Paged Out! A One-Page Summary of What Software Patents Are (and Why They Should Not Even Exist)
Whose patents anyway? Who stands to benefit and why?
Recent: Professor Eben Moglen: In 1991 Richard Stallman Thought GNU/Linux Was Doomed Due to Software Patents
THREE years ago we did a one-page outline of the situation in the European Patent Office (EPO), seeing that it was difficult for some to follow as many things had happened in the decade prior. One reader said that a 1-page article about software patents is in order, inspired by "Paged Out!
For those who are not familiar with it, "Paged Out! is a free experimental (one article == one page) technical magazine about programming (especially programming tricks!), hacking, security hacking, retro computers, modern computers, electronics, demoscene, and other similar topics." (Quoting the front page) I've been writing about software patent for over 20 years, but the subject can be revisited, as per the reader's suggestion, a little differently... "if approached from a technical point of view."
Here's my very concise go at it:
What Are Patents?
Patents are a time-limited market monopoly granted and enforced by a national (or illegal, unconstitutional supranational) court.
What Are Software Patents?
Same as above, except the covered monopoly is on an abstract idea rather than a physical mechanism.
Why Are Patents Like These So Bad?
Well, implementations to be run on computer systems are reducible to mathematics. Or, put differently, when code gets compiled (converted into binary machine code) it simply carries out a series of logical steps that a person cannot quite comprehend. Many different programs be be construed as reducible to similar if not identical machine code, which means that monopolies on ideas (or computer algorithms) are offering exclusivity on logic.
Courts have quite consistently arrived at the conclusion that naturally-occurring phenomena are not human inventions. Logic is not a human invention, either.
What Should One Aim For?
For many years already we've had copyright (wholesale) coverage for computer code, defending against blatant plagiarism, either of secret or freely-shared code. The author of code gets to decide how the code will be used. The copyright can be used for exclusivity, attribution, or even the demand of mutuality in development (copyleft).
Patents overstep the line of common sense. They're an overreach, lobbied for by well-established monopolies, which plan to cross-license millions of low-quality patents and shut small companies out of the market, even if they have totally new, truly original, and entirely independent implementations.
"Too many think that re-writing a bit of code is enough to deal with software patents," the reader said. "It's not. That would deal with copyright, as code is expression, but the core of the software patent is about what it does, not how it does it or where the code came from or what the code looks like."
The reader said that the current status of software patents in the EU and US would be relevant too, whether for the above article or as part of a quarterly-updated page for the site. We generally strive to cover this aspect or subject in light of current and recent news. It is a "dynamic" thing. Product bans for Apple, as noted at the end of last year and in this video about Apple's trouble due to software patents, would be one example of this. Thanks, ITC?
At the moment the EPO lobbies hard for European software patents through some illegal EU court called "UPC". We wrote about it 3 days ago and we'll write a lot about the EPO later this month.
Contrariwise, after SCOTUS rulings including Alice (and 35 U.S.C. § 101) we've seen a demise of software patents in the US, even if the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) still grants such patents. Courts knock them down. This is partly why we left this subject aside in recent years. For the time being we aren't seeing SCOTUS revisiting the matter and US Congress is not intervening in spite of intensive lobbying by corrupt politicians such as Coons. We monitor this situation every single day. █