No, you have not defined what an invention is?

I see many contradictions here. but I will leave it to your post. sad today

And herein, William, lies the heart of the debate. There are those who believe that *every* form of activity, even the most obvious, should be patentable. This goes to an underlying philosophy which holds that the public domain should be essentially nonexistent. So for software engineering, there would even be a patent on touch-typing. Pay your license fees every month. Right clicks with the mouse to pop up a context menu? Pay your fees. Pressing F5 to refresh a web application that's lost the plot? More fees.

But this 'anti-public-domain' philosophy is by no means constrained to just software. The ultimate aim of this philosophy is that there should NOT exist ANY form of activity, which can be used towards generating income, which isn't patented, or in the process of being patented.

Parallel to this is the tendency of Congress to pass copyright-extension bills every time the copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire. Astonishingly, SCOTUS believes that an endless series of extensions does not breach the "limited times" clause in the Constitution.

As Gulchers, we need to rethink the costs, benefits and philosophies of the whole intellectual property framework. At what point do IP protections cease to inspire creation and invention and start obstructing it?

From my perspective as a software designer, the distinction between copyright and patent is that I have to knowingly violate a copyright, I can easily unknowingly violate a patent.

If I come up with an idea on how to handle the problem I'm working on, and actually I have to come up with quite a few ideas for each problem, I have no way of knowing if someone else has patented something that is enough like the idea I came up with on my own that I could be infringing it.

In an earlier part of this discussion, you mentioned that Dale would take hours of examination to examine applications like I cited -- and he's the expert. Where does that put me as a layman? How can I possibly write code when several times a day I run the risk of infringing?

The routine I'm working on today (or should be working on instead of typing) will query an internet database for some patient information. I am considering caching it in my database to save future queries. Lots of software does this kind of thing, all the browsers do. Is there a patent? Should I not write the routine? How much do I invest in searching out this issue (I am not asking for free help here). This is just a minor part of a minor feature. This happens all the time.

If the patent office actually limited software patents to things that had the 'spark of inspiration' as opposed to the "Well duh" factor, it might be different. You aren't supposed to be able to patent things that are routine development. You aren't supposed to patent things that are prior art. But as a small company one can be damaged by a patent that would never survive a challenge.

well, william, in fact, the first thing a VC asks is -have you protected your ideas?
one of the first things a buyer asks when you decide to sell your company is, do you have a patent portfolio?
Shouldn't we be encouraged to develop new things instead of replicating others ideas? A patent does not keep someone from their industry. It does not even give the owner the right to practice the invention. IF you know what's out there, shouldn't companies find ways to either license what they need and do not want to develop or develop around existing inventions? In the 1800s, the same thing happened with sewing machines. They were were in a disruptive inventive state, and people were against those patents just like people are against software patents today. People will always be against patents. Their reasons are not based on reason. Look at your first sentence to me-"I believe.."

I am one of the people wanting to do away with software patents. I feel that they do exactly the opposite of what your goal: to create disruptive technology.

Most of the innovation in our industry is being created by small groups of start-ups. We innovate not because we can get a patent and make other people license the idea we had this morning but because we can create products that will win in the marketplace -- not the courtroom.

Much like authors, copyright protection is far more appropriate. Everything you write is automatically copyrighted, you don't have to send your days code off to the lawyer to have the various routines searched for.

When Jan and I started Schuyler House our paychecks were sometimes just enough for groceries. At that time we were heavily developing lots of different routines to do different things. There was no way we could try to patent all of them.

If we use the patent model to protect our software IP then small companies like us never get started.

we deal with software designers all the time. They make up the bulk of Dale's practice. Not only is he a patent attorney, he is an expert in the field regarding examining court cases, and patent ability issues. He does get very frustrated when he sees mis-information accepted and propagated because there is a concerted effort out there to get rid of software patents altogether-which will harm the US 's ability to make disruptive technology in that area. It is exhausting as law professor, Adam Mossoff, points out to chase down every piece of bad info or patent applications vs patents thrown at you and answer questions logically and factually. Especially when arguments mostly come from emotion instead of a basis in fact. In fact, it takes hours of examination for Dale to examine applications like you cited in your comments above. He actually does that from time to time but-here's the deal. You throw it out there, probably do not realize the time and analysis refuting your argument will take to be consistent, accurate and get everyone on the same page. Frankly, after he would do all of that, you will not likely agree anyway. You have made up your mind. So, yes, it's frustrating. He would never presume to look at your industry or specialization and tell you what is or what does not make the most rational sense, how you best see moving your technology forward. But-were you his client? He works tirelessly everyday for the small inventor. He wants you to invent, invent invent. If you choose to share your code or hide it as a secret or copyright it, history has shown that invention slows and stifles. Please consider reading his non-fiction book, The Source of Economic Growth when it comes out.

And, seriously dude, "downvotes should really only be used for irrelevant or inflammatory comments, not ideas you necessarily disagree with."

I was mostly amused and trying to lighten the mood since you seem to be moving beyond discussion and into name calling.

But there is a point. There is a lot of junk out there and it's hard for a layman to actually sort it out.

So your answer, which you must admit is a bit self serving, is "hire me to do it."

But Davidmcnab has generated a good example of just how impractical this can be in the real world of software designs. In small controller applications maybe, but when putting together applications involving tens or hundreds of thousands of lines there are many algorithms in place. Legal vetting of every one of them would cost vastly more than the development.

Don't change the subject - you were trying to prove that patents were absurd. You failed.

Does not the existence of an application generate the presumption of prior art? I would assume that in your search for patents applicable to my software you also have to look at ones that have been applied for and not granted yet.

If you told your client there were no patents infringing on his invention because it hadn't been issued yet, and then it was, he'd be in trouble.

I'm very much in favor property rights. I just think that copyright law is more appropriate than patent law for protecting software creativity.

Right, what you do not understand because of your IGNORANCE is that is a patent application, not an issued patent.

Congratulations for proving that you are an ignorant, anti-property rights second hander.

You know, this is quite entertaining. I've been searching google patents and found this one:

US 20080281766 A1 "Time Machine Software"
A method and system for creating human robots with psychic abilities, as well as enabling a human robot to access information in a time machine to predict the future accurately and realistically. The present invention provides a robot with the ability to accomplish tasks quickly and accurately without using any time. This permits a robot to cure cancer, fight a war, write software, read a book, learn to drive a car, draw a picture or solve a complex math problem in less than one second.

Like many socialists who get rich under a capitalist system you you have no idea what affects the environment for your products. TRY FACTS

And you know nothing about economics, facts, or patents.

We can toss insults around if you wish. While you are an expert in patents I suspect you really never have written an original line of code in your life.

I've written will over 1,000,000 lines of code. My current product contains 700,000+ lines of code. I write original lines of code every day, if you define original as ones that were created by my personal creativity rather than copied from somewhere else.

If you mean original because no one in the world has ever written a line of code like it -- who knows, I certainly don't.

I've spent the last 45 years in the software industry and I can tell you that, for the most part, it totally ignores patents. It has taken off because of the low cost of entry to development and the innovation of individuals who can create software in their garage.

When patents ARE used on the software industry, they are used to discourage innovation, to allow companies with the the resources to use litigation rather than creating new products to maintain market share.

I see because you have never written an original line of code in your life, you are sure no one else has, You are not a patent attorney and you two-bit spamming of other people's work makes you an Elsworthy Toohey style second hander. Why don't you pander your garbage on a second hander site like Von Mises or the Huffington Post

Right and your evidence for that is what? No you have no evidence, because the evidence is overwhelming that the s/w industry did not take off until patents were accepted for s/w. You have no evidence for that because s/w is really just a way of wiring an electronic circuit and then you would have to get rid of patents on all electronics.

The overwhelming evidence is that those countries and technologies with the strongest patent protections create almost all the new technologies and have the greatest technological dispersion.

TRY USING FACTS - just once

That's a troublesome and inaccurate comparison.

Let's look at a typical piece of software - for example, a website for e-commerce and social media. In that software, there would be probably around 40,000 lines of code, costing around 3 person-years of effort, worth maybe $500,000. Within that code, there would easily be 1,000 separate programming techniques, for data input, validation, storage, search, retrieval, presentation; also, payment gateway interface, integration with other servers, authentication, numerous social media algorithms and so the list goes on.

A comfortable residential house costs $500k and takes only one property title search, costing a few hundred dollars tops. This hypothetical piece of software costs $500k but requires 1,000 patent searches. An exhaustive patent search for each programming technique would easily cost over $1,000, due to the way so many software patents are written up. So our $500k program is costing over a million dollars just to vet it for patents.

And even this doesn't guarantee some patent troll won't turn up and demand a few hundred thousand extra for license fees, just a bit less than what it would cost to have the patent overturned in court.

Hire an attorney. You hire one to do your contracts. You get title searches to buy houses. You have an acct. You are whining

Whew, for a second I thought they had! US20090198752 A1: "These methods include identifying the beginning, ending, and sign of the integer ASCII string followed by taking each of the seven bit components of the integer one at a time, usually starting with the least significant digit and subtracting the binary number forty eight to get the decimal numbers that make up the integer. Then each of the decimal components of the integer are multiplied by a power of ten, starting with ten to the zero power, or 1, for the least significant digit, ten to the first power, or 10, for the digit to the left of the least significant digit, if applicable, ten to the second power, or 100, for the digit to the left of the previous digit, if applicable, etc. This is repeated for as many digits comprising the integer, up to and including the most significant digit. Each of these products is then aggregated and the sign added, resulting in the converted number."

Binary number 48 is ascii 0. I thought I was joking, I've written that routine dozens of time. Fortunately, the patent seems to be only for a vector processor so all existing software doesn't infringe on it. But it does show that for pretty much any routine you can come up with there is arguably a patent that might address it. As a patent expert you can tell the difference, but I can't submit every sub routine for a patent search.

I have a hard time thinking of software as an invention. To me it is much more like writing a story than inventing a machine. Of course writing a story can be 'inventive' as well, but we don't think of that as patentable.

As to finding out the relevant patents, the problem is that, to a degree, all software deals with much the same problems: storing data, organizing data, selecting data, managing memory, communicating with the user via various interface techniques. It is theoretically possible for any routine you write to duplicate an algorithm that someone uses for something completely different. Actually it probably duplicates someone's approach. Do they have it patented? Do they have something else patented that the description could be interpreted to cover your algorithm?

It may be that our biggest risk is from a competitor, but it might also be from a patent troll who owns a patent for converting an ascii character to numeric by subtracting asciii zero from it. (God help us if someone's patented that!) The patent can be flawed but mounting a defense would be ruinous.

The software industry survives, for the most part, because most companies don't release their source code so you really can't tell what patents they are infringing. The big players do as you recommend and get a patent or two -- not to protect their IP but as a defensive strategy in case they get sued.

If software patents were completely overturned -- and that may, in fact happen, I don't think that anyone would decide not to invest in software. If anything progress would accelerate.

Copyright, on the other hand, we all count on.

Interesting question. I admit that my answer is a bit of the practical. First search for inventions directed to similar problems and for competitors patents. This is not only fairly simple, but it is a good business (marketing) practice that several academic papers have confirmed. (Practical advice coming) These people are the ones most likely to sue you because they are most likely to be concerned about your presences in the market. Second search for patents of standardized interfaces you use (probably news sources would be the best). There was a patent for Integrated circuit (IC) to IC communications that everyone build to, but it actually was not a standard. It was very easy to design around, but it had become a defacto standard. You might not be able to avoid this, but you can mitigate it by knowing about it before hand. Doing these two steps will not guarantee that you never step on another patent, but it will significantly reduce it. Obtaining some patents of your own will often give you some negotiating power also. Obviously how much time and money you spend on these steps depends on your present financial situation. But the first step should cost less than $3000.00 for most startups. If you do a modest patent landscape search, it might drive this to $5-7K unless you use a very large firm. The second step can be done internally. Also remember that in the case of interface patents or technology patents that cover a broad section of technologies, the patent holder is usually interested in a license. They are not interested in putting you out of business, they want you to succeed wildly (that said of course people can be unreasonable, I have certainly dealt with a number of them- call their bluff). Also remember that there has never been a patent in the history of the world that eventually people could not design around, although some have not been designed around in their lifetime. Finally, there are an infinite number of things to invent - don't pigeonhole yourself.

I think if this had not happened we would have had plug and play s/w and this would have standardized not only the s/w but the terminology. The closer to the hardware (this is really an arbitrary difference) that I get with s/w implemented inventions, the more standardized the language. The closer I get to high level applications, the less standardized the language. Also the anti-software patent attitude meant that much of the prior art we would have had was never developed in the patent office. This is a real problem, but the excuses by many in the s/w industry are really anti-property rights arguments.