Jan,

You are incorrect about these items are patented, but you are good at propagating nonsense. Even if there had been patents on some of these items, they would have been much more specific than you are implying and they would have expired a long time ago.

Please work with facts. For instance, please name a specific spurious patent. You clearly thought Alice was a spurious patent, and you were clearly incorrect.

And it's a good thing that a person doesn't own another person for any reason.

There seems to be a general lack of understanding of what software is. Software is a way of wiring an electronic circuit. Logically to be against patents on software you have to be against patents on electronics. This position is absurd.

Jan,

This was not a patent on a generalized function. None of the Supreme Court Justices has a technical background, not one the Justices is a patent attorney, not one of them is qualified to be a first year patent attorney. I would add and neither are you.

This patent is not an escrow arrangement, requires very specific process (But because the Supreme Court does not know how to read a patent claim they ignore are the real world limitations), saves people billions of dollars, and did not exist until Alice created it. Note that escrow systems existed for centuries and CLS did not create an escrow system, they decided to steal Alice's technology

"The difference is between “you can’t copy this, I wrote it first” and “you can’t do this, I did it first”."
You are asserting "You didn't invent this, someone else made it happen." You are advocating for the theft of intellectual property by denying the right of ownership to the creative geniuses amongst us.

"Parents don’t own their children just because they brought them into existence.".

What does parenthood have to do with patents?

A moocher or a looter is someone who wants something they haven't earned. If the shoe fits...

Jan,

Other peoples technology is spurious, but yours is good?????

Other people's property rights are unimportant, but yours are important???

Your statement is completely unprincipled.

My father-in-law filed for and obtained a patent. It took him 3 years. I've seen the process, as I worked for him the whole time this was going on.

The problem is using the broad brush of "inventing" and applying it to everything written in code. Programming is problem-solving, but not much coming out of software development is "new and novel" - it's trying to figure out a way to get something done.

The problem I have is that there are a whole plethora of patents on methods for getting something done that aren't a novel practice at all. Do I support software copyrights? Sure. But I think people have confused copyrights with patents - see the Novell vs Microsoft case. You also have so much blatant pirating ("Pirates of Silicon Valley" anyone?) and such a slow legal system for resolving anything that much of it becomes a moot point (Internet Explorer anyone?)

Things I think should apply for software patents: linked lists, the RDBMS, sort algorithms, new programming languages, protocols (sometimes), etc. Interfaces? That's a very long shot. I'm not going to say no, but something pretty close.

I want to see it get back to where it should be: patents should be for novel and useful ideas - not just anything someone is willing to pay a lawyer for. No offense, but that's how I see it.

The difference is between “you can’t copy this, I wrote it first” and “you can’t do this, I did it first”.

Ownership and exclusivity are not the same thing, though they can overlap. Parents don’t own their children just because they brought them into existence. Likewise, inventors don’t “own” methods or processes just because they happened to think of them first (or claim they did).

Your concept of ownership also runs head-on into the “second to invent” problem – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_di... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mul... .

Patents force the legal system to base its decisions on inherently subjective criteria such as “novelty” and “nonobviousness”. Not good building blocks for a system of objective law.

Finally, attempting to malign those who don’t agree with you as “moochers” or “looters” does not strengthen your arguments. We recognize that inventors have property rights, we simply contend that patents extend those property rights way beyond their appropriate boundaries.

Personally, I can perceive no difference between a poem and a light bulb as regards ownership and rewards belonging, solely, to the creative minds whose efforts brought them into existence.

Your argument seems to parallel and echo President Obama's "You didn't build that." which itself echoed centuries of moochers railing against the fact that Nature makes some humans more intelligent, creative, and productive than others and tries to compensate for this deficit by hobbling their betters. I am curious why no one applies this to athletes who can run faster or jump higher but, readily, does so in the intellectual realm.

"This system is rapidly becoming dangerous..."
Well said.

"no software is ever truly original..."
That could be claimed for anything ever invented, and sometimes is. But after we gain knowledge, original ideas do come from the mind. Who owns those ideas. The one that has the idea or society?

The steam engine was not an American invention. The cotton gin made slavery economically viable. Eli Whitney's other "invention" was interchangeable parts.

The first commercially successful true engine, in that it could generate power and transmit it to a machine, was the atmospheric engine, invented by Thomas Newcomen around 1712.[18][19] It made use of technologies discovered by Savery and Papin. Newcomen's engine was relatively inefficient, and in most cases was used for pumping water. It worked by creating a partial vacuum by condensing steam under a piston within a cylinder. It was employed for draining mine workings at depths hitherto impossible, and also for providing a reusable water supply for driving waterwheels at factories sited away from a suitable "head". Water that had passed over the wheel was pumped back up into a storage reservoir above the wheel.[20]
In 1720 Jacob Leupold described a two-cylinder high-pressure steam engine.[21] The invention was published in his major work "Theatri Machinarum Hydraulicarum".[22] The engine used two lead-weighted pistons providing a continuous motion to a water pump. Each piston was raised by the steam pressure and returned to its original position by gravity. The two pistons shared a common four way rotary valve connected directly to a steam boiler.

On the Cotton Gin - and the failure of its patents:
"The invention solved an economic problem for the south by making the crop worth the effort to grow it for the textile market in New England. Whitney and Miller formed a partnership and in June 1793, Whitney returned to New Haven to take out his patent and to begin manufacturing the gins.

The cotton gin did not bring the partners the expected fortune, however. Whitney’s idea soon leaked out and pirated machines were quickly produced in Southern workshops. A patent was obtained but the problems of getting the gins into production allowed competing gin makers to beat him to the planters.
[...]
"The contested patent fight would last until 1807, involving about 60 lawsuits. Finally Whitney was established as the inventor of the cotton gin and would collect $90,000 from the suits. However, the time and money spent on the suits meant little profit on the invention."
-- http://www.eliwhitney.org/museum/about-e...
(If you read that site, you will find lacking any large list of patents even though Whitney did a lot of inventing:
"He invented the filing jig, which guided the workmen’s file and designed stencils with up to a dozen holes that helped to bore in the exact places. Whitney fixed mechanical stops to his lathe, which prevented the worker from turning the piece too far or not enough. As well as fashioning the dies and molds for various parts, Whitney was busy arranging for ..."

Many patents did come from Whitney's Workshop, mostly from Alfred C. Gilbert and mostly for toys:
http://www.eliwhitney.org/museum/-gilber...

For the first time under Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court will complete its term June 30 with more than half the cases decided unanimously. Just five years ago, fewer than one-third of the cases carried that distinction.

While the number of 9-0 rulings has grown, the number of 5-4 decisions has shrunk — even though the court has five justices named by Republican presidents and four by Democrats. Only eight cases have come out that way so far; last term, there were 23. - http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/polit...

“Ever since Autodesk had to pay $25,000 to “license” a patent which claimed the invention of XOR-draw for screen cursors (the patent was filed years after everybody in computer graphics was already using that trick), at the risk of delaying or cancelling our Initial Public Offering in 1985, I've been convinced that software patents are not only a terrible idea, but one of the principal threats to the software industry. As I write this introduction in 1993, the multimedia industry is shuddering at the prospect of paying royalties on every product they make, because a small company in California has obtained an absurdly broad patent on concepts that were widely discussed and implemented experimentally more than 20 years earlier.” Read here “Patent Nonsense” by John Walker. http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/cha...

point taken. But the phrases "american ingenuity, exceptionalism" come from the voracious pursuit of invention. The steam engine, the cotton gin, the american system of manufacturing...all were unique, disruptive across industries and created lots of wealth which in turn grew a nation. The Industrial Revolution did not occur simply because we fought for Independence from Britain and won. It was not coincidence that at the first Constitutional Convention a steam ship was on display. Jefferson and Washington knew that a patent system was essential to the growth of the new nation.

because ideas lead to physical things that you use everyday making your life easier and safer. Those countries which don't recognize inventions, suffer as a result. THis is objective, measurable and proven.

where have I said only Objectivists should be welcome here? you r argument is a strawman

I agree, some - patent applications undergo 'rigorous and thorough' review, often times dependent on the expertise of the patent attorney and his staff, but I contend - not all. I have no problem with the granting of patents for abstract inventions nor protection for intellectual property as long as it can be adequately demonstrated as something that is new. But I maintain that this case is one that is the exception. It was not a new abstract, it was a long recognized business practice - there was nothing new in the computer or computer system applied to the system or process, and the software was simply a step sequence instruction no different than the step sequence applied by a human performing the same practice, ie. there was no evidence of a new algorithm.

Right, the rest of the Constitution had nothing to do with it.

You can't argue from pragmatism. Pragmatism depends on value which is different for each individual. You need an absolute reason patents should be enforced.