orders to them.

~~~
elehack
Yes, the President can issue orders to them. But if those orders countermand
the direction and mandate the patent office receives from congress as
interpreted by the courts, the executive branch has overstepped its authority.
Such an order would be, in my opinion, an order to step outside authority and
outside law. Yes, such orders have been given on many occasions, but that
doesn't make them right.

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s3graham
Good lord, can we petition them to write the petition in English first?

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randymorris
Grammar aside, I think this should be signed at the very least to show
interest in IP law change. You have to admit that any developer with any sense
of the litigation battlefield currently represented in the law should jump at
the chance to bring more focus to the subject. I would rather fight big
business on a competitiveness basis than over the tremendous threat of
litigation with the large legal team overlords cutting up every concept and
locking it down.

------
dsosby
Now how to identify what is a "software" patent and what isn't? Legally
software already can't be patented -- it has to be a physical something. Read
any "software" patent and it doesn't refer to the software, it refers to some
sort of programmable machine that does something special with its software.

Is it a machine patent or is it a software patent?

------
NormM
Since there are trillions of dollars worth of software patents out there, most
owned by US companies, this doesn't seem like a good way to proceed even if it
were legal. You might be able to stop future applications for software
patents. But really there's no bright line between software and hardware
anymore -- you really need to reform the entire patent system.

~~~
perlgeek
What makes you think software patents are worth trillions of dollar, and how
do you define "worth"?

I'd guess that for the economy as a whole, the combined worth of software
patents is negative.

~~~
NormM
I agree their economic value is probably negative, but because of the broken
patent laws companies currently need them. Since companies like Google and
Apple have recently spent billions of dollars to buy relatively small
collections of patents, the entire existing pool would probably cost a few
trillion to buy. It's really not a good idea to make laws that cause companies
to spend this much money, and then declare their value to be zero. It's also
probably not legal.

------
marojejian
This is a nice idea, but I can't sign a petition where the grammar is that
bad.

------
gavanwoolery
As of this writing, 5029 of the required 5000 signatures have been collected!
Now hopefully this actually goes somewhere...

~~~
jayfuerstenberg
I wish I could participate and drive that number higher but I'm not American.

I have linked to this petition from my blog urging Americans to sign it
though.

------
jarin
Just a small thing, but this site completely fails at the back button.

------
dsl
Software patents are not bad. Obvious patents are bad.

~~~
mythz
Name a good software patent the world can't live without?

~~~
dsl
I'll quote PG himself: "One thing I do feel pretty certain of is that if
you're against software patents, you're against patents in general. Gradually
our machines consist more and more of software. Things that used to be done
with levers and cams and gears are now done with loops and trees and closures.
There's nothing special about physical embodiments of control systems that
should make them patentable, and the software equivalent not."

By speaking out against software patents, you are essentially saying that
programmers are not capable of inventing, or that they should not be afforded
the same protections that other inventors receive.

~~~
vadiml
Not at all. The people who are against software patents are simply convinced
that they (software patents) stiffling innovation.

~~~
hugh3
It's not clear to me where the line between "software patents" and "other
patents" exists, or why that should be a bright line.

And even if you _could_ convince me that patents in field X (say, patents for
mining machinery) were (at present) holding back rather than encouraging
innovation in that field, this might not be a convincing argument anyway. I
think government should treat all industries equally unless there's some
_very_ compelling reason not to.

~~~
wnight
> And even if you could convince me

What evidence have you heard that patents actually help?

> that patents in field X (say, patents for mining machinery) were (at
> present) holding back rather than encouraging innovation in that field, this
> might not be a convincing argument anyway.

Wow, that's harsh. "These arbitrary rules against redheads are ruining Ireland
but at least we're enforcing the rule evenly across countries."

------
kman
good luck with that.

------
irrumator
Why?

~~~
byoung2
There is much debate over whether software patents encourage or discourage
innovation. There are a lot of arguably obvious software patents (e.g. "Method
to retrieve backups from the internet"). Since the USPTO only started issuing
software patents in the late 1990's, some or most of these patents are
predated by plenty of examples of prior art. Imagine if a movie screenwriter
were suddenly able to patent the romantic comedy, or the buddy-cop movie and
then use these patents to sue anyone who tried to make a similar film? How
many movies would not be made just because of the fear of litigation?

~~~
CamperBob
It's not very debatable at all, actually. Plot two curves on the same graph,
one showing the rate of fundamental innovations in software and computer
science in general and the other showing the number of software patents issued
by the USPTO. My _guess_ is that those curves will cross sometime in the
1990s, and never approach each other again.

(The trouble is that the politicians, not knowing any better, will go to the
USPTO to get both sets of figures. "See? All of these new software patents
must mean that innovation has accelerated at a tremendous rate!"))

~~~
hugh3
Now let's plot the same curve "rate of fundamental innovations in software and
computer science" against the popularity of the name "Tyler" for young boys.

Correlation, causation, yada yada yada.

~~~
CamperBob
Yadda, yadda, indeed. The point is, _there is no real correlation to begin
with_ , except for what a naive politician will see when he looks at the
number of patent grants.

