

Should software be protected by patents?  - balajiviswanath

As patent trolls keep going after Google, Groupon and others, I thought it is time to discuss the merits of software patenting. NZ and India and other countries have recently struck down software patenting as the patents have an adverse impact on innovation. I'm ok with copyrights for code, but patenting software ideas seems ridiculous. What do you guys think?
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samlev
I think that, rather than removing software patents altogether, there has to
be a rethink of what is 'patentable' (Finger movements? Probably not
patentable. An entirely new protocol for transferring data? I'm fine with that
being patented.)

Aside from that, I believe that there should be a "6 months to defend" clause
attached to software patents (i.e. if you don't file a patent dispute within 6
months of another company publicly releasing something that "infringes" your
patent, then you lose the right to defend it). That would solve many of the
"patent troll" issues, and to get a large chunk of the rest of them, the laws
about acquiring patents in a buy-out/merger should be examined.

