CAOS Weekly Philosophy: Software Patents, Good or Bad?

[Brad Nunnally]

I read about these things every now and again and it always catches my interest. From what I can gather on the subject via Wikipedia, the patents basically apply to any code that you or I could write.

If I were to come up with a super awesome new sorting algorithm that just blows away all the rest I can get it patented and force people to pay me for using it. This may look like a great idea on the surface. I mean just think of the cash you could roll in if your algorithm were to replace one that has been around forever. However, if you look through the green veil a little you can see how this could possibly hinder innovation.

If you want to come up with a new algorithm or new program for that matter and you want to use some aspects from say my algorithm. You would have to either pay me or get my permission to use it. If I were to say no then your new and great idea would never see the light of day possibly.

Also, how much code today is completely original. I know when I have to program if I get stuck I either look back at some of my old code or search for it on the internet. I can't use exactly what I find most of the time, but what I do find does lead me to an answer. So, is Software Patents a good thing or a bad thing, or is it a little bit of both?

Wikipedia Article

"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards."
Aldous Huxley

[Tyler]

Majorly bad idea.

What if somebody has a copyright on selection sort.  Then either every 140 student (or perhaps the CS department) would have to pay to have students program the sort.  That's a dangerous road to travel down.  I imagine this would apply also to data structures.  Can you imagine someone with a copyright on linked lists??

You also had a good point, Brad, about asking how much is code is actually original.  I know when I learned the languages I know now, I copied and pasted other code and then modified/expanded on that.  I bet a sizeable percentage of coders do the same.  

I would hate to see people getting sued for learning a new programming language and where that would lead the industry to.

[Bryan]

I am of firm belief that you can not patent ideas, merely tangible objects.  I agree with what bothof you have said.

[DaleDoe]

I'm still undecided.  If something like a compression algorithm takes years of research to develop, I can understand how a patent would be beneficial in order to recoup research costs.  From what I understand some universities make quite a bit of money on such patents.  On the other hand, I don't see any reason why one should be awarded a patent for just coding something simple that just hasn't been done before.

Maybe I'll have a stronger opinion after I found out if the patent Boeing is applying for on some stuff I did is accepted.  (I get a bunch of money if it is!) :-D

[Jarod Neuner]

First, I strongly support the idea of copyrighting software. Software should always be credited to the programmer or organization from which it originated.

From the United States Patent and Trademark Office:
 The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, â€Ã...“the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or sellingâ€Ã, the invention in the United States or â€Ã...“importingâ€Ã, the invention into the United States.

The problem, of course, is the static definition of an invention. Amongst other things, a process is considered an invention. Consequently, I think I can patent Oil Changes, Spaghetti Sauce Recipes, and Oral Hygiene. Does anyone know why this is not true?

Has anyone tried to patent the process by which the periodic flow of electron charge is used to evaluate discrete responses in a logical system?

[Tyler]

As a programmer, sure I would love to have money and/or credit for good code that I wrote.  The problem comes when patents and copyrights start flowing like they are now in other areas.  Big companies will start getting copyrights on common or "new" algorithms.  Before you know it, corporate giants like Microsoft will have rights on every common algorithm.  Shortly following that would be lawsuits to teenagers and coders that either use the code knowingly or unknowingly.  We'll end up with more Disneys that lobby to change laws to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain.  Before you know it, you can't efficiently code anymore (if at all).

If copyrighting software would ever work, there would have to be a public domain to protect commonly used code.

Code copyrighting could lead to the following problems (off the top of my head):
what would be in the public domain?
how would you determine who was first to use a coding technique or algorithm?
what do you do for existing code now using someone else's copyrighted material?
what do you do if you cannot afford or chose not to pay for the rights to use an algorithm. i.e., if all the sorting algorithms are copyrighted, how do you sort something without breaking the law?
how do you enforce something like that (are there enough lawyers capable of reading code to distinguish copyrighted code)?

I'm sure there are more if I really wanted to.

[WrexSoul]

Well the way I understand copyright laws, which I'll grant isn't very clear since I myself have no experience with them, I don't believe that the algorithms that are already in common use (i.e. sorting algorithms) cannot be copyrighted.  They've been in the "public domain" for an extended period of time with no claim to owning them (that I know of).  Once the can has been opened, you can't go back and close it.

As to the greater issue, I'm somewhere on the fence.  I think you should be able to copyright both the code and the algorithm itself, but not the concept.  Take a physics engine for example.  A company/programmer/whoever should be well within its rights to copyright that particular engine, but not to copyright the concept of a physics engine itself.  But that's just they way I look at it.

[Tyler]

There's no easy answer.  

If you could copyright specific code, then you could rearrange some variables, loops, etc. to do the same thing but with the copyright no longer valid.  If you could copyright ideas and not specific code, then people would be copyrighting everything they could to try and make some money.  

More than the issue of whether I think it should be done or not is the issue of whether it could be done or not.